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

Civil War was a poorly thought out excuse to have Marvel's heroes duking it out. Both of them were. It really hit Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy for me at times.

Edited by M84 on Oct 23rd 2018 at 10:02:27 PM

I think people get sidetrack because taking about JUST politics was to narrow, what people eventually get taking was more about how tropes afect medias and what let media used certain tropes like romantics comedies for example.

And....isnt that weird? I mean people like get out for being topical(in a way) so I dont think that count.

If one thinks a thread's topic is too narrow, they are free to try and start a more broad thread. There's no need to sidetrack an existing thread.

It's funny. I normally don't have much of a problem with Headbutting Heroes. It can often be fun watching two superheroes duke it out and see who comes out on top. But the shoehorned inconsistent political messages Civil War was trying to make on top of that just made the whole thing a mess for me.

Edited by M84 on Oct 23rd 2018 at 10:08:51 PM

Another problem that can crop up with politically charged messages (a problem that the Civil War comic had) is that the circumstances surrounding whatever is being used as a metaphor for an issue are very different, or that the issue at hand wouldn't gel with the established reality of the fiction.

It also often leads to a work being really dated.

I was a Conspiracy Theorist belief about Civil War which is basically that Marvel fans have been the butt of a huge prank.

Basically, the vast majority of authors for that thing were British anti-Bush and knew EXACTLY what sort of story they were writing (anti-Registration) because the whole thing was meant to be against the Patriot Act that it's obviously a stand-in for.

However, they knew that they could get a lot more story mileage out of it by using Norman Osbourne as the Secret Police head of SHIELD and Putting on the Reich after Civil War. Indeed, that it would provide fodder for a few more years worth of stories.

They just riled up fans by having Miller say, "Oh, OF COURSE the Registration Side was the right one."

Frankly given the story eventually ended with Osbourne overthrown and the SHRA repealed with a return to status quo, I think it's the obvious answer.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Oct 23rd 2018 at 7:26:15 AM

Or rather, there was inconsistent communication between editorial and the writers throughout the event. Another reason it suffered.

I'm not sure I buy that again since it implies there was a raging Pro-Bush/Pro-Patriot Act sentiment at Marvel.

Which isn't reflected anywhere else.

But obviously, that's speculation. Obviously, different writers having different perspectives on it is actually a good thing to.

Not when it leads to wildly inconsistent characterization and plot holes. Such as anti-reg writers and pro-reg writers being inconsistent on what Super Registration actually entailed.

A Hero vs. Hero crossover could have been entertaining. But the overtly political and inconsistent premise to justify it just brought the whole thing down.

Edited by M84 on Oct 23rd 2018 at 10:52:36 PM

Isn't "what does this law mean and what does it entail" part of the satire? Many laws are used arbitrarily and well beyond what they're supposed to mean.

Luke Cage being arrested without doing anything other than not registering seems especially apt being that, well, he's a black man.

To me that was just a little too anvilicious. And still inconsistent with the way the Act was portrayed in other tie-ins.

The whole event was just a sad pathetic mess that brought down every character in it and the tone of the whole Marvel verse in general.

And Civil War II managed to be even worse with the way it handled "profiling" — not that the whole "Ulysses creates an almost 100% accurate prediction of events by taking in data from his environment" thing has anything in common with real life racial profiling.

Was that explicitly identified as a correlation?

Civil War was not a satire. It was an honest to goodness attempt at trying to raise questions of security versus privacy. And it succeeded in raising those questions, but not much else. The ensuing fumbles were not intentional actions for the sake of satire.

Since I've spent most of my posts mocking works that did politics badly, I'm going to balance it out with one I think pulled it off without skimping out on the writing quality.

And it's a 1940's wartime propaganda cartoon of all things: Der Fuehrers Face. Yes, the one where Donald Duck dreams he's a Nazi.

It manages to still be a funny Donald Duck cartoon while being wartime propaganda. That said, I wouldn't really recommend watching it since, being a 1940's wartime propaganda cartoon, it also has racist Japanese stereotypes.

Edited by M84 on Oct 23rd 2018 at 11:26:52 PM

It also problematic because the politic think get in the way of a good duking out with superhero.

In fact superhero have trouble of being realistic because then they have to be...superheroic and shit.

Like WW by having Wonder facing Ares and....changing nothing because WW and WW 2 happen anyway.

The Western racism in the Pacific Front is truly a shame. Like, That's basically the closest to America Saves the Day IRL (Poor China, basically the forgotten big guy of the Allies). The Japanese Empire was The Empire and had to be stopped ASAP, USA didn't it out of selfless heroism but it was hardly a unprovoked attack from USA.

Objectively. Is one of USA' finest moments and a source of massive pride.

But the western racism taints it's memory so much. The internment camps and the betrayal that they meant...

I want a WW 2 movie about Asian-Americans in the Pacific Front. I really do.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Oct 23rd 2018 at 10:48:07 AM

It's crazy if you think about it because history becomes a VERY different place without Erich Ludendorff because he is explicitly the man who founded the German fascist movement and put Hitler in power.

As a result, my headcanon for the CDCU is that World War 2 was fought against Vandal Savage and there was no Holocaust.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Oct 23rd 2018 at 9:03:04 AM

Yeah. As a friend of mine said, Luddendorf wasn't just some nasty german soldier. He was a key piece on the rise of Nazism.

Red Panzer, a WW Nazi' villain should have being him.

WW' Aesop is that war is something that humans do without anyone forcing them. Making WW 2 being about Vandal Savage makes no sense.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Oct 23rd 2018 at 11:23:13 AM

Vandal Savage isn't a god or alien, he's a progenitor human. By the time of 2018, he's probably the ancestor of every man, woman, and child on Earth. I'd use him simply because he's the kind of Diabolical Mastermind who would probably rise to power in the period without Hitler.

But that's an issue with any In Spite of a Nail setting where superpowers, supernaturals, the Illuminati, or whatever exists.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Oct 23rd 2018 at 9:36:50 AM

Vandal Savage was a Nazi in an episode of the Justice League animated series. The Holocaust could still happen if he were involved.

I'm iffy in fictional characters affecting real life conficts. If is a Alternate History and they are the Divergence Point, then fine, but if is mean to be similar to our world, then not

WW' aesop was that Ares really wasn't manipulating anyone that much. He wasn't behind the war, he just gave Luddendorf some ideas (at the end of the war) while preventing negociations.

Wonder Woman' climax is she trying to prevent the Point of Divergence.

The issue is that, well, Luddendorf was a real person with a fair amount of iffluence post war.

Word of God is that the time travel antics of the Justice League prevented the holocaust in the cartoonverse.

Vandal Savage moved all of the resources of Hitler's purges to developing his superweapons.

Obviously not something you can show in a kids' show but makes their efforts all the more reality changing.

Huh, did not know that

Dunno what to feel about that

Uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable IMO

Well, there's a reason it wasn't in the show.

However, if you're actually going to have superheroes in WW 2, it's bullshit they wouldn't try and stop it.