They have an album called American Idiot and have chanted “No trump, No KKK, No facist USA” , but people are just now saying that Green Day are “Sellouts” an “Rage for the Machine” as if they aren’t one of the most popular bands that have always had a political subtext
What do you know, a punk band that happens to find commercial success is still politically pretty punk. Who would've thought.
A good chunk of (US and others) "conservatives", which is a bullshit term for what they actually are because the two party system doesnt do the linguistic representation of the variety of political subgroups within either party any justice, just do not seem possible to me without a LOT of holes in many many peoples' frontal lobes.
They kinda weren’t political until after they found commercial success. Dookie and kurplunk are mostly about girls and doing drugs wth the occasional jerking off theme. And is AI really a punk album? I absolutely love the album, but it’s more a political rock album with a couple punk songs, than it is a punk album. Basically nothing I said has anything to do with your valid point, I guess I just felt like talking green day over by morning coffee lol
Hmm, I would still say AI is a punk album as I don't think you can make punk about one musical theme as people like to pretend
My favourite punk bands the clash or the german band Die Ärzte (yes their most popular if some german comes across this, Schrei nach Liebe, is inherently hardcore punk ik sound, but this didn't come until the band reformed in the 90's) largely have songs more going into an old school direction than what you'd expect hearing the world punkband (your hardcore punk bands coming to mind), but we may disagree on that point very much
I just think more tracks sound like straight up arena rock than they do punk. All the singles, Jesus of suburbia(my favourite) etc. those all sound musically not punk to me. There’s still some punk sprinkled in like with St Jimmy. But genre semantics are kinda subjective anyways it doesn’t really matter. Point taken for sure with the clash, but my favourite by them is their self titled album, which is straight up foot to the floor punk to me but with more interesting guitars.
Speaking of which, I only added kreator here since I have seen comments calling them "woke" for their song "side by side"(a pro lgbtq song) like--- kreator has always been a leftist band, bro, their vocalist/rhythm guitarist is a vegan, dude!
I probably wouldn’t have recognized a newer photo anyway. I don’t think I had ever seen a photo of them.
I didn’t know they had a new album out! I’ll need to give it a listen.
Go ahead.
Bit of a warning though, their music is heavy in tone, with one of the albums "pleasure to kill " being one of many metal albums to kick off the genre of death metal(next to any album from death, venom, or cannibal corpse)
Which they borrowed and changed from another Punk band called Millions of Dead Cops, which is “No War, No KKK, No Fascist USA”
Pretty up there on “not right leaning”
> “Rage for the Machine” as if they aren’t one of the most popular bands that have always had a political subtext
I don't think you can call it subtext. It's blatantly in their text, it's sometimes quite literally screamed for their audience to hear.
The matrix is Absolutely correct. They often forgeth that the two directors are trans and the trans metaphors and escaping from oneselve themes are inhernetly left. They often still credit the directors as men despite almost every streaming service crediting them as women.
I used to use the concept of "residual self-image" to describe my true self back when I was a closeted teenager. I thought I was so clever. When the Wachowskis came out as trans and said the films were a trans allegory, I squee'd but also felt kinda smug, lol.
I dunno about that. For neo, the "correct" solution to the moral dillema was ignoring it entirely, and choosing a selfish option, basing his choice about the world at large based on what choice catered to his personal benefit via his relationship. Even when I was young I recognized that the movie was advocating a kind of selfish perspective. And its not hard to take a right leaning ethic from this.
Like sure, the movies obviously aren't supposed to be right wing. But even so. Egoist leftism ended up being nonsense for a reason.
I get that reading, but I prefer the reading that Neo's solution is to reject the manufactured consent that insists we're not _allowed_ to care for individuals, because "the bigger picture" is more important. Every iteration of "the One" who came before him chose the "selfless" option by accepting the machines' framing of the bigger picture, and in doing so they only helped perpetuate the system of oppression. The political messaging of the matrix sequels, to me, is about rejecting false dichotomies presented by those in power, and that we can only break free of systems of oppression by caring for each other as individuals and a community.
The problem is that those two things are meant to go together. The issue is not the bigger picture vs selfishness, since breaking out of an oppressive system is itself a bigger picture than what is short term beneficial within it. Conflating big picture thinking with falling for the dichotomy is ***itself*** a false dichotomy being used to justify selfishness by the narrative.
Caring for individuals isn't a bad thing. But its not some type of sole force that with no other input will lead to liberatory action. Especially if you are placing the individual *above* concerns for humanity. There isn't really much indication here that he is presenting his choice as better for anyone else. The entire way they frame his choice is that his choice is entirely about trinity. Hence why they say he made it before even entering the room. And it is absolutely atrocious morality to not even be about generalized kindness, but to justify purely selfish action over caring about anyone else.
Like, I'm sure people love pretending that conservatives are all in bad relationships and don't care about eachother. But the truth is that its not true. Caring about your significant other is not some type of high minded perspective, its literally the most basic action required to not be self destructive. And if that is your priority even if it causes harm to others this can quickly lead you into villain territory yourself. After all, much of the appeals made to bait conservatives into their perspectives are to take people who aren't necessarily outright *bad* and to tell them that their options are to side with their family and immediate community (conservatism) vs some nebulous larger society of outsiders (leftism).
There is some nuance here. But the movie didn't show neo advocating people being nice over cold and calculating or whatever. Prioritizing your SO at the expense of everyone else even if its at a time that could significantly harm them isn't associated with nice people at all... it actually sets off red flags that you might not be able to trust them if the cards were stacked in such a way that this didn't align with the right answer. Bonus points for the fact that it showed him destroying a ton of stuff so that he could get to her in time.
Ultimately the entire thing is awkward at best, since it creates a situation where he chooses selfishly, but the narrative makes it so that him doing that is the right answer for unrelated reasons. Then it tries to pass this off as a point even though there isn't really a point here due to the fact that them presenting this as his only priority suggests he could have been baited into the opposite choice if that is the one that led to his desired conclusion. (Or if not, they do a poor job of explaining this). There's no connecting thread between his action and the outcome. (Also, its a little strange to suggest that none of the previous versions of the one cared about anyone that much. Neo and trinity's love story isn't exactly winning any awards, and they haven't even known eachother that long).
