this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2024
88 points (98.9% liked)
askchapo
22652 readers
346 users here now
Ask Hexbear is the place to ask and answer ~~thought-provoking~~ questions.
Rules:
-
Posts must ask a question.
-
If the question asked is serious, answer seriously.
-
Questions where you want to learn more about socialism are allowed, but questions in bad faith are not.
-
Try [email protected] if you're having questions about regarding moderation, site policy, the site itself, development, volunteering or the mod team.
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I've grown more and more to hate "mass mind control" type story beats, especially when the main character(s) are immune to it because they're 'special'.
Like, whenever there's some kind of special frequency sound or TV image or whatever, that being exposed to turns people completely into automatons... basically the notion that human will can be completely stripped away, that 'the plebs' have no real autonomy and can be easily hypnotized, by special scifi contrivance in fiction or by '''charismatic leaders''' IRL, which is a cornerstone of the liberal non-understanding of the history of both fascism and socialism. Hitler was just an extremely charismatic speaker who made everyone turn evil for no reason and definitely not for the financial benefit of the capitalist class, and the people who lived under communism didn't rebel because they were just brainwashed into accepting their (what must have been) obviously miserable conditions.
The main example I'm thinking of is the first Kingsman film, which has a lot of other reactionary brainworms too, but the idea of a sound that turns everyone into uncontrolled rage zombies that attack anyone they see for no reason, and the villain is a billionaire who wants to reduce the human population so only his fellow billionaires and 'elites' will repopulate the Earth - and the only person who can stop him is an avatar of the most ludicrous 'British gentleman' lifestyle, as if the Tory peers that would undoubtedly make up this organization, not to mention the fucking royal family, wouldn't be the first people into the billionaire bunker.
Thinking more about it, it's pure projection - only the US ever engaged in MK Ultra 'mind controlled supersoldier' stuff, and in fact real mind control would be able to create the greatest possible capitalist dream: workers that work to their absolute limit and never complain or fight back. Capitalist media's projection of it onto their enemies is the most like, Freudian-libidinal morbid fascination type shit.
I can't understand how anyone remotely progressive actually liked Kingsman for the reasons you listed. It also just reeks of traditionalist masculinity, especially with the princess at the end 🤢. The only redeeming quality is the villain's silliness and Samuel Jackson's performance in that role.