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

[VoidOfOne]

A lot of JRPGs have a similar messaging that if people were allowed to make their own choices rather than have some greater being make one for them, life would be a lot better.

An idea that many people share, but I'm not one of them.

Also, many times when you see a religious sect in a JRPG, especially one with governing power, there's always something wrong or crooked about it, and the entire religion turns out to be false or corrupt. Also a view many people have, but it's definitely something that I don't completely agree with.

 

[ABLb0y]

Inception - Screwing with someone's psyche is great! I mean yeah it's grossly invasive, but the guy's dad was a bit of a dick. It's helping him! I'm sure there won't be any unintended consequences - it went so well for the last person [http://xenlogic.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/inception-mal.jpg], right?

Umm, they don't think they're helping him. They're the mental equivalent of hackers or bank robbers, they're implanting an idea for him to break up his company on behalf of a competitor. The entire film is a bank heist.

Starship Troopers:

...all the militaristic antidemocratic stuff.

I'm sure you already know this but Starship Troopers is speculative fiction, it's a what-if story about democracy being extended only to servicemen.

It may well be questionable to some people but those people would have completely missed the point of speculative fiction.

Do you think that Left Wing people are trying to take over the world, New World Order style, through acceptance of homosexuals and other minorities? What exactly have we done to destroy UK society? I'm genuinely curious.

The Guardian, particularly the comment section, is guilty of frequently...well if we're being honest lying its' ass off. It's also guilty of calling for action on situation's it's completely misunderstood. Like do you remember that Clarkson thing where they were commenting on that strike and Clarkson suggested hanging the lot of them? Well that was seen as being hugely insensitive and right wing but was actually a joke on something else the Guardian tends to hate; the need to present an alternate opinion even when that alternate opinion is stupid.

Also remember the 'plebgate' thing where the Guardian basically set out to smear a conservative MP not based on facts but based on it being something they could imagine a conservative MP saying? Remember their apology? No me neither.

The Daily Mail lies too... Does anyone else remember the time they posted a story about a 5 year old who hung himself because he was the only white boy in his school? Or the diary of a victim of a Muslim sex gang that was so obviously written by an adult it hurt?

Wasn't the plebgate scandal some policeman lying to them?

 

[ForumSafari]

The Daily Mail lies too...

This is not a defence. Being only as bad as another bad person does not make you better. I'm broadly speaking centrist with my political beliefs but one of the less palatable things the Left does a lot is to assume lies or cover-ups are OK if they further 'the cause'.

Wasn't the plebgate scandal some policeman lying to them?

It was but they reported it, and their comment section chewed it over, as if the man was already guilty and as if it proved some point about the Government. Of course, when it turned out that the 'typical Tory behaviour' never happened there wasn't anything like a retraction.

In fact the Guardian in general seems to have two major failings; their science/technology reporting is god-awful dreck and they have a tendency to assume guilt.

 

[ABLb0y]

The Daily Mail lies too...

This is not a defence. Being only as bad as another bad person does not make you better. I'm broadly speaking centrist with my political beliefs but one of the less palatable things the Left does a lot is to assume lies or cover-ups are OK if they further 'the cause'.

Wasn't the plebgate scandal some policeman lying to them?

It was but they reported it, and their comment section chewed it over, as if the man was already guilty and as if it proved some point about the Government. Of course, when it turned out that the 'typical Tory behaviour' never happened there wasn't anything like a retraction.

In fact the Guardian in general seems to have two major failings; their science/technology reporting is god-awful dreck and they have a tendency to assume guilt.

I never said it was a defence... I was saying that whilst the poster painted the Guardian as some sort of Anti-Christ that wants to watch Britain burn whilst the Daily Mail is just as bad.

Didn't every major news source report it? I remember getting bloody sick of it at the time...

 

[Lieju]

I'm not sure if it's a message, as much as possible background racism, but I really really love Iznogoud.

It's one of my favourite comics ever, and I re-read all the ones I can (that have been translated to Finnish and English, and some of the French ones.) every once in a while.

And I'm not sure how upset I should be for the possible racist stuff.

