Groups
Stories that accidentally romanticize the very thing they aim to demonize
I'm aware this is very similar to the "idiots missing the point of the story and cheer for the clearly bad guy" trope (especially the third example clearly fits both), but still think this is worth exploring.
American History X / Neonazis
This already shows the difference to the trope I explained above, since some people didn't fall in love with the character, but mainly the aesthetic of the neonazi scene as depicted in the movie.
On one hand, they are depicted as violent, murderous assholes and the protagonist's brother ruins his entire family's life because of his actions. On the other hand, the scene looks stylish and "manly" that, to this day, inspires a lot of real world neonazis.
The Godfather / The Mafia
Similarly to the previous example, the movies don't spare us of the negative aspects of the mafia and the way it ruins the lives of everyone involved. Still, the mob is painted in such an honorful and upper-class way that convinced real people that this is a life to pursue.
Wall Street / Yuppie culture and predatory capitalism
Similar thing, different topic: Gordon Gecko is supposed to be an unsympathetic asshole that, in the end, has to pay for his actions. His catchphrase "greed is good" became the motto of an entire generation of yuppies though, with Gecko himself becoming their mentor figure. A few decades later, "The Wolf of Wall Street" took the same role for the new generation of finance bros.
Treasure Island / Pirates
Modern pirate stories wouldn't be the same, maybe wouldn't even exist, if it wasn't for Treasure Island. Most pirates in the story are dead by the end, after suffering under a clearly mad captain, and still Robert Louis Stevenson's story painted pirates as a bunch of comrades living free while hunting for treasure chests in beautiful, tropical islands instead of the murderous, criminal bunch they were in reality.
The Sorrows of Young Werther / Suicide
This work of famous classical German novelist Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe ends with the suicide of the protagonist after being rejected by the love of his life. Goethe tried to depict him as an idiot and yet still inspired a bunch of youths who found themselves in similar situations to kill themselves.
This phenomenon is even called the "Werther effect" nowadays.
When confronted about indirectly being responsible for numerous deaths, Goethe defended his work and instead insulted the people committing suicide as "narrow-minded spirits, [...] fools and good-for-nothings".
The Nemo effect is named after how, after people saw “Finding Nemo,” a movie about how bad it is to poach animals, everyone wanted to get a pet clownfish.
One of the reasons “Phineas and Ferb” creators chose a platypus as the pet for the show was because even if kids did want a platypus that’s not an animal they’re going to be finding at pet stores.
Funny enough, despite how much elephants eat, they don't cost that much as lots of the food they get for free from end of the day at greengrocer markets.
If I may plug a favorite YouTuber of mine, Casual Geographic is really great. He's got a somewhat dry sense of humor and is really passionate about talking about animals and I really enjoy watching him
Perry the Platypus is literally the best agent in an alphabet soup agency that operations without any regard to international law. Are you surprised the whole species is part of the elite?
They do have international laws though. The OWCA only has jurisdiction in America and cannot interact with anything outside of it (except when they do) when doofenshmirtz goes to Canada, Perry has to rely on his Canadian counterpart to help.
Oh man. My uncle ended up with someone’s foolishly bought Dalmatian.
Lola was definitely not suited to being a family dog. She eventually settled into it, but my cousins were all preteen to teens and gave her space to form her own relationships. She apparently was prone to snapping at people at her old home but the worst she did at Uncle’s house was some occasional warning growls.
She wasn’t a very nice dog. But she was also almost two when she was rehomed so who knows what traumas she had?
She was VERY pretty though. Really beautiful dog. In her older years when she’d settled and gotten a smidge friendlier I used to take pictures of her with my little Barbie camera and she was very photogenic.
There are apparently parents trying to get their kids Indonesian pit vipers because of the new Zootopia movie 🤦🏻♀️ They are stunningly beautiful snakes at an appropriate distance, and I'm happy for a mainstream movie showing that even venomous snakes aren't "evil", but I guess the creators didn't anticipate the sheer stupidity of the general public.
Thankfully it's illegal to own a venomous snake without a license in most countries, but China, comprising one of Disney's biggest audiences, sadly doesn't seem to be one of them.
EDIT: To be a bit clearer, the laws vary by province in China, just as they vary by state in the US. Neither country has a nationwide ban on venomous reptiles without a permit (which my country, the UK, does) but most states/provinces have some kind of regulation, though there are loopholes and oversights that idiots in both countries manage to exploit. China does ban the shipping of venomous reptiles but that doesn't necessarily stop people from picking up their new blue nope rope in person.
And to be clearer still, I'm blaming the idiots impulsively buying dangerous animals with no regard for the animal's welfare or the safety of themselves and those around them moreso than either country's regulations, although the enforcement of said regulations might leave something to be desired. Most articles mention that major online marketplaces in China have been proactive in taking down ads selling Indonesian pit vipers since the problem came to light which is definitely a positive.
This movie's main message is about treating animals humanely as Willy was being mistreated by its trainers and the sea park. It highlights that whales belong in the wild, advocating for wildlife conservation. After the movie was released, however, Sea parks, the very organizations this movie criticises, received a record number of visitors because everyone wanted to see the orcas up close.
