2018's Weirdest Film and the Psychological Toll of Modern Capitalism
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd6xe5w-6Kw
See this movie, hilarious and heartfelt.
My main issue with the movie is that when I did some research after walking out of the theater, my response was "oh, he meant it to say that?"
Ignoring how it just abandons the down-to-earth character drama after the second act for a full on "haha, bet you didn't expect this movie to just turn into a total joke, we sure ~subverted your expectations~ there, huh?" turn, it felt like it was setting up a really well-balanced conflict between the two ideologies.
Like, Cash is a corporate shill who turns a blind eye to all the terrible things the company does, but the movie makes us sympathize with him being a scab (at least at first) because he's got people to provide for. We want to see him succeed and move out of his uncle's garage. He's a likeable guy who wants to do right by those around him, but he accomplishes that success through using his natural talents for unethical practices. At the same time, we sympathize with his friends because they're getting a bum deal working this dead-end job, but they're also kinda bitter, lazy, vindictive assholes about it. Cash's girlfriend talks down to him for using his white voice, but then we see her art installation and it's literally her using her own "white voice" before a room of snooty art snobs. She admonishes him for being a phony when her whole installation is just a more pretentious version of "I Just Got the Shit Kicked Out of Me". And then you've got the dude organizing the strike, who is gradually revealed to be a total goober who uses his radical political mystique to knowingly hit on girls in committed relationships. They have a strong point, in that they deserve better from the company they're working for, but then they proceed to shit on Cash (even though he actually works harder than any of them), as though he's supposed to just throw his hands up and let Terry Crews lose his home because "we've gotta stick it to the man, man".
There was a real sense of give-and-take, in that both sides had strong points while also doing shitty things for their own ends. It made the conflict feel nuanced and multifaceted and real. It honestly felt not so much like an endorsement of Communism, but rather a defense of Capitalists; "yeah the system isn't ideal, but fuck the kind of pretentious hypocrites who try to drag you down into the shit that they're trapped in just because you've put in the time and effort to make the system work for you, we've all got our own obligations and responsibilities, just make sure you're utilizing ethical channels to do right by others".
But then you read a few interviews with the director and it's "yeah this is a Communist film, Cash is wrong and his friends are right, it's a bad thing to capitalize on personal effort and talent" and you really have to wonder if making Cash's friends massive hypocrites who only barely eek out the moral highground after it's revealed that Armie Hammer is literally turning people into mutant horse slaves was intentional or not.
Having conversed with anarcho-communists, they are absolutely completely unaware of any of their personal faults. They think their desire to abolish capitalism makes them a paragon of moral virtue, because they believe every single one of modern societies fault's is the fault of capitalism. Every. Single. One. So they might not lift a finger to help minorities and LGBTQ people - like, say, the bare minimum of going out and fucking voting in major elections - but because they are pining for the "inevitable" worker's revolution, in their minds that automatically makes them better allies of minority and LGBTQ rights than even most people in those fucking demographics. Because according to them, racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc, were just invented by capitalists to keep the working class at each others throats - so anyone, minorities and LGBTQ people included, who attempt to fix things within the system instead of trying to abolish it entirely by any means necessary, are self-hating at best, and "part of the problem" at worst.
When you believe Marx was a literal prophet, and worship Das Kapital like the motherfucking bible, everything really seems that uncomplicated to you. Anarcho-communism is as much a religion as it is a political movement, and the most fundamentalist of its followers believe themselves to be every bit as infaillable as the street preachers proclaiming that jesus is coming back soon.
These are some valid critiques of the movie, seems like it mucked up its own message.
Still I like some of the stuff it points out, especially the "Code switching" the idea that folks of color have to switch between personas to get ahead, and that success and a fake sterile version of a white personality are linked in our culture.
I honestly thought that part of it was brilliantly done, which is why I was so torn when the twist happened.
Like, props to them for having the balls to do something so fucking weird with so much confidence, but at the same time it almost felt like the movie saying "oh were you actually invested in the story and character lol joke's on you, time to go 110% monkey cheese, dilute the themes and messages into a solid brick, and pummel you over the head with it until the credits roll".
Yeah the horse stuff was a bit much hahaha.
I did actually laugh out loud though when Cash tries to warn congress and in response they congratulate regalview...it was so over the top I just...lmao.
I still think that "NIGGA SHIT, NIGGA SHIT, NIGGA NIGGA NIGGA SHIT" might be my favorite scene out of any movie in 2018.
You sound like you've had significantly more dealing with anarcho-coms than me, so I'll trust you're judgement on this. My own experiences with them thus far have been hardly pleasant. I'd be fine if they at least respected my right to live just because I don't want to joint their revolution, but some of these motherfuckers can't even do that.
Any criticism of capitalism holistically is naive, plain and simple. I always point to its definition in Merriam Webster:
"an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market"
If you grow corn, and you trade your corn with someone who raises cattle, that is capitalism. Any deal you make on craigslist is capitalism. Letting your friend eat the rest of your sandwich is capitalism (since an investment is involved).
The exchange of goods isn't Capitalism. If you read your own definition, you'd see that Capitalism is defined by "private or corporate ownership of capital goods (and, hence, the means of production)".
This wxactly
I (a private entity) use my body (the means of production) to fertilize my corn stalks (also the means of production). That is an investment to produce a greater yield with the hope that, in the future, I will be able to use the extra goods produced by that capital to participate in the market and trade it for some more delicious milk.
Every time I take a shit on my corn field I am participating in capitalism.
While you are correct that you are a private entity, you do not own anyone elses labor other than your own. When people talk about the "means of production" in a contemporary, post-industrial context, there is an implication of owning something larger in scale than a personal subsistence farm. Most of the principle issues with Capitalism arise when the labor of an underclass is appropriated to create profit. The second you start hiring workers on your farm to do the labor for you on your land while you collect a profit is where the power dynamics come from.
More or less, this is the core issue with Capitalism - along with issues of sustainability and scale, of course.
I'm talking about capitalism here. I don't want to go into "workers owning the means of production", that's a whole other can of worms. I've read the communist manifesto.
All I'm saying is: people who say "capitalism needs to go away lol" as a blanket statement are naive.
Ever since Short Term 12, I'll watch a movie just because Lakeith Stanfield is in it.
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