I hear that the proof is in the basement of Comet Ping Pong Pizza in Washington, DC.
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I haven’t read it yet. I just appreciate Frankensteins in general. Also a big fan of Draculas.
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They got wind that Trump was on the case - the bastards moved it to Mar-a-Lago
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And that’s why all the strange people keep sneaking in.
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By “it” I assume you mean the basement itself, because it ain’t under the pizza shop.
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As a Bowling Green Massacre survivor, I can confirm this!
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It’s now a dead drop. The place is worse than St. James park.
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You wish!
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Dead drop - not drop dead.
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My solution would be to make the punisher female and make her sort of like a dominatrix. Push that version hard for a few series / movies. Would be totally hilarious!
Edit: Except I guess there would be some overlap with how cat woman is portrayed…
There have been at least a couple women who have allied with and dressed like the Punisher.
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Absolutely. I’m far less familiar with the character (basically just the crappy 2004 movie and the character’s appearance in Netflix’s Daredevil. In general the Punisher isn’t a character that interests me as it strikes me as a juvenile revenge fantasy. That said, I am wary of criticism that goes so far as to imply that fiction is someone responsible for the radicalization of real life predators. While video games tend to be the scapegoat of choice these days, the moral panic that created the Comics Code Authority began with scapegoating comic books for the perceived moral decline of American youth. See also D&D, violence in movies, satanic cults, pretty much anything other than the decisions of the actual predators and the industries that cynically arm them. I’m sure you already know all that.
My point is that you yourself are a fan of the character and yet clearly able to distinguish the contrivances of fiction from the real world. I believe most of the predators can as well; that they gloam on to certain iconography for behavior they’d engage in with or without it. The vast majority of people enjoy comics and video games without mistaking them for real life. Therefore the cause of the radicalization of predators is not comic books or video games.
Putting the character to bed won’t dissuade the bad actors that gloam onto it.
Just my 5¢. YMMV.
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At no point did I argue it was causative.
No but it’s a good way to avoid profiteering off them, and undermine their use of the character to garner attention and in recruitment.
Plus there are serious downsides and taste issues with regards to prominently featuring a character like that given current events. So leaving the guy off for a while would be a good move. Both from the “don’t be a dick” perspective, and in terms of protecting their IP.
If they end up in a Pepe situation the character is pretty much done for. And they already ran into some scheduling and PR issues when the show’s premiere was a bit too close to a mass shooting.
That said discounting the TV show they haven’t exactly been pushing the character in a major way. And the TV shows were put together but Trump nut Ike Perlmutter. Apparently also the guy who nixed Black Panther, Captain Marvel, and a stand alone Black Widow movie early on.
He’s pretty much gone now.
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Yeah, see the recruitment thing sounds causative. But I’ll accept that I’m just not fully understanding your meaning.
While I’m far less familiar with the character than you, that seems like a perfectly valid criticism. You, as a fan, recognizing the character to be in poor taste and choosing not to support it.
I feel like there’s two arguments being made here. That the character is in poor taste, and that the character is a recruitment aid (which I take to be another way to say the character radicalizes predators and also the component that seems causative and that I’m thus wary of). Again, maybe I’m wrong.
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I have to give Netflix some credit for their first season of the Punisher, as it was something more than the stereotypical sophomoric revenge fantasy you described - it actually addressed the severe PTSD of many soldiers who come back from armed conflicts, and how the VA is woefully ill-equipped to help them.
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I may check it out at some point. I’ll admit that the 2004 movie really left a bad taste, but the MCU today is a different animal. I’m still a little salty over the cancellation of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. I wanted more team-ups between them.
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It was a really good show.
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I actually think that’s insulting to the friendly and reasonable poop emoji.
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There’s a pretty well established history of fringe right groups using pop culture and fandoms for recruitment purposes.
The classic example being punk and to a lesser extent metal.
Owing to the clear interest Neo Nazis and other racists had in these music scenes, and the large presence of disaffected young white men in those spaces. By the 80’s and 90’s you had active engagement from major white supremacist groups, especially Neo Nazis there. Big groups, and major leaders started to put together music labels, prop up racist bands, put together their own concerts and music events or sorta slither their way into existing ones. In the most prominent examples these events had a sheen of plausible deniability to them. They’re not a Nazi band, they’re just really into European Heritage. That’s not a white supremacists rally it’s a concert for “political” bands and so forth.
All that stuff basically acting as an approachable entry point for young men at risk of radicalization. And the creation and involvement in an active, cloistered social scene creating one of them social bubbles where they can be further introduced to the ideology without challenge. And where social pressure can be ramped up, and validity of said ideology can be distorted.
At a certain point many of these organizations were actually sending people out to recruit in a way that looks a lot like cults (or multi-level marketing schemes). That doesn’t seem to come up much in all the noise about Antifa. A lot of what they did starting out was just show up to concerts, political events and the like to counter those efforts (and stop the Nazis from throwing fists).
