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Snowman_McK posted:Actually is John Lovitz still alive? Yep, still alive. Still not marriage to Morgan Fairchild, but still alive. Snowman_McK posted:You need to tell us what's wrong with doing this because, honestly, nothing leaps out. Wakanda isn't depicted as a good place. We only see its ruling class and, honestly, they're all really lovely and useless. I'll answer your question with my own question. What's wrong with the Global War on Terror? I mean Evil American Imperialists vs. rear end in a top hat Religious Terrorists. Both sides suck so shouldn't we root for that war to go on forever? Sure we should. Unless we're, you know, Muslims who live in the areas that America tends to blow the poo poo out of. Or also, you know, people who can feel a modicum of human compassion for the Muslims who lives in rocket/bomb/Reaper range of whatever "high value target" the CIA et al decided to gank next. What's wrong with that is it's a loving war. What do you think happens to all those oppressed black people when the new face of international supertech terrorism is black? I mean, how much net benefit did Muslims gain due to 9-11?
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May 6, 2021 01:30
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Everyone posted:Yep, still alive. Still not marriage to Morgan Fairchild, but still alive. So, there's violence and oppression aimed at black people, which is completely different to now.
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May 6, 2021 01:34
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POWELL CURES KIDS posted:Yeah, my tendency to beat dead horses has been frequently noted through my life, and I'm sorry, seriously, for the tedium. I can certainly understand, and respect, that the film is a product of contradictions. They're what I'm objecting to, after all, and the fact is that if I'd enjoyed it on at least some other level, I probably wouldn't be (over)reacting the way that I am. Tossing problematic media would mean tossing most media, and being able to enjoy something despite finding it objectionable is basic self-care in 2021. Halloween Jack posted:Oh sure, I understand that representation isn't nothing. I'm saying that this movie ultimately doesn't have better politics than, like, Rambo 3. So the culture war around it, like all kulturkampf, is very dumb and bad. I think regardless, critique shouldn't be used as cudgel in either direction. Black Panther's aspirational afro futurism and Black great movie ride delight doesn't eradicate critiques about the CIA presence or the fact that Black Panther's big charitable action is a thing that Ryan Coogler could just do himself.
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May 6, 2021 01:49
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It's still weird to me that, in a franchise where a drunken lunatic in a power suit apparently privatised world peace between movies and invented free energy in a cave, black liberation and empowerment are the things where we start wondering what outcome would be most realistic.
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May 6, 2021 02:00
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The big question, honestly, is finding ways to critique any given element of the MCU without overlooking two dozen other hosed up things from the films. Your fingers would go raw typing. That's like a two, maybe three adderall job right there.
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May 6, 2021 02:52
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Snowman_McK posted:So, there's violence and oppression aimed at black people, which is completely different to now. Do you imagine that having to also deal with U.S./Western/Developed World bombing raids and occupations would somehow make those things better? Snowman_McK posted:It's still weird to me that, in a franchise where a drunken lunatic in a power suit apparently privatised world peace between movies and invented free energy in a cave, black liberation and empowerment are the things where we start wondering what outcome would be most realistic. And is there world peace in the MCU, privatized or not? And is there free energy? So did the awesome stuff the drunk lunatic did in that cave have any lasting effect on the status quo except to reinforce it? If I'm more skeptical of Erik Stevens's plan it's because we've seen versions of it play out in the real world. Germany was somewhat more technologically advanced with better trained soldier. They still lost WWII because they were one nation basically fighting the rest of the world. Osama bin Laden's grand gesture on 9-11 accomplished little more than getting a fuckton of Muslims killed later. Violent revolution is one tool in the box. Soft power is still power. Erik Stevens was basically Wakandan Donald Trump, spinning bullshit he half-believed to people who wanted to believe it.
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May 6, 2021 02:55
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Is the direction you've chosen to take here really "Killmonger Hitler, Wakanda Weimar Germany"? Because that's a spicy one, dude, and I'd love to watch it play out.
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May 6, 2021 03:00
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Kilmonger is also basically pretty much Trump; also that annoying co-worker I hate.
