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

That show basically takes all the horrible shit ever done to black people in the US and concentrates it in one place over a short time, including unforgivable government medical experiments, pushing drugs on black communities as an experiment and a money-making business to fund further experiments, enslaving them, drafting them as human weapons, kidnapping black young women into what amounts to sex slavery, killing black community leaders to quell dissent, screwing black kids out of an education using zero tolerance policies, and so on and so forth. It plays black music with incredibly apropos lyrics.

It's incredibly polticial, outspoken, raw, and sincere. It goes all-out and over-the-top, in the WWI sense of holding nothing back.

I love it.

My view is that it isn't black people Whale hates so much as black men. If you look at Whale's cruelest actions throughout the the series, all of them are directed at black men:

• He killed Jefferson's father by literally shoving the man's articles down his throat.

• In his first on screen interaction with Lala, he shoots him in the shoulder with a harpoon gun.
  • He later kills and the resurrects Lala for another plan. And then kills him again.

• He crippled his father by shattering his spine and left him to die a slow and painful death. Admittedly, his father had abused him and his sister when they were kids.

• He ripped out Khalil's spine implant which ultimately resulted in his death. This was especially cruel since Khalil was originally crippled in Whale's attempt to kill Black Lightning and Reveren Holt.

I've wondered, beyond the so used Nazis, what would be a good basis for a fictional Evil Empire.

Anyone have seen them? Evil Empires based on RL regimes that weren't Nazis

Well, the Roman Empire is a good pick, as would Imperial Japan (Fire Nation, etc).

In truth, any modern Empire can be used as basis for an Evil Empire, from Japan to Britain, because their sins are fresh in our memories.

The Gempire from Steven Universe does a good job of packaging what I think are rue essential traits that make Empires awesome and awful.

I did just learn that Pol Pot himself wasn't knew at large for the population during the Cambodian Genocide. He was known as Angkar and stood hidden from.the public, managing to be a Glorious Leader with only few knowing that he even existed.

I couldn't but be a bit baffled at how damn it sounded like a fantasy plot.

Add Pol Pot known Faux Affably Evil /Affably Evil personality and is just a supreme example of Reality Is Unrealistic.

They weren't also forgiven for most of their crimes?

Edited by KazuyaProta on Feb 23rd 2019 at 9:35:30 AM

Not at all. Their leaders were made to realize that their ideological foundation was hollow and what they were doing was pointless and made them miserable. They were coaxed into starting to fix some of the damage they've made. That's not the same as forgiveness.

As for the rank and file, degrees of responsibility for harm done and of personal evilness and on-board-ness were highly varied, as it should be with any empire.

Edited by Oruka on Feb 23rd 2019 at 6:49:15 AM

I’d say the Russian empire, just look at what they tried to do to Alaska.

Or their neightboors in Siberia...

What'd they do? All I know of Ancient Regime Russia comes from War And Peace and Michel Strogoff.

The French under Napoleon could count.

The USA if you're left-leaning, in a third world country, and it's the Cold War.

These two examples turn out to be hilariously similar in rhetoric.

The diamonds from Steven Universe were absolutely forgiven. They were made to see the error of their ways but it’s not like they were punished for all the deaths they caused.

Let's be honest, any empire worth the name can be used as basis for a fictional Evil Empire. Empires don't get to be empires by playing nice. It requires very deliberate grabs for power at the expense of other nations.

While I'm all for acknowledging the bad things Usa had done, being neightboor of a dictatorship whose rethoric is "America Bad!!!" and son of People that ran away from a terrorist group with similar ideas, I'm not exacly fond as "America as the Evil Empire" narrativa.

Well, the way the first settlers expanded the USA territory, taking the land of the former inhabitants and destroying their culture, isn't really all that different from how Empires generally expand.

But I'm personally talking about colonial Empires here, for while older Empires still did a lot of nasty shit, 19th century and earlier Empires' sins are still affecting us to this day, and more to the point plenty of people want them to come back.

In fact, the British equivalent of the jingoistic alt-right nutter is the ultra-nationalistic who wants to bring back the "Glory Days" of the British Empire.

I was thinking more on ignorated 20th century dictatorships rather than colonial Empires.

C19th? That's practically yesterday, mate.

Try Kemet. Or the Sumerian city-state expansions/empires. Or the various iterations of the blob currently known as "China" and its constituent parts over time.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Feb 23rd 2019 at 4:10:49 PM

That's the point tho.

I took some inspiration from the Ottomons for a fictional empire, though they're not colonial in the same way, say, Portugal was.

The ottomans got worse in their last years. They usually were better than other empires but during their last years they got worse. Say hi Armenian Genocide.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Feb 23rd 2019 at 11:41:19 AM

Hmmm, is there anything political about Blood Sport ? I was thinking about it, when I reminded myself of that old movie The Running Man from 1987 or Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament. There are more but these 3 came to my mind first.

Like if the contestants are criminals put on a death row. Would it be still moral, ethical? The government or corporations could frame innocents as criminals and force them to fight or die.

It's something on my mind now.

Edited by Dhiruxide on Feb 23rd 2019 at 5:44:22 PM

Obviously it would be unethical

Then theres the Bread and Circuses angle, which is what the Trope Codifier (Gladiator games) was used for.

@Indie: First of all, those are humongous spoilers, please use spoiler tags. That said, 'They weren't punished.' and 'They started to understand and fix their misdeeds.' does not equate to 'They were forgiven and it's all good now.' For a good show about the nuances between repentance, redemption, forgiveness, and punishment or the lack thereof, see Bojack Horseman.

Damn, that show's real.

There was a cool You Tube series about real and fictional empires.

Bread and Circuses only occur when you need to appease the people who are within rock-throwing distance of your palace, especially if you need them to manage the whole thing.

Also happens if you're an embedded part of the local society rather than an exclusive family, and impressing the peers for the glory of your family name is important.