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

[Casual Shinji]

"When everyone is special, then no one is."

That line bugged me because because Syndrome had super inventing skills, but everyone (including himself) saw more value in benching a Buick.

That's the thing with Syndrome... Instead of seeing the qualities he actually has, he wastes all his talent (and the lives of others) to be something he's not. Instead of using his talents to basically become a superhero and actually do good, he just wants to pretend to be one for the admiration.

And others most definitely saw the value in his skills, otherwise he never would've goten rich selling it off.

 

[maxben]

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.

 

[Scarim Coral]

That would be Monster University to me (the film was ok, not the greatest but it was still a good watched).

Spoiler: Ending part

So ok they got kicked but got employed at Monster Inc which they worked they way up to the top.
The message feel like it was diminished higher education or rather that it no longer relavent. Well ok while I do kind of support that motion especially these days when it come to getting a job (work experience over higher education) but none the less higher education still played a role for some people (I never regret going to University as I had met some ture friends at my time spend there).

 

[SacremPyrobolum]

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?

 

[TakerFoxx]

Luckily, Weird Al has since risen back from obscurity to present us with this little gem.

You know, I never really got why every time Weird Al announces a new album, it's being treated like some kind of big comeback. His previous album was only three years ago and got a decent amount of buzz, and the gap before that was only five years with an EP released in between. He hasn't gone anywhere!

 

[The Apple BOOM]

I'm somewhat stunned on how many people here are completely missing the point of the works they are talking about. Especially the complex struggle of bending and notbending in Korra, and the pro-women in a sexist time in Tolkien.

 

[Pink Gregory]

I'm not excusing Lovecraft's opinions, and if he lived today I wouldn't support him by buying his works. But I'm not bothered by most racism in his works. At the most it will make me think the character is a racist jerk.

To be honest, when I look at Lovecraft, I do wonder whether his attitude was really an extreme one for the time; or whether he was just particularly articulate in expressing what a larger amount of people than we'd like to think didn't bother or didn't have the eloquence to do. If there's anything Lovecraft is, it's verbose.

A surprising amount of 19th/early 20th century authors supposedly subscribed to eugenics as a way of thinking (which is neither here nor there, just an example), I don't think singling out Lovecraft as more or less racist than any other - especially fantasy - author of the time (Robert E Howard comes to mind, but he wasn't a man of letters like Lovecraft) is particularly wise.

 

[ExDeath730]

Hm, what else...I guess we could say the original Star Wars trilogy, which apparently takes place in a galaxy populated by only three women (Princess Leia, Mon Mothma, and Aunt Beru) and one black dude, but that seems like kind of a low-hanging fruit, and I'm not sure it counts anyway since "Hooray for white men!" is not the message but just something he ends up saying with his casting choices.

Ironically, the Empire is supposed to have this whole "master race" thing going on, but most people never notice it because there's no real racial diversity among the Rebellion either - both diveristy among the human race, or just general sentient races. Then again, if the WWII allegory is being consistent, it kind of makes sense, given that many of the "Allies", as they're called, from WWII were pretty damn racist themselves.

Just one correction about the Empire. The "Master Race" for them is the Human Race, they are prejudiced against aliens, not against other humans.

 

[Lieju]

I'm not excusing Lovecraft's opinions, and if he lived today I wouldn't support him by buying his works. But I'm not bothered by most racism in his works. At the most it will make me think the character is a racist jerk.

To be honest, when I look at Lovecraft, I do wonder whether his attitude was really an extreme one for the time; or whether he was just particularly articulate in expressing what a larger amount of people than we'd like to think didn't bother or didn't have the eloquence to do. If there's anything Lovecraft is, it's verbose.

A surprising amount of 19th/early 20th century authors supposedly subscribed to eugenics as a way of thinking (which is neither here nor there, just an example), I don't think singling out Lovecraft as more or less racist than any other - especially fantasy - author of the time (Robert E Howard comes to mind, but he wasn't a man of letters like Lovecraft) is particularly wise.

From what I understand, his racism wasn't just typical of his era, although more widely acceptable. But there were a lot of people who weren't as racist as he was, some of his poetry is very hostile towards black people and some of his (supposedly sympathetic) protagonists don't seem to have much problem with black people being slaves...

From what I've read of him, he was very afraid of other cultures, which I can see inspiring his work.

 

[Thaluikhain]

To be honest, when I look at Lovecraft, I do wonder whether his attitude was really an extreme one for the time; or whether he was just particularly articulate in expressing what a larger amount of people than we'd like to think didn't bother or didn't have the eloquence to do. If there's anything Lovecraft is, it's verbose.

Although a lot of his contemporaries were racist as well, Lovecraft was a more extreme than most. As well as being concerned with miscegenation and impure races, he seems to have been a bit keen on genocide as a solution.

IIRC, he mentions the use of cyanide gas as a solution to ghettos, for example.

A surprising amount of 19th/early 20th century authors supposedly subscribed to eugenics as a way of thinking (which is neither here nor there, just an example), I don't think singling out Lovecraft as more or less racist than any other - especially fantasy - author of the time (Robert E Howard comes to mind, but he wasn't a man of letters like Lovecraft) is particularly wise.

Er...what? All fantasy authors were equally racist?

Now, certainly Howard had his own serious issues, but they didn't seem nearly as extreme.

 

[Pink Gregory]

A surprising amount of 19th/early 20th century authors supposedly subscribed to eugenics as a way of thinking (which is neither here nor there, just an example), I don't think singling out Lovecraft as more or less racist than any other - especially fantasy - author of the time (Robert E Howard comes to mind, but he wasn't a man of letters like Lovecraft) is particularly wise.

Er...what? All fantasy authors were equally racist?

