To expand on that, it tricks the viewer into getting seduced by that fascism. The main point is to show the viewer that you aren’t immune to it. It’s much easier to get swept up in the jingoistic hate for the subhuman enemy when said enemy is actually nonhuman. Wisecrack made a good video breakdown of this some years ago.
At the start of the movie you’re just in it to avenge Buenos Aires, by the end you’re cheering for the guy dressed as a Nazi proclaiming the enemy is afraid.
I might be reading too much into a specific visual choice here, but IIRC even that might’ve been a false flag operation. The arachnid home planet is shown on a map to be on the other side of the galaxy, so not exactly asteroid throwing distance.
It’s a pity the filmmakers leaved out these details from the book. The bugs not only were capable of sending asteroids through the galaxy, but also made starships to travel to other planets. The humans had power armor and carried a couple of shoulder-mounted atomic bombs each.
While fascism has only ever been observed with a dictator, due to its fundamental nature of consolidating power and national identity, in theory a very tight oligarchy could be fascist.
Dictatorship isn’t so much a mandatory component of fascism as it is a logical conclusion of the ideology in practice
So we come to my second point. There was only one Nazism. We cannot label Franco’s hyper-Catholic Falangism as Nazism, since Nazism is fundamentally pagan, polytheistic, and anti-Christian. But the fascist game can be played in many forms, and the name of the game does not change. The notion of fascism is not unlike Wittgenstein’s notion of a game. A game can be either competitive or not, it can require some special skill or none, it can or cannot involve money. Games are different activities that display only some “family resemblance,” as Wittgenstein put it. Consider the following sequence:
1___2___3___4
abc bcd cde def
Suppose there is a series of political groups in which group one is characterized by the features abc, group two by the features bcd, and so on. Group two is similar to group one since they have two features in common; for the same reasons three is similar to two and four is similar to three. Notice that three is also similar to one (they have in common the feature c). The most curious case is presented by four, obviously similar to three and two, but with no feature in common with one. However, owing to the uninterrupted series of decreasing similarities between one and four, there remains, by a sort of illusory transitivity, a family resemblance between four and one.
Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist regime one or more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist. Take away imperialism from fascism and you still have Franco and Salazar. Take away colonialism and you still have the Balkan fascism of the Ustashes. Add to the Italian fascism a radical anti-capitalism (which never much fascinated Mussolini) and you have Ezra Pound. Add a cult of Celtic mythology and the Grail mysticism (completely alien to official fascism) and you have one of the most respected fascist gurus, Julius Evola.
The Lemmy has decided that it is about facism so it is about facism, just like you might think the matrix is a fun sci-fi future tech action movie but it’s not, it’s actually about the experiences of transgenders
You see when you spend as much time online as the chronically online, you come to learn that if you overthink enough you can find problems with everything
The Lemmy has decided that it is about facism so it is about facism
Well, so did films creators. Though as with all art of course you don’t have to view it the same way its creator did. But there’s no need to be an ass about it.
Neil Patrick Harris is dressed in a blatant SS look alike unform at the end and Switch exists in the Matrix movie. Matrix was more overtly about the illusions of a constructed soceity but I feel like the trans allegory was always there. Isn’t the red pill a HRT reference since estrogen pills were red in the 90s?
Switch
Switch was originally meant to change genders upon entering the Matrix, which coined their name “Switch”. In the real world, Switch would be male, and in the Matrix, Switch would be female - a very clever and critical point of the ‘residual self-image’ idea. When actress Belinda McClory auditioned for the role, she was going for only half the role - Switch’s Matrix form.
Warner Brothers made the decision to cut this and give Switch one form for both environments.
I think the SS uniforms, the eagles in the flag and the emblems, the social darwinist attitudes, passionate hate towards the bugs (a disgusting subhuman enemy which needs to be genocided for a final solution) and dismissals of logic in favor of propagandistic appeals to emotion are much more apparent examples. Also the fact that all the actors got cast for their looks in true propaganda movie fashion.
The protagonists home could’ve been anywhere for the same plot, so my interpretation was that the city was named just to drive home the point that there’s only one global state.
Having never been to Buenos Aires, I expected to see brown people when I looked up Buenos Aires. But no, their demographics are majority non-native. Colonialism and immigration hit them like a train. To be clear, I don’t mean a mechanical locomotive.
Regardless of speculation about the movies universe the point is the movie is a satire of facism, as that’s how the director interpreted the book (that is, fascist in nature). A lot of people missed this about the movie. If the arming of kids and sending them off to war, the slogans, the service guaranteeing citizenship and as I mentioned in another comment, the SS uniforms, don’t convince you. Maybe the directors own words will:
Although some contemporary critics and audiences considered Starship Troopers to be an endorsement of fascism, Verhoeven said, “whenever you see something that you think is fascist, you should know that the filmmakers agree with your opinion”
Edit: check out the wiki if you’d like to know more.
