Moonie (Moon Channel) has a lovely 2h30 video on the topic of Kawaii: Anime, Propaganda, and Soft Power Politics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM2VIKfaY0Y
It focuses mostly on the eastern part of things, but it applies to stuff we end up consuming, too. Also worth quoting one of the top comments in the video:
I think you get one thing wrong, and that is claiming Japan is the #1 at projecting soft power. I’m sorry but the US is #1 and it isn’t even a contest (coming from a non-American). The reason we don’t really get the impression that the US is this soft power behemoth is because the US has been so proficient in projecting soft power that it has been normalized and integrated everywhere.
Bro thinks Startship Troopers is actual army propaganda.
When I first watched that movie, there was a group of guys that would have joined the troopers, judging from at what scenes they cheered.
You don’t copy Leni Riefenstahl without making at least partly a fascist propaganda movie.
The book was so on point people still argue if it was pro or anti fascism.
Didn’t captain America literally become a fugitive of the state
He threw a tantrum because he didn’t want public oversight over his and his friend’s superpowers.
It was basically a “You’re a loose canon, McBain” cop storyline.
You mean the solider who saw what happens when a list of everyone who is considered “other” is ordered and maintained by a government? All because, Tony “I am a gift to God” Stark and Bruce “Couldn’t Say No” Banner created a nigh unstoppable police force with no oversight?
IMO, you’re not wrong, but Magneto is the better portrayal.
Magneto was right all along about the persecution of mutants. Tony Stark and Captain America disagreed on a “who watches the Watchmen” level in the movies.
Stark thought that heroes had too much power to act without the approval of some higher authority, and the Captain believed that they should be able to act when and where they could without needing permission in order to do the most good. Magneto looked at the number he had tattooed on his wrist as a child in the camps and said, “Never again.”
Tony also had the issue that he felt guilty over his failed plan to protect the world that was pretty authoritarian.
I don’t think cap would have been against all oversight, but the one presented was very narrow minded and slow to act until more drastic decisions had to be made, like nuking New York.
Magneto looked at the number he had tattooed on his wrist as a child in the camps and said, “Never again.”
Magneto is one of the posterboys of the swerve.
But super hero movies have no subtlety!!!
I don’t understand your comment.
Captain America was alive for WWII
Germany created a registry for certain people and it didn’t end well for said people
Wow… is that your full understanding of Nazi Germany?
The so-called US also created “a registry” for certain people, which inspired Germany for their Nurenberg race-laws.
Captain America was fighting for the US while Jim Crow was active. He probably went to school with people who found Hitler’s ideas great.
It’s far from my only understanding of it, it’s just the first thing that comes to mind for what might make him averse to a list of “others” being created
He probably would have also seen what happened with the US’s registry of Japanese people, which didn’t go great for them either
TIL cops are the same thing as jews in the holocaust because their departments have a payroll
.world
Where does stuff like Brooklyn 99 come in?
Fetish content
I tend to lump it in with The West Wing as idealistic wish fulfilment of how we’d like things to be, or a picture of our human potential.
thats how all these should be seen as, boggles my mind people cant enjoy something fictional because it isnt 100% accurate to real life. like batman, “oh no billionaire would ever be the good guy” yeah okay thats why batman isnt a real guy 😂
Sometimes the “realism” critique is certainly pedantic and unproductive, but other times what’s really meant is contradiction. Situations should make sense within the fictional world. And in the fictional world of DC, norms around politics and economics are portrayed to be analogous to western neoliberalism with capitalism assumed and unquestioned. So with the Wayne family being a relatively well-regarded billionaire family like the Gates or the Buffets, there is still the issue that it is clear under the current system and that portrayed in DC universe that such wealth cannot be accumulated and sustained without massive exploitation of working class people somewhere along the line. So billionaire + “good guy” starts to become more of a glaring contradiction even in DC. But sure, we can explain it away as fiction with magically ethical capitalists. The interesting thing about the billionaire Wayne discussion though, is when people apply this fictional view of capitalism to how they interpret the real world. And now we’re back to propaganda.
What I would say that sets West Wing and B99 apart is sometimes there’s a tonal difference or way in which certain themes are handled/portrayed that signals to the viewer that the writers acknowledge this isn’t what real life is like but we hope one day we can get there. And it’s a spectrum right. Some do this to varying degrees, other more propagandistic media do not.
