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Liberal Pop Fascism: Glorified Suicide for Ideology in Current Film

#Phonepunk#

Banned
WARNING: This contains spoilers for Star Wars episodes 8, Rogue One, and both parts of Avengers: Infinity War.

There is a disturbing recent trend of glorifying suicide for an ideological cause in pop culture. What is up with this? Why is nobody talking about the actual themes these films are embracing? The twin dragon of Fan Wars & Representation Politics have diverted public discussion away from critically considering these themes. What do you think?

The Last Jedi was, for me, a film that took itself way too seriously and sold troubling imagery over and over again, glorifying battle and the larger narrative over the characters themselves. We start with Rose's sister, who was about to head back to safety according to Leia's orders, but following Poe's ignoring of those orders, he put her in mortal danger, leading to a dramatic slow motion shot, with close ups of her sad face, as she drops a comical number of bombs and dies in a fetishistically stylized death shot. The entire sequence is superfluous in a universe where robots exist to translate languages and run computers. Her physical sacrifice was in fact entirely unnecessary, and doubly so, through Poe's actions. He never pays for them, of course, ending the film as the main Resistance hero, still telling other people to die for his cause.

But more than the plot itself, the framing of this sequence is what I find most disturbing. It is stylized, and the valor she gains is repeatedly celebrated throughout the following film. Her sister, for instance, stopping Finn from going to help his friend, paralyzing him, and forcing him to come along a poorly thought out plan that ends with all of our heroes on a spaceship that Laura Dern lightspeeds into in the film's most fawned-over scene, the kamikaze sequence. Dern's character exists to be snotty and yell at people, contrary to all previous commanders in Star Wars films, which included female leads right from the first entry.

The kamikaze gambit, in an audience-pleasing spectacle of self destruction, is meant to glorify her. She becomes good because she killed so many people. Not our heroes, of course, who were standing on the main spaceship the whole time, and later escaped off camera. Only bad guys die and are humiliated here, when a good guy dies, it is glorious and at their decision: it is a decision of consent between them and death. Heroes have plot armor which is not just poor writing, it gives our heroes this false sense of immortality. These heroes are iconic, they are ubermench. What happens outside their reign is irrelevant. The films revolve entirely around them. There is no universe even depicted outside this film, no other planets outside the glorious deaths & murders of our heroes. Rose eventually crashes into Finn, again, a person who was TRYING TO ESCAPE THE WAR. This is good, because she teaches him a lesson, about how to fight for something you believe in. Caring for his friend Rey, who has helped him in the past, over some silly war, is shown to us to be not something he should believe in. The war is what is important. People openly think that these films celebrating war & glorifying personal sacrifice for The Greater Cause are socially beneficial and teaching good values. It would be laughable were it not so terrifying.

Luke famously dies, so that he can inflame the righteous anger of the mass murderer he is responsible for, and attempt to make him more pissed off, right before he leaves permanently. In all truth, the universe would have been better off if Luke had died in the second Death Star.

Rogue One, of course, has everyone famously dying at the end. It was pretty good I thought, but no less mindless, no less celebratory of death and descrution. Interestingly, the mission to get the Death Star was referenced in the first film, where Mon Mothma openly mourned the "many Bothans [who] died" in order to secure the subtitular "new hope". This was a noted and well known character moment about a female commander who apparently had feelings about people, or possibly a person, who died in this mission. Do we ever meet them? No. Do we learn of the human connection that this women is looking back on in that sad moment? No. This is a cold, curious omission, reinforcing the "sacrifice is good" aspect the series has embraced since the purchase. No Bothans in this movie.

Then there are the Infinity War films. Thanos famously sacrifices his daughter for the Soul Stone, which is taken to be a sad moment. Her death is a means to prove how much he loves her. Her death gives him character depth. How this fridging goes on nowadays without comment is beyond me, but I bet Brie Larson/"Look how representative we are" marketing and the concentrated targeting of MRA types in the media has a lot to do with it. The second film has Black Widow, a character denied her own solo film for so long, and treated rather shittily by her writers IMO, throw herself off a cliff for the Soul Stone. Self sacrifice for the greater good, once again. I guess she loved herself? Or she loved the arrow guy who went back to murdering people was nice to her in one or two of the 20 some odd movies. Two of our heroes fight over who gets to commit suicide in this highly celebrated billion dollar film. Luckily she did not explode into a million pieces so we still get that glory shot of her tight leather body draped sexy and dead on the ground. Heroic death is never messy or embarrassing or bad, it is glorious. Women can be heroes too!

