actually all western popular culture did is reduce nazism into an aesthetic for their villains. they never really countered the ideology behind the polished boots and the lines of men in uniform, because doing so would also have to challenge white supremacy (which is a cornerstone of modern american and western european society).
as a result of this:
the threat of fascism has been played down by depicting nazis as cartoonish villains, and
the actual ideology behind fascism has survived simply by re-branding (which is what the ‘alt right’ is all about), because we now identify fascism as an aesthetic first and an ideology second.
laughing at nazis does not get rid of nazis.
It’s been pointed out by a number of people that Captain America was originally written by a Jewish author and takes the subject of fascism very seriously, I apologise for lumping it in with the rest of the examples.
It’s been years since I’ve read harry potter but I remember thinking that the deatheaters were pretty blatantly wizard nazis and always found it a bit disturbing how easily fans overlooked that in order to woobify them or glorify their “aesthetic.”
To which I wonder if the issue is that no matter how clear you make it that these guys are suppose to be nazis people will take that sliver of wiggle room anyways because, why? They don’t take real nazis seriously?
I’m not being rhetorical here, I really am curious as to what people think.
2 years ago today, on November 22, 2014, Tamir Rice was shot by the police for playing with a toy gun sitting on the swing in a city park in Cleveland, Ohio.
Police officer Timothy Loehmann fired two shots, one of the shots hit Tamir in his torse which resulted in him dying the following day.
Tamir would have turned 14 years old earlier this year - on June 25. But he was killed by a cop who was never held accountable for the murder.
We will never forget you #TamirRice. Rest in peace, sweet angel.
[T]he language of fascism is written in the language of love. Love is made into the primary quality of attachment, what motivates individuals into fascism: ‘we hate foreigners because we love our country.’ […] Love has an enormous political utility: transforming fascist subjects not only into heroic subjects, but also into potential or actual victims of crime as well as those who ‘alone’ are willing to fight crime. Fascist subjects become freedom fighters, willing to stand against the ‘swamp’ or ‘tide’ of the incoming others, who themselves are narrated as hateful: as being not only worthy of our hate, but as full of hate for what we are and have.
