Things you like that have..."questionable" messages

[Batou667]

Old James Bond movies/books.

Examples:
There's no such thing as a lesbian, only women that haven't met a real man.
Homosexuals (male) are evil, and cannot whistle.
Women are hysterics and need to be slapped around once in a while. Also, they're kind of useless (except for sex - see above!).
Smoking, drinking and gambling are about the coolest things you can do.

That's a bit of a cynical reading and mostly applies to the older films. The novels themselves and the Daniel Craig era films don't fall into the same category of pantomime silliness - sure, the novels are very "of their time" regarding attitudes to women and drink, but not cartoonishly so: they're not the endless romps of drunkenly backhanding women that they're sometimes described as.

My pick is Disney's Dumbo, which I re-watched for the first time since childhood about a year ago. Ye gads, it doens't stand up well to adult eyes. The plot is disjointed, it's only about half a flamin' hour long (I exaggerate, but hey), and the "moral" of the story is "You don't need to be normal to achieve success - you just need a lucrative and exploitable talent to win the respect of your former tormentors!"

 

[Casual Shinji]

This was literally his big evil plan:

"I'll sell my inventions so that everyone can have powers. Everyone can be super! And when everyone is super ... (evil laugh)... no one will be."

As a Cracked article once put it:

Yes, his evil apocalyptic vision is what the rest of us call utopia: The disabled will walk, the weak will be made strong, everyone will fly. And the film wants us to root against that, because that would be unfair to all of the people born with extraordinary abilities right now. If everyone can have what the genetically gifted and powerful have, well, shit, we might as well just burn the whole thing to the ground.

And thus we spend the movie rooting for the hero and his family to stop Syndrome, each of them using the superhuman physical abilities they were born with due to genetics. Lots of critics pointed out that the movie contains several references to Ayn Rand's philosophy ("They're constantly finding ways to celebrate mediocrity!" laments Mr. Incredible, almost staring directly into the camera to say it to the audience), but that's not really fair -- Rand would never have advocated against innovation because it might be used by genetic inferiors. Shit, I don't even think the Nazis were against that.

Again, are we going to gloss over the fact that he killed off dozens of superheroes, sold the most dangerous weapons to any country who could buy them, put thousands of people at risk just so he could play the hero, and that he was only going to sell his inventions to the public once he had his fun hording the power all for himself?

The story never bothered to point out how Syndrome or any of the muggle extras could "become special", it was always about a small class of Special people, who can be strong, competent, and Syndrome trying to raise himself to that level even though he wasn't born that way, thus getting told that his power is not "real".

Actually it did. By showing he could build rocket boots at the age of 10. Syndrome wasn't kept down by the superhero ideal, because by the time Incredible scorned him the public was already starting the sue the shit out of all heroes untill they ultimately had to disappear. And instead of using his skills to make something of himself in the publics eyes, he just wanted to get revenge against his former idol.

And he was never told his power wasn't "real", just that he was an annoying fan that Incredible didn't want to have hang around him. And which Bob admits he probably should've handled it better.

 

[briankoontz]

I've probably said it a few times in the past, but I'm a huge animation nerd. As part of my collection I have a bunch of DVD's videos and even a few film reels of old cartoons from the 1930's through the early 60's (The "Golden Age" of Animation.)


I enjoy watching these cartoons. Both from an entertainment and academic standpoint. But I won't sit here and deny that these cartoons weren't frequently super Racist.

I'm a big believer in the "product of it's time" argument.
Our culture grows and expands and refines itself all the time. To expect a piece of media from previous generations to conform to the moral and social expectations of modern life is, at best completely absurd, and at worst a passive form of revisionism that allows us to ignore the uncomfortable truths of our past.

There's a more basic reason for doing what you do - people don't change, the world does. People are no more or less racist now than they ever were, but over time capitalism requires the inclusion of more and more people to expand it's markets, so people who cater to the capitalist system (which has been global and therefore inclusionary of people of all races for decades) have become "anti-racist", by which is meant they support global capitalism.

This is precisely why there's a rise in "racism" right now especially in Europe but also in the United States. Capitalism has been unkind to "regular people" in Europe, especially Greece, so there's no longer as much impetus to cater to the global capital system, with the subsequent expected rise in "racism".

