Well certainly Farenheit 9/11 was pretty much making the case our reaction to 9/11 was excessive and foolish. But I’m thinking in much more broad terms. eg. *Syriana * is generally critical of the history of US involvement in the Middle East; Munich questions the easy categorization of “terrorists” and warns of the dangers of retributive violence; that sort of thing. None of them directly address current US policy, but their creators obviously were influenced by it and audiences will inevitably ponder the possible implications.
My point is that the reaction was very different from past wars. Hollywood’s job in WWII was to produce pro-war films, period. No studio would have touched a film with the political ambiguity of Munich during WWII; damned few would have touched it even during Vietnam. What criticism of Vietnam there was was quite oblique (MASH), and offset by gung-ho stuff (The Green Berets). You’ll recall what happened to the Smothers Brothers when they challeneged the war.
Again, I’m not necessarily saying this is a bad change – many argue that the essential role of the artist is to provoke and question, and that entertainers should have been doing then what it’s doing now. Leaving aside whether that’s true or not, the point is that it wan’t the view of our pop-culture producers in past wars. The change is notable.
Political and social commentary is there in superhero comics, but it’s often vague and usually shrouded in a layer or more of allegory or metaphor.
For example, after Watergate, Captain America found himself facing a criminal conspiracy that ultimate led to the oval office. After the president was unmasked as the big bad, he killed himself.
Green Arrow’s sidekick, Speedy, was written as a heroin addict in an era were addiction was seldom discussed, especially when it appeared among good kids like a superhero’s sidekick.
More recently, The Return of Donna Troy featured a war with clear paraells to the current war in Iraq. The Titans of Myth invaded a planet on the pretext of finding hidden weapons of incredible power, which may have not existed.
Yes, it is. In assessing that, I think we also have to consider the fact that this is a different kind of war. In addition to the fact that people aren’t being asked to sacrifice, the enemy doesn’t have a nation and is in some sense unidentifiable. It’s a situation that lends itself to greater ambiguity than fighting the Nazis.
Though I agree that Hollywood used to be more “U-S-A! U-S-A!” then it is now. On the other hand, Hollywood also gave us Dr. Strangelove at the height of the Cold War. Aside from Duck Soup, I’m not sure there’s ever been a better satire.
I’m not disputing it’s George Bush. I’m asking where the “a diatribe against the current administration” is? The series is about a group of agents who are working for the Bush Administration and shows how they are defending America against secreat threats. It’s about as subversive as a Rambo movie. Hell, it’s less subversive - Rambo didn’t trust the government.
That said, I haven’t been following Black Adam. So I’ll concede it’s possible you’re right.
Missed the whole very strongly pro-gay marriage plot in Ex Machina, I take it - a book saturated in real world politics from beginning to end? Or how about Queen & Country’s very prescient story about women’s rights in Afghanistan that was written before (and, in a cruel twist of fate, published the week of) 9/11? V for Vendetta, Watchmen, some of the storylines in Hellblazer, or any of a variety of other intensely political comic books, with or without the men in tights.
Ah, so you haven’t actually READ the Ultimates, then? You’ve missed all the lines Thor had, missed the myriad of abuses and cover-ups in the series? Missed the way the US used supers to disarm a Middle Eastern country and the outrage it caused?
Sorry, but you’re still just plain wrong.
You cut my reference to Fred Phelps, I noticed. I could also have added Anne Coulter, who in front of an approving CPAC audience just recently referred to Muslims as “ragheads.” We’re sure enlightened, all right … :rolleyes:
Are you deliberately missing my point? I’m saying that in the WWII era, comics wouldn’t have even said that much about prejudice—as far as they were concerned, it didn’t exist, or was so common as to not even be recognized as such. Since when does a point of view have to be controversial to be socially or politically relevant?
Besides, you’re being terribly simplistic in your view of how these topics may be presented. A kid reading an X-Men story in which the mutant characters suffer persecution isn’t being told simply, “prejudice is bad,” he is being shown why it’s bad. He sees that for all their heroism, many people will never trust the X-Men or accept them as fully-fledged members of society. For someone steeped in these characters and emotionally invested in them, that’s powerful, and a perfectly valid form of storytelling.
While I’m not disputing it’s propoganda, I’m not sure why anyone would have a problem that. We are not in a traditional war, but that only makes it even more neccessary. Propganda has an ugly ring, today, but it’s nothing more than an argument. It can be turned to purposes good and bad, and it need not involve lies.
Keeping up morale is critical during war, and it is even more important when that war involves an enemy as intractable, insane, and evil as Islamic Fundamentalism.
The problem with this argument is that the “racism” metaphor goes back to a period (the 1960s) when, yes, it was actually controversial to suggest that there was something seriously wrong with race relations. Also, the metaphor these days has extended to homophobia (obvious example: the “Have you ever thought of not being a mutant?” line in the second movie), which isn’t exactly a settled issue.
Heck, any media effort in that direction (e.g. Bill Maher’s When You Ride Alone, You Ride With Bin Laden) is itself perceived (correctly, in that case) as a criticism of the government’s position rather than a mobilization effort.