#like its not that i think these are inherently fascist bc of the complex history of cinema in italy

[sforzesco]

Can you recommend your favourite sword-and-sandal movies?

if Steve Reeves was in it, I probably watched it and had a good time. everyone's got legs for days in those movies, and I think the costuming choices are fun!

more specifically tho: The Avenger/La leggenda di Enea (The Legend of Aeneas) and Hercules/Le Fatiche di Ercole (The Labours of Hercules)

searching 'peplum' films on youtube should give you like, so many of these films

that aside, I'd recommend looking up Steve Reeve/other popular sword and sandal actors' acting credits and checking out whatever sounds most fun. they've got everything. You like biblical antiquity? They got biblical antiquity! You want the Trojan War? They got the Trojan War! just. be sure uhhhhhhhhh to watch them some of them with a critical eye.

special mentions to Ben Hur (1959) and Cleopatra (1963), which are actually epics, but I'm throwing them in here because they're so heavily fictionalized in their visuals that it's sword and sandal adjacent to me.

[npcdeath]

its hard to call the political climate these days a descent into fascism because if i look back at history with honest eyes i know that fascism has never actually gone away. and that the struggle between those who want to help others and those who want to exploit others has just continued in every generation, expressed in ways both different and exactly the same, and whichever side is 'winning' tends to swing back and forth like a pendulum.

"things were better in my day" says a septagenarian about the news (generalised suburban paranoia about crime and drugs and fascist policy all at once), and i have to remind them no, there isnt a mythical better past. the white australia policy wasnt abandoned until you were in your 20s; beyond that is a nation built on genocide in the first place. its always been bad here, its just been bad in different ways.

i really dont think there is a Win State for either leftists or fascists. or at least not a perfect one where either can actually achieve their ideal utopian end goal where their enemies are purged and the struggle is done. for fascists thats because their entire system relies on the existence of an enemy, and without it they just start to cannibalize themselves until theyre too weak to resist the uprising of people theyve subjugated. for leftists its bc humans are inherently complex and fallible and, yes, even cruel. its impossible to eradicate that from society completely - the second you take progress for granted, youre done for. a state of peace and equality is something you have to actively maintain for as long as you can. and even then it can still fall to outside forces.

people being capable of both great acts of love+kindness and horrible, indescribable atrocities is kind of our whole deal throughout history, but technological advancement has increased the scale of both of these to unimaginable degrees. add in the fact that we have instant access to news about all of this on a global scale... its overwhelming in a new way, thats for sure. the same but different.

[maybegam]

Having an ancap president

For the last 6 months or so, Argentina has been targeted by global discussion bc of the fact that we have an anarcho-capitalist president, Javier Milei. For the most part, the discussion orbits around economics but also around the understanding of a political movement like anarcho-capitalism. What does it mean to be an anarchist? Why does one of them choose to be president? Why did more than half of a nation choose one as their president?

The fact is that most people don't understand it here either, not bc of these things being hard to comprehend, but bc of the complexity of the Argentine political landscape. We don't have liberals and republicans; here the "republicans" are more like the liberals of the USA, and vice versa. Liberalism has a right-wing association in Argentina. I don't know why it's like this, but not only are liberals tagged as right-wing but also as dictatorship supporters. The narrative in our country often pivots on trying to associate the political opposite to figures like "Jorge Rafael Videla" (one of the worst dictators in our history), and those who say or support something slightly similar to a thing done or said by the government of the last Argentinian dictatorship are tagged as right-wing.

I think that's why the whole political landscape of my country has been so shocked. An ancap is without a doubt against the concept of the state. So you have on one side a right-wing tag that's statist in nature, where people were persecuted for being against the government; and on the other side a right-wing tag that's inherently anti-statist, where the government ideally can't do anything even if it should.

The global interest, I think, is fueled by a feeling that this right-wing president is not like the others. Trump is a nationalist, protectionist, his narrative is opposite to Javier Milei's narrative of implicit anti-nationalism and open market facing the other countries. Bolsonaro is another example but he's much more like Trump with an even stronger emphasis on things like the nuclear family and the church.

