Daredevil Season 3 gets political

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Daredevil Season 3 gets political

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https://www.gamespot.com/articles/dared ... 0-6462318/
Comic books have always been political, so it's no surprise when comic book movies and TV shows are too. But showrunners like Erik Oleson, who helms Netflix's Daredevil Season 3, don't always have so clear a vision for the message they want to send as Oleson expressed during interviews at New York Comic-Con recently.

"Another one of my goals is not to just tell a story that's mindless entertainment and has lots of 'gee whiz' stuff," Oleson said. "I wanted the show to become part of the conversation about the world we're living in today--to make it relevant."

The last we saw of Matt Murdock--AKA Daredevil (Charlie Cox)--was in The Defenders, when a skyscraper collapsed on him and Elektra. The show eventually revealed that Murdock was still alive, though understandably, he's in bad shape when Daredevil Season 3 picks up his story--read our Season 3 review here.

"I wanted to kick off the season with Matt having an honest emotional reaction to [what happened in The Defenders]," Oleson said. "He's damaged physically, he's damaged emotionally, and he's damaged spiritually. He's very angry at God for what he thought should have happened, and all of the sacrifices he has made have been for naught, and he's been punished for that instead."

Matt's situation will only worsen when fan favorite villain Wilson Fisk, AKA the Kingpin (Vincent D'Onofrio), manipulates his way out of prison and the two face off once again. And it sounds like that's where the show will really start to get political.

"Daredevil is the man without fear, and yet we're all living in a world where our fears are both driving the way that we behave and the way that we vote, and our fears are also being preyed upon by villains who are using our fears to pit us against one another on their quest to rise to power," Oleson said.

"I wanted this season to be prescriptive of how we can defeat the rise of narcissistic tyrants who use our fears against us," he continued. A big part of that involves Karen Page's (Deborah Ann Woll) role as a journalist.

"Karen Page is a representative of the power of the free press that should be left to do what it does best, instead of attacked incessantly--and sometimes physically," Oleson said. "It is [a very topical season]. I wanted it to be. I was pissed off."

Oleson said his father worked for organizations like the Defense Intelligence Agency and the CIA while he was growing up, and from an early age he's been familiar with "the techniques of psychological warfare."

"Let me just say that I would love for people to stop and think--just think. Whatever you're thinking about, recognize that when you are being targeted with manipulations, there's an agenda behind that, and a villain out in the world who is manipulating you to feel a certain way, to act a certain way, to vote a certain way, to behave a certain way, and has his or her own motives for doing so," he said. "And it's very easy to just go through life on autopilot and not realize that, but as somebody who grew up kind of learning the techniques of psychological warfare, it is very alarming to me to see it being used inside our own country against our own people on a daily basis."

Oleson described the guiding principle--the core theme--that guided his writer's room during production: "You can only be free if you confront your fears, because your fears are what enslave you." That idea will guide the arcs of every character in the show this season, from Matt to Karen to Foggy--and presumably even to Fisk himself.

"The man without fear is not without fear," he said. "Every single true human being on this planet is afraid of something. And the people who understand what you are afraid of, and can use that against you, can rise in power, can manipulate you to their own ends. But also, you can hold yourself back from your true nature and your own best self if you act out of fear. You are listening to the devil on your shoulder, not the angel on your shoulder."

Oleson said he was a huge fan of the message Jessica Jones showrunner Melissa Rosenberg was able to get across with that show's first season, and he was eager to leave his own mark on the Netflix Marvel universe of shows.

"I figured if Marvel was going to give me their flagship show, I was going to use it to say something meaningful," he explained.


