#Phonepunk#
Banned
(Warning Spoilers for Endgame and Rogue One and Last Jedi)
With all the discussion of media radicalizing people and causing violence, I started to wonder why people were singling out video games. Yes, violence and mass murder is a component of many games, but it is a component of all media.
More disturbing by far in my opinion is the use of the Noble Suicide in popular film. True this has long been a trope, the heroic sacrifice, yet it has never been glorified quit like it is now. In so many films that are so popular and sold to such a wide audience. In general I find the messages delivered by modern mainstream film to be pro-violence, pro-idology, pro-suicide, disturbing in a number of ways:
For starters there is the most best selling film of all time, Avengers Endgame. This movie begins with the death of trillions of living beings across the universe as a backdrop. Our heroes have lost and failed, yet they find Thanos and violently kill him, despite there being no reason to do so, other than pure bloodlust.
Later they set off to travel through time, undoing all death in the universe (thus making death a meaningless and reversible thing for the audience), yet they must sacrifice someone they love to do so. This absurd bit of lore demands "you sacrifice that which you most love" which gives the genocidal villain at the heart of the story a great "deep" character moment in the previous film, as he momentarily, dramatically pauses before (tragially?) killing his own daughter. Here we have Black Widow and Hawkeye decide that they will each kill themselves, for the good of the universe, in order to save the day. This doesn't make too much sense because neither has spent much time in the 22 movies having a convincingly deep relationship, but I buy it for the contrivance of the present plot. We are treated to a silly scene where they fight one another, like children, on their way racing to the cliff.
In the end Black Widow, the lone woman Avenger, not really treated that well over the course of her series and the previous decade of films, does the best thing she has ever done: she kills herself. Her suicide is glorious, it is sexy, for it is not depicted realistically. She plummets off a cliff and lands hundreds of feet below yet is not splattered everywhere, her taut body still fine in that black leather catsuit, face-up so we can see her pretty face, the face of a dead woman who committed suicide. What a wonderful family film! Thank god this is the money money making movie even, right? Noble Suicide.
Then we can talk about Star Wars. Rogue One, of course, a film based on a team that we all know will die at the end. Actually do we even know that? They could have escaped, I guess. Oh well, it is more poignant that way, hugging your story convenient love interest as a giant explosion washes over you. But they knew what they were getting into, they knew it was a Noble Suicide. The Last Jedi is positively obsessed with the Noble Suicide. The last film showed us an entire star system getting destroyed, yet apparently nobody wants to help fight against this threat. The only thing that inspired people is Luke's stunt on Crait facing down the guy that oversaw said previous polyglobal genocide only yesterday. Luke shows up and taunts him with extremist ideology like "The war will never die" before fading away and dying. It is meant to be a heroic act, we see kids playing pretend Old Man Ghost Who Dies (i guess), another Noble Suicide.
Holdo, just minutes earlier, made "the most beautiful scene in any SW movie ever made" with her Noble Suicide. Which wasn't entirely a suicide, as she rammed her ship into the ship that all our heroes were on as well. They could have died, I guess, but her aim was really, really good, so all of them survived, and it was only bad guys who died. Pretty cool how that worked out. See kids? This is how a Noble Suicide works.
Let's not forget that the film starts with a Noble Suicide, with Rose's sister, the bomber girl, filmed in glamorizing slow motion, with a single tear falling. To some degree I feel like the casting was a deft decision here, normalizing it through invoking the Kamikaze Bomber trope. Ironically if Leia had overridden Poe's spur of the moment order, and gone with the original plan, the bombers would have flown back, her life would have been saved. Ah, but then we wouldn't have Poe's great character arc. These people need to die for that to happen. Noble Suicide!
With all the discussion of media radicalizing people and causing violence, I started to wonder why people were singling out video games. Yes, violence and mass murder is a component of many games, but it is a component of all media.
More disturbing by far in my opinion is the use of the Noble Suicide in popular film. True this has long been a trope, the heroic sacrifice, yet it has never been glorified quit like it is now. In so many films that are so popular and sold to such a wide audience. In general I find the messages delivered by modern mainstream film to be pro-violence, pro-idology, pro-suicide, disturbing in a number of ways:
For starters there is the most best selling film of all time, Avengers Endgame. This movie begins with the death of trillions of living beings across the universe as a backdrop. Our heroes have lost and failed, yet they find Thanos and violently kill him, despite there being no reason to do so, other than pure bloodlust.
Later they set off to travel through time, undoing all death in the universe (thus making death a meaningless and reversible thing for the audience), yet they must sacrifice someone they love to do so. This absurd bit of lore demands "you sacrifice that which you most love" which gives the genocidal villain at the heart of the story a great "deep" character moment in the previous film, as he momentarily, dramatically pauses before (tragially?) killing his own daughter. Here we have Black Widow and Hawkeye decide that they will each kill themselves, for the good of the universe, in order to save the day. This doesn't make too much sense because neither has spent much time in the 22 movies having a convincingly deep relationship, but I buy it for the contrivance of the present plot. We are treated to a silly scene where they fight one another, like children, on their way racing to the cliff.
In the end Black Widow, the lone woman Avenger, not really treated that well over the course of her series and the previous decade of films, does the best thing she has ever done: she kills herself. Her suicide is glorious, it is sexy, for it is not depicted realistically. She plummets off a cliff and lands hundreds of feet below yet is not splattered everywhere, her taut body still fine in that black leather catsuit, face-up so we can see her pretty face, the face of a dead woman who committed suicide. What a wonderful family film! Thank god this is the money money making movie even, right? Noble Suicide.
Then we can talk about Star Wars. Rogue One, of course, a film based on a team that we all know will die at the end. Actually do we even know that? They could have escaped, I guess. Oh well, it is more poignant that way, hugging your story convenient love interest as a giant explosion washes over you. But they knew what they were getting into, they knew it was a Noble Suicide. The Last Jedi is positively obsessed with the Noble Suicide. The last film showed us an entire star system getting destroyed, yet apparently nobody wants to help fight against this threat. The only thing that inspired people is Luke's stunt on Crait facing down the guy that oversaw said previous polyglobal genocide only yesterday. Luke shows up and taunts him with extremist ideology like "The war will never die" before fading away and dying. It is meant to be a heroic act, we see kids playing pretend Old Man Ghost Who Dies (i guess), another Noble Suicide.
Holdo, just minutes earlier, made "the most beautiful scene in any SW movie ever made" with her Noble Suicide. Which wasn't entirely a suicide, as she rammed her ship into the ship that all our heroes were on as well. They could have died, I guess, but her aim was really, really good, so all of them survived, and it was only bad guys who died. Pretty cool how that worked out. See kids? This is how a Noble Suicide works.
Let's not forget that the film starts with a Noble Suicide, with Rose's sister, the bomber girl, filmed in glamorizing slow motion, with a single tear falling. To some degree I feel like the casting was a deft decision here, normalizing it through invoking the Kamikaze Bomber trope. Ironically if Leia had overridden Poe's spur of the moment order, and gone with the original plan, the bombers would have flown back, her life would have been saved. Ah, but then we wouldn't have Poe's great character arc. These people need to die for that to happen. Noble Suicide!
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