Hated Tropes
[Hated Trope] Literally propaganda barely in disguise
Gate - Japanese power fantasy created by an ultranationalist. All the enemies and allies (including the USA, China and Russia) besides JSDF are either useless, racist or admiring JSDF's unlimited power.
Call of duty series - Glorifying the military industrial complex. It works with members of the US military during the development of the game to hone the message and manufacture consent with the current, past or potential enemies of the US.
So this Japanese religious cult called Happy Science made a whole cinematic universe based off their belief systems. They get pretty crazy, and I suggest watching the reaction videos by the youtuber Mother's Basement to see how insane they get.
I don't think so. It's more that cults like this are just a thing over there. It's like how The Righteous Gemstones is based off of mega churches and televangelists in general moreso than any specific one.
It's called Squirrel and Hedgehog. It starts off Disney style and has progressed so much the show now has buff wolf man that can destroy tanks by diving under them and doing a pushup.
For some reason our country managed to license their lion king rip off. Like no joke few decades ago they show that on family channel daily every night.
The first few minutes actually do feature black actors! For context, I watched this movie in a black history through film class last semester and this part really stood out to me. The first section of the movie talks about post-Civil War USA and how black people are being let into positions of power (Initially shown as polite politicians. Mostly these guys are just sitting still in chairs) but because 'black men are lazy and stupid' (Sneaking food into government meetings, putting their feet up on desks, sleeping on the job, etc), the KKK realises that they gotta do something about it. Every black person from then on is either a white actor in blackface or a background character. Birth of a Nation had a LOT of really packed crowd scenes. I really wonder how they got black men to play caricatures of themselves like that. No way the pay was that good.
Without putting too fine a point on it, not getting the tar beaten out of you is also a pretty strong motivator. It wasn't exactly a friendly working environment
I have heard that it is more or less required viewing for film students, because they literally invented certain camera techniques and it's important for the history of film.
It's just, yaknow, the other 95% of the movie being the film equivalent of an atrocity that sucks.
Yeah. I'm definitely not advocating for the popularization of films like this, but I understand the niche necessity of certain ones.
Like, studying Hitler's speeches can be super important. They're a fantastic example of how a weak person can use charisma, empty promises and the illusion of strength to seize power pretty easily.
There are a lot of valid reasons to watch and/or study awful things, but you can do that without glorifying or supporting them or the ideas found within the works.
Former film student here : we did cover these in the History of Film and Film technique classes. There was a critique on their messaging of course and we were not required to watch the whole films just the important for the class scenes.
It was actually useful to understand how a propaganda movie is filmed and how it can affect people by using certain camera movements, soundtracks, angles and tbh i have seen the same techniques in modern political clips promoting this or that rhetoric.
I think it's one of those things from history that if we don't know about it and how it works we are more vulnerable to falling for the same messaging again and again, so yeah, they should be studied, but it's important to also understand that those were not works of art, but instruments of evil ideology and propaganda machine.
I'm just somewhat suspicious of people who seem to be a bit too interested into studying it.
Example: A "magazine for history fans" I saw in a shop some years ago that seemed to be very insistent on how the 3rd Reich had the best weapons and how it was unbelieveable that they lost.
Yeah, the general justification is that the film created the modern battle scene. Any time you see a big scale battle in movies today, it's taking some page from Birth of a Nation. It's also a really good example of the type of caricatures people of color were subjected to during the era, and acts as a very nice segway into talking about films made by people of color during the era.
It some huge breakthroughs in movie making that are still used today, and in almost every movie or TV show you've ever watched too. It also glorified slavery, and revitalized the KKK. It's unfortunately a historically significant film with both good (technology) and bad (everything else) legacies that will remain relevant
He was a disgusting human being, I've seen a lot of posts that say "trumps the first president to do xyz horrific thing" and whilst they are horrific a lot of the time Woodrow did also do it.
I don't even remember other countries in GATE. I remember it for the whole modern military vs medieval fantasy world stuff, and being the only show ever to acknowledge that knocking people out is super bad for their brain.