We’re all about “let people enjoy what they want” until someone says they enjoy something besides your favorite media
You can enjoy TV shows and movies while knowing ACAB is the truth.
ACAB is false though? At least it’s a one-dimensional analysis of reality.
At least it’s a one-dimensional analysis of reality.
This is a non thought. Meaningless drivel.
For me now I think of it like a marvel movie.
This cop not shooting anyone is just like a man with superpowers swinging through the city on sci fi ropes.
It’s nice to imagine.
Even if you know it, they still worm their way into your head as surely as Barry Manilow’s TV commercial jingles.
Really depends. Cops shows are really off putting to me. Marvel is kinda OK; not a fan, but it’s so over the top that I can abstract from the propaganda.
thats where it gets ya if you are not keen eyed for their tricks
You forgot ncis
I would say we peaked copaganda when Sonic 3 had the GUN general guy be a good guy. GUN was never Sonic’s friend. They didnt even play City Escape in that movie. 5/10.
True, but GUN in general is just shown as a really incompetent group. The weird general could have been the only one preventing them from going full antagonist against sonic.
blue bloods is the most offensive one
I vaguely remember being somewhat shocked at what Chicago PD has the “good guys” do and justifying it.
My ex really liked that show, mostly the main guy. Could you elaborate a bit, e.g. plot, characters etc, if it’s no trouble?
New kid on the block always flew off the handle and went with his gut feeling. He was constantly using excessive force and beating up suspects. Even when it seemed like he went to far they would ultimately find out that whoever he beat up was a “piece of shit criminal” and they deserved it. The sister who was a DA and tried to get them to follow the rules was played as a bleeding heart liberal, and would get herself or others in trouble from being too soft on crime. She was also portrayed as a “ball busting bitch” with a chip on her shoulder. Grandpa was a racist fuck that everyone justified as that’s just grandpa, he’s from a different time.
Was your impression that the DA sister was a liberal? She was always doing her part to put people in jail, just didn’t tolerate the police cutting corners. She always put her family first as well, corrupt as hell.
She was what conservatives think bleeding hearts are. Also liberals put people in jail all of the time, look at Kamala’s history.
I wouldn’t call Kamala a liberal either. The actual liberal in the show seemed to the DA’s daughter.
it’s a show that hits all the usual conservative copaganda talking points. cops are good. bad guys are bad. innocent people will be fine as long as they comply. then consider how often a “good” character is white and a “bad” character is black, and a disconcerting pattern starts to arise. the show is outright cop apologia
It’s a shame the show is such a good concept. I loved watching what was essentially an every day look into this police dynasty but boy did it get unbearably boot licky over time. The old man telling his stories of how he used to not give a fuck as an old cop from the 60s was always funny (and explains how the family has always been this “privileged” strata).
Honestly I’m more offended people made a big deal about COPS! getting cancelled only to be replaced with Live PD, which doesn’t have a team filming them but rather just works off all the body camera footage. Worse than COPS ever was.
“Live” pd had a camera crew, they also use dash cam and body cam footage. That’s kind of the point of the “live” pd name, a crew following and filming them for the majority of it. They did use a delay and would clearly end or cutaway from stuff but its successor on patrol “live” has definitely shown police doing dumb shit and has caused some departments to pull out of being on the show.
There’s other shows and I forgot the name that would just do re-enactments of calls and responses and some that only use body cam / dash cam footage.
Thanks for the clearer details. I would never actually willingly watch such drivel, so I do appreciate being corrected on that.
I definitely understand anyone who won’t watch it and I won’t cry when it goes off the air. It’s a guilty pleasure of mine because one of the areas that’s commonly on it is near where I used to work as a firefighter. So it’s kinda neat seeing some of the ppl I used to interact with in a negative or positive light 🤷
Captain America is a weird one to include. Not denying it’s propaganda, everything is, but throwing Cap in with copaganda is such a surface level take. He’s propaganda for American exceptionalism sure, but also embodies it in an old school New Deal way. The character has been consistently anti-facist over the years.
Imo Iron Man is the much more harmful propaganda. You can pretty much draw a direct line between the characters rise in popularity thanks to the MCU and the rise of Elon Musk.
Yep. If cops had the ethics / morals of cap we’d have zero issues with the police.
