This thread's purpose is to discuss politics in works of fiction/media. Please do not use this thread to talk about politics or media in isolation from each other.
I was thinking of asking what people thought were the most interesting post-election Trump related media.
The Good Fight on CBS Access devoted their entire second season to dealing with the subject.
Edited by MacronNotes on Mar 13th 2023 at 3:23:38 PM
Foreign Troper
Yeah I don't think that would have any merit either.
Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian
So, the Browncoats are seeped in Confederate imagery but are a racially tolerant anti-slavery group in the show. Is there any way to untangle this mess for a space Western that won't fundamentally ruin Firefly?
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Remove the Confederate imagery?
It's been a while since I've seen the show, but what makes them Confederates specifically instead of your general space cowboys?
It's been fun.
A major part of the storyline is that the Browncoats were independents who wanted to maintain their position separate from the Alliance. However, their attempt at independence resulted in the militarily superior and technologically more industrialized Alliance defeating them.
Mal, as a survivor of the war, is left with no country to return to and a deep and abiding hatred of the Alliance. He and his band of outlaws move along the frontier to avoid the specter of the Alliance because of said loathing and a desire to keep his freedom. The Alliance continues to encroach more and more, though, so that it will eventually end no matter what.
This is contrasted with the fact the Alliance is a mostly white organization versus the Browncoasts and seems to practice slavery that our heroes and by extension the Browncoast were opposed to.
I feel like that is easier said than done.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jan 16th 2021 at 4:21:55 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
I don't think this inherently makes them Confederate stand ins. Wanting independence for one reason or another does not make for a Confederacy.
Doctor of Doctorates
Yeah, I have to agree that seeing them as Confederate stand-ins is something of a stretch. Slavery was never even implied to be part of their motive, and there's no sign of racial prejudice - if anything they seem MORE equal than the homogeneous victors.
"These 'no-nonsense' solutions of yours just don't hold water in a complex world of jet-powered apes and time travel."
"I think we'll rise again." - Mal, Trainjob
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
You mean the appropriation issues didn't already?
Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.
Oh, bother.
Ah, Firefly. The series that is supposed to be set in a verse that is half Chinese yet had very few actual East Asian cast members.
<sigh>
...Fuck Whedon.
Edited by M84 on Jan 16th 2021 at 8:54:23 PM
Disgusted, but not surprised
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Did it have any Asian characters at all? Because I can't remember any off the top of my head.
I find equating multiculturalism with appropriation incredibly disturbing. A lot of white supremacists support issues of cultural "purity" that bother me.
I equate appropriation with money made from the stealing and repackaging of people's heritage. Usually involving the robbery of cultural artifacts.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jan 16th 2021 at 4:57:35 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
In the name of being honest
You don't have to view the Browncoats as Confederate stand-ins, but it's pretty difficult to shake off the feel that they were based off the "Lost Cause" view of the Confederacy to some extent.
Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)
Uhm, did you miss the part where that series heavily takes from Chinese culture, but doesn't bother actually having any Chinese characters (or heck, East Asian characters in general) at all? Despite the background of the setting featuring China as one of the main driving forces behind the foundation of the Alliance?
Here's a blogpost from 2018 that summarises the problem pretty well
:
Like many fan favorites (of any genre), Firefly has some unfortunate hallmarks that push it towards “problematic fave” status. The slut shaming of Inara by Mal is relentless and off-putting, actor Adam Baldwin’s politics and position at the forefront of Gamergate is pretty grotesque, and the bloom is certainly off the rose with Whedon. However, the most troubling aspect of the beloved show is the cultural appropriation.
Within the history of the show, America and China became the major superpowers on Earth-That-Was, fusing together to form the Anglo-Sino Alliance and eventually ruling the entirety of the globe before expanding into space. Because of this, Firefly features a mishmash of American and Chinese influences, with everyone slipping in and out of Mandarin while also swaggering around like cowboys from the Old West. Which is fine! The idea that fantasy is usually heavily Eurocentric is a detriment to the genre, so there should be more fantasy and science fiction that is influenced by Asian culture and legend. Unfortunately, the complete lack of actual Asian characters in Firefly is negligent at best, racist at worst.
