-
Trying to change the status quo
Super villains are usually trying to take over the world or rob banks and shit. That's like saying Jeffery Dahmer was just trying to have a snack.
-
-
Moonraker is about a guy who just wanted to save the trees
-
I went through all the comments here and I can't find where someone said an example of the super villain just trying to change the status quo. Yet lots of arguing back and forth.
-
Anarky in Arkham Origins. No idea if he's the same in the comics, and he still used shitty methods to achieve his goals, but the game does give him the space for a very long monologue explaining his position after he's defeated, if you're interested in what he's got to say. Other villains in the game would get fist in the face.
-
-
Off the top of my head the villain in one of the Iron Man films was opposed to US war crimes and imperialism, New New Spider Man 1 had the Vulture as a villain whose deal was Stark and the wealthy were screwing people over.
In Batman Begins 3 Bane is a pastiche of anarchism/anti-capital ideas until revealed that that's a play by Talia.
Well intentioned extremist is a pretty common villain trope in general.
-
-
Is this a normal thing in comic book movies?
-
No, it's not at all. This is total nonsense. If anything, superheroes are usually persecuted by the government.
Spider-Man specifically is literally an outlaw.
And look at the X-Men. Half the time the gov wants to wipe mutants out.
Maybe you can say that about Captain America, but he was created to defeat the Nazis. So yeah, who the fuck is not on the government side in this situation?
And when the gov became corrupt, Captain America became an outlaw.
So whoever is upvoting this and whoever created this doesn't know much about Marvel or comics.
I mean I don't know that much, but I know the bare minimum to know this is nonsense.
-
It's a major driving force in Civil War even the watered down version in the MCU.
Tony Stark: I don't have powers but made something that almost wiped out a nation so we should all register with the government that really hasn't liked us all that much.
Captain America: That's a massive invasion of privacy and I fought against those who catalogued people, so get bent.
-
The thing is that the stories are nonsense and unrealistic. There is no way that real superheroes wouldnt be either under government control or spiral out of control like in "the boys". What people hate about these movies is the naive belief that superheroes would be a force of good in the world and not just another tool of destruction like any other weapon.
-
I first saw this on the ml equivalent community and a decent chunk of comments were pretty unhinged.
-
Yeah wasn't marvel banned from using the army sometimes in phase 1 they were told they criticized it too much?
-
-
Yes it is, despite all the nay-sayers on here. The super-creep genre has always been reactionary and protective of the status quo.
-
-
Yeah, sure, Doctor Octavius was creating a revolutionary nearly infinite source of power.
In the middle of fucking Manhattan in the form of an all consuming Miniature Sun.
-
I mean weren't they in the middle of NYC when Captain America got microwaved in that tube?
-
That sort of whataboutism doesn't excuse the actions of villains. Also, he was a volunteer and they probably didn't know it would explode.
-
-
Was there a reason it had to be in Manhattan and not like, fuckin Idaho or something?
-
Based
-
-
-
This video is dumb. It's making contradictory criticisms while having no alternative of its own to suggest.
The heroes don't use their powers to radically alter the world because, first and foremost, then it wouldn't be our world, it would be a very different one. Once you actually apply all the innovations that should be possible, the setting starts looking more like Star Trek, and it becomes a very different story. This is the same reason that Batman will never keep his villains off the street, whether he captures them or kills them. It's the same reason the Doctor always makes his way back to current year earth somewhere in the UK. The status quo they are maintaining is the one that let's us continue telling this kind of story.
Second, things like time travel and reality altering magic, things which can fundamentally change our world in an instant have to be kept limited, or we have no more stories. This goes beyond just the status quo of the setting and gets into the basics of storytelling and having tension. Make your heroes too powerful with no limitations, and you can't maintain a conflict without gigantic plotholes.
Second and a half, fundamentally altering the world with time travel or super science or magic is a concept that should be terrifying in its implications. Maybe time travel could alter the timeline for the better, but who gets to decide what is better, and what trade offs are worth it? Who gets to decide that it's worth unmaking millions of lives to alter history into something you think might be better? And how many ways can it go wrong? The world is a complicated place, you can't make sudden drastic changes without inflicting a lot of harm, even if you think the good it does will outweigh the harm. And doing so with forces that we may not fully understand or control is reckless. I mean, fuck, Ultron is the example they give of something to change the world, and would you trust the people making AI today to put that in a self-aware army of iron man robots?
Third, what kind of message would it send if the heroes used some bullshit super science or magic solution that quickly and easily solved environmental issues or social problems? Is that really addressing the issues in a way that's helpful for us in the real world? Is it setting an example for us to follow when they aren't faced with any of the real difficulties that come with solving those problems? it seems like that would just be dismissing the problem and implicitly endorsing the kind of vaporware solutions that polluting industries often try to hype up to avoid real change.
