He looks to the future!

[sabotabby]

I took the kittums up to the roof for the first time this year. I'd post pictures of that, but wouldn't you just rather see my cat Photoshopped into a socialist realist painting? Yeah, I thought so too.


Heh.

Today's game, following up on a comment exchange with cpxbrex in my last post, is to name as many movies as you can that end with hackers hijacking the airwaves to broadcast The Truth What Will Lead to Revolution. I'll get you started *SPOILER WARNING*: They Live!, Serenity, V for Vendetta, and This Revolution.

And why is this such a common fictional fantasy?

Go!

Comments

[5-miles.livejournal.com]

all I can think of is antitrust (yes I saw it, no I'm not ashamed). and hackers, I think, I can't exactly remember. But you'd think that is the way hackers would end, wouldn't you?

[sabotabby]

Well, yeah. Hackers had a good excuse. V for Vendetta did not.

[apperception.livejournal.com]

Equilibrium (kinda)

Pump Up The Volume (sorta)

[sabotabby]

Pump Up the Volume made me want to get into pirate radio. I think it did that to everyone, though.

[writer-grrrrl.livejournal.com]

That photo just totally made my day.

[sabotabby]

I kept giggling. I took about ten pictures of my cat yesterday and somehow got one where he looked a bit like Lenin. And got carried away. I wish I'd had the foresight to name him either Lenincat or Chairman Meow.

And why is this such a common fictional fantasy?

[dubaiwalla.livejournal.com]

Because The Truth Is Out There and it's been kept hidden from us by an evil conspiracy launched by powerful figures, and They don't want us to know that the Mossad planned 9/11, and the Freemasons are the ones who actually control the world, and...

Re: And why is this such a common fictional fantasy?

[sabotabby]

Speaking of which, why didn't the X-Files end like that?

[florence-craye.livejournal.com]

I don't know of any movies like that, but your photoshop is too perfect!

[sabotabby]

Too much time on my hands. Or, really, not enough time on my hands, but an unwillingness to do more useful things.

[gillen.livejournal.com]

Through tempests the bright rays of freedom have cheered us,
Along the new path where Mr. Twiddles did lead.
To a righteous cause he raised up the kittens,
Inspired them to labour and valourous deed.

[sabotabby]

Haha awesome.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

And why is this such a common fictional fantasy?

because it's easy and quick. The idea that revolutuionary consciousness can come unmediated from someone speaking TRUTH is not a new concept and certainly easier to show than endless political meetings and organization. Plus movie makers and writers like to overinflate the value of media. It's undeerstandable. I overestimate the value of cheese.

There are other theoretical precedents, but the idea of the rapture-like, non-bolshevik, final general strike against evil comes to us radicals via the Yippies who admired the IWW who took it from Georges Sorel. Somewhere along the way it lost the concept that the working class needed to organize itself to be ready for that moment instead of assuming (as those movies do) that people will just instinctively, you know, know what to do.

[sabotabby]

The problem:

1. Broadcast the truth
2. ...
3. Revolution!

...looks a bit more like:

1. Broadcast the truth
2. "Starving children in the Third World and powerful multinationals, you say? Ho hum. Pass the salt, would you?"
3. "Whatsherface shaved her head! Can you believe it?"

[shoocu-shoocu.livejournal.com]

Doesn't exactly fit, but Pump Up the Volume with its pirate radio theme is similar.

[sabotabby]

I need to watch that again.

[apperception.livejournal.com]

I like how stately Marinetti appears.

[sabotabby]

He will inspire the masses to international proletarian revolution.

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

"V" and "The Running Man."

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

Oh, and "An Inconvenient Truth."

[fishielon.livejournal.com]

hehe, love your cat on the flag!

Here is something similar, of some sorts. Russian music video "Capital". Pictures speak of themselves, but the song goes along this like:

"In my left hand I've got "Snickers" in my right one - "Mars"
My PR manager, Karl Marx"

Happy 1st of May!

[sabotabby]

<3 <3 <3

[jenlight.livejournal.com]

I can't think of any more movies.
BUT!
You are my fucking hero! That image is the best image ever in the history of the world!

