Oh man, watching this in late 2017 is a trip. Looking back at attitudes from a year or two ago is like, "Remember when things were only kind of terrible and the dumpster fire was confined to the dumpster? Good times."
Remember how some people were criticizing the previous government for overreach and violation of the separation of powers and saying "you think it's a good idea now that it's your guy in power, but wait until you aren't in power any more and then you'll regret it" and now, we have today? Yep, good times.
"you can only be protected by people with unlimited power and zero accountability" big yikes from 2020, you were on that real shit before the rest of us caught up
One interesting thought with Superman is that: By action or inaction Superman decides the fate of mankind. It puts him into an almost impossible ethical situation, and I agree, this should be explored in film and it is what I thought Man of Steel would be about from the trailers. Does Superman have "the right" to stop natural disasters, stop crime, or does he have to sit by and let the innocent suffer when he has the power to make it stop? Superman: Red Son explored this very well. An alternate universe where Superman grows up in Soviet Russia instead of the United States, but in otherwise near identical circumstances, and the fine line between saviour and tyrant is crossed.
+Crusader1089 Supes sometimes seems a lot scarier than Batman in that way. (Bats can make the choice to wiretap people... Supes can do it unintentional because of his crazy hearing)
It makes his actions heavier weight too, he cant cross certain lines or he risks. It makes his character more admirable, but if he decides he must rule over society, even with good intentions, nothing can stop him. And he does in the justicelord universe.
There is a reason why Superhero stories skirt these issues because once you introduce realism into the mix it breaks down the genre at all levels levels. The artists and writers of the Silver Age were not naive fools, the "for internal consumption" stuff loaded with sex and violence they produced would have given Wertham a coronary. They wrote silly stories because it was the only way to crank out a large volume of stories on tight deadlines. Even the hardcore 90's stories were highly unrealistic for lack of real consequences. That's why the average superhero story skirts the line between fancy and realistic in the hope to feel just right the average reader doesn't notice adding just enough real world like elements to make it all look more plausible, but the foundation remains the same be it 1949 or 2019 ...
Sometimes if the air is calm outside someone can fart a little bit before you take in a breath of fresh air and actually take in a breath of air freshly produced inside the bowels of another person.
I just realized how amazing it would be to see Dan portraying Lex Luthor. He wouldn't even need elaborate evil plots; it'd just be Dan calmly stating his cogent thesis to Superman until the man of steel crumbles under his own existential weight.
3:32 Used to be cop movies like Cobra had those kind of messages. You know, a rogue cop who plays by his own rules is the only thing that plays by his own rules, and he's the only one who can stop the bad guys? And the chief has the mayor halfway up his ass about loose cannon cop, but he knows how to get things done? And then the badguy openly mocks the goodguy that he HAS to arrest him and he'll be back on the streets in 3 days but then the goodguy throws him off of a skyscraper? That's how implicit that used to be.
It's also interesting to read novels by authors like Tom Clancy or Brad Thor with this same viewpoint. The have the One Man who sees the truth and can take action when no one else will, and the System wants to place limits on his actions but he can't be restrained because Innocent American lives are On The Line. I've come to talk about them as fantasy novels with a modern veneer, because that's what they are.
@@raincrowlee I know this is 5 years late, but that you for giving the vague thoughts in my head on why I never enjoyed the tom clancy novels I read, or rather that they felt "off" and this is the perfect way to describe it. So thank you
The drama of Superman is that he doesn't always make the right choice. He is pained by the people he can't save and from having todecide who to save, which makes him interesting. This doesn't seem to be shown at all in the Snyderverse; in fact saving people is often portrayed as a burden for this Superman unless he's saving Lois Lane.
One thing I want to add is that that Batman's role and purpose as a detective is often downplayed in almost all films. Batman is not just a super-vigilante that use his physical skills and wealth to beat up criminals. He also uses his intelligence to solve mysteries and conspiracies about the world in his crusade against crime, instead many prioritize his combative abilities whether through brain or brawns. On the bright side, I heard that Matt Reeves's Batman is going to be a noir like film with more emphasis on Batman's detective aspects which i feel is going to be interesting
"You can only be protected by people with ... limited accountability" I think it's worse than that. It's not just that laws hold the police back, but that if a person feels that the official mechanisms of justice aren't sufficient that they should take matters into their own hands. This is exactly the motivation for many types of terrorism, people seeing that the mechanisms of government and diplomacy aren't leading to correct outcomes so they become violent vigilantes. It becomes a matter of interpretation for what is "justice" and what represents a "failure of justice" and then what is the appropriate vigilante response. Batman takes justice literally and uses non-lethal* methods of dealing with that, but a man with a gun walking into a church, a night club or an office building uses the exact same reasoning, comes to difference answers, and is labeled a terrorist.
Something I really like about the Justice League in the comics is how they're organised and self-regulate, and to a degree involve themselves with governments and the press who have a right to know what they're up to (this isn't always upheld or remembered by certain writers though). You pretty much never see this in superhero movies, which will likely include the live-action version of JL later this year, and I find it very frustrating.
First they convince you that Superman ALWAYS makes the right dicition, and then, they all try to convince you that they will be as Superman. Brilliant.