My country will be a worth-looking experiment for the future. If my president accomplishes his vision, a free market might arise from the ashes of a broken land, and maybe neither we nor the rest of the world may like its shape, but if it proves to be successful it will happen again, especially in the rest of 3rd world countries. Promises of growth will be spoken from the mouth of devils and saints alike and I hope my land serves as an example for something at least in the economic sense.

I'm not saying that Milei is going to build a capitalist utopia in my land, I'm saying that he's trying, and if something similar to success happens, all the narratives on the planet will have to change, even in the First World countries, not only bc of the change in the debate's nature, but bc of the new antecedents of the ideas debated.

Argentina will be the libertarian Soviet Union, tales of its failure or success will be told by the leaders of the future. The narratives will change and will make libertarianism the center. You will be either in favor or against anarcho-capitalism, like the world was either in favor or against communism. It may not be a systemic change, but it will be a narrative one. The path of history may have been written by my people's vote, I'm happy to live in a moment like this in history and I'll be happy to debate all aspects of the wrong and the right of the actual Argentine government but I wanted to put in perspective the importance of being aware of these changes bc in the near future you will begin to hear more and more people trying to explain the difference between liberalism, libertarianism and conservatism in all its forms. People will call them fascists, they will call people back fascists. So, be prepared.

[bloodbenderz]

humaniterations (dot) net/2014/10/13/an-anarchist-perspective-on-the-red-lotus/ this article from oct 2014 is very dense — truly, a lot to unpack here, but I feel like you would find this piece interesting. I would love it if you shared your thoughts on the points that stood out to you, whether you agree or disagree. you obv don’t have to respond to it tho, but I’m sending it as an ask jic you feel like penning (and sharing) a magnificent essay, as is your wont 💕

article

i know this took me forever 2 answer SORRY but i just checked off all the things on my to do list for the first time in days today so. Essay incoming ladies!

ok im SO glad u sent me this bc it’s so so good. it’s a genuinely thoughtful criticism of the politics in legend of korra (altho i think its sometimes a little mean to korra unnecessarily like there’s no reason to call her a “petulant brat” or say that she throws tantrums but i do understand their point about her being an immature and reactionary hero, which i’ll get back to) and i think the author has a good balance between acknowledging like Yeah the lok writers were american liberals and wrote their show accordingly and Also writing a thorough analysis of lok’s politics that felt relevant and interesting without throwing their hands up and saying this is all useless liberal bullshit (which i will admit that i tend to do).

this article essentially argues that the red lotus antagonists of s3 were right. And that’s not an uncommon opinion i think but this gives it serious weight. Like, everything that zaheer’s gang did was, in context, fully understandable. of course the red lotus would be invested in making sure that the physically and spiritually and politically most powerful person in the world ISNT raised by world leaders and a secret society of elites that’s completely unaccountable to the people! of course the red lotus wants to bring down tyrannical governments and allow communities to form and self govern organically! and the writers dismiss all of that out of hand by 1. consistently framing the red lotus as insane and murderous (korra never actually gives zaheer’s ideas a chance or truly considers integrating them into her own approach) 2. representing the death of the earth queen as not just something that’s not necessarily popular (what was with mako’s bootlicker grandma, i’d love to know) but as something that causes unbelievable violence and chaos in ba sing se (which, like, a lot of history and research will tell you that people in disasters tend towards prosocial behaviors). so the way the story frames each of these characters and ideologies is fascinating because like. if you wanted to write season 3 of legend of korra with zaheer as the protagonist and korra as the antagonist, you wouldn’t actually have to change the sequence of events at all, really. these writers in particular and liberal writers in general LOVE writing morally-gray-but-ultimately-sympathetic characters (like, almost EVERY SINGLE fire nation character in the first series, who were full on violent colonizers but all to a degree were rehabilitated in the eyes of the viewer) but instead of framing the red lotus as good people who are devoted to justice and freedom and sometimes behave cruelly to get where theyre trying to go, they frame them as psychopaths and murderers who have good intentions don’t really understand how to make the world a better place.

