On Political Correctness Propaganda Movies

Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself. The masses have to be won by propaganda.  —Hannah Arendt

When I go back to America, after a few days I am once again filled with this kind of angry alienation and disgust with this thing there that America has got—you have no idea how pervasive it is there. The public relations and propaganda put out by the corporate monoculture there is so pervasive.  —R. Crumb

As soon as by one’s own propaganda even a glimpse of right on the other side is admitted, the cause for doubting one’s own right is laid.  —Adolf Hitler

     One of my favorite political controversies over the past few weeks has been the mild uproar concerning the new Marvel comic book movie Captain Marvel. The controversy began after the movie’s star, Brie “Cheese” Larson, made derogatory public remarks about white males, referred to the upcoming Marvel movie as feminist in nature, and stated that her acting is her activism—namely, dour intersectional feminist social justice activism. Consequently, many fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), a great many of whom are nerdy gamer types who despise political correctness and like Pepe memes, began prophesying that the new Captain Marvel movie was going to be yet another case of Hollywood leftists destroying a film franchise by using it as social justice propaganda to shove down the throats of its viewers. The fact that the movie’s screenplay was written by known feminists added to the likelihood of the veritas of this prophecy.

     The next stage in this skirmish of the resurgent Culture War involved YouTubers warning their viewers that Captain Marvel was likely to be politically correct garbage produced by progressive shills; and so many people, including, no doubt, anti-SJW brigades, resorted to the film criticism site Rotten Tomatoes to indicate that they had little if any desire to watch the new movie when it was eventually released. At this point Disney, Inc., the current overlords of the MCU, prompted their minion Rotten Tomatoes to eliminate the “Want to Watch” statistics that were down in the dismal 20s (that is, less than 30% of the people responding indicated that they wanted to watch the film). Also, YouTube modified its search algorithm specifically to cause YouTuber critiques of Larson and the movie to fall below corporate “access media” articles on these two controversial subjects. (“Access media,” by the way, indicates that film critics from these media are obligated to give films positive reviews in order not to have their special privileges of free, pre-release viewings revoked.) Thus even before the movie was released, already there was some outcry over the expected politically correct contamination of the MCU, followed by shady maneuvers on the part of “the Establishment” to subvert this outcry, followed by even more outcry over the obvious shady maneuvers perpetrated by Disney, et al.

     Then the movie finally appeared in movie theaters—in fact it appeared in record numbers of movie theaters all over the world, partly as another strategic move on the part of Disney to ensure that the opening weekend would rake in as much money as possible, partly for the purpose, no doubt, of refuting the predictions that Captain Marvel would be a disappointing flop like the all-female Ghostbusters movie, or the last two Star Wars movies. But Disney’s machinations were not yet over: Shortly after the movie appeared in theaters and reviews were being posted on Rotten Tomatoes, although the shill—eh, I mean the professional critics were giving it rave reviews, the audience reviews were in the low 30s…until tens of thousands of audience reviews suddenly disappeared from the aggregate, boosting the score. This was pretty obviously done to remove mass negative reviews, some left by trolls; although it was painfully obvious that positive counter-trolls were also review-bombing the site with 100% ratings and very positive reviews…which of course were not removed. Many of the positive reviews were verbatim exactly the same review, posted over and over again by sock accounts or bots.

     But the strategic maneuvers did not end here. It is now appearing that Disney was so determined that Captain Marvel not be a box office bomb that they evidently bought hundreds of advance tickets in various theaters, hundreds per venue, to their own movie, causing lots of empty seats at theaters that were officially sold out. The reviews of this film are more polarized than are those of any other Marvel film, with abnormal numbers of maximum ratings as well as minimum ones—progressive feminist types raved over it, and of course the anti-SJW MCU geek fanboys hated it, with objective, responsible reviewers tending to consider the film to be uninspired and mediocre. It is considered by many to be the worst Marvel movie thus far.

     Naturally, the establishment shill— em, critics have implied that all negative reviews of the movie are by misogynists who are vehemently, evilly opposed to any movie featuring a strong female hero (even to call her a “heroine” might be denounced as sexist nowadays—in fact a female character in the movie threatens to kick a man’s ass for the offense of calling her “young lady”). But this accusation of sexism is manifestly false, considering that Wonder Woman, and even more recently, Alita: Battle Angel, were very enthusiastically approved by these same geeky fanboys who hate Captain Marvel. Let alone Emma Peel, Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, Trinity, Imperator Furiosa, and countless other badass female heroes in movie history that have become cultural icons.

