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Something I heard once that has always stuck with me: "They can take everything from you except your contempt." The idea is when so much of our agency is strip
by munificent 5y ago
Something I heard once that has always stuck with me: "They can take everything from you except your contempt."
The idea is when so much of our agency is stripped from us, often the last thing we can hold onto—which we hold onto tightly because it is the last thing—is comtempt. You can crush me under your boot. You can make me sing the party's songs. But you can't make me believe them. You may own my body but not my mind.
We in the US are living in a time of deep cynicism and distrust of all of the institutions Americans used to hold dear. The degree to which that distrust is misplaced is an open question but the distrust itself is unequivocal.
I look at the current culture of anti-heroes and dark superheroes as a reaction to that. We are so distrustful of anyone or thing claiming to be good that a brightly-colored positive superhero today would earn only contempt from us. We'd assume it must be a deceitful facade.
All that leaves us is morally corrupted dark anti-heroes that are least openly flawed and whose contempt for the other institutions of justice mirrors our own.
- krapp 5y ago>All that leaves us is morally corrupted dark anti-heroes that are least openly flawed and whose contempt for the other institutions of justice mirrors our own. Except most modern superhero movies aren't like that at all, if anything much of the genre seems to be a tonal rejection of the cynicism and nihilism you're describing.
- jimbokun 5y agoWith properties like The Boys, Bright Burn, and Batman movies and spinoffs like Joker, it's starting to sneak back in. There was a similar cycle in the late 80s and 90s, when there was a rush of "mature" super hero comics.
- babypuncher 5y agoI don't think it's much of a cycle, there has been a constant undercurrent of "mature" cynical superhero comics and movies for decades now. In the '00s we had the Christian Bale Batman movies, and adaptations of V for Vendetta and Watchmen. In the '10s we had Deadpool and the Zack Snyder DC movies with their unprecedented cynical take on Superman. It all continues today with Venom and Batman spinoffs.
- NeuNeurosis 5y agoGreat summation of the zeit geist. I would say "The Boys" is a direct child of this sentiment.