Now, certainly Howard had his own serious issues, but they didn't seem nearly as extreme.

Now did I say that?

Admittedly I'm only going by Robert E Howard, and we are mostly talking about what were essentially pulp fiction - so it's not necessarily always going to be progressive - hell many authors may not have even broached the subject matter, but at that point I don't think it's too much of a stretch for some authors to use race as a shorthand for antagonism.

Then again I suppose with Lovecraft it's more of a theme; but I still reckon that he's emphasised due to his letters, rather than his fiction. Because you don't at all need to look for a subtext in the letters.

As for the eugenics comment, I suppose I was trying to demonstrate how certain attitudes surface in surprising areas.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Now did I say that?

Well, you said "I don't think singling out Lovecraft as more or less racist" and I'm not sure how else to take that.

but at that point I don't think it's too much of a stretch for some authors to use race as a shorthand for antagonism.

Not with you here, what do you mean by "shorthand for antagonism"?

 

[Pink Gregory]

Not with you here, what do you mean by "shorthand for antagonism"?

I think I meant 'antagonist'.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

kinda of like Eminem

I know that "its just his persona" might seem a reasonable defense...but I get the impression the guy has (or had) enough baggage to make me think he reeeeaaally has some issues with women, I mean not just he "usual" mysogany is rap but he actually has issues

Its the same thing I see with Marilyn Manson, a person using an alternate identity to work through issues him/her has with things they experienced in life. A cracked mirror point of view, extending their flaws and vices to the ludicrous, testing them until they're absolutely unable to be seen as anything but wrong as a tool of self-examination and excising (hopefully) those flaws or at least tempering them to a point where they're inert, not harmful to anyone else or the self.

 

[Avalanche91]

I am really fond of the Fight Club movie, but anyone who has seen it can agree that the messages and themes are a bit morally iffy.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Not with you here, what do you mean by "shorthand for antagonism"?

I think I meant 'antagonist'.

Ah, right.

I can't think, off the top of my head, of any hero of Howard's that wasn't white, but loads of villains. Hell, there's even a miscegenation thing in one of his stories, where the hero realises that one of his friend's friends isn't properly white...this is a shocking twist at the end of a story set in the (then) modern day.

 

[Pink Gregory]

Not with you here, what do you mean by "shorthand for antagonism"?

I think I meant 'antagonist'.

Ah, right.

I can't think, off the top of my head, of any hero of Howard's that wasn't white, but loads of villains. Hell, there's even a miscegenation thing in one of his stories, where the hero realises that one of his friend's friends isn't properly white...this is a shocking twist at the end of a story set in the (then) modern day.

I seem to remember finding some pulp novel in a charity shop in which some of the introductory praise involves a quote something like, "The author has performed a masterstroke in making the antagonist a foreigner". Think it was about some Chinese thief type person.

Though interestingly, I think the antagonist was also the protagonist.

 

[Story]

That would be Monster University to me (the film was ok, not the greatest but it was still a good watched).

Spoiler: Ending part

So ok they got kicked but got employed at Monster Inc which they worked they way up to the top.
The message feel like it was diminished higher education or rather that it no longer irrelevent. Well ok while I do kind of support that motion especially these days when it come to getting a job (work experience over higher education) but none the less higher education still played a role for some people (I never regret going to University as I had met ture friends at my time spend there).

I agree with this 100%.
By far the biggest problem I had with the movie.

OT: I like animated pictures, and a lot if them have questionable messages, I guess many dumb down for the Childern audience.

 

[Something Amyss]

The first thing that came to mind was Tribe of Judah's Exit Elvis. ToJ was a project featuring Gary Cherone, who I adore despite his ties to hair metal. The album is well done, but the theme of the album is the pointlessness of existence without God.

Not quite on the topic, it also annoys me slightly that, given the context, his use of lines from "Imagine" are mocking John Lennon.

kinda of like Eminem

I know that "its just his persona" might seem a reasonable defense...but I get the impression the guy has (or had) enough baggage to make me think he reeeeaaally has some issues with women, I mean not just he "usual" mysogany is rap but he actually has issues

It's difficult to argue "persona" when he raps about real life things which happen to him or affect him.

I actually kind of take issue with Stephen Colbert's persona on the same grounds. When you watch him talk out of character, he's not all that different. He may not champion the same issues to the same absurd lengths, but when people talk about him obviously talking in character....Weeeeeeeeeell....

The Morgan Freeman character destroyed the computers. Batman told him to do so, after they they had been used to spy. Felt kind of weak of them to handle it that way.

Wasn't that right only after Fox (Freeman) threatened to quit because he objected to it? It's been a while since I've seen the movie, but I think that's how it went down.

From what I understand, his racism wasn't just typical of his era, although more widely acceptable. But there were a lot of people who weren't as racist as he was, some of his poetry is very hostile towards black people and some of his (supposedly sympathetic) protagonists don't seem to have much problem with black people being slaves...

From what I've read of him, he was very afraid of other cultures, which I can see inspiring his work.

These claims are always weird to me, because it would be the equivalent of people in the future saying that the Westboro Baptist Church wasn't all that bad compared to the rest of us, because we were all homophobes too.

But yeah, you're right. The guy was xenophobic even by common standards of the time. He certainly wasn't alone, but that doesn't make him typical. I think this is simply a way some people rationalise liking his works. Which is absurd.

 

[SacremPyrobolum]

It's difficult to argue "persona" when he raps about real life things which happen to him or affect him.

I actually kind of take issue with Stephen Colbert's persona on the same grounds. When you watch him talk out of character, he's not all that different. He may not champion the same issues to the same absurd lengths, but when people talk about him obviously talking in character....Weeeeeeeeeell....

That's probably why he can settle into his character so well. It's just himself if he was a raging right-winger.