For those who don't know, the comic takes place in the kind of 'Arabian nights' heavily fictionalized setting. It is mentioned it takes place mostly in Baghdad (I think they never mention it in the cartoon version), but it's such a mismash of time-periods, magic and modern things it's not really an actual real-life setting in the first place.

And the main character is a really horrible person (that's the joke), but it's not portrayed that he is horrible because of his ethnicity. (But there certainly are jokes about cutting off thieves' hans etc, which I just always took as a part of the fictionalized setting.)

And there are certainly racist caricatures (not surprising for a comic from the 60's) but nothing that horribly bothers me. (i.e. the Chinese characters are drawn yellow, but they still have their distinctive character-designs and the stereotypical jokes are mostly horrible puns.)

I'm of the opinion that you can like stuff that has problematic elements, but you shouldn't excuse them.

And I'm sort of uncertain if I'm excusing some problematic stuff more than I should because I love the comic so much.
And I've always felt the same way. It's been my favourite comic since I was a little kid, but even then I was sort of uncertain about some stuff.

 

[Nosirrah]

Divergent. It's okay to excuse racism, as long as it might be true.
Basically, the city is split into 5 factions, each representing different values. Selflessness, bravery etc.
The main character's dad distrusts Erudite, a faction based around knowledge, because they want too much knowledge.
The books basically show Erudite being massive dicks to everyone, and the main character begins to agree with her dad's views.

Spoiler: Captcha reveals part of the plot, and spoils the first and second books' twists

Captcha: video tape
That's what Erudite want from one of the factions, Abnegation, so to get it they enslave another faction with mind controlling drugs and kill everyone, because Erudite are Satan inc. apparently.

I haven't read the final book so who knows where it goes from there.

 

[OneCatch]

Inception - Screwing with someone's psyche is great! I mean yeah it's grossly invasive, but the guy's dad was a bit of a dick. It's helping him! I'm sure there won't be any unintended consequences - it went so well for the last person [http://xenlogic.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/inception-mal.jpg], right?

Umm, they don't think they're helping him. They're the mental equivalent of hackers or bank robbers, they're implanting an idea for him to break up his company on behalf of a competitor. The entire film is a bank heist.

Yeah, but they try *really* hard to show how much of a dick the father was to justify the heist, and then have shots lingering on Cillian Murphy's face to show the 'wonderful' catharsis and closure that it's given him. Even though he's presumably going to go insane in a year or two because of it. It's... jarring.

Starship Troopers:...all the militaristic antidemocratic stuff.

I'm sure you already know this but Starship Troopers is speculative fiction, it's a what-if story about democracy being extended only to servicemen.
It may well be questionable to some people but those people would have completely missed the point of speculative fiction.

Science fiction is my favourite genre, and I read a lot - I understand the concept of speculative fiction!
That said, Heinlein is almost masturbatory in his portray of this militaristic society. I can't really think of one negative thing he says about it at any point. That isn't pure speculative fiction, that's pushing a view.
And it makes a tangible difference to a book. For example, if you read The Forever War by Haldeman you'll note that the basic idea is fairly similar: Militaristic/autocratic society at war with other intelligent species, in which soldiers are made exceptionally well-versed in combat and equipped with top-of-the-line personal equipment, where they are encouraged to go career, and where the main character distinguishes themselves and progresses through the military hierarchy. But they still manage to put across polar opposite views because of the weight with which the author treats different messages. [footnote]Intentionally in this case because Haldeman wrote The Forever War as a Vietnam-era riposte to Starship Troopers[/footnote].
Which is fine - many great authors do it, many great books feature it. For every History and Moral Philosophy class there's a zealand darwinist, or a justification from Mazer/Graff, or a moral eulogy from a bloke called Kurtz or Kurz or Conrad or Konrad, or some other monologue which expounds a particular virtue.
So I'm not calling Heinlein a fascist or anything so blunt. But Starship Troopers itself is still pushing a message which I don't agree with. Hence the mention here.

It's also a far less nuanced portrayal than Heinlein's other stuff - for example, Stranger in a Strange Land is basically a vehicle to externally assess various 'accepted norms' in human (mostly Western) society, but it belabours the reader rather less than Starship Troopers does (with the exception of the whole free-love thing Smith has going on towards the end, which is a bit preachy[footnote]although restrained compared to Heinlein's other work focusing on sexuality[/footnote].

