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

There was the idea of hooded being gay I think so there is that.

It was Alan Moore's not so subtle Take That! to the concept of superheroes that the idea of a costumed vigilante in America would most likely be a white supremacist since there were already a history of costumed "vigilantes."

One element about the show is it seems to have a much softer view of superheroes than the comics.

Dave Gibbon thinks the Race Lift was a great idea, though.

https://www.gamesradar.com/watchmen-episode-6-damon-lindelof-interview-hooded-justice/

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Dec 6th 2019 at 4:19:38 AM

I mean, i have the view that comic never really recover that much from watchmen and the beating it did the whole concept, so far that being "serious" with superhero have become obsolete in fact, comic are becoming pretty much "Ironily silly" again

Moore and Gibbons seems to disagree a lot when it comes to Watchmen, don't they? Moore wasn't a fan of of people making a Watchman adaptation either, while Gibbons was consulting on that, if I recall correctly.

Also another thing about superheroes in Watchmen was that, overall, they weren't very healthy individuals. Just look at some of the most prominent ones, like Ozymandias, Rorschach or the Comedian - not to mention Dr Manhattan, the closest thing Watchman has to a "classical" superhero.

I always got the impression that Watchmen was firmly in the "no sane person would become a masked vigilante" camp when it comes to messaging.

The thing with post-Watchmen comics is that a lot of people have simply ignored or not understood the message Moore was trying to make - while he was deconstructing a genre, people went all "Ooooh, dark and gritty is cool" and cue everything turning Darker and Edgier.

It's kinda like how the Fallout franchise is in large part a deconstruction of militarism and 50s' America's society and and all a lot of people seem to take away from it is "power armour is cool".

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Dec 6th 2019 at 1:25:59 PM

What's interesting about the characters is that they all also represent some kind of political or moral philosophy.

Rorschach for example is basically a morally absolutist right-winger, complete with a massive Madonna-Whore Complex (probably due to being the son of a prostitute). Despite the Misaimed Fandom Moore himself noted that he strongly disagreed with Steve Ditko's objectivist views, which accounts for a lot.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Dec 6th 2019 at 8:32:17 AM

There's no "probably" here.

I dont thing they ignore more thatn they deliberate goes against it because...well, moore take the funny aspect of superhero, watchmen IS brutal to superhero and he didnt go soft of them, even moore itself kinda said it: he care more about the human chararter that get blast in the end.

in a way superhero wanted to be more serious but they cant do the same as moore because moore pretty much point out the emperor was naked.

So far I've just stuck to clarifying anarchist philosophy and terminology and not really given my own views and opinions, but now we've touched on something I would like to address...

Because it artificially separates people living in the same country and makes those who weren't born there into second class citi... Well, second class inhabitants with fewer rights.

It suggest that merely being born somewhere gives you more right to live there than someone who wasn't born there.

It suggests that not being born somewhere gives you less right to live there, even if you grew up there and have little to no connection to where you were born.

To me that’s less an argument against citizenship at birth, and more an argument that once you’ve been living in a country for a while (say, five years) and state an intention to remain there long-term, you should recieve citizenship automatically.

What about a country that gives both birthright citizenship and voluntary citizenship, like most modern countries?

Is any birthright citizenship inherently bad and the system has to be voluntary citizenship only, or is it okay as long as there’s an option?

It's interesting that while Alan Moore gets attributed with the ultimate deconstruction of superheroes, he's also written many more superhero stories since then with his work on Rob Liefeld's SUPREME being a landmark work celebrating the various incarnations of Superman.

He also gave a fascinating interview on Watchmen back when he wasn't furious about DC stealing it from him.

https://www.twomorrows.com/comicbookartist/articles/09moore.html

"CBA: Did you explore Ayn Rand's philosophy [With Rorshach]?