That's what I've always seen most superheroes as. A desperate solution to a problem with-in the story. Whether that be rising crime, feeling abandoned by "the system," or feeling like "the system" is just broken and "if you want something done right, do it yourself." Like I said most superheroes, there are definitely a few exceptions like, "With great power comes great responsibility." Not really a desperate issue inherent in that statement, but how would you feel if you were randomly granted abilities that good do a lot of good for people and just sat around doing nothing? And then on the completely superficial side of superheroes with no deeper thinking whatsoever: hey what if a person could crawl up walls and shoot webs? Wouldn't that be cool?
yeah, I reflect on a lot of media I enjoy, from games/movies/books and about having power beyond reason, and the moral requirement on your actions when you get powers. Do you *have* to save the world? is there a line where when things get bad enough you have to do something? is it moral to enforce your vision of what the world should be on it? even if you generally think of yourself as good, and try to be and do good, and maybe what you would do to make the world better would be liked by most people, but there would be people who dislike your vision. Even if it is just nestle not liking you using superpowers to make everyone have free clean water, which I think is morally good to do, but companies and businessmen and people who defend them/idolize them would dislike your action, and that is just one that is almost universally "good", where some are closer to grey
I think the whole capitalist premise of voting with your wallet is seriously flawed and ultimately not representative when we objectively know that our best interests are not a part of the picture and the ultimate form of capitalism is monopoly. Couple that with not only the exploitative agenda of marketing and a political system that allows lobbying and the huge conflict of interests and power coopting that results we end up with an actively malicous manipulative society where we are actively manipulated and conditioned to believe things counter to our interests in the name of propping up the status quo. Its such a toxic state. Due to the market motivated mutual complicity of all the cultural components in our society the conditioning is so deep that we have little meaningful chance of turning things around.
Not to mention corporations will make it so "voting with your wallet" is impossible. For example Disney will try to construct a lateral media monopoly to depower the consumer.
whaaaaa but Disney loves us, especially out wallets. it sucks because they're also the ones destroying the public domain and making the adaptations we can make much smaller and giving us less visions of what can Be. imagine if superman were rightly in the public domain what movies we could see?
Ocelotl Chimalpahin Clarification: Disney doesn't own Superman. I agree that we'd see a lot more interesting stories told with the character if anyone could take him, but I could also see those stories being drowned out by larger companies' streamlined portrayal of the character. I'm not entirely sure our view of him in particular would be so changed.
Noteworthy thing about Superman "always making the right choice". In Superman Vol. 2 Number 22 he ends up in a parallel universe where Zod and his underlings have killed everybody and everything on Earth. He robs them of their powers with Gold Kryptonite and then kills them via prolonged Green Kryptonite exposure because he isn't sure if they can get their powers back later or not. He is wracked with guilt and after he returns to Earth he goes into exile and, IIRC, depowers himself so he can never hurt anybody again. All of this of his own volition because there were no witnesses to what he did. The thing is that he holds himself to the standard he's set for himself and he holds himself responsible to his own standards. Even in the parallel dimension versions of Superman, like Injustice, its ultimately Superman that brings down Superman. Its not the Superman of the same universe but he, to some degree, holds himself accountable for the actions of other versions of himself in parallel universes. He's not completely perfect but when he does fail to meet the standard he has set for himself he holds himself accountable, which is actually something most superheroes don't do.
Another good example of this was from the Justice Lords in Justice League. Basically once superman decides he must save the world by any means necessary he and the rest of the Justice League become ruthless dictators. It all starts with him thinking that one day is ok, then he immediately plays god.
"imagine if it were okay for the CIA to destabilize another country?" HAHAHAHAHAHA! The rest of the world says hi, especially central and south america. I disagree with you on this being a new thing however, this has been the way in the Americas since 1492
And the Middle East and Africa... Just about everywhere. History likes to claim the USSR was purely the bad guys- and they certainly weren't good- but the US was not that great either. They had a "sphere of influence" empire just like the USSR and systematically fought in proxy wars, took down leaders who didn't share "western ideals" (aka didn't benefit the US the most) under the guise of fighting communism (whether it had anything to do with it or not) and supported and boosted cruel dictatorships as long as they were western puppets. e.g. Mobutu known as the African dictator was put into place in the Congos after a coup done by the US (and another country) had the leader assassinated (he had sought support against a political crisis from the UN but after being turned down was offered support from the USSR... He accepted with little choice but said that the country was remaining democratic and did not support communism). Mobutu was a US puppet but ran the country as a military dictator for something like 30 years, only being taken out of power after the Cold War ended and he no longer had any use... He had embezzled billions of dollars, and run a cruel, corrupt regime. So much for the US supporting democracy! The CIA did similar things in the Middle East when leaders there did anything to harm US interests- such as pointing out that money from their natural resources should be going into their economy... And then they wonder today why the place has such bad leaders and problems... Try not killing/ wrongly implicating sane and non-extremist politicians seeking to fix social inequity and their country's economy and further flaming the issues. The US, whether it wants to admit it or not, had a large part in messing up the Middle East and allowing nutcases to get into power and groups to spread hateful ideologies.