Late in the second film, Iron Man kills himself, sacrificing himself to save the universe. But death is honestly meaningless at this point anyways, since there are an infinite amount of timelines, and time travel can be invented by two different people on this team, working separately, just because they are ubermench that are more Gods than Man. Immortality again. RDJ dies so that Iron Man can live, be repurposed, and become profitable once again. We see Captain America turn into an old man at the end of his life and pass the torch the way they pass the lighstaber in Star Wars. These characters exist as highly profitable IP solely because you can simply stamp the costume on a new actor. The actors themselves are expendable, it is the property that matters. The IP, the brand is a template, and like a factory, humans are shoved into it, and product comes out. It is this line of anti-human, pro-corporate thinking that is poisoning the minds of so many.
 
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Tesseract

Banned
self sacrifice is universally accepted behavior that makes for good storytelling feels, and it sells

it's not a current trend, it's an ancient trick (and trope), a formula for success

once you turn lead to gold, you're finished ~ tesseract, 2019
 
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Is this that new though? Look at Randy Quaid in Independence Day. Heck, even Obi Won in the original Star Wars. Spock in Star Trek II. And Flash Gordon wanted to in Flash Gordon,
self sacrifice is universally accepted behavior that makes for good storytelling feels, and it sells

it's not a current trend, it's a successful trick and trope, a formula for success

once you turn lead to gold, you're finished ~ tesseract, 2019

That is true, but the fact that you see the trope being used so frequently is suspicious.

Nothing you see in modern media is by accident, everything is agenda and social engineering driven.
 

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
We don't view sacrificing your own life to advance a higher agenda as suicide necessarily, outside the context of terrorism. Even setting yourself on fire as a political protest is labeled "self-immolation" and conceptually distinct. We celebrate and honor other people dying for societal benefit, and in a collectivist society it is among the highest forms of altruism.

For these woke stories, they're just jumping to idealize oppressed classes (per intersectional ideology) in every conceivable manner, and willingness to self-sacrifice is a noble trait.
 
S

SLoWMoTIoN

Unconfirmed Member
The idea of a heroic suicide has been a thing since forever. What is Sacrifice for 400?
 

oagboghi2

Member
Sacrifice and suicide have always been treated as separate entities. One is a selfish act, the other the ultimate form of altruism.

I don't think there is any deeper motive here than that. Death is a powerful, universal theme that is understood by all cultures. Just what Hollywood loves
 

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
I thought it was philosophically/morally bankrupt in Rogue One. All of them essentially viewed their lives as immoral/horrible/worthless and decided that dying on purpose was better than dying as subject to surrounding forces. There was only an off chance that maybe something might get sent out that someone was possibly ready to receive and do some good with. There were no guarantees or even communicated knowledge of a plan to those outside and no means of knowing how to make it work going in while death was pretty certain. So they went in with a plan to first and foremost kill themselves because they hated the result of their lives thus far and secondly to maybe do something that might make it have meant something after all of them are dead so they'd never know either way. It is glorifying the most foolhardy of "virtue" possible.
 

MetalAlien

Banned
We don't view sacrificing your own life to advance a higher agenda as suicide necessarily, outside the context of terrorism. Even setting yourself on fire as a political protest is labeled "self-immolation" and conceptually distinct. We celebrate and honor other people dying for societal benefit, and in a collectivist society it is among the highest forms of altruism.

For these woke stories, they're just jumping to idealize oppressed classes (per intersectional ideology) in every conceivable manner, and willingness to self-sacrifice is a noble trait.
Indoctrinating the current generation to view themselves less relevant than the meaning of their death. Heathers 101 Whether to kill yourself or not is one of the most important decisions a teenager can make.
 

crowbrow

Banned
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The movies you mentioned are called Star Wars and Infinity War. I don't find it that strange that in war movies, people sacrifice themselves for the greater good. I mean, that's what a soldier does, right? They fight for what they believe in and put their lives on the line to protect those they care about and help those who are suffering. Maybe that's a bit of an romanticized view on wars and soldiers, but that's what these movies are trying to depict.

Think about that moment Finn tries to crash his vehicle into the laser battering ram to save his friends, but he's 'saved' by Rose. That was one of the dumbest moments in that movie. Escaping "sacrifice is good" doesn't make for a good story or interesting characters.

