The Big Picture: A Guy Named Joe

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Nov 10, 2010
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I was sent here by Extra Credit because they said I would enjoy your videos. I had a bittersweet taste of your opinions when you released your first video about Halo and it's "racist" undertone, which I completely disagreed with. But, even though it foreshadowed something undesired, this is much more refreshing. I enjoyed it, and I hope to see more.
 

FFKonoko

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Nov 26, 2009
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LadyRhian said:
Armored Prayer said:
I just thought of something interesting though. You mention each generation's version of G.I. Joe and I though "whats this generation's version?" The first thing that came to mind was military FPS like CoD, and how popular it was for both men and boys. Its like the old G.I. Joe what with being about real life soldiers and special forces except its an interactive game. Maybe thats one of the reasons its so popular.(besides being a great game)
Try not to take most of this seriously. Like I said its just an interesting thought I had.
But do the kids who play the game aspire to be those soldiers? Does playing the game make them want to be one when they grow up? That is why I don't think it holds the same kind of place as the other G.I. Joes. It's easier to pwn n00bs in COD than it is to become a real, honest to God soldier or member of the special forces. And that's why most people would rather just play the game.
Speaking as someone who played MW+MW2, I can safely say that John "Soap" MacTavish is a freaking legend, and Captain Price is pretty inspiring too. You mention pwning n00bs, but thats multiplayer, the singleplayer, can be challenging, painful and pack a hell of an inspirational gut punch. I'm pretty sure quite a few people REALLY wanted to kill that General by the end...
 

adamtm

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Aug 22, 2010
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miraclefilms said:
I'm sorry Bob, but I don't think "Role Model" means what you think it means.
This
----

Also, please, not this expendables vs scott pilgrim thing again.

Even though you do have some valid points (from which you sadly draw the wrong conclusions) i cant take them seriously, because at this point (roughly 3 videos ranting on the subject later) all i can see you being is just bitter, that a movie you liked didnt get the recognition you think it deserved.

At this point every time you bring up the subject it cant be taken seriously in any context whatsoever.

PS: i think Scott Pilgrim was a good movie hindered by actor performance. At the same time i admit that i didnt "get it". i fall into the age group this movie is intended for yet i do not understand the point of it. i never had any of the problems it adresses. It might be that it adresses specifics exclusive to the american culture.
 

Space Lion

Void Traveller
Apr 4, 2010
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We have to start paying attention to what we show our young. It does effect what they aspire to be as an adult. When you watch shows like The Moomins you start to realise that philosophy and complex moral choices in life can be broken down and simplified to help children build a sense of morals and identity. The problem is in underestimating children and over simplifying it to the point where they are just entertained and don't learn anything.
 

HyenaThePirate

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Jan 8, 2009
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Oh By the way Bob...

I LOVE your work on the new Avengers cartoon series.
Your voicework of Iron Man is just how I always envisioned Iron man should sound.

Thumbs up buddy ;)
 

GothmogII

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Apr 6, 2008
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HyenaThePirate said:
Oh By the way Bob...

I LOVE your work on the new Avengers cartoon series.
Your voicework of Iron Man is just how I always envisioned Iron man should sound.

Thumbs up buddy ;)
That's Bob? Wow, didn't expect that at all. o_O
 

iron skirt

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Oct 24, 2009
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when he says "dead conquerors" he shows a picture of Vlad the Impaler (actual historical Dracula). Why? Vlad never tried to conquer anithing... in fact he defended a part of Romania (not Transilvania, that's just a stupid mith) frome turck conquerores
 

UberNoodle

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But it is an oversimplification to say that ancient cultures and prehistoric cultures suffered the same misogyny and male rule of the modern era. In many cases it is not really true. In times when WAR was NOT the defining charactistic of mankind's burgeoning civilisation, women were sacred, respected and worshipped. They had the most important role in the cosmos - the creation of new life. The shift towards resource control introduced a new patriarchal ideal to these societies, though in in many cultures, women still controlled the villages and communities and medicine and the arts. But this shift continued such that female gods and spirits were removed from power, supplanted by males. Abrahamic religion shows this transition in Genesis - God is male, Adam is the boss and Eve is his subordinate. She's even made responsible for the so-called "fall of man". The serpent, already a well established fertility and regenerative symbol, is demonised as the devil. Now in these new re-cons of religion, goddesses and their priestesses were made into demonesses and witches. The universe was created by male actions and that god's consort just a vessel often literally, "beneath" him. Eventually, many cultures even took art away from women, banning them from theatre and acting, even if a women invented those artforms. Ironically, women who are the very definition in cultures everywhere of NURTURING and CARING were forced out of such official positions my men. Anyway, interesting video none the less.
 

