Leftist characters and stories in popular media
Since some people love to post this meme so much, let's have one thread for this specifically and make it actually useful.
Who are some well-known characters who are or resemble leftists?
What are some popular shows, movies, animu, video games, etc. with leftist or proto-leftist elements? Characters, plotlines, themes, whatever.
Does this sort of thing help raise class consciousness or otherwise promote leftist goals?
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I still can't belive he was allowed to make this film. It's very subversive and is as true in 2017 as it was in 1976.
Network was based, we need more movies like this.
Pic related. The Dude is partially based on Jeff Dowd (en.wikipedia.org
He implies that his (fictional) version was lefter than the real thing (en.wikipedia.org
The Seattle Seven were members of Seattle Liberation Front (en.wikipedia.org
Also, the Dude's best friend whom he loves/hates is a hair-trigger fat fuck with fascistic tendencies…
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I've always really liked the characters of Jake Blount and Dr. Copeland from this book.
Too bad they whitewashed the fuck out of them for the film adaptation. The Cold War sucked.
Bourgeois class traitor who takes away the power of the elites without even killing them, only to be foiled by the defenders of the status quo.
Hoo boy. I typed this up back during some site issues and couldn't post. Here's my giga autistic look at Korra. Part 1 of ?
[Link to a post that's long gone now, saying that bending ability and class are different things, and the source of what I'm quoting]
This. IIRC the first episode of Korra shows Mako lightning bending to generate power (magic equivalent of pic related). If bending had a realistic relationship to class, it would be to divide the working class according to how useful they are for labor. Since the bourgeoisie do not have to do labor, bending would confer little benefit to the ruling class (just for self-defense as Tarrlok shows). The big losers would be working class non-benders. Their labor would be useful, just not as useful as the labor of benders. By all appearances in the Avatar world, though, benders are a minority of the population, probably under 10%. Benders would probably fit in like an educated working class, whose labor is significantly more valuable to the rulers.
This isn't entirely true. Looking at The Last Airbender, there's definitely a tendency for benders to be in the noble or military classes. Since bending is partially heritable, benders who get into power are going to beget more benders in power, and their abilities will likely only help them. In The Last Airbender, the four nations are neatly divided according to bending ability, which would be a natural consequence of regional ethnicities sticking together through feudalism. Though not really shown, benders being in power would most likely get woven into a nation's ideology regarding right to rule and so on. Korra's setting is an aberration, because even though they have a more or less capitalist society in Republic City, it was founded by and overseen by feudal governments. It's sort of like the feudal version of social democracy. Republic City further reforms its way to independence and full capitalism during Korra (end of season 1 IIRC). TL;DR historical inertia (and continuing feudalism in the four nations) is the reason for the bending-based governments.
Yeah, he's basically idpol. Bending ability doesn't have a good parallel to real life though.
I thought this was more in line with idpolers tending to be "atoners" e.g. self-hating [insert identity here]. Comparing Amon to the USSR or any revolution that attempted to restructure society is being far too charitable to his character. As far as he was portrayed he had no plans for after all the benders were dead. Unlike Zaheer, there was never any suggestion that Amon's motivations went beyond his personal trauma. Zaheer, on the other hand, is repeatedly shown to have a plan for taking down the various world leaders. He's also implied to have a plan for what comes next, given the size of his organization. We never get details because Korra is too much of a hothead to listen to him, and he sees no point in explaining his plan to her since she's on his kill list.
There are certainly shades of this. This is what Korra's understanding is limited to, but she's pretty well established in-show to be an incompetent moron. I mentioned this with Zaheer above, but she refuses to consider the position of her enemies (unlike Aang, who did this to a fault) so we never get to know much of their plans. Of course, this allows for the show to have characters who could plausibly be genuine revolutionaries, but we'd never know because the protagonist (acting as a representative of the capitalist network) plugs her ears. The biggest support for this thesis is that Republic City spontaneously transitions to a democratic republic, and that King Wu decides to do the same to the Earth Kingdom. This is entirely predicated on fantastically benevolent leaders, which, of course is also support for that thesis.