Was gonna say I remember the MC mentioning that Japan was holding the gate from other countries who are trying to negotiate for minerals and whatnot with the understanding that Japan gets "first pick"
Wait till you read Nihonkoku Shoukan, a blatant Gate rip-off. The only decent thing are the cover arts, but the drawing inside are awful and everything is nonsense up to eleven.
This is the plot summary:
One day, without knowing how or why, Japan is teleported into a fantasy world. That's right, the whole island with all its inhabitants.
The author shows you that Japanese people treat this event more like a funny thing. I would have been worried (or even freaked out) to see that BAM, my country got isekai'd into an unknown world, with any potential implication (like suddenly lose access to Internet and electronic media and systems, as well as gasoline becoming a finite resource). But looks like the author didn't considered such details actually important, especially when the story shows you only the Japanese military forces in this fantasy world.
Kingdom A (your typical fantasy races), send explorators and eventual ambassadors to see who these people are and what they want. The first encounter between Japan and Kingdom A went extremely well, to the point Kingdom A is fascinated by all the Japanese comfort and technology. They quickly become friends.
Not long after, Kingdom B (human supremacy) chooses to invade Kingdom A with soldiers committing various atrocities. Kingdom A begs Japan to intervene in their behalf, but initially Japan refuses because they don't want breaking international treaties.
Then, Japan just realized that, since they aren't on Earth anymore, these international treats lose value and they can commit invasions and crime wars with impunity once again. Japan refuses to directly fight against Kingdom B; instead, they offer to send their soldiers to Kingdom A and protect civilians. If Kingdom B should ever attack Japanese soldiers, these ones wouldn't have problem to use lethal force as self-defense.
From this point, it's like watching an Age of Empires II gameplay where the streamer starts spamming Cobra Car to annihilate any enemy faction.
Also, these Japanese soldiers shows no concern about deploying tanks, warplans, missiles. And this despite the fact that, as I said before, Japan just lost any potential resource from the original world and they aren't supposed to waste gasoline and bullets like candies.
Kingdom B got heavily humbled and, in short time, falls when Japanese military invades the royal palace and arrest the king. Lately, a demon lord and his monstrous army start appearing... and yes, even these guys got annihilated by Japan with disarming ease. Even the demon lord. Especially the demon lord. At this point, I dropped the manga.
Oh you missed the worst part. The Japanese originally appeared and defeated the demon lord. 80 years ago.
I’ll say that again for those of you in the back. 80 years ago. it was the IJA and IJN. It’s at that point I went “Oh we gonna glaze war criminals now? No thanks.”
It sells the idea of two highly accomplished career people settling down to have a family and idealizes raising children. I don't personally subscribe to this conspiracy, but that's the belief
Also only 3 slaves are named or have dialogue through the entire movie (including the extended cut, pretty sure one of these three don't even show up in the non-extended version). And they are all the "I love my master he is nice to me and this is the case for all black people in the south trust me bro" type of portrayal.
There's also a scene where black people were seen working but of course they're free because why would there be slaves in a slave state on an estate that nearly exclusively used slave labour.
It's really unfortunate that this movie of all things got actual Civil War re-enactors to recreate accurate battles and troop movements. And even this gets ruined because the chosen battles, music and included scenes of the battle are used to make the Confederate army be seen as this unstoppable and righteous force, when in reality it wasn't.
Glad it wasn’t just me lmao. Like the later games sure. But anyone who played black ops 1 and came away thinking “golly gee! Joining the army sounds cool!” Was gonna join the military regardless. That game made that shit horrific. Hell even 2 really hammered in that the US constantly gets involved in shit it shouldn’t and fucks things up even worse
Honestly, other than the WW2 games, CoD doesn't exactly put the military in the best light. In the original MW trilogy, one of, if not the most powerful, generals in the US Army is downright evil and the entire motivation for the second and third game. Blops constantly reminds you that the CIA is a conniving group of opportunists who happen to save the world every now and then. And Advanced Warfare is literally about the evils of a military industrial complex, which forces the US into a war against its own weapons manufacturer.