Kind of what the whole thing in civil war was. Tony was looking to absolve his guilt over the people they failed to save while looking for more and more authoritarian methods of keeping the world “safe”.
Cap was much more for freedom and while the idea that the avengers should have absolutely no oversight is absurd, the question of who should be the oversight was important and much of what the avengers did could not wait on a committee to decide to act (also, the last time a committee did act they decided to nuke New York)
Any superhero movie is problematic. They all say that only a few special people can save the country and the world. The rest of the population just has to hold tight and let the important people do their thing. It’s just a small step by replacing powers with wealth to give the rich carte blanche to do as they please.
Oh I agree completely. There is a fascist aspect inherent to Superheroes. Cap is just one lf the less egregious ones.
I mean, I’ve definitely seen Cap used to represent the Ugly American in comics, especially during that period post-9/11.
He’s definitely not fully anti-fascist coded, because he represents the US, and the US while ostensibly being democratic, is in many ways deeply fascist and always has been. Hitler was inspired by our Jim Crow laws.
There’s some smart people who understand that America never actually stood for any of that stuff and they write Cap to be the same.
Is that Ultimate Cap or 616 Cap? Ultimate Cap was an asshole – even that universe’s Aunt May called him out on his BS after Peter died.
I’m not a big Marvel fan, I just know I’ve seen lots of examples. Makes sense that they would be alternate universe Caps, tho. That’s a great way to be able to write the character and show the dark side of US politics without necessarily marring the original character himself. However, to outsiders, there’s not really a difference between the two, because they’re not deep in nerd lore.
He’s still playing world police.
Not those scenes in Spider-Man where New York throws random objects at the villain until they relent. Hell yeah solidarity.
Ghostbusters II the Ghostbusters would have failed if it wasn’t for New Yorkers spreading positive vibes.
Not to mention that a lot of those special people are born better
I wonder if that’s a limit of storytelling. Grand social change is hard to film. Even team effort cohesion requires a lot of actors and writing to pull off.
No matter how sound the morals and story, if it’s not entertaining, it might fail as mass media.
A little bit of that, a little bit of plain ol power fantasy.
Thanks for putting this into words. I’ve had a vague discontent and disgruntlement with superhero crap for a long time. While this isn’t the only reason I dislike superhero movies, this is a big part of it.
I do still like The Punisher movie with Jain, Dredd, The Crow, and a few others. Antiheros in general. They’re also more human and not as one dimensional.
It’s deeper than that. It’s about defense of the Status Quo. No superhero looks around at the parts of society that we just accept without thinking about and says this needs to change.
And much of the crime fighting is blue collar crime. On general the superheroes don’t touch white collar criminals.
Fuck America and its Captain. All MCU shit is propaganda to brainwash yanks to believe in their inherent goodness and exceptionalism.
Bro went thermonuclear with this take
Found Red Skulls account
Works so well 💀
People kept calling Musk – Stark because they thought he was a scientist/genius. Like the MCU fake tech was gonna be birthed out of this immature edge lord that steals people’s idea with stolen money.
Yeah I kinda disagree with Cap as well. He also explicitly refutes the government to stand up what he believes is right in Civil War too.
The character has been consistently anti-facist over the years.
What was he doing during the Cold War?
He’s propaganda for American exceptionalism sure, but also embodies it in an old school New Deal way. The character has been consistently anti-facist over the years.
Pretending that America isn’t only already fascist, but inspired the fascists they are supposedly against is American exceptionalism, and you’re eating it right up.
Elon was literally in 2 at the Grand Prix
I think part of it’s that not all propaganda is bad.
There’s probably a term for it, but I’d draw a distinction between “opinion” propaganda and “aspirational” propaganda.
One tries to change your opinion of something, like “cops are good noble and always do the right thing”.
The other encourages the viewer to live up to some ideal. It’s entirely possible for that ideal to also not be great, but even then “I should be” is better than “they are”.A lot of PSAs and things from the ad council fall in the later category. Like the billboards that basically say “real men are present and emotionally available fathers to their children” or "good parents teach their kids healthy diet and exercise by example”.
They’re openly cases of the government trying to change public opinions or attitudes (which arguably makes them better examples of propaganda than a lot of commercial television), but they don’t feel as objectionable.“This honest and kind man who always tries to do good and help those around him to the point that it overshadows him being a physically perfect human is the embodiment of the emblematic American man” is more in that aspirational category.
