The Politics of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre 

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Allow me to outline what this film's message is: "Am I so out of touch? No, it is the children and leftists who are wrong. Also, I was just joking. And also, stop being mean to me."

As a black American I could not get past the fact that black characters in this film were trying to gentrify a small, white remote town in the rural South. We would NEVER do that. The negro travel guide is a thing for a reason. We know where we are not wanted and avoid sundown towns like the plague. I could not take anything this movie was trying to say seriously knowing this. It was also just a really bad film lol.

Making a Texas Chainsaw about racism, gentrification and modern issues is great on paper, the problem is that it was handled with zero of the nuance that we were promised.

I love how they decided to make a story about gentrification, an issue that, at least in America, has effected people of color in America the most, but then used to make a movie that is essentially about replacement theory. Also, I know he was obviously lying, but imagine being a filmmaker and saying with your whole chest that your movie has nothing to say

I legit hate the "Both sides are equally bad" framing a lot of horror movies frame politics because in a need to step on no ones toes, it says nothing at best.

anyone who claims "My art does not take sides! I don't have an opinion!" is guaranteed to put their whole world view on display, just with no self reflection.

Everyone acts like an annoying caricature on Twitter except the school shooting survivor which itself is kind of tasteless. Seriously, I get its supposed to be a joke but what actual human being would say "you're gonna get cancelled" to a guy covered in blood holding a fucking chainsaw? It's just annoying when characters act like strawmen and cartoons.

I've truly never understood the trope of "city folk don't recognize obvious danger." Like, most crime occurs in cities? People who live in cities, especially people of marginalized identities, are generally very aware of their surroundings and perceptive of potential threats? Living in a city exposes you almost constantly to a huge variety of strangers from diverse walks of life? I guess, if I'm being generous to the trope, it's fair to broadly say that any person from any background put suddenly into an environment with which they're unfamiliar is going to be naive to some extent.

"Snowflakes are so sensitive these days" **dies when racist memorabilia is removed**

the whole "confederate flag deed" thing is so cartoonishly one sided its physically impossible to take seriously. a scenario that has never happened in the history of planet earth

"I'm going to make BOTH SIDES look bad in this movie!" *proceeds to make one side look worse than the other, or it's a nonstory* "Mission accomplished!" Also, it irritates me that people think "getting over PTSD" means that you're completely comfortable with the thing that gave you PTSD. I have PTSD from having mortars launched at me, and avoid explosives in general, but I will absolutely use them if I deem it necessary. It just won't be fun for anyone involved. The movie just seems bad.

This movie is actually great at being a centrist movie- in trying to be even handed and "politically neutral", it ultimately ends up aligning itself with right wing politics.

This screams : we wanted to make our own movie but we needed an established franchise to even get it made

the scourge of Gentrification would be a great topic for a horror movie the problem is that would be way better suited for Candyman (set in urban areas) not Texas Chainsaw which is usually set in rural west Texas

Framing explicit symbols of racism as "cultural differences" has got to be the most American thing I've seen. Like wtf

Yeah it hard to argue gun violence and even killing is bad when the antagonist of the slasher (a genre that's all about reveling in murder) is a borderline unstoppable psychopath who can't be talked down to no matter what you do. Like... they may have been able to keep this commentary with the original Leatherface who's basically just being bullied into killing people by his abusive brothers but since they replaced him with a Voorhees ripoff it can't work.

This is just such a strange movie to make in a franchise that was conceived as a reaction to US butchery in Vietnam and the cruelty of the meat industry (as per director Tobe Hooper)

Honestly I'd have turned the movie off after 14:00 . Dante is more than justified to ask to remove the Confederate flag from the building facade. I don't see why a black man can't ask to remove said flag. Also "I am not racist, my grandson is racist" was hilarious.

Having grown up in Texas I always thought the clinging to the confederate flag was weird. Texas was barely involved with the war. To me it felt like there was nothing that made the confederacy important in Texas.