Truly Dagoth Ur did nothing wrong. He merely wished to share godhood with all his people and bring them into a telepathic unity, liberating them from the shackles of religious superstition and foreign imperialism. If he had won, the Dunmer would have formed a divine collective of enlightened deities, whilst his defeat left them as powerless plebeians under the rule of aristocrats and imperialists.
Part 2 of 3
There were more than one.
Hiroshi Sato (Asami's father) is a standard villain who's redeemed just in time to die tragically at the end of the story. How this happens is never explained, but it happens during a stretch of several years so not that implausible even if jarring story-wise. In season 1 where he's the villain, he's a huge missed opportunity in this regard, because he could have easily been written as someone who's just out for profit and seeding social discontent for this reason.
Varrick on the other hand is the most perfect capitalist you can get for a kids' show. He's a propagada-producing war profiteer. He's treated as not quite evil because he's genuinely a genius inventor (unfortunately buying into the Steve Jobs or Thomas Edison meme) and because he's got the Archie Bunker charisma thing going on. Even though Varrick overtly works with Kuvira (the fascist), he's "redeemed" just in time when the fascist government turns on him. From this point, he's the stand-in for German expat scientists helping the US in WWII. He's extremely useful to the protagonists, but given how thoroughly they display him to be ruthless and without conscience for most of the show, he's hardly glorified.
Then there's Suyin Beifong, who was born into extreme wealth (thanks, feudalism) and built what appears to be an ancap/technocrat city state. She's not glorified except as a visionary technocrat. The internal politics of Zaofu are never explored at all, but she seems to more or less own the city by right of having built it. Her relationship to the economy or her subjects (?) is never shown, but her eldest son ultimately becomes a fascist, and nobody bats an eye until the fascists come to their doorstep. Like Varrick, Baatar Jr. only defects from fascism after it turns on him personally.
The implications of class on the Beifong family in general is actually kind of interesting. As a kid in The Last Airbender, Toph is the "wild child" archetype and rebels against authority constantly. This is all during a time when she's used to being under her parents' thumb. When she becomes an adult though, she becomes chief of police of Republic City. It's almost as if when she inherited her parents' wealth she suddenly had a change of heart and wanted to protect her property. Suyin rebels in her youth but winds up in a harmonious relationship with Toph in adulthood, while for her entire life Lin follows Toph's footsteps to become chief of police but has trouble resolving her differences with Toph even in old age. Their relationships end up shaping which class Lin and Suyin join in adulthood, Suyin as ownerships class and Lin as enforcer. By rebelling, Suyin shows she has the independence and self-determination to be a capitalist, ending up on top of her own little world. By following the rules and being a good worker loyal to the owners, Lin ends up stuck in the same job her entire life. Toph ends up being a hermit because she doesn't find her wealth fulfilling enough.
Part 3 of 3
[Link to long-dead post saying Zaheer was inspired by anarchism, source of quote below]
He's voiced by Henry Rollins, so Zaheer is inspired by lifestyleism.
Highly accurate tbh
To be fair, he never gets much of a chance to explain his worldview, because Korra does the whole "you're a bad guy so you're wronggggg" thing and he sees it's pointless to explain anything to her. He's clearly not against organizing, because his people are organized. There are dozens of Red Lotus members by the end of season 3, going by the scenes where they have Korra's people captured. Not to mention that season four mentions Kuvira had been stamping out rebellion before we see her annexing former Earth Kingdom territories.
If we break down the primary antagonists of Legend of Korra, we get:
It's hard to go into much detail because the antagonists are not fleshed out very well. This is a general problem of Korra being pretty shallow, though. This stands out especially when compared to The Last Airbender. TLA had a very episodic format where individual episodes tended to be mostly standalone vignettes focusing on various elements of the setting, exploring the dynamics at play within the system being portrayed in the episode. Korra follows a more plot-based format, where each episode juggles multiple plots that advance on an episode-by-episode basis and leaves little time to flesh out the world.