Do you think that Left Wing people are trying to take over the world, New World Order style, through acceptance of homosexuals and other minorities? What exactly have we done to destroy UK society? I'm genuinely curious.

The Guardian, particularly the comment section, is guilty of frequently...well if we're being honest lying its' ass off. It's also guilty of calling for action on situation's it's completely misunderstood. Like do you remember that Clarkson thing where they were commenting on that strike and Clarkson suggested hanging the lot of them? Well that was seen as being hugely insensitive and right wing but was actually a joke on something else the Guardian tends to hate; the need to present an alternate opinion even when that alternate opinion is stupid.

Also remember the 'plebgate' thing where the Guardian basically set out to smear a conservative MP not based on facts but based on it being something they could imagine a conservative MP saying? Remember their apology? No me neither.

This wasn't directed at me, but did any newspaper, left or right, apologise over Andrew Mitchell? And anyway, there were allegations made by a few police officers, it's not like the Guardian was responsible for inventing the words he apparently said.
CommentisFree is user generated. The Comment section contains opinion pieces, for which less editorial control is exerted, and less research/evidence generally expected. Most newspapers have something similar. For example, Peter Hitchins does spectacularly dishonest pieces in the equivalent section in the Express. Richard Littlejohn and Jain Moir do/did the same in the Mail.
Of course 'other media outlets being as bad' wouldn't excuse the Guardian, but it does make it rather odd for you to specifically pick it out. Especially when other outlets aren't just 'as bad' but are worse with regard to things like quantifiable instances of phone hacking.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Science fiction is my favourite genre, and I read a lot - I understand the concept of speculative fiction!
That said, Heinlein is almost masturbatory in his portray of this militaristic society. I can't really think of one negative thing he says about it at any point. That isn't pure speculative fiction, that's pushing a view.
And it makes a tangible difference to a book. For example, if you read The Forever War by Haldeman you'll note that the basic idea is fairly similar: Militaristic/autocratic society at war with other intelligent species, in which soldiers are made exceptionally well-versed in combat and equipped with top-of-the-line personal equipment, where they are encouraged to go career, and where the main character distinguishes themselves and progresses through the military hierarchy. But they still manage to put across polar opposite views because of the weight with which the author treats different messages. [footnote]Intentionally in this case because Haldeman wrote The Forever War as a Vietnam-era riposte to Starship Troopers[/footnote].

It's also often pointed out that while both of them served in the US military, only one of them them actually fought in a war.

 

[Princessbabe]

Ghost in the Shell. Both in the first movie and in Stand Alone Complex section 9 seem to be the go-to guys for assassinating anyone seeking political asylum. It seems GitS's Japan became a super-power by selling radiation scrubbing nanomachines after nuclear wars, and then building their infrastructure using the cheap labor of displaced Asian refugees.

While she is a great character, one of my all time favourites, Major Motoko Kusanagi does seem to have some fascist leanings.

 

[Littaly]

With LOTR, though, where we are supposed to think of them as the good guys, it's different.

I'm especially bothered by the gender politics.
For example, the valar are mentioned not to really be male or female, they just take those kinds of forms.
And yet they form male/female pairs?

Wouldn't want to seem gay or anything?
And why did all the wizards take male forms? They aren't really male or female either.

And don't get me started with female representation...

I love LOTR, but I acknowledge it's issues.

That wasn't actually my main issue with Lord of the Rings. I remember that when I read it I was a little unnerved by the whole Númenorean part of the story. When you boil it down they're basically a superior race of humans, not just in a physical sense but in a spiritual, moral and intellectual sense as well. I remember the book portraying the whole race of people as essentially perfect and incorruptable as opposed to the "normal" humans who were deeply flawed, greedy and curruptable. If I recall correctly it even stated that Gondor was in decline specifically because the bloodline of the Gondor kings had been mixed with non-Númenor blood and that Aragorn being crowned king was significant not only because he was the rightful heir but because he was pure blooded.

I might have misinterpreted the whole thing (or remember it wrong), but for me the idea of a superior human race and the decline of humanity because the blood of the superior mixed with the blood of the inferior reminded me a little too much of similar real-world ideas and beliefs. I love Lord of the Rings, but never really got over that part of the story.

