Category Archives: Fantasy

Action, Reviews, Superhero

Batman Vs. Superman is a Mixed-Bag Epic

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And I do mean “epic” in the classic sense. The Lex Luthor character (more on him later) can’t stop reminding us that Superman is a god; that he must battle against man; and Lex makes repeated references to Greek mythology that must have also been on the minds of Siegel and Schuster when they dreamed up their “super-man” some 80 years ago.

By the end of the movie, the last son of Krypton does prove himself to be a Messiah figure of sorts…again.

Mythology was certainly on Frank Miller’s mind some 30 years ago when he set about changing the Batman mythos forever. Big-screen Batman adaptations have paid homage to The Dark Knight Returns since 1989. But none more than this one. The showdown between the Man of Steel and the Caped Crusader was ripped almost directly from Miller’s mini-series. Both the catalyst and the result were different, and the Batman was determined to win this time (rather than intentionally taking a dive and faking his own death as in Miller’s yarn).

Retro Batman costume on the left; powered armor on the right which he wore to battle Superman in this movie and in Dark Knight Returns.
Retro Batman costume on the left; powered armor on the right which he wore to battle Superman in this movie and in Dark Knight Returns.

Also, having been something of a superhero afficionado up until the time of Dark Knight Returns, I am pretty confident that Miller was the first one to overtly depict Superman as an earth-bound god.

Dawn of Justice is a symphony of spectacular destruction with a lot going for it. First of all, as desperate as they must be to duplicate the success of their rival, DC did not cut-and-paste the Marvel Studios formula and insert their own characters. I was a little worried that a Justice League flick might be a thinly-veiled Avengers clone (and the next one might very well prove to be), so kudos to DC for telling their own story about their three all-time most stalwart characters.

Second, although there were smatterings of action along the way, the director opted for a slow, tense build toward the epic finale. It reminds me somewhat of how Akira Kurosawa paced some of my favorite samurai films, driving viewers to the edge of their seats, begging for an explosive, violent extravaganza to settle the conflict. (And boy, this movie delivers, with the stunning visuals and rip-snorting special effects comic book fans want in a film adaptation, but were simply not possible technologically until relatively recently.)

galgadotMy reaction to the casting leans positive. Superman/Clark Kent was portrayed well–it’s a darker, edgier Superman than the historical model, but the actor pulls it off adequately. His physical movements do seem a bit stiff, however. The actress who plays Wonder Woman/Diana Prince also did quite well, though she is such exquisite eye candy that her acting is something of an afterthought to a red-blooded heterosexual male. I have a lot to say about her (the character, more than the actress) that I’ll probably reserve for a seperate post. And the hot topic ever since casting was first announced, of course, is Batman/Bruce Wayne. It’s really not as bad as some might fear. I would have preferred someone other than Michael Keaton in 1989; and I would have preferred someone other than Ben Affleck in 2016. However, Affleck did OK. He was much less situationally aware (especially during fight scenes) than the Batman of comic book canon…but really, all the screen versions of the character have been.

I already mentioned that the tension builds quite nicely to the climax; but the plot is not without its weaknesses. The whole thing seems like a forced contrivance if you examine it too closely. And the flashbacks/dreams/visions were a touch overdone–with the Batman, particularly. Superman does undertake a successful vision quest in the midst of the film, which I would have appreciated more, had I not already been overexposed to the unnecessary (and at one point, confusing) visions/nightmares/flashbacks of Bruce Wayne.batmanvssuperman

There were some impediments to the suspension of disbelief. For instance: if nuclear weapons work differently in this alternate universe (where masked vigilantes and “meta-humans” exist) than they do in our universe, then that should really be established beforehand.

Every director wants to put his/her “own stamp” on the material s/he’s adapting, and this movie was no exception. This is unfortunate with regards to two characters in particular.

ALFRED: Certainly the character has evolved. Again, the first and biggest step may have been in Miller’s mini-series when he revealed that the Wayne’s butler was a “combat medic” who apparently was a Wayne household staple all Bruce’s life, instead of coming on the scene after the war on crime began and discovering Bruce’s nocturnal activities later. The Gotham TV show took it another step by making Alfred a former British Commando who teaches young Bruce how to fight. And this movie picks up from there, basically turning Alfred into Batman’s command center, and at times the brains of the operation. Yawn. Maybe the transformation of Alfred into Jarvis will be completed in the next character reboot and he’ll simply be an artificial intelligence in the Batcomputer with a British accent. Neither comic book writers nor Hollywood directors ever tire of fixing what’s not broken.

MARK ZUCKERBERG I mean LEX LUTHOR: I’m not sure if the actor was trying to channel Heath Ledger’s Joker performance or Jim Carey’s abysmal Riddler interpretation. Whatever he was going for, it was lame. Luthor has historically been an evil genius, and that is how the character works best. Some left-wing “visionary” in the 1980s turned him into an evil capitalist caraciture from Karl Marx’s dystopian fantasies, and over time the criminal genius aspect of the character has been forgotten. With this movie the next step has been forced in his devolution, so that now he is an evil capitalist LUNATIC with an abusive father, tortured childhood, blah blah blah. Certainly there are supervillains which this cliche fits. Lex Luthor is not one of them.

