The Superhero is a fundamentally abolitionist concept. Something like Batman only make sense if the Gotham PD aren't effective in defending human rights.
When people say "abolish the police" they do not mean to eliminate all justice and consequences. The idea is to replace external state violence with community led and developed systems of justice.
It's why Golden Age Superman where he was fighting domestic abusers , oil Barons, Senators , and Prison Wardens was so revolutionary. The Superhero started out as a radical activist with fantastical skills or powers to back it up.
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in the immortal words of bailey jay, woah thats deep
He does exactly the same thing in Injustice but is painted as the villain instead
Because nowadays social justice is seen as either dangerous, naive or stupid. Ideas propagated by the people in Peoria to keep the boot on our necks.
Guys like MCU Killmonger and Amon are written as villains, not heroes.
>Amon
Bad example because he was just a blood bending gangster.
>MCU Killmonger
Better example. Classic case of "villain has a point but we say he's gone too far in terms of method to create contrived conflict so the hero can learn a lesson and do the middle ground that mostly maintains the status quo" aka the idea that modern change in increments is how anything happens and that radical change is always entirely bad.
Killmonger was an interesting case because it reveals how the writers back themselves into a corner. They have to write in plans for an atrocity into the villain's motivation because what you actually see him do is too sympathetic and they don't want the audience shifting sympathies to that extreme. So they add in a scene where he cackles and says how he's going to murder all the children when he's done even though it makes no sense and has no bearing on his stated goal.
You're kidding right? From like his first scene they've shown him willing to kill innocents for petty gain, he killed his own girlfriend just to get her out of the way of catching Klaw, they point out he's using CIA tactics to make him the sole power in Wakanda into perpetuity. If ANY part of Killmonger was genuine it was still heavily outweighed by his own lust for revenge and desire to destroy everyone for his bitterness.
He also takes over the world, becomes a dictator and kills innocent people in Injustice, or did you forget that shit?
>When people say "abolish the police" they do not mean to eliminate all justice and consequences. The idea is to replace external state violence with community led and developed systems of justice.
Which is the exact same fricking thing but without accompanying infrastructure and more prone to corruption.
A lot of, arguably most, police forces are populated by people patrolling places they don't live taking orders from Mayors who are politically beholden not to the people but to external influence.
And the US Justice System has never been designed in mind with the interests of the people it rules over.
A small scale example of Abolitionism in action is you and your friends are drinking at a bar. You friend wants to drive home and you take their keys instead of calling a cop.
It's like Infinite Crisis said, if the status quo worked, we wouldn't NEED a Superman.
That was the point of Amon. Radical change is an idea tied to people who do evil shit. It never is presented from the pov of someone the narrative says is good. Amazon couldn't just be a civil rights activist, he had to be a fraud. Kuvira couldn't just be an anticolonialist she has to have concentration camps
Superman can't just stop Israel from abusing Palestine he has to be a brutal dictator.
Anything other than neoliberal status quo incrementalism is always framed through violent villains. Compare how The Authority was portrayed to DC proper's shallow spoof of them with the Elite.
Please shut up and stop being a homosexual.
A small scale example of Abolitionism in action is you and your friends are drinking at a bar. You friend wants to drive home and you take their keys instead of calling a cop.
That's an extremely stretched definition of abolitionism
Did you fall asleep during history class? Did you even attend school?
That has literally absolutely fricking nothing to do with Abolitionism, which ceased to be a politically relevant movement long before superheroes were even first conceptualized (on account of its success).
He's using it in the sense of abolishment of Police. Abolition is just shorthand for Abolishing Slavery in that context but in general it can mean any institution.
Posting in a bait thread. Everybody post your Cinemaphile related bait images, I can't find mine.
> When people say "abolish the police" they do not mean to eliminate all justice and consequences. The idea is to replace external state violence with community led and developed systems of justice.
But Batman works with and to improve the existing police justice system, his most staunch ally is a commissioner who is trying to weed out corruption and return the police to a previous state of effectiveness. Batman both assists them in taking down threats that would endanger the lives of officers and delivers any criminals he apprehends into their care for the proper execution of justice, he never brings in the community into the equation as his primary goal is to not involve himself or even directly reveal himself unless needed.
Likewise Superman may occasionally handle petty threats as a good citizen doing an arrest, but anyone on that level he delivers to the police as any normal citizen would, and the only time he involves himself in containment is when threats beyond the scope of humanity in general present themselves as no matter their intention they would be ill equipped to handle threats from beyond space that even he struggles with. Both work within the confines of the law as best as they can and focus on improving existing systems, not bringing in new ones.
TLDR ya wrong mate
I don't know what Batman comics you were reading but in Detective Comics #43 Batman leads a violent coup to take down a mayor and the entire police force of one city.
Yeah but Gotham's cops are cool, besides that's because the Mafia. Really a billionaire travelling out of state to lead a violent uprising doesn't seem very community lead
WW2 tended to shift Superheroes overall from leftist vigilantes to stooges of the status quo. It's how we go from Superman being hunted by the FBI and kidnapping Governors to him being doing "Slap a Jap" propaganda.
>The idea is to replace external state violence with community led and developed systems of justice.
This assumes the state and the people aren't synonymous, which is always the case in a functioning democracy.
>When people say "abolish the police"
No one except a few nutbars on twitter say that. What people say is "defund the police" and what they actually mean is "reform police training and structures so that there aren't huge conflicts of interest or frightened trigger-happy cops trained to think they're in 'Nam, reform or remove asset forfeiture and qualified immunity, and make it so the people responding to things like arguments or the mentally ill aren't SWAT"
>It's why Golden Age Superman where he was fighting domestic abusers , oil Barons, Senators , and Prison Wardens was so revolutionary. The Superhero started out as a radical activist with fantastical skills or powers to back it up.
Superman in particular was a "modern Moses," but yes the general idea of a superhero is someone given the power to enforce their will. Going back to Superman, again, there's also care not to have him usurp human rights and authority past reasonable measures (what is reasonable depends entirely on the author)
Most so called democracies are in fact oligarchies.
Police Abolitionism as a concept long predates twitter and is the social impetus behind things like mutual aid groups and whisper networks. When the State doesn't look out for the people's interests (Which it rarely does) The people must form alternative community lead solutions to address their needs.
A superhero is a fictionalization and fantasized version of such a concept.
Based OP educating the manchildren on Cinemaphile on the implications of superheroes as a genre
Police exist to guard the wealth of rich people and to put down any group outside the power structure.
They don't protect and serve us and they never had.
Sure, because rich people/people in positions of power never ever get arrested.
At a rate far FAR less so than those who aren't.
For every Harvey Weinstein there are a thousand Black kids given ten years in jail for weed and billionaires and politicians throwing coke orgies on Epstein Island.
Why can't I call the police to arrest John Bolton for admitting that he's orchestrated illegal coups overseas on live television? Or Matt Gaetz for having sex with minors?
Why can't we have cops punished for burning innocent children alive in their homes because they got the wrong address? Or have cops punished for letting children get shot up in a school while stopping people from trying to help?
>Or have cops punished for letting children get shot up in a school while stopping people from trying to help?
Why should they get punished for trying to keep more civilians from getting harmed? Should they just blindly trust any guy who pulls out a gun and says he can take the shooter out or what?
No, but if you aren't gonna do jack shit, maybe don't stop the parents who want to save their kids.
Do you even know what Abolitionism is you fricking moron?
Today's superheroes are all about defending the status quo instead of actually improving things