and the interesting thing about all this, about the fact that the red lotus acted in most cases exactly as it should have in context and the only reason its relegated to villain status is bc the show is written by liberals, is that the red lotus actually points out really glaring sociopolitical issues in universe! like, watching the show, u think well why the fuck HASN’T korra done anything about the earth queen oppressing her subjects? why DOESN’T korra do anything about the worse than useless republic president? why the hell are so many people living in poverty while our mains live cushy well fed lives? how come earth kingdom land only seems to belong to various monarchs and settler colonists, instead of the people who are actually indigenous to it? the show does not want to answer these questions, because american liberal capitalism literally survives on the reality of oppressive governments and worse than useless presidents and people living in poverty while the middle/upper class eats and indigenous land being stolen. if the show were to answer these questions honestly, the answer would be that the status quo in real life (and the one on the show that mirrors real life) Has To Change.

So they avoid answering these questions honestly in order for the thesis statement to be that the status quo is good. and the only way for the show to escape answering these questions is for them to individualize all these broad social problems down into Good people and Bad people. so while we have obvious bad ones like the earth queen we also have all these capitalists and monarchs and politicians who are actually very nice and lovely people who would never hurt anyone! which is just such an absurd take and it’s liberal propaganda at its best. holding a position of incredible political/economic power in an unjust society is inherently unethical and maintaining that position of power requires violence against the people you have power over. which is literally social justice 101. but there’s literally no normal, average, not-politically-powerful person on the show. so when leftist anarchism is presented and says that destroying systems that enforce extreme power differentials is the only way to bring peace and freedom to all, the show has already set us up to think, hey, fuck you, top cop lin beifong and ford motor ceo asami sato are good people and good people like them exist! and all we have to do to move forward and progress as a society is to make sure we have enough good individuals in enough powerful positions (like zuko as the fire lord ending the war, or wu as the earth king ending the monarchy)! which is of course complete fiction. liberal reform doesn’t work. but by pretending that it could work by saying that the SYSTEM isnt rotten it’s just that the people running it suck and we just need to replace those people, it automatically delegitimizes any radical movements that actually seek to change things.

and that’s the most interesting thing about this article to me is that it posits that the avatar...might actually be a negative presence in the world. the avatar is the exact same thing: it’s a position of immense political and physical power bestowed completely randomly, and depending on the moral character and various actions of who fills that position at any given time, millions of people will or won’t suffer. like kyoshi, who created the fascist dai li, like roku, who refused to remove a genocidal dictator from power, like aang, who facilitated the establishment of a settler colonial state on earth kingdom land. like korra! she’s an incredibly immature avatar and a generally reactionary lead. i’ve talked about this at length before but she never actually gets in touch with the needs of the people. she’s constantly running in elite circles, exposed only to the needs and squabbles of the upper class! how the hell is she supposed to understand the complexities of oppression and privilege when she was raised by a chess club with inordinate amounts of power and associates almost exclusively with politicians and billionaires?? from day 1 we see that she tends to see things in very black and white ways which is FINE if you’re a privileged 17 yr old girl seeing the world for the first time but NOT FINE if you’re the single most powerful person in the world! Yeah, korra thinks the world is probably mostly fine and just needs a little whipping into shape every couple years, because all she has ever known is a mostly fine world! in s1 when mako mentions that he as a homeless impoverished teenager worked for a gang (which is. Not weird. Impoverished people of every background are ALWAYS more likely to resort to socially unacceptable ways of making money) korra is like “you guys are criminals?????!!!!!” she was raised in perfect luxury by a conservative institution and just never developed beyond that. So sure, if the red lotus raised her anarchist, probably a lot would’ve been different/better, but....they didn’t. and korra ended up being a reactionary and conservative avatar who protected monarchs and colonialist politicians. The avatar as a position is completely subject to the whims of whoever is currently the avatar. and not only does that suck for everyone who is not the avatar, not only is it totally unfair to whatever kid who grows up knowing the fate of the world is squarely on their shoulders, but it as a concept is a highly individualist product of the authors’ own western liberal ideas of progress! the idea that one good leader can fix the world (or should even try) based on their own inherent superiority to everyone else is unbelievably flawed and ignores the fact that all real progress is brought about as a result of COMMUNITY work, as a result of normal people working for themselves and their neighbors!

