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KVeezy3 posted:I wholeheartedly agree with what you've written here, and please correct me if I'm wrong as to your intent, but I would posit that the caveat of the U.S.'s conception of race cannot be removed from class in an analytic perspective, because of how hopelessly & historically intertwined they are. The idea of reaching a point where race is nothing more dangerous than sports rivalry is admittedly tempting and, I realize that your analogy is not literal, but it's still useful to convey how the notion of race itself would remain as a potential threat for the hypothetical future, because of the atrocious way private sports teams in the U.S. worth billions leverage cities against each other to fund their stadiums at the cost of publicly funded infrastructure or the IOC's Olympic competitions that champion the pride of the nation-state presenting it on the global stage at the cost of the unwashed masses of whatever current city it happens to occur. You can call me an absurd idealist, but I would aim for the eradication race as substance completely, excepting the acknowledgement of its historical shaping as a concept. I think race can be removed from class to at least some extent because it has been for other groups. Irish, Italians and Chinese people all faced horrific bigotry in our nation. I think one hurdle for black people comes out of the legacy of one of the more perverse aspects of slavery. See it wasn't enough that white people (and yes, some black people) owned slaves. They wanted to feel good about themselves while doing that. So, you had John C. Calhoun's concept of slavery as a "positive good." "But let me not be understood as admitting, even by implication, that the existing relations between the two races in the slaveholding States is an evil:–far otherwise; I hold it to be a good, as it has thus far proved itself to be to both, and will continue to prove so if not disturbed by the fell spirit of abolition. I appeal to facts. Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually." Of course that asshat's "positive good" requires that black people are intrinsically inferior to white people - which is bullshit. But it's bullshit that a lot of less-than-accomplished white people cling to in the absence of any other claim to success. KVeezy3 posted:You're correct that Trump exposed how much a section of white people are willing to out themselves as explicitly racist in service of their own interests, but what the usual media narrative elides about his rise to power is how necessary the other members of the populous were. This includes getting the votes of the bourgeois middle to upper class white people who would protest how they are definitionally not racist, just 'fiscally conservative'; as well as the gaining of the highest percentage of support of non-whites a Republican presidential candidate was able in the last 60 years. I'm fine with people voting their self-interest. I vote my self-interest. Of course, I vote Democratic because I see my interest being served by good things coming to all people not just the ones who look and live like me. The Democratic party is a Frankensteinian mess of special interests who have found common ground and compromise. That's a big reason I vote Democratic, because no one group is going to be allowed to stampede the others. Even if there's stuff I might like in the GOP, they're so homogeneous that the right impulse can turn them into lemmings. And Trump did.
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May 9, 2021 08:37
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Everyone posted:, because no one group is going to be allowed to stampede the others. This isn't remotely true and a cursory glance at the last election will tell you that.
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May 9, 2021 09:27
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Everyone posted:I think race can be removed from class to at least some extent because it has been for other groups. Irish, Italians and Chinese people all faced horrific bigotry in our nation. I think one hurdle for black people comes out of the legacy of one of the more perverse aspects of slavery. See it wasn't enough that white people (and yes, some black people) owned slaves. They wanted to feel good about themselves while doing that. So, you had John C. Calhoun's concept of slavery as a "positive good." "But let me not be understood as admitting, even by implication, that the existing relations between the two races in the slaveholding States is an evil:–far otherwise; I hold it to be a good, as it has thus far proved itself to be to both, and will continue to prove so if not disturbed by the fell spirit of abolition. I appeal to facts. Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually." Of course that asshat's "positive good" requires that black people are intrinsically inferior to white people - which is bullshit. But it's bullshit that a lot of less-than-accomplished white people cling to in the absence of any other claim to success. I mean that race and class can't be disentangled in the sense that critiquing race in the U.S. ideologically requires holding the historical context of class relations closely. How the Irish and Italians 'worked' their way from being officially black to white from the 19th to the 20th century offers us a view into how race functions to propagate the formal/informal caste system that reflects the extant populous. And it's the ideological nature of race that generates the superiority fantasies like the one you've referenced. Because consciousness must justify itself as inherently good, every horrible and destructive act is always said to be done for some greater good; the evil of an act is always projected onto and for the Other. It's why the idea that standard superhero fiction is good because it at least teaches kids the difference between right and wrong is nonsensical. Colonialists wanted the land and resources of Native Americans, so they constructed a fantasy that justified genocide. People wanted to use imported chattel slave labor that had nowhere to run, so they built a narrative about how black people are savages naturally gifted at manual labor and cannot survive without masters. Once slavery was no longer the engine of economic growth, then black people retroactively became naturally lazy and leeches on our social safety net. Of course as other posters noted, anytime black people started to build something for themselves despite it all, white people, with the support of the government, would destroy everything with the slimmest