Despite what we Americans are told constantly, the shift in American racial attitudes in the 1960s was not caused by the Civil Rights movement, but by the globalization of capital and it's desire in order to maximize profits for wealthy people ala the American people to favor or at least tolerate non-white people, so that for example if you're a businessman selling products in China you don't alienate the locals by being racist toward them. Capitalists of course don't give a shit about the Chinese (or anyone else) except insofar as they can pay for things.

The battle in the 1960s was not one of racist vs anti-racist consciousness, but of the interests of national capital (often racist) versus the interests of global capital.

People are weak, and I mean that with no disrespect. People cater to systems of power, so when it's beneficial to them to be racist they are racist and when it's beneficial to them to be anti-racist (such as when the balance of power within capitalism shifts globally) they are anti-racist. What's truly pathetic is the self-righteous need to build a self-promoting narrative for WHY they shifted from racist to anti-racist. This favored myth makes it impossible for them to understand why they might shift back.

 

[Sean Hollyman]

Most kids shows that basically have the message that everything is going to be okay, even if you lose

It doesn't exactly motivate them to try and do better. It's just saying 'Oh, you lost. Well that's okay. You can just half-ass it the next time too.'

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

Well Scream by Avenged Sevenfold is just straight-up about rape, which wouldn't seem weird coming from a death metal band (although I imagine the lyrics might be even less subtle), but it's an odd one coming from a fairly hard rock/pretty soft metal band. That said, I wouldn't think that could really be taken as A7X giving a big thumbs up to rape.

The Help and The Blind Side seem to give off the message that black people can't really do anything without while people helping them. Not patronizing at all.

 

[Something Amyss]

Wikipedia says - "Fleming based his creation on a number of individuals he met during his time in the Naval Intelligence Division, and admitted that Bond "was a compound of all the secret agents and commando types I met during the war"." The footnotes say this is taken from a Ben Macintyre article in The Times of London.

You really should have read further into that article, as it largely confirms what I was saying.

Regardless, this new justification doesn't particularly assist your argument.

Despite what we Americans are told constantly, the shift in American racial attitudes in the 1960s was not caused by the Civil Rights movement, but by the globalization of capital and it's desire in order to maximize profits for wealthy people ala the American people to favor or at least tolerate non-white people, so that for example if you're a businessman selling products in China you don't alienate the locals by being racist toward them. Capitalists of course don't give a shit about the Chinese (or anyone else) except insofar as they can pay for things.

Ah, yes, the glory of the free market. The free market cues all. The free market is mother. The free market is father. Ron Paul 2012!

But seriously, you might want to consider the fact that "capitalists" had intermediaries and very rarely had to worry about being seen as racist. They didn't have to change and odds are, they still didn't have to care. The claim sounds nice, but has no real basis in reality.

 

[SirDerpy]

The rape scene I'm referring to happened so fast, I wouldn't have noticed it if I friend hadn't interrupted me. If you remember when they finally reach Khotar and those flying mages attack them? They end up catching like two girls and a guy, if I remember. They try and escape at one point and in two lines, say the girls were raped and the guy was badly beaten. At least Croaker had the men punished.

Glen Cook's writing style is just that fast, I'd guess. The entire taking of the Fortress at Deal happens in two sentences, something like "Soulcatcher told us that we should take the Fortress at Deal. So we went and did it. Captured it in the dead of night." Kind of interesting, really. Croaker's writing style, that is, I'm stuck on Bleak Seasons right now and Murgen's mental ravings are slowly getting on my nerves.

As to the rape, rape by soldiers has been (is still, probably) a thing. Kind of inevitable, almost. From a soldier's point of view, it would be trivial more than anything else, if a little lip-curling. They aren't known for their morality, after all. I just took it as a characterization of Croaker and the soldier lifestyle as a whole.

 

[Elfgore]

The rape scene I'm referring to happened so fast, I wouldn't have noticed it if I friend hadn't interrupted me. If you remember when they finally reach Khotar and those flying mages attack them? They end up catching like two girls and a guy, if I remember. They try and escape at one point and in two lines, say the girls were raped and the guy was badly beaten. At least Croaker had the men punished.