Discussing the political affiliation and philosophy of famous chracters in Morrowind is the dumbest thing you can do.
Because it's all been rewritten by Vivec.
History itself, has been rewritten by Vivec.
Literally not a single "major" character you meet in Morrowind is the genuine person he was before Vivec obtained CHIM, you're seeing what Vivec has written for you to see.
You're better off just talking to random nobodies down the street, people Vivec hopefully deemed too insignificant to rewrite/got too lazy to do it (because yes, he's also a lazy cunt).
The rewriting of the past to retroactively make it so that the Tribunal had always been gods was not done by Vivec; it was done by the Jills of Akatosh to mend the timeline back into one piece after it was shattered by a bunch of jokers messing around with the heart of a god at Red Mountain. Also, CHIM's actual properties are rather vaguely defined. The meme that it gives omnipotence seems to be based on virtually nothing. Personally, I've speculated that it doesn't actually give you any power at all, merely enlightenment. The reason it seems to give power because the only two people who ever achieved it (Vivec and Talos) also happened to be leeching off Lorkhan's divinity and were powerful deities in their own right.
But really, CHIM is shit anyway from a practical story perspective. If you're really going that route, everyone you meet is just a figment of God's imagination and the entire universe isn't worth considering.
I would have to say that Mr. Robot is definitely /ourguy/.
He's an insurrectionary anarchist with the (unspoken) goal to promote global class consciousness by destroying the entire capitalist system; in other words, he's a full-on accelerationist.
He subtly, then explicitly manipulates the liberal idpolers and other "leftists" in order to further the socialist cause. This is hinted at in episode 2, where he states that he will hit E-Corp (the economic lynchpin of the setting's capitalist system) with "racism, fascism, so many -isms that they won't know what to do." He's well aware that identity politics plays a crucial role in modern politics and news, so he plans this as a means of agitating liberals and galvanizing them towards the left. I would like to note that this is most likely his reason for choosing people from a diverse background for the core of fsociety; it would work well for PR, should all of them ever be caught.
As season 2 nears its end, it becomes very apparent that Mr. Robot had no need for the liberals comprising fsociety: when the FBI closes in on the group, he tells Elliot that they're on their own and that the movement doesn't need them anymore.
Viewing the show within a Marxist perspective, he's the most dedicated to the socialist cause out of every character in the show, surpassing even Elliot, who draws clear bounds for his actions. He's willing to straight up commit murder (and even kill himself) if it means that his plan will follow through.
Some analyses of the show say that he's a villain who represents the uncompromising "old left," but I think he's meant to be the complete opposite. I think that he's a way of highlighting the road blocks that the first world would face, should an actual socialist revolution occur there; namely, the large amount of people and "leftists" who would prefer a status quo over the achievement of socialism. This is reflected at the end of season 2, when two members of fsociety are shown as fugitives and on the run. One member exclaims to her friend that she "found a way to undo everything, and make things go back to the way they are."
I'd go as far as to say that this guy is the most leftist character ever depicted on television. Mr. Robot really is slick entryism at its finest.
What CHIM gives you is the power the power that the player posses (to pause the game and access the inventory, to perceive stats and spells, etc.) and also access to the TES creation kit.
Nothing beats that one monologue, but I won't post it because it's so much better when you see it in context.
If you haven't watched Network go watch it.
the corporation one?
The one that explains global capitalism.
I wonder why they never show this one on television.
Hannibal Lecter is pretty damn Stirnerite., in the books, in the movies, and in the TV show.
That doesn't reflect well on Stirnersexuals.
CHIM is, I claim, the skill one learns to recognise and deconstruct ideology. But, once you achieve this, then you are, of course, I am not an idiot, inside ideology in its purest form.