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May 6, 2021 03:02
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The barista that refuses to smile at me. A person taking too long at the drive-thru. Dogs with really bad farts. Sometimes, in the darker moments, he becomes me, sneering from the mirror.
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May 6, 2021 03:13
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Yeah, if we're saying that he's a slightly less self-aware Bane, who is already fairly problematic, except we're also wrapping him in the flag of black liberation, hoo boy
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May 6, 2021 03:36
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LesterGroans posted:It's very strange to me to paint the opinion "monarchies are bad" as pearl-clutching. Particularly an African monarchy, clearly not ceremonial, in opposition to an anti imperialist challenger which is not a scenario you can divorce from its historical precedents. If the complaint is a vague “well what about other movies with heroic royalist characters”, it’s horseshit there too, in Star Wars, lord of the rings, whatever. fatherboxx posted:As long as their main audience cheers for the boot to crush dissent Modi has been struggling with perhaps the largest protests in history, and the US is caving on sars cov 2 vaccine patent protections is probably at least in part to help him stay in power
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May 6, 2021 03:46
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Everyone posted:And is there world peace in the MCU, privatized or not? And is there free energy? So did the awesome stuff the drunk lunatic did in that cave have any lasting effect on the status quo except to reinforce it? No, nothing ever has any effect on the status quo in the MCU. this is my point. Everyone posted:Germany was somewhat more technologically advanced with better trained soldier. No, they weren't. At the outbreak of the war, they had a smaller army and smaller and less advanced tank fleet than france. They were doctrinally less developed than the soviets were in 1929 and every aspect of their infrastructure was riddled with stupid nazi brains. They weren't a massive quantum leap ahead of every other power on earth, the way Wakanda is.
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May 6, 2021 04:19
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Snowman_McK posted:The idea that Wakanda would be destroyed, by the way, is entirely an invention of yours. It's not a concern for anyone in the film. If we're not allowed to read killmonger beyond the bounds of the film's footage, then Wakanda's imminent destruction's not really a thing either. This is not what I meant, reading beyond the film is fine, good even, outright rewriting the film to suit a narrative is not. I’m taking what I see and extrapolating intent and result with the destruction of Wakanda thing. Because what we see does suggest Erik Stevens doesn’t care about the future of Wakanda, only that he can use them to start a global war that might destroy them, or might leave him kind of a global empire. Also, I think that being upset Tony Stark in the only one use of the infinity gems he had chose to destroy Thanos and nothing else isn’t some we must always return to the Status Quo when he did not expect to have the gems ever in the first place and had an immediate threat needing an immediate solution. Especially when to me every movie and show since has been about the status quo having changed, the world has changed. But my readings are obviously my own and I’m not gonna sit here and tell you yours are wrong, that was never my intent. I just never saw the movies as ignoring the advancements (especially when we repeatedly see signs of advanced medical technology at the very minimum) so much as uninterested in going into deep detail about how Tony Stark gave every city an Arc Reactor. Yes the world still resembles our own, but fhat doesn’t somehow mean there hasn’t been changes. I’d certainly enjoy more signs of those changes, but I sincerely believe they exist, they’re just not some global super peace no more capitalism stuff.
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May 6, 2021 04:31
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Lord_Magmar posted:Also, I think that being upset Tony Stark in the only one use of the infinity gems he had chose to destroy Thanos and nothing else isn’t some we must always return to the Status Quo when he did not expect to have the gems ever in the first place and had an immediate threat needing an immediate solution. My mistake. It was actually the Hulk who, with the limitless power of creation, restored the status quo.
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May 6, 2021 04:43
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Lord_Magmar posted:Because what we see does suggest Erik Stevens doesn’t care about the future of Wakanda, I got that, I also don't give a poo poo about the future of wakanda. I have no reason to care at all. None is given by the film.