Glen Cook's writing style is just that fast, I'd guess. The entire taking of the Fortress at Deal happens in two sentences, something like "Soulcatcher told us that we should take the Fortress at Deal. So we went and did it. Captured it in the dead of night." Kind of interesting, really. Croaker's writing style, that is, I'm stuck on Bleak Seasons right now and Murgen's mental ravings are slowly getting on my nerves.

As to the rape, rape by soldiers has been (is still, probably) a thing. Kind of inevitable, almost. From a soldier's point of view, it would be trivial more than anything else, if a little lip-curling. They aren't known for their morality, after all. I just took it as a characterization of Croaker and the soldier lifestyle as a whole.

Yeah I know, but something like that just shot on by like it was nothing. When Cook wants to, he can really focus on something. What got me is it wasn't brought up again. Those girls played a pretty big role for a while and not once did they say "Hey, remember when you all raped me?"

I've read the books twice and Bleak Seasons and The Silver Spike always get me to grind to a halt. Bleak Seasons is something I should love, but Murgen is just a terrible chronicler... go back to standard bearer damnit! Water Sleeps is another slow book. It's told by Sleepy and it's just terrible. Once you get past Bleak Seasons and reach The Return of the Black Company, Lady starts writing the chronicles and she is awesome.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

I mean, I personally find the band Anal **** as a concept to be hilarious.

Spoiler: If you're not familiar, here is a tracklist from their album It Just Gets Worse

"I Became a Counselor So I Could Tell Rape Victims They Asked for It" ? 0:43
"Easy E Got A.I.D.S. from F. Mercury" ? 0:42
"I Like Drugs and Child Abuse" ? 0:22
"Laughing While Leonard Peltier Gets Raped in Prison" ? 0:41
"I Convinced You to Beat Your Wife on a Daily Basis" ? 0:51
"I Sent Concentration Camp Footage to America's Funniest Home Videos" ? 0:34
"Rancid Sucks (And The Clash Sucked Too)" ? 0:40
"I Paid J. Howell to Rape You" ? 1:44
"I Pushed Your Wife in Front of the Subway" ? 0:46
"Extreme Noise Terror Are Afraid of Us" ? 0:29
"You Rollerblading ******" ? 0:31
"I Sent a Thank You Card to the Guy Who Raped You" ? 0:29
"I Lit Your Baby on Fire" ? 1:56
"Body by Auschwitz" ? 1:02
"I Intentionally Ran Over Your Dog" ? 0:30
"Sweatshops Are Cool" ? 0:47
"Women: Nature's Punching Bag" ? 0:57
"I Snuck a Retard into a Sperm Bank" ? 0:30
"Your Kid Committed Suicide Because You Suck" ? 1:02
"I Ate Your Horse" ? 0:50
"Hitler Was a Sensitive Man" ? 0:49
"You Robbed a Sperm Bank Because You're a Cum Guzzling Fag" ? 0:28
"I Made Your Kid Get AIDS So You Could Watch It Die" ? 0:53
"I Fucked Your Wife" ? 0:40
"Into the Oven" ? 1:42
"I Gave NAMBLA Pictures of Your Kid" ? 0:52
"The Only Reason Men Talk to You Is Because They Want to Get Laid, You Stupid Fucking ****" ? 1:02
"I Made Fun of You Because Your Kid Just Died" ? 0:28
"Domestic Violence Is Really, Really, Really Funny" ? 0:42
"Dictators Are Cool" ? 0:35
"Deadbeat Dads Are Cool" ? 0:43
"I'm Really Excited About the Upcoming David Buskin Concert" ? 0:45
"Being Ignorant Is Awesome" ? 1:03
"You're Pregnant, So I Kicked You in the Stomach" ? 0:28
"Chris Barnes Is a Pussy" ? 1:04
"Tim Is Gay" ? 1:30
"BT/A.C." ? 0:41
"I Sold Your Dog to a Chinese Restaurant" ? 0:49
"I Got an Office Job for the Sole Purpose of Sexually Harassing Women" ? 0:58

It's the best thing because it's the worst thing.

 

[Flutterguy]

Muse, Doug Stanhope, Mister Heavenly, Nietzsche, Manly P Hall, George Orwell, Alduos Huxley... Pretty much anything the blames a single power for a multitude of problems, is philosophical, or idealistic.