That doesn't make it okay though. Yeah it totally happens, but there's nothing wrong with wanting to hold people in power accountable for these kinds of actions. If we're talking about the CIA destabilising countries, it's something that happened a lot in the framework of the Cold War and the idea that hard times require hard decisions, because otherwise the Russians will do it. We live in a time of relative luxury where we can afford to take the high moral ground and I feel like we should relish in that opportunity.
Saw your suicide squad episode and started binge watching your stuff. I'm glad you decided to give superhero flicks another shot, even todays bad ones are at least better than the garbage we used to get. Have superhero movies always been a guaranteed paycheck as since the 70's superman there's rarely been a year without one. Also, loved ur take on the man who fell to earth. cheers!
I went to fact check this and yeah you're definitely wrong but the volume each decade does track they just were never on the tight timeliness we see now and they weren't franchised outside superman.
I work in a book store, today someone came and bought a book about Putin and said he adores him. "Look at his country, there are no arguments there. everybody do as they've been told, everywhere you look there is order, order, order..." I didn't want to have a conversation with the guy while I had work to do, so I smiled and screamed internally. I really hope he was joking because what he said is a terrifying society, in my opinion. a society where there is no arguement at all, is a society where you've been fed what to do, what to think and how, what to believe, it strips you of everything that makes you who you are. This is scary.
It's nice that you're talking about this. I will say that the Marvel movies do seem to be trying to address this, since Iron Man even. I wouldn't say that they're very successful, but Iron Man and Captain America do explore the idea of compromising rights for security and how people create security threats in order to have power and money handed to them. I love Iron Man 3 in particular for its exploration of that.
Yeah, but then we get to Civil War, where Steve Rogers (and most of the original line-up that is present on Earth) want to maintain a zero-accountability system where they don't have to answer to anyone after the fall of SHEILD, including crossing international borders willy-nilly without consulting the law-enforcement/homeland security of said countries.
Yeah, you're totally right. That's why I didn't like that film. It skeezed me out to be honest. If you look at it as a parable for gun control, Steve seems to represent those people who claim they want their guns 'in case I need to take down the government ninjas!''. And Tony's the bad guy because he thinks individuals shouldn't be barging around other countries, blowing stuff up and deciding what justice is. I get that bureaucracy sucks, but...yikes. It's hard to like Steve's point of view in that conflict. Steve doesn't always know what's best for everyone and can't know every factor. I don't get why he's the good guy.
oh, part of it’s intentional alright. just look up the army movie subsidies and you’ll find that practically any movie with guns has to go through them
I feel like the animated superhero stuff, and specifically young justice and justice league unlimited did a decent job getting into these ideas better then most of the superhero movies in the last few years. Also I want to make sure I at least try to put into words how happy I am to have found this channel. I've been watching and rewatching your videos for weeks. Listening to your takes on things has been lovely, and I'm noticing details about various media that I hadn't before. Specifically how a shots are framed, where the focus is, how long the camera lingers on things. I spend a lot of time asking myself why they are showing me exactly what they are. Anyway, happy to be here, happy to learn, thank you
Well this is a brutal perspective to review in 2022.. We're nearing the breakdown of the nuanced perspective on security, into the world of delusional trust in a 3rd party to maintain the ideological belief.
Holy shit, I'm writing a superhero movie and this video.... it really speaks with so many things that made me want to challenge what superhero stories are supposed to be, how they're being told and why it is naive to think our modern myths (or not so modern, but like in modern clothing) can't affect our worldview, or how we perceive notions of justice, exceptionalism and.... a lot of other things my english won't help me fully describe. Anyway, thanks for always making wonderful content, hope one day you can watch my movie and do a video on it haha
Personally I view superheroes like kind of a modern day version of the myth of the enlightened despot. Enormous power and no accountability in the hands of one individual works well when they are coupled with someone who wields it with ideal morality, but that's just an ideal, that is not something you can apply to the real world.
The stuff said about Superman reminded me of the scene in Avengers after the Chitauri have invaded. Cap lands on a car, gives some orders to an NYPD cop. The cop says "who are you to be giving orders?" (legit question) Then Cap punches some aliens (with style) and the cop decides to listen to him. It was a fun moment, and I laughed with everyone else, but seeing it again, it hit me. Being able to punch bad guys does not in any way make a person qualified to create strategies or give orders. Might does not (or should not) create authority, but I bought it. For that moment, I believed "might made right".
Summary: looking to Hollywood for morals is always going to be a tough one. Also, expecting Hollywood to respect source material is also generally going to be somewhat disappointing. I know, big surprise, eh? Talk to some people outside North America if you want to know how this affects how we see the USA btw.
"They tried, but fumbled the execution." Because Zack Snyder is a hack and does not know what he's doing. And also thinks Batman should be raped in prison.
My view of Superman is less Judge, Jury and Executioner but more as a defender. When things get bad he's there to protect you. That's comforting. Especially since he and basically the whole superhero genre sprung from a time where people wanted that comfort. It was comforting to think that there was someone out there with a golden heart (Superman, Captain America) could be there when the average human can't.
Elinn Andersson y'know superman was originally the opposite, he was an all powerful villain. They switched him to a good guy when the American audience couldn't handle it. Especially considering what you said, about it being a time when the American people wanted comfort.