Don’t you think a non-militarized society would probably have not started a war in the first place? The bugs were minding their own business before humans showed up looking to shoot shit and steal other shit.
What’s the message in Starship Troopers?
It satirizes facism, its a facist dystopia
Read the book not realizing the film satirizes the book and kept waiting for some kind of punchline. Finished thinking “wait, the author was serious?”
To expand on that, it tricks the viewer into getting seduced by that fascism. The main point is to show the viewer that you aren’t immune to it. It’s much easier to get swept up in the jingoistic hate for the subhuman enemy when said enemy is actually nonhuman. Wisecrack made a good video breakdown of this some years ago.
At the start of the movie you’re just in it to avenge Buenos Aires, by the end you’re cheering for the guy dressed as a Nazi proclaiming the enemy is afraid.
I might be reading too much into a specific visual choice here, but IIRC even that might’ve been a false flag operation. The arachnid home planet is shown on a map to be on the other side of the galaxy, so not exactly asteroid throwing distance.
It’s a pity the filmmakers leaved out these details from the book. The bugs not only were capable of sending asteroids through the galaxy, but also made starships to travel to other planets. The humans had power armor and carried a couple of shoulder-mounted atomic bombs each.
Doesn’t fascism need a dictatorial leader? I don’t remember one, at least in the movie.
While fascism has only ever been observed with a dictator, due to its fundamental nature of consolidating power and national identity, in theory a very tight oligarchy could be fascist.
Dictatorship isn’t so much a mandatory component of fascism as it is a logical conclusion of the ideology in practice
Well, there was in fact a dictator in the story: the brain-bug that controlled the swarm.
If you haven’t read Eco’s essay on ur-fascism, it’s a good read: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fascism
The Lemmy has decided that it is about facism so it is about facism, just like you might think the matrix is a fun sci-fi future tech action movie but it’s not, it’s actually about the experiences of transgenders
You see when you spend as much time online as the chronically online, you come to learn that if you overthink enough you can find problems with everything
Well, so did films creators. Though as with all art of course you don’t have to view it the same way its creator did. But there’s no need to be an ass about it.
Neil Patrick Harris is dressed in a blatant SS look alike unform at the end and Switch exists in the Matrix movie. Matrix was more overtly about the illusions of a constructed soceity but I feel like the trans allegory was always there. Isn’t the red pill a HRT reference since estrogen pills were red in the 90s?
Switch
Switch was originally meant to change genders upon entering the Matrix, which coined their name “Switch”. In the real world, Switch would be male, and in the Matrix, Switch would be female - a very clever and critical point of the ‘residual self-image’ idea. When actress Belinda McClory auditioned for the role, she was going for only half the role - Switch’s Matrix form. Warner Brothers made the decision to cut this and give Switch one form for both environments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers_(film)
It’s satire. For goodness’ sake, the plot begins in Buenos Aires in a majority white school.
I think the SS uniforms, the eagles in the flag and the emblems, the social darwinist attitudes, passionate hate towards the bugs (a disgusting subhuman enemy which needs to be genocided for a final solution) and dismissals of logic in favor of propagandistic appeals to emotion are much more apparent examples. Also the fact that all the actors got cast for their looks in true propaganda movie fashion.
The protagonists home could’ve been anywhere for the same plot, so my interpretation was that the city was named just to drive home the point that there’s only one global state.
That’s the actual demographic in Buenos Aires today.
Having never been to Buenos Aires, I expected to see brown people when I looked up Buenos Aires. But no, their demographics are majority non-native. Colonialism and immigration hit them like a train. To be clear, I don’t mean a mechanical locomotive.
Service guarantees citizenship.
Do you want to know more?
The message: “Look at this heavily militarized society, absurd huh?” But some people: “Looks fine to me”
But would a non-militarized society survive in a conflict against the bugs?
A non-militarized society likely wouldn’t get into a conflict with the bugs. We encroached on their land and bothered them
Regardless of speculation about the movies universe the point is the movie is a satire of facism, as that’s how the director interpreted the book (that is, fascist in nature). A lot of people missed this about the movie. If the arming of kids and sending them off to war, the slogans, the service guaranteeing citizenship and as I mentioned in another comment, the SS uniforms, don’t convince you. Maybe the directors own words will:
Edit: check out the wiki if you’d like to know more.
I see what you did there :D
Don’t you think a non-militarized society would probably have not started a war in the first place? The bugs were minding their own business before humans showed up looking to shoot shit and steal other shit.
I don’t remember that part in the movie, sorry.
war is fun, and it’s cool when the enemy is scared of you
Also, big-butt-bugs 🐜