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Ubik_Lives posted:I feel like if that’s the case, the actual elements that you are criticising through satire need to be extremely clear. Because we don’t really need an illustration of how effective propaganda is; that should be painfully obvious to anyone with a passing knowledge of the last century. I think one of the cool tricks in the movie is how you expect a cowardly betrayal to a bunch of demons, but Ephialtes is really honorable (he asks for a uniform because he actually wants to serve, he doesn't just want the material rewards) and the Persians seem awesome and treat him with respect. In the comments of videos like that you'll see a lot of people pointing out that the Persians really don't seem so bad after all.
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Jan 20, 2022 11:46
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I mean, on one hand, yeah, Ephialtes doesn't owe the Spartans poo poo. They forced his family to flee to save his life. gently caress them, get paid. Buy your parents a boat or something as a thank you. But why make the uniform be the last thing he wants, instead of the only thing he wants. Why lump him in with the politicians where duty is secondary to personal gain. If all he wanted was the uniform, then it would be clear that he has the same honour code as the Spartans, and their system is only hurting itself. I think the messaging could be improved a bit there.
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Jan 20, 2022 12:20
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He's offered the other stuff, and of course he wants happiness and pleasure. To me it looks like he's practically crying at the idea that the women don't find him disgusting. He goes out of his way to ask for even more than is offered, and it's an opportunity to serve and be respected. That says a lot to me.
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Jan 20, 2022 13:13
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Robocop became a god-tier satire to me when I realized that I was totally pumped at the end of the movie, but all that had happened was that the Robocop had a human face and name. He still couldn't hurt the company, and I had totally ignored that. Masterful. They literally put a human face on corporate control and I ate it up.
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Jan 20, 2022 15:52
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Pay the good ceo a dollar and he'll give you a thumbs up!
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Jan 20, 2022 15:59
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Blood Boils posted:Pay the good ceo a dollar and he'll give you a thumbs up! I'd buy that for a dollar
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Jan 20, 2022 19:17
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Edit: false alarm
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Jan 20, 2022 19:28
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Ubik_Lives posted:I mean, on one hand, yeah, Ephialtes doesn't owe the Spartans poo poo. They forced his family to flee to save his life. gently caress them, get paid. Buy your parents a boat or something as a thank you. The idea that people can be captured by ideology that hurts them is a pretty important one, I think. We long to be a part of the machine, even as it devours us, because there cannot be subject without sovereign. Althusser wrote about this when describing interpellation.
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Jan 20, 2022 19:48
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:You nailed it. This is religion now. inshaZallah
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Jan 20, 2022 20:08
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Ubik_Lives posted:Okay, to each his own, but I way prefer my satire to provide criticism to the elements it satirises, and not act as straight up fascist propaganda to fascists, both for how it depicts them and how it depicts those they hate, emboldening them in their beliefs and to recruit others to the cause. I feel like that’s something that could cause problems down the line. Because, and this could be just me, but it seems like there’s actually a large group of people who would disagree with the “fascism is bad, folks” line, and plenty more who don’t have as firm a conviction on the matter as we would like, and could be converted under the right circumstances.
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Jan 20, 2022 20:27
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It's simply ascribing a moral dimension to art you don't like, something evangelicals have been doing for centuries. It's not that I don't like this painting, it's that it's a literal vector for Lucifer to corrupt your soul. This isn't a dumb movie about abs and shouting, it's an insidious fascist virus that helps turn people into Nazis. Honestly the evangelical mindset is everywhere now, across the entire political spectrum. Social media has replicated evangelical culture - closeted groups of people that don't interact with anyone outside their belief system and reinforce each other's fervor - on a mass scale, and this is the result.
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Jan 20, 2022 20:37
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Now, this is just me, to each yuck your own yums and all that, but if you don't see a problem with LT Smash shouting "join the navy" at Lenny & Karl then it sounds like this isn't a good look chief
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Jan 20, 2022 20:46
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Bringing up Blazing Saddles is especially funny now as it's primarily used by some pretty bigoted people now to argue that the SJ dubs wouldn't allow it to be made today. Sure seems like that satire fell flat, huh?
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Jan 20, 2022 20:56
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Ebert was usually a pretty thoughtful guy that had the knowledge to be able to contextualize a movie in the medium’s history, but when he missed a point, he missed it bad.