 

[Amaror]

Dwarf fortress i guess.
hmmmmmm ..... kitten biscuits miam, miam, miam ....
i am sorry what were you saying?

 

[New Frontiersman]

Probably games like Civilization and Crusader Kings. They're fun, and I like them a lot, but they glorify brutal colonialism, warmongering, religious violence and all sorts of other historically horrifying things.

 

[jklinders]

Any movie by Christopher Nolan. What Batman? To save the city you have to hack into everyone's cellphones? Gee whiz that sounds like a good idea! All for national, I mean municipal, security. All of his movies have these weird undertones of politics that I really don't like, but I mean we all have to deal with that at a point.

Didn't either Batman or Morgan Freeman actually end up destroying the device that hacked everyones phones at the end of the movie?

They did. That does not undermine the underlying message that the hack was justified in that it worked and was the only way to beat Bane. Whether intended or not the use of that tech in that way justified a degradation of civil liberties Americans have (not) enjoyed since the patriot act was passed and upheld by both parties. I don't even want to get into how Bane was essentially a shot at the whole "Occupy" movement and a reclusive weird billionaire was the answer to the problem. I will grant that it's possible given Nolan's real world politics that it may be a very subtle satire, but big government and control of the masses through questionable means abounds through that series.

No politics in The Prestige, but some creepy creepy ethics presented there as well. I won't spoil it even in a spoiler block because damn that movie is good, but creepy as all hell. If you haven't watched it, stop reading this and watch it...now.

You're thinking of the wrong movie, the phone hack was in the Dark Knight, Bane was in the Dark Knight Rises.[/quote]

Oops, you're right. Conceded.

They kinda blend into one rather unpleasant smudge to me. I was not really all that keen on those movies and only watched them the once.

 

[jademunky]

Harry Potter

Basically, the whole plot revolves around stopping magic-Hitler from enacting genocide against "mud bloods" (that is those who can use magic but have at least one non-magical parent). Okay so far so good, we also find out that the good guys in that universe consider the term "mud blood" to be a horrible, bigoted slur against those who, by no fault of their own happen to have non-magical ancestry. Also good, really off to a great start in terms of having a moral message in the story.

Oh, so that means that folks like Hagrid, Dumbledoor and Maggie Smith's character are paragons of tolerance that believe in mutual coexistance and understanding between magic and non-magic folk? No! Not even a little bit. They derisively call them "muggles", keep their world hidden from them, even going so far as to mind-rape those that stumble upon them by accident. Even when it becomes clear that the non-magical world is also in danger, at no point do our heroes suggest warning the other 99% of humanity about what is coming.

I know that the story attempts to justify it with "oh but look at how Harry's uncle treats him because he is different and this means that the wizards are totally in the right about keeping themselves apart" but really, this is an argument FOR mages coming out of the enchanted closet and trying to integrate with the rest of the world. It highlights the problem of secrecy building mistrust.

Maybe the books go into greater detail and have at least one character call out the others on their bullshit. I am only familiar with the films.


Also, just about everything ever written by Robert Heinlein.

 

[DrOswald]

That's just more the context of the universe. Being born a superhero there is similar to being born with a talent for music, writing, or art. And it's simplified for the sake of not having to come up with a an origins story for Bob, Helen, Violet, Dash, and Frozone.

Then the movie has chosen an extremely unfortunate context for itself. It's not like the writers NEEDED to tell their rant against attendance awards specifically in the form of a superhero story.

That genre already has it's own unfortunate implications about the audience expected to unconditionally trust the Superhuman heroes, even when everyone has their own origin story. But it is absolutely the worst system to use as an allegory for everyone having to find their own talents.

It would be different in a more mundane genre, say, a detective story where the protagonist's underling tries hard to be a detective, but learns that he is really more competent as an actor, or where an injured sport star has to reinvent himself as a coach. You know, in world where humans are reasonably equal, rather than divided into godlike Supers, and boring grey Ordinary People.

The story never bothered to point out how Syndrome or any of the muggle extras could "become special", it was always about a small class of Special people, who can be strong, competent, and Syndrome trying to raise himself to that level even though he wasn't born that way, thus getting told that his power is not "real".