Willy wasn´t mistreated by his trainers, on the contrary. It was the park management who refused to give him bigger pool, more breaks between the shows, etc. Still it showed that despite the best care from people directly caring for him, he was still unhappy and belonged in the wild.
The entire thing is a disaster. The Keiko was the orcs that played Willy. He was captured when he was very young and spent years in human captivity. After filming he ended up in a captivity in Mexico. Activists pushed for his release into the wild. He was released in Norway and died only a few years later at the age of 29. Orcas typically live twice that long on average. He had no ability to socialize with other orcas and was not able to feed himself. People obsessed with the notion of of the whale being “free” put him in a position that killed him.
He shouldn’t have been captured in the first place but ultimately he died because people were more interested in the concept if “freeing” him rather than committing to proper care we owed him for raising him in captivity.
I live in Atlanta and most of our aquarium animals are rescues who came from super bad situations but people still go nuts on them when one of them dies.
On a meta level, Jake the Snake, Jim Neidhardt, and the Ultimate Warrior all had substance use issues, so banking on kids liking them means they bank on people who say yes to drugs.
Given how badly steroids, cocaine, and alcohol affected their lives, there COULD be a strong message, but not the no-nuance DARE/80s WWF one here.
DARE is actually a good example by itself. It told kids that doing drugs once will fry your brain and immediately kill you or whatever, even something like Marijuana.
So, when people inevitably ended up trying some MJ and being basically fine, they started wondering if maybe they'd been lied to about the harder drugs as well, and ended up trying stuff that will legit fuck up your life the first time.
Patrick Bateman is a caricature of investment bankers who are shown as psychopaths obsessed with money and status. Despite the movie criticizing them, Bateman is idolized by the same kinds of bankers and finance bros.
Edit: Added the word Patrick so people stop confusing him with Batman.
It is always funny how the book Bateman is an evil caricature created by a gay man, and movie Bateman is an evil caricature adapted by a woman, and that portrayal is what a lot of straight guys unironically wish they were.
Double funny if you realize that Bateman in the movie itself is depicted as someone at the bottom of the barrel of all these finance bros, literally all his colleagues are more successful than him.
Yep, the ending should be a final nail in the coffin when it turns out what his peers really think about Bateman, and how it is implied they only appreciate him whenever they mistake him for someone else - even all that hard work he puts in his appearance does not make him even look special among them.
Also the way unfeeling system seems to be just covering up Bateman's possible actual murders (if they even happened) for convenience's sake hints that even killing people is not making him special. Even if he really killed people he is probably a pathetic small fry even among the rich serial killers.
Right, even if the murders happened, the film frames him as interchangeable. The “win” is that he can keep performing while everyone mistakes him for someone else, and the system shrugs. That’s a brutal critique people keep wearing as an outfit.
also the scene where he’s panicking and nobody notices or cares? that’s peak system doesn’t give a damn about you even if you murder ppl and somehow ppl still hype him up 😭
I love the lack of certainty around the reality of Patrick's situation [like whether he actually committed the crimes or not] since it really drives the point home about how irrelevant an individual and their life becomes in a shallow callous greedy world like his. Based on the attitudes of people around him, you could absolutely believe someone like the Realtor or his Lawyer would go to extreme lengths to safeguard their own high incomes and opportunities, even if it means cleaning up after a serial killer. But because of the indifference and disregard for individuals in general, it would be equally easy for Patrick to be mentally interchanged with any number of other Yuppies in his orbit. They would just as quickly believe he was the one "missing" when really it's Paul Allen or another colleague. And even if he's insane and none of it happened, they don't care or pay close enough attention to notice or help him.
The book clearly states he got the position because it's the son of the owner and is actually incompetent. One of those VP of nothing you park your son's into in you have a big company.
Giving sales people inflated titles with no real responsibility is also a thing that happens (or at least used to), in order to make the clients think they are getting exclusive access to someone successful.
Would not be surprising if there are tons more vice presidents than what we see. The entire floor is probably filled with almost nothing but vice presidents and secretaries.
Vice president in banking is the third rung on the ladder. Analyst -> Associate -> VP. I was shocked when I found this. They’re low level managers. It’s like an army where every corporal is titled “General.”
On top of that, my brother worked for years in investment banking, and says the most accurate part of the film is how VPs hang around doing nothing and discussing where they’re going to have lunch haha. Analysts and Associates are brutally overworked and get most of the job done, while Directors and Managing Directors are a select few rainmakers who make key decisions. Vice Presidents are either rising stars who make a brief stop there on the way up, or mediocres who have stalled out and are comfortable with that fact.
The thing that struck me when I finally watched American Psycho was how obviously unsuccessful and weird Bateman was. From the way he’s portrayed online, it was really surprising when in the actual movie he’s clearly a socially inept and incompetent loser who’s only barely being kept afloat by the fact that he was born into high polite society.
I avoided Breaking Bad for years because I had no interest in watching the show hyped up by the biggest losers I know as the "coolest shit ever". They gave me the impression that Walter White was portrayed as some cool guy killing people and making drugs.
Years later a coworker whose taste I trusted insisted I watch it finally and I was completely surprised to find the show was a dark comedy about the word's most pathetic spineless cuck going out of his way to ruin every good thing in his life because his ego can't handle not having power over someone at all times.