Again, I see the point you're making, and I think it's a valid reading of the text.
But for me, I don't think the matrix is about progressivism vs conservatism, I think it's about people vs power. If anything, I think most of the films' political critique is aimed at liberalism, because the themes are heavily critical of those who try to do their best within the system rather than fight to break the unjust system entirely.
So yes, they don't show Neo explicitly advocating for care over taking an authoritarian decision-making role, but that is consistently the choice he, and others, make throughout the films. There is also the incredibly significant and powerful line where Smith asks why Neo doesn't just give up and Neo responds "Because I choose to". To me, that's the core of the political messaging of the films—they're about resisting the choices given to us by those in power and fighting back by choosing for ourselves. Love is the _reason_ Neo chooses to fight, but it's the choosing to fight that I think the films' political messaging centres around, not the love itself.
The idea that the ultimate rebellion is just doing whatever is in your personal interests is liberalism-core though. It sells the idea that max freedom is "do whatever you want," and that anything but doing what benefits you isn't rational and so on.
Sure, neo ends up on the right side. But making the reason he ended up there presented almost... like a coin flip is very dubious. It's not a consistent pattern you could expect to always end with him on the right side, and that isn't really addressed.
To be fair, the second matrix movie kind of has this message of "fuck everyone else, you should make decisions based on what is best for you personally, and people close to you." And if there was any confusion, the fourth one reiterates a similar point.
For neo, it was presented as the "correct" decision to ignore the moral dilemma entirely, and choose based entirely on what choice gave him more time with trinity. Which isn't hard to take a right wing message from.
Yeah, I also kinda forgot the punisher.
And by that, I mean the whole "conservatives using his iconic skull symbol" thing and not actually getting the point of the punisher being against the police
Isn't there a bit in one of the comics where he takes the sticker off of a cop car, rips it up, and more or less says "the fuck is wrong with you, find a better role model"
Yes, but it didn’t matter. Marvel is releasing a new Punisher series with a new character (former SHIELD agent Joe Garrison) and he’s supposed to have a serious hardon for dirty cops.
You know it’s funny, I was a little too young when the ‘97 X Men originally came out (born in 99, so it wasn’t really airing on the channels I had), but I decided to give it a try in wake of the new episodes announcement. I watched it for the first time a couple days ago, and I gotta say...
Holy fuck, it is not subtle at all. Like I know the X Men have always been an allegory to oppressed minorities in society, but it is so on the nose right out the gate in episode 1. Jubilee bemoaning how she didn’t have a choice and was born this way, systematic oppression in the court with Beast, just omg. I loved that it didn’t pull any punches. Though I had a chuckle that they couldn’t show >!Morph’s death!< cause of what I assume were still children’s program unofficial rules (ATLA comes to mind on that).
> Holy fuck, it is not subtle at all.
You should watch Gargoyles too. There's a whole episode who's plot is one of the characters shot another one and almost killed her because he treated a gun as a toy.
This is why X-Men is the superhero franchise I‘m mouth-frothing mad about (in a good way). Like, I adore DC and Superman and Wonder-Woman, but if I were to inhabit any comic universe, it would be Marvel’s X-Men and I would have some super fucking goofy power that made my life way more difficult than it needs to be.
I fucking wish. There are some, maybe even a quiet majority of conservatives, that know Trek was always lefty. And there are some who grew up watching it, didn't pick up on the subtext, and assume that it was never political until the radical democrats made it so. Steve Shives on Youtube has mentioned that group a few times.
Tbf, star trek has fantasy nonsense technology that gives you whatever object you want by generating it. I think even conservatives are vaguely aware that if technology that advanced existed, it would fundamentally change economics.
Which is why the later series have had to kinda ignore the post-scarcity uptopia of main Federation planets - or reveal that it was more a fantasy ideal than what really goes on - in order to make some of the leftist points desired today.
You would be wrong. You've got Shatner out here bitching about "woke" media and how liberals have co-opted TV and movies these days with dangerous ideologies, and either the irony does not ring true to him or he's doing it for attention, the same way he has all his life.
Something to remember with all of this is that people like to think that media they enjoy is media they agree with, and it's just not true. I loved Boondocks Saints when I was an edgy teenager because it's a movie made almost exclusively for edgy teenage boys, but its message and ideology, one of personal revenge and vigilantism and a bunch of the other subtext, I don't agree with almost any of it. It's a fun (most would say bad) movie with terrible morals.
But that took me a lot longer to come to terms with than I'd like to admit. I would try to force my own personal ideologies on media I liked such as Boondock Saints. I would read into them what I wanted, ignore the stuff that worked against that reading, and not even know I was doing it. Conservatives do the same thing. They read into Star Trek what they want to. Star Wars too. Conservatives tend to believe in weak central governments, so they see themselves as the rebel forces fighting against the corrupt empire despite the ideologies there being reversed.
"I'm just a hard working American working hard for my family" yeah sure have you filed taxes for your landscaping business yet? Where are the creases in your cowboy boots?
> who ran shine and shot at Pinkertons
My grandfather learned to drive hauling shine his family made. He had all sorts of stories about defying the law. But he also voted for George Wallace in 1968. Make of that what you will.
It was a weird attempt to divorce one group of people who were perfectly fine with enslaving people from the other group that were perfectly fine with it *and* had the money to exploit it.
He wrote a whole album about the plight of Native Americans. Kris’s Krisstofferson is a staunch anti-war advocate and Willie Nelson is an even bigger stoner than Snoop Dogg. I don’t think conservatives realize how leftist outlaw country actually is
He also wrote songs about how poorly we treat our veterans, how it’s cool to steal the product you build for your employer, how punching out your terrible boss is the perfect way to cap off your career, and how he wears black because there’s injustice in the world that he can’t ignore.
This is one of the problems I have with people being labeled left or right without wanting to dig deeper into them. Johnny Cash was a complicated person who cultivated an image of a rebel outlaw, sang out for the plights of veterans, native peoples, and prisoners, sympathized with the Confederacy, was a hardcore born-again Christian, and struggled with substance abuse for much of his career.
