this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2026
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I've seen one Lemmy bigbrain recently argue that even when artists are showing mafia or army to be terrible for people in them, they romanticize the mafia and army nonetheless, and that in general media glorifies its subject matter regardless of the author's intent. This schmuck would probably say with a straight face that ‘Helldivers’, or whatever this post is about, actually advocates for its model of utopia even if it pretends not to.
The idea of there being no anti-war films is older than Lemmy. The problem is Poe's Law related. You can make a movie or a game that shows the horror of war or the tyranny of distopian totalitarian regimes, but regardless of the intended message, your creation is filtered through your audience's lenses of perception, and some of that audience has been raised to be white supremacists, some have been through schooling that acts more as indoctrination than education, and some of that audience are just seriously fucking stupid.
Yeah, I think I've heard of the 'no anti-war films' sentiment before, and vaguely heard that army recruiting increased after 'Full Metal Jacket', of all films. However, I don't agree that idiocy of some part of the public is a reason to write off army, mafia, or any such quasi-satire media wholesale, as the aforementioned commenter did. That position essentially says that it's not allowed to do critique of institutions and practices as part of 'entertainment' art (unless one hams it up to eleven, I guess).
The whole point of Poe's Law is that you can't get away from it even if you ham it to eleven, or even 38.7 gigahams/second. Unless you explicitly state 'This is satire. That stuff is bad,' there is little to no way to tell if it's satire or extremism, and even if you do make it explicit, there are always the idiots who won't notice that part and assume it's sincere, (see naive interpretations of Starship Troopers) and those who willfully block out that part because they sincerely hold an opposing view. (See white nationalists opinions on American History X)
No one is saying it's 'not allowed' for people to make those things. They're saying it's literally impossible because of how the media work. The kind of people who are saying 'you can't' would love it to be possible. If we could movie our way to a utopia, it'd be awesome, but it seems we can't.
You seem to agree with my position in the first paragraph.
It's remarkable how you apparently listened in on my comment exchange with the aforementioned unnamed person. Truly impressive capability. Could you please cite the exact argument they presented, since you know it so dearly?
That response is in itself an example of the issue at hand. Are you actually asking or just being sarcasticly snide in a way that doesn't fully come across in text?
Why are you talking as if their argument is completely nonsensical or novel? It's kind of a known thing that even if you portray something as "bad" as possible, there will be a number of people that look past/ don't see the criticism of the subject and take the creation of work as a sign that the subject is to be praised. Look at the music industry with gang violence, misogyny and drug use; lots of more modern artists make music that shows how these things harm society, yet casual listeners will put on a song about alcohol abuse to get drunk at a party.
It isn't necessarily that the artist is advocating for it, so much as they've produced a work that can be misinterpreted (unintentionally or otherwise) to do so.
Why are you talking as if this argument doesn't generalize an interpretation by some section of the audience to general treatment of any and all such media wholesale? Did you miss the part where it says that the media in question romanticizes the depicted practices regardless of any intent of the author, or interpretation by the generally intelligent audience? You're saying that the stupidest possible understanding of the media is what all media should aim for, otherwise by that commenter's argument it shouldn't exist. I don't think you seriously realize how deranged this take is. It's straight up advocating for the 'Idiocracy' society.
Good art doesn't pander to the common denominator, it lifts the audience above it.
I genuinely have zero idea how you came to any of the conclusions you did based on what I said. Maybe there's more context to the comment you were originally talking about, but nowhere did I ever even imply that artists should "aim for" or pander to the common denominator. I'm saying that, no matter the artists intentions, no matter how obvious or on the nose the messaging is, there are going to be cops with Punisher tattoos, and teenagers with stolen cars and guns listening to Kendrick Lamar. If you make a movie about how the Nazis were psychopathic fascists who eventually get destroyed, there will be people who can't get over how cool their aesthetic was. None of this is to say that this art should not exist, I'm not detracting from the artists. I'm pointing out a flaw in society. Messaging in art, no matter how well crafted, will never say the same thing to everyone, for better or worse.
Ah, so you're saying that some portion, perhaps very minuscule, of the audience, would be enamoured with the bad guys as role models.
But, you see, that's quite different from what I quoted originally as: “[these artists] romanticize the mafia and army nonetheless, and in general media glorifies its subject matter regardless of the author's intent“.
You seem to agree with me that a small share of especially stupid people would derive their own messaging from the art. This doesn't change the fact that this media, in general, does the critique quite alright, as opposed to what the above quote says.