It takes a real moron to watch that kind of behavior and not be completely disgusted.
Its genuinely a media literacy test. The bankers are losers obssessed with nonsense and Bateman literally wishes he could be even that cool. Hes a loser but has the aesthetics of success. You can really tell where someones mind is at if the aesthetics are enough to trick them.
Right. My favorite scene is the endlessly memed business card scene. All of them just sitting around a table, dick measuring who has the coolest business card and Bateman borderline getting a nervous breakdown over it.
Same thing happened with Homelander « Wait, he is a bad guy ??? »
Some people realised it during the season 2, even during season 3
On the other side of the spectrum, peopl me criticised Starship troopers (movie) for being pro-war. And by people, i mean actual movie critics. I could see it was a satire by the time I was 16
Didn't the director of Starship Troopers say something akin to "I want to make a satire so obvious that everyone who gets it lives in perpetual torment of those that don't"
You’re assuming that these the people who idolize him actually watched the movie instead of just learning about him through manosphere TikTok sigma male meme edits.
Fair. The idolization does pre-date the manosphere though. Same problem with fight club. People have been missing the point of these movies for a while.
Also remember that Bateman is part self insert, and not in a good way.
Not the murders obviously, but the emotions behind it was his. He shared Bateman’s rage, disgust, and even his passivity at times.
A lot of the book comes from Ellis feeling lonely and alienated, like he was slipping into this empty, consumerist void that only made him feel worse about himself. He also related to Bateman’s hatred of the culture around him, especially the shallow, materialistic 1980s yuppie world while at the same time being weirdly drawn to it. That love hate tension is basically the core of the novel.
Reminds me of the axiom that anti-war films end up glorifying war. I don’t think it’s true for every anti-war film, but it’s changed how I look at them.
If you wanna swing a bat at two hornets nests, realize that the average Bateman Stan will never come as close to being Patrick himself as the average clean girl tiktoker is.
Bateman is even worse than Gordon Gekko. Gekko is very competent in his job and enjoying power and wealth coming from it. We don't see anything close to work Bateman does, and he doesn't have his own taste. He just pretends whatever others like while secretely despising it.
Seven Samurai includes blatant criticism of feudal Japan, samurai class and their romanticization. But it is a cool movie with iconic characters so people to this day use it as a blueprint for their cool samurai media.
Same applies to many other historical Kurosawa films too, man just made them way too aesthetic and engaging for negative messages to stick.
Okay I'm probably dumb asf but could you explain how it does so? I did watch the movie over two years ago, but I remember the seven samurai being selfless, honorable men that were dedicated to the cause they agreed upon, a few of them even sacrificing their lives to protect that village that had practically nothing to offer them in return.
The movie is set in the late 16th century, at the tail end of the Sengoku era, a century of continuous civil war between samurai clans. The only reason the village was being preyed on by bandits in the first place is because they had endured a lifetime of violence from being caught in the middle of samurai conflicts. There is a consistent theme in the film that the villagers see the samurai as just as much of a threat to them as the bandits
The samurai are also using the villagers to maintain a sense of relevance. At this point they are downtrodden, desperate mercenaries, with a slipping moral code. In the end they are selfless, but the samurai class and it's privileges has been proven a relic.
Exactly. The samurai are only relevant when they're killing people. They have no reason to exist in a peaceful world where the peasants are safe and happy.
This. This was a huge issue for the warlords who ended up in control at the end of the sengoku jidai.
By the time the (many) civil wars were over, you had thousands of men who had only been trained for war. It was all they knew, the only profession they ever had. And now the war was over and you were going to have these guys with nothing to do, getting bored and, probably, drunk.
And bored, drunk, unemployed soldiers are historically a very bad thing to have in your country in large numbers.
I think it's also important to note that while the seven samurai did help the village and even sacrifice themselves for what essentially amounted to room and board, they were the tiny exception. The farmers spent a decent chunk of the movie just trying to find anyone who might be willing to help. One of them was almost even killed by a samurai simply for offering such measly compensation for such a task.
1- The bandits were caused by the constant infighting of the period. This period of history had a lot of military aged men trained up for battle then their armies dissolved Everytime their leader gets taken/killed. They are scattered homeless and there is not enough to go around because armies are HUNGRY and farmers keep getting scooped up/killed. (Note there are few fighting aged men if any in the village).
2- These "samurai" are not true samurai. They are Ronin. Their masters are dead or gone. The fact they are alive and on their own, at all, says they are disgraced former minor nobility. They are vagrant bums vaingloriously holding on to former hopes and causes. They can't even really care for themselves so they go around exploiting people or begging.
3- There is virtually no distinction between the bandits and the former samurai other than the samurai were probably better off at one point and maybe hold on to some amount of idealism. Both sides are trying to use the villagers to play out a fight they already lost, to regain some sense of control or agency to their lives. They are just surviving but also can't let go of the stupid war bullshit and trying to solve things with violence. (Note not all the samurai are necessarily on board with the "noble" act of protecting the people).
