2 old shows , the Shield, and Rome. Both have reactionary overall themes (one’s a cop show and the other is what Parenti would call a “gentlemen’s history” of Rome), but they have so many other redeeming qualities that I keep coming back to them for a rewatch every few years.
Oh another one: the scarlet pimpernel, especially the 1982 tv version. It’s about spycraft during the french revolution, and is british monarchist propaganda. Batman apparently in based on the book, thats how right wing it is. But it’s extremely entertaining and fun. I’ll go to gulag now.
Rome is so good. I get the gentleman’s history thing about it, but I think it redeems itself in the way it portrays Vorenus and Pullo, especially when they get back to city life. It’s a good one to reference when someone’s struggling to understand how the patriarchy harms men, too. Both of them just trying to exist in a society that slowly crushes them, and doing what’s necessary to survive the system so often means perpetuating it.
Hell yeah, I love Vorenus and Pullo’s story line, even though they are imperialist shock troops, and vorenus is a lesser noble slave-owner. It does do a good job of highlighting a lot of the harms of patriarchy to the women in their lives. Vorenus basically tries to own his wife and daughters, and it fucks up his whole life. And pullo kills the fiancee of that one enslaved woman he has a crush on. They also do get repeatedly used as pawns by caesar and antony, then cast aside along with the other veterans. at Vorenus saves himself of that fate by deciding to play corrupt politician. So there def is some decent social commentary there.
Yeah: the laws and culture of Rome, the militarism, the absolute power of the paterfamilias, the religious superstitions that support all of it… Vorenus especially has so much faith in it and looks to it for the solutions to the difficulties in his life and he can’t even see that the system is the cause of all the difficulties in his life. They can’t see it because it’s the reality they were born with and everyone agrees it’s the best way. They don’t see it until it’s taken everything from them and they become cynical participants who are trapped in it instead.
The audience can see it because it’s so foreign to us, but at the same time so familiar. And I think it makes people think about their own social and cultural norms.
2 old shows , the Shield, and Rome. Both have reactionary overall themes (one’s a cop show and the other is what Parenti would call a “gentlemen’s history” of Rome), but they have so many other redeeming qualities that I keep coming back to them for a rewatch every few years.
Oh another one: the scarlet pimpernel, especially the 1982 tv version. It’s about spycraft during the french revolution, and is british monarchist propaganda. Batman apparently in based on the book, thats how right wing it is. But it’s extremely entertaining and fun. I’ll go to gulag now.
Rome is so good. I get the gentleman’s history thing about it, but I think it redeems itself in the way it portrays Vorenus and Pullo, especially when they get back to city life. It’s a good one to reference when someone’s struggling to understand how the patriarchy harms men, too. Both of them just trying to exist in a society that slowly crushes them, and doing what’s necessary to survive the system so often means perpetuating it.
Hell yeah, I love Vorenus and Pullo’s story line, even though they are imperialist shock troops, and vorenus is a lesser noble slave-owner. It does do a good job of highlighting a lot of the harms of patriarchy to the women in their lives. Vorenus basically tries to own his wife and daughters, and it fucks up his whole life. And pullo kills the fiancee of that one enslaved woman he has a crush on. They also do get repeatedly used as pawns by caesar and antony, then cast aside along with the other veterans. at Vorenus saves himself of that fate by deciding to play corrupt politician. So there def is some decent social commentary there.
Yeah: the laws and culture of Rome, the militarism, the absolute power of the paterfamilias, the religious superstitions that support all of it… Vorenus especially has so much faith in it and looks to it for the solutions to the difficulties in his life and he can’t even see that the system is the cause of all the difficulties in his life. They can’t see it because it’s the reality they were born with and everyone agrees it’s the best way. They don’t see it until it’s taken everything from them and they become cynical participants who are trapped in it instead.
The audience can see it because it’s so foreign to us, but at the same time so familiar. And I think it makes people think about their own social and cultural norms.