Daredevil Season 3 hits Netflix October 19.
The bold sections are parts I find . . . . troubling.
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Re: Daredevil Season 3 gets political

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And to go through this step by step:
Comic books have always been political,
In the sense that superheroes live in a world where politics exist, sure. Writers using superheroes to specifically push a political agenda and calling fans various insults for not following said agenda? That's fairly recently and has been destroying the comic industry.
"Another one of my goals is not to just tell a story that's mindless entertainment and has lots of 'gee whiz' stuff," Oleson said. "I wanted the show to become part of the conversation about the world we're living in today--to make it relevant."
Because heaven forbid we have a superhero show about heroes being heroes and not commenting on the political quagmire that's been around for the last 4 years. Good way to date the show by bringing your own political message to the series where a blind ninja lawyer with supersenses fights crime in a red devil costume. Really drives home how serious you feel about these political issues.
"Daredevil is the man without fear, and yet we're all living in a world where our fears are both driving the way that we behave and the way that we vote, and our fears are also being preyed upon by villains who are using our fears to pit us against one another on their quest to rise to power," Oleson said.
Oh, so the villains will be analogous to the news media and social media folks who try to present the country as more divided than it is? I'm actually on board with that. It's time we've asked more from our media to live up to the standards of Walter Cronkite, Mike Wallace and Ed Bradley.
"I wanted this season to be prescriptive of how we can defeat the rise of narcissistic tyrants who use our fears against us," he continued. A big part of that involves Karen Page's (Deborah Ann Woll) role as a journalist.

"Karen Page is a representative of the power of the free press that should be left to do what it does best, instead of attacked incessantly--and sometimes physically," Oleson said. "It is [a very topical season]. I wanted it to be. I was pissed off."
. . . . . what? You think journalists are victims in the modern era? Oh wow this is going to suck.
Whatever you're thinking about, recognize that when you are being targeted with manipulations, there's an agenda behind that, and a villain out in the world who is manipulating you to feel a certain way, to act a certain way, to vote a certain way, to behave a certain way, and has his or her own motives for doing so," he said. "And it's very easy to just go through life on autopilot and not realize that, but as somebody who grew up kind of learning the techniques of psychological warfare, it is very alarming to me to see it being used inside our own country against our own people on a daily basis."
So your answer to the perception that powerful people are using mass media to influence people and make them think a certain way . . . . is to use mass media to influence people to think a certain way.

Wow.

Jab and I were just talking about how a little self-awareness goes a long way.
he was eager to leave his own mark on the Netflix Marvel universe of shows.

"I figured if Marvel was going to give me their flagship show, I was going to use it to say something meaningful," he explained.
"Rather than be a caretaker for a franchise that has been entrusted to me, I am going to leave my mark on it by injecting my own heavy handed politics into the franchise, and then be surprised when I watch the franchise burn to the ground before me."

See also Ghostbusters 2016, the Star Wars sequel series, etc.
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Re: Daredevil Season 3 gets political

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The lack of self-awareness is hilarious, but suddenly I'm completely uninterested in watching the show. Huh.
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Re: Daredevil Season 3 gets political

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To be fair though, Ares, there is one solid point here. I'm dead certain that this is what Marvel Comics would want.
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Re: Daredevil Season 3 gets political

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Journalists aren't victims in the modern era?

While I fully realize A-list reporters and pundits in major markets command handsome salaries and perks, and certainly cache within the Beltway, the Coasts, and academia, there's another side to the argument:

https://observer.com/2018/06/capital-ga ... -increase/

Given a U.S. resident journalist was just abducted, tortured, and murdered by the Saudis in virtual plain sight, the dozens of independent reporters assassinated by Vladimir Putin, the Charlie Hebdo staff slain by Muslim terrorists in France, and that we have an administration who has called the press an "enemy of the people" and convinced half of the Republican party the President should be able to shut down news outlets due to "negative actions", I'd say the status of journalists as victims isn't THAT far off the mark.

All my best.
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Re: Daredevil Season 3 gets political

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greycrusader wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 1:04 am Journalists aren't victims in the modern era?

