Why are capitalist sociopaths romanticized in amerimutt television

There is a phenomenon in burger Town where literally every adult show on HBO or whatever the main character is a capitalist sociopath who gets ahead by exploring others etc… I'm aware that a lot of them are somewhat critical of capitalism but the characters are often portrayed as being total badasses and most normies see this as wow this is super cool and edgy this guy is totally me. Why are anti heroes so popular with these mutts. The sopranos, breaking bad, mad Men are examples of this. I know this might be typically considered a lefty trash post but I'm more curious about the reason behind this phenomenon not the actual shows themselves

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en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony
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youtube.com/watch?v=kvMCtCgDLtg
youtube.com/watch?v=Kxbnr_4OW44
youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4vbGURud_HreNP5XprLHp43bwTq9fwV5
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlRXv9MVYcSx7N56SvgcWFwu5sfByMz9i
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on a serious note though, I really wonder "falling down" isn't blueprint yet

cultural hegemony
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony

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Why did you say the same thing twice?

Because ethical capitalism is a thing, you moron.

Are they critical of capitalism though. Are they really?
Or do they merely copy the aesthetics of anti-capitalism and revolution, while delivering an ending that restores the status quo?

They're trying to reinvent that vigilante/wild west aesthetic where ubermensch take the law into their own hands and gets ahead through their superior cunning. It's just worst now because capitalism is worse now, base/superstructure. Expect to see more depraved people worshipped on TV as being "realistic" when it's just realism under capitalism (or fascism as the US is now).

says the socdem

No it isn't


And I liked Breaking Bad a lot, for me it's the fantasy of "yes, the system is broken, but if I can angle it just right I can put myself ahead of it by playing it better than the others." I don't like the Sopranos much though, and Mad Men fell off, although I like the early seasons for the time capsule feeling and I identified more with Peggy than Don tbh.

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Breaking Bad is kind of more complicated than that. Walter White isn't someone you’re supposed to idealize but pity. He becomes a drug kingpin at first out of necessity to pay for his own cancer treatment, but the corrupting influence of that world drives him mad. In the beginning of the series, he is completely broke after working as a high school chemistry teacher for years, despite cofounding a company which screwed him out of millions of dollars after his partner claimed his research as their own. Jesse Pinkman is a mirror of Walter without the academic acumen. He’s a loser that can only find success through criminality. The difference is he manages to escape that world just barely after years of struggling with addiction and cognitive dissonance caused by betraying his own conscience. It’s a tragedy about how brilliant people and people who aren’t given the adequate means to thrive get shunted out of an honest living through capitalism. I mean, it’s all very dramatized, but it isn’t like the premise is far-fetched. Real life stories of people selling drugs to survive are fairly common.
google.com/amp/s/www.alternet.org/2016/10/man-who-got-life-dealing-meth-pay-his-childs-medical-bills-had-sentence-commuted-obama-only-be/amp/

I don’t think the story supports capitalism any more King Lear supports monarchy. I’d say there is media that glorifies lumpen life, but I don’t think this is it.

lolwut

The Sopranos, Breaking Bad and Mad Men are all pretty critical of the American dream though (Mad Men doesn't really start out this way but it starts incorporating it the deeper into the 60s the show gets and the final season actually has a sort of Adorno vibe to it imo)

My real question is why Zig Forums loves the Sopranos so much. One of its themes is about how fucking useless the preservation of tradition is because it's just another way for bourgeoise cunts to make a dime and the cognitive dissonance that comes from trying to enforce systems of control you yourself don't believe in. They pretty much came right out and said this in the Columbus episode and Zig Forums still thinks the Sopranos is some epic Roman play about family and muh degeneracy or some shit

Normies are simpletons. I think this is more an issue with TV because you have to stay with this odious evil fuck for like 80 hours, so they have to flip flop on whether they're a bad person. I think TV sucks in general. Movies like 'Nightcrawler' can make a much bigger impact in a fraction of the time. As a journalism grad it's one of my favourite movies, follows the anti hero theme but doesn't shy away from how evil the main character is, and how twisted the system they exist within is. Highly recommend it.

youtube.com/watch?v=kvMCtCgDLtg

american culture is sociopathic? wow what a surprising discovery

what do you mean?

Better Call Saul is a lot more balant in its anti-capitalist themes, and to add the cherry on top it probably has one of the greatest female characters in television and in my opinion, one of the most realistic romances.