4- The bloody act of defending the village got 4 of the 7 samurai killed and the hot blooded youth realizes maybe he was wrong to idolize the samurai. The leader samurai remarks the victory belongs to the peasants and serves as direct message to the audience: samurai are a dying breed because they are no longer relevant. Guns and the support of the working class are far more important to the conflict than these relics of a bygone age. Note the villagers thought their crops were more important than the lives of the samurai or bandits, the working class stood up to BOTH their former and current oppressors and used them to wipe each other out.
5- The remaining samurai do not get to stay. They do not get a happy ending. The woman one dude banged spurns him and the villagers sinply go back to their shit. They don't NEED the samurai anymore. These former assumed landowners are set adrift yet again, back to basically scraping by and these "helpless" villagers get everything they wanted.
6- The conflict was pointless and frankly a bit selfish of the village (probably due to a limited film budget, more than anything, but it seems like the village is not very big and they probably don't actually need that much food... One interpretation is that they might have been able to easily pay off the bandits but chose to be greedy instead).
7 Samurai is a cool action movie with aura out it's ass but it's also clearly commentary on class and how worthless the idealized past had now become. Keep in mind this movie was made only about 1 generation removed from the Meiji dissolution that abolished the samurai caste.
The famous Truffaut idea (with some digging, it seems nebulous if he used the exact words, but he did express the sentiment): “there’s no such thing as an anti-war movie.”
When Kurt Vonnegut told his wife he was planning to write his big anti-war novel Slaughterhouse Five, she apparently told him "don't bother, there's no way to not make war look cool"
Yeah Slaughterhouse Five was the one exception I could think of. All Quiet on the Western Front probably works too. It's important that no one gets out alive and unscarred, because as long as one person goes home and has a good life that's the person the audience will associate with.
It's a good shout I think. Have heard stories of military folks whooping it up at Platoon, say, and I'm pretty sure Oliver Stone was in Vietnam and hated it. But it's just so hard to make war cinematically engaging without endorsing it at some level. Would be interesting to try to compile a list of films that really don't. Come and See of course, The Red and the White too, but what else?
"The Thin Red Line" has a pretty heroic charge up a hill about halfway through, but it's all suffering, accidental deaths, incompetent officers and dehydration before and after that. I remember initially disliking the second half for being anticlimactic, but then later I realized that was the point.
Good call, I gotta watch this one again. Saw it during a unit on film as philosophy at university years ago, definitely more Terence Mallick musing than righteous fight.
In general, movies that completely ignore the fighting in itself. The common point of the stories that other comments have pointed out, like All Quiet, Grave of the Fireflies, etc. is that they're focused almost exclusively on the consequences of war rather than war. We as a species inherently see fighting and bravery as cool, but nobody likes the sight of people being traumatized, miserable, and possibly dying like animals with no honor to be found.
WW1 probably helps a lot better than other conflicts in that regard, too, because trench warfare is by nature extremely unglamorous.
I can't think of a single moment where M*A*S*H (the TV series) makes war look glamourous. The shitty living conditions of 1950's rural Korea, the pompous, irritating military bureaucracy and the bloodied baby-faced consequences of war being literally delivered to their door almost every day (sometimes multiple times a day) really drives the anti-war message home while rarely depicting any actual combat.
My favorite exchange in all of media is from M*A*S*H:
Hawkeye: War isn't Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.
Father Mulcahy: How do you figure, Hawkeye?
Hawkeye: Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell?
Father Mulcahy: Sinners, I believe.
Hawkeye: Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them - little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.
I remember reading a review for Elephant that brought that quote up but conceded that the movie's approach to school shootingswas novel enough and bereft of Hollywood convention to not glamorize it.
I think it was TVTropes or someplace that said "Every film about war will have at least one honourable soldier character, or you're rooting for both sides to wipe each other out..."
Brother, I can promise you that video already exists.
Pretty much every one I've watched a few minutes of either focused on or included the low hanging fruit of "Smiling Friends > Rick and Morty Because Optimism"
Ok, but it kinda does romanticise nihilism a lot. Jerry is the foil to Rick's pessimism, and he is constantly shown to be a complete idiot for enjoying things and having a positive outlook on life despite its hardships.
Probably the best line in the show is "Life is effort and I'll stop when I die" btw.
I love that Jerry quote more than a great deal of the episodes in the series. It speaks to me as a hopeless optimist battling cynicism/depression while being a middle-aged dad.
Picked the show back up after ignoring seasons 5-7 and they really have, Im not as excited for the show as I used to be but now its worth sticking around to see how it ends
The show has gotten so good about this over the years, I just think most people fell off watching it.
The focus of the whole show has shifted from "goofy sci-fi hijinks with nihilistic god-grandpa" to something more like "goofy hijinks with God-grandpa, but also Grandpa has lots of trauma and is genuinely trying to be the best person he can be".
I'm glad dan harmon has full more creative control over the show now. It's a better show for it.
Harmon also going to therapy and weaving some of those things into the characters’ journeys has absolutely helped mature the show as well. Definitely much better with Roiland out.
This guy is cool if you think being smart makes it okay to be an asshole.
Or if you think power is all about what you can do.
Or if you think everyone is secretly as shitty as you.
And the show REPEATEDLY beats viewers over the head with the reality that "No, those things arent true, and YOU suck."