     So, that’s the controversy in a nutshell. I haven’t seen the film, and have no desire even to watch the trailer. I wouldn’t want to watch it even if it were pirated for me. Similarly, I didn’t see the feminist Ghostbusters movie or the feminist Star Wars sequels either. Those of you familiar with this blog probably perceived some time ago that I have little use for politically correct social propaganda; and the prophecies of the Pepe-liking fanboy gamer YouTubers were apparently truly inspired. The movie was written by feminists with an agenda and is, by multiple accounts, an intersectional feminist propaganda movie. Men are the enemy, or are portrayed as mentally if not physically inferior to the empowered female role models. A moral of the film, based on multiple reviews that I have seen, is that men hold women down, and women don’t need men at all. Especially white ones. In other words, it’s exactly what one would expect from a politically correct feminist propaganda movie.

     So now the fanboys are lamenting that, like the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises, the MCU is being ruined by gratuitous in-your-face feminism and “progressive” identity politics in general. This is apparently another movie in which, as with the notorious Soylo, a feminist, progressive agenda took precedence over actually telling a compelling story and creating a good movie. Bad politics trumped mediocre art.

     But it seems manifest to me that Captain Marvel isn’t unpopular just because it’s a social justice propaganda movie—it’s unpopular because it’s so obviously, blatantly one. Let’s face it: almost all movies coming out of Hollywood over the past several years have incorporated political correctness propaganda. It’s practically mandatory now, to give one example, for any action movie to have at least one young, pretty, totally fearless, badass female who can easily beat up entire rooms full of hardened male criminals (or space aliens, or zombies) without messing up her hair. It’s essentially a fantasy, a fairy tale, since women like this don’t exist in empirical reality, but no matter. They are required in the movies for the sake of the feminist ideal of women being exactly equal to men in every respect, if not downright superior. The pervasiveness of progressive propaganda in movies is just becoming more obvious now, because “woke” people in Hollywood are pushing it more and more relentlessly. Lately it may even be in desperation to some degree, as the moral authority of the entertainment industry, and mass media in general, is justifiably taking some major hits.

     (Hollywood is now a fetid hotbed for far leftist ideologues, much as it was in the 1940s and 50s, where it was the fashion to be starry-eyed fanboys and groupies for Stalinism, and then, after “Uncle Joe’s” genocidal atrocities became too much of an embarrassment, for Maoism. Exactly why Hollywood favors Marxism and neo-Marxism is a question I won’t sully myself with here.)

     I’ve written elsewhere about the phenomenon of badass shapely young females in action movies (and may write more on that topic in future, as it is admittedly very interesting). They’re not even tough-looking “butch” types (if you’ll pardon the French), but are hotties, with even the female military commandos going into battle with makeup on, accentuating their beauty. They have to look sexually attractive to men, even if they hate men.

     Any number of examples could be given to illustrate this odd feministic phenomenon; hundreds of thousands of words could be expended in compiling even a very partial account. One very convenient example, though, would be Alita: Battle Angel. This movie was disliked by many of the more extremely “woke” feminists, presumably because Alita, although utterly fearless and by far the strongest character in the story, in spirit as well as in body, nevertheless behaved like a normal teenage girl much of the time, and even had a crush on a boy. The boy was inferior to her in pretty much every respect, but still, she failed to champion the feminist ideal of women not needing a man AT ALL. (Wonder Woman also, incidentally, failed to satisfy the gender studies majors by being too appealing to heterosexual males, and by also falling in love with a white man.) I did see Alita: Battle Angel and consider it to be a good movie, despite the inevitable PC signaling. At least she had as an excuse for being an utterly fearless, invincible warrior the fact that she was a specially designed battle cyborg. (Similarly, Wonder Woman has the excuse of being literally a demigoddess.) I thought it was nice that, in some respects anyway, Alita was still normal enough to have a crush on a cute guy. She wanted to be an ordinary human girl. But ordinary human girls aren’t empowered and independent enough to suit the feminists.

     Yet even Alita: Battle Angel was liked by the geeky un-woke heterosexual males and not denounced as propaganda. Most of these movies aren’t denounced.