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Jan 20, 2022 21:17
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IIRC our very own Baron Bifford infamously refused to get anything other than genuine power-fantasy wish-fulfillment from Dredd, despite the character being one of the more well known "official" nerd satires. There's just no preventing some people from getting weird and dumb with things that are actually cool and smart  See also: that goon who was inspired to join the US Army after reading/watching Fight Club yes I know it was probably a joke thread but you never can be too sure
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Jan 20, 2022 21:31
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Rebel Moon is apparently set to begin filming in April, and there's a short synopsis as well. The villain seems to be named after the Roman general Belisarius, so I wouldn't be surprised if the movie has some 300 DNA if he's pulling out historical character names.
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Jan 20, 2022 22:27
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With all this said about 300, Zack Snyder's followup film for literal children, Owl Movie, basically does exactly what everyone who thinks that 300 didn't do a good enough job at making the spartans the bad guys
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Jan 20, 2022 22:45
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Blood Boils posted:IIRC our very own Baron Bifford infamously refused to get anything other than genuine power-fantasy wish-fulfillment from Dredd, despite the character being one of the more well known "official" nerd satires. There's just no preventing some people from getting weird and dumb with things that are actually cool and smart Was that the same conversation as "ever dear criminal is a cycle of violence ended"? Man, good times.
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Jan 20, 2022 22:48
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2house2fly posted:Do you think a movie is going to convert people to fascism? I wouldn’t doubt the power of art to move people. I can’t find it at hand, but I read an interesting article detailing how The Exorcist irreversibly changed American culture by taking the idea of Satan from a nebulous idea that wasn’t taken seriously in the mainstream to… well, what we have now with half the country. It wasn’t the only cause of the religious shift in the country but it was an important part. 2house2fly posted:How would 300 criticise the Spartans, given that having a narrator say "they murder babies and all the children they don't murder become brainwashed slave soldiers" was too subtle? Off the top of my head, make them obvious losers. “They killed their own children for greatness only to become sad and ineffectual, without glory or greatness.” Give them no triumphs and make them contemptible to even the smoothest of smooth brains. I’m not saying Snyder should have done this because it doesn’t fit the source material or goal of the project, but it could be done.
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Jan 20, 2022 22:56
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I always found funny that Spartans became the wretched assholes they were because they wanted to protect the most pampered lifestyle in Greece. Honor, martial prowess and any other poo poo was secondary to the keeping their massive slave population under control. Ephialtes is just getting what all other spartan gets, a subsidised luxury existence by the state and a uniform. Just by someone who accepts him for what he is. Also I love that he gets rejected because he can’t fight in formation.the Spartans use the phalanx like once, and then fight in open order.
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Jan 20, 2022 23:32
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Yup, and that reinforces both how this presentation is an absurd fantasy to begin with as well as the hypocrisy of Leonidas.
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Jan 20, 2022 23:57
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Violator posted:Off the top of my head, make them obvious losers. “They killed their own children for greatness only to become sad and ineffectual, without glory or greatness.” Give them no triumphs and make them contemptible to even the smoothest of smooth brains. I’m not saying Snyder should have done this because it doesn’t fit the source material or goal of the project, but it could be done. They do lose, though. Their grand stand lasts three days and then they're brushed aside. Then they were propagandised by historians and politicians at the time.
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Jan 21, 2022 01:31
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Snowman_McK posted:They do lose, though. Their grand stand lasts three days and then they're brushed aside. Then they were propagandised by historians and politicians at the time. I mean lose so thoroughly and embarrassingly that viewers look down on them. No screaming bad rear end “We dine in hell!” while chopping off monster’s heads in slow-mo and kicking enemies into pits. Sniveling pants dropping embarrassments. Burke in Aliens or the bad guy in Gladiator. Edit: I’m not saying I want this, but it is possible to present them in way that people are more likely to pick up on the fact that their way of life was toxic. Edit2: Just thought of another example. The War Boys in Fury Road are given bad rear end moments, but their way of life is understood to be toxic and silly and we don’t see people dressing up like them or building real life ideologies using their iconography. Violator fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Jan 21, 2022 |
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Jan 21, 2022 01:46
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Snowman_McK posted:They do lose, though. Their grand stand lasts three days and then they're brushed aside. Then they were propagandised by historians and politicians at the time. Morale is as important in war as bodies and weapons.