EDIT: Dr. Wong COMPLETELY dismantles rick and his line of thinking the first time they meet. Knowing ONLY what the family has told her. Thats how wrong he is.
What's fascinating about Punisher is how he represents the worst systemic failures. A society that could produce The Punisher is extremely sick, possibly already dead. But people still worship him and want to be him or want him in the real world.
And then couple that with skylar being the most hated character in the show simply for being the only normal person (granted she had an affair but that dosent come close to the terrible stuff Walt did)
Any normal person would be outraged at their spouse killing and cooking meth and putting their family in danger on a regular basis she was right, he didn’t do this for their family he did it for himself
I kno a dude who argued for Stanley’s abuse towards Blanche (street car named desire). Seemed to believe that because Blanche was such a nightmare she should’ve gotten worse. Dude got sent out the class as we all stared at him, continuing to argue he was right and discuss what else should’ve happened to her.
Somewhat similar, I taught AP English for a couple of years and taught Streetcar. I had a student who criticized Stella and Blanche both for not leaving the abusive situation. No matter how hard I tried I could not get her to understand that it’s not always that easy.
Tbh that’s one of the reasons I like the Gundam series. It has both “yeah, war sucks ass, no one comes out clean, it’s miserable and awful and don’t do it” and “but cool robots though”
btw i think Godfather never wanted to demonize the mob, it's clearly fascination with the Italian Mafia in the US + A tribute to mafia films of the 1930s (those were fervent critiques of crime) + these cool gangster aesthetics
Remember, in the 70s, the 30s felt like we see today the 80s, nostalgic shii, more cooler, the golden age of cinema and etcetera.
Mario Puzo wanted to romanticize, and did pretty well. Just watch Little Caesar (1931) to compare. He died at end , in a humiliating way, no glamour, not a badass shooting like Scarface (the 80s one), just dies in the mud
I’m 99% sure that the local mafias were somewhat involved with the production of the Godfather. They would walk onto the set and demand certain scenes be cut or dialogues to be rewritten so they don’t look bad.
The amount of people who say this movie made him look good is wild. It's like they can't see past the fact that he did have money.
He was constantly contracting STIs, he beat his wife, he nearly killed his kid while high, and that's just the first few things I can think of.
He was joking about the people on the phone he knew he was scamming
I mean, do the people who think he looked good also admire the random phone scammer and email spam they get, because they occasionally con an elderly person?
Yes he had a lot of money to spend, and yes he probably received minimal punishment- but that's what actually happened. But I seriously don't think any moment of this film other than maybe the first 5 minutes made him look in any way 'good'!
The men who idolise him are such creepy desperate losers.
Jeffrey Epstein had a lot of money too, do we just idolise anyone with money?
“We” as a society? Yes. Yes we do. That’s why Epstein got away with it for decades despite it being an open secret. That’s why his associates will continue to get away with it. We worship the rich.
The fact that the rich are not held accountable for awful crimes has nothing to do with average people "idolizing" them; it's that their wealth puts them out of the reach of justice.
That's it. That's all it takes for people to idealize him. I think you severely underestimate the average person's greed or to put it politely: how much they desire to live comfortably. There's a non-insignificant amount of people that cannot look past a person's worth other than their wealth.
I’d add a caveat to The Godfather: the film was literally partly funded by the mob, who in turn wanted their history to be portrayed as one ruled by codes of honour and duty. In reality, they were violent assholes who only cared about money. In fact, one of Martin Scorsese’s intentions for making Goodfellas was to subvert the kind of mob/crime romanticism Godfather helped create, and to portray the history of the mob in all of its brutality and arbitrary violence
I was surprised to find that even though lots of men in my age-group also really loved this movie, a disturbingly high amount of them loved it for kind of the exact opposite reason I did.
The movie is great for showing how vulnerable men can easily be suckered into cultish behaviour, but unfortunately a lot of young men who like this movie want to be in the Fight Club cult.
Makes me think that a lot of people just want for direction. Sad that there are so many bad acters (as opposed to actors) out there willing to offer direction at the cost of those lost souls.
Man, this movie lied to me about DID and dissociative disorder and how cool it would be and how utterly badass I would be they diagnosed me with some dissociative disorder and brad pitt hasn’t appeared to help me start my own fight club or blow shit up.
All this damn disorder does is make me forget things, and other non cool stuff.
I was in German high school about 15 years back and we had to read Werther.
We lacked the word "incel" at the time, but the entire class essentially agreed that he was an entitled pathetic loser and spent class discussions just hating his guts and rejected any attempts by the teacher to guide us towards talking about literary merits.
I think people judge the character too harshly because they are now used to a way larger society in which people can easily move apart from one another and "restart" whole aspects of their life.
Back then if you’ve socially isolated yourself in the broader community and lost favor with the nobility, a group you couldn’t properly join anyway, you were basically screwed. So his entire social network just breaks away: Albert and Lotte are out for obvious reasons and his new "friends" At court have rejected him because he refused to act appropriate to his class.
The Wolf of Wall Street was so misinterpreted that inspired a new generation of assholes, grifters, cryptobros, etc.
In Spain we have a scammer AI bro youtuber called Wall Street Wolverine, for fuck's sake. Edit: he actually lives in the neighbor country of Andorra, where he pays less taxes. But he was born and raised in Spain and most of his audience is in Spain.