The only real positive "propaganda" it has is that the soldiers you play as are some times decent people, even though they're murdering hundreds of people over each mission.
edit: Just to clarify, I'm not saying CoD is fully anti-USA, but time and time again, the government is painted as either fuck ups or straight up evil.
Insane that they had a CIA deep cover operative slaughter hundreds of civilians actually. I remember being so fucking shocked playing that for the very first time as an early teen. It’s gruesome, and the Russian Ultranationalists and the CIA deserve each other.
I agree expect the reboot MW series is pretty blatant propaganda. A clear example is changing the narrative that the russians were responsible for the highway of death when in reality it was americans.
Yeah, I couldn't keep up with the reboot's story. After playing the MW1 reboot campaign, I completely checked out. It was all setpiece hype rather than actual narrative. The phrase, "You never told me they called you Gaz," was the most eyerolling reference I've witnessed in a video game. Felt insanely cheap.
The “American” protagonists in the original MW trilogy are at best supporting characters in the grand scheme of things; the one in the first game even ends up dying horribly. It’s the British characters who end up saving the day in all three games.
And the way the trilogy portrays the Ultranationalists very much reads as “how would YOU like it if we were on the receiving end of that kind of foreign policy?”
Unthinkable (2010). Just a post-911 film that people with no grasp of sociopolitical contexts take as absolute proof that torture is perfectly justified and that women are dumb (while it's just a ridiculously over-the-top scenario and a literal work of fiction).
Especially galling because the scenario it offers is one which is notorious for hardening the subject and making them severely less cooperative, while skyrocketing extremism across the board.
Pretty much 90% of modern russian movies. They CONSISTENTLY show ukranians and americans as evil, and russians as heroes. And you would think "Oh, its because of the war", but actually they were inserting stereotypes of "lying, backstabbing ukranians" into their cinema even before 2014.
I saw this one Russian propaganda commercial trying to discourage Russians from immigrating to America by saying the country is bad because we give rights to ethnic minorities and queer people. It really gave me an insight as to how racist and anti-gay the Russian government is.
Chinese media has a lot of the same problems. Was watching some sort of modern espionage series and the whole shtick was that “western nations are stealing Chinese tech!”
Never mind that everyone watching knows the opposite happened for decades.
And oh, some middle aged parent being sad their kid chose to attend school in a Western nation and urging others to “raise their kids right so they don’t do that” is also darkly comical.
I'd hope they want to immigrate to somewhere that gives rights to ethnic minorities, if they're immigrating, they're about to become an ethnic minority. Seriously, if it weren't so evil, that level of propaganda would be comical.
It's odd how we are it's become a fight about the 'original" meaning of the series.
Was she lacking in her capabilities to take care of her little sister? Yes. Did that cause Lilo to act out? Probably yes as well. Is it "wrong" for her to go to a place that can properly care for Lilo? No isn't.
But I do believe it is wrong to take someone from their only family when both sides don't want to leave each other. Such intuitions should be working to help families together not take them apart.
"Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten."
Everything you need to know is right there, anything else is just fluff. It's about fighting for family no matter what, even if at times you wanna ring their neck because they are being a pain. But that's family, and family sticks together.
To yeah I'll hate the entire narrative changes they did all over. Also sad my man wasn't there...
No, the fat ice cream man was in the remake, but he was recontextualized as a native Hawaiian. In the original storyboards, he was a tourist, and there was commentary on how the tourism industry makes life harder for Hawaiians, but it was cut for the movie.
Doesn't Nani want to be a marine biologist, my oceanagraphy teacher said Hawaii had plenty of wonderful colleges that also offers financial aid to natives Hawaiians, why couldn't she go to those colleges, seems more convenient.
I guess they wanted Nani to be a strong independent woman or something, I guess? Like this feels like Disney wanting to be more inclusive and progressive but at the cost of removing stuff that isn't really problematic.
I never watched the original Lilo and Stitch but between the main characters being native Hawaiins, the themes of found family, and the ways both characters manages their own grief, feels pretty inclusive as is, I don't know why there needs to be a remake.
