Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself. Even those who would critique capital end up reinforcing it instead.
Disco Elysium
Why is this the case? Why is it so readily able to subsume critique?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recuperation_(politics)
Some former means of countercultural expression that have been identified by critics as recuperated (at least in part) are: punk music and fashion like mohawk hairdos, ripped jeans, and bondage accessories like dog collars; tattoos; street art and participatory art.
(You know, like Paul Ryan liking Rage Against the Machine.)
Because Capitalism is built to sell anything, even ideas.
Do you remember Reddit’s Random Acts of Pizza from around 2010-2012 or so?
https://abcnews.go.com/US/random-acts-pizza-donate/story?id=13950694 (This story is from June 2011)
It was a really sweet forum where people were buying hungry folks in need a pizza. Something simple and comforting for people struggling.
Within a year of a handful of news articles about the subreddit, and Mars Candy had copyrighted the phrase “Random Acts of Chocolate” and pushed an ad campaign about “buying an extra for a friend” as a “random act of chocolate.”
https://www.cspdailynews.com/snacks-candy/mars-distributing-random-acts-chocolate (This is from September 2011)
https://www.thismomneedswine.com/2011/03/free-chocolate-bar.html (A blog post from March 2011 about free coupons for chocolate)
Part of how they recuperate things is through mechanisms like copyright and trademarks, these laws are built protect businesses but bind individuals. Random Acts of Pizza is just a subreddit but Random Acts of Chocolate is copyrighted, trademarked, and owned by Mars, Inc. Meaning in some ways I am barred from using the phrase “Random Acts of Chocolate” since they own it.
EDIT:
I almost forgot my favorite example: Naomi Klein’s book “This Changes Everything.” The thesis is that if we don’t dump capitalistic modes of production we’ll all fall to climate change. However, she still relied on traditional capitalist publishers to get her book published and sold. She didn’t put her money where her mouth was and release it online for free for everyone, to show she was willing to dump capitalism to spread her message, since it was that important. Nope, still gotta use capitalism to critique capitalism, I guess. She also will speak at your university for a cool $100k. I think she believes in her thesis less than she says she does.
You can enjoy TV shows and movies while knowing ACAB is the truth.
Really depends. Cops shows are really off putting to me. Marvel is kinda OK; not a fan, but it’s so over the top that I can abstract from the propaganda.
thats where it gets ya if you are not keen eyed for their tricks
For me now I think of it like a marvel movie.
This cop not shooting anyone is just like a man with superpowers swinging through the city on sci fi ropes.
It’s nice to imagine.
Even if you know it, they still worm their way into your head as surely as Barry Manilow’s TV commercial jingles.
ACAB is false though? At least it’s a one-dimensional analysis of reality.
At least it’s a one-dimensional analysis of reality.
This is a non thought. Meaningless drivel.
You don’t get it… its super
It’s just innocuous entertainment.
Listening to the Super Earth Anthem doesn’t make me want to drop a 380mm barrage over everything the Illuminate hold dear, or anything…
Only some of us have the strength and the courage to be free!
I like the myth of the police, not actual cops, I like Simon Pegg in Hot Fuzz, actual cops can suck a nard
Reno 911
“But they’re just TV shows” “it’s not that deep” etc. I would implore you to listen to this excellent episode of Citations Needed..
It covers how modern cop shows were invented directly to counter shows that portrayed defence lawyers as the protagonists, along with a general push to lionize the police state despite its inability to prevent crime or deliver real justice.
Removed by mod
Is grammar police also ACAB? Lol
forgot call of duty
Yes, master
Maybe once upon a time, but the current state it is in is definitely not military propaganda.
Why?
It has stupid ass anime skins, and bullshit scenarios, and in Cold War, you can have the communists win.
Bro thinks Startship Troopers is actual army propaganda.
You don’t copy Leni Riefenstahl without making at least partly a fascist propaganda movie.
When I first watched that movie, there was a group of guys that would have joined the troopers, judging from at what scenes they cheered.
The book was so on point people still argue if it was pro or anti fascism.
You can start my ship any time
Didn’t captain America literally become a fugitive of the state
He threw a tantrum because he didn’t want public oversight over his and his friend’s superpowers.
It was basically a “You’re a loose canon, McBain” cop storyline.