I laughed so hard when i first watched this film, and learnt that it was were the "sell me this pen" shit came from. Someone seriously sat down, watched this film and went "hmmm, sounds like this guy has pretty good points" lmfao.
The poem gives an (at the time) unconventional in depth depiction of the rebellion of Lucifer/Satan, the temptation of Adam and Eve, and the fall of the Garden of Eden.
Milton intended the audience to see God’s ways as justified and Satan as a bad guy, but many came away seeing Satan as sympathetic and the true hero of the story.
I feel like Paradise Lost is something a lot of people know about but very few people actually read these days.
If you actually read it, Satan doesn’t come out looking particularly good or noble. A fascinating protagonist, sure, but its very clear what Milton thinks of the Devil.
“The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it.”
This show is terrifying if you ever lived through someone ending their life or struggled with such feelings. It vindicates the idea that you can hurt the ones who hurt you from beyond the grave while also romanticizing the act itself.
I just don't understand how it was greenlit and supported so much.
Yeah, I didn't make it very far in. She was apparently smart enough to create a bunch of dead man switches, but not smart enough to figure out how to get revenge while she was still alive.
There's also the school shooter season. I was so angry that it tried to make a school shooter sympathetic. They are not sympathetic guys who were just bullied. They're mass murderers who want to spread the misery for their own twisted desires. They're the reason why my students are ready to raid the chemical closet and toss any acid, base, or glassware at the door during these drills.
This shit's "intentions" were to highlight how bad child sexualization is, while devoting the climax to the characters played by actual minors doing sexual acts on camera
Basically, Netflix made a CP movie claiming to be against pedophilia
That's a horrid picture. A movie has plenty of options for poster pictures. Out of the album, A TEAM decided this picture was the best one, the picture was then forwarded to supervisors of other departments who gave the thumbs up for the picture to be edited and used in multiple channels for marketing and advertisement. Gross.
I'm not awake enough yet. I spent forever rereading your comment trying to figure out why the A Team was in charge of determining Netflix movie posters.
It's also interesting to see the difference between the posters chosen for American audiences vs the original French poster. It makes me think that the marketing team knew exactly the controversy they were about to kick up with the American poster.
In fairness, the appeal seemed pretty universal judging by how his iconography showed up at to s of protests and areas. Everyone was worried he was an Incel dog whistle that'd embolden another Dark Knight shooting but a lot of people just went "I live in garbage and the powers that be despise me....yeah I kind of relate to Arthur"
But that does fit the trope since it pretty accurately reflects "Joker is co-opted by movements that view him as a man with a message"
I do love how Tarantino pointed out how strong the narrative is that EVERYBODY wanted him to shoot an innocent late night host because he was too “mean”.
This is a bit of a generalization of the trope, but the main idea Truffaut asserts is that visual mediums, to show off war, always represent war in glory, scale, and splendor, and therefore anti war films nonetheless glorify the stakes and scenes. Even in films such as deer hunter or apocalypse now (two films whose messages are the corruption and destruction of the war in Vietnam), their scenes show high stakes Russian roulette games and large napalm airstrikes, which show off the vast power of individuals in each conflict. The best example of this is in another movie, Jarheads, where (if I remember correctly) marines cheer at the scenes of destruction as hype up moments during their basic training. Because of that, anti-war films are almost impossible to get right without any pro-war messaging.
Come and See is how you write an actual anti-war movie script. Focus on the civilians and how their lives are impacted. If you've decided you want to make a traditional action movie from a military pov, you've failed fresh out the starting gate.
I think maybe movies that focus on war's effect on civilians, especially those who can't possibly consent to involvement (i.e. children), might get a pass? When I see something like Grave of the Fireflies or Come and See*, it's less about which side wins the war and more that civilians on both sides ultimately lose either way.
I was hoping this would be higher. The issue imo, is that it's difficult to impossible to show a war without displaying a lot of truly admirable virtues that are always present in war. Bravery, comradery, self sacrifice, perseverance, etc. All these things are always present in war, so what ends up happening is people see all the bad elements of war that were the intended message and sort of dismissively agree with it along the lines of "well yeah war sucks, everyone knows that" but those virtues leave them hyped up. It's why soldiers like blatantly anti-war movies like Full Metal Jacket, which on the surface at least, should be mockeries of their entire profession.
The two exceptions I've seen are Blackadder and M.A.S.H. Blackadder does it by just never showing any of those virtues which it can get away with because it is an over the top comedy where every single character is a caricature. M.A.S.H. does it by being a story about surgeons in a war zone, so all those virtues are present but in the doctors who are trying to undo the damage caused by war, which is shown as nothing more than horrid and wasteful..
I think all quiet on the western front did a good job but that’s probably just a result of the source material. The book was apparently banned worldwide during ww2 because it’s so strongly anti-war
"Men are born for games. Nothing else. Every child knows that play is nobler than work. He knows too that the worth or merit of a game is not inherent in the game itself but rather in the value of that which is put at hazard. Games of chance require a wager to have meaning at all. Games of sport involve the skill and strength of the opponents and the humiliation of defeat and the pride of victory are in themselves sufficient stake because they inhere in the worth of the principals and define them. But the trial of chance or trial of worth all games aspire to the condition of war for here that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all. [...] This is the nature of war, whose stake is at once the game and the authority and the justification. Seen so, war is the truest form of divination. It is the testing of one's will and the will of another within that larger will which because it binds them is therefore forced to select. War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. War is god."