Jin-Roh

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Oct 26, 2009
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Therumancer said:
Skips around the actual issue.

The problem is the rise of liberalism from the 1960s. A lot of the guys calling the shots nowadays are the same guys who were doing the anti-war crusades for Veitnam and Korea and have gotten to define morality and history according to what they wanted.

The thing is that when the boomers were rising into power in the 1980s, it was the birth of Political Correctness. The idea that we could have no bad guys, no matter what they said or did. The USSR was to be presented as a potential group of friends and allies, as opposed to a giant enemy, and you saw this in children's media with a "get them young" attitude. Understand that while the primary enemy was fictional, groups like the Russians WERE present in the form of a USSR version of GI Joe, who despite tensions GI Joe ultimatly wound up teaming up with in most cases to fight a common enemy.

This kind of mentality has given birth to a situation today where we can't clearly identify a culture like that of The Middle East as an enemy, rather we need to take a reactive perspective and only target very specific individuals like those ACTIVELY engaged in terrorism rather than the core issues. The same could be said about China, or anyone else. Unlike previous generations where the media was making no bones about treating our enemies as enemies, and suggestiong violence and military action as a method of dealing with them, today the message is a naive one where violence is always wrong, there are always magical solutions that will arrive to avoid large scale violence, and worst of all is identifying an entire broad group of people as the enemy.

Today's mentality is one where we would not go to war against "Nazism" if it was to rise the same way. Rather we'd make a big deal about only opposing those guys at the top of the food chain, and misunderstanding the huge, international culture, with the fanatical millions behind it, we would of course wind up getting our tails kicked. It says a lot when you consider that people have made arguements that Patton was unworthy to wear a US uniform by modern standards because you know... he made no bones about wanting to destroy the enemy.

The point is a society that won't let you identify the bad guys as bad guys, and does everything in it's power to avoid confrontation, or at least confrontation on the level of a "total war", "us or them" level which would actually see a resolution.

On a lot of levels the problem is your dad's day (so to speak) rather than your grandfather's day. His toys were pretty much made by his grand-dad's generation. Consider that "Dad's" generation were the "make love, not war" generation, who had no sense of national duty, dodged the draft (as opposed to seeing it as a responsibility), and even if the wars at the time were a mess took things to an absolutly ridiculous level in opposition because none of them wanted to get shot at. "Dad's Generation" pretty much defined itself by tearing down society in favor of what it wanted at the moment, and while some good did come of it, a lot more problems occured. There are a lot of sociologists who believe we pretty much face the task of needing to rebuild our society after the US Baby Boomers, and it remains to be seen if the current, indoctrinated generations (given how long they lived, there is more than one, Gen X and Gen Y) can throw off a lot of the propaganda and get things back on track.

Such are my thoughts.
Good thoughts on such topics. Still I hope that Gen X and Gen Y (I am a part of Gen X) can fix the problems. But we will have to fix a part, a part that may be to late to fix. 1. There are "Winners" and "Losers". (There is no prize for "Losers".) 2. Take responsibility for our problems & Actions. (Stop putting it on others... GOP & DEMS; to make a point) 3. Just leave poeple to die when on death penalty. (Save resources, avg human uses 80 Gal of water per day.) Yes I am cold but I would like to leave my children some resources that they must not fight over. Give them knowledge of losing so that they learn to win. To understand what happens now can cause problems for them later of there actions. Oh well like little voice I have will ever get other poeple to act. To many are thinking of being to much P.C, and cant call something what it truly is. oh well might as well drive the car in the ground.
 

mega48man

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Mar 12, 2009
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i know i'm too young to have fell in love with the awesome 80's (i'm 17), but i did anyway, so when i saw that g.i. joe intro play with the music in the background, a warm smile grew on my face, god i love G.I. joe (and transformers G1). but i didn't just love g.i. joe for all the surface reasons of lasers and bad guys (thats why i loved transformers) but i loved G.I. joe for all the reasons your grandfather loved his G.I. joe.