Piggybacking on a point made by Dead Meats (a Texan who happens to be full blooded Michiganer . . . god why is my home state closely associated with the Lone Star State) the main theme of the franchise, and the whole backwoods genre of horror, has always been about culture clash. This was shown in the first movie with the new age hippies gang (who might as well be the Mystery Inc), the third movie with college sibilings, the Remake with the Lynyrd Skynyrd fans and drafted Vietnam youth, and even the fourth movie with the teens going to prom. The movie’s premise definitely does fit the theme of that clash; but the problem is that fallen to the same failures of its predecessor (specifically Texas Chainsaw 3D) and failed to make any of the victims sympathetic or likable for us to want to live and tried to make the murderous psychopath empathetic. Which really does make its not so apolitical message the more weird as it insist the influencers who are trying to economically rebuild a ghost town deserves to get killed by the murderous local cannibal responsible for numerous deaths for over 50 years (holy shit why ain’t this guy dead) just because they use social media? Like I would of just settle on Leather being hungry and eating people is part of his family tradition like all the other movies instead of this bullshit that attempt to whitewash how good the traditionalist are for the sake of centerism. It really just comes off as a parody to the themes explored in the classic movie rather than an evolution on it

Leatherface was the most politically correct person in the movie, he treated everyone the same. Just like his chainsaw, what an inspiration.

The amount of disingenuous political, historical, and social gaslighting in this film almost makes me feel like the movie is borderline conservative propaganda, oh yeah that's right it is. The movie rivals The Dark Knight Returns comic with the amount of disingenuous political messaging.

The confederate flag conflict could have led to a wholesome moment where Dante explains to her why he doesn't like the flag and she understands because she's just a nice olf lady who still has a lot to learn, but is still reasonably attached to it because of her grandpa. So in order to come to a compromise Dante offers to seal it in something like a plastic case so that she can keep it safely tucked away and he doesn't have to have it displayed on the building. Then something else could have led to her accidental death to trigger Leatherface that could have saddened Dante as much as it did Leatherface because they both grew closer to her.

How did they watch the original Texas chainsaw and somehow go “yeah, this thematically fits the series”. One is about getting lost in Texas with some minor commentary on job outsourcing in the rural south while the other is an overtly political film that somehow ties leatherface in

I was kinda hoping that you'd be discussing the original, in no small part because it can be interpreted as having a variety of messages about rural poverty, the ethics of meat consumption, the way people with disabilities fit into society (the group of friends who fall victim to the cannibals contains a person who is wheelchair bound, who is never a direct burden to the other people but is clearly not well liked amongst the group and it kind of feels like they tolerate him out of pity. Conversely, Leatherface is depicted as non verbal and possibly autistic and 'Grandpa' is completely paralysed but the pair of them are properly integrated into the family and they are never othered by the other members). There's definitely a lot of it that's quite dated, but the more problematic aspects of it are reflective of the social attitudes of the time it was made and often aren't really developed enough to really feel mean spirited (Leatherface's gender identity is played around with for what feels like shock value, or possibly to insert a visual gag, but nobody really makes a big deal about him putting on a dress and makeup, implying that the family have surprisingly progressive views in that regard and that they do legitimately love one another, even if they bicker and fight constantly about less personal stuff. I legitimately feel like there's scope to do something really interesting with that aspect of the character, without it being quite as ridiculous as The Next Generation, which is one of the most fascinatingly bad films ever made. It's so close to being great, but it's somehow less than the sum of its parts and falls short of its ambitions, which feels like a weird thing to say in a film where Matthew McConnaughey plays a cyborg cannibal who works for the illuminati whose girlfriend/spouse uses a TV remote to immobilise him whilst they batter each other in the kitchen)

I was going to make a comment about how I'd actually love to see a thoughtful and nuanced story about someone who was traumatised by violence grapple with the morality of having to use violence to defend themselves and others against horrifically evil and unstoppable enemies and then I realised that I have. It's called Trigun. Anyway great video!

