#(and i'm obviously not saying brazil doesn't have its problems but at least most of our shit is our own business)

[ntshastark]

What an absolutely hilarious article.

It begins with "No, it’s not set in modern-day America. Perhaps that’s the point: If we’re not very careful, it could be." and ends with "Maybe, when all is said and done, this is a movie for modern-day America.". It literally frames 'I'm Still Here' as some sort of cautionary tale for the USA under Trump 2.0.

And at no point whatsoever it deems necessary to mention why Brazil was under a military dictatorship in the first place.

I mean, who do we know that, during this thing called the Cold War, went around Latin America rubbing their imperialist little hands all over the place and helped topple tons of legitimate left-leaning governments in favour of militaristic dictators? You think this has nothing to do with you? That this is a story you're viewing fully from the outside?

I could do a whole rant about this, but I genuinely couldn't put it better than bluesky user guslanzetta already did 2 days ago, while quoting a video from AOC:

[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: "I don’t care what Elon Musk is doing behind the presidential seal, but in this country we hate Nazis. Kind of like a foundational defining thing. Two of the foundational things about American history is that we beat the confederates and we beat the Nazis."]

The country that hates nazis hired a bunch of nazis to build rockets in the 40s. America is defined by hating communists way more than hating nazis. If AOC wants to be the voice of change she must admit how fucked up America is and how it needs to be better. Don't go "actual MAGA". There's nothing beautiful to return to, there's a better tomorrow to be built and it has to be a tomorrow, time moves forward and we must as well. We didn't lose our way, we realized there's another path. We want to go where we haven't been.

(emphasis my own)

‘I’m Still Here’: A stark history and warm memoir of Brazil’s darkest days

Walter Salles’s “I’m Still Here” is an epic within an epic: a teeming family drama contained within the melodrama of a country going insane.

No, it’s not set in modern-day America. Perhaps that’s the point: If we’re not very careful, it could be.

Brazil in 1970 existed in a state of constant tension, with a military dictatorship installed in a 1964 coup that was overseeing a resurgent economy and the increasingly brutal repression of anyone it saw as stepping out of line. Among the latter was Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), a civil engineer and congressman from São Paulo who fled the country when his position was nullified by the dictatorship, but who returned within the year because he couldn’t keep away from his wife and kids.

You can hardly blame him. If you were lucky growing up, you knew one of those big, warm, rambunctious families whose dinner table was always open to strays and whose conversations on art, politics, culture and morality expanded one’s brain and the possibilities of life. (If you were luckier still, it was your family.) The Paivas were one of those special clans, and director Salles was, in his youth, one of the strays at their table, making “I’m Still Here” as much personal memoir as national history.

In Mello’s playing, Rubens is affable, smart and maybe too unconcerned for his personal safety. Or maybe he just doesn’t have the time, since he’s active in labor causes, holds meetings at home, publishes a left-wing newspaper and insists on being a present, loving father to his five children. In this, his wife Eunice (Fernanda Torres) is his partner and equal.

And then, one day in January 1971, Rubens is taken away for questioning, and “I’m Still Here” depicts the harrowing disorientation of a home invaded by men with guns. Eunice was detained and interrogated for a brief period, as was their adolescent daughter Eliana (Luiza Kosovski), and the glimpses Salles gives of the junta’s tactics — blood on the floor, screams down the hall — chill them and us to the marrow.

At this point, Eunice comes to the fore as the real hero of “I’m Still Here,” embarking on a relentless course of action to discover her husband’s whereabouts while holding her family together with elegance and grit. That path would eventually take her to a law degree and a national role as an activist pushing for the government’s recognition of those who were “disappeared” during the dictatorship, which ended in 1985. (The script by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega is based on a 2015 memoir by Eunice and Rubens’s only son, Marcelo, a successful Brazilian playwright and screenwriter.)

Continue reading.

[vaarsuvius6]

"You guys act like two of the most popular redemption arcs in fiction didn't also happen to characters who destroy planets."

I don't know much about Dragon Ball, but unless I'm remembering wrong, Vader never actually destroyed a planet. The Death Star destroyed a planet. Don't get me wrong, Vader works for Palpatine, who ordered the Death Star built and used, but technically, no, Vader never destroyed a planet.

"Hell, the Galactic Empire Vader works for is supposed to be a direct analogue to the Nazis for fucks sake."

And Return of the Jedi ends with Palpatine dying, while SU ends with the Diamonds living in a palace. Okay, the movie says they aren't in charge of the Gem species anymore, but they're still living in a palace. So while I won't say that Star Wars is perfect, I will at least say that it handled its themes better. (Also, Anakin used to be a mostly normal guy until Palpatine started gaslighting him, so his character can be viewed as a metaphor for people who get sucked into cults and extremist ideologies. White Diamond, on the other hand, has no sympathetic backstory to speak of - no-one convinced her to go around being a dictator, she chose to do that of her own volition.)