This was literally his big evil plan:

"I'll sell my inventions so that everyone can have powers. Everyone can be super! And when everyone is super ... (evil laugh)... no one will be."

As a Cracked article once put it:

Yes, his evil apocalyptic vision is what the rest of us call utopia: The disabled will walk, the weak will be made strong, everyone will fly. And the film wants us to root against that, because that would be unfair to all of the people born with extraordinary abilities right now. If everyone can have what the genetically gifted and powerful have, well, shit, we might as well just burn the whole thing to the ground.

And thus we spend the movie rooting for the hero and his family to stop Syndrome, each of them using the superhuman physical abilities they were born with due to genetics. Lots of critics pointed out that the movie contains several references to Ayn Rand's philosophy ("They're constantly finding ways to celebrate mediocrity!" laments Mr. Incredible, almost staring directly into the camera to say it to the audience), but that's not really fair -- Rand would never have advocated against innovation because it might be used by genetic inferiors. Shit, I don't even think the Nazis were against that.

You missed a few things in your summary of his plan. Lets start from the actual beginning of his plan: "I will develop and sell weapons to anyone who can write a check, commit genocide, and destroy a sizable portion of a city (killing dozens or hundreds in the process)" And the part you did mention should be changed to "I'll sell my weapons so everyone can have powers." Syndromes grand vision was selling everyone enough weapons to level a city block. What a humanitarian.

Syndrome was a serial murderer, a war profiteer, a kidnapper, and committed genocide.

And what was the great crime Mr. Incredible committed that drove Buddy to this madness? He refused to let a 10 year old child tag along to confrontations where a ruthless villain might take advantage of the child and, say, attach a bomb to his cape. And even worse, Mr. Incredible tattled on him to his mom just because Buddy almost got himself and dozens of others killed and allowed a known serial bomber to evade capture.

 

[TheIceQueen]

Harry Potter

Basically, the whole plot revolves around stopping magic-Hitler from enacting genocide against "mud bloods" (that is those who can use magic but have at least one non-magical parent). Okay so far so good, we also find out that the good guys in that universe consider the term "mud blood" to be a horrible, bigoted slur against those who, by no fault of their own happen to have non-magical ancestry. Also good, really off to a great start in terms of having a moral message in the story.

Oh, so that means that folks like Hagrid, Dumbledoor and Maggie Smith's character are paragons of tolerance that believe in mutual coexistance and understanding between magic and non-magic folk? No! Not even a little bit. They derisively call them "muggles", keep their world hidden from them, even going so far as to mind-rape those that stumble upon them by accident. Even when it becomes clear that the non-magical world is also in danger, at no point do our heroes suggest warning the other 99% of humanity about what is coming.

I know that the story attempts to justify it with "oh but look at how Harry's uncle treats him because he is different and this means that the wizards are totally in the right about keeping themselves apart" but really, this is an argument FOR mages coming out of the enchanted closet and trying to integrate with the rest of the world. It highlights the problem of secrecy building mistrust.

Maybe the books go into greater detail and have at least one character call out the others on their bullshit. I am only familiar with the films.


Also, just about everything ever written by Robert Heinlein.

The movies are quite awful when it comes to the world lore. The books are slightly better and at least have some justification as to what's going on, but the world itself is still pretty silly. But here I go:

Wizard-Muggle relations had already reached a peak amount of distrust in the 17th century as both groups saw themselves culturally shifting away from each other along two different lines, magic and technology. Neither understood the other. Several people on both sides lashed out. Eventually, muggles started killing wizards and wizards started killing muggles as the tensions between them grew to a boiling point. It even got to the point where muggles started killing other muggles because of accusations being thrown around. For everyone's safety, as things only continued to get worse, the International Confederation of Wizards enacted a law stating that wizards have to go into hiding. Breaking this law can bring about heavy consequences, too. Some people have even gone to Azkaban, UK's wizard prison, for it. Generally, both people are also quite happy to have had this happen and both groups are now pretty isolated from each other, culturally. These shifts only continued to happen, to the point where, in the books, comedy relief in one form comes from the wizards just not understanding a single thing about technology, which is understandable. They don't need technology in any single way and often it just doesn't plain work in their world anyways. The same goes for muggles, who don't understand magic either.