I don't keep track of when everything was released because I don't tend to really care about superhero media, so I don't know if this predates Age of Ultron, but I'm curious about how that narrative reflects on these issues. Since on the surface level it clearly frames trading freedom for peace/security as dangerous and bad, but in the end the problem is still solved by these ubermensch figures with ultimate power and discretion and that's a victory for good and right. Civil War is also pretty directly about that issue, and from what I know of it, the side in favor of placing any restriction whatsoever on the living weapons of mass destruction's ability to carry out that mass destruction on the tenuous promise it's only against acceptable targets is framed as tyrannical...who, after all, would dare impede the suit of armor around the world? No, wait, that's Ultron, not Captain America...
This is sort of why I like stories like Watchmen. Heroes are given immense power, some try to use it for good, sometimes even that gets misused, notwithstanding the ones who either go insane with power, or approach things with an emotional detachment. The ending is Machiavellian and the only ones who could be happy with it aren't capable of feeling it. The end result is showing that even the best case scenerio the horror of people with absolute power is in many ways worse than anything we've ever seen.
David Nicholson An American Psycho/Batman mashup sounds great actually. Just the same movie, except instead of preying on women he assaults criminals. He starts wondering if people in his life know he's Batman. You could even keep the final twist in there and say it's in the same canon as whatever your favorite Batman is.
That's the problem with a lot of media. It all comes down to one person who knows whats best doing what needs to be done. We forget that there are others. It's easier to have one person instead of the group. Pretty much all action movies are like this, in fact, really all detective movies are kinda like that too. It's about the one person with the know how and who won't let anything get in their way. It's the chosen one narrative, just less about fate. Comics get it a bit worse since they tend to be long running, which means they need a reason for villains to show up again and again, can't have that if the villains manage to stay in prison or get killed.
I love your point about Clark. He's a boy who grew up in Kansas. Same as my Dad. He's a boy who grew up in Kansas, joined the military, and made some smart choices to get pretty ahead. But I still see heavy racism, sexism, homophobia, and ableism in him. Ugh, his Trump supportin' ass loves to make his jokes.... I would expect that Superman (my dad if he had superpowers, I guess) would be a super-racist, super-sexist, and super-homophobe.
Yeah can confirm. I remember having this debate on if Batman is a hero to which I responded no, in fact he is quite an anti-hero. The fan argued well Batman doesn't kill. I said no he doesn't kill, but he convinces himself the ends justify the means and is more than willing to get as close to the line as possible. I'd argue he's just as terrifying as the villains. A funny youtuber joked years ago that if Batman were real, he would be a national threat. Labeled a psychopath, danger to society, and hunted down by every branch of law enforcement. Also in real life no one would see his actions as heroic rather people would seen them as insanity.
There is a particularly interesting moment in Dark Knight Rises. Batman throughout the whole movie is not only the main reason why Bane exists and does what he does, but he is also incredibly incompetent and he basically is to blame for the whole thing. In the end he even beats Bane and says to him exactly the same thing Bane told him: After I am done with you, you will have my permission to die. This speaks for itself: Batman is no better than the thing he fights against. You'd think that this would be the morale of the stiry, but no, Batman is the good guy, and a symbol we need
The bit about superman is missing the point in a way I feel probably makes more sense nowadays, but basically the "superman always makes the right choice" people aren't telling you their conclusion based on observations of the text, they're re-informing you of the basic premise. Asking "why does superman always make the right choice" is nonsensical to them. "Why could Superman backhand that whole train off the tracks?" Well Dan, he's Superman. He's perfectly strong. That's kind of the basic premise here. "Why could Superman tank a nuke?" Well Dan, he's Superman. He's perfectly tough. That's kind of the basic premise here. "Why could Superman know exactly what the right thing to do in this situation was?" Well Dan, he's Superman. He's perfectly moral. That's kind of the basic premise here. To a certain portion of the audience, morality is a state of being. Good and Evil and inherent inflexible spiritual qualities a person either possesses or doesn't. To them, the "superman is jesus" stuff isn't religious overtones being shoved down the audiences throat, it's setup and payoff. It's the primary theme and the point of the movie.
We need more superheroes like Spiderman (in the PS4 game, I'm not super familiar with the Comics or the films, but I think it's the same). I was playing and my 5 year old said "He killed the bad guys" and I told him "No, Spiderman is good, he doesn't kill, he traps the bad guys in spiderwebs and then the police come get them and put them in prison". Also there's the whole guy gotta work, guy gotta eat, guy gotta pay the rent side that's much more... human than most superheroes.
It's really interesting to watch this video in early 2017... this video that was apparently made in 2013 and uploaded again in 2015. Especially on the heels of KyleKallgrenBHH's "From Caligari to Hitler" video... this video seems very prescient.
I would like to hear your opinion of the themes in Civil War. in my opinion Tony stark has opened his eyes to the things you are saying that they cannot expect the unchallenged trust of everyone giving you the authority to act on everyone's behalf. Tony sees this because he did make the mistakes and others have paid for it. however the movie paints him and the governments who are being miraculously level headed on the subject as being in the wrong. Captain has some points on the draw backs that they would experience but ignores the overwhelming cost his way has on the rest of the world.