"No one is calling Stars Wars or Dragon Ball Nazi propaganda just because these two got character development. That'd be fucking absurd."

Here's the thing. Star Wars was made in the 70's, Dragon Ball was made in the 80's and 90's. SU was made in the 2010's. Like it or not, people are going to be more critical of media released today than they are of media released a long time ago. For example, people forgive writers like C.S Lewis for having dated politics in the Narnia books, because Narnia was written in the 50's. A book that used the same tropes that Lewis did would be criticized harshly if it was released today. So if you're saying "Why do people forgive these old villains being shown in a sympathetic light, but not do the same for these new villains?", my response to that is "Because the old villains were made a long time ago when standards were different, and the new villains were made in a decade defined by political turmoil and the rise of right-wing extremism". SU's finale was aired while Trump was president of the U.S. and Bolsonaro was president of Brazil. Star Wars and Dragon Ball were made in a simpler time. Steven Universe was not.

"Like, complain about how the Redemption Arc got rushed all you want (even if that's on the producers for canceling the show early and not the writers)..."

The show being cancelled early didn't create problems. It just enhanced problems that already existed. One complaint was that the Diamonds (authoritarian dictators) recieved more sympathy from the writers than Keven (a jerk who never killed anyone). That problem began much earlier than Season 5. Executive meddling may have made the writing issues more obvious, but it didn't create them.

"...but please just acknowledge the calling the Jewish woman a Nazi sympathizer because you didn't like her kids cartoon is fucking vile."'

While I agree that calling Rebecca Sugar a sympathizer for fascist regimes is obviously immoral, I feel the need to add two points. Firstly, calling it a "kids cartoon" is dishonest - like Pixar movies, it was aimed for the whole family not just kids. I mean, have you seen some of the jokes they got away with? The show was clearly trying to appeal to more than just kids, or the writers wouldn't have tried to tackle tough topics like abuse (Jasper and Lapis) or colonialism (the Diamonds) or ableims (the Off Colours), which they did. So if they wanted adults to watch the show, that means adults have the right to complain if they felt it handled those topics badly.

Secondly, while I'm not accusing Sugar of sympathising with real-world extremist ideologies (as you say, that idea is ludicrous), I do think that Sugar doesn't get how dangerous or how toxic real-world extremist ideologies are. The end of Steven Universe was not long before the rise of QAnon. And in the post-QAnon age, the idea of people with far-right views being redeemed because of some big speech seems awfully naive. If reasoning with extremists was that easy, then forums like Qanoncasualties would not exist, but they do.

I remember Sugar once saying something like "The idea of a world where people are inherently good is no less absurd than the idea of a world with aliens and spaceships." That's not the exact quote, but it was something along those lines. But after Covid and January 6, it has become clear to me that Sugar was wrong - a world where people are inherently good IS more absurd than a world with aliens and spaceships. And that wouldn't bother me, except the show was being written at the same time when right-wing extremist groups were gaining popularity in the US, and the writers didn't really seem to grasp that the political message they were trying to send seemed increasingly out of touch. In a world where people were forced to fight back - sometimes literally - against the alt-right, a show that said "Well, maybe the right-wing dictators just need a hug" seemed in increasingly poor taste.

I'm not accusing the SU writers of being racist. I am, however, accusing them of not thinking through the subtext of their story. And I maintain that the subtex of SU is, at best, dated to the pre-Trump era - the era when Obama was president and it seemed like things were getting better. It's subtext that didn't age well, is what I'm saying.

And yes, Sugar is Jewish, but many people who criticised the show were themselves minorities. For example, black critics pointed out that "Bismuth" has the black-coded Gem who advocates using lethal force against her oppressors be the villain. And this is my big problem with your post - you're saying that the minorities who worked on the show deserve sympathy, but the minorities who criticised the show do not?

For the record, I don't hate Steven Universe. I think it's a mediocre show that had a lot of good ideas but poor execution (i.e, the Off Colours being introduced and then mostly forgot about by the writers. Yes I know the show was shortened by the producers, but even in Future, the Off Colours barely did anything. Other than Lars, they didn't even have any dialogue.). I like the fanfics more than I like the actual show. I don't hate the show. It had some good episodes despite its many flaws. But you're saying "Well, this kind of character arc didn't raise eyebrows in the 90's, so why is it raising eyebrows now?" And that is not a good faith argument.

"Steven Universe is Nazi propaganda because characters who destroyed planets got a redemption arc!"

You guys act like two of the most popular redemption arcs in fiction didn't also happen to characters who destroy planets.

Hell, the Galactic Empire Vader works for is supposed to be a direct analogue to the Nazis for fucks sake. No one is calling Stars Wars or Dragon Ball Nazi propaganda just because these two got character development. That'd be fucking absurd.

Like, complain about how the Redemption Arc got rushed all you want (even if that's on the producers for canceling the show early and not the writers), but please just acknowledge the calling the Jewish woman a Nazi sympathizer because you didn't like her kids cartoon is fucking vile.