General Movies, Music, Web Show, and TV News Thread

BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
Legacy
Mar 10, 2016
29,278
12,211
118
Detroit, Michigan
Country
United States of America
Gender
Male
Invincible, and there it was still framed as only being possible through immoral acts, deeming it not worth it in the end.
In what way? I don't even recall.

MHA does attack the system, but I stopped watching around season 4. I just know later seasons kind of falter on this. What doesn't help matters is that there is issue of quirkism/racism that's not exactly resolved and just thrown to the wayside. Like I said before, I had already stopped watching before that point, so you're on your own there.

Here's something for you.

 

Casual Shinji

Should've gone before we left.
Legacy
Jul 18, 2009
20,102
4,865
118
In what way? I don't even recall.
The whole thing with Dinosaur. Quite frankly the most pointless arc in the whole series really.
Superheroes can't. The fact that they are fiction is a true hindrance. I mean, they are fictional characters in a world that we are supposed to recognise, be familiar with, relate to. And they need their popular baddies. If they were to transform the world, they would cease to inhabit "ours", they won't be next door superman on earth or friendly neighbourhood spider-man. They'd be superman on krypton, remote utopia spider-man. If they caught Dr Claw, killed the Joker, ate Gargamel, the story would end and require a reboot.

It's not an intentional message, it's an accidentally conservative one due to them being a product. Well, in addition to the general care of not alienating half the public (resumability apart, most people would be fine with such "happy ever after" world solving, if you don't get into the details, but still, stakes are usually politically muted - "corrupt" capitalists bothering the noble ones, etc).
Good point. I guess there's also the wish fulfillment aspect - audiences probably prefer superpowers being used for action, not for activism, humanitarian aid, or charity.

It's actually the superheroes inhabiting "our" world that never made them too appealing to me. It doesn't make much sense to me that our world would just continue on relatively undisturbed with the presence of superheroes. There'd either be a global culture shock unlike anything in recorded history, knocking all of religion on its ass, or society would've formed around the presence of superheroes, making it unrecognizable in comparison to our own.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Absent

Casual Shinji

Should've gone before we left.
Legacy
Jul 18, 2009
20,102
4,865
118
Okay, we are getting into comic book territory. I've only seen the first season of Invincible, in the second season is not out yet.
Don't know if we're ever going to see that in the show. The comic had a lot of odd swerves where Kirkman just decided to do some random shit, some are so short and inconsequential I completely forgotten about them.
 

Absent

And twice is the only way to live.
Jan 25, 2023
1,594
1,557
118
Country
Switzerland
Gender
The boring one
The whole thing with Dinosaur. Quite frankly the most pointless arc in the whole series really.
Good point. I guess there's also the wish fulfillment aspect - audiences probably prefer superpowers being used for action, not for activism, humanitarian aid, or charity.

It's actually the superheroes inhabiting "our" world that never made them too appealing to me. It doesn't make much sense to me that our world would just continue on relatively undisturbed with the presence of superheroes. There'd either be a global culture shock unlike anything in recorded history, knocking all of religion on its ass, or society would've formed around the presence of superheroes, making it unrecognizable in comparison to our own.
Yeah, it's the case with many scifi/fantasy premises. Our world, with one changed element. Even though all other elements would be changed by that one. I usually accept it well, but recently it's what prevented me to get into most of Black Mirror's S1 and S2 episodes (haven't started S3 yet). Because it aims at being sociologically credible. Marvel/DC don't.
 

Cicada 5

Elite Member
Apr 16, 2015
2,781
1,367
118
Country
Nigeria
The whole thing with Dinosaur. Quite frankly the most pointless arc in the whole series really.
Good point. I guess there's also the wish fulfillment aspect - audiences probably prefer superpowers being used for action, not for activism, humanitarian aid, or charity.

It's actually the superheroes inhabiting "our" world that never made them too appealing to me. It doesn't make much sense to me that our world would just continue on relatively undisturbed with the presence of superheroes. There'd either be a global culture shock unlike anything in recorded history, knocking all of religion on its ass, or society would've formed around the presence of superheroes, making it unrecognizable in comparison to our own.
I think Luke Cage in the comics once said something to the effect of "I can't cure cancer but maybe I can save the guy who can". I guess that's a good way to look at superheroes that isn't too cynical or overly idealistic.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BrawlMan

Hawki

Elite Member
Legacy
Mar 4, 2014
9,651
2,175
118
Country
Australia
Gender
Male
I actually agree DC films didn't have too much liberal agendas before, but that doesn't mean they are free of them;

There was that Harley Quinn Birds of Prey movie, and WW84. Even The Batman movie had that one moment throwing shade at white supremacy.