Oh yeah: there’s also another bad choice in this category.

SOME SENATOR WITH A WEIRD VOICE: A character made necessary only by an unnecessary subplot that was tacked on and is redundant of the Batman’s motive for opposing Superman. She’s a Democrat who is the opposite of any real-life Democrat (she’s concerned about individual rights, Constitutional limitations on power, etc.) but exactly the image Democrats attempt to portray to the gullible electorate. And the masquerade usually succeeds, with the abettment of the press, academia and pop culture (including/especially Hollywood).

There’s a lot more I could say about Dawn of Justice, but this should be enough information for you to decide whether it’s worth the time and ticket price. Wonder Woman will get her own post.

Fantasy, Music, Satire

The Puppies are Coming! A Preview of the 2016 Hugo Awards

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It’s almost that time again, folks: the next battle in the Hugo Wars (a subset of the culture war at large).

What started as a joke by Larry Correia criticizing the Cultural Marxist Cabal that hijacked sci-fi/fantasy publishing, fandom, and the Hugo Awards in particular, has blossomed into a revolution on one front of pop culture.

SJWs can’t make up their hive mind whether the Narrative should paint the puppies as pathetic ankle-biters of laughable significance, or beastly Hun savages assaulting the Ramparts of Progress, threatening the very existence of humanity. Usually they’ll make both arguments in the same screed.

Last year it was more difficult to laugh off the Puppies, since pink SF/F was mostly supplanted by non-SJW nominations in the 2015 Hugos. Pinkshirts reacted predictably with the nuclear “no award” option, since they would rather nobody win a Hugo than see one awarded to a book that doesn’t conform to The Narrative.

The latest Virtual Pulp video has just gone live on Hank Brown’s Youtube page. It should help you put the whole controversy in perspective.

Action, Fantasy, Socio-Sexual Studies

Ghostbusters HAD to Be Remade

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Captain Capitalism is confident the latest gyno-reboot (titled Ghostbusters) will flop:

For those of us who aren’t in the echo chamber of Hollywood and the media, we see this movie for what it is – a truly inferior, slipshod affirmative action piece that is so blatant in its pandering towards “team woman” it’s pretty much insulting everybody. It’s so bad even avid consumers of “Round House Kicking Chick Cop Shows” aren’t swallowing it, as evidenced by its trailer receiving  more downvotes than a Hitler speech in a synagogue.

Not only does Hollywood lack the imagination to produce anything that hasn’t already been done, but they are compelled to feminize or sodomize it in the process. I wonder if Cappy’s right about its rightful failure, though. The Force Awakens is nothing but a remake of A New Hope, feminized and with updated special effects; yet sheeple poured into theaters by the millions to further their feminist indoctrination. Same with the so-called Mad Max movie, wasn’t it?

Yes, your average American is an idiot.  And yes, your average American woman can be sold a bill of goods if you merely slap the label of “rah rah female” on it.  But what Sony did was take a hallmark of American culture, a genuine apolitical cinematic classic that young and old hold dear to their hearts, and shit all over it with politics.

Here I slightly disagree: the original Ghostbusters movie, if you analyze it carefully, celebrates the free market with a strong capitalist message: A team of hardworking entrepreneurs recognize an unmet need in the market; launch a business tailored to meet that need; perservere through a dry period, at first, getting the business off the ground; find their big break via a client desperate enough to try something new and radical to solve his problem; their business explodes into insane profits…then some self-important government bureacrat strangles the industry with regulation and the entire city is plunged into violent chaos as a result.

There is no way Hollywood could leave a message like that intact, even when most people fail to recognize it.

Adventure, Crime, Satire, Sneak Peek/Sample Chapters, Superhero

Up Close With a Supervillain

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 A chilling wind swept over the barren wasteland.

In all directions, as far as the eye could see, there was nothing but desolate emptiness. In such a dreary location the imagination tends to wander and one can’t help wondering if maybe there was, at some point in time immemorial, an advanced, thriving civilization long departed for some unknown reason, all evidence of its achievements in culture and technology now buried under the ruin of time.

But enough about Detroit. This story begins far to the north, and quite a ways west.

The large, steel-hulled ship steamed through the icy waters, between the frozen steppes of Siberia on the left and the frozen tundra of Alaska on the right. A man sitting alone in his private cabin watched the godforsaken scenery slide by.

Tyrone Tirikeldaun didn’t necessarily have to become a supervillain. He could have just as easily become a healthy, positive contributor to society…like an actor, community organizer or Occupy protester.

He had a promising start—watching network television, playing video games, complaining a lot and letting his parents support him while waiting for his first welfare check.

Then, to the detriment of all that lives, he got an idea.

Instead of watching TV and playing video games, he worked on the idea and it grew into a business. But not a socially responsible business that loses money or, at best, breaks even. Once all his expenses were covered and bills paid, he had some money left over. To compound this unethical behavior, he kept that money for himself, reinvesting it in his business.