Alan: I had to look at The Fountainhead. I have to say I found Ayn Rand's philosophy laughable. It was a "white supremacist dreams of the master race," burnt in an early-20th century form. Her ideas didn't really appeal to me, but they seemed to be the kind of ideas that people would espouse, people who might secretly believe themselves to be part of the elite, and not part of the excluded majority. I would basically disagree with all of Ditko's ideas, but he has to be given credit for expressing these political ideas. I believe some feminists regard Dave Sim in much the same light; they might disagree with everything he says, but at least there is some sort of sexual-political debate going on there. So I've got respect for Ditko. "

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Dec 6th 2019 at 5:11:47 AM

I happen the same to me reading fables, people here were right that the author is very right wing but on the other hand I have to give the credit to present that in their history, to deny so while praise other for introduce wokeness into shows it would be hipocracy.

one have to be fair after all.

Another thing to note is that if birthright citizenship is not offered then that would mean newborns are effectively stateless.

I’d also point out that regardless of citizenship the parent-child relationship is a hierarchy that everyone is involuntarily subject to, making it no good by that definition.

This distaste for hierarchy in general and government in particular...kind of lolbertarian when you think about it.

I mean, Lolbertarians exist because some Capitalists decided give a try to Anarchist concepts.

Because for some anarchist postulate atract capitalist for all the wrong reason, after all lolbertarians are atract to the idea of being free to do was they want because they atach said freedom to their sucess.

now to move one, do you think we will see more green aseop in the future? im surprise that with all the woke culture and all envriomental stuff is still barely show at all.

Lolbertarians aren't anti-hierarchy so much as anti-public government. They and especially their objectivist brethren are perfectly fine with high vertical hierarchy so long as it's within the private sector, even when amounts to neo-feudalism in practice.

And some anarchists (not the anarcho-capitalists who most mainline anarchists do not consider among their ranks in a correct aversion of the No True Scotsman argument) do refer to themselves as left-libertarians or libertarian socialists for a reason.

Or to put it in another way: most of lolberterian want to be megacoporation in shadowrun.

and if anyone have played the game, that is like, a super duper bad thing.

Charles: Do you have any idea if there is going to be a 5Ed of werewolf? because I feel if anything, their ecological themes are more needed than ever with stuff is happen right now.

Yes, Werewolf the Apocalypse is being worked on now and will be announced in 2020. The video game, "Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Earthblood" will probably be when they announce it's release.

The most unfortunate thing, I think, is that libertarians and other small government nuts have co-opted this position to the point where anyone advocating for it is essentially carrying water for them.

I think it’s worth acknowledging that government isn’t inherently anything other than what we make it.

Is funny that for all people mock werewolf backstory as "edgy capitan planet" (which I mean is right to some extent, werewolf have TONS of issues) the situation with the planet is more dire that is before with trump and bolsonaro who are borderline pentex chararter in power.

I mean hell I can almost see "pentex back up trump campain" as a thing.

All you need to make Pentex a viable and serious enemy is that they're destroying the planet for money.

No other motivation.

Or making less cartoonish, I mean the broad of director of pentex is downright hilarious on how bad it is.

Or if you wanted it that Pentex have discover how used werewolf power to make profit and that it, call it spiritual capitalization and you have something.

The thing with Watchmen is that its deconstruction of the superhero genre pretty much invalidated the appeal of characters like Superman, Spider-man, Captain America, etc. for whoever understood the message at its core.

Superheroes in general tend to appeal to an escapism factor of being able to do more than the average person, from flying to fighting bad guys or saving people, without being restrained by things like laws, bureaucracy or politics. You can even say they appeal to the idea that you don't need to belong to the "system" nor participate in it to do something good or meaningful.

As Watchmen shows, that's a load of BS.

None of the vigilantes have an impact on the Cold War precisely because they don't participate in the web of politics that could prevent it from going hot; the lack of accountability or evaluations of things like mental health is what allows criminals like the Comedian to roam free or the ultimate amorality and detatchment of Ozymandias and Dr. Manhattan to develop.

In fact, Ozymandias's practical joke is the encapsulation of the short-term approach of superheroes to the problems they have at hand.

In a way, the Darker and Edgier bent that comic books latter developed and still persists even after the 90s is a justification for superheroes to exist in the first place since the threats they face are dire enough to allow them to wield their power freely.

Because the truth is, and this is what Watchmen could be argued to have said, a man or woman in a suit doing a desk job that the common person can't quite understand in scale or importance is far more positive than a vigilante chasing a futile personal quest.

Edited by raziel365 on Dec 7th 2019 at 10:20:57 AM