[sabotabby]

Yays! I'd post it to cat_macros, but it isn't exactly a macro.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

Johnny Mnemonic. You didn't say they had to be good movies.
My friend had a Siamese once we called "Mao, the Great Helmscat".

[sabotabby]

I used to ask my Siamese who led the Cultural Revolution and she'd give the right answer.

[hopita.livejournal.com]

It's not exactly taking over the airwaves = revolution, but Jimmy Stewart did the whole I'm-gonna-keep-talking-until-someboday-FINALLY-listens thing in both Mr. Smith Goes To Washington and 12 Angry Men.

I'll have to ponder the taking over the airwaves thing, because I know I know some others.

[hopita.livejournal.com]

Crap. That was Henry Fonda in 12 Angry Men, wasn't it?

[nom-de-grr.livejournal.com]

The Arrival. And Animal Farm, sort of, if you count a window as a television stand-in.

I had a cat named Chairman Meow. I thought I was being soooo original, too.

[sabotabby]

I am just sad that I didn't think of it.

[lopukhov.livejournal.com]

OMG Marinetti XD!!!!

[sabotabby]

You let him out of your sight for one minute and it's CLASS WAR. Or, more commonly, drinking out of the toilet.

[jhfurnish.livejournal.com]

Fuzzy pet! Baby cat! I love that picture!

I'm stealing it!


That's background material, comrade!

[sabotabby]

I should have made a higher-res version.

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

I feel like Network is prototypically related. It's not the ending, and it doesn't lead to revolution, but he goes on tv and gets everyone to lean out their windows and yell "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

[sabotabby]

That movie is superior to all of the ones I listed (except for They Live!) because doing that ends in him getting shot.

[cpxbrex.livejournal.com]

My feelings, before I go read through any of the other posts about this, is that it satisfies certain narrative and political goals in the movie format.

The narrative satisfaction is that it's a very traditional narrative. It's about the lone hero who finds the truth and brings it to the masses -- it's functionally a bunch of aristocratic tripe, the hero making the passage into the other world and back, carrying with them a mystical secret. It's very Campbellian, and thus it is easy and resonates with a lot of people.

Secondly, it satisfies people politically. The AUDIENCE is allowed to feel that the problem is just that they don't have the proper information, that what prevents "them" from "doing the right thing" is that some superhero hasn't come along and spoon-fed them the truth. It enables them to lull themselves into feeling that they're not responsible for understanding the world around them -- they are never the problem, after all.

[sabotabby]

I agree, but it also doesn't stand up to thinking about it for more than 30 seconds. In They Live!, the aliens boss-impersonators aren't doing anything that actual human bosses don't do—their motives may be different, but the result is the same. In V for Vendetta, it's difficult to believe that a population that condoned rounding up half of Britain and putting them in concentration camps would revolt because...they saw something on TV.

It's terribly depressing.

[human-loser.livejournal.com]

UHF

kinda

[sabotabby]

Haven't seen it.

[fun-drive.livejournal.com]

yes, I did want to see your cat Photoshopped into a socialist realist painting.

That is such a common fictional fantasy because of Judaism, Christianity and Marxism.

[sabotabby]

Well, and anarchism. And liberalism—especially liberalism.

[jvmatucha.livejournal.com]

That kitty pic made my day!

:D

[sabotabby]

I do try.

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

For some reason my brain says there was a scene like that in one of the X-Men movies.

But my brain may be making that up.

I always figured the scene appeals so much because everyone (myself included) feels foolishly that if they could only make people listen - make them listen and hear and not interrupt - they would be called over to the other side. They would understand the truth and realise it, and accept it.

I'm so cute when I'm wrong.

[sabotabby]

I often think that. That's why I did a zine for years. Ah, nostalgia.

[esizzle.livejournal.com]

hahaha Marinetti looks awesome. That is mad photoshopping skillz!

I think the common fictional fantasy is Democracy! One who believes they live in a democratic society should believe that if everyone knew something wrong was happening, that would be the end of it.

[sabotabby]

But then they'd have to take up arms and overthrow someone. And that wouldn't be very democratic.

[seanmonster.livejournal.com]

I'm resisting to urge to macro such a stately pic.

[sabotabby]

Do not resist! Succumb!