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The parallels between Musk and Stark seemed perfect on paper. Both are billionaire tech innovators with a flair for the dramatic and dreams of changing the world.

  • GreenKnight23@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4221·
    2 months ago

    are you ready to admit that fictional characters exist in fiction because it gives an escape to readers to fantasize about themselves as the hero?

    get over yourself bringing all that hatemongering in here.

    you think you offer a special perspective that none of us have that pertains to the widening of socioeconomic gaps between the rich and poor? yeah we get it, “rich man bad!”

    calling comic book characters propaganda, what’s wrong with you?! you think the writers of these characters have some kind of secret cabal where they purposely write great things about rich people just to make actual rich people look good?!

    your perspective is skewed and you need to re-evaluate it.

    • Seasm0ke@lemmy.worldEnglish
      141·
      2 months ago

      It isnt so much direct propaganda as conditioned propaganda. Stan Lee was a playwright for the us army a title I believe less than 10 people held at the time. He spent his late teens and early 20s being the hand on the page for the voice of the US government. Being immersed in those ideals it is no wonder he regurgitated us red scare propaganda and he expressed regret for it.

      This didnt stop though and with iron man stan lee said:

      “I think I gave myself a dare. It was the height of the Cold War. The readers, the young readers, if there was one thing they hated, it was war, it was the military. So I got a hero who represented that to the hundredth degree. He was a weapons manufacturer, he was providing weapons for the Army, he was rich, he was an industrialist. I thought it would be fun to take the kind of character that nobody would like, none of our readers would like, and shove him down their throats and make them like him … And he became very popular.”

      Prpaganda is defined as

      “deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist”.

      Iron man certainly seems to fit. Remember Stan Lee was in the military when it was antifascist. As a result he was pro military and he used his position to sway people toward his own views which… were developed when writing for the army. …

      It doesn’t have to be a secret conspiracy to act as propaganda. Social conditioning reinforces it. Americas civil religion permeates every aspect of life from the pledge of allegiance in kidnergarten to the anthem at ball games. If you do not recognize it and challenge it you will repeat it.

      I personally think in the case of Batman it was less nefarious. A plot device gone awry. After all, how could a normal man compete with Superman? In our society he would have to be rich to fund his inventions and afford superhuman tools.

      • masquenox@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        2 months ago

        I generally agree with your post, but I’d say one correction is in order here.

        Remember Stan Lee was in the military when it was antifascist pretending to be antifascist in order to wage war on colonialist rivals.

        The US military has never been antifascist.

    • angrystego@lemmy.worldEnglish
      61·
      2 months ago

      I think there’s some kind of general fascination with rich people ingrained naturally in the human mind. It’s not just in comics. It’s present in many fairy tales, mythology, religious books…

      Iagree it can help the rich to get away with things. But I also think it’s not fair to blame authors for using good old archetypes, while I also support kindhearted critique of those archetypes - it’s important to understand their role in social context and to make authors aware of the downsides.

    • masquenox@lemmy.worldEnglish
      43·
      2 months ago

      gives an escape to readers to fantasize about themselves as the hero?

      Your “escapist” fantasy is to be rich, dress up in tacticool BDSM-gear and be allowed to beat up working class people?

      Yes, comic books are propaganda, and the super-creep variety has always had the smell of Objectivism to it.

      It’s certainly worked on you.

    • Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.worldEnglish
      21·
      2 months ago

      Sure but sometimes the times makes certain types of escapism unattractive and not fun. The idea of a good guy billionaire is not fun in 2024

      • masquenox@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        It’s not fun in 2024 because, thanks to the internet, we now have mountains of evidence at our fingertips to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt what they really are and always have been - ie, what the leftists have been trying to tell us since forever.