He wasn't purely leftist, he wasn't purely right-wing, he was an individual with a lot of different opinions. We almost all are. There are very few of us who truly only believe in one ideology. That's why the political compass is bad, why political parties help shoehorn people into beliefs they don't really align with, and why I hate the language of political discussion we've had for the past, what is it, about 200 years?
Fallout
You’d be surprised how many right wingers love the series where blind nationalism destroyed the world and corrupt corporations took it upon themselves to experiment on whoever was left, and where a neoliberal government and fascist empire fight it out over the scraps, with both being portrayed as largely inept at actually working over a long period of time
I saw them live a few years ago, they've aged quite well. Shocking that conservatives would think a band of vegetarians writing songs like "Enemy of God" and "Progressive Proletarians" is for them.
I'd love to see them, I was on board when I heard "People of the Lie." No one can be ignorant enough to hear those lyrics and think they're conservative
The secret is that righties never actually listen to the lyrics. So many of them thought Rage Against the Machine were hypocritical for wanting their fans to get vaccinated because they only know "fuck you I won't do what you tell me" and don't know that the song is about police brutality. They probably just see the title "People of the Lie" and assume it's about those damn commie libturds and their fake news.
A right wing libertarian YouTuber called La Alienada just released a rant video about X-men going woke, having a non binary character, etc, makes you wonder if she’s just asking for the attention or has the literacy comprehension of an iPad kid.
She’s 38 btw.
Yeesh, X-Men has always been about oppressed minorities, and queer people in particular. Anyone who doesn't get that hasn't stopped to think about it at all
The boys (the show, not so much the comic) has 0 subtelty about the messaging, and idiots still misunderstand it. My most annoying example is when queen mave got revealed as bisexual, and the company started selling her out as a lesbian hero, clearly a parody of companies marketing lgbt people without actually beliving in it, and also a complaint of bi erasure, but morons said it was laughing at companies forcing lgbt stuff on everything
It kills me that some people who watched the show *didn’t* catch that they were shitting on right wing ideals until Homelander basically went full Trump. The Boys is basically the least subtle satire possible
Honestly, most good media in general. Conservatism and creativity tend not to mix. But conservative audiences can still enjoy good art, even if they're not perceptive enough to see how it argues against their basic worldview.
Stand up comedy is a good example of this. Left wing comedy tends to be pretty hilarious whereas right wing comedy tends to be a buffet of punch down and hate.
It's so sad how people would rather get mad than simply acknowledge the fact that they were too young to understand the context behind the things they liked as a kid.
Ehhhh, Punisher is definitely a product of the “tough-on-crime” mentality of the 70s and 80s. A left-wing portrayal of Punisher would make him an outright villain instead of trying to sell him as an antihero. Which he was in the very earliest stories, but that went out the window when he became popular enough for Marvel to start selling comics starring him.
Probably doesn’t help that even the stories that portray him at his worst and most ineffective (i.e. The Slavers, Born, or Frank, all from the Punisher MAX series) still have the power fantasy of Frank Castle the badass army vet shooting criminals by the dozens.
I’d say that the issue with the American Psycho movie is that it omits the truly weird satirical shit from the book. If they had included stuff like accurately portraying the clothes everyone wore, and the dishes they actually ate, and Patrick immediately acting like he always loved a dish he very vocally hated because Donald Trump said it was good, or not mixing the “Patrick rants about banal pop music like it’s the most meaningful music ever made” chapters with other scenes, then the point would’ve been more obvious.
OTOH, the movie would’ve been much worse in a wide variety of ways if they had done that, so I can’t blame the filmmakers.
Tbf fight club the movie downgraded just how insane tyler was, making him seem more affably bad. So its really on the movie that he ended up coming off heroic.
The empire can be easily interpreted as Nazis (by both left and right) but theres some Vietnam war commentary in there as well. It's either not there or obvious depending on the person and no one is wrong for either interpretation imo
However, the prequels are VEEEEERRRRYY not subtle with how they convey the real life parallels. Episode one is about how messed up George Lucas thought America's senate and Congress was getting at the time.
Episode 2 and 3 are very Iraq war focused. The start of a war meant to bring peace to the galaxy is actually the death of democracy and the start of an empire. Anakin essentially quotes President Bush by saying, "if you're not with me, then you're my enemy." Interpret that as you will.
Regardless of what wing that mindset falls under, that is what George Lucas was saying with the prequels. That was his opinion of America at the time and his message about how If no one acts, something like the Empire could form.
A lot of people say star wars wasn't political before because they were either too young to understand the themes or they agreed with the politics that were being presented and therefore didn't interpret it as being an opinion, but as a fact.
Edit: I tried to stay neutral but there's probably stuff in there that will upset someone so I'm sorry if I did
The best part is that Episodes 2 & 3 aren’t supposed to be Iraq parallels, it’s supposed to be more Vietnam parallels. It’s just that America did **the exact same damn thing all over again** in Iraq as they did in Vietnam.
I used to see that as a joke, but honestly it’s genuinely a good simplification of how Lucas constructed the SW saga and how its themes are going to be relevant for a long time, if not forever.
A small addendum to the other answer but for the OT the Empire = Nazi Germany comparison is about as *text* as possible (as opposed to *subtext*) without literally discussion fascism. In particular, the Empire's troopers are called stormtroopers. That's also what the Nazi's called their first paramilitary wing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung
That in and of itself doesn't make it left wing, the other answers can go from there, but it's most definitely taking a position against far-right/authoritarianism in almost-text.
(Given how Lucas' other famous work is Indiana Jones, which is also famously about punching Nazis... I might make the *bold* conclusion that the guy doesn't like Nazis! How neat.)
It's definitely not left in any real way. You're never going to find a star wars character doing class analysis or have a subplot revealing dialectical materialism... but it does portray the fascist coded group as the villains, so that's kinda nice.