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May 6, 2021 04:44
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Lord_Magmar posted:Also, I think that being upset Tony Stark in the only one use of the infinity gems he had chose to destroy Thanos and nothing else isn’t some we must always return to the Status Quo when he did not expect to have the gems ever in the first place and had an immediate threat needing an immediate solution. Especially when to me every movie and show since has been about the status quo having changed, the world has changed. But my readings are obviously my own and I’m not gonna sit here and tell you yours are wrong, that was never my intent. I just never saw the movies as ignoring the advancements (especially when we repeatedly see signs of advanced medical technology at the very minimum) so much as uninterested in going into deep detail about how Tony Stark gave every city an Arc Reactor. Certainly, there's zero interest in the 20+ films to show Stark deviating at all from his position as a billionaire tech-capitalist shifting to the privatization of violence. But there's time for extended scenes where War Machine jokes about how he used Stark's tech to totally own some foreign general on behalf of the U.S. and the punchline is that the Avengers are like 'whatever', and Stark gloriously bestowing elite university students with unlimited resources to save the world.
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May 6, 2021 05:11
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POWELL CURES KIDS posted:Is the direction you've chosen to take here really "Killmonger Hitler, Wakanda Weimar Germany"? Because that's a spicy one, dude, and I'd love to watch it play out. Nah, I think more skilled, less cowardly Donald Trump fits him best. And in a way, that's not a disparagement. Donald Trump got more votes than any other presidential candidate in the history of the USA in 2020 - except Joe Biden. Trump was full of BS but he had a whole lot of people willing to buy that BS. The Germany thing was me buying the myth of Nazi super-weapons as was pointed out below.
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May 6, 2021 05:11
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Everyone posted:The Germany thing was me buying the myth of Nazi super-weapons as was pointed out below. It's all good. I've been meaning to do a video essay or something on how persistent that myth is. I was recently in a conversation where somebody said 'the nazis couldn't have been that dumb, they came up with the V-2' fun fact about the v-2: More people died developing it than were ever killed by its use. By a factor of ten. Snowman_McK fucked around with this message at 05:21 on May 6, 2021 |
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May 6, 2021 05:15
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Everyone posted:Nah, I think more skilled, less cowardly Donald Trump fits him best. And in a way, that's not a disparagement. Donald Trump got more votes than any other presidential candidate in the history of the USA in 2020 - except Joe Biden. Trump was full of BS but he had a whole lot of people willing to buy that BS. This is insanity. Tell us more about how 'black power' is not that different from 'white power'.
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May 6, 2021 05:21
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KVeezy3 posted:This is insanity. Tell us more about how 'black power' is not that different from 'white power'. I see the point they're making, but I think it just highlights the problems of depicting Wakanda as they did.
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May 6, 2021 05:22
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The intellectual problem I have with the monarchy criticism is that it's a piece of fiction and monarchies can at times take a more figurative role. Yes, literally, it is problematic that Aragorn becomes King or that Aladdin doesn't lead a peasant revolt with his final wish. And while there is some discussion to be had about how we position benevolent monarchies in fiction, it's a critique that leaves people distant from the text. Because if your focus is all on how monarchies are bad and not what is being communicated when Aragon kneels in front of the Hobbits, you're not engaging in the text itself to create deeper readings. It's a very limited criticism in a way that I don't think the CIA or MIC stuff is. There are a lot of nuances on screen in how Wakanda is being depicted. There is some form of representation amongst the tribes and they are being shut out by Killmonger with preference only given the ICE tribe. There's a lot going on in regards to the position of women in Wakanda. There is a lot going on with there being a system to peacefully transition power which Killmonger destroys, something that T'Challa's main rival before Killmonger cannot bring himself to do. And all of this stuff is not to say that the movie is good, but for better or for worse it's stuff that needs to be understood to discuss the film at all in any direction. And just going, "Monarchies are bad" runs a bulldozer over it. But at another level like, I really do understand why someone is upset about making a CIA Agent relatable or the broader MIC trends in the MCU. Or how people are afraid that Killmonger works on angry black man stereotypes or can be a strawman for actual real world revolution. Like what is the fear here though? That all the kids want to start monarchies? Do you think the movie is pro-monarchy in that it is suggesting we should do away with natural rights? Is the movie in any way propaganda for any real life monarchy? And like look, if you don't like the movie because you can't make that jump because obviously a monarchy is not a great real world thing then that's fine. I actually struggle to connect with Lord of the Rings. But when people are like the movie is bad because it's pro-monarchy that just seems really silly to me. Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 14:10 on May 6, 2021 |
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May 6, 2021 05:24
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Snowman_McK posted:I see the point they're making, but I think it just highlights the problems of depicting Wakanda as they did. In order to make the analogy, the premise is that the people in Wakanda, and the Wakandaians around the world who sided with Kilmonger's plan to liberate the oppressed beyond nation states are a bunch of dumb & racist rubes.
