Politics in Media - The Good, the Bad, and the Preachy

And Eat the Rich.

Frank and Butcher aren't humiliated at all, the work spends 99% of the time showing how badass they are and how much smarter they are than everyone else and then just use the remaining 1% of the plot to simply say "They are toxic", which is often doesn't really work, due to mentioned 99% of their screentime being used only to show how badass and cool they are and how evil their enemies are (nearly everyone who goes against them is depicted as pure evil scumbags, who, as Ennis loves to describe his villains, "deserve a bullet"). (Yeah, you can talk all you want how brutal it is that they cut off the tongue of an Expy of a Shazam in The Boys comic, who was a kid, but it was negated by the stated fact that said kid used his adult supehero form to sexually assault and rape women.)

The movie kinda objectively doesn't treat Joker as the villain of the movie, the rich and "society" are portrayed as more of a villains than he was.

Joker isn't THE villain of the story, but he clearly does evil things in that story.

So I'd call him a villain and the hero of his own story.

You forget that in the case of The Boys at least, that describes Butcher in the end too. While Frank Castle at least never goes full villain in the Punisher Max series, Billy Butcher does end up being the Final Boss for Wee Hughie.

Heck, Billy's last speech boils down to "I'm a psychopathic immature manchild who needs better people like my brother, Becky, or Hughie to keep me in check."

Ennis' frequently writes stories where he builds up a character as a total hard badass, and then examines how that can be a bad thing. Just look at Jessie Custer and Proinsias Cassidy from Preacher. With Cassidy it's a lot more obvious, since it's ultimately revealed he's a pretty awful person who lived down to God naming him Beast. But Jessie's own badass nature isn't wholly great either. Remember that a big part of it is due to growing up with the Evil Mentor Jodie. It's telling that he has to start showing some genuine emotional vulnerability at the very end to avoid losing Tulip forever.

Edited by M84 on Apr 17th 2024 at 12:31:15 AM

Yeah, I feel after doing some research on the movie, that it's unfairly roasted in this forum. It's not a bad thing to be vague on why the war started, and I've heard it does the anti war theme, the actual thing it's going for quite well. If the message is to descalate before war happens, then It makes sense to be neutral on the polarization.

Even not picking a side, is still political. And I've heard it doesn't really both sides the civil war, so that's something positive.

Oh, that's nice.

Still, I believe it won't deter those who think there should be a clear narrative that polarization only happens because of one openly evil side.

Yeah, sometimes thinking purely in black and white can be just as shallow as being a centrist.

As my motto says: Execution is the key.

Yeah, if the director’s intent is served better by having the origins of the war a mystery, then he’s not wrong for doing that.

Honestly, might give Civil War a check myself.

Indeed.

That said, what's one work you think does Black and White morality in a nuanced way?

Pokémon Black and White.

Pun aside, it’s a simple yet effective story about thinking outside the perspectives you are merely taught about and the dangers of thinking of just your side vs them.

It’s why N is one of the most popular Pokémon villains.

So I heard, yeah. Especially with the enemy team being apparently a satire on PETA and such.

They aren’t actually a satire on PETA. That’s just something the internet jokes about.

They have knights Templar imagery. The sequel just makes them modern pirates.

Interestingly, Team Plasma is split by the 2nd game between those who want to follow N's example and those who stop the pretense, which brings interesting points of how sincere one can be in what they spout.

Since we discussed cloning some pages back, I wanted to ask this question. Has there ever been a work that examines the idea of using cloning to save a species from extinction and the ethics involved in such a decision?

You mean, besides Jurassic Park?

Are there any ethical dilemmas to using cloning for resurrecting dead species other than the vague and poor religious reasoning of "playing god"? The only one I can think of is whether said revived species would manage to co-exist in the current world without either causing the extinction of other flora or fauna or going extinct itself again. The problems highlighted by Jurassic park were more tied with corporate greed or mismanagement (said project to revive dinosaurs being for a tycoon's dream of a commercial park) of such a work- poorly thought out genetic additions when recreating dinosaurs (allowing some the ability to change biological sex due to the addition of genes of a species of a frog that can do so, the useless lysine contingency etc) as well as the poorly designed park in general. And Jurassic world having the creating of new super dino for more profit or such.

There are legit concerns about bringing back species from extinction if they are long dead ones.

Whatever niche in the ecosystems they once filled has probably already been filled by other species or doesn't exist anymore. Modern environments may also simply be unsuitable for them. Bringing an extinct species back might also end up endangering other species, much the way invasive species threaten native ones.

Basically the problem of unintended consequences. If they're long dead, introducing back into the wild would potentially have loads of negative consequences. If you're doing this for study, it better be in a lab under lock-and-key with security and strict hazard protocols, not a public open air zoo like Jurassic Park.

Really the area where cloning would be better served if you are trying to introduce animals back in the wild are endangered species that you can train to acclimate to the wild that are an important part to environment's natural cycle (or would be catastrophic to humans if they were to suddenly go extinct). At least with that, the natural cycle is in place to keep it in equilibrium (assuming you don't go absolutely overboard) and it would potentially be restorative.

Edited by HeyMikey on Apr 18th 2024 at 4:13:02 AM

I've heard some want to clone extinct animals as a way of improving the modern environment. Such as bringing back mammoths to bring back the mammoth steppe which was believed by many to have had an important role in maintaining Earth's climate. They also have the advantage that most species in their former range today coexisted with them thousands of years ago.

Though the problem of ancient species being brought back leading to them wiping out current species is only a problem when talking about said animals who went extinct in the far past and whose habitats were wildly different from present day, like dinosaurs. I assume bringing back species that went extinct in say, the past few hundreds of years or so, like the various extinct subspecies of tigers, thylacine etc via cloning shouldn't pose any serious threat to their native flora or fauna, since said native species have grown with the extinct ones for years before they went extinct most likely due to human activity.

Edited by xyzt on Apr 18th 2024 at 5:28:05 PM

One big issue is that it falsely lessens the impact of extinction. I remember a cyberpunk book whose name escapes me where the amount of species preserved in genebanks outnumbered living species. Being able to clone species mostly meant you could maintain genetic diversity in a smaller population and therefore further divide and erode habitat, or wipe out a species in one area if you promosed to clone a new population in a other.

Edited by Gaiazun on Apr 18th 2024 at 5:40:24 AM

Honestly the most ethical use of cloning in fiction would be to just replace organs that need replacing.

I'm reminded that in the DC universe, Wayne tech is actually looking into using repurposed villain and superhero tech for medical reasons such as the aforementioned organ replacement.

So there's one rebuttal that Batman doesn't use his money to improve the lives of people. Last I checked, I don't think it got retconned by the various reboots.

I thought people who said that, generally meant that Bruce should use his astronomical fortune, to offer everyone in Gotham a good-paying job. Free or very affordable rent and free mid-care.

Plus investing in charity, education and welfare programs.

You know, a one-man social paradise, sort of speak.

...................

Wayne Enterprise, does finance many medical and scientific projects with future beneficial applications, but they usually only serve to provide some villain with new tech he could steal and use to cause trouble, needing Batman to stop him.

Edited by jawal on Apr 18th 2024 at 2:43:18 PM

There's an entire Twitter thread dedicated to Bruce's philanthropic endeavors. The argument is never made in any kind of good faith.