Title says it all.

I am a huge 40k fan and I know how problematic 40k is with its portrayal of endless war and facism. Comrade @relay@lemmygrad.ml has put it best:

Maybe all of the 40k factions are fascist and that universe’s lore has no dialectic of class struggle and is to violent to be realistic, thus serves as part of the superstructure for fascism.

it reinforces the idea that the conflict between tribes will always supercede the conflict between classes. It’s wrong on so many levels.

And yet I can’t hate it. I have a hard time taking 40k serious and seeing it as more than a silly boardgame with cool minis and (deliciously) stupid lore.

Same with B99. I know that the show is horrid copacanda, I know that shows like this prevent people from seeing pigs as the pigs they are because “funny cop show portraits them as silly and relatable.” But I still like the show a lot. I like the characters and just pretend that it plays in a parallel universe were cops aren’t the worst.

I just sort of suppress any critical thoughts and take those things at face value without thinking about what they imply. It’s just very hard to find alternatives.

So yeah I feel terrible for finding enjoyment in this stuff even though I know I shouldn’t. Can anyone relate or do you perhaps have similar feelings towards other franchises?

  • DamarcusArt
    281·
    1 year ago

    If you can enjoy it, enjoy it. No entertainment is completely free of issues and problems. It is frustrating watching something with friends and they clearly don’t examine the deeper themes whatsoever (“It’s just a fun superhero movie, there’s nothing deeper about it, you overanalyse everything!”)

    But if you’re just enjoying something on its own, especially something with a huge variety of writers coming at the franchise with wildly different interpretations like 40k, there’s nothing wrong with that.

    I’ve touched on this before, but as socialists, we need to be able to reach the masses. The masses aren’t interested in theory, or why their favourite cop show is problematic, they just want fun distractions. You have to ease people into that stuff, and you start by being a regular person who can enjoy things rather than an overly uptight “stop having fun guys” kind of person.

    *Insert that Ultra-Maoist copypasta here. *

    • Rasm653u [He/him] English
      51·
      1 year ago

      It is frustrating watching something with friends and they clearly don’t examine the deeper themes whatsoever (“It’s just a fun superhero movie, there’s nothing deeper about it, you overanalyse everything!”)

      I pretty much never examine the deeper themes of whatever I’m watching

      • DamarcusArt
        6·
        1 year ago

        I’m a professional writer, cursed to analyse the dialogue and plot in everything I watch. I can’t just “switch brain off, enjoy” at all anymore.