of pretexts. Nations around the world need their minority groups while they oppress them, as their function in the social order is useful on the fantasmic level as a nexus point at which people can project their dissatisfactions of the ways that they and their society fail as an idea. Zizek wrote about how we can leverage this point as leftists: that the Black Lives Matter mantra highlights how black people's conditions in the U.S. manifests Hegel's conception of 'Concrete universality' infinitely more than the nothing slogan that is All Lives Matter. This opens up the space to, to show one example, demonstrate to white people how racism against black people hurts white people too; which is something the actual Black Panther Party did, and why they had to be wiped off the face of the earth. And it's because the film Black Panther presents incrementalist neo-liberal policy as something cool and radical that 1) ignores all of this and 2) has already been tried and failed repeatedly that I find it so off-putting. Everyone posted:I'm fine with people voting their self-interest. I vote my self-interest. Of course, I vote Democratic because I see my interest being served by good things coming to all people not just the ones who look and live like me. The Democratic party is a Frankensteinian mess of special interests who have found common ground and compromise. That's a big reason I vote Democratic, because no one group is going to be allowed to stampede the others. Even if there's stuff I might like in the GOP, they're so homogeneous that the right impulse can turn them into lemmings. And Trump did. I'm not saying that people shouldn't vote for their self-interests, as solidarity is the only way for the left to win, but that it should always be critiqued relentlessly. I think characterizing the GOP as lemmings doesn't give them enough credit. They were always wary of Trump, and they never wanted him as their nominee in 2016. Once he showed that he could no longer win them the presidency, they dropped him like the worthless pariah he is. You wrote that no one group can stomp out the others, but look at the polls for one example: people overwhelmingly want universal healthcare on "both sides", but we can't even get a vote to vote on it with a Democratic president and a majority in the House and Senate during a pandemic. You say that Democrats at least bring some good to all people, but what about the effect of foreign policy on the rest of the world? And this leaves out the U.S.'s parasitic and destructive position in the extant stage of the world's economy in financialized global capitalism. It's precisely that Trump's entire act was an embarrassing disaster for the U.S.'s image on the world stage that the ruling class was never with him the way they were with Obama, and it's why he was never actually a threat to pull a coup and bring about fascism or whatever. The film Black Panther's ending had Wakanda reveal its true self on the international stage, which included a rebuke of Trump. Now that Trump is out of office, what does it stand for? KVeezy3 fucked around with this message at 16:25 on May 9, 2021 |
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May 9, 2021 13:14
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"In the colonies the economic substructure is also a superstructure. The cause is the consequence; you are rich because you are white, you are white because you are rich. This is why Marxist analysis should always be slightly stretched every time we have to do with the colonial problem." ...and the US is a colony, even though it had to import and manufacture a nationality to oppress. Race and racism aren't incidental epiphenomena that just tumbled out of class by accident; they're fundamental building blocks of the global capitalist era. The post-facto legal and ideological justifications for white supremacy - such as Disney's Black Panther - are secondary to the underlying economic relation, but race itself is not.
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May 9, 2021 18:26
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KVeezy3 posted:I mean that race and class can't be disentangled in the sense that critiquing race in the U.S. ideologically requires holding the historical context of class relations closely. How the Irish and Italians 'worked' their way from being officially black to white from the 19th to the 20th century offers us a view into how race functions to propagate the formal/informal caste system that reflects the extant populous. I admit that one reason I voted for Obama was his incrementalism. Part of that was "well, he probably won't jump feet-first into another unnecessary war like Bush did." But another part is that true equality is going to require white people to vote for it and support it. Or at least not actively oppose it. And the best way to boil those particular frogs is to do it slowly enough that they don't notice that the water's getting hotter. For my part I kind of wanted the BLM slogan to be Black Lives Also Matter, because B.L.A.M. there it is, but that's just me. KVeezy3 posted:I'm not saying that people shouldn't vote for their self-interests, as solidarity is the only way for the left to win, but that it should always be critiqued relentlessly. The "ruling class" might have tried to drop Trump, but he's still around and still very much exercising influence and basically still running the GOP in every way that matters. Five'll get you ten that if he's still alive in 2024, he'll be the GOP nominee. Hell, there's decent chance the fucker will end up President again. Everyone fucked around with this message at 18:41 on May 9, 2021 |
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May 9, 2021 18:39
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Everyone posted:I admit that one reason I voted for Obama was his incrementalism. Part of that was "well, he probably won't jump feet-first into another unnecessary war like Bush did." But another part is that true equality is going to require white people to vote for it and support it. Or at least not actively oppose it. And the best way to boil those particular frogs is to do it slowly enough that they don't notice that the water's getting hotter. Unfortunately, it doesn't work this way, as has been demonstrated by the complete failure of incrementalism as it's only given the right all the time in the world to lash back against it and double down in response to even the mildest perceived progress, while liberals have no idea how to respond meaningfully to it beyond worthless platitudes while institutional violence ramps up under both parties.