It was a slippery slope from there. Before long, he was looking for tax breaks to take advantage of, gleefully hoarding as much of the money he earned as was possible.

Villainy was like a drug to him. He couldn’t get enough. The compulsion to oppress the working class and destroy the environment only grew stronger, the more people bought his products.

Tyrone Trikeldaun’s eyes sparkled with a villainous glint as he gazed out over the North Alaskan coast through the cabin porthole in his ship, the SS Unfair Advantage. If only I had time, he thought, I could murder a whole bunch of cute little animals. I could drop anchor, set up some oil drilling equipment and watch multiple species frightened to extinction by the sight of a man-made object.

He sighed and sipped from his decadent 64 ounce Big Glunk. Maybe, as a consolation, he could take a landing party ashore on the way back and swat some protected species of spotted mosquito or something. There were no trees from the Brazilian Rainforest handy to slash, burn, or otherwise take his villainous sadism out on, so he would have to make do.

He pushed the intercom button and asked, “How long until we’re in the Arctic Circle?”

Henchman 34 replied, through the speaker, “We’re about to cross into the Arctic Circle very soon, now.”

“Oh. I mean that other circle, then. You know—the one that’s like a hundred mile radius from the North Pole. I pointed to it on the big map display in my underground lair when I was explaining the plan.”

“Right, sir. We should be there within a week, depending on how thick the ice is.”

Arctic Circle, schmartcic circle. They’d have to think up a different name for it soon. He laughed maniacally and rubbed his hands together.

Continuing the series on Superheroes and The Narrative, this is chapter One from my short e-book The Greater Good.

Action, Adventure, Reviews, Superhero

Daredevil on Netflix

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So far, there is only one season’s worth of episodes on Netflix. I watched them all to the end without puking. I do admit to some groans and eye-rolls, but grading on the curve, that’s an A+ for a superhero (or, frankly, any) TV show these days.

First of all, in a genre with more reboots than a week’s worth of using Microsux Winblows, the series was fairly faithful to the source material. Remember, Daredevil hit the crimefighting stage in the 1960s. So first of all, everything had to be transposed to this millennium.

I’ll get the eye-rolls out of the way first.

SpidermanKingpin

(BTW, I remember the Kingpin being one of Spiderman’s enemies. Maybe Frank Miller switched him over?)

In today’s obsession with gray areas, flawed heroes and sympathetic villains, I guess it was just too tempting for the writers not to try to show the Kingpin’s humanity.

Sometimes these apologetics work. In this instance it was really unnecessary.

Some villains are just crooked, okay? The darker side of human nature is to lust after wealth/ power, and to build one’s own twisted version of morality in order to justify those lusts. The scumbags of the world either see themselves as heroes or victims (often both), and always have an excuse handy for what they do. You don’t need to help them make excuses.

Scheming crime lord, or misunderstood idealistic recluse?
Scheming crime lord, or misunderstood idealistic recluse?

I’ll only mention one more annoyance: the creative team behind Daredevil obviously felt obliged to lament the revolution in media every chance they got. In fact, the reporter character (Ben Urich) really serves no better purpose in the series.

He’s an icon–a symbol of journalistic integrity that the left-wing propagandist tools of the mainstream media would have you believe motivates them. The great tragedy is that since the flow of information has been democratized via the Internet, people have options and are turning away from the Lapdog Press; perusing alternative sources looking for the truth.

The truth that the mainstream media routinely attempts to suppress (and before the Internet, they were consistently successful).

The Daredevil writers (via their Ben Urich character) whine about the demise of Marxist (“mainstream”) newspapers, and complain that inferior proletarian slobs “blogging in their underwear” are responsible. They also seem to believe that those unwashed bloggers are getting filthy rich from doing it.

There was one similar rant in Arrow that I remember, but in this series, once was evidently not enough.

The series is just sloppin' over with eye candy. And the cinematography/effects ain't bad, either.
The series is just sloppin’ over with eye candy. And the cinematography/effects ain’t bad, either.

If you can ignore elements like those two eye-rolls summarized above (and I’m sure 99% of folks do), then this is actually a decent series so far. Matt Murdock, Foggy Nelson, Karen Page, Claire Temple and the other supporting characters are likeable. The action is mixed in well. The fight scenes are not bad for TV.

SInce the dark days of the 70s, Marvel’s efforts at live-action adaptation has undergone a tremendous overhaul. The Daredevil series certainly meets current Marvel Studios standards, and is an immense improvement over the big-screen effort of a few years ago.

Of the three different superhero-inspired series I’ve critiqued this month, this is the only one I intend to continue following.

Crime, Reviews, Superhero

Gotham on Netflix

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Continuing with my superhero miniseries, I now turn to the latest reboot of the Batman mythos.

First off, as I pointed out in Superheroes and The Narrative:

…Frankly, you have to hand it to the pop culture svengalis because it takes talent to sell an aspect of The Narrative as oxymoronic as feminism (that women are superior to heterosexual men in every way, yet simultaneously oppressed victims of them).