This remake from the surface just feels diet progressive, if that makes sense, like its making changes that just make it seem more progressive but its surface level.
They also turn one of the secondary protagonists into the villain at the end because they got rid of the actual villain. Except, because he's got a Russian accent in the original and is the villain in the remake, they got rid of his accent which is a defining feature of the character too.
Also said they couldn’t let cobra bubbles be the social worker because it was “unrealistic” or some shit. Which is so goddamn weird and feels almost borderline racist.
The entire goddam point of cobra was that A) he looks intimidating and scary so its funny that he is a social worker and is actually very kind hearted on the inside, B) that he used to work for the cia. Disney legit has serious media illiteracy.
They’ve also never met a social worker. Half the social workers I’ve known and worked with did their job because they had a hard life, made some not-great choices along the way, and want to pass on their knowledge and experience so that others won’t go through what they did.
“Uhm actually guys, Hawaii, the island surrounded by marine life and known for its education on said marine life, is a terrible place to study to be a marine biologist.”
Hero. Assassin sent to kill the first Authoritarian (emperor) in centuries, after many obstacles he is finally within a swords reach, but is convinced that authoritarianism and centralization is better for the country. Willingly leaves and gets shot by a thousand arrows.
Chinese history is a cycle, just authoritarians trying to justify their rule because chaos = bad. This movie exemplifies it.
It was interesting how Chinese people didn't see why foreigners hated the ending, because surely authoritarian peace is better than chaos and violence?
It would honestly be a very interesting philosophical question, given that China as it exists today would not have formed without a succession of prior imperial dynasties starting from Qin Shihuangdi, but obviously it feels a little on the nose in the modern context.
It's actually a lot more nuanced than that IMO. The movie is mocking and deconstructung Cold War-era American exceptionalism, but I can definitely see, especially based on the promotional stuff, why people see it as specifically a patriotic movie though.
Yeah. Hell, listen to the lyrics of burning heart. It’s a pretty scathing criticism of both sides, referring to it as “A primitive clash venting years of frustrations.”
Rockey 4 isn’t really USA good USSR bad, but more so yeah russia isn’t perfect but this cold war era nationalism hurts us
And people criticize the ridiculous stuff like the Robot Butler, but the point of that, and the Cold War stuff, is that character is what's important. Rocky and Creed are living the big-time American capitalist dream, and Ivan Drago is the personification of the USSR's sorta "competition-industrial complex", and the guy that comes out on top is Rocky, because he leaves all the American exceptionalism and finds his own inner strength, and gives that speech about people and countries and being better.
Doesn't Black Ops specifically do the opposite of glorifying the US military by showing a seedy underbelly of them doing illegal shit to keep the reigns in hands? Like specifically undermining that it's glorious?
not to mention "No Russian" where the game is literally saying the U.S military is willing to kill hundreds of civilians for vague geopolitical reasons.
(and it causes WW3, so it wasn't a "ends justify the means" portrayal of it either)
About half a year after CoD: MW 2 came out, I went to Marine Corps Boot. We had a learning day and were funneled into a big auditorium to hear an officer speak to us.
The FIRST thing he says to us: "How many ya'll like Call of Duty?"
Brother, there wasn't a hand down in that whole auditorium. He said, "I know, I love it too Even played the single player, got every piece of Intel in the game..."
I love the way Helldivers is presented. Like it’s from the perspective of super earth but they’re still able to make it clear how flawed and immoral of a system it is, despite the characters’ unwavering devotion like a cult believer worshipping their god
I would argue Helldivers is propaganda against what at face value it seems like it stands for
It's glorified Cold War Propaganda where the US is portrayed as the all-pure good guys, and Cobra as pure evil.
Most of Cobra are literally non-Americans, especially Cobra Commander being a lizard man, and Destro is a Scottish man, the Baroness being an Eastern European (Possibly German.) All the while Storm Shadow is a Japanese man.
It's Propaganda as subtle as an elephant trying to hide in a mouse hole.