Is Vivec a Stirnerist? Isn't CHIM just being truly unspooked (which in TES terms means realizing that whole universe, including yourself, is a spook of the Godhead)?
I mean, his dick-spear Muatra is sometimes called "Milk-Finger"
I don't think the dude was a leftist. Don't know how you got that.
see
Mr Robot is the Pure Ideology, and Elliot is the complex human dealing with it.
Just curious, but do you mean "pure ideology" in the Holla Forums sense, or pure ideology in the sense that Mr. Robot embodies the ideal revolutionary (as in a person so committed to the leftist cause that they could only exist as a theoretical)?
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Remember when MAD attempted to use subliminal messaging to turn CN viewers into communists?
What did they mean by this?
I'm assuming you saw Karl, Vlad, and Leon correct?
Of course
Was he dare I utter a proclamation to the effect of "our guy?"
The GOAT
The ultimate /ourguy/
This guy in Rampage, he is the protagonist and antagonist at the same time. He is Bill Williamson, and he kills the rich. Just go ahead and watch the movie and you will understand me lol
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This will be cringey but
You can't deny Alien was full of corporate/late capitalist paranoia that captured the beaten down working class spirit of the 70's
That the porky you work for is so all powerful it could just send its giant floating gas giant refinery to fuck them over because of a signal, in order to get a weapon that could win some war we don't know about. Or just to study it. And you weren't even invited to give an opinion, and it could all be covered up.
Really Alien is anti-capital as hell
man, Alien is one of those movies that makes you warm inside
dat retrofuturism
prols in space
characters feels real
it's like my work only in space
Alien >>>>>>>>>>>Aliens
youtube.com
One of the best films ever made with a definite anti-corporate/anti-consumerist message and a fucking awesome soundtrack.
It's not cringy at all. Besides the obvious male rape theme, it's implied what you said. The corporation they are working for knew what was there from the begining.
There are people who wrote analysys about Alien from a marxist perspective, you can find them.
just about every movie is liberal so you will get a lot of soft leftists.
nothing real tho
It was mediocre, at best.
It started to get really hamfisted and cringeworthy towards the end.
Aliens also had anti-capitalist themes, and is a better movie. But how is the Alien franchise retrofuturistic? It has the most realistic depiction of space travel this side of 2001.
Jim Cameron is such a 12 year old. Although to be fair, winning by using a high-tech forklift is pretty great symbolism.
This picture is funny, because not only are they matched in Omegle, but Palestinian nationalism is generally as right-wing as confederate-flag flying degenerates
Power fantasy is feminist tumblr bullshit. But the original was about space truckers looking for profit, Aliens was about grunts being led into a slaughter by a greedy corporate executive who wanted to kill everyone to get a percentage. Tbf I dont think either are really "anti capitalist", theyre just generic "anti greed"
Also the original is just a rip off of a haunted house film which even sci fi had already done, it's only elevated by HR Giger. It's a pretty generic film outside that
I never not watch this when it's offered.
what about Ridley Scott's impeccable direction? the excellent cinematography?? the tension??? the pacing? the aesthetics? the philosophical themes of mankind's place in the universe?????
What about the fact that it's a very generic slasher film outside the special effects? What "philosophical themes? Don't get eaten by an alien that looks like a dildo?
They Live is based as fuck
The first half is good, the second half is generic slasher film material. It's not as strong from start to finish as the sequel, and is pretty boring after they come back to the ship. Strangely, it's more interesting than "nothing" is happening
Hello mossad.
I know it's not super-deep or anything but I thought the core theme of the movie was that mankind is small and insignificant part of the universe. Babby's first nihilism I know but at least it's something. I guess this is a subjective thing but the pacing and tension in the film really adds to the experience. Ridley Scott is a fantastic director and elevates it above other generic slasher films. Yes it is basically a slasher/monster film but it's one of the best shot and best paced films ever made in my opinion.
It is? I thought it was just the haunted house story of people in a closed environment finding danger and being killed one by one. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's not "deep" IMO.
