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lettuceLeafer wrote

Can someone explain this 2 me? I don't understand it

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kin wrote

Alan Moore gave us "The Watchmen" comics as a parody of how superheroes are actually a metaphor for Cop State and Fash apologia:

'They're watching out for us, who's watching out for them?'

And sadly one of the most cherished characters, Rorschach, is a misogynistic vigilante with fascist tendencies.

Now if this applies for every single one superhero comic I will leave room for you to think

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zoom_zip wrote

They're watching out for us, who's watching out for them?'

i think “who watches the watchmen is not “they’re watching out for us”, but “they are watching us, who is watching them?”

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kin wrote

Totally, thanks for the correction! ;)

I think I copied that from wikipedia, sometimes I get lost in translation (bc my english brain works like that)

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zoom_zip wrote (edited )

my interpretation (spoilers spoilers spoilers)

the guy who looks like a wizard is alan moore

alan moore wrote watchmen

watchmen is a superhero comic about how superheroes position themselves to act on behalf of a society but in doing so create a “moral” authority where they beat and imprison and kill those who go against their morals, but have carte blanche to enact horrors of their own:

the comedian: is a “hero” but also a rapist. he commits (repeatedly) the crimes that he moralises others not to commit

doctor manhattan: stops “villains” from killing civilians on united states soil, then goes—as a tool of the us government—to vietnam to slaughter civilians en masse.

ozymandias: believes himself ubermensch, smarter and more powerful than everyone else, and thus able to decide who should live and who should die—or more specifically, actively kills thousands of people for “the greater good”.

“who watches the watchmen” is a graffiti on the wall. it is using superheroes to contrast government/police. they are watching us; who is watching them. if we step out of line we are beaten, killed, imprisoned, more. but they are using their power to do the same thing to us and others while being twisted up into convincing themselves it is morally justified.

the book was a deconstruction of super heroes as tools of authoritarian power, not only as a parody, but as a way of reflecting on the presentation of other superheroes and how they are usually glorifying some moral value (see: captain america: government sponsored enforcer of the american dream).

problematically, like most good satire, it went right over the heads of the people it was deconstructing, who took it at face value and came to glorify it in the way it was mocking.

like rorschach, the “hero” who beats and kills anyone who is a criminal against his values. values which include kkk apologia, calling people “welfare cheats”, randian philosophy, etc. (basically the kind of libertarian proudboy-esque scum you see squirming out of the woodwork in the us) and instead of seeing how it mocked them, they glorified it and saw him as the “hero” he wasn’t. people actually read the book and thought rorschach was the best character and not the piece of shit he was portrayed as.

so where alan moore is saying “i warned you about superheroes” it’s because he showed the world how thinly-veiled fascist it is to glorify authoritarian power-figures, and yet more and more these heroes are being coopted by cops and government as propaganda, like the cops getting punisher tattoos and shit because that’s how they see themselves. as authoritarian heroes to enact punishment on anyone who doesn’t fit their moral paradigm.

edit: i imagine it is divisive amongst anarchists but you should probably read it just to make up your own opinion. it’s pretty good.

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nulloperation wrote

is the film any good?

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zoom_zip wrote

no

but it’s also not bad. it just suffers from not being a very good adaptation. it’s glossy and overly long, but it was a pastiche of the novel. it painted the iconography of the novel over a typical hollywood action film, and in doing so kind of sidestepped the point the novel was trying to make

i wouldn’t say don’t watch it though. it’s probably worth a watch at least once

the worst thing about it is that it’s just kind of boring

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mofongo wrote

I agree, my point of reference between both is Rorschach's night is kind to me speech. The novel made me feel both the horror and the bloodlust of the situation; the movie's changes made it lighter and easy to ignore that the last scene was evil vs evil and that saving the victim is a side effect not the goal.

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zoom_zip wrote

now that i think about it, it was obvious this was going to happen. they took the material about shining a light on how shitty superheroes are and gave it to the director who did justice league, batman v superman, man of steel, etc. (admittedly after watchmen) the dude obviously loves the cool factor of superheroes and that really came across in the film and undermined it.

i'm thinking of the prison scene where rorschach is like "i'm not trapped in here with you, you're trapped in here with me", and how many people i know think that is the coolest and most badass thing because the film sort of sanitised the fact that this was coming from a creepy, isolated, fascist psychopath, and had it come from the cool rule-breaking ultra-violent batman-a-like.

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lettuceLeafer wrote (edited )

ok makes sense

thank u for your time

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AnarcheAmor wrote

Don't forget all the "mass groups of people gain superpowers and that's a no-no" stories.

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edmund_the_destroyer wrote

This is mostly irrelevant, but I'm feeling chatty. One of the superhero Roleplaying Games I have, "Wild Talents", touches on this a bit. They have a section on superhero impacts on society, and point out that most comics assume that 99% of the world is no different with superheroes than ours is now. The super-soldier serum only works once, the magic ring can only be wielded by one hero and stops working if he uses it to do anything other than fight vampires, only one alien landed, the gadgeteer's tech only works for them, time travel can't change the default timeline.

But the book points out that it doesn't have to work that way. The super-soldier serum could be in every pharmacy, there are hundreds of rings that can be used for anything, aliens are everywhere, and the gadgeteer could sell self-driving cars that transform into boats, planes, plows, and harvesters in 1850, and time travel could be used to prevent the genocide of Native Americans or the African slave trade.

That sounds way, way more interesting to me anyway.

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AnarchoDoom wrote (edited )

I just loved the way The Boys (both the comics and the series) confirmed this so brilliantly. Alan Moore just didn't went anywhere this far in terms of nihilistic satire of fascism...

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