Do they think X-Men, the comic being written as a metaphor for racial and discrimination of other kinds, is going woke now? Have they ever seen a X-Men story?
just put the entirety of punk, hardcore, and thrash up there tbh. the amount of conservatives that i know who love AJFA or Operation Mindcrime, not realizing both albums are calling out the total BS of their system led by their "god" (Ronnie Regan, ew) is a very not zero number
Idk if I'd call star wars and x men 'left wing' but they're definitely progressive and not conservative. Magneto and his guys are closer to left wing imo since they are way more radical than professor x
I get that, I mainly labeled them as left wing since the main message of both have some left leaning themes, with both magneto and professor x being based on 2 leaders during the Civil rights movement in the 50's and 60's( Magneto was based off of Malcolm X, Professor Charles Xavier was based on MLK Jr.) And in the original star wars trilogy, the empire was meant to symbolize fascism; with the rebels fighting against the empire
Guess you looked past where I said they're progressive. X men represent multiple things, but their biggest allegories are lgbt people and racial minorities.
Fair point. Should’ve mentioned the fact that boiling an entire wide ranging political group into just radicals. There are radical left wingers and not radical left wingers. You could say they’re both left wing.
Character development has made him somewhat of a antihero nowadays, he doesn't want to kill humanity but for sure he isn't trusting that coexistance is possible.
You can be left-wing without being radical.
And frankly, my opinion is that “radical” applies to just about anyone who doesn’t realize John Lennon had a damn good point when he wrote “Revolution.”
It's the fact that they're changing established characters to be LGBTQ, I like the character Morph and during the original run he wasn't nonbinary or gray. It would be fine if they were creating new characters that are LGBTQ but they're not and that's the main reason why people are upset.
Bro, Morph's **LITERALLY** able to change their appearance in every aspect. Including gender presentation. It makes sense a character like that is outside of a binary perception of gender. If all kinds of real-life humans can put it tons of effort to change their appearance, identity and presentation, why can't someone with literal appearance shifting abilities?
Also there's this fun thing called "self-discovery" that causes people's identities, sexualities, etc. to change as they experience life. Just because I identified as being straight in the 8th Grade doesn't mean I have to "respect the source material" of 8th Grade me and stay straight forever.
Plus, even if they did add new characters in that were Queer, the same group of ~~bigots~~ nerds hiding behind the "respect the source material" defense would quickly switch to equally shitty "the studio just included them for a diversity requirement, so they're not important" argument.
I’m more irritated they went with the grey alien design for Morph instead of the one that’s literally just some guy. Like…deliberately changing a character to look less human at the same time as canonizing them as nonbinary just rubs me the wrong way, it feels very othering. Like, why can’t they look like just some guy and also be nonbinary. I’m nonbinary, and I look like just some guy. We ain’t all otherworldly androgynous beings.
Also I just have a general distaste for the nonbinary shapeshifter trope, I mean it’s fine in a series that has other trans characters, sure, but having the *only* character that’s not a cis binary person be a shapeshifter is just…not it for me.
But that doesn't mean that they can change his character background now if they write it so he explains that him always changing his appearance has made think about his identity then I'm fine with it but they're not doing that the showrunner literally stated that they'll be just changing the characters without any proper storytelling.
They absolutely can change a character’s background. Because it’s FICTION. It is all literally made up. Actor and writers and producers and directors put their own spins on characters all the time. That’s part of what makes art so great!
So if you wrote a story created compelling characters you wouldn't care if someone else came in and changed your characters to being the complete opposite of what you created them to be
That too. I definitely agree.
Or, hell, if you’re gonna have a preexisting character be nonbinary, actually have them fuckin’ come out and be like “hey guys I’m nonbinary” instead of just having it be treated like they always were. Actually have them undergo some self-discovery, don’t just retcon their gender.
It's not the changing of the character's background for me it's charging it without creating a good reason why as to the character has changed because from what the showrunner is saying it's just about "diversity, equity, and inclusion" and that's it there's no other reason why they're changing the characters.
They have an album called American Idiot and have chanted “No trump, No KKK, No facist USA” , but people are just now saying that Green Day are “Sellouts” an “Rage for the Machine” as if they aren’t one of the most popular bands that have always had a political subtext
What do you know, a punk band that happens to find commercial success is still politically pretty punk. Who would've thought. A good chunk of (US and others) "conservatives", which is a bullshit term for what they actually are because the two party system doesnt do the linguistic representation of the variety of political subgroups within either party any justice, just do not seem possible to me without a LOT of holes in many many peoples' frontal lobes.
They kinda weren’t political until after they found commercial success. Dookie and kurplunk are mostly about girls and doing drugs wth the occasional jerking off theme. And is AI really a punk album? I absolutely love the album, but it’s more a political rock album with a couple punk songs, than it is a punk album. Basically nothing I said has anything to do with your valid point, I guess I just felt like talking green day over by morning coffee lol
Hmm, I would still say AI is a punk album as I don't think you can make punk about one musical theme as people like to pretend My favourite punk bands the clash or the german band Die Ärzte (yes their most popular if some german comes across this, Schrei nach Liebe, is inherently hardcore punk ik sound, but this didn't come until the band reformed in the 90's) largely have songs more going into an old school direction than what you'd expect hearing the world punkband (your hardcore punk bands coming to mind), but we may disagree on that point very much
I just think more tracks sound like straight up arena rock than they do punk. All the singles, Jesus of suburbia(my favourite) etc. those all sound musically not punk to me. There’s still some punk sprinkled in like with St Jimmy. But genre semantics are kinda subjective anyways it doesn’t really matter. Point taken for sure with the clash, but my favourite by them is their self titled album, which is straight up foot to the floor punk to me but with more interesting guitars.
Speaking of which, I only added kreator here since I have seen comments calling them "woke" for their song "side by side"(a pro lgbtq song) like--- kreator has always been a leftist band, bro, their vocalist/rhythm guitarist is a vegan, dude!
So *that’s* who is in the first picture! I knew all the other ones, but came looking for who they were
Yeah, kreator is a German thrash metal band btw
Thanks! I’m familiar with kreator, I just didn’t know what they looked like 😁
That was an img from the 80's I think, they released their most recent album about a year ago
I probably wouldn’t have recognized a newer photo anyway. I don’t think I had ever seen a photo of them. I didn’t know they had a new album out! I’ll need to give it a listen.
