Sure, but the USA is the only country where capitalism is the official state religion, and where reasonable regulations are seen as an attack on personal liberties (since it’s also the only country that considers companies people… and real people a resource to be owned and consumed).
Funny side note. Gene Roddenbury wrote the Ferengi alien race into the Deep Space 9 series to be the bad guys. Ultra capitalists, which had some… odd parrelels with judaism on top of the hyper capitsim. Women being unable to participate in business and being held as second class citiziens who werent allowed to wear clothes and were generally held as lesser is a good example.
Sounds good on paper in the writing room, but they didnt catch on as bad guys in the US market and were moved to a comedy role, and new bad guys were introduced. Americans just couldnt see oppresive capitalists as villains. There was some pushback in the form of some groups calling the portrayal of Ferengi as an innately antisemitic construct, but no one ever said they were jewish or modeled after judaism, so thats awkward.
In a similar example, the writer of the Watchmen comic series wrote Rorschach to mock the fascist elements of American politics, and the character was intended to be mocked and pittied. American audiences adored Rorschach and he unexpectedly became the fan favorite and most discussed character by a fair margin. His black and white thinking and unwillingness to “sell out” no matter the cost --even when the cost was armageddon --came across as deeply principled … to American audiences.
makes you wonder what the character of American people even is. We are fused with capitalism.
Seriously, Moore did everything possible to portray Kovacs (especially Kovacs after he stopped wearing the mask and he became the mask as someone extremely_damaged_, and who was very unlikable as a person.
He was rude, he was homeless or close to it, he broke into the home of the only friend he had left, stole his beans, and ate them cold directly from the can, he spent his days wandering the streets with a “the end is nigh” sign and his nights beating up petty criminals into the hospital or early graves, he read some far right pamphlet of which he probably was a significant percentage of the readership… if I had to compare him to some other character in media the first to come to mind is Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle.
Moore gave him a tragic past, sure, but that was supposed to explain Rorschach, not to justify him… but a lot of readers read it as such.
The scene where Silk Spectre II and Night Owl II reminisce about the past and laugh at how Rorschach threw some pervert who liked being beaten up by suits down an elevator shaft isn’t supposed to be humorous, it’s supposed to show (like the whole Comedian character and story, or the whole book, really) how the rest of the watchmen aren’t really good either… but for a lot of readers it humanised him.
His “badass” one-liners show how despite his damage he’s still capable of quick wit and reasoning, how he’s still responsible for his actions. And in the prison scenes how he’s as deserving of being locked in there as any other inmate, if not more. But for a lot of readers they just make him a badass action hero.
Same with V in V for Vendetta; while charming (in a significantly unsettling way), he’s a self admitted monster, created by monsters. He’s what’s left of the man they murdered, animated only by his desire for vengeance.
He doesn’t care about freeing England, or about justice, or anything like that. He cares only for vengeance and while he tries to leave a successor to carry on after he’s done, by torturing Evie like he was tortured he isn’t freeing her, he’s just perpetuating the cycle of abuse.
There are no heroes left in Norsefire’s England, yet readers see him as a hero, a liberator, a freedom fighter.
Moore always expected too much of his readers, and we always let him down.
No wonder he ended up secluding himself from society and becoming a wizard.
Sure, but the USA is the only country where capitalism is the official state religion, and where reasonable regulations are seen as an attack on personal liberties (since it’s also the only country that considers companies people… and real people a resource to be owned and consumed).
Funny side note. Gene Roddenbury wrote the Ferengi alien race into the Deep Space 9 series to be the bad guys. Ultra capitalists, which had some… odd parrelels with judaism on top of the hyper capitsim. Women being unable to participate in business and being held as second class citiziens who werent allowed to wear clothes and were generally held as lesser is a good example. Sounds good on paper in the writing room, but they didnt catch on as bad guys in the US market and were moved to a comedy role, and new bad guys were introduced. Americans just couldnt see oppresive capitalists as villains. There was some pushback in the form of some groups calling the portrayal of Ferengi as an innately antisemitic construct, but no one ever said they were jewish or modeled after judaism, so thats awkward.
In a similar example, the writer of the Watchmen comic series wrote Rorschach to mock the fascist elements of American politics, and the character was intended to be mocked and pittied. American audiences adored Rorschach and he unexpectedly became the fan favorite and most discussed character by a fair margin. His black and white thinking and unwillingness to “sell out” no matter the cost --even when the cost was armageddon --came across as deeply principled … to American audiences.
makes you wonder what the character of American people even is. We are fused with capitalism.
Seriously, Moore did everything possible to portray Kovacs (especially Kovacs after he stopped wearing the mask and he became the mask as someone extremely_damaged_, and who was very unlikable as a person.
He was rude, he was homeless or close to it, he broke into the home of the only friend he had left, stole his beans, and ate them cold directly from the can, he spent his days wandering the streets with a “the end is nigh” sign and his nights beating up petty criminals into the hospital or early graves, he read some far right pamphlet of which he probably was a significant percentage of the readership… if I had to compare him to some other character in media the first to come to mind is Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle.
Moore gave him a tragic past, sure, but that was supposed to explain Rorschach, not to justify him… but a lot of readers read it as such.
The scene where Silk Spectre II and Night Owl II reminisce about the past and laugh at how Rorschach threw some pervert who liked being beaten up by suits down an elevator shaft isn’t supposed to be humorous, it’s supposed to show (like the whole Comedian character and story, or the whole book, really) how the rest of the watchmen aren’t really good either… but for a lot of readers it humanised him.
His “badass” one-liners show how despite his damage he’s still capable of quick wit and reasoning, how he’s still responsible for his actions. And in the prison scenes how he’s as deserving of being locked in there as any other inmate, if not more. But for a lot of readers they just make him a badass action hero.
Same with V in V for Vendetta; while charming (in a significantly unsettling way), he’s a self admitted monster, created by monsters. He’s what’s left of the man they murdered, animated only by his desire for vengeance.
He doesn’t care about freeing England, or about justice, or anything like that. He cares only for vengeance and while he tries to leave a successor to carry on after he’s done, by torturing Evie like he was tortured he isn’t freeing her, he’s just perpetuating the cycle of abuse.
There are no heroes left in Norsefire’s England, yet readers see him as a hero, a liberator, a freedom fighter.
Moore always expected too much of his readers, and we always let him down.
No wonder he ended up secluding himself from society and becoming a wizard.
It’s the state religion in every way but official
Didn’t Trump just declare being against capitalism (as well as being against fascism) heresy, I mean, terrorism?
Sounds pretty official to me…