While Firefly does feature some excellent characters played by people of color in the main cast, the apparent prevalence of Chinese people in shaping the universe of Firefly is not reflected at all in the casting on the show. Despite the Chinese taking up 50% of the population in the Firefly universe, there isn’t a single major or supporting character of Chinese descent. They aren’t even background characters, for the most part. The culture is reflected in the clothing design, architecture, and signage, but not in the people, making it a costume instead of a rich heritage.
Using China as a cultural touchstone without having the represented populace reflect that influence is a common thread in Firefly. Sure, Mal is constantly spouting garbled Mandarin and Kaylee embraces Chinese fashion with her hair and clothing, but where are the actual characters to give this culture the authenticity and depth that it deserves? Statistically, there should have been multiple Chinese people aboard Serenity and they should have dealt with many other Chinese people in their line of work as well. To take on aspects of Chinese culture that are appealing and to give them to white characters instead is to basically say that while your story and history is beautiful, we’d feel more comfortable giving these elements to white characters. It should be clear that this is just… super f*cked up.
When approaching problematic pop culture, it’s easy to dismiss things on the basis of “it was a different time.” It’s a difficult thing to wrestle with and honestly comes down to individual consumers to decide what levels of problematic they can deal with in their media. Ultimately, nearly everything can be written off as problematic in one way or another, so we just have to decide what the line is for us.
However, acknowledging the troubling elements from the past is the first step. Realizing that the things that you love aren’t blameless doesn’t mean that you love or appreciate them any less. It means that you recognize that they’re human products and are therefore flawed. The important step is that once you realize what’s wrong, you work to ensure that things are different going forward. New shows must have a broader cultural richness and tell a wider variety of stories instead of just the white savior narrative. We can’t change the past, but we can make sure that the worlds that we want to explore look different and more diverse in the future than the whitewashed sameness that we’ve been offered previously.
Does Firefly’s problematic appropriation disqualify it from fandom love? No. Personally, I don’t want to live my life without Zoe Washburne kicking ass and taking names. But we do need to realize that there are no sacred cows. There is always the desire to push back on criticism when the thing being critiqued is something that we love, but being a true fan means allowing for growth within the fandom. As pop culture becomes increasingly progressive and inclusive, that’s bound to lead many to examine the things that we love through a more critical lens.
By taking bits and pieces of a heritage without allowing people who actually belong to the culture to take part in the stories is like a form of artistic colonization. We cannot continue to erase people of color from their own narratives under the guise of “homage.” Firefly certainly did many things to propel science fiction into a new era, but here’s hoping that in the future, space looks a lot less homogenous.
Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Jan 16th 2021 at 2:25:53 PM
Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.
Yep. I think it was a big flaw of the setting and one of the reasons I was frustrated with the fact it was cut so short.
Mind you, part of my issue is that I also think American media has a serious issue of "The Whitening of the West" which is the fact that Chinese and black Americans played a massive role in the history of the so-called Wild West (not to mention men of Mexican descent) only to have their roles purged for a white supremacist lily-white narrative. The lack of Chinese characters in Firefly not only is inaccurate to the role of China as a superpower in the setting but the Western influences itself.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jan 16th 2021 at 5:28:40 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Can't really comment on Firefly or Confederacy imagery because I haven't seen show nor am I intimate with american cultural things :p From Finnish perspective "one faction wanted to become independent from more tyrannical party"(if I understood right alliance practices slavery?) sounds pretty normal, but I'd assume Americans would notice much more overlap with Confederacy imagery from the depiction in the show?
State of Mind
Firefly gets some Confederacy parallels by association. It's a Western in Space and a lot of Westerns do have characters associated with the rebellion. Think Jesse James, Outlaw Josey Wales, even the remake of The Magnificent Seven. Whedon lifted those aspects, along with everything else, and gave them sci-fi trappings to make the show.
But the parallels only go so far because outside of the Browncoats fighting on the losing side of a war and that affecting the main characters, the histories are totally different. I still have never got a clear answer as to whether this was a civil war and the Browncoats were trying to separate from the Alliance, or the Alliance just flat out conquered a bunch of independent worlds. The movie implies the latter.