I like Breaking Bad but I think the writers simply didn't plan out Walt's character. They teased at him becoming more villainous but ultimately chickened out.
Obviously audiences are typically going to sympathize the most with the protagonist since they get the most screentime and you get an idea of their motivations. So it's difficult to create a true villain protagonist without upsetting a lot of people.

Every single cop show

BREAKS THE RULES TO GET RESULTS

SO WHAT IF WE DON'T HAVE THE EVIDENCE, I HAVE A HUNCH

BOOK HIM


every god damn time

until he fucks it up, then its time for the guilt drinking, obviously this hard nose cop who breaks the rules to get the scumbags in jail is also obviously an alchoholic.

fucking worst trope in all media

I mean, there are a few shows that criticize that type of character.
The Shield comes to mind.

The last 2 or 3 seasons have several episodes where the ad agency uses the antiesrablishment fervor at the time cynically. For instance in one episode a young intern gets a pamphlet from his friend who is in the Students for a Democratic Society (a prominent Marxist and anti-imperialist group in the 60s that later would branch off into the Weathermen) and takes it to Don and the others so they can make a commercial that speaks to young people more efficiently.

IIRC the last season has tons of this and the final episode ends with Don literally having a vision of the famous "I'd like to buy the world a coke" ad as he is meditating, thus only being able to reach "enlightenment" and "escape" from the advertising world through a an image of harmony mediated itself by advertising The entire tone of the final season is similar to what Adorno said about anti-war protest songs, how they don't actually inspire revolutionary action but sublimate and regulate antiesrablishment discontent thus being part of a corporate system to give the generation the experience of revolution without them having to actually pursue one. I would have to rewatch it to give you a case by case breakdown but there's a lot of shit like that from season 5 until the end

Doesn't stop SuccDems from bragging about how the entire plot was kicked off by lack of universal healthcare, though.

Do you even understand what he said or did you just want to get a jab in?

Both.

It is the refined escape of male power fantasy; it is how the aggressive male lives in his nature, through the escape of fiction rather than in the brutality of reality. Walter White or whoever is how many men would like to exist, and they do for a short time, but like I say, it is still refined and constrained to particular dynamics. HBO would not make a show about violent revolutionaries overthrowing capitalism and what-have-you.

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Mad Men is critical even from the start.
It's attack on the idealised 1950s concept of the nuclear family is scathing.
Don is fucking like 4 different women during the first season and isolation/boredom start driving his wife crazy.
Clearly they have rushed into this family life due to societal pressure; there are constant reminders of Society's low opinion of single men and single women everywhere and the other characters go through this as well.

The Draper family is depicted as aesthetic perfection, but the reality is that Don spends as little time there as possible.

The best representation of this is in the climax with the famous Carousel scene; Don displays the nostalgic images of his family, however as the viewer, we know that at the time his family is on the verge of collapse due to his infidelity.

What Don is doing is using the idealised version of his family to sell the advertising to his clients and ultimately the products to the consumer, however the reality is a sham, it doesn't exist.

Imagine being so spooked.

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Only technically, in the sense that TECHNICALLY ethical slave ownership could exist too. For instance, you could have a plantation staffed entirely by your BDSM subs who get off on working your land for you. When you whip them they cum or whatever.

That's fucking stupid, though, and doesn't actually exist in the real world.

tbf some stereotypes exist for a reason. Only problem is it doesn't show them beating their fat wives after.

I know this is a shitpost, but goddamn this is the dumbest shit I've ever seen posted on this board.

its still romanticised as if your average cop is interesting enough to do this kind of shit in order to actually solve crimes rather than just because they lost control or took their chance at a traffic stop and beat someone up or shot them, then having the state cover them for it.


this also

Abso-fucking-lutely!!!!!

I’m glad I’m not the only one that thought about this. I was wondering the same thing the other day. Like look at wrap. They really promote Rappers that glorify capitalism. They did the same thing with all music really. The entertainment industry is completely in a dated with pro capitalist propaganda. And a very rare occasion, you’ll see a communist rider slip in some metaphorical condemnation of capitalism. That’s becoming more and more rare since the end of McCarthyism.

You can tell capitalism is responsible for speech to text algorithms on modern phones.

Your reply has nothing to do what he just said. Mods, investigate this suspect.