That’s not the only difficult task they’ve cut out for themselves.–they’ve taken the Batman and turned him into a blatant oxymoron which gets swallowed whole by millions.

Let’s not forget that the Batman is A VIGILANTE. He’s a wealthy, Batman Destroys the Monkproperty-owning individual who recognizes that the so-called criminal justice system is hopelessly broken. He dedicates his life to disciplined training for a one-man war against the criminal class. Using his own capital, he arms and equips himself for the war. Once he reaches his physical prime, he circumvents the authority of the state and deals out justice personally, concealing his identity from both the criminal underworld and the corrupt system. In the beginning he wasn’t afraid to terminate scumbags with extreme prejudice, and at least once used firearms to do so.

You can’t get much more right-wing than that.

And yet, after Robin was first introduced in the early 1940s, Gotham City took a turn for the bizarre. Batman became a de facto officer in the Gotham PD, working so closely with Commissioner Gordon that one wonders why he bothered to keep his identity secret. You can see the transformation visually in the appearance of his costume, BTW.

The Batman assumed his disguise to strike fear into the hearts of criminals--"a superstitious, cowardly lot."
The Batman assumed his disguise to strike fear into the hearts of criminals–“a superstitious, cowardly lot.”
A kinder, gentler vigilante.
A kinder, gentler vigilante.

So…he’s a vigilante, but he works with the system. Oh, he’s gone through phases in which he is hunted by the cops, but it never lasts long and it’s usually as a result of him being framed by an enemy. He’s also become quite the anti-gun activist.

antigunBatmanSince at least the 1980s, the writers at DC have become more bold about inserting their leftist worldview into the comics. (The latest movie trilogy was a pleasant surprise, except for the last one, depending on perspective. If you’re a “law and order” cuckservative/Rino/NeoCon you probably thought the underlying message in Dark Knight Rises was just great.)

So what you have is an anarchist character who is written to be an agent of the state, and most passionate about collectivist causes (gun control, the dangers of privacy, etc.). He’s also a capitalist operating with nigh-autonomy, in a fantasy world where the free market is the problem, and autonomy should be exclusive to leftist politicians.

It takes some talented snake oil salesmen to peddle this stuff; and it takes some gullible chumps to swallow it without question.

Having said that, on to the TV series. I’ll list pros and cons.

PRO: This series has the best performances I’ve seen by a child actor playing the young Bruce Wayne.

ThePenguin_01
The classic Penguin–that paragon of perfidy with a parasol…that bumbershoot bandit with a belly…

CON: In this show Oswald Cobblepot (AKA the Penguin) has more in common with the horrible Tim Burton character revamp than with the Penguin of the comics (at least the first half-century of the comics). In fact, this characterization might be worse: Cobblepot is petulant, impulsive, and sometimes downright stupid. Hardly the stuff supervillains are made of. His segments get tiresome to watch after a few episodes. And was the creepy mother fixation really necessary?

Tim Burton's Penguin--basically a disgusting zombie raised by real-life penguins.
Tim Burton’s Penguin–basically a disgusting zombie raised by real-life penguins.

PRO: Young detective Gordon is played very well, though the actor’s voice gets increasingly raspy–like he’s auditioning to play the part of Batman.

CON: Bruce Wayne doesn’t become Batman until he reaches adulthood, right? In this series he’s still a child…and yet the writers seem determined to have every single character in the Batman universe cross paths when Bruce Wayne is pre-pubescent. This is becoming a typical plotting fetish when these superhero franchises are rebooted, and it wasn’t all that clever the first few times. Plus it just isn’t credible. Only so much disbelief can be suspended for the more intelligent viewers, so save your improbable points for stuff like, you know, an unarmed dude with no superpowers attacking gangs of armed criminals, dodging all their bullets and vanquishing them with his bare hands.

PRO: The exception to the foolishness of the fetish summarized above is the early development of Edward Nygma (AKA the Riddler). Making the pre-Riddler E. Nygma a forensic technician for the Gotham Police may just have been a stroke of genius. Some might even find him likeable, in a nerd/loser way. The writers/directors have built for themselves an opportunity here to mold a very solid, credible villain via a patient character arc.

CON: Alfred is now a British SpecOps vet. Really? Facepalm. He’s a butler, okay?

Ooh, scary! Another Hollywod badass.
Ooh, scary! Another Hollywod badass.

CON: Selena Kyle (AKA Catwoman) is a child, who personally meets and befriends the child Bruce Wayne many years before they grow up to have a kinky love/hate cat/mouse (flying mouse, that is) relationship in masks and tights. Holy overused plot gimmick, Batman. And of course at 12 years old (or whatever) “Cat” is a badass streetwise thug-with-a-heart-of-gold who pulls little Brucie’s fat out of the fire any time the writers can dream up an excuse to contrive it. Oh yeah, both of them also know the young girl who will grow up to become Poison Ivy. Holy ho-hum.