I had no idea this movie existed, and I think I was happier off not knowing it. Making Bubba an avatar of revenge against the upper class feels like it COULD be cool in some ways, but the way it's done here, against the most baffling strawmen possible.... to twist a quote from Hank Hill: "Can't you tell you're not making the poor more empowered, you're just making fighting the rich look worse" This feels like a dude who wanted to sign on to Ben Shapiro's new media company but KNEW it would sink his carreer so he turned to this instead.

The thing is, so many of the best slasher movies are BUILT as political metaphors, some of which are obvious, and many of which aren't realized until years later. The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was, at it's core, a story about the meat packing industry, about the victim that industrial capitalism leaves behind, and about the myth of the American Dream. A run-down and abandoned town in the South, where the last remaining people after the factory shut down are a single family who've fallen into cannibalistic madness. Then there's the infamous "Family Dinner", attended by all the twisted members of the Sawyer family, like a distorted Norman Rockwell painting.

A really good video. I always felt weird about this movie's politics but your deconstruction around David and the flag really helped to put my thoughts in the right place. I think really no game or movie or media could ever be apolitical, I always found that to be a cowardish statement. Just having a US president in your film depicted in a positive light is in itself a political statement. Id rather have the director just be honest about his intentions rather than trying to hide from any controversy.

This was really interesting. Most people who've talked about this movie just talked about it being empty and boring and unnecessary. I think it's probably safe to say that no one puts a Confederate flag in their movie in the 2020s while "not trying to say anything"; and that fact that it's just the one really kinda makes that obvious that it's meant to be symbolic rather than just regular Texan set dressing. Maybe the director thought having the evil liberals tear down an actual civil war statue would be too on the nose? It's a shame that the movie wasn't prepared to engage with the politics that it's putting forward a bit more, and that it resorts to just having the "wrong" side be shallow or mute depending on what it takes to force the message across. Like... the basic premise that they're bad to gentrifying this town really should have been met with some kind of pushback - i.e. "why don't any of *you* live here?" Thinking about it, a way they could've got their social commentary in and had it actually make sense would be for the locals to use the politics of gentrification to explain their hostility to the newcomers, when they were actually just worried about them waking up that literal monster that's in one of the basements of the town. That would've given the newcomers an in-character excuse to dismiss any warnings about it. I dunno, it's a bit shallow, but it would mean that the movie could feature those politics but not let them get in the way of the ending.

Yeah I don't know why more movies just don't own their politics. If people get mad at you who cares. You already made the movie and moreover you should stand by you what said unless you actually come to believe you were wrong. This both sides shit just feels cowardly.

Thank your for this! I fully agree that the types who claim to mock everyone equally don't realize their own biases.

This movie is 'the enlightened centrist' visualized. "I take no sides, but I do like one side more. But I take no sides, 'cause I'm so smart. I'm a skeptic in that I do no research and just listen to whoever the algorithm spoon feeds me with."

So basically this movie reinforces American right wing talking points about "loving history, not racism" and "guns are actually good!" within a slasher movie...odd and that's considering the movie where Leatherface and his niece or whatever team up and it is revealed the mother's side of the family when it comes to Leatherface are a cult aiming to keep him sealed off and taken care of or whatever, that one was a strange movie

The main character being a survivor of a school shooting is such an interesting idea that they just waste

This movie feels like a manifesto of the director and writers admitting they don't really understand how gentrification really works

The original Chainsaw actually is famously about the meat industry and our consumption of meat

"We make fun of everyone" Ah, VICIOUSLY conservative. Gotcha.

I've been waiting for someone to speak about this film. It felt me with alot of mixed feelings that were hard to name, cannot wait to see your thoughts on this! :D

both sides bad" as they show an unhinged caricature of the millennial leftists on the one hand and calm and collected right wing gun bro on the other🙄 From the first 5 minutes you know exactly where producer's sympathies lie

This movie is a hot bag of diarrhea, but at least I got to hear you do a Texas accent.

