"Americans don't get satire" is a thing I've heard a lot and I think it's true. This is part of the genius of paul verhoeven. He knows 99% of american viewers will not catch the satire, so he gives them a kick-ass action film that they can hoot and eat popcorn to. Very effective propoganda (the good kind) imo
With verhoeven specifically, he was way ahead of his audience and his films have taken on more depth than people used to give them. I think most people understand his films as satire now. As far as I can see the only way to make a big budget hollywood movie that has anti police/ anti corporate themes (robocop) or anti imperialist themes (starship troopers) is to do it trojan horse style, packaged in a genre action film.
Yeah he always had subversive messaging in his work but at the same time just as you're saying he was known to the mainstream audience back in his heyday as a guy who does schlocky action flicks with loads of gory violence and explicit nudity, bordering on outright porn. I mean the main discourse around Basic Instinct was whether you can really see Sharon Stone's snatch for fucks sake. As a comparison, even if it's a merely ok movie (as opposed to brilliant) the issue of how they made the pencil disappear in The Dark Knight was way in the background.
"Americans don't get satire" is a thing I've heard a lot and I think it's true. This is part of the genius of paul verhoeven. He knows 99% of american viewers will not catch the satire, so he gives them a kick-ass action film that they can hoot and eat popcorn to. Very effective propoganda (the good kind) imo
How is it then functionally anything else but jingoistic pro-empire propaganda?
With verhoeven specifically, he was way ahead of his audience and his films have taken on more depth than people used to give them. I think most people understand his films as satire now. As far as I can see the only way to make a big budget hollywood movie that has anti police/ anti corporate themes (robocop) or anti imperialist themes (starship troopers) is to do it trojan horse style, packaged in a genre action film.
Yeah he always had subversive messaging in his work but at the same time just as you're saying he was known to the mainstream audience back in his heyday as a guy who does schlocky action flicks with loads of gory violence and explicit nudity, bordering on outright porn. I mean the main discourse around Basic Instinct was whether you can really see Sharon Stone's snatch for fucks sake. As a comparison, even if it's a merely ok movie (as opposed to brilliant) the issue of how they made the pencil disappear in The Dark Knight was way in the background.