Fourth, do you really think the world would end up better if a small group of super powered individuals tried to overthrow governments, destabilize economies, and transform civilization by force? We're not just talking about intervening in a specific conflict like Ukraine or Palestine here, the video makes that clear. If at the end of the day, they aren't radically altering society, they are just defending the status quo. But, how do you think that would actually play out, especially in a world where there are other super powered individuals who will oppose them? World domination by benevolent dictators imposing their will on society while tearing the current order down by force is not going to be pretty, it's going to be a fucking nightmare. And let's be honest, none of our heroes have shown the capacity for building back the world they would be destroying, which is the much harder part.
Well, actually, no, despite criticizing the heroes for not using their powers to single-handedly institute radical change the video goes on to argue that change would actually require larger movements lead by the public, and condemns the idea of an elite few hogging power (should iron man be flooding the streets with military hardware? And how the fuck is the hulk suppose to share his power?). So, what then is the right thing for them to do? I guess they should engage in peaceful activism and support the people when they aren't called away to stop some murdering asshole from killing a bunch of innocent people. So, basically what we have now, but with a few more scenes of them making political statements and doing volunteer work that doesn't actually contribute to the plot.
Fifth, the villains are sometimes given sympathetic motivations because we want some nuance and complexity. The world is complicated and most conflicts are not just black and white. The lesson isn't that change is bad and evil, it's that you can't just view the world in such simplified terms. The alternative of making the villains all bad and the heroes all good is actually far more dangerous, because it reinforces the idea that we can just see the world in simple us vs them terms, with no need to understand other points of view or to question our own.
Sixth, they do fight the status quo, just not the parts that the video wants to address. Daredevil can't solve all the world's problems but he can and does fight both organized crime and corruption. Captain America isn't going to overthrow the government, but he will fight SHIELD when it crosses the line. Iron Man changed his own company to address its role in the world, and uses it to innovate to make the world a better place, that's just not the focus of the story.
-
I think you've said a lot that is in line with the video, tbh. Most of your points accurately spell out why a superhero movie involving a protagonist who disrupts the status quo wouldn't work, mostly because we are living in the status quo and the general audience's main frame of reference -- that which they use to understand the story -- is that status quo is overall good, that there are inevitable bad parts that must come with the good, and that mass change is inherently bad. You even note this last point yourself.
But it doesn't change the fact that the superheros are still, for the most part, not proactively trying to
recognizereorganize society, but keep it the same and react to its threats, which sometimes have interesting intentions of reorganization, but ultimately all end up doing an irredeemable act in the eyes of the audience so to signal that they are in fact the bad guy.I don't think this video is really meant to be taken as "superheros should change the status quo," but more closely look at Graebers generalization and kinda jostle people out of their "the status quo is ultimately good, despite it's necessary evils," worldview. Graeber often said he's not trying to provide an answer or solution to societal organization outside of hierarchical Nation-states, but just to allow people to break out of the traditional mental framework and ask the question, what else could work?
-
-
That was good, tnx
-
-
Supporting read arguing the superhero Ego versus villain Id: https://davidgraeber.org/articles/super-position/
-
Holy shit, but crypto-fascists are coming out of the woodwork to defend their right-wing, Objectivist power fantasies.
-
Yeah, some real "DEBATE ME" energy here
-
-
This is great.
That's the joke/point in many comics and comic book movies, too.
Subversive ideas can't always be communicated openly in children's media.
I think the world is a better place for having difficult disruptive ideas voiced in children's movies, even when they're only allowed to come out of the mouth of the bad guys.
-
That’s the joke/point in many comics and comic book movies, too.
No, it isn't.
What the cartoonist is very accurately depicting is the super-creep genre's typical practice of painting subversive ideas as inherently dangerous.
-
-
I've honestly begun to judge people that still watch and enjoy these comic movies.
-
Can you name one superhero movie that follows the plot of the OP comic?
The closest I can think of is Thanos killing half the people in the universe and the heroes trying to stop him. You're on Thanos's side?
-
None and all of them. The video has been posted before but the essence is that the overwhelming part of Marvel's films deals with the folloing scenary:
Bad guy tries to change something, often for legitimate reasons. God guys stop bad guy and everything stays the same. Even when people try to change something in a good way there is always something that goes horribly wrong.
-
It's cool, because I've begun to judge people that judge people base on entertainment choices.
-
That's the spirit!
-
-
Infinity War was the peak of MCU and it was downhill from there. And DC has been very inconsistent.
-
Yeah they are just not good. Same as star wars. I would maybe except the first Iron Man, Logan, and the original trilogy (before Lucas remade them with CGI).
The story telling is lazy, the characters undifferentiated, and there are no real consequences to anything. It's just obvious money grabbing because media consumers have no taste or ability to distinguish good art from bad. T
-
They used to be good years ago. Then they mostly became like you said. It’s almost like the owners changed and promoted incompetent people to make bland, inoffensive movies with political messages
-