I’m still listening to the video but I had to stop to say this. The confederate flag aspect honestly annoys me the most. The aspect of gentrification being wrong and destroying culture is true but it’s like the director is blatantly ignoring that the communities that deal with gentrification the most are BIPOC communities. The separation, or straight up ignoring, the deep connection between racism and gentrification screams, to me, a level of disingenuousness around how they present gentrification. I will also add that the flag that is often depicted as the confederate symbol isn’t the actual confederate flag. It was one of MANY battle flags. That particular flag only became of heavily associated with the confederacy during the time of Jim Crow when the KKK wanted to put it around to intimidate black people of the time. That’s also around the same time they built MANY confederate soldier statues. All with the intent to keep black ppl of the time in line n remind them of their place. So the actual history of that flag being up wouldn’t have been “I fought for the confederacy” it would’ve been “I’m a blatant racist who wants any black person to kno they aren’t safe around these parts”. I would’ve pegged that town as more of a sundown town than just a simple southern town. For those who don’t know what a sundown town is: a town that will tolerate the presence of black people during the day but expects black people to either be indoors or out of town by the time the sun goes down. Yes, sundown towns still exist across the US.

Just hearing a synopsis of this movie gives me intense second-hand embarrassment. The whole flag scene just...completely terrible on a conceptual level, the kind of melodrama that only sounds like a cool scene in the mind of a right-winger.

You know you’ve played DbD to much when you hear one note in the background and immediately think of the camp fire

The contractor guy should have been the hero, that would have been a good twist. Just a random guy minding his own business, not bothering anybody. And now he is stuck in this situation because of these dumb characters. What a waste of the character Sally. A complete idiot. She gets an MK fatality and is thrown in the trash. The actress was decent in Mandy.

I love how in order to show how totally necessary for self-defense guns are, they had to portray them being necessary against an invincible chainsaw-wielding maniac (who guns don't work on anyway because uwu guns awen't weally dangewous they're just little guys :c) because they obviously realised that pretty much the only real-life situation where a gun is really necessary for self-defense is against _someone else with a gun._ Truly one of the gun commentaries of all time.

The Thing 2011 isn’t actually a remake it’s actually a prequel

Thank Gosh! Helping me get through this weird "content drought" my Algorithm seems to be going through haha. But about the movie in question: When I saw this film when it first came out, I rolled my eyes so much I briefly became a slot machine.

i absolutely love your channel, your voice is really soothing.

I hear your Dead by Daylight background music! "They thought we wouldn't notice. But we did!" - Tony Stark meme inserted here.

this movie is so absurd it will trick you into thinking it's satire

And it's because of videos like this one, that you are my favourite RU-vidr!Cleverly written and delivered ❤️

Couldn't Mrs. M just put her Confederate Flag away in her house not out in public?

This is a total tangent from the point of the video, but it's so strange that IMDB only refers to the woman as Mrs. MC when the subtitles clearly refer to her as Virginia (20:21)