the broader analysis of bending was really interesting to me too, but im honestly not sure i Totally agree with it. the article pretty much accepts the show’s assertion that bending is a privilege (and frankly backs it up much better than the original show did, but whatever), and i don’t think that’s NECESSARILY untrue since it is, like, a physical advantage (the author compares it to, for example, the fact that some people are born athletically gifted and others are born with extreme physical limitations), but i DO think that it discounts the in universe racialization of bending. in any sequel to atla that made sense, bending as a race making fact would have been explored ALONGSIDE the physical advantages it bestows on people. colonialism and its aftermath is generally ignored in this article which is its major weakness i think, especially in conjunction with bending. you can bring up the ideas the author did about individual vs community oriented progress in the avatar universe while safely ignoring the colonialism, but you can’t not bring up race and colonialism when you discuss bending. especially once you get to thinking about how water/earth/airbenders were imprisoned and killed specifically because bending was a physical advantage, and that physical advantage was something that would have given colonized populations a means of resistance and that the fire nation wanted to keep to itself.

i think that’s the best lens thru which to analyze bending tbh! like in the avatar universe bending is a tool that different ethnic groups tend to use in different ways. at its best, bending actually doesn’t represent social power differences (despite representing a physical power difference) because it’s used to represent/maintain community solidarity. like, take the water tribe. katara being the last waterbender, in some way, makes her the last of a part of swt CULTURE. the implication is that when there were a lot of waterbenders in the south, they dedicated their talents to building community and helping their neighbors, because this was something incredibly culturally important and important to the water tribe as a community. the swt as a COLLECTIVE values bending for what it can do for the entire tribe, which counts for basically every other talent a person can have (strength, creativity, etc). the fire nation, by contrast, distorts the community value of bending by racializing it: anyone who bends an element that isn’t fire is inherently NOT fire nation (and therefore inherently inferior) and, because of the physical power that bending confers, anyone who bends an element that isn’t fire is a threat to fire nation hegemony. and in THAT framework of bending, it’s something that intrinsically assigns worth and reifies race in a way that’s conveniently beneficial to the oppressor.

it IS worth talking about how using Element as a way to categorize people reifies nations, borders, and race in a way that is VERY characteristic of white american liberals. i tried to be conscious of that (and the way that elements/bending can act in DIFFERENT ways, depending on cultural context) but i think it’s pretty clear that the writers did intend for element to unequivocally signify nation (and, by extension, race), which is part of why they screwed up mixed families so bad in lok. when they’ve locked themselves into this idea that element=nation=race, they end up with sets of siblings like mako and bolin or kya tenzin and bumi, who all “take” after only one parent based on the element that they bend. which is just completely stupid but very indicative of how the writers actually INTENDED element/bending to be a race making process. and its both fucked up and interesting that the writers display the same framework of race analysis that the canonical antagonists of atla do.

anyway that’s a few thoughts! thank u again for sending the article i really loved it and i had a lot of fun writing this <3

[serenagaywaterford]

1) "Is violent mob revenge the answer? (I honestly can’t make that determination.) Is violence sometimes the answer? Is war the only answer with totalitarian regimes?" Those are the kind of questions I had in mind actually. Obviously, I wouldn't expect any answers (bc those are up to the audience, not the series), but it would be interesting if they went there. Of course, these questions would fly over some people's heads (like you said), bc honestly? Said people approach THT like it's a

2) Disney-esque (/superhero) series (nothing wrong with them), where the totally good guys get to punch and kill the totally evil guys in the end, uwu. (If I'm being too much of a dick, just tell me and I'll tone it down a notch, lol.) Anyway, mob mentality aside, history proves that such regimes fall and rise the same way they have been created. Aka "Those who arrive with blood, fall with blood." Doesn't mean that we have to like it. I've mentioned before that I detest violence and I especially