A lot of that had faded out by the time I was hanging out at punk shows. But nearly every one you went to, sometimes even the tiny ones at random bars. Had some sort of Antifa and Anti-Racist Action presence. Any moderately sized show at an actual venue there was a table either outside or in the merch area. At the bigger ones there would be people from the ADL and SPLC right there with them. Selling t-shirts, pins and patches, and basically just warning people. Often times that was the job of some one who’d gotten out of the Neo Nazi movement. They’d show you their swastika tattoo, and tell you the sad story of how they were recruited and it ruined there life.
And they’d tell you that at this show, and at other shows. You were gonna see some guys. There’s gonna be 2 or 3 of them your age, they’ll be hanging out with some older guys. They’ll be in a van. They might be with some girls who are cute, but not too cute. They’ll hand you a CD, and tell you about this great band. They’ll look like this, and mention these bands, books, and people. They’ll offer you drink, they’ll offer you drugs. They’ll promise to introduce you to the girls. They’ll tell you the girls want to fuck you. Don’t go to their van. Don’t agree to hang out with them later. Don’t take the CD. Those are Nazi’s and they just want to get you to join up.
And you know what. More than a few times they were right. Down to the number of people in the groups, what bands they would mention, and exactly what brand a beer they’d offer.
Very similar thing going on with the alt right and associated movements. This is the reason they’re so hot to trot about speaking at conventions. So deeply involved in brigading the new Star Wars Rotten Tomatoes score. It’s why a major fringe right activist is so heavily focused on trying the chase the director of Guardians of the Galaxy out of his job. It’s why taking over a damn sci-fi book award is so important.
The sort of angry, disaffected, and mostly male young people who are most at risk of radicalization tend to congregate (especially online) around geeky subjects. Whether that be online meme culture, or comics and comic movies, or anime, or games (especially games it seems). Maintaining an active presence in these fandoms, organizing around them, and “ethics in game journalisming” them servers the same purposes as the racist punk labels. In providing and entry point to the lost, and binding the group together with in a screaming circle jerk. Same deal the altright association with the pick up artist thing. Horny, lonely young men just looking for an easy way to “get girls”. So you point them at a systematized, purportedly food proof answer. And it becomes an easy way to introduce the harder ideology. That’s it’s women’s fault, that the real problem is minorities and foreigners ruining things. The early stuff isn’t explicit, but it’s all laced through with stock tropes about nerds and jocks, nice guys, society being wrong. And shoving blame in certain directions.
Disney gets to be in the unenviable position of being the bad guy in all this. Cause an even better way to bait people in and get them to drink the Kool-Aid is to make it a fight. Tell people some one took something from them. Railing against, and acting against big prominent fandom subjects that feature women, minorities or break with the norm at all is great for business. For the neophyte who just doesn’t like it (and doesn’t know why), the problem isn’t women in prominent roles. It’s that it changed something, took something away, or is bad and wrong. It’s ethics in games journalism. To the hard liner its collective action on behalf of their ideals. Binding everyone together with a big important seeming thing, puts the former in close contact with the latter. Cuts people off from the broader culture, by deepening their involvement. All of which fosters the acceptance of the broader ideology.
Making straight forward Punisher stuff effectively gives these groups what they like. Straight forward juvenile revenge fantasies where the white guy is the hero. And because of all the stuff I outlined above, they like it enough to start adopting the character as a symbol. Things stay like that and they’ll continue to tie themselves the the character, one of the fandoms or counter examples they use as “real” in contrast the all the “not for fans” stuff they rage against. And that ain’t good. It’s not good for Marvel and it’s not good in general.
But taking it head on, putting out Punisher stories that baldly criticize and attack these movements. Or correct some of the character’s fundamental issues. That’s worse cause now they have another thing that’s been stolen from them, to create astroturf letter writing campaigns. To harass Disney’s employees and public figures over. And like I said that sort of thing is the better recruitment tool. These guys are weaponizing Disney’s output.
That’s what I’m talking about with recruitment.
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Nonetheless, ceding spaces, physical or cultural, to Nazis isn’t a strategy that’s historically worked to anyone’s advantage but the Nazis.
Not today, but it was a central aspect of antifascism in the punk scene. That’s my point: giving in doesn’t help; resisting does.
And yet, there are ways to write narratives for the character that don’t, as you yourself pointed out earlier in the thread. That’s why I don’t entirely understand the call to retire the character. Again, the Punisher is among my least favorite mainstream Marvel characters. I’m just not sure why someone who’s a fan of the character who is apparently written by an author who also resists fascists would call for it to be closed down (though I nonetheless support your right to do so), other than to cede it to the fascists.
If by badly you mean poorly, then sure. If by badly you mean harshly, then this is the fundamental crux of our disagreement. The punks didn’t give into to Nazis and neither should the artists at Marvel.
I sincerely appreciate your detailed explanation. It’s very well thought through, even though I disagree with a key aspect. And honestly, the artists working on Punisher might feel as you do. In which case I support their decision to shut it down. But in a general sense I don’t believe culture advances the cause against fascism by giving ground.
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