Read BEFORE posting Trades & Request
skyled said:While the trailer makes it seem like it's a heist movie, come on, it's about starting a class war. It even says it right there in the trailer: the rich live on Elysium, the poor live on earth. Haves versus have-nots.
Sunarep said:so because a movie is about class diffrences it is automatically propaganda?
reave said:It certainly has a tinge of the 1% "propaganda" that could easily be expected from a Hollywood movie, but if it's handled as well as the subtle apartheid commentary in District 9 I can't see it being an annoying distraction from what looks like a kick ass sci-fi flick. I have high hopes for this.
For the record, I enjoy political commentary, I just don't like it being show-horned into a movie that isn't specifically political in nature. I watch movies to escape the misery of certain aspects of society, not to be forcefully reminded of them.
ThrowgnCpr said:Like I said earlier, you can have movies with political commentary that aren't propaganda.
skyled said:Back in the day when I was in college, I took a sociology class about race and ethnicity and the professor was an admitted Marxist. The entire thing was about trying to get people to stop focusing on race and race issues and instead focus on class. The thinking (and all the class readings were about this) was that if enough people would focus on class they would get angry, start a class war, and then we would finally have communism. That's how I look at stories with this model. Just look at Metropolis. The rich in their high towers living at the expense of the oppressed masses. It's pure Marxism. How can you watch this trailer and not see the parallels?
theslime said:Well, in the US most people, even intellectuals, seem to think class doesn't apply to them - even though it's obviously one of the most class-based societies on the planet, with its own ridiculously rich aristocracy with its ows set of exclusion mechanisms. Marx (who, btw, said that he "was not a marxist" (even though he co-wrote the Communist Manifesto, that's not really his main work)) would be puzzled at the American society of today, I think, where pretty much everybody think they can get rich if they just work hard, but where most of the working class has no chance in hell to even ascend to middle class without marrying someone from it. The British working class (or pretty much any other working class, really) has historically had a much more fatalistic attitude, and less starry-eyed dreams of grandeur. I think Americans - who, rightly, are very race-conscious - should be reminded every once in a while that the question of class is very real, and probably a more burning question than race since a lot of racism is really more about fear of the unwashed, poor masses than genuine fear of African- or Asian-looking people. That said, your professor sounds like a doofus if you're quoting him (her?) correctly. There are other ways of class revolt than communism, as most marxists would be able to tell you.
I have two questions about this, though: What do you think a legitimate revolt against oppression would look like (is it even possible)? And does your interpretation of Metropolis as a marxist/communist film (which I find borderline ridiculous, btw) mean that enjoy it less than you would otherwise?