Went on lunch break at the perfect time. Let's go gamers

yessss new mert video to rinse dry for 2 weeks! thank u WE LOVE U LEGEND

The issue is that mainstream Hollywood films are not a good medium for any serious criticism of the status quo. And the status quo is still heavily defined by conservative and right wing ideology and power. Movies cost millions of dollars of investment and resourcing. A studio is not going to risk that by making statements that are too bold and alienating to the status quo. And thus any criticism of the status quo will be tokenistic and safe and typically still viewed through the lens of the status quo, i.e. power. So for example, in Disney movies, racism, sexism and other bigotry is never systemic. It's never cultural. It's always the actions of one bad seed. But that's exactly the kind of criticism of bigotry that The status quo likes. It doesn't require any great change. It's just a matter of dealing with that one bad person, and then everything is ok. Lucky! "Sometimes the REAL bigotry ... was that one guy we met along the way! Yay!" So what you end up getting, like in this remake of TCM is the most obvious, safest and lowest hanging criticisms of conservative and right-wing America. And it is so laden on that side with overt and ludicrous caricatures that any viewer who identifies with those politics will not feel targeted or threatened by those criticisms, because they know those people are caricatures. It gives them a direct path to deniability and distancing. But while left-wing and progressive politics are also caricatured in the film, it is strictly through a conservative, right-wing lens. The caricatures and situations are ludicrous, but they are the exact kind of ludicrousness that conservatives and right-wing people believe are true about left-wing and progressive politics. It boils down to something like this: "On the one side, conservatives love guns too much and they're really badly educated ..." [Cue: A caricature of a yokel who probably hasn't actually existed in 50 years. But ... his mum is really sweet and hard-working, and she's the REAL heart and soul of conservative America.] "But on the other side, lefties and progressives are ALWAYS screaming at people about 'social justice' this and 'systemic racism' that. They flaunt their hoity toity degrees while sipping their expensive lattes waving their smashed avocado sandwiches around. And they'll CANCEL you in a heartbeat JUST because you said women's toilets are for women!" [Cue: a bunch of regular looking young people. One of those people suddenly kicks a dog because it's in the way of his Tesla.] "See! We are criticising both sides equally!"

ahhhhh mertkaykay video!!! amazing as usual :) also brilliant sponsorship is wonderfulll

An excellent discussion of a terrible movie.

New Mert video! Now to have this video as my background noise until i know it off by heart or the next one is released!

The only way to be more annoying with the title is if the reboot was called "Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1973"

analyzing this "centrist" take on TCM feels a bit like pulling off the head of a Scooby-Doo villain only to discover it's Old Man Conservatism again. what a waste of storytelling from the director, good lord. at least Richter is hot though.

I couldn't figure out what it was about this film that made me so uncomfortable. Now I realise: it's the heavy alt right undertones that verge on actual racism.

everytime you upload my entire schedule changes lmao

We should all take a moment to appreciate Mert's southern belle impression, simply beautiful, no one can compare 👌👌👌

I really dont get why some people that create media try to pass it as neutral when it isn't but in the other hand slasher where never good movies when it came to the commentary even they still have some subtext that canncome to light when the movie is analised that ends up revealing some aspect of the morality and ideology of its authors. If this gonna be your last review on a movie this year I assume you gonna talk about a game for december?

i need more southern belle Mert in my life

NEW MERTKAYKAY WOOHOO

They should have gone in the other direction... "the Texas Chainsaw *Yaaaass*-acre"

Okay, I do appreciate the video itself, but I MUST know where that biblically accurate angel plush is from!

NEW MERTKAYKAY VIDEO IM EATING GOOD🍴

Fuck yeah ! I was waiting for that one after the Silence of the Lambs.

Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of modern movies and shows are more focused on cramming in political messages than writing good stories. You can have politics and a good story, but there’s a balance.

I don't really know or care about slashers, but I always like your videos, so here is a comment for the algorithm.^^

So.... DID racist grammy pay off the bank? Sounds to me like she was lieing and the building did belong to Dante fair and square.

You have the best shirts.

As a big horror fan, I basically only watch horror movies and I've seen pretty much everything there is (not literally every single horror movie ever made, but A LOT of horror movies and series) I'm also a big fan of the og Texas Chainsaw and The Beginning remake with Jessica Biel, and I can honestly say that I absolutely despised this movie, the characters were terrible, the death scenes were pretty average, I didn't like the bus scene because it just felt messy.. and not in the cool and fun way, it felt stupid, the whole "requel" thing they went for didn't work and also felt very forced because they saw that other movies had done it before. The only part of this sub par cash grab I actually liked was the car crash section and the part with the blonde idiot. Also I'll admit that the shot with Leatherface in the sunflower field was so good too. I also *kinda* liked the last 5 mins because I did not expect the sister to be chopped in half. Other than that.. it's a no from me

Very interesting

Mert got facecamped one too many times :(

Any time someone brings up this shit film I’m just going to send them the link to this video when they ask about my thoughts on it. Because yeah. This. Just. This.