While I fully realize A-list reporters and pundits in major markets command handsome salaries and perks, and certainly cache within the Beltway, the Coasts, and academia, there's another side to the argument:

https://observer.com/2018/06/capital-ga ... -increase/

Given a U.S. resident journalist was just abducted, tortured, and murdered by the Saudis in virtual plain sight, the dozens of independent reporters assassinated by Vladimir Putin, the Charlie Hebdo staff slain by Muslim terrorists in France, and that we have an administration who has called the press an "enemy of the people" and convinced half of the Republican party the President should be able to shut down news outlets due to "negative actions", I'd say the status of journalists as victims isn't THAT far off the mark.

All my best.
And if this was a case of talking about journalists standing up to terrorists, dealing with legitimately fascist governments and the like, I would be in complete in agreement. But they're talking about domestic American journalists, and it sounds like they treating demands for more accurate, non-partisan reporting as "attacks".
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Re: Daredevil Season 3 gets political

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This seems relevant to the topic at hand.
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Re: Daredevil Season 3 gets political

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I'm willing to give them a chance and see where they're going with this.
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Re: Daredevil Season 3 gets political

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RainOnTheSun wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 3:55 am This seems relevant to the topic at hand.
No, I figured when the phrase "get political" was used, it meant "bash Trump" and I say this as someone who voted Libertarian because I didn't like either candidate. I not a fan of Trump, I think he's boorish, arrogant, self-satisfied, lacks both class and the kind of presence a US President should have, but I also don't think he's been a particularly bad President either, and I feel that a few people really do come off as having "Trump Derangement Syndrome".

The above's a good example. Based on what I've been able to find about the actual incident, the altercation between Greg Gianforte and Ben Jacobs was not just a case of a politician snapping and attacking a reporter out of nowhere. It sounds like Jacobs was asked to leave, refused, was asked to take a recorder out of Gianforte's face, also refused, and when Gianforte attempted to physically take the recorder out of his face, a struggle ensued and both men wound up on the floor. If that's inaccurate, please let me know, but as far as I can find, this isn't simply a case of a reporter being attacked for asking a question.

Trump has a notoriously bad relationship with the press, so it's understandable to perhaps be a bit satisfied when one of them apparently got some comeuppance. But the President of the United States should not be endorsing violence against the media, even if the media in this case wasn't entirely innocent. This should be something he chuckles about in private, but not something any President with a modicum of class should ever say in public in front of cameras. But a lack of class is neither a crime nor an impeachable offense, for which I'm grateful, because Lord knows I've had my moments where I've lacked class. Probably more than a few moments recorded on this forum for all to see. :oops:

But regardless, I don't see this in particular as being the kind of thing Erik Oleson claims to be striking back against, though to be fair, I think much of what he's talking about is essentially tilting at windmills.
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Re: Daredevil Season 3 gets political

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FuzzyBoots wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 4:38 am I'm willing to give them a chance and see where they're going with this.
I'm likewise going to give it a chance, as Daredevil has been the most consistently good of the Netflix series, and the idea of Kingpin turning public opinion against Daredevil and Matt Murdock is straight from the comics. I just am very leery of the showrunner saying "I'm going to make my mark on this series by getting political instead of just telling a good superhero story".
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Re: Daredevil Season 3 gets political

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Ares wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 4:49 am
RainOnTheSun wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 3:55 am This seems relevant to the topic at hand.
The above's a good example. Based on what I've been able to find about the actual incident, the altercation between Greg Gianforte and Ben Jacobs was not just a case of a politician snapping and attacking a reporter out of nowhere. It sounds like Jacobs was asked to leave, refused, was asked to take a recorder out of Gianforte's face, also refused, and when Gianforte attempted to physically take the recorder out of his face, a struggle ensued and both men wound up on the floor. If that's inaccurate, please let me know, but as far as I can find, this isn't simply a case of a reporter being attacked for asking a question.
The eyewitness account, from a Fox News reporter, seems pretty cut and dry. Grabbed him by the neck, slammed him into the ground, started punching him. Still won the election. It's a bad time to be a journalist.
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Re: Daredevil Season 3 gets political