     The progressive messages are not restricted to superior females. They can involve just about any superior individual who isn’t a white male. For example, many science fiction movies—not just a few, but really quite a lot—portray the world’s greatest scientist or computer genius as a black person. This may not seem outrageous, but I would guess that the number of people of sub-Saharan African descent who are the greatest scientist or computer expert in the world are at least as rare as the number of beautiful young women who fearlessly defeat entire hordes of lethal enemies in hand-to-hand combat. One example that really sticks out is the teenage, pigtail-wearing Wakandan girl in the movie Avengers: Infinity War, who effortlessly outsmarts the white male computer experts who’ve been the best computer experts since before she was born.

     Nevertheless, the American entertainment industry hasn’t gone quite as insane as the British, who have begun portraying even medieval English historical figures as black, primarily for the sake of not hurting the feelings of Jamaicans and Nigerians who had virtually zero role in creating British history before the 20th century, and very little even afterwards. About as far as the Americans are inclined to go in that regard, aside from the computer geniuses, is portraying Heimdall and at least one Valkyrie as black in the third Thor movie. It appears that Asgard, home of the Norse gods, is progressive and multicultural.

     The villains, of course, are still predominantly white and male, although female villains may be on the increase, I suppose mainly to demonstrate that men can’t outdo women with regard to being a ruthless and very dangerous mastermind.

     There are plenty of other forms of propagandism inoculated into movies as well, such as the misguided decision not to show Neil Armstrong planting the American flag on the moon in the recent film First Man. The progressive, globalist director of the movie was so opposed to nationalism, and so averse to glorifying the patriarchal, imperialist USA, that he was willing to alienate and disgust patriotic Americans and kiss off tens of millions more dollars that the movie otherwise would almost certainly have made. Legend has it that he was even considering replacing the US flag with the flag of the UN, in humble, unhistorical homage to globalism. (I may as well toss in here the fact that another movie on the space race, 2016’s Hidden Figures, also stirred up controversy by allegedly grossly exaggerating the importance of some black female mathematicians who worked for NASA.) The evils of capitalism and the existential threat of climate change are also fairly common dramatic themes. Hell, even the woke Captain Marvel allegedly turned the villainous aliens called Skrulls into a metaphor for sadly misunderstood “undocumented immigrants”—shouldn’t call them illegal aliens because that might be offensive. But I suppose ranting about reverse sexism and reverse racism in postmodern cinema is enough. That’s mainly what got me writing this thing in the first place, with Brie Larson and Captain Feminism.

     Social justice propaganda themes in western cinematography have become so ubiquitous that hardly anyone notices much of it at a conscious level—which of course is the point of propaganda. Media manipulation of the Overton window is taking place on an industrial scale, and most people don’t even notice that their very thoughts and beliefs are being manipulated by extremely rich Jewish guys in southern California, assisted by cultural Marxist actors and actresses whose acting is their activism, with most of the leaders in the industry being morally degenerate, going with non-progressive traditional standards. People in the entertainment industry have been notorious for depravity for literally millennia, so it is really ironic that now they have set themselves up as moral guides to the masses.

     Don’t get me wrong with all this: Some of my favorite movies contain progressive propaganda. The Matrix is one of my favorite movies of all time, with, nevertheless, the now-obligatory ass-kicking young attractive female and the almost obligatory black authority figures (as well as the white male villain). Also, creating dramatic works conveying social messages is quite appropriate, and arguably better than simply mass-producing superficial escapist pablum. The main point I’m trying to make is that political correctness propaganda in particular is so ubiquitous now, not only in movies but in advertisements, the news media, the educational system, and everywhere else, that most of it goes unnoticed. Also, almost all of the propaganda coming out of Hollywood is promulgating leftist and globalist ideas. Only the more outrageous, over-the-top attempts evoke indignation from the sheeplike masses who would like to think that they actually think for themselves, and aren’t led by the nose by a Machiavellian establishment that, unlike a traditional Marxist one, is commercial as well as governmental.

     The good news is that people are finally starting to wake up. Not only that, but many of them lately are having red pills for breakfast, and are becoming sensitized to the standard underhanded methods the media and the government employ to keep us all hypnotized and under control. Now at least the more blatant attempts at “woke” propaganda are losing money; or in cases like Captain Marvel, in which a relentless onslaught of hype, plus shady maneuvering, plus the past reputation of Marvel to rely on, pretty much ensures that plenty of money will be made from it, nevertheless, people are getting fed up with it. Now Marvel may go the route of Star Wars with its feminist writers running the franchise into the ground with their social justice propaganda, which is going out of fashion, and at an accelerating rate.

     

     

It's been around for a long time really