Helsing posted:

That's just the siren song of Satan:



Wife (with heavy burden): "I'd rather travel the hardest path of matrimony than follow your footsteps"

Nebakenezzer posted:

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

Spanish Civil War is proof that winning the meme war doesn't matter.

nopantsjack posted:

what book is this?

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

It's weird to think that we've been so desensitized by depictions of monsters in popular culture, that we're not as susceptible to "wicked" imagery as 19th century readers were. People in 1880 looked at that Thomas Nast cartoon of the skeleton with the torch & communist manifesto, and felt it was legit spooky.

Nebakenezzer posted:

Helsing posted:

While this is true I can't help but wonder whether the mainstreaming of reactionary science fiction and fantasy narratives hasn't resulted in a far more insidious and pervasive form of propaganda than anything a 19th century caricaturist could have dreamed of. Skeletons may not be the potent signifies of communist menace that they were a century ago but our society dedicates a great deal of collective wealth and artistic talent to crafting elaborate narratives about the need for the powerful individual to enact heroic violence to defend the otherwise weak and useless collective against the sinister and foreign Other.

Nebakenezzer posted:

Dreddout posted:

Hitler looking like a puppet from a British children's cartoon.

Nebakenezzer posted:

Uh, hello, the other has its uses: murdering Nazis for example

Helsing posted:

It's ok to other when the other is a Nazi.

Also, what are those gifs taken from?

Comrayn posted:

it’s cool that even when portraying them positively the best they could do for Mexicans is Speedy Gonzales

Nebakenezzer posted:

Dreddout posted:

Those are Mexican made posters my dude.


We must critically support comrade Red Skull and his struggle against Saudi imperialism

Nebakenezzer posted:

As you can see from all those awesome skeletons, the line between propaganda and cartoon is - vague to nonexistant

I mean, imagine this as a giant robot:















Then there are those propaganda films that are literally cartoons, like that bugs bunny cartoon where he does his elmer fudd sthick with Hitler and Mussilinni, (Bugs wins in the end by dressing up like Stalin) or the companion cartoon "Bugs nips the Nips" which is hooooollllyyyyyyy poo poo racist. Or "Der Furher's Face", or ah, Capitan America, and then it comes full circle with these:

Helsing posted:

While this is true I can't help but wonder whether the mainstreaming of reactionary science fiction and fantasy narratives hasn't resulted in a far more insidious and pervasive form of propaganda than anything a 19th century caricaturist could have dreamed of. Skeletons may not be the potent signifies of communist menace that they were a century ago but our society dedicates a great deal of collective wealth and artistic talent to crafting elaborate narratives about the need for the powerful individual to enact heroic violence to defend the otherwise weak and useless collective against the sinister and foreign Other.

Nebakenezzer posted:

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

In Thomas Nast's time there were also a lot of cartoonists who were pro-Klan. I don't buy that reactionary and fascist narratives are any more sophisticated now than they were a century and a half ago. You may as well blame mass literacy for these problems, since people couldn't know what fascism and nationalism are if they never read.

Jeb! Repetition posted:

Best way to fight fascist art is to create and support good non-fascist art, including but not limited to satire

Helsing posted:

I think that the amount of capital and technological expertise that goes into the creation of a modern Hollywood blockbuster or computer game greatly exceeds the sophistication of a lone caricaturist. I also don't think it's wrong to say that mass society and mass media are implicated in the rise of fascism even though they aren't a sufficient explanation on their own.

rudatron posted:

Great man mythology is as much a part of bourgeois ideology as it is reaction, because that is the image that capitalists have of themselves, and the one they want to propagate (see: elon musk worship). What distinguishes reaction is the self justifying or 'purifying' connotations attached to violence, and that's a hit or miss in mass media.

Nebakenezzer posted:

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

Thomas Nast wasn't a "lone caricaturist," he was being paid by newspapers and magazines because his work jived with their editorial stances.

Helsing posted:

Yes, and compare that with the elaborate multimedia campaigns promoting expensive franchises like Batman, The Avengers, Call of Duty, Lord of the Rings, etc. and notice how easily pop culture fantasy and science fiction melds with militaristic or right wing beliefs and attitudes. Even media that isn't explicitly jingoistic or reactionary tends to be inflected with themes of capitalist realism.

SEX HAVER 40000 posted:

this kicks rear end

GoluboiOgon posted:

I can't get the forums to show pictures of bob avakian for some strange reason, but the great man mythology is sadly present across all parts of the political spectrum.

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

A cartoon featured in a magazine is multimedia.

You're taking the approach to media criticism all wrong. The problem isn't the sophistication of mass media, but the fact that mass media is an oligopoly controlled by a handful of firms which are all directed by the same class interests. In the 19th century it was much easier for socialist and left wing newspapers to compete with mainstream news, but even then the left wing never got off the ground in the United States.