"What a century this week has been." - Seung Min Kim
Speaking of shows that didn't age well...
The Take did a video on Sex and the City taking apart its poor handling of sex, feminism, LGBT people, race, class and a naive, fantastical version of New York. It also praises the show for normalizing premarital sex and addressing topics like abortion and having a career in a patriarchal society. Video is 22 minutes.
Edited by windleopard on Jan 16th 2021 at 9:46:36 AM
The thing about punisher is not his chararter of is story that matter, is him as power fantasy, he is like superman in that regard: Superman is regardless of anything the original super hero power fantasy of someone who is inherely good(sometimes even goodier than other chararter), incredible powerfull at the same time, he is unironic portray of god as personal, good and vastly powerfull.
At the same time punisher is pretty much the a violent power fantasy to enact violent on criminal that get away, he is like the guy cobra, it dosent matter if frank is a broken person, it dosent matter if not dent in crime, he goes around, pick the criminal and kill them, while looking cool doing so, that said more than any story about him, that sense of "going into crminal and lawness and strike them with violence", is why castle is dificult to write because is the fantasy of why people like him in the first place.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
Queen of Good Things, Honest
This, right here, is what cultural appropriation is. It's the statement, "We love your culture, we love your fashion, we love your food. But we don't want your people."
My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.
Is there any indication the makers of the show were prejudiced against Asians? Three of the show's nine cast members were minorities, so based on that I'd say they didn't have a problem casting nonwhite actors.
I don't think it was intentional, they probably just didnt think about it. However, that doesn't mean it wasn't a mistake still.
I think that the lack of Asian characters is incredibly noticeable but I also like to think it was something that would have been rectified in a second season. Sadly, we'll never know.
I do think the Tams should have been Asian, awesomeness of Summer Glau aside.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Is there any indication the makers of the show were prejudiced against Asians? Three of the show's nine cast members were minorities, so based on that I'd say they didn't have a problem casting nonwhite actors.
I don't really see any point in speculating about what's in their heart of hearts, what matters is their actions. And people have already covered how those actions were bad.
"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn
There have been some calls to edit Donald Trump out of Home Alone 2. This article
argues against this decision.
Trump didn’t emerge from a noxious vacuum of birtherism and Twitter shitposts. He was built by decades of fawning media portrayals that aligned him with wealth, and therefore worth, even though there was ample evidence that he was a narcissistic monster. Trump was sued for housing discrimination in the ‘70s, and in the early ‘90s he called for the execution of five black and brown teen boys who were charged, imprisoned, and later exonerated for the rape of a white woman in Central Park. His legal woes—from shady business dealings to sexual assault allegations—may have been publicized, but they were not necessarily common knowledge. But his racist law and order screed didn’t make him less of a pop culture icon.
Trump’s affairs were dependable tabloid fodder. His cameos in movies like Little Rascals and Zoolander, TV shows like The Jeffersons, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Nanny, and Sex and the City, and commercials for brands like Pizza Hut, Mc Donald’s, and Pepsi helped make him a household name. His wealth and icon status turned him into shorthand for opulence in hip hop. And he became the beloved, hard-nosed boss of Americans everywhere when he hosted the long-running reality competition program, The Apprentice. Trump was a board game, a World Wrestling Entertainment character, and the focus of a 1987 Judith Krantz novel.
Discussing the making of Home Alone 2, director Chris Columbus told Insider that though Trump bullied his way into the film, his cameo received an overwhelmingly positive audience reaction, a precursor of sorts to the anti-hero shtick that would undergird his campaign.
From Insider, emphasis ours:
Like most locations in New York City, you just pay a fee and you are allowed to shoot in that location. We approached The Plaza Hotel, which Trump owned at the time, because we wanted to shoot in the lobby. We couldn’t rebuild The Plaza on a soundstage.
Trump said OK. We paid the fee, but he also said, “The only way you can use the Plaza is if I’m in the movie.” So we agreed to put him in the movie, and when we screened it for the first time the oddest thing happened: People cheered when Trump showed up on-screen. So I said to my editor, “Leave him in the movie. It’s a moment for the audience.” But he did bully his way into the movie.