MCU used to be pretty clean of this kind of stuff, but starting around Black Panther 1 or Captain Marvel they started to throw in some weird liberal commentaries. I'm starting to see DC slowly adapting this.

Blue Beetle for example tries to make the big-corp-willing-to-do-anything-for-profit the bad guys, on top of a strong-bonded Hispanic family victimized (at least that's the way it looked in the first trailer). I am not quite familiar with Blue Beetle origin story, but in every version that I did saw his family were in no way victimized, and rather hard-working individuals. So why make them the victims now?

But I guess only time will tell, because everything about Blue Beetle besides those points look great. Superman Legacy so far looks great in casting choices too
Based on your examples, the standard for a "liberal agenda" seems pretty low, but okay:

Birds of Prey: You can certainly argue that it's a film about female empowerment - Harley is getting over Joker's malignant influence, Montoya is a female cop in a man's world (or man's police department at least), the all-female cast triumphs over an all-male antagonist group, sure. But that's pretty stock stuff.

WW84: Really don't see an example here. Maybe, I dunno, the angle of "Maxell Lord is a dishonest businessman, ergo capitalism sucks" or something, but even then, that's stretching it, and again, "evil corporation"/"evil business person" is a stock trope.

-The Batman: Haven't seen this, but you refer to "one moment." "One moment," IMO, is hardly an agenda. In BoP, Cass mentions stealing money from "dumb white people," is that really an "agenda?" A character saying a disrapaging thing about something/someone is hardly an agenda in of itself. (Also, Dark Knight/Dark Knight Rises definitely have political themes as well, so I'd hardly call this a new development for Bats.)

-Black Panther 1/2: This is actually a case where I more or less agree, or at least, in the sense that both Black Panther films are political, you'd be hard pressed to argue otherwise. I don't know if I'd call them "liberal" films, but political films? Well, in as much as the genre allows for it, yes.

-Captain Marvel: Eh, sort of? I'll be frank, there's a lot of culture war nonsense around this film, and compared to something like Liberation Run (where "Captain Marvel fights the patriarchy" is pretty much a plot summary), this film is mild. I'd agree that CM is political only in as much that its plot involves an empire pursuing a war against a group that's portrayed as the enemy at first, but later revealed to be the good guys, but again, that's pretty stock. Similarly, I know lots of people have read into Carol's mentor gaslighting her or somesuch as some kind of metaphor for males holding back women or something, but I've always found this pretty spurious. The trope of "hero overcoming their mentor" is a common one.

-Blue Beetle: Well, I've actually seen a variant of this argument - something along the lines of "evil white industrialists have taken control of a scarab (something something cultural appropriation something something) which falls into the hands of a Latino family, which must work together to defeat the evil white people, proving that the extended family structure of Latinos is better than the nuclear family of the evil white people, or something" (also obligatory capitalism is evil message). You can probably tell that I don't find this argument convincing. Who knows, in the rare chance I see Blue Beetle, maybe this will be a theme, but I doubt it.

As for Blue Beetle's origin story, honestly, I really can't say anything about it, I know only two things about Blue Beetle, and one of them is called jack. Looking at the trailer, it strikes me as a kid's film that's mixing Iron Man and Spider-Man, based on the age old premise of "a kid and his X" (in this case, power suit). Frankly, even by the standards of the genre, it looks utterly banal, and as much as I like Xolo Maridueña from his work in Cobra Kai, his presence by itself isn't enough to sell me on the film.

Really, calling these films "liberal agenda" films strikes me as the same thing as calling Iron Man 2 a "conservative agenda" film based on Tony's refusal to turn over his property to the government. That's a potentially interesting idea, but the film isn't that intelligent to warrant such a discussion.
 
  • Like
Reactions: FakeSympathy

FakeSympathy

Elite Member
Legacy
Jun 8, 2015
3,476
3,213
118
Seattle, WA
Country
US
Based on your examples, the standard for a "liberal agenda" seems pretty low, but okay:

Birds of Prey: You can certainly argue that it's a film about female empowerment - Harley is getting over Joker's malignant influence, Montoya is a female cop in a man's world (or man's police department at least), the all-female cast triumphs over an all-male antagonist group, sure. But that's pretty stock stuff.