ever see G.I. joe the movie: the secret of cobra-la? course you have, it's on youtube. remember that opening scene where the have the fight by the statue of liberty while playing an even more epic version of their intro song? everytime i even think about Duke stand on top of the statue shouting "yo joe!" after shooting down that trouble bubble, tears fill my eyes b/c i know that's american right there. defending the free people from the forces of tyranny and hate, even when you're outgunned and outnumbered. god, i'm crying as i'm typing this, im gonna go watch that intro.
 

mattag08

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Sep 9, 2009
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Civilization is falling apart all around him and Bob still things feminism is a great thing. What a klutz. Become enlightened Bob and read some real commentary on society:

http://roissy.wordpress.com/
http://onestdv.blogspot.com/
http://hawaiianlibertarian.blogspot.com/
http://voxday.blogspot.com/
 

Blayze2k

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Dec 16, 2009
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Woah. 0__0
That got really deeply philosophical at the end.
It surprises me sometimes how similar Bob's thought processes are to my own.
Only he has a job at the escapist because he's funnier than I am.
=P
 

Samurai Goomba

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Oct 7, 2008
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Just wanted to point out your line about "masculine strength" being an ideal from a bygone age (namely prehistoric times) is patently wrong. Now, it is an ideal from a bygone age, but we have no evidence that prehistoric times held an ideal of masculine strength. That's your conjecture. What you might be talking about are the Homeric ideals which were pioneered in "The Iliad and the Odyssey," and which would come to define Greek and Roman (and later American) definitions of strength and virtue.

Americans have taken so much from Rome and Greek before it that sometimes it isn't obvious what is an ideal "people have always had" and what is and ideal "GREEKS AND ROMANS have always had." And no, they're most definitely not the same thing.
 

idontwannabeaschizo

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Feb 15, 2010
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Valdez Leel said:
MovieBob said:
A Guy Named Joe

This week, Bob looks back at some old Joes.

Watch Video
The sad thing being that now, more so than in any point in recent history, it's going to be very hard for young people to find themselves a meaningful place in the world.*

With a stagnant economy, waning social mobility, and an ageing population - where power lies increasingly in the hands of old entrenched elites - even modest aspirations are moving out of reach of the ascending generation.

I do not envy the teenagers of today. We've left them a steep hill to climb when they hit maturity.

*Speaking purely in terms of the western world obviously. Different kettle of fish elsewhere.
As a teenager of today, I can agree wholeheartedly that there was something after the shelter of the education system. Instead of a steep hill its almost now if not actually a solid wall that you slam into. And its not so much of a struggle to define ones self to the world, its now to define ones self to ones self, the ultimate man v. himself literary scenario played out in real life by teens and people now into their 20's.
 

ragsmorrison

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Sep 1, 2010
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Bob, please please lay off Scott Pilgrim. It was not...that...good. I would recommend you read the books if you haven't already, and see how the movie measures up. Now I'm not saying there weren't good moments and characters in the movie; everyone except Scott, Ramona and Gideon were awesome, especially Kieran Kulkin, the first three evil ex fights were very well done, and the music was pure hoss. But it was by no stretch of the imagination a groundbreaking masterpiece.
 

D64nz

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Jan 28, 2008
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Damnit bob, stop being interesting. I'm trying to make space for a smoke break before I escape to LoL..
O
therwise, err, great reviews great ideas, and I qualify that as a 'PC gamer'.

So good job, keep it up and I'll look foward to more
 

DevilWolf47

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Nov 29, 2010
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Cobra's spliced with ancient dictators? That's trivial. Wikipedia would let you look up the old strategies so you could figure out how best to conquer them. Lets face it Bob, our generation is still pretty fucking useless unless it comes to supergenius cannibalistic serial killers who can only be tracked by prediction of patterns that constantly adjust as they figure out how to get into the heads of the people tracking them.
...or how to mix a proper fucking martini since we remember M*A*S*H and know that drink originated with people trying to improve bathtub gin and has fuck all to do with vodka or shaking or failed spies. Maybe dealing with parasitic organisms that feed on bioelectricity or Dracula... okay i guess we're not totally useless.
 

VioletHorizon

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May 6, 2011
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This is my favorite of the Big Picture videos so far. it's rich, and at least its questions at the beginning are not left unanswered