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

Is pretty hard to criticize the self destructiveness of a fanbase that already loathes itself.

Yeah. Magneto' jewish heritage is a Cheap Freudian Excuse, sadly because there a lot to work there.

Shinji is more like True Neutral leaning to good IMO. In a better situation, he would move to good but NGE isn't one of them.

And NERV/SEELE is not fascist. They are bad but fascist is a very clear set of rituations.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Sep 22nd 2018 at 1:20:09 PM

I do not trust anyone in the creative industries to be able to handle even the possibilities of mutant-intersectionality.

Also I don't know if I would describe otaku culture as being as self loathing as you imply, at least in the mid-90s when the series was coming out.

Carefully using such a combination (Jewish Holacaust survivor and Mutant) is really hard but I don't think is impossible.

...I really want to read a perspective on Magneto from a jewish author. I really would love doing so.

I do wonder if we will eventually see Magneto be updated to be a survivor of a different genocide, as we’re already now hitting the point where he has to be either seriously old or have his life extended via magic to still be alive.

It's funny you asked but I actually HAVE read a lot of Jewish write-ups about Magneto.

As the most prominent Jew in comic books (poor Ben Grimm), he certainly gets a lot of attention. One of the first ones I remembered reading was actually a piece about how pissed off a bunch of Jewish readers were that they were trying to reveal he was Romani instead of Jewish because they were afraid of offending....Jewish readers. Basically, the old bad representation vs. no representation except the fact Magneto is an Anti-Villain who is very often seemingly right about humans. Jews Love Magneto being that he's very often more an antihero these days than a villain despite attempts to retcon him.

You could not believe how the forums of Jewish readers also lit up when they tried to have Magneto join Hydra. Other times I remember articles by Jewish authors include:

1. When they tried to portray Magneto murdering the Red Skull in Uncanny Avengers as evil and a sign Magneto was irredeemable. 2. When Carol Danvers insulted Magneto by saying he compared everything to Hitler. 3. Again, whenever Magneto works with Hydra like Hydra Steve.

Really, the big thing about Magneto is that the authors have had him be a hero for decades at a time but never let it completely stick.

Here's a recent one.

https://www.haaretz.com/1.5024668

Also, unrelated, there's also the mixed tumbler response by a black author to Magneto's treatment.

http://ubernegro.tumblr.com/post/158195526210/anti-semitism-in-marvel/embed

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 22nd 2018 at 1:56:00 AM

Or in simple terms, Magneto is a character that is hard to get a lot of hate on given he's badass and a general criticism of the X-men is the government has been Always Chaotic Evil in the setting for a long time.

He rarely kills anyone who doesn't "deserve it" and would easily be the kind of protagonist you can (and many have) written series about.

Oh yeah. I wonder which one honestly.

Thanks Charles. I like reading those opinons.

That is a perfectly valid complain. Is like changing a latino villain to be a afro-american. Both minorities but totally different groups.

I believe it. The salt born from it would be enought to re-kill the Dead Sea. And is totally justified.

Oh yeah, is a general issue with Anti-Villain in general.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Sep 22nd 2018 at 4:08:44 AM

In general angst depend A LOT of a case-by-basis, in case of shinji is because expectation of the genre, Shinji is a shonen hero in a mecha series, people really expect(even today) Shinji to get over their issue, get in the fucking mecha and beat the elderich abomination, or that the drama come from him being a mecha issues.

If Shinji was in a diferent genre like horror or slice of life, there shinji would be more liked in general, but he is the protagonist in a genre were YOU NEED to be protactive and shinji isnt likey to play ball with that.

Another example in fact can be superhero movies this days, specially from Marvel who seen to have a general aversion to have "serious" movies which is why you have endless quiping, humor in middle of serious events and so own, so in general depend of the genre.

Magneto's status as a villain is also one of those things that illustrate the problem with comic books and the fact they are almost impossible to have any permanent changes to.

Cyclops has been a dark and brooding antihero for, what? Twenty years now?

People still think of him as the boyscout character.