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Ares wrote: Wed Oct 17, 2018 8:44 pm
Comic books have always been political,
In the sense that superheroes live in a world where politics exist, sure. Writers using superheroes to specifically push a political agenda and calling fans various insults for not following said agenda? That's fairly recently and has been destroying the comic industry.
I have to disagree on this particular point, there has been many cases when writers used their characters to push forward a particular message. Case in point Simon 6 kirby created Captain America to push for the U.S.A. involvement in WW2. The first issue of Captain Americas Comis was from March 1941, while the Pearl Habor attack was in December 1941. Going by what I read at the time there were many people in the U.S.A. (especially in the goverment) that were pro-Nazi. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby were just two of the many Jews kids that worked in comics (according to Joe Shuster's son it was because comics were considered a second-rate job back then), who thought differently and used the only media at their disposal to push their agenda.
Something similar happened on Superman, although Siegel and Shuster (ever the optimists) thought that it was best to leave these issues to international groups, like the League of Nations. So, while Cap was busy punching Hitler in the face, Superman just took Hitler and Stalin and dropped them at the Permanent Court of International Justice in Geneva, so that humanity could sort out their own.
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Re: Daredevil Season 3 gets political

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greycrusader wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 1:04 am Journalists aren't victims in the modern era?
As a class, no. They're the side that gets to present every argument to the public and claiming to be simply reporting the facts, which they have been flagrantly abusing for well over a century at this point. There are specific instances where specific journalists have been victims, such as:
greycrusader wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 1:04 amGiven a U.S. resident journalist was just abducted, tortured, and murdered by the Saudis in virtual plain sight, the dozens of independent reporters assassinated by Vladimir Putin, the Charlie Hebdo staff slain by Muslim terrorists in France,
However...
greycrusader wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 1:04 amand that we have an administration who has called the press an "enemy of the people" and convinced half of the Republican party the President should be able to shut down news outlets due to "negative actions", I'd say the status of journalists as victims isn't THAT far off the mark.

All my best.
given that the press was caught taking marching orders from the Democrat Party during the last election, just like they have in the last VERY many, I would say yeah, that's an accurate description. I would call the subversion of the democratic process fairly hostile to the voting public. When the news media blatantly lies in order to shape public opinion to the benefit of the politicians that they near-universally contribute to, and often times are MARRIED to, I would say that they no longer qualify for the special status guaranteed to the free press. They're an activist organization claiming to be impartial. I'm all in favor of the free press. I am not in favor of the press that is the ideological legacy of pre-WW2 Kremlin propaganda ops. Fuck the American mainstream media. They are actual enemies of the United States.
RainOnTheSun wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 5:03 am
Ares wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 4:49 am
RainOnTheSun wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 3:55 am This seems relevant to the topic at hand.
The above's a good example. Based on what I've been able to find about the actual incident, the altercation between Greg Gianforte and Ben Jacobs was not just a case of a politician snapping and attacking a reporter out of nowhere. It sounds like Jacobs was asked to leave, refused, was asked to take a recorder out of Gianforte's face, also refused, and when Gianforte attempted to physically take the recorder out of his face, a struggle ensued and both men wound up on the floor. If that's inaccurate, please let me know, but as far as I can find, this isn't simply a case of a reporter being attacked for asking a question.
The eyewitness account, from a Fox News reporter, seems pretty cut and dry. Grabbed him by the neck, slammed him into the ground, started punching him. Still won the election. It's a bad time to be a journalist.
This is a quality example. A reporter can follow a man into his office, refuse to leave, shove a microphone in his face, and scream at him, but the moment that man defends himself from what is legally considered harassment and assault, the media can omit the context and paint themselves as victims. If such a case were to ever go to court - and it won't, because that would involve an uncomfortable amount of scrutiny that the "victim" finds inconvenient - the Republican would be vindicated. Instead, the media will have "our take" on the situation, which is just barely outside the realm of actionable slander because of that qualification, and they'll universally take their own side.
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Re: Daredevil Season 3 gets political

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The case DID "go to court", where Giaforte plead guilty to misdemeanor assault and was sentenced to community service and anger management therapy. Though I imagine he would have been more than capable of managing his "anger" if the reporter hadn't been considerably smaller than he was. Bullies and cowards are usually perfectly able to control themselves around people they can't physically intimidate.

