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submitted 9 months ago by wombat@hexbear.net to c/movies@hexbear.net

Been awhile since we've done this thread, and it's always fun. Here are some of my picks:

  • The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) is really bad. Will Smith's inspirational moment is going to the New York Stock Exchange and seeing all the happy rich guys in suits walking around, and wanting to be like them. Having to do stuff like brown-nose executives, sleep in train station bathrooms and pull his son out of daycare due to lack of money are presented not as flaws of the system but evidence of Smith's smart bootstraps-oriented thinking. This movie is the Mein Kampf of liberalism.

  • Air (2023) is really bad too. Literally a feature-length Nike commercial coupled with a fuckton of Michael Jordan worship, the message being that a bunch of rich guys deserved to get even richer because they signed a sneaker deal. The closing 5 minutes of the movie are a "where are they now" montage showing how much money all the Nike executives made, yay!

  • Anastasia (1997), which portrays the Russian Revolution as the result of a wizard's curse and communism as bad because it got in the way of the Romanovs living in big palaces and wearing fancy dresses.

  • The Post (2017), about a wealthy, heroic girlboss newspaper executive who makes the heroic decision to...uhh...not block the publication of a story that would expose the lies of a corrupt president threatening our democracy (take THAT drumpf)

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[-] anarchoilluminati@hexbear.net 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I never quite said state-mandated poverty is the way. I said ill-gotten treats aren't deserved.

And this is straying from movie, but I don't quite agree that we should just welcome back whichever capitalist for the sake of 'getting more on our side' or whatever. There are those who might side with us eventually and mean it genuinely and we need to figure out how to work with them, but my point is precisely that I don't think the protagonist quite got rid of his capitalist ideology and desires—as symbolized by his treats. It's not quite so much the treats themselves as what they symbolize, and to me it looks like he is one who could betray a revolution to keep his treats.

No one should have to live in their uncle's garage, but if we're talking about reactionaries who say they're on our side while being a high risk of turning counterrevolutionary then, sorry, but treats aren't the solution to that problem.

But we've digressed from the film.

[-] 420blazeit69@hexbear.net 2 points 9 months ago

But we've digressed from the film.

Haha has to happen a lot when you're talking allegory, right?

In-movie, I can see it the way you describe (he hasn't fully shed his capitalist desire for treats), but I think that presumes that wanting any amount of treats (here, just some new furniture and a TV) = lurking capitalist mentality. I could see them representing the potential to backslide into capitalism, but I can't think of much support for that from the film itself. It's a real short ending scene.

Outside of the movie, committing to the idea that everyone should have a minimum decent standard of living cuts through a lot of questions about what's deserved. Until you hit whatever that minimum standard is, you deserve everything you have because everyone deserves at least that much. And guaranteeing people a decent standard of living is absolutely a (partial) solution to political opposition -- again, aren't we materialists here?

[-] anarchoilluminati@hexbear.net 1 points 9 months ago

It's a short ending, but, yes, it is symbolic and allegorical. This isn't reality. So, I just want to say again that the treats themselves are irrelevant, as well as other concerns about needs and materialism under pre/post-revolutionary life, but what they could mean in the film is what matters. And the film is very clear that he gains them through the sale of arms, and that he values them as a socio-cultural elevation of status and lifestyle. There's no question there. They are intrinsically tied in the movie both to blood money and capitalist elitism.

So, in my interpretation, his decision to move back to his uncle's garage but with his capitalist treats rings hollow as a sign of real paradigm shift or repentence. He didn't have a change of heart, turn around and sell arms to Hamas. He didn't give away all his shit and completely start over with a new sense of self. He was a struggling working class person with some internalized desire to be an elite, reached some new elevated heights and profits via capitalist war machine, used those profits to have a better luxurious lifestyle, and then realized he did a wrong, so left the job and moved back with his uncle but kept his stuff. That seems significant. Honestly, yeah, if he really realized the extent of what he did he would have probably been disgusted with those items and either discarded or donated them. I've been disgusted with items for less. His keeping of the items is something which is intentionally meaningful or has the capacity to be interpreted with a meaning. Materialism and political pragmatism aside. This was included in the film for some reason, consciously or subconsciously, related to the plot. And I believe, given his previous embrace and comfort under a capitalist form, that these are symbolic of that ideology which he has not yet shed. And, as such, I don't believe he is an honest or apologetic person. I think he continues to carry his capitalistic desires and dreams, as symbolized by his still clinging to the items he gained when his capitalistic desires reached culmination in reality and he could buy pretty much whatever dumb shit he wanted—and he literally bought that very shit with his blood money. Dude is deeply captured by capitalism but also wants to feel like he's on the side of angels by leaving his old job but still keeping his ill-gotten gains. I don't know about you, but I've met shitty rich people like that who did shit fuck to get rich and now volunteer on the Board of some nonprofit or whatever and feel like 'they give back' after robbing everyone. Fuck that.

Outside of the movie, again, yes, all living people should have some decent standards of living. However, I think some people don't deserve to live in a revolutionary society.

this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2024
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