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May 6, 2021 05:27
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KVeezy3 posted:The premise of the analogy work is that the people in Wakanda, and the Wakandaians around the world who sided with Kilmonger are a bunch of dumb & racist rubes. I think the analogy more rests on a superpower getting a weird crazy leader, disrupting its chain of more sensible leaders, but a) the two most prominent examples are both intimately linked with white supremacy and b) it's not like the sensible leaders weren't upholding horrible systems anyway. It shows why using an reclusive African superpower to make a clumsy point about imperialism is a very bad idea, since every recent empire has built and maintained its power on the bones of colonised brown and black people. Wakanda, for all its moral ambivalence, didn't. It became a superpower simply through innovation and magic. When I reviewed it at release, one of my biggest problems was that trying to make any point about the real world with a fantastical empire with essentially no historical precedent on any level is pure folly.
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May 6, 2021 05:32
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Snowman_McK posted:My mistake. It was actually the Hulk who, with the limitless power of creation, restored the status quo. Except the Snap still happened and every work since has shown the world is different now, some more so than other. Falcon and the Winger Soldier is explicitly the GRC trying to totally undo the Snap on a geopolitical level and they are presented as wrong to do so.l because returning to the status quo of five years ago requires crushing people under the guise of relocation. The stones are mysterious and they straight up kill most people to use, I don’t think the Avengers choosing to specifically undo Thanos actions but not the five years since is representational of a return to status quo, explicitly because that would be undoing the last 5 years of time. In terms of Wakanda only growing from magic and inspiration I think perhaps that’s not the intent of the movie, my reading was that T’challa actually conceded that Wakanda’s power and security and safety came at the cost of completely abandoning the rest of Africa to predation, and that their failing was choosing their own survival over assisting their brethren. Of course the movie fumbles it by having their solution be outreach programs to America, but I can forgive T’challa in universe given he literally was doing it for Erik’s community first. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 05:44 on May 6, 2021 |
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May 6, 2021 05:39
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Snowman_McK posted:I think the analogy more rests on a superpower getting a weird crazy leader, disrupting its chain of more sensible leaders, but a) the two most prominent examples are both intimately linked with white supremacy and b) it's not like the sensible leaders weren't upholding horrible systems anyway. It shows why using an reclusive African superpower to make a clumsy point about imperialism is a very bad idea, since every recent empire has built and maintained its power on the bones of colonised brown and black people. Wakanda, for all its moral ambivalence, didn't. It became a superpower simply through innovation and magic. When I reviewed it at release, one of my biggest problems was that trying to make any point about the real world with a fantastical empire with essentially no historical precedent on any level is pure folly. Sure, but Trump is hardly the exemplar of the insincere use of populist tactics to gain power - Plato wrote about that stuff. Embedded in this argument is that we must accept that Kilmonger doesn't actually care about the plight of black & oppressed people, because he's too violent overall and is disrespectful of the traditions of the Wakandian royal family?