“Propaganda” comes from “propagate”, so the word inherently isn’t bad. The suffix “anda” basically means “thing of”, so in a literal sense, “propaganda” is any “object of propagation”, although this reading of etymology isn’t widely circulated.
Propaganda is thus inherently a very all-encompassing term. Any poster, flyer or brochure is propaganda, whether it advertizes a product, service, lost cat, or wants you to join the army. Anything “mass media” is propaganda. Anything spreading “a message” that is meant for wider propagation, regardless of the message content is propaganda.
At least that’s according to my rudimentary knowledge of high school latin. There’s the more “mainstream”, “official” etymology on Wiktionary: the word was first used in the name of an old Catholic Church department from Latin times for “spreading the faith”, so that’s where the more loaded use and connotation comes from. However, I doubt that this department name is the first ever use of the ablative feminine gerund form of the verb propagate. That’s like saying the first use of the term “World health” is in the name World Health Orgsnization. If anything, someone had to discuss the name beforehand.
So, there’s this Overton window-esque aspect to the word.
Wikipedia has a good overview of propaganda, although it is itself loaded onto the “must be loaded (i.e. what you called ‘bad’ propaganda)” definition of propaganda. And they like usibn the word “loaded” a lot.
I like the myth of the police, not actual cops, I like Simon Pegg in Hot Fuzz, actual cops can suck a nard
For the greater good!
The greater good.
Stop saying that!
When’s your birthday?
wait why is captain america up there? its wrong to fight nazis? is that what you’re saying?
Propaganda does not inherently mean something is wrong. Capitan America was created as propaganda to encourage the US to join WWII.
Captain America’s creation as an explicitly anti-Nazi figure was a deliberately political undertaking: Simon and Kirby were stridently opposed to the actions of Nazi Germany and supporters of U.S. intervention in World War II, with Simon conceiving of the character specifically in response to the American non-interventionism movement. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_America
More recently, the character has certainly been used as propaganda for American nationalism in meme culture
thanks for the info 👍
He masks the fact that you (Americans) are the Nazis. It masks the fact that all soldiers are the enemy of free people. It enforces American exceptionalism. Fuck Marvel, Disney, all Super Heroes and Yankee media.
What are you talking about man? Of course all Super Hero stories are propaganda, but Nazi propaganda??? Do you even know what that word means?
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fi1un7mkv3dr11.jpg
That sounds like Nazi propaganda to you? I don’t care if you want to shit all over corporate media, I’d probably even agree with you, but this take just isn’t it
Yes. That sounds exactly like nazi propaganda.
Do you even know what that word means?
So fucking sick of people who do exactly zero reading on a topic spouting off with ‘common sense’ and think their incredulity is the same thing as having a single thought knocking around your head.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur-Fascism
Like it’s so fucking hard to imagine that “Super Humans” which exactly translates to German as “Ubermench” could have nazi ideology baked in to the very foundation.
So fucking sick of people who do exactly zero reading on a topic spouting off with ‘common sense’ and think their incredulity is the same thing as having a single thought knocking around your head.
So fucking sick of people reading a book and suddenly thinking they’re right about everything. Have you considered the book you’re reading may be incorrect, or that there’s more involved with superheros than “Buff white guy = Nazi,” especially with a character that was created specifically to oppose fascism?
So just the fact that a character is super strong automatically makes him a Nazi?
Booster Gold is a buff white superhero. Is he a Nazi? Such bullshit.
or that there’s more involved with superheros than “Buff white guy = Nazi
You as a person are exactly as fucking stupid as this strawman
What a relief to find out the person replying to every comment of mine is a fucking moron that can’t even follow a few simple sentences in a forum comment while shitting on the idea of reading books.
dot world energy
Except in real life you actually said this stupid shit:
Like it’s so fucking hard to imagine that “Super Humans” which exactly translates to German as “Ubermench” could have nazi ideology baked in to the very foundation.
This is the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever read in my entire life and shows you know absolutely nothing about the subject. The concept of a “superhero” predates National Socialism, concept of a Nazi superman, and even the creation of fascism as an ideology itself, and in fact has roots in myths and folklore.
But you wouldn’t know that because you’re too busy being sniffing your own farts. Here’s some advice, try reading a comic book before you talk about them, maybe then you won’t look so stupid.