WW84: Really don't see an example here. Maybe, I dunno, the angle of "Maxell Lord is a dishonest businessman, ergo capitalism sucks" or something, but even then, that's stretching it, and again, "evil corporation"/"evil business person" is a stock trope.

-The Batman: Haven't seen this, but you refer to "one moment." "One moment," IMO, is hardly an agenda. In BoP, Cass mentions stealing money from "dumb white people," is that really an "agenda?" A character saying a disrapaging thing about something/someone is hardly an agenda in of itself. (Also, Dark Knight/Dark Knight Rises definitely have political themes as well, so I'd hardly call this a new development for Bats.)

-Black Panther 1/2: This is actually a case where I more or less agree, or at least, in the sense that both Black Panther films are political, you'd be hard pressed to argue otherwise. I don't know if I'd call them "liberal" films, but political films? Well, in as much as the genre allows for it, yes.

-Captain Marvel: Eh, sort of? I'll be frank, there's a lot of culture war nonsense around this film, and compared to something like Liberation Run (where "Captain Marvel fights the patriarchy" is pretty much a plot summary), this film is mild. I'd agree that CM is political only in as much that its plot involves an empire pursuing a war against a group that's portrayed as the enemy at first, but later revealed to be the good guys, but again, that's pretty stock. Similarly, I know lots of people have read into Carol's mentor gaslighting her or somesuch as some kind of metaphor for males holding back women or something, but I've always found this pretty spurious. The trope of "hero overcoming their mentor" is a common one.

-Blue Beetle: Well, I've actually seen a variant of this argument - something along the lines of "evil white industrialists have taken control of a scarab (something something cultural appropriation something something) which falls into the hands of a Latino family, which must work together to defeat the evil white people, proving that the extended family structure of Latinos is better than the nuclear family of the evil white people, or something" (also obligatory capitalism is evil message). You can probably tell that I don't find this argument convincing. Who knows, in the rare chance I see Blue Beetle, maybe this will be a theme, but I doubt it.

As for Blue Beetle's origin story, honestly, I really can't say anything about it, I know only two things about Blue Beetle, and one of them is called jack. Looking at the trailer, it strikes me as a kid's film that's mixing Iron Man and Spider-Man, based on the age old premise of "a kid and his X" (in this case, power suit). Frankly, even by the standards of the genre, it looks utterly banal, and as much as I like Xolo Maridueña from his work in Cobra Kai, his presence by itself isn't enough to sell me on the film.

Really, calling these films "liberal agenda" films strikes me as the same thing as calling Iron Man 2 a "conservative agenda" film based on Tony's refusal to turn over his property to the government. That's a potentially interesting idea, but the film isn't that intelligent to warrant such a discussion.
Points taken. Yeah maybe my view had been warped thanks to all the social commentary youtube channels that I used to be subscribed to (The Quartering, Ben Shapiro, etc). I am distancing myself from such content, but I still seem to have “everything i don’t like is woke” POV.

Still, I do try not to keep my hopes up for superhero shows and films because almost all of them have bombed so far both critically and in my personal tastes
 
  • Like
Reactions: BrawlMan and Hawki

Absent

And twice is the only way to live.
Jan 25, 2023
1,594
1,557
118
Country
Switzerland
Gender
The boring one
There was that Harley Quinn Birds of Prey movie, and WW84. Even The Batman movie had that one moment throwing shade at white supremacy.

MCU used to be pretty clean of this kind of stuff,
This kind of comments annoy me really. In most of the movies I've seen, yes, baddies are baddies because they are, like, greedy, racist, uncaring, warmongering, and puppy-kicking. That's : being bad. The stories "throw shades at white supremacy". Indiana Jones, he does not like the nazis. The Blues Brothers, they are hunted by them. Hugo Drax, he's an eugenist (it's implied that it is bad, and he is wrong for wishing to exterminate the world and re-populate it with his favorite human shapes). The bad guys in Silverado, they were mean to Danny Glover because he was black and Danny Glover even states to the camera that it is not fair. And the rest : greedy bankers want to expel the kids from the orphanage for profit, greedy industrialists will endanger citizens for profit, and usually the guy who beats his wife turns out to not be nice. Oh noes ?

What I see isn't an evolution of movies becoming "woke" [sounds of sirens and screaming crowds]. What I see is all these things not going without saying anymore. The ever more psychotic conservatives starting to take offense to that ("greed! racism! sexism! pollution! all our dearest values are under attack!") and pointing out at each occurrence. It's certainly about mirroring the progressive critique of racist and sexist subtexts in pop culture (the trophy girl, the damsel in distress, the faithful native servant, the savages, the seductive rape, etc). Because conservatives just adore going "no, you" when criticized ("you are the real racist against the racists", etc), they see it all as toys to recuperate and use back. Minus the sense.