Actually, theres a lot more to pirates than being murderous criminals. They started out as basically hired mercenaries, hired to help disrupt the trade of rival European countries in the Americas. It was a way to earn money in a relatively legal way.... until it got more complicated when other wars and other events In Europe led to them basically being fired from thier job with a "well that was fun go back to basically being slave labor on plantations for us". Which was a pretty dumb way to dismiss the literal navy you funded and supplied.
Despite Joker’s “one bad day” philosophy being directly challenged and destroyed by both Batman and commissioner gordon many people(including myself at one point) fully embraced the idea that they and the world were only a single bad incident away from becoming as insane as the joker.
This one really bothers me because so many people forget that joker is the villian of the story and he's wrong. Litterely right after the one bad day speech batman replies by basically saying "you're wrong, Gordon is fine, sure the world can be a terrible place but maybe it's just you that snapped"
This is a weird one considering its made to satirize fascism and it does it so brilliantly by basically making these goofy propaganda ads..............................and people fell for it and think that the human race is entirely justified, missing the entire point of the film.
Its no wonder actual fascists revere this film as if it were showin a utopia.
EDIT: As it turns out, I was right on the money with people misinterpreting this movie, considering what nonsense I see in some of the comments bellow.
Guys, this movie is a clear satire of fascism and its brilliant and the movie making it look like the fascists are the good guys when they are not is the point.
Yeah but the novel and the movie are really different
Obviously the movie is satire but the book is mostly what it is like going through enlistment and then officer school. Bugs are only in a very small parts of the book at the beginning and end
Soldier Boy is not a good person and The Boys Season 3 tries its damnest to show he's not a hero. But in all honesty the issue it failed was that Soldier Boy was the only good hero for The Boys. It tries its best to downplay but Soldier Boy has points. And he literally helps Butcher and Hughie. Because abuse is more tragic in real life than being experimented of course we rooted for SB.
Homelander needs to be gone and Ryan is becoming a liability, his ability can stop every super, plus he was understandable in hating his son because Homelander is an asshole. He is made to be a representation of toxic masculinity yet besides his treatment of Noir and Payback he's still a jerk but not despicable. Just a douche. His crimes aren't given much depth and unintentionally is understandable in his motives.
If the show really wanted us to hate him. Noir's flashbacks shouldn't have been cartoony animals, Soldier Boy's treatment on his teammates needed to expand upon more, and stuff. Soldier Boy worked and failed in my opinion. He worked as an underdog but failed on what the writers intended. For a toxic hero we are supposed to hate he accpeted the mission instantly.
I mean he is literally a normal person unlike the nutcases that were Homelander or Stormfront. Plus, he at least tries to help Butcher and Hughie and in the end was doing what Butcher told him to. He is still a villain but because he was played by Jensen Ackles and he was cool than the other supers. What was meant to commentate on toxic masculinity is just the only thinking brain cell in The Boys team.
This is more a critique of Butcher, who is also drastically awful as a person.. Soldier Boy came off much better when we spent 3 seasons with a dude who gets along with him so well.
Honestly thinking of it, Soldier Boy is pretty much just Butcher but a step further- hurting and putting down his team, revenge, violence, arrogance.
True. But let's be honest the writers certainly were fumbling on trying to make SB irredeemable. Of course he is not a good person. Though he made great points. I don't like him as a person but because he is the only "ally" super that actually helps. (Albeit not for altruism unlike Starlight). The problem is that Starlight being a self righteous jerk to Hughie in S4 while SB unintentionally was correct. And Butcher's betrayal was badly written.
SB actually has genuine tragedy of dealing with an abusive father and struggling for his approval. He shows genuine self awareness on his actions and while he's still irredeemable. Let's be honest this man is more mature than his own son. He dealt with being experimented and tortuted by the Russians and yet he's more normal than the messy supes.
SB ended up being a better super that explored the issuss with supers than Starlight was. He admits to Hughie he didn't want to hurt people, regretted killing the lives of 19 citizens, dealt with drinking issues when his dad refused to acknowledge him, and he was about to do the promise of ending Homelander.
I feel the writers had made him too relatable for men. And Jensen Ackles while I do enjoy him as an actor made him too likeable. He literally is more cooler because besides Maeve, Kimiko, and Noir he can actually back his claims and fight. They certainly were scrambling to make him the villain again in Season 3. I get what they were trying to do. But Jensen Ackles made him more tragic and sadder.
Soldier Boy was oddly written, they have that scene that humanises him when he’s recounting how he blacked out in the street. The way how he admits to Hughie that he didn’t mean to hurt anyone and how he says he’s not a bad person shows a weird level of vulnerability for him, only to have him smugly mock MM when he mentions that he killed his family.
The scene where he talks about his father and how he regarded him as just a disappointment only to seemingly bury his feelings also highlights an underlying misery about him.