Where exactly does a Captain America comic argue for creating more super soldiers? You think the characters backstory overrules everything he says or does? You said I’ve done “zero reading” but you didn’t even respond to the comic panel I posted, you’re not interested in a conversation, you just want to preach at me
Where exactly does a Captain America comic argue for creating more super soldiers?
What the fuck are you even talking about. Completely incoherent.
You think the characters backstory overrules everything he says or does?
You posted a speech and asked if it sounded like nazi propaganda. Now you want me to care about your cartoon lore? Are you here to have an adult conversation or do you want to play with dolls?
You said I’ve done “zero reading” but you didn’t even respond to the comic panel I posted
Read the fucking link I gave you and you’ll find the response you asked for. Why do you think I bothered linking it to you? Do you need everything spoonfed? It’s like a page and a half. Fucking Christ.
Did you even read your own link?
“Disagreement is treason” – fascism devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action, as well as out of fear that such analysis will expose the contradictions embodied in a syncretistic faith
I posted an exact panel from the source material showing you the character standing against one of the principles of fascism, and you still called it Nazi propaganda? Maybe you should start using your brain instead of calling everything you don’t like Nazi propaganda.
If you actually read it instead of just looking for a facile ‘own’ to mine from it, you’d have noticed a lot of the points were contradictory to each other and that there are two or three points that directly apply to super hero comics and that speech in particular.
Guy in a thread where the topic is poptarts: “You just say everything you don’t like is poptarts!”
Stuff I like is different! It’s NoT HyPoCrISy!
Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself. Even those who would critique capital end up reinforcing it instead.
Disco Elysium
Why is this the case? Why is it so readily able to subsume critique?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recuperation_(politics)
Some former means of countercultural expression that have been identified by critics as recuperated (at least in part) are: punk music and fashion like mohawk hairdos, ripped jeans, and bondage accessories like dog collars; tattoos; street art and participatory art.
(You know, like Paul Ryan liking Rage Against the Machine.)
Because Capitalism is built to sell anything, even ideas.
Do you remember Reddit’s Random Acts of Pizza from around 2010-2012 or so?
https://abcnews.go.com/US/random-acts-pizza-donate/story?id=13950694 (This story is from June 2011)
It was a really sweet forum where people were buying hungry folks in need a pizza. Something simple and comforting for people struggling.
Within a year of a handful of news articles about the subreddit, and Mars Candy had copyrighted the phrase “Random Acts of Chocolate” and pushed an ad campaign about “buying an extra for a friend” as a “random act of chocolate.”
https://www.cspdailynews.com/snacks-candy/mars-distributing-random-acts-chocolate (This is from September 2011)
https://www.thismomneedswine.com/2011/03/free-chocolate-bar.html (A blog post from March 2011 about free coupons for chocolate)
Part of how they recuperate things is through mechanisms like copyright and trademarks, these laws are built protect businesses but bind individuals. Random Acts of Pizza is just a subreddit but Random Acts of Chocolate is copyrighted, trademarked, and owned by Mars, Inc. Meaning in some ways I am barred from using the phrase “Random Acts of Chocolate” since they own it.
EDIT:
I almost forgot my favorite example: Naomi Klein’s book “This Changes Everything.” The thesis is that if we don’t dump capitalistic modes of production we’ll all fall to climate change. However, she still relied on traditional capitalist publishers to get her book published and sold. She didn’t put her money where her mouth was and release it online for free for everyone, to show she was willing to dump capitalism to spread her message, since it was that important. Nope, still gotta use capitalism to critique capitalism, I guess. She also will speak at your university for a cool $100k. I think she believes in her thesis less than she says she does.
still gotta use capitalism to critique capitalism
I think there’s an argument to be made that this is the best way to get the message out. A book with a publisher and a famous author gets a lot more attention than a PDF on the internet by someone less notable. And the notoriety of authors – for worse – is tied to your book deal, the media hits your publisher helps attract, and being an in-demand speaker. The theses of any prominent book is readily available in interviews, articles, etc. anyway.
It’d be better if she donated much of her earnings to a worthwhile cause, but for all I know she does.
25 years ago I noticed the trend in the movies in the theater, and realized the USA was becoming fascist. I was sad, but surprised later at how long it took. I rather thought it would be faster and more dramatic, and not this creeping sorry mediocrity seen later in politics
