bystander effect. you were complicit

thanks i tried really really hard to make sure there was no metaphor or subtext 🙏

🚬🐪

the show isn’t that old but it also feels completely alien to the vision of masculinity, or even of war itself promulgated by pete hegseth et al. the wounded masculinity of fascism has allowed the sobels of the nation to get their way

i’m taken by a reoccurring image throughout the show of a wounded soldier cradled in the lap of one of his fellows, pieta like, as the uninjured one softly reassures the other that they’ll be alright and that the wound isn’t that bad, no matter the severity. this happens at least once an ep.

also, all the enlisted men treat each other with a lot of tenderness. there is obviously some ribbing and at times easy company can be downright cruel to men they view as disappointing the group, but also they really seem to care about members of the “tribe”

despite being a show about war and featuring a lot of battle scenes, outright aggression is very rarely shown to be a positive trait, even towards the enemy. in general the show portrays aggression as somewhat of corrosive to the warfighting unit

specifically all the men who are promoted as being the best leaders (and therefore the best men) are ones who are the most stoic and non-brooding. the most hated character in the show is capt. sobel, who constantly yells and is obsessed with making easy company into peak physical specimens

really surprised that the brilliant and practical centrist plan of giving 1 million dollars to every police officer in overtime candy crush hours didn't actually solve any of the city's problems