Itâs the same story with tons of films: Taxi Driver, Joker, The Boys, Watchmen. They get universal praise from the left and right.
The Left: âThis insightful satire shows the protagonistâs slow descent from obsession and inceldom into terrorism and psychopathy. It serves as a stark reminder of how these thought patterns are the beginnings of a societal tragedy.â
The Right: âI fucking love this guy. He just shoots the people he doesnât like. Based. Highly recommended.â
To anyone who thinks this may be exaggerated, itâs not.
My former friend got swept up into the right-wing pipeline hard these last handful of years.
Right-wing often folks like these characters because they unabashedly hurt people they think justify being hurt. Just like they would like to be able to do.
Once my friend started ranting about how he thinks the US is âoverdue for another genocideâ then staunchly defended himself over it, I told him to never fucking come back.
Honestly? Because heâs a good character. No one takes his morality to heart that wasnât already deeply damaged, but a character who builds their psyche and motivations around trauma and idiosyncrasies creates a fascinating piece of a story, nonetheless. Similarly, Breaking Bad is never viewed as a tutorial on losing your morality by a thousand cuts, people view it as the chronicle of an intelligent character intentionally blinding themselves to the damage they cause and reacting in a relatable way. The fall from grace and subsequent dwelling in hell is a beautiful story arc and thereâs a reason itâs employed so frequently.
Except /pol/. Theyâre into him for other reasons.
I remember coming across a post of tumblr where someone said that if a guy says his favorite movie/tv show is Breaking Bad, Rick and Morty or Fight Club, you should run immediately.
The reason was that while these are good works exploring complex, broken and often violent men, a certain subset (the kind of people who would claim that one of those was their favorite of all time) doesnât have the reasoning ability to understand that theyâre the villains of their universe and should not be idolized.
Rorschach easily fits within the same mold as Tyler Durden, Rick Sanchez and Walter White, a complex and entertaining protagonist whoâs also a terrible person who no one should want to be.
That is a garbage reason to run immediately.
Tumblrtards are kind of infamous for magical thinking, often bordering on or just outright being delusional, being unimaginably pretentious, incredibly emotionally unstable, and absolutely loving to glom onto bandwagons of virtue signalling one-upsmanship as well as hate brigading ideas they dont understand and people that they dont like.
They often jump to conclusions ludicrously.
Here is what I mean. If a personâs favorite movie /is/ Fight Club, all you have to do is then ask them âwhy?â.
If you tell me your favorite movie is American Psycho, and the reason why is that you think its a gripping, iconic film criticizing the superficiality and violence of the chauvanistic capitalism of the late 80sâŚ
âŚthat is a lot different than if your reason is that Bateman is just so cool and crazy!
See the context of this âadviceâ is ostensibly whether or not you should be a friend or partner of someone.
If you are deciding who to have in your circle by whether or not they like one of three objectively popular and excellent films, which are misunderstood by some, but not othersâŚ
âŚthen you are actually being very shallow, and impersonal.
Superficial, even.
Right like with Rick and Morty I can tell you I loved the show for the first few seasonsâŚ
âŚbut then its quality went down, culminating in the show eventually entirely abandoning one of its main foundational truisms:
Life is brutal, unpredictable and unfair.
The latest seasons of the show abandoned the total /randomness/ factor that defined the earliest episodes, and replaced it with much more standard⌠and structured plots.
The fanbase clamored over fan theories and details, anything to make there be a grand overarching plot, continuity, and eventually they got it.
But to me that is the show betraying itself. There isnt supposed to be continuity. It is supposed to be unpredictable. Most fans of the show entirely missed the point, and thus cringe ensued.
Now say what you will about my interpretation of the show hereâŚ
⌠but its a little more nuanced than uh, Rick is zany Pickle man.
And I dont think my interpretation indicates I am some kind of maladjusted chauvanist fascist.
Look, I love Fight Club. Fight Club is a big step in my process towards becoming less of an asshole. Worked as intended, 10/10, would reconsider my perception of the world again.
But even I can see how, particularly for a time in the 00s and sometimes beyond the examination of toxic masculinity became the iconification of toxic masculinity. Itâs not âif they say itâs their favorite film, runâ, itâs âman, on the aggegate all of those did the opposite of what they were ostensibly trying to doâ.
Never, ever, ever underestimate the ability of the public to miss the point. Any interpretation of media, no matter how obvious and intented, will trigger âyouâre just reading too much into itâ or âleave your politics out of my movieâ comments.
Also, I have terrible news about what your interpretation indicates, because yikes. Itâs not that what youâre describing is inaccurate, itâs that âit was cool when it was hardcore, uncut nihilism justifying why the main character is right to be an asshole, and then it sold outâ is not looking great for that armchair psychoanalysis youâre inviting.