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May 6, 2021 05:40
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Lord_Magmar posted:In terms of Wakanda only growing from magic and inspiration I think perhaps that’s not the intent of the movie No, that's very much how Wakanda came to be and that's why I said it's without historical precedent. Every nation or culture that ended up a superpower didn't do it by being a full several beats ahead of its competitors, they did it by brutally conquering rivals and even more brutally conquering and exploiting weaker powers (and often sabotaging things that might have become rivals if they hadn't been sabotaged). Wakanda became a superpower without any of that. It's current status as the single most advanced and powerful nation state isn't based on the brutal exploitation of anyone else. It's entirely without precedent. And so using it to try to make a point about real life imperalism which is inherently founded and maintained by exploitation as much as blind luck and timing, results in very clumsy analogies. Lord_Magmar posted:The stones are mysterious and they straight up kill most people to use, I don’t think the Avengers choosing to specifically undo Thanos actions but not the five years since is representational of a return to status quo, explicitly because that would be undoing the last 5 years of time. 'bringing everyone back who died' is restoring the status quo, since the change was 'people died' Especially since every subsequent film could also have taken place pre-snap with very little change. KVeezy3 posted:Sure, but Trump is hardly the exemplar of the insincere use of populist tactics to gain power - Plato wrote about that stuff. Embedded in this argument is that we must accept that Kilmonger doesn't actually care about the plight of black & oppressed people, because he's too violent overall and is disrespectful of the traditions of the Wakandian royal family? Well, he's a poor analogue anyway, since killmonger gains the throne purely off his own abilities in wakanda's extremely stupid system of government, whereas trump is very much 'right place, right time' and the failures of his predecessors and hillary being somehow worse at politics than the dumbest man alive. I'm just trying to do a good faith reading of what Everyone said. It's new territory for me.
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May 6, 2021 06:28
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Snowman_McK posted:It's still weird to me that, in a franchise where a drunken lunatic in a power suit apparently privatised world peace between movies and invented free energy in a cave, black liberation and empowerment are the things where we start wondering what outcome would be most realistic. Black liberation and empowerment is more likely to happen than world peace or free energy. Not by much, but it is at least something where a realistic scenario can be speculated on. You can't speculate on how free energy is most likely to be discovered.
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May 6, 2021 11:21
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Jedit posted:Black liberation and empowerment is more likely to happen than world peace or free energy. Not by much, but it is at least something where a realistic scenario can be speculated on. You can't speculate on how free energy is most likely to be discovered. You don’t need to speculate on how; it already exists in the narrative. Stark has built thousands of increasingly-sophisticated reactors in various sizes. Let’s accept that. It’s then very easy to critique “free energy” concepts, because free energy is never actually free. What are the reactors made out of? Where do those materials come from? How is the energy transmitted? Who’s doing the upkeep and maintenance? And what is being charged for it? An obvious analogy to “free energy” would be how the internet has “free information”. Sounds great! So why is it such a blasted hellscape? Why is it so difficult to access? Along these same lines, let’s just momentarily assume that Eric’s a complete charlatan and nothing he said is sincere whatsoever, because he exclusively wants to kill a billion people for no raisin. We can go further: let’s say Eric doesn’t even diegetically exist in the film; he’s a hologram or something, as per Spiderman 2. So what’s the danger? Eric is nothing without the people who believe in emancipatory politics. Lots of Wakandans are obviously loving fed up at being trapped in this horse-poo poo Potterverse. Are they also liars and holograms? And again, it’s not just them; Killmonger is sending support to Hong Kong, etc. Are the people of Hong Kong also fakes and liars? The logic voiced repeatedly in this thread instantly dissolves into conspiracy theory. How deep does it go???
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May 6, 2021 14:50
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Lord_Magmar posted:This is not what I meant, reading beyond the film is fine, good even, outright rewriting the film to suit a narrative is not. I’m taking what I see and extrapolating intent and result with the destruction of Wakanda thing. Because what we see does suggest Erik Stevens doesn’t care about the future of Wakanda, only that he can use them to start a global war that might destroy them, or might leave him kind of a global empire. Tell me that the MCU changed the status quo after winter soldier, a movie saying directly that US domestic and foreign policy since ww2 has been directed by fantasy Nazis, and I will call you a liar.
