I was just thinking whether the libertarian/anarchist message was ever even vaguely portrayed in pop media. We´re usually the survivalist gun nut who gets killed at the beggining of every disaster movie. However I do think V for Vendetta begins driving home the message (even if very watered down). I also liked HBOs The Wire, where it’s portrayal of abyect failure on every level of society is a scathing indictment on government.
Any other mainstream movies/shows/books where libertarians dont get such a bad rap?
Like you mentioned V for Vendetta, a lot of the other comic book authors and graphic novel authors are anarchists/libertarians. There’s a pretty big backdrop of anti-statism in Watchmen, too. Check out Alan Moore’s other work.
Boardwalk Empire is and ought to continue to be great from a libertarian perspective. Its hard to tell the difference between the gangs and the state. Almost all the public ‘servants’ and state employees are on the take, and the ones that aren’t are out there wasting their time trying to bust people for drinking alcohol. Politicians are drinking left and right during prohibition. The government charges fines on business whenever they 'get out of line"
Of course people today think, oh yea well there might have been corruption in the 20s, but we are past that now.
Good thread idea. There’s two kids movies that come to mind.
A Bug’s Life - a colony of ants are constantly terrorized by a thief-state of crickets who use force/coercion to get the ants to gather food for them every summer. Flick, an inventor ant, and the rest of the colony eventually fight back when they realize there are much more ants than crickets.
Robots - Somewhat goody-goody at first blush and the writers misunderstand capitalism, but it has some good messages. The new CEO of a large company, Ratchet, doesn’t like making parts for outmoded robots because there’s no profit in it (even though with all of the company’s resources I’m sure he could’ve found a way to monetize it). He’s made out to be the bad guy but he’s really just a bad capitalist. Enter the entrepreneur, Rodney, who “finds the need and fills the need” as his father taught him. There’s probably a government within the Robots universe but it doesn’t seem to play a huge role in the actual story.
So long as we’re discussing comics, Superman: Red Son is a surprisingly fun read from a libertarian perspective. Especially in the scenes centering around anarchist-Batman and his willingness to perform suicide before being turned into a soviet man by Superman. The only major complaint I have is when Lex Luthor mutters that if the American President plays along with his latest scheme he’ll give him a formula to solve inflation.
The Fallout series(particularly Fallout 3), has a great portrayl of a post-apocolyptic-anarchist society. In fact the ‘bad guys’ in most of the series are people/groups that use force to make people obey them(including one group thats the remnants of the US Government).
Demolition Man is good, especially the whole underground (literally) market scene.
Pillars of the Earth is also good, especially the parts that show business and government working together to thwart competition. Follett definitely isn´t a lib, but there are arguably some libertarian elements in Pillars of the Earth. The Miniseries is well done.
Can´t forget about The Price is Right.
The Shawshank Redemption, although it´s not inherently critical but does show what happens when people are corrupted by power.
Rabbit Proof Fence: Good depiction of how far a state will go when it’s for ´the children´.