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May 9, 2021 19:05
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Both republicans and democrats are capital L Liberal parties, it is not some kind of unfortunate tragedy that things stay the same. The MCU is the perfect mirror for this, it does not matter what groundbreaking revelation happens next, the system needs to be preserved.
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May 9, 2021 19:12
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Are you guys done fighting about politics in the place I go to escape from politics
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May 9, 2021 20:55
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Dude like 90% of contemporary superhero movies are about how cool the CIA is. Black Panther just did us the courtesy of not pretending otherwise.
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May 9, 2021 21:12
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Why would you escape from politics into a 'U' where literally every character is an intelligence agent and they reference drone strikes every five minutes.
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May 9, 2021 21:13
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Ferrinus posted:Dude like 90% of contemporary superhero movies are about how cool the CIA is. Black Panther just did us the courtesy of not pretending otherwise. Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 21:55 on May 9, 2021 |
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May 9, 2021 21:14
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Timeless Appeal posted:Further evidence that The Dark Knight Rises is actually a good movie. It's super explicit that the CiA is indeed not cool. Ah well, how do we know that the Nolanverse actually has a Central Intelligence Agency, the character introduces himself as CIA, that could just be his name.   Also, epitome of cool.
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May 9, 2021 21:39
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Dark knight rises was too busy having its occupy revolutionary beaten down by the heroic cops to also whitewash the cia
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May 9, 2021 21:44
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Pillowpants posted:Are you guys done fighting about politics in the place I go to escape from politics 
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May 9, 2021 22:35
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Ferrinus posted:"In the colonies the economic substructure is also a superstructure. The cause is the consequence; you are rich because you are white, you are white because you are rich. This is why Marxist analysis should always be slightly stretched every time we have to do with the colonial problem." I have nothing to add, just love me some Fanon. Everyone posted:The "ruling class" might have tried to drop Trump, but he's still around and still very much exercising influence and basically still running the GOP in every way that matters. Five'll get you ten that if he's still alive in 2024, he'll be the GOP nominee. Hell, there's decent chance the fucker will end up President again. I'm kinda fascinated at what the GOP nominee will ultimately be, as Trump kinda ran roughshod over their whole usual spiel, and I don't think there's any going back to the usual. I personally don't think Trump has a chance after how badly he screwed up Covid-19, nevermind cheerleading a goddamn insurrection. Just no Prez Zuckerberg please: even the Snyderverse isn't that grimdark. Pillowpants posted:Are you guys done fighting about politics in the place I go to escape from politics That's my b: I definitely sprawled way too much. KVeezy3 fucked around with this message at 23:25 on May 9, 2021 |
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May 9, 2021 22:38
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ugh quote not edit
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May 9, 2021 23:23
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Junkozeyne posted:Dark knight rises was too busy having its occupy revolutionary beaten down by the heroic cops to also whitewash the cia yeah lmao at talking about dark knight rises as having good politics. it’s the OG of “this villain is objectively right, psyche just kidding he actually just wants to blow up the city and kill everybody with a big bomb” in modern superhero movies
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May 9, 2021 23:33
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Mandrel posted:yeah lmao at talking about dark knight rises as having good politics. it’s the OG of “this villain is objectively right, psyche just kidding he actually just wants to blow up the city and kill everybody with a big bomb” in modern superhero movies To be fair, OP was talking strictly about the superhero films' love of the CIA as a whole. Although the film does present the CIA as meaningfully trying to protect the world from a super nuclear bomb, them getting in way over their heads is a pretty good punchline. But then we have Batman v Superman, where the CIA is presented as, not just a bunch of bumbling idiots, but ones that would, in cold-blood, create massive death & destruction to hide that very fact. Regrettably, DKR has some hardcore liberal energy, but I find it joyfully re-watchable because of the cinematography, the way it paints Batman as such a doofus, and Tom Hardy's & Anne Hathaway's performances are just awesome. KVeezy3 fucked around with this message at 00:07 on May 10, 2021 |
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May 9, 2021 23:45
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KVeezy3 posted:To be fair, OP was talking strictly about the superhero films' love of the CIA as a whole. The film does present the CIA as meaningfully trying to protect the world from a super nuclear bomb, but them getting in way over their heads is a pretty good punchline. DKR really is a lot of fun despite its vast liberal energy. I love the inadvertent (?) fourth wall break before the climax when Catwoman says to Batman "You don't owe these people anymore" or whatever and then there's a closeup of Batman's face and it's held just a little longer than ideal to the point where you don't see an battleworn Batman you just see Christian Bale the actor in a batsuit with an offcenter helmet having extreme difficulty breathing because it's the batsuit. It's the best. I also like how continuing from the Batman Begins they did three movies straight of people getting owned because they didn't mind their surroundings lol