Personally, I'm Team Cap - but only because the movie presents a false dichotomy. The choice shouldn't be a simple one between being a government agency that requires explicit permission before walking down a public street, and being an outlaw vigilante who will be arrested without trial and thrown into super-Guantanamo indefinitely. There should be an option for "use your judgement but accept that there will be legal penalties when you eventually screw up". The Avengers shouldn't have carte blanche to operate as they choose without legal consequences, but nor should they be required to wait for a go order every time. "Someone screws up and people die" isn't going to change just because General Ross is the one making the decisions rather than some loose consensus between Steve and Tony - the difference will be who's held accountable, and possibly how many people die...
they don't need permission to walk down the street. the issue is really that they are meddling in foreign affairs. the prison is messed up but they did attack what is essentially a military unit in the Avengers. it seems that they are given leeway to perform their missions as they see fit but their missions must be approved given that they are not diplomats or military experts aside from Rhodes and maybe Black Widow. well yes the people would still have died but the responsibility would rest with the U.N and the officials who make the decisions. We can hold these officials responsible its difficult to hold a superhuman accountable. there is a reason we have civilian oversight in our military, a person who takes part in the combat will have a compromised position when making important decisions.
I intended the walking down the street bit as hyperbole, until I remembered that two of the Avengers were told not to leave HQ. So, yeah, being Wanda or Vision in public is, apparently, a breach of the Accords. As for the difficulties of holding a superhuman accountable, they don't go away just because you add a bureaucracy to notionally supervise them - Cap ignored orders to rescue the Howling Commandos in his first movie; Tony Stark appeared before a Congressional Subcommittee in Iron Man 2, and was playing rebel at the end of Civil War. I can't help feeling that a big part of Tony's enthusiasm for the Accords is that he doesn't want to be responsible when things go wrong - if he's under someone else's notional authority, he can continue to do whatever he feels like, but now he can blame his boss for not stopping him when there are unwanted consequences.
OK, this seems to be misunderstood, Iron man is on the wrong side in almost all ways. That's because - as presented - the accords are not about accountability, they are about weaponizing superheroes. This is fairly explicit in universe as General Ross is the face of the accords and he's clearly the same General from Hulk who wants Hulk to use as a weapon. Cap never says he's against accountability, what he says is that he doesn't want to be a weapon for someone else's agenda. The accords suffer the same problem as most initial legislation on new technology, they are written by people who don't understand the technology (technology in this case is superheroes). What was needed was a vetting board for actions taken and liaisons for a UN commission on reasonable reaction, what they got was conscription into a military task force. Tony is pro accords because he's guilty for Ultron - and to some extent - almost all of his enemies (save Loki). Tony does need boundaries, and he ought to be held accountable for what happened in Sakovia. The fact that he's not in jail is a problem, but Tony isn't in favor of being held accountable, he wants to defer his accountability to someone else. Tony's position isn't that he should be in jail, his position is that he should be able to do what he wants with government approval. As for Wanda, she ought to have to be questioned about what happened in Lagos, but ultimately vindicated as she didn't do anything wrong - if she should be in jail it's for Johannesburg which was her fault. The problem with powerful agencies acting outside the law but directed by a shadow government hand is made explicit in why Cap goes rogue, the squad was sent to kill Bucky not capture. That is explicitly what Sharon Carter shows Cap. A quick look at the Thermian argument - am I using in world arguments to defend a dangerous narrative? Details matter. Accountability is really the issue. I'm not defending the idea of extra-legal action, very specifically I'm against that. The issue is that the Sakovia Accords - as presented - were not about holding the Avengers accountable, they were about removing the accountability to an agency that explicitly was engaged in extra-legal actions (under the same control as the squad that was issued to kill not capture Bucky.)
Would you be interested in reading comics if they answer your questions? Because those questions are touched fairly often (not always very well). Basically movies scratch the surface that the source material has developped for years.
I find this quite ironic, Batman Vs Superman had, at its core, a lot of these questions. It tried to address ideas of unilateral power, how superheroes relate to existing systems etc. And yet it seems to get no end of hate for it (from this channel), not that it necessarily did a good job of answering those questions, but it certainly brought them up, it certainly wanted us to think about them
It didn't address the issues of unilateral power, it just used them as a set-piece, an excuse for Batman to fight Superman and for Luthor to egg them on.
Superman stops comets, natural disasters, alien invasions, and supervillains. Thats about it. Yes, the occasional bank robber. Superman doesnt "rule" except in dystopian scenarios. Granted the world is more complicated than comics allow (though in fact complexity and moral ambiguity is more and more a feature of modern comics. Dont like superheros fine. But I dont think liking them is any kind of innately fascist impulse even if there is some amount of power fantasy involved. never been a big fan of Batman personally in part because I dont like the masked billionaire model, but that doesnt mean I dont get why people love the gadgets and other features. The thing about all superhero narratives is that they are inherently individually driven and focused and therefore while they can try to spotlight social issues in the end the hero has to be smart or powerful enough to fix whatever problem they are up against. Yes, maybe if a Kryptonian were a real thing itd be a scary prospect, but if a Krytonian were a real thing youd certainly hope he thought just like Superman about the world. This kind of moral handwringing about superheroes is to me unwarranted precisely because Superheroes have little option but to try to go along with the status quo in their stories. That may not be what I want politically with the world but in a world with a really powerful guy, his existence as a balancing force is sensible. Superman doesnt rule the world, he saves it regularly and lets humans handle the day to day stuff. Thats what makes him heroic in the first place.