Now here's a villainess to wrap your arms around.
Now here’s a villainess to wrap your arms around.

CON: Maybe you’ve noticed we’re missing something. Where are all the sympathetic sodomites? Are the cultural svengalis slipping? Ah, never fear: no less than James Gordon’s future wife (and future mother of Batgirl) is now AC/DC. Her erstwhile rug-munching buddy is one of only two honest cops on the Gotham PD when Jim Gordon joins the force. Hmm. I’m not sure they went far enough–maybe she should be a war hero, too. There’s all sorts of potential checkboxes to choose from in the Perversion Peddling Playbook.

The cultural svengalis are in lock step and their Narrative is as predictable, ultimately, as how any given post-season will end for the Minnesota Vikings. They may lull you into complacency with some good writing, good acting, good whatever for a while, but only so they can sucker-punch you once your guard is down..

Action, Adventure, Reviews, Superhero

The Flash on Netflix

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Smallville paved the way for Arrow, and The Flash spun off from that. If you noticed that Smallville became increasingly ridiculous and unimaginative after Season One, you might suspect that the same writers are churning out episode teleplays for the spinoffs.

The Flash TV series is not without its assets, on display here.
The Flash TV series is not without its assets, on display here.

The Flash does have something going for it–namely special effects and an 8+ babe in the regular cast.

Unfortunately the directing does not raise the bar for superhero adaptations. So many times the Flash is shown moving at super-speed, but repeatedly the actor is instructed to stand around and wait to get punched or shot or zapped when the script calls for a reversal or increase in dramatic tension. This is much harder to forgive in live-action than it is in the panels of a comic book.

Also, Barry Allen, as depicted, couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag.

The first few episodes suffered from overacting and desperately over-dramatic writing. The actors and writers settled down a little after a while, but it became painfully obvious soon thereafter that this is just another example of a comic book stalwart being hijacked by SJWs and transformed into just another chapter of The Narrative.

Here are two factors that were final nails in the coffin for me:

The Obligatory Sympathetic Homosexual Character

This time they made him a police captain. The creative team are simply/dutifully following Step 1 and 4 of “The Overhauling of Straight America.” (The other steps have been followed so religiously that the cultural svengalis can just maintain The Narrative now–it’s already been programmed into Millenials, Gen X, Gen Y and most Baby Boomers.)

The Obligatory Amazon Superninja

One of the villains (I can’t recall his moniker) could turn his entire body into iron or something. He was a very similar character to comic book villains like the Sandman, Clayface, the Molten Man, etc. In this series the Flash is a lousy fighter and gets his butt handed to flashgreenarrowhim by nearly every opponent (except Green Arrow–Barry Allen suddenly and mysteriously knows how to fight using his super-speed when a feud between him and Oliver Queen is contrived). The Iron Baddie is no exception–always able to transform into iron faster than the Flash can move.

The diversity-by-the-numbers team at Star Labs (Hispanic scientist; female scientist; ostensibly handicapped evil genius white male scientist) tap their keyboards a few times and decide that the way to take out Iron Baddie is for Flash to deliver a punch while running faster than he’s ever run before.

So our hero gets a running start and tops out at like 800 MPH before

This is Hollywood's vision of a badass ultimate fighter.
This is Hollywood’s vision of a badass ultimate fighter.

nailing Iron Baddie right on the button. Iron Baddie recovers and comes right back at the Crimson Chump the Scarlet Speedster. Ah, but never fear: the aforementioned 8+ babe (Iris West) steps in and knocks him out with one punch. She has no superpowers (unless you count hypergamy) but is obviously superior to ANY man, even the superpowered ones. Because vagina.

Need I waste more verbiage on this series?

Adventure, Politics/Current Events, Superhero

Superheroes and “The Narrative”

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Just what is “The Narrative,” you ask?

The Narrative is a conglomeration of messages rammed down our throats by government, academia, every medium of pop culture, and the blue pill sheeple who orient their worldview according to what those sources tell them.

The human mind is the most incredible computer the world has seen; yet the most powerful computer is only as smart as the data that is fed to it.

TVherding

The Narrative comprises all the data that the cultural programmers deem acceptable for processing by the proletariat. Any data which does not agree with The Narrative is treated like a virus to be isolated and destroyed.

The Narrative is a tool to propagate and reinforce the sheeple’s faith in the elected and unelected criminals who are herding us into a third world police state where cognitive uniformity will eventually be dictated and regulated by the state. The homogenized message is Marxist/cultural Marxist, feminist, environmentalist and sodomiphilic.

supermancitizenship

More and more surfers of the Manosphere are becoming aware of The Narrative. Roosh V is somebody I haven’t followed all that closely because my impression of him was that he was primarily concerned with sowing wild oats. But he is definitely taking notice of more weighty matters of late. I recently discovered this astute observation about how the defacto ruling class in America is composed of individuals who hate America.

