Stan Lee has great instincts for what will sell, and a great desire to preach liberal messages to unsuspecting kids. First (from 1962 on) he built Marvel by concentrating exclusively on what the kids wanted and would buy. Any "messages" were the consensus of the time: hate Hitler, down with Communism and so on. He never tried to push anything that went against the grain and that might inhibit his success. But when he had built up a large and enthusiastic audience, he himself has said, he started to preach what he wanted through the Silver Surfer. In sales terms, that didn't go well, so he backed off a bit and tried again in other ways. And he tried again, and again, and again.
Sales were important to Stan Lee, but not the bottom line, or he would not have pushed messages that were unwelcome and did not sell well, messages that were increasingly opposed to the values, sentiments and interests of the straight white boys that were the bulk of Stan's readership and the base of his growing empire.
Marvel is not now spoiling characters that were meant from the beginning to be innocent fun. They are spoiling characters that were from the beginning destined to be bait, with Stan Lee's liberal ideology as the steel hook. Today's comic creators (or wreckers) are spoiling the fun by over-doing it, by being overly hard left and crude, rather than patient and artful like the master. (Making Thor female because male Thor is unworthy to lift the hammer is overdoing it.)
When hostile propagandists spoil the characters they have used for decades for promote bad values, that's good, even if it cuts against nostalgia. It's good that liberal propagandists don't have the self-discipline and restraint to maintain their tools at full effectiveness.
It's especially good that arty "liberals" are driven to corrupt and destroy even their own most appealing tools because if the "liberals" didn't beat themselves, conservatives would certainly not beat them. Way back in the day, stuck-in-the-mud conservatives opposed comic books for all the wrong reasons, basically because they were brightly and crudely heroic (as is healthy for boys) rather than pushing a "responsible" downcast servility that saps vigor and kills dreams, but that was supposed to produce good economic and military drones. The increasingly hostile messages in the comics, conservative adults scarcely noticed at all - and when they did, they obliviously approved of them, since they put white boys in the position of being moralistically lectured to by adults who were less and less willing to let the boys feel good about themselves in healthy ways. And now that this liberal propaganda machine is grinding down, conservatives are apt to feel sad for their youth, regretting the loss of an innocence that was entirely in the beguiled readers and not in the creators, and indulging in the seemingly never-ending fantasy that liberals used to be right about everything, only just recently they've started to go wrong, and it's up to conservatives (if only they were listened to!) to restore the innocent consensus of yesterday (when liberals were in charge and bulldozing every conservative value in sight).
Interesting perspective. I think I agree - by making the 'bait' revolting (or at least offputting) to normal boys, Left-Liberals are undermining their own ability to influence the young. They can't stop themselves, just as Hitler couldn't stop himself from invading Russia - it's inbuilt into their ideology that they have to keep pushing and pushing. The result is that they alienate their target, who flees to narrower and narrower fields of interest. For instance, young men have been pushed away from feminised science fiction TV, taking refuge in fantasy computer games. Now that computer games are targetted, if that targetting is successful they will flee from them too.
If you want to influence straight white boys in a healthy direction, figure out where they'll be heading because of the liberal destruction of things boys used to like, and put your efforts there.
I wonder what the Odinists think of this transsexual Thor?! :)
Ironically, some Norse gods such as Loki actually can change sex (and get pregnant). Not Thor, though. If they had simply wanted a female Asgardian character they could have used Sif, Goddess of Victory, and Thor's wife. So it sounds as if they just wanted to annoy people for the publicity.
If you read the comments on the Marvel website on this "Thor" it's been overwhelming negative towards this change and many are citing the obvious misandry and political pandering
This is a horrendous shock factor PC/empowerment that really is not a empowerment at all, as they are taking a very male oriented character and turning it female. While they are claiming it's a separate character, if you give someone EVERYTHING that defines a person (Real or fictional) including their name, Voila! That person BECOMES that iconic character. That the information was first released on The View tells us EXACTLY the message they wanted to convey. And it works, all over, liberal feminists are Yay! The power of Thor in our hands! Female power to kick butt like the men.
Which I don't begrudge them wanting, but the new character should NOT be called Thor. Period. You are trying to play all angles without doing a reset on Thor comics, you said it's a new character and SHEISWORTHY :P ! But she's not worthy if you need to make her Ride under Thor's name and Aegis in order to sell at all. You could have made a completely new character to fill in while Thor is unworthy that is his equal but NOT Thor or assuming his NAME - which is NOT a title.
But Marvel is a bunch of Lazy Cowards, they know they have never had a Fresh started Strong Female Title run with the longevity of any of their mainstream cashcows. NOT A ONE.
