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

As I recall the chapter, the poor and destitute break into the rich compound and the mercenaries are so appalled they refuse to defend the rich.

And where exactly does that chapter portray them as monsters or rapists, as you have claimed previously?

The mercenary narrating that event very explicitily talks about how they're none of these things.

None of that actually applies to the story we're talking about - unless being a refugee somehow makes you automatically a monster now and I haven't gotten the memo?

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Jun 10th 2021 at 1:16:41 PM

I believe the point of the chapter was that the projection of the wealth and vanity of the people in the fortress attracted desperate people to attack it. Because like in many zombie movies, places of prosperity are attacked for resources by the desperate and starving.

And thus it was Karmic Death for the rich people.

Which is how I read it.

Except I don't agree with that.

Maybe re-read what you actually said, especially the part I quoted in my last post.

You didn't "disagree", you misrepresented what actually happened in the story.

That's literally why the mercenaries refuse to shoot the crowd in the first place - because those people aren't pillagers or rapists or whatever label you're trying to put on them there.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Jun 10th 2021 at 1:27:00 PM

They were hoarding resources everyone desperately needed and had the gall to broadcast it to the rest of the world.

Torturing or raping them wouldn't be justified but if any of them were even remotely a threat killing them would be entirely justified.

I think banditry as a first response is harldy justified, which is why I disagree with the act.

And yes, we don't know if any rape happened. Just murder and robbery.

They didn't attack it. They were just trying to get in. It had nothing to do with their wealth and everything to do with the fact that it was being broadcast around the world as a safe place.

The actual fighting started between the rich and their staff who were sympathetic to the refugees.

That's an interesting read.

It is profoundly egregious to describe refugees taking supplies from rich parasites as banditry, the few do not have the right to hoard resources and let the many starve.

Frankly, I'm shocked to see someone who's normally progressive hold a position like this, that's normally something I'd expect from a right-libertarian.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jun 10th 2021 at 4:38:11 AM

Uhm, that's actually what happens in the story?

Does somebody have the book in front of them? We can just flat out quote the text here.

Sure. From T. Sean himself:

Edited by TheWildWestPyro on Jun 10th 2021 at 5:37:49 AM

It's not "they're acceptable targets because they're rich", it's "acceptable targets because they lack the basic empathy not to stream themselves having martinis and pool parties while their poorer neighbors get eaten alive". No one can save everyone, and when it comes down to it you have to protect yourself first - but if you have 47,000 square feet of walled compound, years of supplies, and a private mercenary force during a zombie apocalypse, and your first instinct is to call in a bunch of celebrities for spring break, you're not even trying.

And, as has been noted, if you're going to stream yourself announcing "we're all safe from the zombies, get fucked poor people, neener neener neener" in a situation where people's options are "get someplace safe or your children will literally be torn apart while still alive", then maybe you're the real monster.

Edited by RedSavant on Jun 10th 2021 at 7:33:08 AM

The way I read that excerpt, while these people aren’t exactly nonviolent (though perhaps the use of guns was just them defending themselves), they weren’t exactly looting and pillaging, they were just desperate.

I mean, World War Z runs entirely on Rule of Cool and I wouldn't look to it for any kind of nuanced political commentary. But the premise of that particular scene isn't too far off from the kind of behaviour that we've seen from many societal elites during this pandemic, and it's kind of hard to read it any other way unless you literally grew up with millionaires and have no one in your life who's struggling materially.

Going to respot, since to avoid it being buried:

You're right, it is not only live action films, it's just live action films are shown in threaters and attract more noticable for wider audience. For my example, it can be a lot of things, from live action Disney movies, where they make the villain of the original animated classic basically a hero and put them against someone more obviosly evil.

It can be the mentioned Warhammer 40K, where due to a lot of sympathetic POV Empire of Man comes across as less evil than it should be and its quest of extermination of the aliens comes across as more "justifyable" as a result, since the aliens come across as "more evil". It can be any type of media that tries to argue that "dictatorships and fascism clean the world of crime", regardless how much "freedom" will be lost.

For more widespread examples, it can be 300, where Spartans are portrayed as "manly heroes" fighting for "freedom" and who'se ways of "making" manly warriors are portrayed as valid. It can be Call of Duty, which portrays torture as super effective (literally every interrogation is torture), 24 is also very "pro-torture".

The 40k universe runs on the internal logic that the Imperium has to be this oppressive, totalitarian regime just to survive but because of the setting, this is actually true.

As long as you remember that this only applies in-universe in the very specific circumstances set up deliberately to make this the case, it's all well and good. But not everyone seems to make the distinction.

The 40k universe also has the running theme that the Imperium's brutal measures aren't actually working. The Imperium is always described as dying.

With regards to 300, Call Of Duty, 24, and the like, the media is brought up in a culture where a decent part of the population believe in valorizing military force and violence to stop the bad guys, and will whitewash their good guys and demonize their bad guys to make it work.

Media not only influences the politics of its culture, but is influenced by the politics its culture. There are a lot of people in this country who believe in the supremacy of the military, believe torture works or at least there is enough doubt to actually keep it around, and are willing to whitewash historical atrocity out of fear, spite, and privilege (Confederate monuments, Andrew Jackson on the 20, Columbus Day, the circumstances of Mount Rushmore), and either the artists wants to have that politics portrayed in their media, or the powers that be want to profit from the people who want that politics portrayed their media.

The Imperium never seems to actually die for real, though, unlike the Empire from Fantasy.

Which is kinda sad, considering that the Empire from Fantasy was not a fascist hellhole, but that happens when one franchise keeps on making money and one does not.

If it is, it takes way too long time for it to die, since through the franchise Imperium is always shown to be one of the most powerful faction, capable of wiping out entire planets.

I'm not anti-violence per se, so the claim that all violence in media leads to "Po-torture" messages feels flat to me. It is the same with people claiming "No kill" rule for the heroes and treats all killing as bad, regardless of the situation.

Edited by VeryVileVillian on Jun 11th 2021 at 11:56:26 AM

The reason it takes so long to die is because when it was at its peak it conquered nearly the entire galaxy. The Imperium is huge.

This is Fanon and quite the opposite. The Imperium has been slowly dying for 10000 years with it becoming less and less technologically as well as socially advanced. It's just it was over a million worlds so it's taking a long-long time to die.

It helps that all of the other factions slowly killing the Imperium hate each other as much as humanity. Also, humanity does have some decent people willing to fight and die for it.

Abnett also has done a big job of making it feudal rather than fascist whenever possible, which oddly enough may have saved it as the Emperor was a complete monster in the revised Horus Heresy.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jun 11th 2021 at 2:27:06 AM

That's not the point of my take. It's not that necessarily an artist created a pro-torture piece, it will suddenly lead to all who consumed it to believe in pro-torture. The main point is that the intended audience is pro-torture or at the very least thinks torture works even if they disagree with it, so artists make art to play to the desires or expectations of an audience who want or expect to see torture in their media.

Second of all, how media influences its audiences is not clear cut. Seeing violence in media doesn't make one violent and seeing a fictional sexual assault does not turn you into a misogynistic rapist, it's not a 1-to-1 cause and effect like that. But media does have influence, especially in areas that people have less knowledge on. Well known examples include Jaws leading to a large devastation of the shark population because of shark hunting, jurors basing there opinions on crime shows like CSI, a Supreme court justice using 24 to justify torture, advertisement in general, Donald Trump being viewed as a legitimate businessman instead of a grifter in part due to the Apprentice, etc. But there is influence, such that there should be a sense of responsibility in artists being careful with their works.