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Jan 21, 2022 02:13
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sometimes i think people are unfamiliar with just how far back people co-opting spartan symbolism goes and seem to think that, like, 300 was responsible
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Jan 21, 2022 02:37
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Violator posted:I mean lose so thoroughly and embarrassingly that viewers look down on them. No screaming bad rear end “We dine in hell!” while chopping off monster’s heads in slow-mo and kicking enemies into pits. Sniveling pants dropping embarrassments. Burke in Aliens or the bad guy in Gladiator. The War Boys are the villains, though. They're the antagonists. Look, you can show someone as a villain despite being brave or whatever. The Captain in 'Pan's Labyrinth' is brave under fire and would be the hero of a different movie. He's also completely loving loathsome. I would kind of like to see the film you're describing. It would be from the perspective of a helot or an Athenian or Theban, and I think it would be great. 300 is explicitly about how a bunch of violent, eugenicist lunatics see themselves and it opens by telling you they kill babies. If people don't pick up on that, then they're not going to. The text is no longer the problem. The closest I'm aware of in popular culture is the 'Tyrant' series of pulpy historical novels by Christian Cameron, which has Alexander the Great and his generals as the antagonists. Horizon Burning posted:sometimes i think people are unfamiliar with just how far back people co-opting spartan symbolism goes and seem to think that, like, 300 was responsible Fun fact: Molon Labe was already the motto of the Greek Special forces. There was a goon, I think, who keeps a blog on historical stuff. He wrote a long, very well researched piece on how literally every propagandised aspect of the Spartans (their hardiness, their martial prowess, their weird version of equality) was utter bullshit. That, whenever it appears as an idea, it's almost always some antiquated, long in the past ideal that definitely did exist, we promise, guys. It's pretty analogous to modern americans going 'this isn't what the US is, the US is...oh dear' It's called something like "This isn't Sparta" it's long but it's a very good read.
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Jan 21, 2022 04:01
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2house2fly posted:What's "safe" about it? Do you think a movie is going to convert people to fascism? How would 300 criticise the Spartans, given that having a narrator say "they murder babies and all the children they don't murder become brainwashed slave soldiers" was too subtle? Movies aren’t instantly going to convert people to a different ideology, but we know that they can impact people. Movie propaganda is effective; we’ve seen it been weaponised in the past. Nazi propaganda depicting mainstream movie villains as Jewish wasn’t satire because of how anti-Semitic it was, it was a tool used to slowly turn the public against them. Saying that the movie denounces fascism because they believe in having a martial society with cultural and physical purity isn’t effective because that’s what fascists put on their marketing brochures. They believe they that extreme measures are needed to deal with the extreme threats they face, and anyone who thinks otherwise is weak and corrupt. Criticism should show why their ideals are flawed. That they invent threats to justify their actions, their death cult weakens their own society through constant bloodshed and persecution, that those they reject could have been important parts of their society, that there is no inherent glory in death, and they make themselves international pariahs. It’s why I think Ephialtes would have been better off wanting only to serve after the Spartans rejected him, because it makes clear that they’ve just shot themselves in the foot. They are dead because they made their own enemy for no justifiable reason. Given how the bulk of the movie is making the Spartans look awesome, people are going to largely remember that when they walk out the theatre. And if, for some reason, the audience feels that their culture is under attack by a foreign religion that wants to either convert or destroy them, that their people have been killed on their own soil by them, and those enemies have cultural links to Persia, they will probably have favourable memories of the Spartans, despite their societal flaws being shown for a couple of minutes. And then when someone says that WW3 is just around the corner so maybe we should introduce mandatory service and rifle drills in schools, or that the disabled are drains on our health systems so we should introduce mandatory prenatal screening for birth defects and tax those who don’t have abortions, some of those people may think back to the Spartans and how policies like those made their depicted society stronger. So yes, I think you could handle this material more safely. HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Bringing up Blazing Saddles is especially funny now as it's primarily used by some pretty bigoted people now to argue that the SJ dubs wouldn't allow it to be made today. Sure seems like that satire fell flat, huh? Um, no? Blazing Saddles was demythologising westerns, and I don’t see them retaking their crown from superhero films anytime soon. They are trying to use it as an example for a different argument. Moreover, them bringing up a fifty year old movie is a testament to its enduring legacy, and their argument is not without some merit; in the last half century has societal awareness on the depictions of racism shifted enough to the point where we would no longer need movies pointing this out, and Blazing Saddles is a victim of its own success? But the answer is no, because those people exist, and also Django Unchained came out ten years ago.