…(A)n individual or idea that is supported by the establishment also hates America, or at least pushes an agenda that will certainly lead to America’s decline. If the mainstream media reports on someone in a favorable light, that person hates America. If they report on a specific public policy in a favorable light, it will lead to America’s destruction. If the mainstream media reports on someone in a negative light, they love America, or at least promotes ideas that would lead to a stronger America.

It really is that simple. Furthermore, you can accurately predict which party a person votes for simply by observing their attitude toward America. (The problem with that is that the GOP is now about 95% Democrats/Marxists who speak with a forked tongue, pretending to love America while they sell her down the river.)

starwarsracism

The Manosphere is becoming so vigilant that they sounded the warning about the latest Star Wars movie before it even hit the big screen. They even lampooned the title in the same way Hank or I probably would have (The Farce Awakens).

What the latest George Lucas flick demonstrates is that there is no genre or medium that has not been turned into a tool to push The Narrative. What the Manosphere’s criticisms indicate is that a growing subculture is finally waking up to this.

Know what else people are waking up to?

The soul of a nation is won or lost in the culture a generation or more before the struggle.

 

Today’s systematic and institutionalized discrimination against thorinawhite heterosexual men, for instance, took nobody by surprise who has been keeping track of pop culture for the last few decades. It is obligatory that heterosexual men are portrayed as inept buffoons in sit-coms; sensitive wimps in rom-coms; abusive cheaters in dramas; serial killers in suspense thrillers; neo-Nazis in political thrillers; and physically second-best in action-adventures. And frankly, you have to hand it to the pop culture svengalis because it takes talent to sell an aspect of The Narrative as oxymoronic as feminism (that women are superior to heterosexual men in every way, yet simultaneously oppressed victims of them).

In all forms of entertainment, people make themselves vulnerable to suggestion because they are prepared to suspend disbelief going in. Especially with TV and movies, mental programming is even more effective than a trained hypnotist would be.

Contrary to the pose struck by the pop culture svengalis and their legions of lemmings, they are not content merely to get their message out there. They must innundate everything, everywhere, with their Narrative. They must infiltrate and spread like cancer (some even call themselves “progressive”). On the feminism front they infiltrate male genres like science fiction and action-adventure; and male mediums like comic books.

The comic book industry exploded in the late 1930s/early 1940s. Its success rode on the back of superhero stories, and the overwhelming majority of the audience was pre-adolescent boys. The age of that audience has increased since WWII, but has remained largely male.

Superficially, a fan of the comic book heroes would assume that the world is a better place than ever right now, with so many characters being adapted to the bSpider-Man, Barack Obamaig and small screen. But they’re being adapted in more ways than format. Pop culture svengalis have been busy subverting the superhero genre into just another gynocentric soapbox. More and more long-time heroes are being retrofitted into the homosexual agenda. Just as in action movies, the female characters are written to be superior in prowess to their male counterparts, and sometimes famous male heroes are just suddenly re-written as females. And when political shots are taken, there is no surprise what direction they come from, either.

So for the next few blog posts I plan to have some fun examining some of the subversions adaptations in recent times. Virtual Pulp has previously blogged about Arrow. Three I have in mind right now are Gotham, The Flash and Daredevil.

Other than that, Happy New Year.

 

Fantasy, Politics/Current Events

Amazon’s Censorship Continues (And SJWs Still Always Lie)

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Last time I blogged about how one of my Amazon product reviews was rejected for the first time since I started reviewing. Amazon sent me a list of reasons why a review might be rejected, none of which applied to what I wrote.

The elephant in the room is that the review addressed the politics in the book…

But not from the state-approved left-wing perspective.

 

Now  infamous liar and impudent hypocrite John Scalzi, after being targeted in a short parody e-book, has convinced Amazon to remove the book from their virtual shelves. Judging by the Soviet zeitgeist strangling our entire culture, I doubt he had to twist their limp-wristed arms.

The book in question is John Scalzi Is a Rapist: Why SJWs Always Lie in Bed Waiting For His Gentle Touch… The title alone takes advantage of Scalzi’s self-identification as a rapist, and seems to also poke fun at the masturbatory hive mind of Social Justice Whiners in general, as I sort of did in The Greater Good.

Just to catch you up (in case this is new to you) after the Hugo Wars surrounding Sad Puppies III and the Rabid Puppies, Vox Day released his e-book SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police on the anniversary of #Gamergate. It quickly shot to the top of the Amazon rankings.

It also quickly inspired a parody by the target of his literary roast: John Scalzi is Not a Very Popular Author and I Myself am Quite Popular. In true SJW fashion author “Theo Pratt” attempts to skew the debate away from relevant points by portraying Vox Day as some kind of sore loser obsessed, offended, and in denial about Scalzi’s popularity. This can be traced back to Scalzi’s lies about his own website traffic, and the fact that Vox Day refuses to let him off the hook for it.

That parody evidently inspired a counter-parody…and now you’re caught up.

In many ways, Amazon is run on sound business principles–that is how they rose to the top. But look at this:

#1_parody

So a company that otherwise practices sound business strategies banned a #1 bestseller (while leaving the left-wing parody on the same subject, #3, on the shelf.  Notice?) even after Ken at Popehat  advised him the parody is First Amendment-protected.