So instead, they do this to ride off the fame of Avengers and Thor, to score some points with empowerment groups. Who are no more likely to pick up comics now then they were before but they DO have the added bonus of alienating their current fan base (both Men and Women) who have supported Thor and Marvel until now.
(And some of rage comes from reading the Twitter and interviews of Jason Aaron and Wil Moss, they are completely disregarding all the emails/messages sent in against this, and honestly Jason's I enjoy and eat the hate of all your hate mail about this, is dismissive and belittling - he has since removed it from his twitter)
I grew up as a teen reading marvel and used to love how my imagination would soar with possibilities of what would happen next. Now, I feel the same type of loathing for Marvel as I would a pedophile teaching at my kids school and now I find myself really hoping they end up like newspapers, struggling to get by, because when they were a smaller company, they respected their fan base far more.
But my kids will never of my volition ever purchase a single Marvel title - They have Disney's deep pockets to support them, but I will no longer do so. I will mourn how great they were and continue to Loathe the standardized image they continue to become.
Vote with your Wallets! For the One and Only Thor! (and for the respectable company they once were)
I've never understood the appeal of such fantasies. Why don't the young people read about something real, history, philology, philosophy, memoirs &c., &c. When I was a small child I used to greatly enjoy reading of the heroic deeds of the Spanish explorers and conquistadors and from this I was inspired to learn Castilian, a beautiful language, it's wonderful to read Donoso Cortes and Jaime Balmes in the original. I think it probable that a preoccupation with fantasy easily leads to a certain disdain for reality. It prepares the ground for the seeds of liberalism to flourish, for what is liberalism but a wilful denial of reality, a form of criminal insanity more or less? God is Truth, young people should be taught to concentrate on the true, the good and the beautiful and to lay the unreal, the grotesque and the disordered aside.
I'm not an expert on comics, but I've read that Thor has been represented by all kinds of characters already, and this is nothing particularly new. What is different is the posturing around the change. The "TAKE THAT!, Patriarchy!" angle is the sign of the times.
Stan Lee has great instincts for what will sell, and a great desire to preach liberal messages to unsuspecting kids. First (from 1962 on) he built Marvel by concentrating exclusively on what the kids wanted and would buy. Any "messages" were the consensus of the time: hate Hitler, down with Communism and so on. He never tried to push anything that went against the grain and that might inhibit his success. But when he had built up a large and enthusiastic audience, he himself has said, he started to preach what he wanted through the Silver Surfer. In sales terms, that didn't go well, so he backed off a bit and tried again in other ways. And he tried again, and again, and again.
ReplyDeleteSales were important to Stan Lee, but not the bottom line, or he would not have pushed messages that were unwelcome and did not sell well, messages that were increasingly opposed to the values, sentiments and interests of the straight white boys that were the bulk of Stan's readership and the base of his growing empire.
Marvel is not now spoiling characters that were meant from the beginning to be innocent fun. They are spoiling characters that were from the beginning destined to be bait, with Stan Lee's liberal ideology as the steel hook. Today's comic creators (or wreckers) are spoiling the fun by over-doing it, by being overly hard left and crude, rather than patient and artful like the master. (Making Thor female because male Thor is unworthy to lift the hammer is overdoing it.)
When hostile propagandists spoil the characters they have used for decades for promote bad values, that's good, even if it cuts against nostalgia. It's good that liberal propagandists don't have the self-discipline and restraint to maintain their tools at full effectiveness.
It's especially good that arty "liberals" are driven to corrupt and destroy even their own most appealing tools because if the "liberals" didn't beat themselves, conservatives would certainly not beat them. Way back in the day, stuck-in-the-mud conservatives opposed comic books for all the wrong reasons, basically because they were brightly and crudely heroic (as is healthy for boys) rather than pushing a "responsible" downcast servility that saps vigor and kills dreams, but that was supposed to produce good economic and military drones. The increasingly hostile messages in the comics, conservative adults scarcely noticed at all - and when they did, they obliviously approved of them, since they put white boys in the position of being moralistically lectured to by adults who were less and less willing to let the boys feel good about themselves in healthy ways. And now that this liberal propaganda machine is grinding down, conservatives are apt to feel sad for their youth, regretting the loss of an innocence that was entirely in the beguiled readers and not in the creators, and indulging in the seemingly never-ending fantasy that liberals used to be right about everything, only just recently they've started to go wrong, and it's up to conservatives (if only they were listened to!) to restore the innocent consensus of yesterday (when liberals were in charge and bulldozing every conservative value in sight).