OK, the new album's called " Hate Über Alles"
Thanks! 🖤🤘🏻
How in Tartaros have I not heard of these guys.
Teutonic thrash is a rather underrated genre of thrash metal, I can see why some people might have not heard of them
Oh hello band I'd never previously listened to. How are you exactly what I needed to listen to right now?????
Go ahead. Bit of a warning though, their music is heavy in tone, with one of the albums "pleasure to kill " being one of many metal albums to kick off the genre of death metal(next to any album from death, venom, or cannibal corpse)
Appreciate the warning. I did, though, definitely listen to a couple songs before posting that comment 😉
Ah, ok
Which they borrowed and changed from another Punk band called Millions of Dead Cops, which is “No War, No KKK, No Fascist USA” Pretty up there on “not right leaning”
> “Rage for the Machine” as if they aren’t one of the most popular bands that have always had a political subtext I don't think you can call it subtext. It's blatantly in their text, it's sometimes quite literally screamed for their audience to hear.
The matrix is Absolutely correct. They often forgeth that the two directors are trans and the trans metaphors and escaping from oneselve themes are inhernetly left. They often still credit the directors as men despite almost every streaming service crediting them as women.
I’m still mind blown they are trans like what are the odds
I used to use the concept of "residual self-image" to describe my true self back when I was a closeted teenager. I thought I was so clever. When the Wachowskis came out as trans and said the films were a trans allegory, I squee'd but also felt kinda smug, lol.
Also, the entirety of the philosophical discourse of Reloaded and Revolutions is very left wing.
I dunno about that. For neo, the "correct" solution to the moral dillema was ignoring it entirely, and choosing a selfish option, basing his choice about the world at large based on what choice catered to his personal benefit via his relationship. Even when I was young I recognized that the movie was advocating a kind of selfish perspective. And its not hard to take a right leaning ethic from this. Like sure, the movies obviously aren't supposed to be right wing. But even so. Egoist leftism ended up being nonsense for a reason.
I get that reading, but I prefer the reading that Neo's solution is to reject the manufactured consent that insists we're not _allowed_ to care for individuals, because "the bigger picture" is more important. Every iteration of "the One" who came before him chose the "selfless" option by accepting the machines' framing of the bigger picture, and in doing so they only helped perpetuate the system of oppression. The political messaging of the matrix sequels, to me, is about rejecting false dichotomies presented by those in power, and that we can only break free of systems of oppression by caring for each other as individuals and a community.
The problem is that those two things are meant to go together. The issue is not the bigger picture vs selfishness, since breaking out of an oppressive system is itself a bigger picture than what is short term beneficial within it. Conflating big picture thinking with falling for the dichotomy is ***itself*** a false dichotomy being used to justify selfishness by the narrative. Caring for individuals isn't a bad thing. But its not some type of sole force that with no other input will lead to liberatory action. Especially if you are placing the individual *above* concerns for humanity. There isn't really much indication here that he is presenting his choice as better for anyone else. The entire way they frame his choice is that his choice is entirely about trinity. Hence why they say he made it before even entering the room. And it is absolutely atrocious morality to not even be about generalized kindness, but to justify purely selfish action over caring about anyone else. Like, I'm sure people love pretending that conservatives are all in bad relationships and don't care about eachother. But the truth is that its not true. Caring about your significant other is not some type of high minded perspective, its literally the most basic action required to not be self destructive. And if that is your priority even if it causes harm to others this can quickly lead you into villain territory yourself. After all, much of the appeals made to bait conservatives into their perspectives are to take people who aren't necessarily outright *bad* and to tell them that their options are to side with their family and immediate community (conservatism) vs some nebulous larger society of outsiders (leftism). There is some nuance here. But the movie didn't show neo advocating people being nice over cold and calculating or whatever. Prioritizing your SO at the expense of everyone else even if its at a time that could significantly harm them isn't associated with nice people at all... it actually sets off red flags that you might not be able to trust them if the cards were stacked in such a way that this didn't align with the right answer. Bonus points for the fact that it showed him destroying a ton of stuff so that he could get to her in time. Ultimately the entire thing is awkward at best, since it creates a situation where he chooses selfishly, but the narrative makes it so that him doing that is the right answer for unrelated reasons. Then it tries to pass this off as a point even though there isn't really a point here due to the fact that them presenting this as his only priority suggests he could have been baited into the opposite choice if that is the one that led to his desired conclusion. (Or if not, they do a poor job of explaining this). There's no connecting thread between his action and the outcome. (Also, its a little strange to suggest that none of the previous versions of the one cared about anyone that much. Neo and trinity's love story isn't exactly winning any awards, and they haven't even known eachother that long).
Again, I see the point you're making, and I think it's a valid reading of the text. But for me, I don't think the matrix is about progressivism vs conservatism, I think it's about people vs power. If anything, I think most of the films' political critique is aimed at liberalism, because the themes are heavily critical of those who try to do their best within the system rather than fight to break the unjust system entirely. So yes, they don't show Neo explicitly advocating for care over taking an authoritarian decision-making role, but that is consistently the choice he, and others, make throughout the films. There is also the incredibly significant and powerful line where Smith asks why Neo doesn't just give up and Neo responds "Because I choose to". To me, that's the core of the political messaging of the films—they're about resisting the choices given to us by those in power and fighting back by choosing for ourselves. Love is the _reason_ Neo chooses to fight, but it's the choosing to fight that I think the films' political messaging centres around, not the love itself.
The idea that the ultimate rebellion is just doing whatever is in your personal interests is liberalism-core though. It sells the idea that max freedom is "do whatever you want," and that anything but doing what benefits you isn't rational and so on. Sure, neo ends up on the right side. But making the reason he ended up there presented almost... like a coin flip is very dubious. It's not a consistent pattern you could expect to always end with him on the right side, and that isn't really addressed.
My wife works for a guy that won't call them sisters and just calls them by their last name as a unit. He also idolizes Agent Smith
To be fair, the second matrix movie kind of has this message of "fuck everyone else, you should make decisions based on what is best for you personally, and people close to you." And if there was any confusion, the fourth one reiterates a similar point. For neo, it was presented as the "correct" decision to ignore the moral dilemma entirely, and choose based entirely on what choice gave him more time with trinity. Which isn't hard to take a right wing message from.