He also, of course, initially lied about the circumstances of the assault, because that's what bullies and cowards tend to do. Though sadly too late to affect the election, at least his false and slanderous claims about the Guardian reporter attacking him first were uncovered by the mainstream news media and Giaforte did have to admit his guilt and face a small measure of justice.
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Re: Daredevil Season 3 gets political

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greycrusader wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 12:21 pm The case DID "go to court", where Giaforte plead guilty to misdemeanor assault and was sentenced to community service and anger management therapy.
I hadn't heard that bit. Interesting. What is the standard for misdemeanor assault in DC? Does it include disproportionate response to aggressive behavior? Because I could see that argument finding weight in court, even if I don't agree. Because I note that restitution to pay for medical costs were not mentioned. It would have been, if the guy was actually hurt. Sounds to me like he was trying to physically subdue an aggressor. What were the pros and cons of pleading guilty, instead of enduring court proceedings in front of a municipal justice system in a very Democrat-heavy town out to smear you as much as possible?
greycrusader wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 12:21 pmThough I imagine he would have been more than capable of managing his "anger" if the reporter hadn't been considerably smaller than he was. Bullies and cowards are usually perfectly able to control themselves around people they can't physically intimidate.
Quite a bit to unpack here. Why would you put "anger" in quotes? Clearly, he was angry. Guy didn't have a record, the reporter was in his space, and the situation escalated to violence. Though not so violent that the "bully and coward" actually caused harm to the "victim." Clearly, he was angry. NOT trying to "intimidate" someone. If you're trying to intimidate a person, you use the physicality of your presence, aggressive body language, and firm language. A person without a record of violent offenses body slamming a person is called "physical conflict." We know that the guy was in the congressman's office. We know that not a lot of other people were in the office at that time. No one is claiming that the congressman gave the Guardian reporter any kind of exclusive access - obviously, because the Guardian is a shitty rag with a clear political agenda. The reporter claims that this man with no history of violent crime attacked him for no reason, in a place soaked in law enforcement. This makes zero sense. The congressman says that the reporter was far too aggressive and was harassing him, which far better fits the basic facts of the scenario.
greycrusader wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 12:21 pmHe also, of course, initially lied about the circumstances of the assault, because that's what bullies and cowards tend to do. Though sadly too late to affect the election, at least his false and slanderous claims about the Guardian reporter attacking him first were uncovered by the mainstream news media and Giaforte did have to admit his guilt and face a small measure of justice.
This is my other problem, both with your post and with the press. You START with a lot of assumptions your target's motives and character, and work backward to the version of events that best condemns him. Can't find a version that sounds like something humans do? Who cares?!

"Misdemeanor assault," in the states I've been in and to the extent of what I've witnessed, is basically saying "You got in a fight. You should not have gotten in a fight. Stop that." Him pleading guilty to it is not an admission of real fault, except possibly the accusation of disproportionate response. It is not an indication of a great moral failing, and certainly not an indicator that the "victim" was in the right. Reporters hounding their targets in a hostile and aggressive manner, but stopping short of physical violence, is nothing new, and tabloids like the Guardian are particularly likely to employ people willing to go out of their way to create their own news.

You want an example of the press being victimized, take a look at the way Antifa and BLM assault and rob reporters, which is then given a pass by the media outlets, because it's inconvenient to the narrative.
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