Interesting perspective. I think I agree - by making the 'bait' revolting (or at least offputting) to normal boys, Left-Liberals are undermining their own ability to influence the young. They can't stop themselves, just as Hitler couldn't stop himself from invading Russia - it's inbuilt into their ideology that they have to keep pushing and pushing. The result is that they alienate their target, who flees to narrower and narrower fields of interest. For instance, young men have been pushed away from feminised science fiction TV, taking refuge in fantasy computer games. Now that computer games are targetted, if that targetting is successful they will flee from them too.
DeleteThat's right.
DeleteIf you want to influence straight white boys in a healthy direction, figure out where they'll be heading because of the liberal destruction of things boys used to like, and put your efforts there.
I wonder what the Odinists think of this transsexual Thor?! :)
ReplyDeleteIronically, some Norse gods such as Loki actually can change sex (and get pregnant). Not Thor, though. If they had simply wanted a female Asgardian character they could have used Sif, Goddess of Victory, and Thor's wife. So it sounds as if they just wanted to annoy people for the publicity.
If you read the comments on the Marvel website on this "Thor" it's been overwhelming negative towards this change and many are citing the obvious misandry and political pandering
ReplyDeleteThis is a sample comment from Marvel's website
ReplyDeleteEb0nst0rm 2 minutes ago
This is a horrendous shock factor PC/empowerment that really is not a empowerment at all, as they are taking a very male oriented character and turning it female. While they are claiming it's a separate character, if you give someone EVERYTHING that defines a person (Real or fictional) including their name, Voila! That person BECOMES that iconic character. That the information was first released on The View tells us EXACTLY the message they wanted to convey. And it works, all over, liberal feminists are Yay! The power of Thor in our hands! Female power to kick butt like the men.
Which I don't begrudge them wanting, but the new character should NOT be called Thor. Period. You are trying to play all angles without doing a reset on Thor comics, you said it's a new character and SHEISWORTHY :P ! But she's not worthy if you need to make her Ride under Thor's name and Aegis in order to sell at all. You could have made a completely new character to fill in while Thor is unworthy that is his equal but NOT Thor or assuming his NAME - which is NOT a title.
But Marvel is a bunch of Lazy Cowards, they know they have never had a Fresh started Strong Female Title run with the longevity of any of their mainstream cashcows. NOT A ONE.
So instead, they do this to ride off the fame of Avengers and Thor, to score some points with empowerment groups. Who are no more likely to pick up comics now then they were before but they DO have the added bonus of alienating their current fan base (both Men and Women) who have supported Thor and Marvel until now.
(And some of rage comes from reading the Twitter and interviews of Jason Aaron and Wil Moss, they are completely disregarding all the emails/messages sent in against this, and honestly Jason's I enjoy and eat the hate of all your hate mail about this, is dismissive and belittling - he has since removed it from his twitter)
I grew up as a teen reading marvel and used to love how my imagination would soar with possibilities of what would happen next. Now, I feel the same type of loathing for Marvel as I would a pedophile teaching at my kids school and now I find myself really hoping they end up like newspapers, struggling to get by, because when they were a smaller company, they respected their fan base far more.
But my kids will never of my volition ever purchase a single Marvel title - They have Disney's deep pockets to support them, but I will no longer do so. I will mourn how great they were and continue to Loathe the standardized image they continue to become.
Vote with your Wallets! For the One and Only Thor! (and for the respectable company they once were)
And I see they've just declared that Captain America is now black. Anything for publicity I guess.
ReplyDeleteI've never understood the appeal of such fantasies. Why don't the young people read about something real, history, philology, philosophy, memoirs &c., &c. When I was a small child I used to greatly enjoy reading of the heroic deeds of the Spanish explorers and conquistadors and from this I was inspired to learn Castilian, a beautiful language, it's wonderful to read Donoso Cortes and Jaime Balmes in the original. I think it probable that a preoccupation with fantasy easily leads to a certain disdain for reality. It prepares the ground for the seeds of liberalism to flourish, for what is liberalism but a wilful denial of reality, a form of criminal insanity more or less? God is Truth, young people should be taught to concentrate on the true, the good and the beautiful and to lay the unreal, the grotesque and the disordered aside.
ReplyDeleteI'm not an expert on comics, but I've read that Thor has been represented by all kinds of characters already, and this is nothing particularly new. What is different is the posturing around the change. The "TAKE THAT!, Patriarchy!" angle is the sign of the times.
ReplyDeleteIn a similar way
ReplyDeletehttp://badassdigest.com/2014/07/17/sorry-white-people-captain-america-is-black-now/
Sorry, white people?. The article reads like a progressive piece.
Iron Man should be six-colored as well as his boyfriend.
ReplyDelete