Except it’s not just Troopers - my favorite novel as a kid was Tunnel in the Sky. Reading it now, the fascistic themes leave a bad taste in my mouth. This stuff was all over Heinlein’s works, even his juveniles.
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I can’t be bothered. Could others arguing this point please use a common definition?
“Fascism is a form of radical authoritarian ultranationalism, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and strong regimentation of society and of the economy, which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe.”
Limiting the franchise to public service veterans (few were permitted to serve the military, but ALL who applied had to be given some job, everybody had the right to earn the vote, no matter how disabled) is less restrictive of the vote than limiting it to only men, or only property owners, as we have in our time, while still calling ourselves a democracy.
The book is very militarist, glorifying the military, specifically the foot-soldiers at greatest risk. Heinlein embraced that definition. “Fascist”, however, is a reach, and I’m always fascinated by the arguments towards that.
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Technically, the book isn’t pro-fascist, but that’s because Heinlein, as the author, is fudging things and essentially declaring that the society there works. In my opinion, it would collapse into a fascist military dictatorship in about ten minutes, the kind we see in the movie, but that’s not in the book, precisely.
Anyway, the book’s kind of a weird mess if you think about it. It’s got a very good military coming-of-age story, combined with some absolutely seminal stuff about power-armored future warfare (powered armor shows up earlier in Doc Smith’s Lensman books, but so does just about every SFnal trope, and Heinlein really popularized the idea). Unfortunately, both are larded with some pretty ham-handed didactic bullshit; the ardent anti-communism and militarism are obvious, of course, but then there’s the '50s-specific brainbugs that very much plant the book in a particular time and place, once you’ve noticed them.
For instance, there’s a R&R world discussed, a pleasant and lovely planet easily terraformed and colonized by humans, since the native life couldn’t put up a fight. This, Heinlein explains to us through Rico’s narration, is because of the low background radiation, which meant a low rate of mutation, leading to slowed-down evolution and inevitable stagnation of not just the native life but the human colonists. This is the author continuing an argument over the issue of stopping atmospheric nuclear tests; Heinlein famously wrote an ad where he stated that continuing atmospheric nuclear tests was a patriotic necessity, and accused the people concerned about the fallout from the tests of being dupes of Soviet propaganda at best.
There’s another section about the vital importance of physical force in raising children, and how “juvenile delinquency” – a common right-wing bugbear in the '50s – was actually the fault of lazy, coddling parents who refuse to take responsibility and use corporeal punishment to shape their kids into good, obedient citizens. (There’s an explicit comparison to using corporeal punishment in raising an obedient, house-trained dog.)
It’s a testament to Heinlein’s talent as a writer that, despite this nonsense and the torrent of bullshit that the “moral education” in the book is, Starship Troopers remains not just readable, but an actual good read to this day.
Edit: Oh yeah, I’m quite a fan of the movie, too. Especially since it’s IMO clear that what we’re seeing is basically in-character propaganda by the society it portrays, what with all those ads and “Would you like to know more?” questions.
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Technically, the book isn’t pro-fascist, but that’s because Heinlein, as the author, is fudging things and essentially declaring that the society there works. In my opinion, it would collapse into a fascist military dictatorship in about ten minutes, the kind we see in the movie, but that’s not in the book, precisely.
So I’m totally down with arguing that the society wouldn’t really work as portrayed, that it would fall apart into a military dictatorship - that’s a totally reasonable objection. The objection that’s usually raised isn’t that, however, it’s the “the book is pro-fascist”, and I don’t see how you get from “it’s an unrealistic societal portrayal” to “it lauds fascism”.
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My friend who hadn’t watched it yet (back in the day) asked if the movie did justice to the book. “Oh yes definitely” I told him.
The writer/director track has some interesting stuff, in particular their frustration with the idiot critics who claimed that the writer and director had missed the Nazi imagery. Also about the uniform response of test audiences (young, old, male, female, black, white) to Denise Richards’ character’s difficulty in choosing between two men: “the bitch should have died”. van Dien’s difficulty, not a problem.
Rue McClanahan as the scary blind teacher was an inspired bit of casting.
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Oh, and the reason I’m all Trooper’d-Out is that this was rehashed again in Slashdot just last year:
where I call the protagonist a war criminal, because I was so impressed by the review given by SF reviewer James Davis Nicol:
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/into-the-abyss
…which is better than my Slashdot comment that I include only out of vanity.
The arguments back against my comment are pretty good, too; I became a bit of a pen-pal with a guy who completely disagreed with me, even though I was not convinced.
Most interesting was another reply that said it was no coincidence that the likable teenage protagonist commits war crimes, that Heinlein was making a comment about what war does to people. Or that it was like “Apocalypse Now” where moral people come to the conclusion that maximum brutality to end it sooner is actually a higher morality. I dunno; Heinlein was certainly smart enough to be that subtle, but there’s no mention of this hidden agenda in any of his defense of the book, in his “Expanded Universe” collection of non-fiction essays.
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watched it quite recently. The blood is on par with Robocop. A fun movie all around.
Would you like to know more?
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26 posts this took! Come on people!!
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the goddamn bugs wacked us, Johnny
one of the best lines ever filmed.
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Too many people don’t realize this and watch it straight. Those people are always appalled when I say I love it.
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I was thinking about the US South during segregation when there was a test in order to vote, I’m not sure if it applied to everyone, or just black people.
Plan 9 upon a semi recent rewatch with fellow bad movie fans has some good subtext on acceptance of LGBT folk by mainstream society.
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Hmmm…
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In theory, the tests applied to everyone. However, they were administered and marked at the discretion of officials, and the tests were designed to be impossible to pass in full. Guess which class of would-be voters were required to pass the full test without errors?
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I routinely tune into both Comet TV and MeTV broadcasts of Svengoolie.
Some of the best bad scifi/horror films are on both those.
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what’s your opinion of Ed Wood?
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The movie or the actual person?
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