3) believe that it has NO place in politics. I've been called naive for this, so there's that. Weirdly enough, I'm also the kind of person who thinks that equating ALL forms of violence is quite dangerous given that: i) threats/regimes like Gilead are inherently genocidal in their ambitions, ii) the scale of violence is not always the same, iii) every country (democratic or not) has its army and police and most people consider this kind of (controlled) violence perfectly valid, iv) there's

4) self-defense. Where I'm going with this? If a pro-Gilead person is threatened by an anti-Gilead one, the former has a choice: they can ask for a democratic trial (bc it's too late to apologize). Most likely, civilized/democratic people will listen to reason. (Well, unless we're talking about mobs... THEN, things get quite disturbing.) But if a person belongs to a group/minority targeted by Gilead, there's nothing they can do that will make pro-Gilead people happy... except die or get raped

5) for life. Anyway, I really could go on and on about this subject, but I think I'll stop here, bc it's quite complex. /// I was thinking about what you said concerning Fred and Serena's pre-Gilead relationship, and you know what? You're right. Their relationship would have fallen apart at some point, Gilead notwithstanding or not. Fred is two-faced and he sure af played us in S1. (Ngl, I used to think he was the lesser of the two evils.) But one doesn't become such an antipathetic monster at

6) a flip of the dime. The nasty parts were always there, but he concealed/controlled them. Maybe bc said parts wouldn't exactly make him endearing to others? Anyhow, your interpretation makes him quite the interesting antagonist/villain, so I'm rolling with it, lol.

---------

OMG. I think I’m in love with you?  PLEASE NEVER STOP BEING YOU. I don’t think you’re being a dick at all. I love it. Cos sometimes we just gotta call the BS like we see it?

“Of course, these questions would fly over some people's heads (like you said), bc honestly? Said people approach THT like it's a Disney-esque (/superhero) series (nothing wrong with them), where the totally good guys get to punch and kill the totally evil guys in the end, uwu.”

This is such a huge point. Cos I think there’s a very common trend of THT attempting to approach issues from various angles and try to show the complexity of it but then it going WHOOSH over so many viewers’ heads. Which never makes sense to me cos like, what’s the point in watching THT if you’re not considering it on multiple levels and trying to explore the issues? I don’t wanna point the blame in the general directions of particular shippers but I can’t help it, perhaps cos they’re just the most vocal in fandom, but it seems that the Disney-eqsque superhero tale is what they want, complete with EPIC HETERO ROMANCE!!! throughout. I’d say at least 50% of the responses are about Mr. Nicky (It goes up to 75-80% if we are actually shown his face). (And their concern is focused on the male romantic lead... YAWN.)

I would absolutely love THT to take the path of questioning mob mentality and the cycle of violence/victimization, etc. But it may be too much for even Hulu to want to tackle considering how black and white viewers seem to think. They are trying so HARD to present characters as shades of grey (Serena, being the main example. But June, Emily, Luke, Nick, etc. also) but instead of placing them along a spectrum it’s either DIE EVIL SCUM! or AMAZING CINNAMON ROLL CAN DO NO WRONG! I think the only one they complain about is June cos she’s not AS perfect as they’d like her to be. She makes some dumbass fucking decisions for sure. Sometimes I like that about her, especially how pre-Gilead June was not a super great person. She was just sorta... normal. (Other times I’m like, “JUNE YOU IDIOT WTF?!” lol but that’s fun too I guess.) If I made a scale myself, I’d probably put June fairly close to the centre, rather than on the far “good” end.

I always wondered this:

If June hadn’t been deemed a “fallen woman” and thus been allowed to stay as an Econowife, with Luke and Hannah, would she have done anything? Would she be as inspired to rebel and resist as she is? I’m not trying to shit on June at all, but I feel like it’s a question I’m curious about. A lot of people say they would be big heroes, but when really faced with the reality of living a sort of shitty life or risking that for an uncertain thing/death, most just choose to go along with it and hope it ends (especially hope that SOMEBODY else takes the risk to end it). Even good people. What do you think? 

