CMV
Paul Verhoeven excels at making flashy dystopian sci-fi flicks with subversive themes that fly right over the heads of American audiences. Like how Robocop is about a robot who is a cop who is also a robot and there is also a more different robot that makes pig noises. Nothing about privately-owned paramilitary police forces here, or juxtaposition of the OCP execs living in an ivory tower above the unwashed masses of a sacked and looted Detroit, no siree. Just a movie about robots and cops, and a few 1980s jokes.
Total Recall was basically an endorsement of proletarian revolution, but all anyone ever remembers is the chick with three boobs.
Watching that movie in high school, while I was in the army, after I got out, and after I became a communist has really shown to me how different my views have changed over the years.
Same with Generation Kill, which I highly recommend.
I'm torn on this. I love the movie as satire, and think it's hilarious, but I also see chuds unironically use it as fascist propoganda. Think that says more about satire as a genre than anything but still, doesn't sit right with me.
One measure of critical media is whether the target of the criticism can re-appropriate it as propaganda. Lots of fash show American History X with like 10 minutes edited out. Do any fash show The Producers?
The problem with limiting your satire to something like The Producers is that it has to be reactive in nature. It wasn't critical to fascism as an ideology, it made fun of Hitler specifically. If it was contemporary and Hitler was an issue it could be more biting, like in The Great Dictator.
Do you think anyone came out of it reflecting on militarism and the actions of the US during the cold war?
It's way too cloaked to be an effective piece of satire. It's funny if you already 'get it' but the majority of people who watch it just will straight up fly over their head. I'm not even talking about CHUDs, just regular people. It's almost subliminal winks. It's like David Lynch's Dune handing out pamphlets before the movie. If you can't explain the ideas within the film then how good is it really? Once you read all the references through guides like the Chapo episode or various articles, then you can understand how consistently the film portrays an imperialist fascist society through a heavily concealed propaganda film. It's all there, and it's clear the film is about that- but only if you do research before or after.
In a way it's kinda elitist. You only get it if you are enlightened/educated enough to get it. If the idea of satire is to heighten real life ideologies to expose the hypocrisies or faults, this works, but it's also about audience and spreading the message. It's a bit circle jerky.
If I remember the film correctly, the anti-fascism message is unevenly lumped all at the start and is kind of minimized after the first act. It needed to be reinforced more throughout the film. When I watched it as a kid I did not pick up on the anti-fascism and only absorbed an anti-military anti-war message.
To be fair, you have to have a high IQ to understand Starship Troopers
I dunno, "SERVICE GUARANTEES CITIZENSHIP" was a pretty blatant call-out. It's not Verhoeven's fault if Americans have a blind spot for this shit because action movie go pew pew. Also, if a bunch of blonde, blue-eyed hwites living in Buenos Aires doesn't trip something in your brain, then I don't know what to tell you.
NPH walks in to the set in an SS uniform while they're having a funeral for a soldier with a green nazi flag on it.
It could not be any more blatant. It literally slaps you in the face.
Here's a video from some random losers
spoiler
I get this is a reference to the film but also anyone else who legit wants to know more, there you go