The idea is to question whether we are simply blinding ourselves to fascism by calling the dictator a benevolent God. Superman's mere existence becomes a rebalancing of how power dynamics work. The point becomes to question whether Superman the character can live up to the perfect image he has. Irredeemable is a pretty good deconstruction of the Superman archetype, and does tackle the mental toll being a superhero would take on someone who is brought up to be human, and yet a superhero. I'm guessing Snyder was going for that, since I'd like to think of Man of Steel as having good ideas but failing.
I know you mainly review movies but I would love your opinion on Jessica Jones. I feel like she is one of those superheroes that has internal conflict of 'this is not right.' And struggles with herself to find the right median between helping people the right way and crossing that 'superman' line.
This video was put her ages ago and filmed forever before that (in internet years) but maaaan. The blind trust Americans are expected to have in police really is enforced in all forms of our culture.
I'm amazed at how much has changed socially and politically in the almost 4 years since this has been uploaded. I'd be really interested in seeing how you'd revisit this topic today.
Consider Supermans catchphrase "peace, justice, and the American way". When Superman was first created, the US was not interventionist, nor did it serve as the post cold war police man. The US was a democracy that set the precedent for many other European powers to shift towards republics or constitutional monarchy, and had been a reluctant but integral factor to winning WW1, while overseas the fallen Russian and German Empires were bringing forth ideals that we saw as very contrary to our own. (ie: national socialism and communism). Those countries were also very real threats in a sense of military power, and someone like Superman was easy to root for when the real life conflicts of the day seemed so much more black and white. These days the US has a military that is as big as the next 12 countries combined, and is allied with most of them as well. Sure it can be argued that it is a stabilizing force, but it is easy to see how the worlds super army going after "insurgents" or 3rd world governments looks VERY different than a 1933 non interventionist US. Point being, I think Man of Steel, even if it is not intentional, mirrors our current state of affairs just the same. This leads to the view of Superman and his actions taking much more of a "subjective leap" so to say to justify, regardless of being right or wrong, much more so than the acions of the original superman, in the same way that the US position on WW1 and 2 were much easier to justify that the US current geopolitical military postion and actions. I dunno though. Thats just how I see it.
This is FASCINATING to revisit considering the villain of the sequel to Man of Steel is literally Batman, in a way that doesn’t reckon with anything he does either. Lmao
Whenever new convenience-tech comes out (credit cards, bar codes, smart phones, etc) the slippery slopers cry big brother / end of freedom until, like grandma with an ipad, they discover the future and fall silent, happily swiping thru photos of junior
I fully agree here. Any superhero story that doesn't address "what am I accountable to? By what measure are my actions judged?" is not a good superhero story. I don't need a definitive answer, but I do need that question addressed. If you want to just use the default measurements and judgments of society as is commonly understood, then that still needs to be laid out. I can understand whatever internal struggle a storyteller wants to portray, but actively ignoring external context SUCKS.
@Sternia Hoenheim okay this is a mixed bag so let's break it down bit by bit. 1) "IQ is a myth" this is inaccurate. IQ measures a specific capability of a person to identify a pattern and correctly employ patterns in predictive reasoning. IQ is not a myth. 2) "people think different ways" this is accurate, if a bit oversimplified. 3) "there's no way to accurately measure that" inaccurate. Again, IQ does not measure the totality of mental capabilities, but there are reliable, repeatable metrics that exist to measure various cognitive capabilities including predictive reasoning, verbal reasoning, spatial reasoning, etc. Now, let's say *you've* gained a different perspective on this matter. In simpler words, don't go around spouting misinformed and largely false "facts" like you're some kind of authority when you have no idea what you're talking about ;P
God, that's what I've been saying about Man of Steel for so long. Destroy Metropolis at the end of act one, act two is about Superman figuring out how to control his powers and still be productive, and then we can have the big rematch with Zod in act three.
Marvel's writers have always been fairly socially conscious, so it was only a question of time when they would deconstruct the superhero myth and take a more critical view on their characters.
This video is almost more relevant today than it was back in 2015, what with the black lives matter protests and videos of police brutality and so much more that is going on right now!
I wonder if Folding Ideas has seen Shin Godzilla (or Godzilla Resurgence if you prefer) and how he feels about that. **SPOILERS** In it, politicians are basically our protagonists, and they follow procedure and policy to the letter, but tons of people still die because the idea is that the threat is just so, incredibly huge. Plans backfire. Evacuations are only partially successful. And then compromises are made. The UN decides they want to nuke Japan (technically the US specifically would carry it out but I recall it being a UN decision) if they can't come up with a solution to the problem, and they literally are on the clock and the time isn't reset once they come up with a temporary solution. The timer is only paused, which means the rest of the world is indefinitely hanging a nuke over Japan's head. And our protagonist has to be okay with this situation "for the greater good". It'd be like if there was a movie where Superman was the villain, and as an unprecedented threat, our protagonists, which is the government, have to make compromises and hard choices which get people killed and also threaten liberties in the future. The message that we should unconditionally trust Superman to save us from the threat of the week may be problematic, but what about when roles are flipped?