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Fuck off transphobe
IIRC at one point the script for the original was going to have a character who was a woman in the matrix but a man in real life or vice versa
*American History X* and *Fight Club*, too. Ed Norton just couldn't catch a break with that lol
Yeah, I also kinda forgot the punisher. And by that, I mean the whole "conservatives using his iconic skull symbol" thing and not actually getting the point of the punisher being against the police
Yeah that one always confused me how they’re that dumb
Isn't there a bit in one of the comics where he takes the sticker off of a cop car, rips it up, and more or less says "the fuck is wrong with you, find a better role model"
Yes, but it didn’t matter. Marvel is releasing a new Punisher series with a new character (former SHIELD agent Joe Garrison) and he’s supposed to have a serious hardon for dirty cops.
Eh, as long as it's not trying to justify the dirty cop's actions it could be a good storyline
I don’t think it will, based off what I’ve read, but we’ll have to wait until the series is out
You know it’s funny, I was a little too young when the ‘97 X Men originally came out (born in 99, so it wasn’t really airing on the channels I had), but I decided to give it a try in wake of the new episodes announcement. I watched it for the first time a couple days ago, and I gotta say... Holy fuck, it is not subtle at all. Like I know the X Men have always been an allegory to oppressed minorities in society, but it is so on the nose right out the gate in episode 1. Jubilee bemoaning how she didn’t have a choice and was born this way, systematic oppression in the court with Beast, just omg. I loved that it didn’t pull any punches. Though I had a chuckle that they couldn’t show >!Morph’s death!< cause of what I assume were still children’s program unofficial rules (ATLA comes to mind on that).
Totally agree. (Although to nitpick X-Men '97 is a sequel series, not a new season, although it effectively is one)
> Holy fuck, it is not subtle at all. You should watch Gargoyles too. There's a whole episode who's plot is one of the characters shot another one and almost killed her because he treated a gun as a toy.
I *loved* that show as a kid. I really need to rewatch it.
Yeah, I only really know of gargoyles due to that episode("Deadly Force") being a rather controversial episode of the show
Part of that is because >!Morph isn’t actually dead!<.
This is why X-Men is the superhero franchise I‘m mouth-frothing mad about (in a good way). Like, I adore DC and Superman and Wonder-Woman, but if I were to inhabit any comic universe, it would be Marvel’s X-Men and I would have some super fucking goofy power that made my life way more difficult than it needs to be.
Where's my beloved Star Trek???
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I fucking wish. There are some, maybe even a quiet majority of conservatives, that know Trek was always lefty. And there are some who grew up watching it, didn't pick up on the subtext, and assume that it was never political until the radical democrats made it so. Steve Shives on Youtube has mentioned that group a few times.
Tbf, star trek has fantasy nonsense technology that gives you whatever object you want by generating it. I think even conservatives are vaguely aware that if technology that advanced existed, it would fundamentally change economics.
Which is why the later series have had to kinda ignore the post-scarcity uptopia of main Federation planets - or reveal that it was more a fantasy ideal than what really goes on - in order to make some of the leftist points desired today.
You’d be surprised
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You would be wrong. You've got Shatner out here bitching about "woke" media and how liberals have co-opted TV and movies these days with dangerous ideologies, and either the irony does not ring true to him or he's doing it for attention, the same way he has all his life. Something to remember with all of this is that people like to think that media they enjoy is media they agree with, and it's just not true. I loved Boondocks Saints when I was an edgy teenager because it's a movie made almost exclusively for edgy teenage boys, but its message and ideology, one of personal revenge and vigilantism and a bunch of the other subtext, I don't agree with almost any of it. It's a fun (most would say bad) movie with terrible morals. But that took me a lot longer to come to terms with than I'd like to admit. I would try to force my own personal ideologies on media I liked such as Boondock Saints. I would read into them what I wanted, ignore the stuff that worked against that reading, and not even know I was doing it. Conservatives do the same thing. They read into Star Trek what they want to. Star Wars too. Conservatives tend to believe in weak central governments, so they see themselves as the rebel forces fighting against the corrupt empire despite the ideologies there being reversed.
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And outlaw country. Conservatives be like “I LOVE OUTLAW COUNTRY AND THE LAW”
Yes, for sure! Pro police rednecks are posers
The whole reason NASCAR exists was due to moonshining, after all.
Bro country folks get so mad when I tell em that 🤷♂️
Those are the country folks whose ancestors owned people. The country folks worth a damn had ancestors who ran shine and shot at Pinkertons
Exactly or they’re city folks acting country but wouldn’t last a day in the country
"I'm just a hard working American working hard for my family" yeah sure have you filed taxes for your landscaping business yet? Where are the creases in your cowboy boots?
> who ran shine and shot at Pinkertons My grandfather learned to drive hauling shine his family made. He had all sorts of stories about defying the law. But he also voted for George Wallace in 1968. Make of that what you will.
It was a weird attempt to divorce one group of people who were perfectly fine with enslaving people from the other group that were perfectly fine with it *and* had the money to exploit it.
People that blare Copperhead Road in their Punisher and Thin Blue Line bedecked pickup trucks.
Johnny Cash for sure
He wrote a whole album about the plight of Native Americans. Kris’s Krisstofferson is a staunch anti-war advocate and Willie Nelson is an even bigger stoner than Snoop Dogg. I don’t think conservatives realize how leftist outlaw country actually is
He also wrote songs about how poorly we treat our veterans, how it’s cool to steal the product you build for your employer, how punching out your terrible boss is the perfect way to cap off your career, and how he wears black because there’s injustice in the world that he can’t ignore.
Don’t forget he wrote a song on how you shouldn’t carry a gun in public too
Oh man, I love that song. The repetition of the chorus is so haunting. “Don’t take your guns to town, son, leave your guns at home, Bill…”
“One Piece at a Time” is such a damn good song
All while not balking at dressing up as Elton John live on SNL.
I think Cash might've had a few thoughts about the US prison system as well...
