I knew plenty of people growing up who thought Fight Club was just a fun movie about guys who like to fight and make a club to do so and it gets a little crazy, then cut to credits. They then theorized making their own such club. This to say, yeah, I think sometimes the audience can be overestimated in their ability to understand deeper meaning in art.

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hydrogen7800 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

And Scarface was an inspiring rags-to-riches story.

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pbhjpbhj 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's said that Starship Troopers failed to do as well in USA because people thought it was pro-fascist propaganda ... it doesn't seem possible that could genuinely be the case.

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lores an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I remember _movie critics_ clutching their pearls in disgust at the fascism. I was an autistic teen just out of a village and even I could see the satire. To this day I have no idea if they were reviewing in good faith, it still feels so far-fetched.

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mrob 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Starship Troopers (the movie) is a terrible example of satire because it fails to show anything substantially bad. When you present a society that's more ethical than real life, nobody's going to care if some people wear uniforms that look a bit like Nazi uniforms.

There is a genuine existential risk, and it's addressed in the best way possible. Military slavery ("conscription") is more evil than disenfranchisement, especially when citizenship is not required to live a good life. Nobody is tricked or coerced into signing up for military service. Potential recruits are even shown disabled veterans to make the risk more salient. There are no signs of racism or sexism.

Other objections are not supported by the film. There is no suggestion that the Buenos Aires attack is a false flag. I've seen people claim it's impossible for the bugs to do this, but it's a film featuring faster-than-light travel. The humans are already doing impossible things, so why can't the bugs? I've also heard complaints that there is no attempt at peace negotiations. There is no suggestion that peace is possible. It's possible among humans because most humans have a strong natural aversion to killing other humans. Real life armed forces have to go to great lengths to desensitize their troops to killing to prevent them from intentionally missing. But humans generally have no qualms about killing bugs, and the bugs in the movie never hesitate to kill humans.

The movie is an inspiring story about people making the right choices in a difficult situation. Some people look at it objectively, and some only react to the aesthetics. Those who look objectively understand it's actually faithful to the spirit of the book despite Verhoeven not intending that.

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hdgvhicv 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The only hung I see about the asteroid was that Carmen’s collision (caused by her showing off) knocked the rock which caused it to hit Earth, where originally it may well have missed.

Seems reasonable (although clearly not the intent of the story and not a deliberate “false flag”)

	▲	kridsdale3 43 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I don't think the amount of ship that it touched imparted much of a momentum vector for a thing of that mass.

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slg an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

This is all intentional. The film is emulating the type of film that would be produced by this fascist regime, of course it isn't going to include proof of the fascists being wrong. But we also don't see any evidence in support of their claims of an "existential threat" beyond the fascists claiming there is one. And since it's from the fascist perspective, the lack of evidence justifying their actions ends up supporting the idea that there is no real justification for their actions.

The movie's goal is showing the attractiveness of fascism and showing that people like you are incredibly open to fascist ideologies as long as the fascists have a scary "other" to put forward as an existential threat regardless of how real that threat truly is.

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mrob an hour ago | parent [-]

>The film is emulating the type of film that would be produced by this fascist regime.

There's no frame story to support this. Going by the available evidence in the movie itself, it's a conventional action movie.

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slg an hour ago | parent [-]

>There's no frame story to support this.

There definitely is. No one on screen looks into camera and says this directly, but the whole recurring "Would you like to know more?" bit is supposed to tip the viewer off that what they're watching is a product of the government's propaganda efforts.

I truly don't know how you can watch this [1] and conclude we're meant to fully trust them as the 100% honest truth.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cktmS-yaxM

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mrob an hour ago | parent [-]

The "would you like to know more" segments are inner nested stories. Those actually are presented as in-universe video, and qualify as epistolary narrative. But to claim that the movie as a whole is anti-fascist satire relies on the assertion that the whole movie is epistolary, which goes against the narrative conventions of film-making. Judging only by what we see on screen, we have to take it at face value. To do allow otherwise permits bizarre interpretations of any fiction you like, because you can always claim it's unreliable narration.

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slg 44 minutes ago | parent [-]

Why do you think those segments were included in the movie if it wasn't to get us to question the reliability of the narrative they're presenting?

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mrob 43 minutes ago | parent [-]

To differentiate between the potentially unreliable in-universe material and the conventional narrative of the rest. There's no on-screen evidence to justify a second level of nesting.

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slg 33 minutes ago | parent [-]

That confuses me because you seemingly aren't disagreeing with anything in the "unreliable in-universe material". The primary difference I see between those segments and the rest of the movie is simply tone.

	▲	mrob 25 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The tone marks the difference between epistolary narration (which by convention may be unreliable) and omniscient narration (which by convention is always reliable). I'm well aware what Paul Verhoeven intended, but he failed at conveying that intention on the screen. What we actually see is a society that's more ethical than any real world society in times of war. If Verhoeven didn't want us to believe that then he shouldn't have used the omniscient narration of a conventional action movie. Any movie that relies on external sources to convey its message has failed as a movie.

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sandworm101 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And some extreemist are using fight clubs to gather followers, emulating the movie in the other direction. So-called "active clubs" are springing up using "fitness" to gather young angry males to the cause. Most join without realizing. Even gym owners are surprised to discover thier facilities have become clubhouses.

https://www.jfed.net/antisemitismtoolsandresources/neo-nazi-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Clubs