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Jan 21, 2022 04:35
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Ubik_Lives posted:Nazi propaganda depicting mainstream movie villains as Jewish wasn’t satire because of how anti-Semitic it was, it was a tool used to slowly turn the public against them. An interesting example since the Nazis didn't need convince people to dislike Jews. Europe has been anti semitic for literally its entire history. The nazis were a louder, dumber, more hateful version of an ideology that had centuries old roots in European culture. It was the exact same poo poo that had lead to expulsions and pogroms for at least a thousand years taken to its natural, horrifying conclusion. 300 has the Spartan's flaws on full display literally from its first shot (a pile of baby skulls) American people receptive to the idea that the Spartans were actually onto something are already from the US, a violent, warlike country that fetishises it's military and loathes those who aren't useful, who failed a cruel system, whether through poverty or disability. A country that has ruling class that bangs on about equality while perpetuating a cruel, uneven system. poo poo, the one time Trump's approval ratings went above fifty was right after he blew up an Iranian general for no good reason. Again, media only has the kind of influence you're ascribing to it if it taps into what's already deeply embedded into the culture.
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Jan 21, 2022 05:04
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Can you give examples of specific nazi movies that have these depictions? The first ones that come to mind are American productions.
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Jan 21, 2022 05:19
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Robot Style posted:Rebel Moon is apparently set to begin filming in April, and there's a short synopsis as well.
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Jan 21, 2022 06:12
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Violator posted:I wouldn’t doubt the power of art to move people. I can’t find it at hand, but I read an interesting article detailing how The Exorcist irreversibly changed American culture by taking the idea of Satan from a nebulous idea that wasn’t taken seriously in the mainstream to… well, what we have now with half the country. It wasn’t the only cause of the religious shift in the country but it was an important part. I find this extremely difficult to believe. The idea that politics flows downstream from culture has been taken for granted despite being extremely dubious at best.
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Jan 21, 2022 06:12
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ruddiger posted:Can you give examples of specific nazi movies that have these depictions? The first ones that come to mind are American productions. I’m afraid my specific knowledge is limited, and I’m willing to be corrected on this, but my understanding is that Hitler put Goebbels in charge of the Ministry of Propaganda, which was to control the output of all of German culture, including cinema. They made their own propaganda films, mostly about how awesome they were but there were some specifically about Jewish people and their evils, and pressured the rest of the film industry to ensure Jewish people were always portrayed negatively.
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Jan 21, 2022 06:25
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Ubik_Lives posted:Saying that the movie denounces fascism because they believe in having a martial society with cultural and physical purity isn’t effective because that’s what fascists put on their marketing brochures. But this entirely depends on how the audience reacts, doesn't it? As an personal example, I hated 300 for most of my first watch, as I found the depiction of the Spartans disgusting and wondered why the movie wanted me to cheer these monsters on and it was only at the end when I realized the entire movie was a story by David Wenham to pump up his fellow Spartans for a battle and it included poo poo he obviously made up as it had details he didn't witness and nobody could have told him about, that I realized the "movie" didn't want me to cheer these maniacs, but to view the entire thing with a critical eye. Like, I'm pretty sure the Persians didn't have an orgy tent filled with goatmen, pretty sure that's Spartan propoganda. Obviously that might just be me, but if people do view the Spartans as totally cool and worthy of emulation, does that condemn the movie or the viewer and what they already brought to their viewing?
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Jan 21, 2022 06:55
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Ubik_Lives posted:Given how the bulk of the movie is making the Spartans look awesome, people are going to largely remember that when they walk out the theatre. And if, for some reason, the audience feels that their culture is under attack by a foreign religion that wants to either convert or destroy them, that their people have been killed on their own soil by them, and those enemies have cultural links to Persia, they will probably have favourable memories of the Spartans, despite their societal flaws being shown for a couple of minutes. And then when someone says that WW3 is just around the corner so maybe we should introduce mandatory service and rifle drills in schools, or that the disabled are drains on our health systems so we should introduce mandatory prenatal screening for birth defects and tax those who don’t have abortions, some of those people may think back to the Spartans and how policies like those made their depicted society stronger. So yes, I think you could handle this material more safely. This is "subject supposed to believe" territory. It's not that you believe that Spartan society was so utopian that its inherent flaws aren't even worth thinking about, it's just that someone else might believe that. An unknowable number of hypothetical people may probably largely be a ticking time bomb, and shouldn't exposed to media that makes such a persuasive case in favour of fascism.