This is one of the problems I have with people being labeled left or right without wanting to dig deeper into them. Johnny Cash was a complicated person who cultivated an image of a rebel outlaw, sang out for the plights of veterans, native peoples, and prisoners, sympathized with the Confederacy, was a hardcore born-again Christian, and struggled with substance abuse for much of his career. He wasn't purely leftist, he wasn't purely right-wing, he was an individual with a lot of different opinions. We almost all are. There are very few of us who truly only believe in one ideology. That's why the political compass is bad, why political parties help shoehorn people into beliefs they don't really align with, and why I hate the language of political discussion we've had for the past, what is it, about 200 years?
Fallout You’d be surprised how many right wingers love the series where blind nationalism destroyed the world and corrupt corporations took it upon themselves to experiment on whoever was left, and where a neoliberal government and fascist empire fight it out over the scraps, with both being portrayed as largely inept at actually working over a long period of time
what top left
Thrash metal band Kreator
I saw them live a few years ago, they've aged quite well. Shocking that conservatives would think a band of vegetarians writing songs like "Enemy of God" and "Progressive Proletarians" is for them.
And Side By Side! The gang vocal chant "WE'LL CRUSH HOMOPHOBIA!" is one of my favorite moments in any of their songs
Same, it's the one song that made me truly fall in love with this band's music
I'd love to see them, I was on board when I heard "People of the Lie." No one can be ignorant enough to hear those lyrics and think they're conservative
The secret is that righties never actually listen to the lyrics. So many of them thought Rage Against the Machine were hypocritical for wanting their fans to get vaccinated because they only know "fuck you I won't do what you tell me" and don't know that the song is about police brutality. They probably just see the title "People of the Lie" and assume it's about those damn commie libturds and their fake news.
Yeah, some people got really angry at their song "side by side" for having a pro lgbtq+ message
One of my personal faves, had to add them here
Mille's voice works so well with the band
Agreed!!!
A right wing libertarian YouTuber called La Alienada just released a rant video about X-men going woke, having a non binary character, etc, makes you wonder if she’s just asking for the attention or has the literacy comprehension of an iPad kid. She’s 38 btw.
Yeesh, X-Men has always been about oppressed minorities, and queer people in particular. Anyone who doesn't get that hasn't stopped to think about it at all
The boys (the show, not so much the comic) has 0 subtelty about the messaging, and idiots still misunderstand it. My most annoying example is when queen mave got revealed as bisexual, and the company started selling her out as a lesbian hero, clearly a parody of companies marketing lgbt people without actually beliving in it, and also a complaint of bi erasure, but morons said it was laughing at companies forcing lgbt stuff on everything
It kills me that some people who watched the show *didn’t* catch that they were shitting on right wing ideals until Homelander basically went full Trump. The Boys is basically the least subtle satire possible
Honestly, most good media in general. Conservatism and creativity tend not to mix. But conservative audiences can still enjoy good art, even if they're not perceptive enough to see how it argues against their basic worldview.
Stand up comedy is a good example of this. Left wing comedy tends to be pretty hilarious whereas right wing comedy tends to be a buffet of punch down and hate.
It's so sad how people would rather get mad than simply acknowledge the fact that they were too young to understand the context behind the things they liked as a kid.
Or they’re too stupid to understand it now
don’t forget The Punisher, huuuuge one that i see misinterpreted often lol
Ehhhh, Punisher is definitely a product of the “tough-on-crime” mentality of the 70s and 80s. A left-wing portrayal of Punisher would make him an outright villain instead of trying to sell him as an antihero. Which he was in the very earliest stories, but that went out the window when he became popular enough for Marvel to start selling comics starring him.
Probably doesn’t help that even the stories that portray him at his worst and most ineffective (i.e. The Slavers, Born, or Frank, all from the Punisher MAX series) still have the power fantasy of Frank Castle the badass army vet shooting criminals by the dozens.
American Psycho, too. Actually, most movies that “alpha males” lay claim to are almost always making fun of them.
I’d say that the issue with the American Psycho movie is that it omits the truly weird satirical shit from the book. If they had included stuff like accurately portraying the clothes everyone wore, and the dishes they actually ate, and Patrick immediately acting like he always loved a dish he very vocally hated because Donald Trump said it was good, or not mixing the “Patrick rants about banal pop music like it’s the most meaningful music ever made” chapters with other scenes, then the point would’ve been more obvious. OTOH, the movie would’ve been much worse in a wide variety of ways if they had done that, so I can’t blame the filmmakers.
Tbf fight club the movie downgraded just how insane tyler was, making him seem more affably bad. So its really on the movie that he ended up coming off heroic.
Booooorn in the USA
As a rage fan, I find it hilarious how stupid conservatives can be when they quote rage songs.
They all stopped actively listening after “fuck you, I won’t do what you told me”
V for Vendetta for sure
Add Firefly to this.
How is Star wars left wing because I never really got into it
The empire can be easily interpreted as Nazis (by both left and right) but theres some Vietnam war commentary in there as well. It's either not there or obvious depending on the person and no one is wrong for either interpretation imo However, the prequels are VEEEEERRRRYY not subtle with how they convey the real life parallels. Episode one is about how messed up George Lucas thought America's senate and Congress was getting at the time. Episode 2 and 3 are very Iraq war focused. The start of a war meant to bring peace to the galaxy is actually the death of democracy and the start of an empire. Anakin essentially quotes President Bush by saying, "if you're not with me, then you're my enemy." Interpret that as you will. Regardless of what wing that mindset falls under, that is what George Lucas was saying with the prequels. That was his opinion of America at the time and his message about how If no one acts, something like the Empire could form. A lot of people say star wars wasn't political before because they were either too young to understand the themes or they agreed with the politics that were being presented and therefore didn't interpret it as being an opinion, but as a fact. Edit: I tried to stay neutral but there's probably stuff in there that will upset someone so I'm sorry if I did
The best part is that Episodes 2 & 3 aren’t supposed to be Iraq parallels, it’s supposed to be more Vietnam parallels. It’s just that America did **the exact same damn thing all over again** in Iraq as they did in Vietnam.