It's now been quite a few centuries since the passing of this statute of secrecy and there have been several attempts to overthrow it, most notably by Voldemort. Voldemort's plot isn't to enact genocide over muggle-born wizards and muggles, though he most certainly will. It's to overthrow this secrecy law and propel the wizard world into dominance over muggles. This isn't the only attempt either. Another notable example is Grindelwald, whose initial planning stages were helped along by none other than... Dumbledore.

Yeah. Dumbledore's temple of tolerance is subverted at the final book where he admits to his weaknesses he had at an early age and that he seeks to atone for his actions, that he's a man filled with intense amount of regret. He's a champion of muggles and muggle-borns, supporting many legislation to fight for their rights and especially the latter's equality in a world that tends to treat muggle-borns as second class citizens. Championing their rights doesn't mean breaking international law and getting severely punished for it - and several people have been punished for unlawfully breaking the statute for the purposes of protest. Several exceptions are made and the muggles are warned, too, in the books. The muggle prime minister of the UK is told about what's going on and warned several times throughout the course of the timeline (and it is written in the main portion of the series). This warning, though, isn't something that can really be acted upon. It doesn't even help wizards defend themselves properly, let alone muggles. Indeed, by the middle of the final book, all of Britain's wizard population has fallen under Voldemort's regime.

 

[cojo965]

So I really wanted to participate in this thread but couldn't come up with anything. Fortunately I now have one:

Godzilla 2014: sometimes to have the best results in a bad situation, you have to let it happen.

How the hell did I come to this conclusion? Any time humanity in the film tries to directly affect the monsters they make it worse. Never is this underlying message more apparent than in the climax. They constantly underestimate what all three creatures are capable of, and are punished for it. The only things humanity in Godzilla 2014 solved were the problems they made themselves.

 

[generals3]

I guess Lord Of War comes into mind. Where the message is basically "if i don't do it someone else will do it anyway".

 

[jademunky]

Ice queen, I am having some trouble with the quote functions on this site.

Anyhoo, that's pretty helpful. There having been previous butthurt feelings between magic/nonmagic people actually explains quite a bit. Still seems a bit one-sided what with the wizards being able to jump back and forth at will but "muggles" being kept in the dark (plus aforementioned mind-dickery).

Personally I would like it if they expanded more on that whole "technology doesn't work" angle. What? Do electrical currents just not flow on electronic devices? But electrical currents in, say, the human brain and nervous system work just fine? What about a device like a Grand Piano? It is also technology after all. Or maybe, just maybe, I am thinking way too hard on a series meant for kids.

 

[Sutter Cane]

Old James Bond movies/books.

Examples:
There's no such thing as a lesbian, only women that haven't met a real man.
Homosexuals (male) are evil, and cannot whistle.
Women are hysterics and need to be slapped around once in a while. Also, they're kind of useless (except for sex - see above!).
Smoking, drinking and gambling are about the coolest things you can do.

That's a bit of a cynical reading and mostly applies to the older films. The novels themselves and the Daniel Craig era films don't fall into the same category of pantomime silliness - sure, the novels are very "of their time" regarding attitudes to women and drink, but not cartoonishly so: they're not the endless romps of drunkenly backhanding women that they're sometimes described as.

My pick is Disney's Dumbo, which I re-watched for the first time since childhood about a year ago. Ye gads, it doens't stand up well to adult eyes. The plot is disjointed, it's only about half a flamin' hour long (I exaggerate, but hey), and the "moral" of the story is "You don't need to be normal to achieve success - you just need a lucrative and exploitable talent to win the respect of your former tormentors!"

Actually I would like to dispute the claim that the attitude toward women in the james bond series isn't cartoonishly awful at times. As evidence I would like to present this quote from Goldfinger

?Bond came to the conclusion that Tilly Masterton was one of those girls whose hormones had got mixed up. He knew the type well and thought they and their male counterparts were a direct consequence of giving votes to women and 'sex equality.' As a result of fifty years of emancipation, feminine qualities were dying out or being transferred to the males. Pansies of both sexes were everywhere, not yet completely homosexual, but confused, not knowing what they were. The result was a herd of unhappy sexual misfits--barren and full of frustrations, the women wanting to dominate and the men to be nannied. He was sorry for them, but he had no time for them.?