Oy vey, and the class traitor propaganda on modern television couldn’t be more prolific, trashy and popular.

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It's the same guy. Prolly saying most complexicated words that aren't brand names didn't go through. Agree entirely. Like earlier today I had to type in 'classist' manually cause that's apparently not a real word.

WTF?! Why you flagging me man? I was agreeing with OP. I was drawing a comparison from psychopathic capitalist TV show protagonists to rappers, and how modern entertainment is capitalist propaganda trash.

Exactly, I was just noting my comment was trashed by speech to text. Like when I said rap it was recorded as wrap. When I said writers it was recorded as riders. Sorry miscommunication.

so glad that blue line shit hasn't caught on over here at least

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It’s absolutely garbage, they have episodes dedicated to defending stop and frisk policies, police violence and suppression of protests. Another prolific capitalist terd genre are the shows dedicated towards defending American intelligence going into sovereign nations and kidnapping, torturing and assassinating foreign nationals without any judicial process.

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youtube.com/watch?v=Kxbnr_4OW44

nice trips
Most entertainment media focus on extraordinary characters and events, otherwise it wouldn't be entertaining. Of course anything happening irl like what is seen on tv is one in a million, so at this point the representations of astounding feats of bravery/intellect/bullshit far exceeds that which actually happens. And these types of shows do usually present the extraordinary character opposite an army of impotent by the books incompetent characters.

what's he gonna do? stick the criminals in a big bowl of jello?

Actually, speaking of the blue line. Can I get an analysis on Battlefield: Hardline's single-player campaign?

Just read the plot. It reminds me of Training Day. When I watched Training Day for the first time I thought it was a critique of police corruption. However, capitalism doesn’t quite leave room for honest critiques of police corruption. Training Day had to leave room for appealing to people who are in the police force or are supportive of the police force to be profitable. Thus, we see the good cop versus the bad cop trope. Same as in Battlefield Hardline. Since, I haven’t played the game but recognize the trope I can only guess it glorifies various levels of police brutality, police street smarts, police dedication to justice, police fighting skills, police caring about victims of crime and so on. It also probably condemns drug dealers and has more than one cheesy over the top anti-police character who acts utterly ridiculous. This is essentially class traitor propaganda for cucks. Over all, but not universally, drug dealers are easier to respect than the police. Most street level drug dealers are trying to support themselves financially due to feeling exploited by wage labor (though they might not articulate it that well). American drug laws are incredibly harsh in America for the express purpose of conducting ruthless class warfare. Street level criminals are one of the most profitable commodities in the U.S. Business tier criminals generally don’t face justice, and mingle with the ruling classes. Games like Battlefield Hardline help normalize the extremely lucrative criminal justice economy. They also create a narrative that the police force does much more than enforce property rights and collect revenue for the state through enforcing largely arbitrary rules. Their 'crime fighting' amounts to responding to violence with more violence, almost no effort in preventative methods – and when they do try to prevent crime, their standard tactic is prejudiced profiling based superficially on class and race, or worse: "shows of force" which amounts to terrorism (ruling through terror and implied violence). They fully represent only the interests of the ruling power and the ownership class, almost never the average working person. The average police work day unironically consists of driving around and helping porky by being an asshole to the proletariat. Battlefield Hardline and Training Day both make effective class traitor recruitment propaganda as well, by projecting the police as healthy, intelligent, likable, funny and macho bad asses. Police in real life are quite often unhealthy, unintelligent, unlikeable, unfunny and scared people. Finally, Battlefield Hardline seems to be predictively programming gamers to expect an Ayn Randian privatized police force. God help us all if our police forces end up a Wall Street commodity.

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Here's the playthrough with no commentary, btw.

youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4vbGURud_HreNP5XprLHp43bwTq9fwV5

I see BB as a parody or cautionary tale of the 'american dream' because who is WW? hes a middle aged middle class white american man who pulls himself up by his bootstraps by building a business empire, and how that crumbles and destroys his soul in the end.

I mean if you think WW is glorified in BB you're interpreting it wrong, WW shows how 'rugged american individualism' warps a good man into a Bad man, how capitalist society causes callousness and moral rot

youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlRXv9MVYcSx7N56SvgcWFwu5sfByMz9i

Here's another playthrough with evidence flavour texts that detail the background.

I'm bringing this up, btw, because the protagonist is Cuban.