That's because ongoing comic book storylines have a surprising Mainstream Obscurity among the general public. I mean, that's generally why those clickbaity "Twenty things you NEVER KNEW about YOUR FAVORITE X-MEN!" types of articles or videos on Buzzfeed or Collider have an audience. How many people do you think have stayed current on comics? Not many, because these franchises are so vast it's frankly impossible. They remember the biggest, the first, and generally the simplest stories in the canon, and that gets reinforced by their constant retelling.

Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Sep 22nd 2018 at 8:15:14 AM

Comic books themselves have always been in the niche. Yeah, adaptations of comic books are popular, but the actual comics hardly see immense sales as you would with other mediums. Doesn't help how convoluted things can get, not to mention the climate in comics for the last decade or so.

Well comics used to be huge.

Comics sometimes had 1.3 or 1.4 million sales per issue.

Then they stopped being carried in every supermarket.

Operative words being "used to". The supermarket situation is just one aspect of the decline I'd say. From what I've heard, sales figures for Marvel haven't been exactly marvelous, which is a bit weird if true considering the MCU.

People now buy collections online rather than individual issues.

I have to admit, is better read them like that IMO. A Comicbook Story Arc is better read in a row IMO

Here's a fun fact too: the best-selling graphic novels aren't from DC and Marvel at all either. It's stuff like Dav Pilkey's Dog Man and manga volumes, which actually do pretty well. Relative to their actual sales people give the big two too much focus.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Sep 23rd 2018 at 8:52:26 AM

What do you guys think of James Bond and his character in the post Cold War society?

@GAP: I've never been too into James Bond despite liking the core concept of spy fiction (my favorite books growing up were the Alex Rider books). I will say that the Cold War definitely screwed up spy fiction.

Though IIRC James Bond fared better than most-Ian Fleming originally had the Soviets as bad guys but realized early on that the Cold War wasn't going to last forever so he created Spectre.

James Bond in the movies was always against terrorists, criminals, and basically a non-costume wearing superhero.

Bond is arguably the lest spy of spy fiction, he’s very much more a special forces superhero than a spy, he never does any real intelligence work.

Tinker Tailor Solider Spy and Smiley, now that’s a realistic intelligence officer doing realistic intelligence work.

Eh, I find the idea of Bond being any more unrealistic in his profession than soldiers or cops in action movies to be a questionable assertion.

In real life soldiers and cops engage in action at times, what happens in films is grossly exaggerated but the idea comes from a real part of the job.

That’s not true with Bond, there’s no real action in espionage for the spies, they work pure desk jobs with no action, Smiley is a dramatic expansion of spycraft, Bond is special forces work pretending that it’s spycraft.

Edited by Silasw on Sep 24th 2018 at 12:00:32 PM

@Charles Phipps: I once sat down and wrote a mini-essay (a long Facebook post) on what defines a "Superhero".

I basically stated there was a variety of tropes involved and noted that a "Hollywood Secret Agent" is basically a mundane supehero (or at least more mundane). Indeed, there's plenty of overlap between secret agents and badass normal superheroes like Black Widow. And Batman is basically just a privately-funded secret agent.

This is actually part of where the Badass Normal supehero falls apart IRL in isolation: it's usually a lot more helpful for someone like that to serve in some sort of official, Boring, but Practical way.

Well, that and (obviously) there's a bit of an upper limit to Charles Atlas Superpower. For example, it ought to be at best extremely difficult for Batman to take on several US Special Forces soldiers because even if Batman is pushing the upper limits of what's humanly possible so are they. So at a certain point being able to take them all on requires you to be superhuman.

In fact, I will said that as a general rule, Marvel cinematic universe drnik a lot from old action heroes since they are badass normal hero anyway.

This is notable in avengers, since the battle of new yorks is pretty much independence day with superhero(including a good guy flying toward the ship), and for me winter solider is jason bounre trilogy mix with John mackline bullshit.

I mean, the fifth element is pretty much a pseudo guardian of the galaxy so to speak, including stoping a living planet.

The difference between wetwork and spy work is not as cut and dry as people state.

Christopher Lee, notably Ian Fleming's cousin, did plenty of both.