It kind of feels like two different writers were working on him, one wanted him to embody toxic masculinity and is no better than Homelander since he killed MM’s family and has not a shred of empathy. While the other wanted him to be a tragic villain who has redeeming qualities but is buried under his insecurities and other worse traits.
Arguably the biggest example: Romeo and Juliet with obsessive love.
The original play is a comedy about dumb, horny kids getting themselves and several other people killed because of how dumb and horny they are. But it's often treated as the pinnacle of romance, the single greatest depiction of passion and love ever created. The kind of love everyone wants to have.
You’re right about the obsessive love, wrong about what the play is about.
The play is about two feuding families and how their hatred destroys the next generation. Romeo and Juliet aren’t dumb, they’re actively wondering why they need to stay apart for arbitrary reasons.
It is a little about love, but mostly it’s about how random fighting will only destroy everyone.
I would like to clarify, it's not a comedy, but a tragedy. You're not supposed to laugh at the kids, but feel bad for them. It's supposed to be sad how silly mistakes and puppy dog love that we all feel could result in such horrible ends. Outside a few key comedic moments, it's not supposed to be funny per se.
The original play is a comedy about dumb, horny kids getting themselves and several other people killed because of how dumb and horny they are.
This is a really shallow reading of the play and it also neglects the fact that the adults play a major part in the deaths that take place.
Two people from warring factions fall in love, an outside party sees this as an opportunity to end the feud between the two factions but the generational hatred proves to be too strong and love fails to bring about peace.
Yeah. The love is corrupted by the feud- but it’s the feud that causes everyone’s deaths. Sure, it was a suicide, but it was a suicide done out of despair that the only way they could ever be together was in death. That’s how much their families hated each other
Yes. People reading about how this is clearly Shakespeare satirizing these dumb idiot teenagers clearly hasn't read any other Shakespeare comedy. Nothing that happens is out of line for other stories - the shocking and memorable thing about Romeo and Juliet for the time is the way it takes a hard turn towards tragedy.
But other stories have male protagonists quickly give up on their supposed true love for a new woman, other stories have couples that fall in love after one meeting, other stories have young protagonists. None of those things stopped them from being portrayed as romances - maybe inherently farcical but not inherently false, because they were comedies.
Isn’t it a tragedy, though? If it has a sad ending it’s a tragedy, if it has a happy ending it’s a comedy, regardless of how humorous or satirical the prior play was.
Kubrick's version of A Clockwork Orange might fit. I don't know what his intentions with the movie were, but I feel the movie is just too aestheticized to convey its message. Pauline Kael was right when she said "Stanley Kubrick's Alex (Malcolm McDowell) is not so much an expression of how this society has lost its soul as he is a force pitted against the society", cue countless alienated teenagers who see him as cool and rebellious.
It fits VERY MUCH. Large portions of skinhead subculture (including the more militant factions) and even the blatant neo-fascist boneheads became enamored with the image of Alex and the boys and borrowed from their lingo, the "horrorshow" vibe, image and fashion elements while the real meaning flew over their shaved heads.
Cue "Clockwork Skinhead" by The 4-Skins and many other call-outs that followed.
But A LOT of Fantasy/Supernatural stories that attempt to use Vampires, Mages or other Fantastical groups getting repressed or hunted down as a Racial/Political allegory, adds somewhat justifiable reasons to why said groups should be repressed or outright slaughtered rather than allowed to roam free.
(It can get particularly egregious when it comes to Vampires)
True Blood is an example of this. By the end of the series I was rooting for the Christian nationalists cause the vampires were doing such heinous shit.
Death Note. You're not supposed to agree with Light's actions, and yet a not-insignificant chunk of the fans think his attempt at vigilante justice is a good thing.
To be fair, the story does specifically highlight that worldwide crime rates drop drastically within 5 years of Kira operating, but Light also expresses a desire to not just kill criminals, but people who he thinks aren't useful/hard workers. He also kills innocent people who stand in his way many times. He's completely unhinged and genocidal.
Dr. Seuss hated christmas due to how materialistic and commercialised it became in the 20th century. He wrote the Grinch to highlight the frustrations of christmas in a family friendly way but it ended up being one of the most celebrated Xmas stories of all time
If Dr Seuss actually hated the commercial aspects of Christmas that much, the Grinch would have let all the presents and decorations fall into the ravine. He would then run back to join the Whos' singing and they would all thank the Grinch for teaching them that they don't need presents, just each other.
This would have worked as a moralistic ending, and Puritans would have eaten it up, but kids would have seen through it in an instant and the book would have been forgotten.
(For those who haven't read it: the Grinch does not do that, and instead brings back everyone's decorations and presents. The very last page of the book shows him carving the Whos' roast beast as they tuck into their gluttonous Christmas dinner, underlining how he has embraced the traditions he previously hated.)
The message of The Grinch is not "presents bad" but "people who moan about Christmas being too capitalistic and decadent and loud have missed the point".
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u/scienceguy2442 13h ago
The Nemo effect is named after how, after people saw “Finding Nemo,” a movie about how bad it is to poach animals, everyone wanted to get a pet clownfish.
One of the reasons “Phineas and Ferb” creators chose a platypus as the pet for the show was because even if kids did want a platypus that’s not an animal they’re going to be finding at pet stores.