How do the dominant cultural narratives in art and mass media affect our politics?

It's interesting how this conversation is about Marvel's portrayal of the US government as a paranoid force out to kill mutants, when meanwhile the main DC universe usually has it that the US government forms a law enforcement agency called ARGUS with the express purpose of assisting the Justice League and taking over cases it doesn't have time to handle. Of course, the organization's role in plots depends on its leadership: Steve Trevor is a Benevolent Boss who is fond of super-humans, while Amanda Waller is a Bad Boss who distrusts them and sees the League as a direct threat to the US government's sovereignty.

DC up until the 2000s was a bit more reasonable about this stuff than Marvel.

Hell, I'll give Batman vs Superman this - any other movie would have revealed Helen Hunt's character into a secret super villain just by virtue of being a government official.

,Which is nice, I despise the paranoid libertarian view that the government are evil monsters just itching to immediately enslave superbeings.

It rarely makes sense, people with superpowers aren't a vulnerable minority they're like geniuses or star athletes. They would most likely be offered great jobs and benefits by governments and other social organizations.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Aug 10th 2018 at 11:44:40 AM

Got to feed into the mindset of the privileged and powerful that they're real victims of society.

Damn. The idea of a Cold War with superpowered individuals is just so badass when you think about it. You have ideologies in conflict and a lot of self interest and probable motivations for each characters.

Like, Catholic Latino Socialist clashing with a atheist Socialist and even going in a full superpowered battle for their views. A full right winger finding themself sympathizing more with some socialists even more than their compatriots.

...damn. Is so epic to think about it.

You know. I also would be afraid if there was people that could kill me without using weapons just for their genetic bless.

If anything, Super Supremacist would be pretty damn common. Like, "regular" white supremacists gans that do have powers and use them to kill non-whites, regarldess if they have powers or don't while claiming themselves to be divine messiahs or something similar (depending of your white supremacist group).

Edited by KazuyaProta on Aug 10th 2018 at 11:38:12 AM

Yeah, 'cause it's a well known fact that minorities don't face any prejudice when they're athletes or scientist. Colin Kaepernick is universally beloved and Albert Einstein only decided to live in the US after 1933 because he liked the weather.

Seriously, though, people in general are more prone to think negatively of people who are different from them. Especially if they consider them threatening.

If you think that being perceived as strong makes people safe from prejudice, you should look into how many cops in US have been convicted, or heck even fired, after shooting unarmed, but fit, black people they considered 'threatening'.

Edited by Robrecht on Aug 10th 2018 at 9:49:37 AM

Spartan mean that people don't discriminate Scientists and Atletes for being scientists and atletes per se. Minority Scientists and atletes are discrimined for being minorities, not for being scientifics or atletes.

Strong minorities face discrimination not for their strenght, but for their status as minorities. Important distinction.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Aug 10th 2018 at 12:11:48 PM

I know right? Certainly more interesting then the tenth million derivative of "we're special snowflakes and the common plebs hate us for it".

Exactly this, minorities are discrete groups that can be Othered and discriminated against while the same is not at-all true about metahumans. They would still belong to whatever other socioeconomic group they belonged to as a normal human, like nationality or race.

Thus the idea that metahumans are a persecuted minority makes zero sense, real life fascists would love a blonde and blue eyed person who could punch a tank into submission. The dynamics are completely different and it’s aggravating that comic book writers try so hard to act as if they’re similar.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Aug 10th 2018 at 1:16:14 PM

Ok, after having 11 hours without electricity(socialism men, dont do it) I find the damn thread moving to fast again, so let me move as far as I can.

About cristianity...well, I think nietzchie kinda hate Paul for it, saying he make religion a workship of death rather than life, I can see where he is coming.

"

Maybe, but if you want to convince people to play the right side in a game, focus on making the good guys look cool and the bad guys generic. "

Maybe but then you fall back into the classic 90 trap of making the villian so generic it make ask people why they should be a treat in the first place, something I have other strugling.

"She broke up with him because she realized that due to their age difference they were at very different places in their lives,"

She hire him because he was atractice and want a buddy call, them he left him after realizing that she cant have anything with him because of their age.....sorry, I cant let then have it so nicely.