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Jan 21, 2022 07:15
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garycoleisgod posted:Like, I'm pretty sure the Persians didn't have an orgy tent filled with goatmen, pretty sure that's Spartan propoganda. Definitely in the 'propaganda that makes our enemies look way cooler' department.
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Jan 21, 2022 08:21
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2house2fly posted:This is "subject supposed to believe" territory. It's not that you believe that Spartan society was so utopian that its inherent flaws aren't even worth thinking about, it's just that someone else might believe that. An unknowable number of hypothetical people may probably largely be a ticking time bomb, and shouldn't exposed to media that makes such a persuasive case in favour of fascism. The fallacy of the Thirdhand Dipshit is one of the most pervasive and irritating arguments on the internet
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Jan 21, 2022 08:31
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Snowman_McK posted:
https://acoup.blog/category/collections/this-isnt-sparta/ dunno if the author is a goon though
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Jan 21, 2022 08:33
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garycoleisgod posted:Obviously that might just be me, but if people do view the Spartans as totally cool and worthy of emulation, does that condemn the movie or the viewer and what they already brought to their viewing? I would say both. If we go back to our Nazi propaganda as an example, we should be able to condemn people who agree with it, but also with the work itself. The work doesn’t get a free pass in modern society just because we all agree that the Nazis were bad. A movie that uncritically promotes harmful ideas should still be condemned, because of what it contains, not just the outcome. It’s why I think there should be more focus on flaws in their systems, not just relying on our moral code to do the leg work. I’m happy to have people tell me that I’m misinterpreting Ephialtes’s motivations, or how the death scene is supposed to be seen, because these are the methods by which the principles and actions of the Spartan society are failing them in the movie. Like, I’m seeing Ephialtes wanting money and women as a comparative moral failing when compared to the Spartans who put duty above all else, but he has lived as an outcast his entire life, so maybe I should be seeing those desires a more holistic integration into a society, not just a fixation on being a Spartan. That would again be a flaw of the Spartans for creating this situation, and making enemies where there were none to being with. Saying it’s satire because the movie states it’s propaganda is not something that sits right with me. That just makes it open propaganda, and is knowingly playing with fire given the state of Western / Middle Eastern relations at the time. Its criticisms should be laser precise in those circumstances in my opinion. 2house2fly posted:An unknowable number of hypothetical people may probably largely be a ticking time bomb, and shouldn't exposed to media that makes such a persuasive case in favour of fascism. I wouldn’t say unknowable. The US holds surveys on this every four years, and turns out, there’s actually quite a lot of them. I seriously don’t get the argument here. Do you look at vaccine misinformation and election fraud lies and think, “Well I don’t believe them, and it’s unknowable how many people would, so seems legit, any criticism of this is completely unjustified”. This thread has already shown that these people who identify with the Spartans exist, and that people who identify with the Persians and feel hurt by their depiction exist. And even if they didn’t, we should still be able to discuss the film on the merits of what it is portraying based around the potential for other interpretations, and how it could be improved. How much time and focus gets put on what and why. How different people get different meanings from the same thing. I mean, is this not a forum for discussing media?
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Jan 21, 2022 09:25
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Babysitter Super Sleuth posted:The fallacy of the Thirdhand Dipshit is one of the most pervasive and irritating arguments on the internet And it at least used to be omnipresent as far as 'cultural criticism' goes; that every piece of media must be scrutinised as if it'll be dropped onto that Star Trek gangster planet who'll rebuild their entire society around it for some reason.
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Jan 21, 2022 12:21
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Ubik_Lives posted:And even if they didn’t, we should still be able to discuss the film on the merits of what it is portraying based around the potential for other interpretations, and how it could be improved. Sorry but this is breadtube bullshit, we aren't a nanny state, yet. 300 has nothing to "improve", like most art, it's the reactions and reads that make it "bad" and most of them were in bad faith. At a certain point, it's on the viewer. This isn't vaccination bullshit that has been flogged by the US administration to appear true, this is modern movie focused on the past. We do not make art for the lowest common denominator sorry. "Uncritical" is bullshit when we live in a society far removed from that one. It's already revisionist, it's not the directors fault when people only cling to certain things.
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Jan 21, 2022 15:02
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