You mean the solider who saw what happens when a list of everyone who is considered “other” is ordered and maintained by a government? All because, Tony “I am a gift to God” Stark and Bruce “Couldn’t Say No” Banner created a nigh unstoppable police force with no oversight?
IMO, you’re not wrong, but Magneto is the better portrayal.
Magneto was right all along about the persecution of mutants. Tony Stark and Captain America disagreed on a “who watches the Watchmen” level in the movies.
Stark thought that heroes had too much power to act without the approval of some higher authority, and the Captain believed that they should be able to act when and where they could without needing permission in order to do the most good. Magneto looked at the number he had tattooed on his wrist as a child in the camps and said, “Never again.”
But super hero movies have no subtlety!!!
Tony also had the issue that he felt guilty over his failed plan to protect the world that was pretty authoritarian.
I don’t think cap would have been against all oversight, but the one presented was very narrow minded and slow to act until more drastic decisions had to be made, like nuking New York.
Magneto looked at the number he had tattooed on his wrist as a child in the camps and said, “Never again.”
Magneto is one of the posterboys of the swerve.
I don’t understand your comment.
Captain America was alive for WWII
Germany created a registry for certain people and it didn’t end well for said people
Wow… is that your full understanding of Nazi Germany?
The so-called US also created “a registry” for certain people, which inspired Germany for their Nurenberg race-laws.
Captain America was fighting for the US while Jim Crow was active. He probably went to school with people who found Hitler’s ideas great.
It’s far from my only understanding of it, it’s just the first thing that comes to mind for what might make him averse to a list of “others” being created
He probably would have also seen what happened with the US’s registry of Japanese people, which didn’t go great for them either
I think you’re confusing the avengers with the x men storylines.
In civil war, Cap refused to have an accountability program for the avengers because he had the hots for Bucky.
TIL cops are the same thing as jews in the holocaust because their departments have a payroll
.world
Copaganda
Crazy how much of this stuff is subsidized by or directly financed by the national security state. The most infamous, in my memory anyway, was the Transformers Franchise which got enormous access to US military staff and equipment during the shooting. The end result was a movie that felt more like one of those hookey 80s “Join the Marines” ads than a piece of action cinema.
At least the newer Transformers films are better in that regard, with the latest film not having anything to do with it. Then again I heard they are doing a Transformers x GI Joe film.
Double Woof.
But yes, a lot of this just comes down to who will pay to finance the film. If Raytheon or the US Marines is willing to pick up a big chunk of the production costs, you’re going to keep seeing them in the producer credits and “Special Thanks To” sections.
I kinda get it though…it’s not like these armed forces are producing the movie themselves.
The studio wants to make a movie about/involving these entities. They want it to be as realistic as possible and the entity itself has the authority to give them access that it could also deny.
If you’re in charge of, say, the Marines PR department, you’re constantly trying to make the Corps look good and boost recruitment. If you can do this for next to nothing against your budget by granting access to a studio making a film that will give you essentially free PR, that’s a great move. The bigger the movies potential, the more the entity in question is motivated to support it.
On the other hand, if the film is going to make your organization look bad, no PR person with a functioning brain is going to help that project in any way.
Idunno, I feel like these organizations do enough actually bad things, that I don’t feel the urge to crucify them for cultivating image and working to generate positive PR.
The studio wants to make a movie about/involving these entities.
Studios want cheap special effects budgets and the MIC wants cheap labor. So you get what amounts to a promotional video for branches of the service, paid for out of the operating budgets of these agencies.
Idunno, I feel like these organizations do enough actually bad things, that I don’t feel the urge to crucify them for cultivating image and working to generate positive PR.
I think a big part of the “doing bad things” process is facilitated by whitewashing our activities in Kandahar or Fallujah with “We’re just cool dudes fighting big monsters” action movie propaganda. Is Transformers as egregious as Rambo II or American Sniper? Not strictly. But its geared towards a younger audience, so it can’t do the same kind of blood-drenched jingoism in that way.
I would consider gulling 12-year-olds into aspiring to become conscript killers for the oil & gas industry overseas pretty fucking bad, though.
Legally, access to government resources shouldn’t depend on how you portray the government
Legally it’s totally okay, actually.