" I'm especially happy that Chronicles of Darkness do their best to include diversity in their works. "

Better than white wolf that is for sure....

It was a mistake, let's try just one more time

Edited by KazuyaProta on Aug 10th 2018 at 12:31:29 PM

"There's nothing wrong with the classic version and attempts to move from this have never resulted in anything good."

I can see why people try to move it: it sound like the typical, mary sutopia, wakanda sometimes have issue with the same thing.

" I'm going to toss the idea to have Amazons be Drow in this setting. "

Better than my idea of making them egypt.

About rome: while is true that rome think other god are just their gods isnt exclusive of rome, it was taken of greeks in general who have the same idea, and while is condesendent, is generaly better than christianity who mindset is "we are the real deal, everyone else adore demons, got it?"

"it's basic logic to regulate them so they don't abuse those powers at the expense of the common good. "

Nonsense, SOME will do it but other will be glad to have those guys out.

In general, I see the problem with meta humans is that it present them as too black and white for others: ether they are super super hate them or they are love, when in true a lot of opinion will varied depend of the group.

Particular Polytheism (dunno if there a word for it) where all gods were real but you just worshipped some was pretty much the regular paradigm of most religions, even the jews did believe in it before gradually evolving to something resembling modern monotheism.

Pretty much, im reading the nine books of history of herodoto(I HIGHTLY recomend to everyone who need inspiration to their own fantasy words), constantly said that each civilization adore the greek gods under the name of x god.

Is not surprising in the last.

As much as we can and should be down on the Romans who enforced cultural absolutism on religion, I point out any claim of Roman tolerance keeps coming back to the fact Rome destroyed Jerusalem and scattered the Jewish race on religious grounds. They exterminated the druids, burned their groves, and outlawed their practices. Again, the elimination of Carthage also include a total eradication of their faith.

The Romans were tolerant only to the point people played ball with them, which is not remotely better and lead to genocides.

A lot of socio-economic status is completely overriden in RL by other qualities. Let me make a list.

• Gay athlete
• Rich Jew
• Scientist Jew
• Black lawyer

The mass murder of affluent (or even just successful) blacks in Tulsa, Oklahoma shows that it's not going to be "white mutant" for a lot of people anymore than it is "white gay kid.'

They would also hate the blonde blue eyed person who has a tail or scales, the Jewish person who can phase through walls, or the homosexual person who has eyebeamz and may hate Nazis.

In my current book, The Future of Supervillainy, I'm writing now a scene where the protagonist (who has superpowers but isn't a "Super") has to explain to his daughter why white supremacists want to have her killed.

"Because they're idiots, honey, and they like to pretend they're awesome because of the way they were born. Supers automatically prove they're not."

They're Jewish and he's married to a black Super.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 10th 2018 at 1:59:39 AM

That's my point.

A gay metahuman would face the problems that gay people face, same with any metahuman that belongs to a persecuted minority.

But it most likely would not be their metahuman nature that made them discriminated against, it would most likely benefit them by giving them access to jobs that others could not.

Exactly, my point is that "metahuman" on its own is not enough to count as a minority group and thus Comic's constant civil rights allegory is usually farcical.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Aug 10th 2018 at 5:05:00 AM

That's only a problem if you don't think people would hate people with superpowers in real life.

Which I find ridiculous if Magneto is preaching human supremecism, some superpowered people are ugly, and others are minorities but all superpowered people stick together.

Insectionality and so on.

Kitty Pryde basically wailed into Alex Summers for having this attitude. That it was the only support group a lot of mutants had.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 10th 2018 at 2:11:57 AM

I'm sure some people would dislike them but not to the degree they could be compared accurately to the Civil Rights movement, the dynamic would just be too different.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Aug 10th 2018 at 5:11:28 AM

Eh, I take this view with the X-men.

The X-men are never as interesting as when they're a black woman, a Jewish girl, a gay speedster, and other minorities who are teamed up together against prejudice. Its allegory which the subtext is almost text.

We're a long way from the days of 5 white kids and a guy in a wheelchair.

With X-Men, I think part of the issue is that I'd actually expect the discrimination to be reversed: You'd tend to see Mutant overlords ruling over normal humans. I could, however, see there being a time when mutant overlords ruled mankind, then were overthrown-resulting in the normal humans hating mutants.

