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[CW: Transphobia] There's something about the fascist fixation on how "ugly" their enemies are but I'm not quite smart enough to articulate it (hexbear.net)

submitted 8 months ago by BeanisBrain@hexbear.net to c/chat@hexbear.net

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It's a consistent recurring theme in their propaganda, from the grotesque racial caricatures in Nazi publications like Der Sturmer to the modern day, where they represent their enemies with hideous soyjaks and portray transwomen as not just men, but unwashed, hairy neanderthals.

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[–] BeanisBrain@hexbear.net 26 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I think there's legit a kernel of truth there. The tropes of "classical" fantasy have a lot of overlap with themes central to fascist ideology: bloodline as destiny, combat as the crucible of manhood, inherently evil races that can be killed without hesitation or remorse, romantic nostalgia for a "golden age," male-centric storytelling, fixation on kings and monarchs, individual "great men" as the drivers and movers of history, evil as a sinister occult force that has no goals beyond corrupting and inflicting suffering upon what is pure and good. There's nothing about fantasy as a genre that requires it to have these things, but they keep popping up because people uncritically copy what they already see or (less often) because the creators themselves are ideologically driven fascists.

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 14 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Reactionaries look backwards. Fantasy is inherently a genre that looks backwards.

Communists look forwards. Science fiction is inherently a genre that looks forwards.

I'm not even remotely joking about this. Not all fantasy is fascist but a good deal of it includes fascist tropes. Meanwhile all science fiction that includes anything remotely fascist is plainly and obviously critical of it. There's no "haha future scifi empire with slavery is good actually" takes, because that would be stupid. The fantasy empires with slavery are uniquely capable of pretending to be good because they can hide behind "well duh it's a fantasy past setting, that stuff is just normal but these kingdoms are better than the evil alternatives surrounding them on all sides that they need to exterminate".

[–] BeanisBrain@hexbear.net 31 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Let's not pretend there hasn't been plenty of reactionary sci-fi (Heinlein, Orwell, Rand, David Weber, John Ringo, Vox Day, John C. Wright to name a few).

There's no "haha future scifi empire with slavery is good actually"

I'd ask you to look into the World of Gor novels, but nobody deserves that.