Going back a few decades, A New Hope actually had Kenobi sacrifice himself just to teach Luke some sort of lesson. He just stopped fighting back for no reason. This is a theme that has existed for a looong time and I don't see what it has to do with ideology.
 

Doom85

Member
Is this that new though? Look at Randy Quaid in Independence Day. Heck, even Obi Won in the original Star Wars. Spock in Star Trek II. And Flash Gordon wanted to in Flash Gordon,

And that about sums it up. Thank you.

Also, OP fails regardless due to being YET ANOTHER person who mistakenly thinks Mon Mothma was in episode 4 and the Bothans had anything to do with the first Death Star's plans. Geezus fucking Christ, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be mean here, but for the hard-on so many people have for that fucking line you think they could remember which movie it was in! Is this like THE most misplaced quote in all of film history in terms of which movie it was said in?
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
Is this that new though? Look at Randy Quaid in Independence Day. Heck, even Obi Won in the original Star Wars. Spock in Star Trek II. And Flash Gordon wanted to in Flash Gordon,

definitely agree it's always been a part of fiction. it's not new but the context IMO is very different. nobody is claiming ID4 has great politics or morals. nobody held up Flash Gordon as "something we should show kids to give them hope" or whatever. they were genre pics in an era when that genre was less Mainstream Blockbuster and more B-Movie Exploitation.

Randy Quaid was introduced as a conspiracy theorist dunkard who we are meant to constantly laugh at. his sacrifice at the end is the only thing that gives his character dignity. his death, filmed in sublime slo mo (before cracking a joke) glorifies him & makes it not really a big deal. Independence Day itself is a movie that mindlessly glorifies in death and destruction, you could argue that's the entire point. i don't see it going for the same "family friendly" audience of Star Wars & Marvel (both considered "films for kids" until it is convenient to pretend otherwise).

Obi Wan was not a glorified death IMO. it was sudden and shocking. he had a lot of character development previous to it, he does not derive most of his worth from his sacrifice. nu Star Wars deaths are all beautifully composed, dramatic and slow mo, framed like commercials, etc. and the characters don't really have lives outside of their worth in battle. it seems to be THE POINT of the new films in a way it wasn't before. Luke immediately and loudly reacts to Obi Wan's death, then he further mourns him on the Falcon. nobody mentions Holdo at all after her kamikaze. her humanity is irrelevant in the face of flashy explosions.

Spock, again, it wasn't just glorifying "dying for a cause", it was a logical decision, made by the one character we all know would make that decision. it is not glorified, it is sad, we see Kirk mourning him while he is making the decision to do this, trying to stop him. nobody tried to stop Holdo because they cared for her. nobody tried to stop Rose's sister. neither of these characters have much to do besides show up and die. Spock, is mourned in the present, and we see his funeral. it is also a callback to the start of the film, where everyone fake dies during the Kobayashi Maru. the deaths there are classic bloodless trek tv style, but Spock's death at the end has immense human impact on the people who care for him.
 
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#Phonepunk#

Banned
mistakenly thinks Mon Mothma was in episode 4 and the Bothans had anything to do with the first Death Star's plans. Geezus fucking Christ, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be mean here, but for the hard-on so many people have for that fucking line you think they could remember which movie it was in! Is this like THE most misplaced quote in all of film history in terms of which movie it was said in?

ok. calm the fuck down. why are you so angry?

ok, it was Return of the Jedi. i made a mistake. calm the ever living fuck down jesus christ yourself.

how about a little less personal attacks here? please stick to the topic at hand thanks.

Randy Quaid was a loser, a character to laugh at. we see many people laugh at him onscreen and not take him seriously until he commits Noble Suicide. including his family. it is his death alone that gives him dignity. ID4 in general is a pro-military pro-war pro-violence film so there's no argument from me there.

Obi Wan actually doesn't kill himself, Vader does. "If you strike me down", he says to his killer. rather than denying Vader agency, he allows his old student to take action (or not). this is an act of peace & forgiveness, contrasted to the ST's repeated acts of war & bloodlust. this teaches Luke not the value of killing onesself, but to always be open to compassion. the OT and PT are both anti war films, as opposed to the current pro war films.

we have to look at the context around each character, why they do what they do, what is the focus of their arc, their relationship to the other characters in the film. better films IMO treat people more as fleshed out humans, with others that care for them, and we see this on the screen.
 
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