Hold up. I think I hear DBD lobby music 😎

It’s like they made the liberal character’s scripts with ai that’s only given access to chronically online twitter. It’s so unrealistic to real life it was just goofy.

God i forgot how bad that movie is

I honestly highly recommend the 2003 remake the scores it has online are not true i genuienly think it is a good remake

This film did not work for me as a texas chainsaw massacre fan or just as a fan of movies. Ignoring the absolute stupidity of handling og characters stories i think you hit the nail on the head of why this films whole plot just doesnt work. They tried to cover various political topics but then never actually covered them in any respectful right . The whole plot of having a survivor to a school shooting played no real psrt to the story in anyway and any indications of racism were brushed off in change for dante evicting and accidentally killing a woman who really owned the home. The charactwrs are unbearbaly unlikeable and it felt like they were mesnt to be that way . I felt similar about the wrong turn reboot . It felt like they were trying to do what the og film did with the balance between ' killing and eating people is bad ' but also having ' the family was lead into this situation because of the crisis of that area , w lack of food and a struggle in the meat industry along with the survivors basicslly breaking into someones home' along with the debates over leatherfaces manipulated upbringing to do as his family asks. But in that case all characters were built up, we got to understand all in great depths and the family. Theres sustenance to the film and they dont throw in topics to be there without actually developing more on the issues at hand.

Political messages do work in slashers. You just have to do it properly, it has to be part of the horror and it has to be subtle. Not just put them in and jam it down the viewer's throat in the most obnoxiously american rebooty way whilst in reality saying absolutely fa. Just look at American Psycho for a slasher that incorporated politics, the whole point of American Psycho is to deconstruct the Reaganomic era wall street through the black-comedic lense of making a stockbroker (Patrick Bateman) a serial killer that acts like a completely awkward alien. You litterally cant have American Psycho without the political message. The original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre had the same general messages the reboot did (- the racism & gun violence), it just actually executed the concept of 'city people vs the southern rural poor' properly by doing it through the horror and not through unrelated and obnoxious way that the reboot did. It just doesnt work if you do it in an unsubtle and annoying americanism way.

Which 3 things are we talking about? I dunno. I understand the idea of that criticism, but honestly stating the year the version was made isn't that much of an issue.

my roommate and i watched this together around halloween last year and we went into it expecting it to be at all similar to the original movie (which i actually enjoy quite a bit) and we both did NOT like it. we made fun of the characters for the entire film. i also hated the ending. so yeah. booo!

It was OK... when bored it isn't a terrible movie to pass time with.

I'm not even a third of the video in and I feel so vindicated. This is legitimately the worst movie I've seen in my life. Sure, I'm not a particularly avid movie-watcher but still. I came out of this movie feeling robbed of my time and mocked.

💜💜💜

One of the worst "horror" films of the last decades

So another movie that tries to say everything and says nothing...

i dont want to be that um "akshually" guy but The thing (2011) is not a reboot, it is a remake from the original movie "the thing from another world" (1951) the movie carpenter actually made a secuel for.

I never cared for this remake but what I got is that it could have been a decent slasher with some right wing bias (Ok, fine. Left bias has been dominating so let them get one) but it completely invalidates itself when guns don't actually do much against Leatherface and nullifies Lila's character arc (might have not been the best arc but it was still an arc)

Wanna be besties, Mert? I like your brains. Not in the zombie way, in the you'd-be-awesome-to-have-a-pint-and-a-chat-with way.

10:50 deanzt look like gas to me hunny 🙄. Then I'm actually a mechanic 🧰, so wtf do I know. And btw we "real" Americans (republicans) think all Europeans (including the UK) are commies, 🤨🧐 so there that to consider.

Algorithm feeding comment

5:02 Honestly, thanks for saying "incredibly right wing". We sometimes have a problem with tankies acting like the parties are indistinguishable, so it bugs me to no end when Europeans smugly act like we have two right wing parties with absolutely zero nuance. Like sure, the Democrats also hate anything too "socialist" because of the Cold War, but they at least haven't tried to overthrow the government because they lost an election