Fascinating, in light of how George Bush is a War Criminal and Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Paula Deen is a Big Fat Idiot are still available for sale there.

It’s doubtful the SJWs will ever recognize that they have proven that they are, indeed, thought police.

Scalzi is just being Scalzi–a predictable Marxist/feminist/homophile/transphile tool who tries to dish it out but just can’t take it. The alarming aspect of this is Amazon being so eager to lose profits (when there is no legal neccessity) in order to impose a double standard on the expression of ideas.

“I vill not tolerate any hate thpeech! Love winth!”

Get used to this. For those who have paid attention, it’s obvious the SJWs only believe in freedom of speech so long as the speech agrees with them. We are losing every liberty formerly protected in the Bill of Rights as I write this. It has been piecemeal and incremental up until now, but you can expect the crackdown to spread like wildfire soon, across every front. This is the first little mudslide of the avalanche.

(Update: looks like the thought criminal Alexa Eren has re-published her book under a new title; and more counter-parodies have been released  by puppy-friendly authors. How long before Amazon grinds these titles under its pink jackboot is unknown at this point. Image links are sprinkled throughout remainder of post.)

A clarification might be in order. “SJWs always lie” has been Vox Day’s mantra well before this book came out. You may have trouble with the title, because SJWs don’t literally always lie. They sometimes speak the truth when it fits the Narrative and advances their agenda. They might even be truthful when asked mundane questions like “what is your favorite flavor of Starbucks latte?” or “what color is your Prius?”

What the author is doing with that assertion (and title) is commenting on the character of SJWs by speaking their own language. Day has studied Aristotle, who compared rhetorical to dialectic debate. Pinkos, cultural Marxists, CHORFs, SJWs…whatever you choose to call them…are completely incapable of dialectic reasoning, and so must be engaged rhetorically.


An example may help illustrate: A former female companion had a primordial compulsion to instigate strife and drama. While I sometimes forgot things that did happen, she often remembered things that never happened. It baffled me how easily she resorted to dishonesty in an argument, and could ignore facts right in front of her face in order to double down on some preposterous accusation she insisted on holding to. I could write a book-length breakdown on her absurd behavior, but one little tactic that annoyed me for some reason was her use of “always” and “never” according to the circumstances of the argument–not according to reality. Me pointing out the truth after one of her ridiculous lies never got me anywhere. Then one day, out of exasperation, I decided to give her a taste of her own medicine. She accused me of always doing this or never doing that (I forget which) yet again, and I calmly replied, “You always say that, and it’s never true.”

For the first time I can remember, she was speechless. In fact, that finished the argument. It was like I forced unconditional surrender by unleashing some devastating secret weapon. The war was won, but at the time even I didn’t understand why the weapon had been so effective.

I, for one, really appreciate the Orwellian reference in the subtitle.

Looking back now, I understand that my choice of words had built a temporary bridge between the rhetorical and dialectic that even her reptilian brain could briefly cross.

I have Vox Day to thank for my epiphany regarding communication with these kind of people. I had never been taught about dialectic vs. rhetorical, but I had been frustrated by debates with SJWs for 20+ years, never understanding that I was using dialectic and they were only fluent in rhetorical. Then one time Vox said, “You will never, ever, change the mind (of an SJW) by giving them information.”

Everything clicked into place in an instant. All my frustration and years of wasting my breath using honest, rational arguments suddenly made sense. Why my ex-girlfriend’s mouth was closed with such finality that one time years ago suddenly made sense. Women in general suddenly made a lot more sense. The wilful ignorance of Obamunists and Klintonistas suddenly made sense.

It is possible for us to switch to their language, but but not for them to understand ours.

For example, an SJW who reads this blog post from beginning to end would come away from it with this mental summary:

“Blah blah blah John Scalzi sucks blah blah blah I hate women blah blah blah I’m probably racist too blah blah blah.”

Literally that is all they would grok. And I could spend hours in a comment flame war quoting what was actually said in defense of myself…but it would be entirely moot. Like trying to explain the workings of an internal combustion engine to a house cat.

Save yourself cumulative years of futile labor trying to reason with these people. Jesus addressed such people in His time this way:

John 8:43 Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. 44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me!

 

 

Fantasy

“Sexist” and “Misogynist,” but Chicks Loved It

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When I was a kid, I always swore I would never be like the old-timers of the day. You know the type. Always complaining about the country going to hell in a handbasket and how we were too young to realize what we had already lost. How we scoffed at their foolishness. After all, we were the generation that had invented sex and were going to save the world with our forward thinking. Now, I am that guy and wish those old-timers were still around so I could apologize. Accuse me of being a free speech extremist and I will gladly confess.