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May 9, 2021 23:52
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Mandrel posted:yeah lmao at talking about dark knight rises as having good politics. it’s the OG of “this villain is objectively right, psyche just kidding he actually just wants to blow up the city and kill everybody with a big bomb” in modern superhero movies The difference is that Bane having a secret identity as a fascist traitor to the revolution (and pathetic incel) is a twist - and one that's perfectly understandable to anyone who's read a comic book. What if Superman were completely identical, but Clark Kent were an awful jackass? Does this undermine the Superman concept? Or do we still believe in truth and justice? In real-world terms, the American founding fathers were slaveowners and gently caress 'em. But that doesn't mean freedom itself is a bad concept. With Black panther, on the other hand, there is no twist. It just says revolution is bad, whereas DK3 warns about fascists trying to infiltrate leftist groups.
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May 10, 2021 00:05
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^Yeah mostly agree with that^KVeezy3 posted:To be fair, OP was talking strictly about the superhero films' love of the CIA as a whole. Although the film does present the CIA as meaningfully trying to protect the world from a super nuclear bomb, them getting in way over their heads is a pretty good punchline. But then we have Batman V Superman, where the CIA is presented as, not just a bunch of bumbling idiots, but ones that would, in cold-blood, create massive destruction & death to hide that very fact. There's stuff I like a lot like the inherent message of the necessity of the privileged actually having to give up their privilege to do anything that means a drat. But what I will give TDKR a lot of credit for is I think Nolan has a bluntness that I appreciate. Like there is no wishy-washy maybe Bane was right and went too far stuff. He's just definitively a charlatan, although the movie doesn't really walk back him being technically right. It's not a politically perfect movie at all, but it feels more like an honest point of view from a creative team that you can more easily engage with for better or for worse.
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May 10, 2021 00:15
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Pillowpants posted:Are you guys done fighting about politics in the place I go to escape from politics You go to movies featuring a war profiteer, a guy who dresses as a flag, an assassin working for a shady government agency, a different assassin who also works for a shady government agency, an African King, an immigrant and a billionaire who spends a fortune on his military grade arsenal to beat up street level criminals...to escape from politics? do you know politics means because it seems like you don't.
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May 10, 2021 01:22
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I'm not going to be mean to Pillowpants I'd like to hear what non political Super Hero media looks like tho That'd be interesting
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May 10, 2021 01:34
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Burkion posted:I'm not going to be mean to Pillowpants The Sense of Right Alliance
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May 10, 2021 01:40
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Burkion posted:I'm not going to be mean to Pillowpants It could be that they just don’t want to talk about, not that art isn’t political. I really don’t find any of this all that interesting, personally. I just keep checking to see when it’s over lmao
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May 10, 2021 01:46
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CelticPredator posted:It could be that they just don’t want to talk about, not that art isn’t political. the Blockbuster Video forum exists for this exact purpose.
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May 10, 2021 02:36
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Snowman_McK posted:the Blockbuster Video forum exists for this exact purpose. Lol
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May 10, 2021 02:41
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Snowman_McK posted:the Blockbuster Video forum exists for this exact purpose. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8KuH_RxUNE
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May 10, 2021 03:03
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This conversation did make me realize how the MCU is slowly morphing into quite a different creature than the comics and more overtly an alternate universe. Like the whole conceit of the massive superhero universe is everything is true--including our world in its broad strokes. Obviously they're different from the very nature of having space sun gods and such or imaginary cities and countries, but the broad strokes of history are generally to assumed as having happened. You generally assume all Presidents were the Presidents. Even things that don't get referenced or are significantly different in the moment are assumed to be true as they become the past of comics and their sliding time scale. Superman had a lot of Presidential politics stuff twenty years ago, but because the timeline changes and moved forward, now you just assume Bush was President. But the MCU doesn't have a sliding timeline. Things are very set. It just seems kind of weird ten years down the line if the MCU still exists that it's this world where huge historical events like COVID-19, George Floyd's murder, and 01/06 just never happened.