I think Alien is the only film of Ridley Scotts I actually like and it's mainly for what HR Giger brought to the film, so I'm biased. I like James Cameron pre Titantic so that further biases me in favor of the sequel. That and I like it's Vietnam allegories even if they're hamfisted
This guy
who is that
Well I always thought of Alien as being a HP Lovecraft inspired in a lot of ways. The strange biological architecture, the bizarre structure of elephant dude's ship, coming face to face with an unknowable alien terror, using people as vessels to give birth to abominations. With this in mind there is sort of nihilistic edge to Alien that is common to 'weird fiction' like Lovecraft. The only thing it's missing is the protagonist going totally insane. I know it's not the main intention of the film but the unanswered questions about the nature of the alien (until prometheus came out) and the spacecraft they searched gave me a feeling of being small part in a terrifying and uncaring universe.
I think he means that, yes. Or you can put it in Freudian terms, Elliot - ego, Mr. Robot - super-ego.
That was an either/or question.
also, fuck freud
Well Alien is essentially a rip off of "It: Terror from Beyond Space" It's just elevated by it's realistic special effects and good acting and directing, but it's essentially a big budget remake of a 50s B slasher film. It's also very similar to the TOS Star Trek episode "Devil In the Dark" but in there the characters seek to understand and befriend the monster and not shoot it out of an airlock.
To be fair, Aliens was essentially a rip off of Them! so it seems to be a pattern wth the (good) Alien films.
Yes the scope, look, acting, aesthetics, special effects and directing are all good, hence why I said the first part of the film is better than the second. The first part is brilliant, the second part is generic and meh. Let's not forget Jerry Goldsmith's awesome soundtrack.
Aliens however achieves a lot of this and is consistently strong from start to finish IMO, and more exciting.
Yeah I agree, I'm not saying those themes are particularly deep or well explored but they are just nice little touches. The lack of an explanation of the crashed ship and the Alien itself was cool but not 'deep' or anything it just added a bit of allure which is why I absolutely hate Prometheus for trying to inject some 'hurr so deep' philosophy into what was essentially background filler for a great sci-fi B-movie.
I'm so fucking tired of that pussy Elliot constantly getting in the way of his ghost dad being a badass.
I feel like after season 1 Elliot stopped being a complex character with issues people could identify with and started doing literally nothing but impede any and all plot progression as it's being made. He has fucking zero motives besides making everything "normal" again or some whiny bullshit now, when previously he had clear explicit goals that have somehow been completely forgotten about. I'm so fucking sick of his shit, and that dumbass muslim chick/fat retard duo who pussied out, and the cute FBI chick that exists for no reason.
Agreed that Prometheus sucks. And I think Alien is an excellent film, I'm just comparing it to its sequel, which I feel is stronger. Also there are retarded deleted scenes that leave a bad taste in my mouth, like the xenomorph assimilating people into eggs, which was a stupid idea IMO
But yeah I like Alien, I just think these themes were handled better in Aliens
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Nines Rodriguez
I listened a lot of his music.
But now that I actually know what lies behind the scenes, I wonder, if he is actually genuine or if it's just an act, a persona he puts on, because his label targeted the left-wing youth as a demographic.
Literally don't give a shit. RATM is the reason I got into leftism when I was a teen.
here.
What I mean to say is ''entryism''.
I mean there is a chance he may be the real deal.
I still didn't get why the band split up.
But the whole musical industry is set up on lies. And drugs.
That show suffers from the same problem all the other stupid "anti-corporate" porky media does. They recognize problems in capitalist society, they recognize how those problems come about, they recognize where they come from, but somehow all of it is pinned on the EVIL capitalists. Not CAPITALISM, just a handful of big, mean, EVIL capitalists that somehow ruin everything all on their own.