I mentioned in my last post some books and authors that were once common and relatively mild, but are now considered subversive due to their non-progressive themes and values. Others were more daring and controversial, but still were dutifully stocked wherever books and magazines were sold. There once was a time when people who invoked free speech meant it. The old-timers were right. We have lost a lot and we’re losing more every day. It’s amazing how the PC crowd has managed to give us a world that’s prudish and crass at the same time.

gorfantasy

In my hometown we had a bookstore run by the most devout Christian you ever met. He always closed on Sundays so he could attend church. He also stocked the most extensive inventory of girlie magazines in town. I asked about the apparent contradiction and he told me it wasn’t his place to say what other adults should read. My step-mother would use her employee discount at work to buy those same magazines which she brought home for my father. Mandingo sat in the bookrack at your local supermarket next to The Cross and the Switchblade. There were the obligatory busybodies of course, but mostly what you wanted to read was your own business and nobody would blink an eye at your choices. Fortunately, the enlightened few dragged us out of these benighted dark-ages for our own good.

Which brings us to the books by John Norman and Sharon Green—science fiction with a difference. At one time they were as ubiquitous roguesgoras roaches, and often as highly regarded. The critics savaged them. The general public considered them obnoxious, when they considered them at all. These books occupied the antipodes of Political Correctness. It was hard to find anyone who would admit to reading them, much like the missing disco music fans today, but they sold and sold and sold, going through printing after printing. There was a niche out there and those books fit in it like a hand in a glove. These are not literary masterpieces by any measure, but of the two, Sharon Green is by far the better writer.

John Norman (real name John Lange) is a philosophy professor at Queens College in New York. He has some ideas, especially concerning male-female relationships, that could be accurately described as retrograde in the current milieu. His first book, Tarnsman of Gor (1966), the first of many in the Gor series (also known by other names) is a blatant rip-off of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s A Princess of Mars with a tad more raunch. The word “misogynistic” gets thrown around a lot in discussions of Norman’s work.

priestkingsgorNorman’s works could reasonably be dismissed as a juvenile (in the sense of immature) indulgence of male fantasy. A strange thing happened on the way to the forum though. The books are very, very popular with women—at least a certain subset of women. I used to take the “pocket books” idea very literally and I kept a paperback in my back pocket everywhere I went. When I tackled the Gor stories, an odd thing happened. I was approached by women—a lot of women. The conversation usually went something like this: “Oh! You’re reading the Gor books! They are so good!” This never happened with a man. I eventually read 25 of the books. They were OK at first, but an ordeal by the end. Norman never misses a chance to push his philosophy, resulting in absurdities like the protagonist taking the time during a kidnapping to explain to the victim her proper role as a woman—for 93 pages. In another book, the protagonist and a comrade take the time during a battle to discuss a woman at great length—a battle that’s going badly. A critic once remarked that the series starts as fair science fiction, but rapidly degenerates into pornography and travelogue. That is a reasonable assessment. If your curiosity is piqued enough to give the series a try, confine yourself to the first 5 books. Assassin of Gor (#5) is most popular, followed closely by Nomads of Gor (#4), but I thought Priest-Kings of Gor (#3) was best. If you wish to experience the decay, read to Hunters of Gor (#8). Going any further is just masochism.

Sharon Green came to be a writer because she read a few of the Gor books and thought John Norman got it all wrong. She believed that Norman “doesn’t understand female submission.” She embarked on her own series of books where, strangely, the female protagonist winds up in basically the same situations as in the Gor books, just for different reasons. Her books were intended as a rebuttal to Norman. Fate was cruel, however, as her books appealed to the same audience and she was dubbed “the female John Norman.” Jalav, the female protagonist of the Jalav—Amazon Warrior series is tedious in her own right, endlessly whining about being reduced to a sex slave instead of being allowed to die a noble warrior’s death.

jalav1

 

Whatever the shortcomings of these books, however, the fact remains that the freedom of speech is near absolute. Norman and Green had every right to write their books, and their fans had every right to read them. Most importantly, you have the right to read them if you so choose. The good times were coming to an end though. Both authors were published by Donald A. Wollheim of DAW books. In 1990, Wollheim died and was succeeded by his uber-feminist daughter, Elizabeth Wollheim. Virtually her first act was to order a halt to printing of Noman’s and Green’s books, on the unlikely justification of poor sales. It is commonly believed that the truth was that she objected to them personally. The books disappeared quickly from mainstream bookstores, then from used book stores. Interested readers couldn’t find copies for love nor money for many years. Green would reinvent herself as a more mainstream SF and fantasy author. Norman would disappear from print for 13 years. Green would comment later that it would be impossible to publish her early works in the current climate.

Technology would come to the rescue as it often does. Alternative publishing brought the old books back from Never-Never Land and allowed new books to be published. The vital thing is that, whatever their artistic merits, both authors were punished for their beliefs, opinions, and self-expression, as usual by the self-appointed arbiters of tolerance and open-mindedness. The principle at stake here is far more important than the books themselves. Read the books or don’t. It’s your business. The fact remains, however, there are droves of people for whom the Constitution is a punchline—and that’s terrifying. Popular speech by definition needs no protection. Beware, the Left never sleeps, and the battleground is your mind.