Because frankly, what we end up with, at that stage, is "how dare you giving bad traits to the baddie". It doesn't go without an implicit endorsement of all the values at which "shade is thrown" (apparently so unfairly). Not only it begs the question of what distinguishes the good guys' and bad guys' motives in fiction, of what is left as "bad traits" to attribute to them and to denounce if there are enough citizens who proudly share these traits and feel victimized by it, it also questions, simply, the values that our societies wish to explicitly support, encourage and discourage through its fictional models and counter-models.

And, very ironically given who complain the most about it : what part of their Bible to keep or rip out and burn, given the solid half of "wokism" it contains.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BrawlMan

Cicada 5

Elite Member
Apr 16, 2015
2,781
1,367
118
Country
Nigeria
This kind of comments annoy me really. In most of the movies I've seen, yes, baddies are baddies because they are, like, greedy, racist, uncaring, warmongering, and puppy-kicking. That's : being bad. The stories "throw shades at white supremacy". Indiana Jones, he does not like the nazis. The Blues Brothers, they are hunted by them. Hugo Drax, he's an eugenist (it's implied that it is bad, and he is wrong for wishing to exterminate the world and re-populate it with his favorite human shapes). The bad guys in Silverado, they were mean to Danny Glover because he was black and Danny Glover even states to the camera that it is not fair. And the rest : greedy bankers want to expel the kids from the orphanage for profit, greedy industrialists will endanger citizens for profit, and usually the guy who beats his wife turns out to not be nice. Oh noes ?

What I see isn't an evolution of movies becoming "woke" [sounds of sirens and screaming crowds]. What I see is all these things not going without saying anymore. The ever more psychotic conservatives starting to take offense to that ("greed! racism! sexism! pollution! all our dearest values are under attack!") and pointing out at each occurrence. It's certainly about mirroring the progressive critique of racist and sexist subtexts in pop culture (the trophy girl, the damsel in distress, the faithful native servant, the savages, the seductive rape, etc). Because conservatives just adore going "no, you" when criticized ("you are the real racist against the racists", etc), they see it all as toys to recuperate and use back. Minus the sense.

Because frankly, what we end up with, at that stage, is "how dare you giving bad traits to the baddie". It doesn't go without an implicit endorsement of all the values at which "shade is thrown" (apparently so unfairly). Not only it begs the question of what distinguishes the good guys' and bad guys' motives in fiction, of what is left as "bad traits" to attribute to them and to denounce if there are enough citizens who proudly share these traits and feel victimized by it, it also questions, simply, the values that our societies wish to explicitly support, encourage and discourage through its fictional models and counter-models.

And, very ironically given who complain the most about it : what part of their Bible to keep or rip out and burn, given the solid half of "wokism" it contains.
I think another factor for these guys is that villains aren't simply holding bigoted views but now it is more common for them to be motivated by bigoted views. And this isn't happening in special episodes of teen dramas and sitcoms or historical films. Now we've got racists, xenophobes, fascists, etc showing up in mainstream entertainment as big villains.

Take Nazis for example. How often did past media really delve into just how horrific their ideology was as opposed to depicting them as comical villains or indistinguishable from more "apolitical" antagonists like Cobra from G.I. Joe? Marvel comics can't decide if Hydra are Nazis or not (one of their members is a First Nations woman and there was an issue of X-Factor where they had a black woman as a member). Danger Girl had the Hammer Empire, the remnants of the Nazi party; their members included a mute and a little person with tan skin. The kind of people that would avoid the Nazis like the plague.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BrawlMan

BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
Legacy
Mar 10, 2016
29,278
12,211
118
Detroit, Michigan
Country
United States of America
Gender
Male
This kind of comments annoy me really. In most of the movies I've seen, yes, baddies are baddies because they are, like, greedy, racist, uncaring, warmongering, and puppy-kicking. That's : being bad. The stories "throw shades at white supremacy". Indiana Jones, he does not like the nazis. The Blues Brothers, they are hunted by them. Hugo Drax, he's an eugenist (it's implied that it is bad, and he is wrong for wishing to exterminate the world and re-populate it with his favorite human shapes). The bad guys in Silverado, they were mean to Danny Glover because he was black and Danny Glover even states to the camera that it is not fair. And the rest : greedy bankers want to expel the kids from the orphanage for profit, greedy industrialists will endanger citizens for profit, and usually the guy who beats his wife turns out to not be nice. Oh noes ?