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May 6, 2021 14:53
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Maybe if the story has a designated role for "monster man who only wants bad things to happen because he's a monster man" and every critique of why this particular role was filled by a guy whose stated politics and goals of black liberation are incredibly resonant to the current real life state of things ends up in "look you don't get it, he was the monster man who only wants bad things to happen because he's a monster man, so you can't trust him, even if you do agree with black liberation, and frankly I think you've been fooled by the monster man who only wants bad things to happen because he's a monster man", maybe we should question why the story even needs to have a monster man who only wants bad things to happen because he's a monster man.
I Before E fucked around with this message at 17:29 on May 6, 2021 |
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May 6, 2021 17:26
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https://twitter.com/allisonkilkenny/status/1385597080857681921?s=19 Still the MVP tweet on the subject.
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May 6, 2021 17:32
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I'd trade the entire MCU in a microsecond for a One Piece film saga.
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May 6, 2021 17:32
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I Before E posted:Maybe if the story has a designated role for "monster man who only wants bad things to happen because he's a monster man" and every critique of why this particular role was filled by a guy whose stated politics and goals of black liberation are incredibly resonant to the current real life state of things ends up in "look you don't get it, he was the monster man who only wants bad things to happen because he's a monster man, so you can't trust him, even if you do agree with black liberation, and frankly I think you've been fooled by the monster man who only wants bad things to happen because he's a monster man", maybe we should question why the story even needs to have a monster man who only wants bad things to happen because he's a monster man. The corresponding question is: if all these villains are just irrationally murderous demons trying to blow up the Earth for no reason whatsoever, why even bother with all this "fake" characterization? Why not just replace them with, like, random asteroids. Iron Man fights to stop a bunch of asteroids, the Avengers unite to stop a larger asteroid, etc.
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May 6, 2021 17:57
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:The corresponding question is: if all these villains are just irrationally murderous demons trying to blow up the Earth for no reason whatsoever, why even bother with all this "fake" characterization? That's the territory of the Armageddon Expanded Universe
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May 6, 2021 18:02
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:The corresponding question is: if all these villains are just irrationally murderous demons trying to blow up the Earth for no reason whatsoever, why even bother with all this "fake" characterization? The Avengers are all on one side of the asteroid pushing it away from Earth, but then Star Lord realises his girlfriend died of radiation emitted by the asteroid, so he punches the asteroid in anger so hard that it turns back towards the Earth and the rest of the Avengers are like "noooooo"
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May 6, 2021 18:08
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Dr Strange knew this would happen, but he couldn't prevent it because it turns out this is the best way to stop the asteroid
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May 6, 2021 18:11
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Iron Man is an asteroid manufactorer.
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May 6, 2021 18:28
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KVeezy3 posted:Sure, but Trump is hardly the exemplar of the insincere use of populist tactics to gain power - Plato wrote about that stuff. Embedded in this argument is that we must accept that Kilmonger doesn't actually care about the plight of black & oppressed people, because he's too violent overall and is disrespectful of the traditions of the Wakandian royal family? It's not that Erik doesn't care about the plight of the oppressed, it's that he cares about his own issues and vengeance more. I have no problem believing that Erik cared about his girlfriend on some level. It didn't stop him from killing her.
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May 6, 2021 21:59
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Part of the problem with the argument that Killmonger doesn't actually care about oppressed people, or at least that's not his primary motivation and is just all about personal revenge is that in that narrative he is still a massive babyface. Think about it: A member of a royal family is cut off from his home after his father is murdered by others in the family for the crime of trying to help the oppressed. This exile spends years training and gaining the skills to get revenge, rolls back into his home kingdom alone with no backup or allies and challenges the king - his cousin - to single combat to determine the rightful king, as is the very stupid local custom. During the duel one of the kings advisors tries to interfere, but the exile still wins the fight and is crowned king and he announces his plan to continue his fathers work and help the oppressed using his royal resources... and we're supposed to think this guy is the villian?
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May 6, 2021 22:27
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I Before E posted:That's the territory of the Armageddon Expanded Universe Marvel's Nerdonauts
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May 6, 2021 23:20
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