Cartoon characters' political beliefs (Serious thread)

Batman could be seen as less interested in individual liberty than Superman, but not because Superman is some kinda big lefty (anymore, he sure was during his earliest days of taking on corrupt landlords and factory owners), but because in some interpretations Batman is a fascist who believes people need a strong leader to impose their will on them and control them, while Superman feels that that power should be subservient to the democratic will of the people. These viewpoints are most crystallized in Dark Knight Returns and Kingdom Come (in Kingdom Come Batman has turned Gotham into a robotically controlled police state) but they are there in other comics, too. Depending on the writer, of course.

The problem with applying political views to characters, and I see this often when threads like these pop up, is that people tend to self-identify with a character like, say, Peter Parker or Superman who stands generically for good and justice. And since they want to think that they also stand for good and justice, they'll tend to think that the characters they like share things in common with them including their political views.

The fact that the characters have so many valid interpretations and usually no definite political ideology makes it easy for, say, a conservative to look at Superman's traditional values in one story and call him a conservative or a liberal to look at Superman's belief in human equality and progress and peaceful resolution to conflict whenever possible in another story and call him a liberal.

But none of those things are that necessarily conservative or liberal. Liberals can have traditional values and conservative can believe in human equality and peace. It's just the human desire to think that we are right that causes us to want to identify with positive characters. So, I think you're right. It is better to consider the more iconic characters above politics.
 
hahahaha this thread is fun!

due to lack of an idea right now, I'm gonna state the obvious.

Rorschach from WATCHMEN whose obviously extremely right-wing

and bloo from fosters? my guess it between liberal or democrat
 
Your Disney political compass is off. Donald Duck is a liberal if only for the fact that he is used as the counterpoint to Scrooge's more conservative tendencies. This is why their characters work so well together. Only comic stories and cartoon creators who don't know how to write their stories properly are the ones who portray Donald as conservative. Compared to Huey, Dewey and Louie he is a centrist but by most of our definitions today he is relatively liberal.

Mickey isn't exactly a liberal as we today would define it (he has a VERY old-fashioned sense of morality and traditional gender roles) but more of a Roosevelt Democrat. He has strong moral convictions but almost all of them involve helping the "Little Guy" or the less fortunate. It was no coincidence that most of his biggest villains in the Floyd Gottfredson comics were bankers.

Goofy isn't a Democrat OR a Republican. He is completely non-political and does what he believes is right without having the slightest awareness of what his solution's political undertones are.
 
No there significant differences between the those who are politically socially liberal, socially conservative, and socially libertarian.

Both social liberal and social conservative use governmental power to enforce their views on society. Let's look at the contentious issue of gay marriage:
To most social liberals homosexuals are an inherently separate class of people that must be protected so they see government sanctioned gay marriage as an equal right; not only will they give out same sex marriage wedding licenses, they will also dictate to private business that they have to acknowledged it or face face legal consequence, and make it mandatory for children to attend public schools were part of the education is being indoctrinated with the socially liberal view on the subject with no concern for the wish of the parents.
To most social conservatives homosexuals are part of the same class of people as them just ones that partially define them self by an action that is destructive to them and the society in general so they tend to see gay marriage as an absurdity at best; they use governmental authority to deny a legal recognized same-sex marriage.

To most social libertarian on the other hand their personal views on the subject is irrelevant; to them marriage should not be meddled with by the government one way or any way, it is a purely private matter. They do not want the government to teach children about it one way or any other about it, that's for the people that are raising the child. They do not want government to dictate private hiring practices in any way, that's for the businesses to decide (and for the consumers to decide who they do business with).
 
This is news to me. I have not met a single liberal or gay person who wants it taught to children that being gay is a good thing. Most gay people I know are MUCH more concerned about their eroding civil rights than any public education on the subject. I frequent political blogs all the time and I haven't seen that issue on the agenda for a single person.
 
For those who don't know, Rorschach is a homage of comics character, The Question, who I believe was created by Steve Ditko... he also had strong objectivist views (both Question and Ditko), which was probably the basis for Rorscachs' beliefs and views.
 
I don't think that Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime was supposed to be the equivalent of a president or something like that. At the end of Transformers:The Movie, he assumed the role of maybe a general. I do agree though that, even though he was the hero of the movie, Ultra Magnes should've resumed leadership at the end of the movie.
 
Back
Top