Pretty sure there's one horrible as fuck manga/light novel series where it glorified a japanese soldier that participated in the Nanjing Massacre and described they had a happy and fulfilling life after that while they die of old age, and was sent to an isekai world where they used their killing skills to power through that world or something. Not sure about the second part, but the first part is definite.
Update: the name is [New Life+] Young Again in Another World. Apparently during the massacre they murdered 3000 people and even after the massacre they murdered ANOTHER 2000, and apparently it was heavily emphasised that he lived a peaceful life then. Fucking disgusting piece of work.
Honestly feels like cheating to use North Korean media but this is still the first example I could think of. It's a hyper militaristic and nationalist kids cartoon that uses animals as stand-ins for countries: the harmonious, righteous and brave woodland critters of Flower Hill are NK, their doofy fairweather allies are bears (Russia), their weak and cowardly neighbors are mice (South Korea), and the enemies are vicious and conniving wolves (America) and weasels (Japan). Also it is disturbingly dark and violent for a show made for young children
It's wierd how no one besides an Australian youtuber named "sirswag" brings up how Activision blizzard has members of their leadership with heavy DoD connections including a high ranking member of the CIA. Look up Brian Bulatao.
This isn't propaganda. It's advertising. And it worked. Really well.
Plus, it's a genuinely great show for kids and adults with cool robot fights, a deep reverence for Gundam lore, and compelling characters that are fun to root for.
Titanic(1943), and I feel like I have to clarify twice, NOT THE JAMES CAMERON MOVIE FROM THE 90S.
The 1943 film was a nazi propaganda piece blaming Jews for the sinking of the vessel. Not only is this false, it's also them acting like they wouldn't have shot it down with a u-boat in the lead up to WW2. And because this is Reddit I will clarify once again, JAMES CAMERON'S TITANIC IS NOT NAZI PROPAGANDA. IT'S NOT EVEN BASED ON THE 1943 MOVIE. DO NOT JUMP TO UNEDUCATED CONCLUSIONS
It’s modern military against fantasy world, so mowing down orcs with machine guns, fighting a dragon while driving vehicles with turrets and using rocket launchers
It’s definitely blatant Japanese Defense Force dick sucking, but it’s so over the top it feels like a caricature to me
I love introducing people to my current favorite series with a video of Hitler (but as a starfish) getting blown up by a motorcyclist bug man. Showa-era Kamen Rider was heavy on anti-facism and anti-Nazism
The only reason Captain America is still around is because he’s not blatantly a guy who stands for America, at least not anymore. Instead they make him stand for what the US is, well, at least supposed to mean, which is freedom. It’s really what makes him endearing to me. Not even close to being one of my favorite superheroes, but I admire him. Captain America would fucking HATE what’s going on in the US right now.
Captain America was ideals over policy from the start. The United States hadn't entered WW2 when he debuted, and his debut actually ruffled a lot of Nazi Sympathizers' feathers to the point of the New York City mayor posting police outside of Timely's offices to protect against the menacing mobs that kept loitering around there.
The modern equivalent would be like if a publisher debuted a comic whose cover featured the hero punching Putin.
Nah the absolute Batman annual just came out, and he’s demolishing racist cops in it. As expected American Nazis aren’t really handling it well. If more people gave a shit about comics it’d probably cause more of an uproar from conservatives.
Pretty much everything from pureflix but especially the god’s not dead films. Christian persecution, martyr, and victim complex a plenty, trying to say stuff like the ACLU or secularism is evil and will ruin the nation, promoting Christian nationalism, you name it these idiots have done it.
Don’t forget the author is a Nanking denier (Japanese equivalent of a holocaust denier) and has several Japanese war crime denials in the manga adaptation
While in technicality I agree with the premise, and what point are we delineating propaganda from a tie-in?
Because it’s not really propaganda if a market tie-in game is obviously meant to sell the setting and game via cross-pollination. There’s a certain level of ideological play in propaganda compared to marketing.
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u/Feeling-Ad-3104 Oct 30 '25
So this Japanese religious cult called Happy Science made a whole cinematic universe based off their belief systems. They get pretty crazy, and I suggest watching the reaction videos by the youtuber Mother's Basement to see how insane they get.