I was watching a documentary on Benito Mussolini last night and got to wondering why anyone would want fascism. Or nowadays, why do some people seem to want a return to fascism?
So I've been reading a book recently that touches upon this subject but I wanted a more in depth understanding of what happened in the 70+ years since WW2 ended. The book mentioned that after the war, scientists took the limelight and were seen as heroes who "saved the Western World". I also think of that time period as being one were science fiction boomed and there was a ton of educational material created that tried to get the public interested in science. Yet now we hear that there is a STEM shortage, and even some science is being conducted not by inquiry but by politicians. What happened that made the U.S. unfriendly to science?
I've been reading up on the history of labor and race in the US and noticed that in pictures people who are protesting or striking have very well-made and uniform signs. Contemporary protest signs seem to be more of the homemade variety. I'm wondering if someone can speak to the difference in signs used and seen in photographs and what this might mean about the protest themselves.
I think it would be great if there was a mob game made, like a video game version of the godfather. New York, 1950s, I think it would be super fun. Run businesses, put hits on people, and be able to travel to other areas with other operations. Even a period of the story where you have to go into hiding, like Michael did in Sicily. Just an idea.
In The Godfather 2, There are several segments in Sicily roughly between the 1920's and 1950's. In all of these, it seems like people killing each other was basically and inter-family affair. The Mafia Don kills young Vito's family when he's a child, then he comes back as a young man to kill the Don, and then his son Michael goes there to hide but his new wife gets killed in a car bomb. There's no hint in any of this of there being a central government or police that would interfere with this or dole out punishment. Was this really how Sicily functioned in this time period? And if so, when did this stop being the case?
So I am very excited for Arcane. I have watched the Enemy music video dozens of times at this point. During these viewings, I have noticed (at least) two homages to the influential photographer Gordon Parks.
The first being with Jinx and the bug that crawls out of her mouth. This is obviously similar to Gordan Parks' image of the boy and a june bug.
The second is when Piltover Police are walking by Jinx, Vi, and unnamed character and then Jinx raises her arm to point her finger gun at the police. This is a clear nod to Parks' photograph of 3 young boys, the middle one with a toy gun pointed to screen left.
I think these are amazing artistic references by Riot. Especially with the type of story Arcane is shaping up to be. A clash between the lower class in Zaun and the powerful elite in Piltover. The dichotomy in the world of Arcane could be interpreted as a metaphor for the class and race struggles of Black Americans. So it makes complete sense why Riot would choose to reference these works by Gordon Parks. As Nerdwriter1 said in his video essay of Kendrick Lamar's ELEMENT music video:
> Gordon Parks, one America's all time great photo journalists and film makers. Parks was the first prominent commercial photographer to capture the black experience for a nationwide audience. His work in the inner cities for LIFE Magazine (1968) was hugely important during that period, and the power of his photography is that it forces people to see what would otherwise remain invisible to them.
I just thought this was really great work by Riot, referencing a legendary photographer who captured real world images of the same type of struggles we may see in Arcane.
Huge shoutout to Nerdwriter1, who brought Gordan Parks' work to my attention in his video. I would have never knew about these references without his work.
If I got the formatting correct, everything should be sourced in this post.
** Edit: Huge shoutout to the animation studio Fortiche! Riot has wor
... keep reading on reddit ➡For a specific reference of time, let's say from 1904 to 1948. Was anything expected of the candidates? Also, how did the slower arrival of the information effect the public perception of election nights?
A number of cults from the mid to late twentieth century come to mind: People's Temple, Heaven's Gate, Branch Davidians.
I'd be interested to hear about the rise of new religious movements in the 60s and 70s as background information, but I'm particularly interested in understanding the social forces that drove cults to become suicidal. Why did these types of cults rise so quickly then disappear just as quickly?
Edit
The introduction section of this book articulates a lot of the terms I'm struggling to use.