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May 10, 2021 03:36
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Patient zero for covid got snapped. Just another example of how Thanos was right...
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May 10, 2021 03:42
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Easy dunking aside, the “post-political” political poo poo in MCU is, understandably, incredibly reassuring. The entire point of all this hot-button content is that things are ultimately not that bad. There’s a bit in Winter Soldier where Nick Fury thinks he’s being racially profiled by the cops, when he’s actually been targeted for assassination by a super-nazi conspiracy. Then the Avengers conclude from this sort of thing that s.h.e.i.l.d’s bad apples have spoiled the whole bunch. This might seem like a bold stance - ACAB, defund the police, etc. - but the Avengers never actually do anything about the police. The police are just a neutral background entity in this conflict. They abolish the bizarre fictional agency s.h.e.i.l.d, while offering Stark Industries and the CIA a gentle warning not to go “too far” - but of course they never will. So they’re consciously raising the idea of defunding the police if necessary, but concluding that it’s simply not yet necessary. Systemic racism exists, but it’s “not that bad”; there’s no need to worry until they start capping ‘undesirables’ from orbit with a DNA-scanning nazi satellite.
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May 10, 2021 05:04
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Timeless Appeal posted:This conversation did make me realize how the MCU is slowly morphing into quite a different creature than the comics and more overtly an alternate universe. Like the whole conceit of the massive superhero universe is everything is true--including our world in its broad strokes. Obviously they're different from the very nature of having space sun gods and such or imaginary cities and countries, but the broad strokes of history are generally to assumed as having happened. You generally assume all Presidents were the Presidents. Even things that don't get referenced or are significantly different in the moment are assumed to be true as they become the past of comics and their sliding time scale. Superman had a lot of Presidential politics stuff twenty years ago, but because the timeline changes and moved forward, now you just assume Bush was President. It struck me the other day that you can't really do a generic US president anymore. It felt like, in the 90s, you could get away with any old generic white guy as 'the president' and that was fine. With the US's last several presidents being...ahem...memorable that's much harder to do.
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May 10, 2021 05:45
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Snowman_McK posted:It struck me the other day that you can't really do a generic US president anymore. It felt like, in the 90s, you could get away with any old generic white guy as 'the president' and that was fine. With the US's last several presidents being...ahem...memorable that's much harder to do. He says, while the whitest most generic guy ever is president
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May 10, 2021 07:09
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McCloud posted:He says, while the whitest most generic guy ever is president I wouldn't really call him that. His brain is melting, he has distinctive speech patterns and he never seems that far from challenging someone to a push up contest. Even if he was, though, that makes him remarkable. I mean, having the US presidents in films be interchangeable is, itself, a political statement, it's just so much more so now. Now it would very clearly be a film set after Bush, Obama and Trump, who were all very distinct for various reasons, most of them horrible.
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May 10, 2021 07:48
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Michael Bay stopped making Transformers movies after Trump became president... COINCIDENCE?
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May 10, 2021 09:28
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The United States posted:Michael Bay stopped making Transformers movies after Trump became president... COINCIDENCE? Maybe Trump's trade war bullshit made it harder to import giant robots from Japan? After Ambulance (something about robbers stealing an ambulance) his next movie is supposed to be Robopocalypse, about a robot apocalypse. Everyone fucked around with this message at 14:10 on May 10, 2021 |
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May 10, 2021 14:07
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ezfi6FQ8Ds looks great imo
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May 10, 2021 14:17
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Necrothatcher posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ezfi6FQ8Ds The changed Woody's wig. Cowardice! Also, all the symbiotes look the same instead of making carnage skinny and wet. We want our moist alien twink. 0/10
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May 10, 2021 14:23
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:The changed Woody's wig and all the symbiotes look the same instead of making carnage skinny and wet. Woody's wig is a shame, but it's a good sign that they seem to lean hard into the Venom/Brock comedy double-act.
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May 10, 2021 14:24
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Snowman_McK posted:I wouldn't really call him that. His brain is melting, he has distinctive speech patterns and he never seems that far from challenging someone to a push up contest. So Reagan.
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May 10, 2021 14:24
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