I'm watching these videos for the first time, so if a follow-up video addresses this, please don't flame me D: I have heard, possibly here, about the idea that super hero movies may end up going through a bubble/crash type of phenomenon. While it may not occur any time soon (the MCU, despite all movies following the same format of making lulzy jokes leading to a transformers-esque sky portal + aliens final fight, seems to be chugging fine well into infinity warz.) I do see a future where there's too many super hero movies, to the point where people are tired of them, and then suddenly nobody wants to watch PG13 action flicks. If this happens, and I simultaneously doubt it will, I wonder what will take its place. Would the rebootpocalypse end? will writers go back to writing original scripts, even if the scripts are filled with tropes?
Regarding the idea of action movies being created in a vacuum, I have an anecdote for you. It's about my brother, who is a lead artist at a rather large gaming company. I'll keep the name secret for his own sake, and if that means nobody believes me, so be it: In this gaming company, upper management has decided that they are going to allow the developers to design their own game. It's time for change! Push the boundaries! Create new paradigms! Buzzwords go here! And so the developers happily started producing assets and the such, until it was time for a follow-up meeting It turns out, said Upper Management, that the stuff the developers designed was too out there. Upper Management did not have any data that was backed by focus groups. Why would a game developer create a game using elements that have not been deemed safe by a focus group? The developers were told to change what they did. The result, a game that followed the same format as every other game. If I were to say the name of the developer, you'd go OH! And so, that is why I don't think that action movies will ever change. The color correction, the score, the spoiler ridden trailers, the tropes, the plot elements, the sky portal with aliens flooding out of it. The scary big alien that looks wacky until the big guy cuts it down....that's all here to stay.
I love your People Vs Clark Kent + this video, and I wonder if maybe it influenced the story of Civil War at all... maybe we were always heading towards this direction, Civil War really seems conscious of all the movies that came before it and consequences... I know this isn't the smartest comment, I don't really have anything to say. Have a nice day thank you!
I think most people defend Superman as the judge, jury, and executioner by saying "what the fuck are you talking about? He's never put himself in a position to be any of those things. He saves people... he's like, a dude who'll save you from dying if somebody tries to kill you. He doesn't execute criminals. Or put them in jail. He leaves them for the police to deal with, and then the justice system deals with them."
this topic resounds in me the idea of how greecien and roman mythology on heroes and gods, how the characters in those stories are flawed. it may be due to their hubris or something, but it's something to be expected. i'm pretty sure the people back then thought the same way we do, how it's ok because it's in the name of the greater good. the needs of the many out weighs the needs of the few, struggle struggle struggle lol
While I understand what you're saying about Batman I think you may be missing something. For me one of the best parts of the character is that it shows that life isn't black and white. No one is ever fully the bad guy or good guy. Those don't really exist in any defined sense, society creates those dimensions based off of what they are experiencing. One of the problems with super hero movies is they hardly expand on the motives or thought processes of villains and they make the main character almost infallible. Those problems create for a huge disconnect for me. It's suddenly super obvious that I'm watching a movie. The creators of those films are already asking us to suspend our understanding of reality to allow for these cinematic universes, they could at least make the characters with believable human psyches.
"no one is fully the bad guy" his rogues gallery does not agree. a few humanizing stories about the joker for instance doesn't mean he isn't portrayed as inherently evil, evil for the sake of evil.
it took me a but but i realize the issue he’s describing is that in terms of power fantasy we all want to be superman but only under the condition that we make no compromise in how and when we use our powers. if superman was real it wouldn’t greatly change our small human lives and it might just put us in harms way more often if no one can check hum
I'm not trying to be antagonistic here, but I do have to wonder, how much of this idea (of superhero movies as possible political influence) is conjecture and how much of it is truth? I think I do believe there might a connection between the depiction of more centralized power and our acceptance of it in world politics. But how can we ever know? I do think that media influences the way we think, but can we ever know how much, on a scale that influences society? I guess I'm asking for evidence. Not because I don't believe, but because I think such a huge idea needs to be justified.
Well yes, I couldn't see it any other way. What I mean is some way of connecting both things together. Data that links the public response of NSA spying to the release of a superhero movie. Or something. I realize it'd be nearly impossible to do, but it would be neat to have that data.
I think it's rarely recognized that the surrendering of freedom is the foundation of society. I am not free to rob and murder. That is a freedom I surrender by living in a society with law enforcement. The question isn't "Should we allow people to encroach on our personal freedoms?", but instead "How much should we allow (ect.)?" We surrender our freedom to commit murder because we recognize that it is not (in short) worth it. "I don't want to be killed, so I'll give up my right to kill (simplified for brevity)." The problem comes when the topic becomes more complicated. "I don't want to be raising my child next to a child predator so ....." What should go in the "...."? That's a topic worthy of discussion, but it will involve the surrender of certain rights, and it is ignorant to think otherwise. Now I'm not saying it's impossible to go to far, because it most certainly has. What I *am* saying is that you can not rightfully paint the surrendering of rights as a universally negative outcome or even one that is possible to avoid. Edited for spelling and grammar.
is it not that we've been complicity for some time. cowboy movies to the Death wish movies the Rambo Commando movies. All say somebody save us! And usually he has a big gun.