The entirety of The Who's album, Quadrophenia.

Confused? Let's analyze:

* Reject your parents, authority figures, and all of society's norms

* Drive across country to instigate a fight with a rival gang that turns into a riot; enthusiastically participate in the riot

* Earn popularity and respect by taking copious amounts of drugs and engaging in innumerable sexual conquests

* Tell off your boss for making you do work; get fired

* Use sadistic power fantasies to facilitate masturbation if you can't find consensual sex

* Steal someone's prized possession - their status symbol - if they have the popularity you're struggling to achieve

* Commit suicide

---------------------------------

Okay, so the last one is only a theory, though heavily implied. Pete Townshend has never answered fans' questions as to whether or not Jimmy took his own life.

I'm actually gonna step in and defend Quadrophenia here. The actions of the main character are not necessarily the message of the album. I can't come up with another example right now, but there's plenty of movies with characters acting in a (often despicable way) way that are not encouraged by the movie itelf.

I've never found Quadrophenia to carry any real message, but rather a theme of abandonment. The need to belong somewhere but feeling that everywhere you seek shelter lets you down. To me, Jimmy's destructive behavior isn't as important to the album as his disillusionment with society's institutions. He feels let down by his famiy, by his job, by his music and ultimately even by his subculture. You can argue back and forth whether he has the right to feel that way, but I think the album is centering on the feeling itself, not on a message of whether or not it's justified.

That doesn't mean I think Townshend is criticizing the behaior of his main character. I wouldn't even argue with someone who says he's romanticising it. But I've never interpreted it as the message of the album, which is one of my favorites of all time, both musically and lyrically.

 

[Lieju]

With LOTR, though, where we are supposed to think of them as the good guys, it's different.

I'm especially bothered by the gender politics.
For example, the valar are mentioned not to really be male or female, they just take those kinds of forms.
And yet they form male/female pairs?

Wouldn't want to seem gay or anything?
And why did all the wizards take male forms? They aren't really male or female either.

And don't get me started with female representation...

I love LOTR, but I acknowledge it's issues.

That wasn't actually my main issue with Lord of the Rings. I remember that when I read it I was a little unnerved by the whole Númenorean part of the story. When you boil it down they're basically a superior race of humans, not just in a physical sense but in a spiritual, moral and intellectual sense as well. I remember the book portraying the whole race of people as essentially perfect and incorruptable as opposed to the "normal" humans who were deeply flawed, greedy and curruptable. If I recall correctly it even stated that Gondor was in decline specifically because the bloodline of the Gondor kings had been mixed with non-Númenor blood and that Aragorn being crowned king was significant not only because he was the rightful heir but because he was pure blooded.

Yeah, that's true, and LOTR has its fair share of racism.

The reason it doesn't bother me as much is that it's more often discussed and acknowledged as a problem.
(At least in the circles I hang around in.)

It shouldn't be ignored, of course, especially since LOTR is still so influential.

So the kind of attitudes that the high wise and beautiful beings are of course white persist.

(Although I assumed, when I read The Silmarillion as a kid that the Númenorians were not exactly white. They are probably described in the text but I think I made the connection with Atlantis and Egyptians and the Middle-east, what with it sinking into the sea and being the cradle of cilization.)

 

[themilo504]

mother 3 comes to mind, I really dislike that games anti-technology lesson and the way it idealizes the past, and yet it?s still one of my favourite jrps.

 

[Buckshaft]

Saw. Cherish your life! But only after it's been threatened by a serial killer!

 

[Buckshaft]

Snip

All british newspapers are shit. At least the redtops have page 3 going for them. The Guardian is basically the mail for pretentious left-wingers, and the only way I'd ever support the guardian is buying those Charlier Brooker books they publish.

 

[Dalisclock]

mother 3 comes to mind, I really dislike that games anti-technology lesson and the way it idealizes the past, and yet it?s still one of my favourite jrps.

I saw it as more of a Japanese take on "One hundred years of solitude" with a lot of loss of innocence thrown in.

And some wacky time travel hijinks, but it's a Mother game.

 

[Dalisclock]

KSP, because Kerbals are expendable as long as there's SCIENCE.

Also because they're cute. They're practically minions from Despicable Me.