What I see isn't an evolution of movies becoming "woke" [sounds of sirens and screaming crowds]. What I see is all these things not going without saying anymore. The ever more psychotic conservatives starting to take offense to that ("greed! racism! sexism! pollution! all our dearest values are under attack!") and pointing out at each occurrence. It's certainly about mirroring the progressive critique of racist and sexist subtexts in pop culture (the trophy girl, the damsel in distress, the faithful native servant, the savages, the seductive rape, etc). Because conservatives just adore going "no, you" when criticized ("you are the real racist against the racists", etc), they see it all as toys to recuperate and use back. Minus the sense.

Because frankly, what we end up with, at that stage, is "how dare you giving bad traits to the baddie". It doesn't go without an implicit endorsement of all the values at which "shade is thrown" (apparently so unfairly). Not only it begs the question of what distinguishes the good guys' and bad guys' motives in fiction, of what is left as "bad traits" to attribute to them and to denounce if there are enough citizens who proudly share these traits and feel victimized by it, it also questions, simply, the values that our societies wish to explicitly support, encourage and discourage through its fictional models and counter-models.

And, very ironically given who complain the most about it : what part of their Bible to keep or rip out and burn, given the solid half of "wokism" it contains.
Short answer: the truth hurts, even if it's infection, and these jackasses know that. They're insecure douchebags with persecution complexes have their own many skeletons in the closet. They're usually the person they're accused the other person or people opposite of them of being. I don't even get frustrated with them. I have the attitude of whatever and screw off. They don't like it? Don't watch or go cry to their mom and dad.

Back in early 2000s, I've seen parents cry over a bad guy being the bad guy when they didn't say or do anything racist. In Shaman King (the first anime), the villain kicks the main hero while he's down. These "concerned" parents whined about this, despite the guy being a total misanthropic dickbag, who burned over 1000 people with a big smile on his face. You all draw the line right there when he starts kicking a person while they're down? For the record, these were American parents complaining to 4Kids about this. Despite already worse violent actions being aired for kids before, during, and afterward.
 

Cicada 5

Elite Member
Apr 16, 2015
2,781
1,367
118
Country
Nigeria
Short answer: the truth hurts, even if it's infection, and these jackasses know that. They're insecure douchebags with persecution complexes have their own many skeletons in the closet. They're usually the person they're accused the other person or people opposite of them of being. I don't even get frustrated with them. I have the attitude of whatever and screw off. They don't like it? Don't watch or go cry to their mom and dad.

Back in early 2000s, I've seen parents cry over a bad guy being the bad guy when they didn't say or do anything racist. In Shaman King (the first anime), the villain kicks the main hero while he's down. These "concerned" parents whined about this, despite the guy being a total misanthropic dickbag, who burned over 1000 people with a big smile on his face. You all draw the line right there when he starts kicking a person while they're down? For the record, these were American parents complaining to 4Kids about this. Despite already worse violent actions being aired for kids before, during, and afterward.
I'm amazed parents could find anything to complain about in a 4kids dubbed anime given how infamous that company is for censorship.

It would be like complaining that Barney the Dinosaur preaches friendship because that addresses that people need to be taught to be kind to each other.
 

BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
Legacy
Mar 10, 2016
29,278
12,211
118
Detroit, Michigan
Country
United States of America
Gender
Male
I'm amazed parents could find anything to complain about in a 4kids dubbed anime given how infamous that company is for censorship.

It would be like complaining that Barney the Dinosaur preaches friendship because that addresses that people need to be taught to be kind to each other.
4Kids got more censor happy, because of the complaints about the show.
 

Cicada 5

Elite Member
Apr 16, 2015
2,781
1,367
118
Country
Nigeria
Could this signal the beginning of the end of Blizzard's Battle.net app?


At least this is one thing that we can probably thank Microsoft for.

But honestly, this seems like a little tiny thing, but it really opens a lot of opportunities. Frankly, I often forget about my Battle.net library (and everything in it) because Steam really is the PC's one-stop-shop for my PC library, and everything that I own outside of Steam, just kind of fades away into the abyss that is my memory. Putting Blizzard's games on Steam gives them a brand-new spotlight.

And secondly: Steam Deck. Sure, you can probably fenangle the Steam Deck to allow you to install Battle.net, but this is just going to make the whole process so much easier.
Wrong thread.