This is actually a major difference between DC and Marvel: In Marvel, superheroes tend to be treated as some form of downtrodden group. In DC, they tend to be portrayed as authority figures.

Given mutants have long been accepted as an allegory for gay people by the gay community and other groups...I find the idea of emphasizing mutants as the persecutors or "both sides" to be problematic.

A few remarks on the last pages, if you don’t mind.

a. Rome and religions.
Participation in the Imperial Cult was part and parcel of being a good Civis Romanus let alone a provincial subject aspiring to be granted said privilege.
Rogue religions were routinely persecuted for refusing to toe the line, Christianity among them. The Jewish monotheistic religion had a special status of Religio licita, as in premitted and recognised though not part of the official religion of the empire. To my recollection, the Edict of Milan of 313 AD granted Christianity the same legal status and recognition.

b. Powered minority not necessarily a powerful minority.
IRL there are powerful minorities, the nobility of the Ancien Régime or some ruling tribe or community in other traditional regimes. The wealthy and the powerful and the otherwise privileged nowadays.
These minorities’ privileges aren’t due to their members having special physical or intellectual powers, or any super-aptitudes, but to having power over other people through the workings of society and polity.
Non-powerful minorities may be allowed to excel in various fields, and those excelling individuals are expected to show gratitude and be shown off as witnesses to how enlightened we are to allow them to excel in our fine lands. Yet come bad times to the badlands and whether you invented that gizmo we all use, sang that song we all love, or won all those medals for our country in past games, and you’d still be gettin’ what’s comin’…
In fiction, the mutants or migrants from outer space may have special abilities making them enough of a threat in-universe to the established power, even if only in potential (repress them and see that potential realised). They don’t usually have economic or political power, as in power over others, and if so they often have to hide who they are.

It is among consumers of fiction where we find those liking to see those fictional powered minorities akin to the powerful minorities IRL, as those like to believe their privilege is earned (earned privilege being like flying fish, with its existence while attested being no generality for the genus), that they are the giant redwoods holding the skies for us meek blades of grass, that only their benevolent presence lifts us from the primeval filth, and so on and so forth.
And they see themselves as oppressed by you using your larger number to acquire through goddamm Democracy! some measure of power to offset theirs, cheats and moochers that you are, voting yourselves cigs, booze, cocaine and hookers instead of earning those the old-fashioned way!

Then there are the nefarious instances where those non-powerful minorities IRL are imagined with occult powers, such as that sexual magnetism with which them will capture the minds and bodies of our innocent girls (with the help of some mind-altering substances, you know the kind), them controlling our economy and popular culture, holding our government under their heel, unbeknownst to you but beknownst to us, etc.

Edited by AlityrosThePhilosopher on Aug 10th 2018 at 9:56:13 AM

@Charles

I mean. Neo Nazi mutant oppressing """degenerate""" mutants with deformities, normal humans with deformities and non whites (but especially non white powered mutants) would be a pretty cool opressor mutant Super Supremacist villain.

And about the Minorities=Mutants analogy...

It was a good thing. Mind you, it was, it helped minorities get representation easier compared to other groups of heroes.

But now, with minorities becoming more accepted and tolerated. The analogy feels corny and even offensive given that most minorities don't have some extra power.

This means that the X-Men have to dissapear? Or that the In-Universe Marvel anti mutant discrimination have to go?

My answer is No, is part of their lore for decades and it's fine. But the focus could be shifted to be about how is being a mutant while also belonging to any group and how is contrasted with being a mutant of other groups.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Aug 10th 2018 at 5:11:12 AM

Mind you, I think part of the issue is that I think the X-men's, "Being a minority is inherently a good thing and you should be proud of who you are because that is awesome" is a message that is inherently good.

Their minority status is their superpower.

But being a minority is not a inherently good thing, and I said it as a non white myself that belongs to the Quechua people by paternal line.

Plus. A lot of Mutants are Blessed with Suck and Cursed with Awesome.

The pride in yourself is a good message, but you don't need to make your minority stand in being superpowered.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Aug 10th 2018 at 5:30:11 AM