The implication being that "Yeah, the system is fine, it's just that it's been corrupted by these particular bad eggs. When they're gotten rid of, all your problems will disappear!" Notice how the main characters don't have problems with debt or loans or unemployment or housing or basic health or anything (even though they live in FUCKING NEW YORK)? They don't seem to have any of the massive problems that 90% of their audience are dealing with. Elliot's problems aren't systemic at all, he's only suffering from issues relating to the actions of one, single, solitary, immoral corporation.
This show is porky propaganda thinly disguised as an "anticapitalist" demonstration. I guarantee by the series finale elliot and his dipshit friends will have finally realized "oh wow, this revolution stuff sure is mean and doesn't it always wind up making some evil DICTATORSHIP anyway? i think it's about time we changed the system from the *inside* and have some real change! after all, isn't it about time we had a woman president?"
Yeah I'm not sure which one I prefer I love them both a lot and my opinion on which one is the best has changed over time. The classic Alien vs Aliens debate. Either way James Cameron should be forced at gunpoint to stop making Avatar 2, 3 and 4 and only be allowed to make sequels to sci-fi thrillers.
Same here. I remember when I first saw Alien, I had already seen Aliens (it was the first DVD I ever watched I believe) and felt Alien was boring (I was like 11 or 12 when I bought them so forgive me). Then when I got older, I began liking Alien more for the atmosphere and look and tension, but now I feel Aliens is better for the characters and excitement and capturing many of the same themes in a more exciting way. They're both two of the greatest films, my statements are only in relation to each other honestly. They're both better than 99.9999 percent of the dogshit shat out of Hollywood.
But Terminator and Terminator 2 are actually better sci fi films and better at themes of dehumanization and such anyway. And yeah James Cameron is a total piece of shit now. Makes nothing but special effects films with hamfisted, stupid messages that aren't even original. I despise him now.
Oh, fun lefty trivia, one of the many versions of Alien 3 that was shitcanned was a story about Ripley and Newt and Hicks running into fanatical socialists who would be the stand in for the bad capitalists of the first two films. From what I gathered, they'd be like Kim Stanley Robinsons Martian government if it were presented as evil and bad, so that would have just shot all the leftism of the franchise out of the airlock. The final film is terrible but at least it didn't have that.
Apparently, new album from him solo coming.
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The entire point of Season 1 is a cyberattack that destroys all records of debt owed to one of the biggest banks in the world of Mr Robot. You're right it doesn't quite get to the level of "actual anti-capitalist thought" and I fully expect some kind of mushy mouthed "truth is in the middle, extremes are bad, let's go back to 60s-70s America but more intersectional" ending, but there's a bit more to it than just "Evil Corp is uniquely bad, otherwise corporations are fine".
how the hell is this guy a leftist?
I mean look at him user, it's canon that he idolises Robin Hood who is like the most well known lefty in fictional history.
Also:
'In The Dark Knight Returns, Queen is portrayed as an anarchist, while in The Dark Knight Strikes Again he is explicitly described as a "billionaire turned Communist.'
'In the beginning of his career he has been portrayed as a thrill-seeker, fighting crime not for moral reasons but the sense of adventure. It wasn't until he lost his fortune that he developed his strong social conscience, and outspoken left-wing political viewpoints. This character development has made him much less egotistical in the way he deals with problems.'
This is written by Frank Miller right? This won't fly without a twitst.
Batman is literally a capitalist who saves the masses from "evil" people that tend to be people raised in poverty turned criminals or people with causes that aren't actually bad but are exaggerated in the stories. Frank Miller is basically a fascist.
The second source is from the Green Arrow wiki. In the comics Green Arrow generally does fight for common people which leads into the Robin Hood parallel. Apart from some parts of the first season the tv show has kind of abandoned his lefty roots but his comic incarnation has always shown him as a champion of ordinary folk. Frank Miller's description was probably intended to portray him in a negative light but Frank Miller is a fuck so it sounds good to me.
It was also written by a guy's whose idea of "communism" is anything from "fascism, but with more red" to "wanting free weed from the government" to "irrelevant shiting".