(Aside: June being called a fallen woman is SUCH bullshit. She wasn’t cheating on anybody! LUKE was unfaithful, not her! Which is why I thought perhaps they missed a chance to address race. It could have influence on what Gilead deems “holy” marriages, and those they see as “sinful”. And a (even subtly) racist fascist state, would deffo see mixed marriage as a terrible thing. “Let’s get the fertile white woman knocked up with some white babies; no more of this mixed race babies!” Again, as we talked about before, it would limit Hannah’s storyline ofc, but I guess it wouldn’t HAVE to. She could be in a “lesser” household, instead of the rich fancy one she is.)

Sorry, those were some unplanned side rants!

I love how you described all the politics of that. It really is a fascinating thing to consider, especially how to deal with Gilead, both on an international scale, and just on smaller scales. War? Seems inevitable honestly. And clearly, Gilead is STILL fighting wars all over the continent. I honestly... you’re so right. It’s very complex and I’m not sure how detailed THT will go with that. They seem to be keeping things quite... superficial. They reference things every so often but there’s nothing solid to latch onto. It often reminds me of the Underpants Gnomes from South Park. 

phase 1: blow up congress

phase 2: ???

phase 3: establish fully-functional military fascist handmaid regime over entire continental US.

....so how to bring down Gilead then??? 

phase 1: burn down 3 house + angry handmaid steal babby back then let babby go to canada!!

phase 2: ???

phase 3: overthrow massive fascist military regime!!!!

So, we’ll see how they do it. I doubt we’re really going to get a lot of details about how everything works and maybe it’s just better that way cos it seems like the more they try to explain how Gilead stays working, it makes even less sense. And also, as much as this stuff is interesting, I really don’t wanna watch THT turn into like Zero Dark Thirty or some shit. It’s strongest when focused on the women’s experiences specifically.

“Fred is two-faced and he sure af played us in S1. (Ngl, I used to think he was the lesser of the two evils.)“

Same! It wasn’t until S2 that I started going “hmm” about Fred. I thought he wasn’t as evil as her. And when you go back and watch S1 knowing what he’s done in S2, tehre are hints and I got a weird vibe. Like... I dunno. I was randomly just rewatching that 2x11 scene where Fred and Serena are at the house and Fred is just so.... Yikes. His motives are so clear. And I tried to find examples of Fred’s humanity. I do believe we get glimpses of Serena’s, and she has capacity for kindness--in very specific circumstances but I couldn’t find a single scene of Fred where he does anything selfless, or without expecting some sort of gross sexual favour/ego stroke in return, or even kind. It’s all for his own gratification. And I am 1000% convinced he has some sort of pregnancy fetish. It doesn’t seem like he gives a shit about the actual baby, esp once its born. He’s more interested in June’s bodily changes (not the actual baby) when she’s pregnant, and her lactation afterwards. And I may not know much about the world of fetishes but I do know that’s not exactly a rare one for men. 

I think an argument against me would be the car convo about creating the Ceremony cos Fred kind of just went along with it and was on the fence. But then I think... it’s not that he was against it at all. He just didn’t think women would like it. It was never, “Nah, mate, that’s a step too far.” It was more like, “Cool idea, bros. But let’s rebrand it okay?” I mean, in the flashbacks, he did seem very proud of her, enamored, like you said. But part of me just can’t shake that, okay fair play that he probably did honestly love/respect her in some ways, but he also saw it as, “Yes, this plan is going just the way I want it!” I don’t feel like power corrupts THAT much, that quickly that he’d go from perfect husband and lovingly gazing at his amazing wife to demeaning, repeatedly cheating on her, and beating the living shit out of her (and raping her) in a few years. Then again, extreme situations can make people change quite abruptly. Who knows.

I dunno. Maybe I just hate him and dont’ wanna give him any credit for being a human being in any way whatsoever lol.