But what if I answer that I liked American Psycho, not because itâs incredibly deep view masculinity of the 80âs and all that philosophical stuff, but because itâs funny.
And yet you ran into the point directly.
This isnât magical thinking, as you said it yourself, either you like American psycho because of 0 media literacy (in which case we all agree youâre undesirable to date for a Tumblr user)
Or you like American psycho because of the reasons you cited, which mind you arenât bad reasons to like it, but it makes you a film bro. To consider it amond your top movies means all you care about in media is how it made you think about society, and honestly if the most youâve though about society was when watching American psycho then I can see why someone wouldnât want to date you.
The Tumblr rule of thumb isnât entirely about not dating bigots (though bigots do tend to be weeded out by this check which was kind of the point), itâs also about avoiding dating asshats in general. What does it say about you that you like Rick and Morty because you agree that life is brutal, unpredictable and unfair? What does it say in the context of someone debating whether they should date you?
What does it say about me that my favorite movie is, and I apologize in advance because Iâm speaking genuinely, The Game?
The equation has changed for Rick and Morty in the last two seasons. Rick is going to therapy. He knows heâs broken and heâs working on improving. Itâs been a major point in a lot of the best episodes recently. Itâs no longer possible to idolize Rick. You can only relate to him if youâre capable of admitting that you too are broken and need help.
I donât like him. I never understood why he has my parents fighting on his mask wth?!
I just want you to know I went to my partner in the other room to tell them about this comment. well played.
The internet is a place where nuance goes to die and everyone talks out of their ass. Watchmen was all about nuance. Hereâs why I think this post is full of shit:
Rorschach was an extremely flawed individual. However that title could basically be applied to every single hero except Nite Owl I. A huge portion of Watchmen revolves around that while none of the characters are necessarily admirable they all have some redeeming qualities.
Calling Rorschach an "incel man child " is an idiotic oversimplification of his character. He didnât decide he hated women after watching too many Andrew Tate videos; Rorschach went though an extreme amount of childhood trauma. We see how horrifying the situation was via flashbacks. Even after all of that, he manages to rise above it all and become a genuine hero. He only went full psycho after being exposed to the most vile shit Moore could get printed. Thereâs even a whole subplot which more or less mocks attempts to be an armchair psychiatrist and dismiss him outright.
Rorschachâs philosophy also doesnât exist in a vacuum. A huge part of his role is an ideological counterpoint to Ozymandius, who is the ultimate âends justify the meansâ type of person. The entire last act makes you appreciate Rorschachâs philosophy a lot more. The ending of the book presents a âLady or the Tiger?â situation where youâre not really sure which of the two was more right.
Finally, he has a decent number of badass moments. The whole âyouâre locked in with meâ is straight up cool. It is on some level meant to be such. Itâs hard not to look at him and be on some level impressed.
Rorschach isnât someone youâre supposed to idealize. However youâre not supposed to just dismiss him either.
For whatever reason Internet Media Discourse⢠canât include the possibility that a character is meant to be sympathetic to some extent but ultimately wrong. Theyâre either perfect and did nothing wrong or an irredeemable monster, no in between.
I honestly wonder how many people have actually read Watchmen. I feel like the discourse around a lot of this stuff is driven by people who have read the cliff notes or are just blindly upvoting shit.
Itâs mainly the movie.
In the movie heâs pretty much the only one of them all that actually holds on to his morals. He goes the whole movie practicing what he preaches while everyone else is shown to do the opposite.
The comedian was just an abusive power hungry drunk.
Ozymandius was willing to kill millions for âthe greater goodâ
Dr Manhattan was too removed from his own humanity to care about anything anymore
Night owl and the purple girl I canât remember gave it all up entirely and then they fuck meanwhile she was still in a relationship with Dr Manhattan.
Rorschach was the only one in the movie that actually held to his morality the whole movie. Especially with the scene of him unmasked as a begger on the street and thatâs how he learned about the goings on in the city. He actively lived a life of poverty to help him be a better hero.
Absolutely right, although I would say Nite Owl is also flawed, at least the second one. He was only a hero because he a) worshipped the first Nite Owl and b) he felt like a loser and couldnât get it up when not in costume, basically turning his vigilante life into a sort of fetish.
Because most people havenât actually read Alan Mooreâs Rorschach, theyâve seen Zac Snyderâs Rorschach. These are not the same character
If I remember correctly, there was talk about how closely the movie followed the graphic novel when it was being made and im sure that didnt help people want to to check out the source material.
I think most people arenât interested in both mediums. Especially at the time most people only really experience fiction from some sort of film/television
The movie was very much an abridged version of the novels. Meaning all the nuances and hints that were disseminated throughout the pages or in the backgrounds had to be set aside until we are left with the movie version. A very âLoyal Stupid Paladinâ character, which really isnât a misrepresentation; it is the same character. Just, you are not given quite enough in the movie to see where heâs actually coming from.