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A lot of quintessentially American things are anti-American
"Born in the USA," Bruce Springsteen in general, "Rambo," Mark Twain, "Monopoly," MTV, et cetera
The arc goes:
- US system is bullshit
- Someone points it out in an artistic work
- People love it and the thing they made gets popular
- System goes "hey we love that you're buying this please do it more" and promotes it under a guise of it not being directed squarely at them, with some skillful edits
- Thing gets even more popular with more exposure, in its edited (backwards) form, to the point that the original is often semi-forgotten
Being against the bullshit is an American trait. Unfortunately, the bullshit has become more powerful than the against, hence all these problems we have now.
Rambo: First Blood was a critique of a system that has failed its war veterans. The sequels abandoned all that 70s new-cinema moral ambiguity, making Rambo into a Reagan-era anticommunist superhero, a sort of James Bond for people who are suspicious of subtlety.
The same goes for Karate Kid...
I loved how it portreyed Miyagi as a sad man who lost wife and child to the internment camps, while he was serving the US and his medal is a bitter reminder of that fact.
In Cobra Kai is was "War Medal fuck yeah ! Miyagi best veteran, we must protect the patriotic legacy !"
Then in the remakes, they replaced him with Mr. Han (as in Han Chinese), for the same reason why superhero films have scenes set in Shenzhen: because if you don’t angle for a piece of the Chinese market, you’re failing in your fiduciary duty to your shareholders.
Rambo was a masterpiece. The sequels were fanatic patriotism porn.
James Bond for people who are suspicious of subtlety.
😘👌
This Land is Your Land is also not the patriotic song people think it is. At least, not in the way people think it is.
There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me; Sign was painted, it said private property; But on the back side it didn't say nothing; This land was made for you and me.
This land is my land
This land ain't your land
I got a shotgun
And you ain't got oneIf you don't get off
I'll blow your head off
This land was made for only meThis land was made for you and me 🎶🎵🎶 (terms and conditions apply)
I don't think Woody Guthrie cared about the copyright. You go ahead and play that song as much as you want. :-)
Americans criticizing America is not anti-American.
I noticed that a large number of children’s shows, especially Christmas shows, are about evil corporations trying to take over and ruin something or pollute the world. These shows are then shown by evil media corporations which show commercials by other evil corporations.
What happens is the first part of the artistic work is setting up the propaganda and lies that the protagonist is raised into, which the conservatives love and see as validating.
Then the conservatives either stop reading or otherwise fail to see the part of the tale where the hero gets abandoned and harmed by those he thought he was working with/for.
MTV?
Not really “anti American” but not completely establishment friendly. They had Rock the Vote, Beavis and Butthead, Monty Python including the nudity, Jon Stewart got his start there, they had Liquid TV and weird nonsense on the air, at a time when most TV was pure Tom Brokaw and all why bombing Iranians is cool all the time.
Compared to now, it looks super establishment friendly, but for the landscape of television at the time it was pretty anarchistic. Now it is the narrative of course. 😕
To MTV's credit, they also did a lot to normalize homosexuality with The Real World.
I thought Monopoly was originally British.
I don't think so, it's based off of Ocean City, NJ...