Trying to get cancelled today, here’s my best effort: the Marvel Cinematic Universe is an extraordinary achievement in military industrial complex propaganda written at a fourth grade reading level and should be laughed out of the building.

Every time I see one of these abominations it brings on a deep depression that lasts about a week. Millions of kids imparted 5-10x per year with the idea that (a) foreign marauders are coming for them and (b) a trillion dollar national security state is justified and inevitable.

But don’t take my word for it. Here is the United States Department of Defense. https://www.defense.gov/Explore/Features/story/Article/1775393/airmen-fly-higher-further-faster-with-captain-marvel/

So far my favorite protests to this well-documented fact is that (1) hating juvenile war propaganda as a citizen of a nation permanently at war is elitist, and that (2) Antman & The Wasp should be viewed on the same tier as Macbeth because both were written for the masses.

“MCU movies can’t be jingoistic military propaganda! They are merely enjoyable multiple hour long Hollywood productions funded by the Pentagon and designed to be watched by millions of people across all ages and demographics up to 10x per year. Stop overthinking it.”

Anna Banerjee: “Marvel movies are state propaganda” (via the Daily Iowan): https://dailyiowan.com/2019/04/29/banerjee-marvel-movies-are-state-propaganda/

The political content of these films is covert. Many of them feign critique of the state and the weapons industry. But never (ever) is the broader capitalistic purpose of imperialism brought into question. Per MCU movies, the system isn’t wrong, it’s just run by the wrong people.

This is the perfect cross section of cancellability. Libs hate it because they need to believe imperialism can be morally virtuous as long as the correct heroes are in charge. Libs who call themselves leftists hate it because they think demanding smarter pop art is ableist.

The dichotomy in Ironman remains “America good, ‘terrorists’ bad.” There is no broader critique about the wars themselves or why we are fighting them. Stark’s main issue is that Americans are dying at the hands of “terrorists,” not that we are an unjust occupying force.

The MCU levies a highly controlled critique of the MIC and the national security state in a way that quietly absolves those things of the real criticisms they deserve. The evil is never the INTENT of these systems, but that they’ve been hijacked by bad actors. That is propaganda.

Everyone who is angry at this benign and easily verifiable point sounds like this to me https://twitter.com/dril/status/549425182767861760

Anyway, happy birthday Martin Scorsese.