That's why I always liked the Justice League cartoons depiction of Superman he's not perfect and he does occasionally make mistakes or bad decisions the obvious example is that episode where Lex Luthor tricks him and Shazam in the fighting
@Folding Ideas Wasn't sure if this would be more relevant here or or on the previous video, but here goes. I wonder how much direct influence the government has on these themes. It is fairly well known that during certain wars (WWII?) cartoons were hijacked by the US government to show propaganda for the war. Not just in commercials, but in the shows themselves. This is why there are so many dogfights and cartoon bombers in early cartoon shows. We know because of recent news that the US government has every right to be upset about people kneeling during the national anthem. The US government is paying for it to be presented in a certain way and the behavior of the players is a key part of that agreement. Given both of these facts are true I am lead to wonder if some of these themes are endorsed by the US government. I'm very grateful for your videos as it is difficult to find someone to discuss my thoughts with. It's nice to know that I'm not the only person who isn't "falling in line" or succumbing to the US way of bulling people until they do fall in line.
so idk if you're still curious but you know all the military hardware you see in films? the military has a kind of final cut say in that if you want to make a movie using their toys, then you can't be too critical of them.
I know this is two years old by now, but I would like to see these arguments in light of other recent iterations of Superman, specifically the Bruce Timm animated series. I was a teenager watching that show and, while I haven't watched the recently, I want to say they reflect more of what you're wanting from superheroes. Specifically the episodes with Darkseid where violence done by Superman only occurs after he is violated by Darkseid, and even then, he won't bring himself to kill him, but leaves him to the slave-citizens of that world, who then continue to hold Darkseid up as a god.
The Justice Superman is great. The fact that he is a figure that everyone looks up to makes the episode with the universe where his counterpart becomes a dictator to help saving people very shocking. And the consequences. That the invincible boyscout is a fassade to gice the world security, but he is very much capable of anger and wrath, sadnes, but holds back to give the world stability.
The Iron Man movies are kinda the only superhero movies to touch upon some of the issues of corruption by power. Tony Stark is the only Avenger that gets his powers from technology, and because of that he can share it with other people. We see his decisions to keep the Iron Man suit for himself, his struggle to justify that choice, and we see the destruction caused by his unsupervised power in Age of Ultron. But his arc still has the problem of that underlying assumption of all superhero media - it's taken for granted that he will always do what is best for others and not just himself. He realizes that he can't trust anyone, not even himself, to use his power responsibly, but that's pure convenience. He always had the choice to be the world-conquering villain, and we never see other characters act threatened by that. BvS comes frustratingly close to bringing that problem to light with the central conflict - Batman knows that he can't trust Superman to always do the right thing, and he is correct, but the movie doesn't have a satisfying resolution to this conflict. Instead we get a ridiculous scene about Martha that magically assures him that Superman is a 'good guy' and will never ever abuse his power.
I honestly don't think we're going to look back at Batman in the future any differently than we do now. If one considers that pulp heroes like The Shadow existed long before that character and were just as popular then as they are now, and even when one goes back to someone like Robin Hood it's obvious that this archetype crosses culture and era. If one looks today at the appeal of the vigilante hero in combination with a flawed justice system that most certainly isn't blind, the wish fulfillment of a character like Batman makes perfect sense.
You're going to be one of the creators accepted in critical canon. You've got that feel of "incredibly well-read, deeply understanding, and widely quotable" that those people always have
The Superman movie with Christopher Reeve back in the 80s was probably the last time we saw SM growing up - hiding his powers, being bullied and unable to respond - it wasn't perfect, but Hollywood doesn't bother with any depth in character - especially not super heroes (Edit) well, not anymore, anyway
Superman makes the right choice because of the omniscient hand of the writer, though that is more in the comics than in the movies. There is no good way to justifying Godzilla-ing an entire city.
A thought looking back - I wonder what kind of intellectual line you'd draw going back, if you looked at spy and crime movies, on the idea of having to break the law to protect from threats? Things like 24 kind of glory in things that absolutely shouldn't be done being done Because They Are Necessary, and it also 100% habituates us to a less-discussed thing in the real world: the fact that the existence of an intelligence community, the reason something like the CIA exists as a separate branch, is predicated on "doing illegal things on behalf of the government, For Our Protection".
The CIA is less a protection or intelligence agency and really just a terrorist organization. "For our protection" is the justification but it isn't really valid, especially considering that the CIA planned to kill American citizens and blame it on Cuba to justify an invasion. It's about power, terror and authoritarianism, protecting the people has never been the goal, it's the lie. A lie that spy movies have been telling us for decades.
Since Hollywood is dedicated to remaking absolutely everything, why not A Man for All Seasons? Seems like we could really use someone to say "When the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!"
"...we have become quite willing to trade our civil rights for security..." Maaaaaaaaan if ONLY 2013 Dan could have seen ~2020/21 Dan when he wrote this bit.