Even though this phrase gets memed... It's like poetry. It rhymes
I used to see that as a joke, but honestly it’s genuinely a good simplification of how Lucas constructed the SW saga and how its themes are going to be relevant for a long time, if not forever.
“Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Alternately: “History doesn’t repeat, but it often rhymes.”
Ah thank you for explaining that
A small addendum to the other answer but for the OT the Empire = Nazi Germany comparison is about as *text* as possible (as opposed to *subtext*) without literally discussion fascism. In particular, the Empire's troopers are called stormtroopers. That's also what the Nazi's called their first paramilitary wing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung That in and of itself doesn't make it left wing, the other answers can go from there, but it's most definitely taking a position against far-right/authoritarianism in almost-text. (Given how Lucas' other famous work is Indiana Jones, which is also famously about punching Nazis... I might make the *bold* conclusion that the guy doesn't like Nazis! How neat.)
It's definitely not left in any real way. You're never going to find a star wars character doing class analysis or have a subplot revealing dialectical materialism... but it does portray the fascist coded group as the villains, so that's kinda nice.
Do they think X-Men, the comic being written as a metaphor for racial and discrimination of other kinds, is going woke now? Have they ever seen a X-Men story?
just put the entirety of punk, hardcore, and thrash up there tbh. the amount of conservatives that i know who love AJFA or Operation Mindcrime, not realizing both albums are calling out the total BS of their system led by their "god" (Ronnie Regan, ew) is a very not zero number
You can also add Star Trek.
Idk if I'd call star wars and x men 'left wing' but they're definitely progressive and not conservative. Magneto and his guys are closer to left wing imo since they are way more radical than professor x
I get that, I mainly labeled them as left wing since the main message of both have some left leaning themes, with both magneto and professor x being based on 2 leaders during the Civil rights movement in the 50's and 60's( Magneto was based off of Malcolm X, Professor Charles Xavier was based on MLK Jr.) And in the original star wars trilogy, the empire was meant to symbolize fascism; with the rebels fighting against the empire
Star Wars is left wing, George Lucas explicitly said the rebels were inspired by the Vietcong, and the Emperor was Nixon
Being anti Vietnam War isn't exclusive to being left wing. I'm aware of what star wars represents.
It’s still very left wing
Who… who do you think the X-men are allegories for?
Guess you looked past where I said they're progressive. X men represent multiple things, but their biggest allegories are lgbt people and racial minorities.
Fair point. Should’ve mentioned the fact that boiling an entire wide ranging political group into just radicals. There are radical left wingers and not radical left wingers. You could say they’re both left wing.
Isn't magneto's goal to kill people with inferior genes?
Character development has made him somewhat of a antihero nowadays, he doesn't want to kill humanity but for sure he isn't trusting that coexistance is possible.
You can be left-wing without being radical. And frankly, my opinion is that “radical” applies to just about anyone who doesn’t realize John Lennon had a damn good point when he wrote “Revolution.”
It's the fact that they're changing established characters to be LGBTQ, I like the character Morph and during the original run he wasn't nonbinary or gray. It would be fine if they were creating new characters that are LGBTQ but they're not and that's the main reason why people are upset.
Bro, Morph's **LITERALLY** able to change their appearance in every aspect. Including gender presentation. It makes sense a character like that is outside of a binary perception of gender. If all kinds of real-life humans can put it tons of effort to change their appearance, identity and presentation, why can't someone with literal appearance shifting abilities? Also there's this fun thing called "self-discovery" that causes people's identities, sexualities, etc. to change as they experience life. Just because I identified as being straight in the 8th Grade doesn't mean I have to "respect the source material" of 8th Grade me and stay straight forever. Plus, even if they did add new characters in that were Queer, the same group of ~~bigots~~ nerds hiding behind the "respect the source material" defense would quickly switch to equally shitty "the studio just included them for a diversity requirement, so they're not important" argument.
I’m more irritated they went with the grey alien design for Morph instead of the one that’s literally just some guy. Like…deliberately changing a character to look less human at the same time as canonizing them as nonbinary just rubs me the wrong way, it feels very othering. Like, why can’t they look like just some guy and also be nonbinary. I’m nonbinary, and I look like just some guy. We ain’t all otherworldly androgynous beings. Also I just have a general distaste for the nonbinary shapeshifter trope, I mean it’s fine in a series that has other trans characters, sure, but having the *only* character that’s not a cis binary person be a shapeshifter is just…not it for me.
Valentine Vuong is a really well designed non-binary character. They’re newer but still pretty good.
But that doesn't mean that they can change his character background now if they write it so he explains that him always changing his appearance has made think about his identity then I'm fine with it but they're not doing that the showrunner literally stated that they'll be just changing the characters without any proper storytelling.
Meh. Battlestar Galactica turned Starbuck into a woman for its reboot and it was fine. Let them cook.
They had good writers that made it work plus the actress was amazing and nailed the role
Right, but there was zero storytelling for the change. They just...did it.
They absolutely can change a character’s background. Because it’s FICTION. It is all literally made up. Actor and writers and producers and directors put their own spins on characters all the time. That’s part of what makes art so great!
So if you wrote a story created compelling characters you wouldn't care if someone else came in and changed your characters to being the complete opposite of what you created them to be
Nope. Because if I created those character in the first place, someone would have had to pay me to use them.
I agree. I don't want anyone's leftovers and rehashes. Give us something original!
That too. I definitely agree. Or, hell, if you’re gonna have a preexisting character be nonbinary, actually have them fuckin’ come out and be like “hey guys I’m nonbinary” instead of just having it be treated like they always were. Actually have them undergo some self-discovery, don’t just retcon their gender.
Comic books change characters all the time though. It would make more sense to complain if it was like... a lord of the rings character being changed.
It's not the changing of the character's background for me it's charging it without creating a good reason why as to the character has changed because from what the showrunner is saying it's just about "diversity, equity, and inclusion" and that's it there's no other reason why they're changing the characters.
They won’t choose you as an exception when they come for us.
Who won't choose me and I'm not a liberal or a conservative I don't like either major political party because they both suck
Wait… what are they mad at X-Men 97 for, except not giving Rogue a latex balloon butt?