I know this is all very unpopular opinion here on Lemmy, but it’s fact.
The cop dramas are often like modern fantasy to me. There’s different classes and quests. It doesn’t reflect real life.
We’re more aware of it now. Cop shows have always been about cops willing to break the rules, and they are made the heroes. This gave a whole generation an excuse to look at dirty cops as heroes doing what they needed to do
“Which propaganda?”
“Exactly what I’m talking about!”deleted by creator
NGL CSI was my shit growing up. Though I was never deluded into believing that accurately reflected reality to any extent. ACAB
I “love” when a show like Law and Order has a scene where the cops go to arrest somebody who is later proven to be innocent, and it’s always at their workplace, or a busy family function, or a restaurant. The cops proceed to loudly accuse the person of the heinous crime right in front of their friends/family/neighbors/coworkers.
Then later on, the actual perp is arrested and no mention is made again of the innocent person they practically eviscerated in public or in front of their loved ones.
It’s like these shows exist to subliminally train you to passively accept cops treating you like shit, even if you’re innocent.
They shouldn’t have just been living their lives like that.
The nerve of these people
blue bloods is the most offensive one
Honestly I’m more offended people made a big deal about COPS! getting cancelled only to be replaced with Live PD, which doesn’t have a team filming them but rather just works off all the body camera footage. Worse than COPS ever was.
“Live” pd had a camera crew, they also use dash cam and body cam footage. That’s kind of the point of the “live” pd name, a crew following and filming them for the majority of it. They did use a delay and would clearly end or cutaway from stuff but its successor on patrol “live” has definitely shown police doing dumb shit and has caused some departments to pull out of being on the show.
There’s other shows and I forgot the name that would just do re-enactments of calls and responses and some that only use body cam / dash cam footage.
Thanks for the clearer details. I would never actually willingly watch such drivel, so I do appreciate being corrected on that.
I definitely understand anyone who won’t watch it and I won’t cry when it goes off the air. It’s a guilty pleasure of mine because one of the areas that’s commonly on it is near where I used to work as a firefighter. So it’s kinda neat seeing some of the ppl I used to interact with in a negative or positive light 🤷
That’s fair, I actually heard that they recently started doing my first college’s town regularly, and it made me wonder about some folks I used to know there.
My ex really liked that show, mostly the main guy. Could you elaborate a bit, e.g. plot, characters etc, if it’s no trouble?
it’s a show that hits all the usual conservative copaganda talking points. cops are good. bad guys are bad. innocent people will be fine as long as they comply. then consider how often a “good” character is white and a “bad” character is black, and a disconcerting pattern starts to arise. the show is outright cop apologia
New kid on the block always flew off the handle and went with his gut feeling. He was constantly using excessive force and beating up suspects. Even when it seemed like he went to far they would ultimately find out that whoever he beat up was a “piece of shit criminal” and they deserved it. The sister who was a DA and tried to get them to follow the rules was played as a bleeding heart liberal, and would get herself or others in trouble from being too soft on crime. She was also portrayed as a “ball busting bitch” with a chip on her shoulder. Grandpa was a racist fuck that everyone justified as that’s just grandpa, he’s from a different time.
Was your impression that the DA sister was a liberal? She was always doing her part to put people in jail, just didn’t tolerate the police cutting corners. She always put her family first as well, corrupt as hell.
She was what conservatives think bleeding hearts are. Also liberals put people in jail all of the time, look at Kamala’s history.
I wouldn’t call Kamala a liberal either. The actual liberal in the show seemed to the DA’s daughter.
I really hated that episode of Skip Intro’s copaganda because it was just so well argued… it’s a really good episode but man does it get my blood boiling!
I vaguely remember being somewhat shocked at what Chicago PD has the “good guys” do and justifying it.
yeah Chicago PD is also notably gross, especially when you consider how much real life violence occurs in the city as a direct result of police antagonism.
It’s a shame the show is such a good concept. I loved watching what was essentially an every day look into this police dynasty but boy did it get unbearably boot licky over time. The old man telling his stories of how he used to not give a fuck as an old cop from the 60s was always funny (and explains how the family has always been this “privileged” strata).
there’s a world where better writers make something better with it. as it stands it’s either overtly racist, or as tone deaf as saying “i don’t see color”
