The Failure of Starship Troopers The Movie as Anti-Fascist

Schwalbe⚡️ on X

Verhoeven did *intend* to make a movie that said "war makes fascists of us all" but he failed on every level because he doesn't understand fascism, war or how propaganda works.  

First, his film *forces* the audience to side with the Aryan-vibey, attractive youths against the mindless, hideous, alien bugs. The morally unambiguous, gore-filled spectacle is guilt-free and even Verhoeven's portrayal of military propaganda is more slapstick than surreal. 

The film doesn't subvert anything, at no point *during the watching* does one see the jingoism on display as excessive. No one feels bad for reveling in the slaughter of a genocidal, interplanetary swarm of vile insects. There's no moment where we see the bugs are "just like us" 

The "Mormon extremists" who illegally settled on a bug-controlled planet were intruding onto a bug *colony* that the bugs had *colonized*, the bugs are *colonizers*, ones that consume and eradicate the entire biosphere, not even for capitalism, but out of blind instinct. 

Second, the "fascist" elements are all surface level, the United Citizen Federation is a post-modern, neoliberal, limited democracy, it lacks a charismatic dictator, there's a council, merit-based citizenship, no racial or ethnic supremacy, no sign of rigid ideological extremism. 

Everyone is motivated by pragmatism, loyalty is secured through participation. They serve for civic duty, due to existential threat, or access to political combat (citizenship).

This explains the silly newsreels, as in such a system, there is little need for advanced propaganda 

Within the newsreel, this scene is played for laughs. Libtards hallucinate that this means there were child soldiers. The criticism that fascism = "propaganda that targets children" is equally incoherent.

I'm just going to share some easily searchable images here. 

The most basic metric for a functioning society is that it readies men to fight for and protect it. This is so deeply rooted that studies have found the understanding of war developmentally precedes that of peace by several years. Even then, peace is understood as absence of war.

Verhoeven unwittingly agrees. ST shows that social injustices such as oppression based on race, gender or class can be erased *through* the glorification of militaristic virtues. All who serve can become a citizen, and at no point does he show non-citizens being abused. 

The film depicts Johnny Rico's parents living comfortably as non-citizens, thriving economically and socially, even without political power. Rico's father views service as dangerous and unnecessary, showing the jingoistic yet generic propaganda has *failed* to colonize his mind. 

Verhoeven's main divergence from the source materials were these ham-fisted newsreels and they are the only component that *might* alienate the viewer from the Federation's cause, but, because they mostly exist in their own slapstick continuum, this never happens. 

Verhoeven has an angry norwooder say "The only good bug is a dead bug." Everyone watching agreed. This sentiment is now famous and lives forever in memes, recently resurging with the release of Helldivers II. Every single tactic Verhoeven tried failed. 

One of the most common, cheapest methods to get an audience to sympathize with *anything* is have a young, pretty woman cry for it. People instinctively accept the reactions of attractive people as their own, yet Verhoeven goes the opposite direction, having the actress retch. 

It's meant to be the future, but we see nothing nearly as sophisticated as Triumph of the Will, let alone the the OWI Bureau of Motion Pictures teaming up with Hollywood during WW2. This guy is supposed to be psychic, has this power been weaponized for propaganda? Apparently not 

Verhoeven is definitely unaware that one of the reasons the Allies won WW2 was that our propaganda was more insidious and sophisticated.

This is as far as the newsreels go toward "vilifying" bugs- children stomping them, a normal behavior that requires zero conditioning 

One newsreel shows children playing with guns with parental oversight. Verhoeven is assuming the audience has grown up in a coastal city and such a "bizarre" scene will make them uneasy. For the entire rest of the world, it's just a slapstick version of a very mundane experience 

At no point does he show a character being conditioned or having their critical faculties overwhelmed, the only emoting we see is the expected horror to the asteroid attack on Buenos Aires, and a reaction to a generic morale-boosting recruitment ad *after* they are in training. 

Rico is not convinced by Verhoeven's newsreels but by the teacher's speech. The teacher cites history, his experience and exhibits a sense of civic pride. There's no indication any of this is derived from a falsified history or brainwashing, the teacher's arguments are sound. 

Rico's comment in the dissection scene "They're just bugs" foreshadows the horrific carnage of bug warfare, but it also stands as yet another unintended explanation for the lack of that most problematic type of "fascist" propaganda, the demonizing or "dehumanizing" of the enemy 

There's no need for it, *just show the bugs*, and here is where Starship Troopers as even aesthetically fascistic falls apart. Almost all post-WW2 anti-fascist conditioning centers around the image of the misjudged Jew or minority, yet Verhoeven doesn't seem to understand this  

He understands "war = fascism" he literally said this in a DVD commentary- "War makes fascists of us all."

By this definition, every tribe, race, nation, troop of chimpanzees, the state of Israel, the U.N. and the human species itself is fascist, rendering the word meaningless. 

 

This demonstrates, by itself, that the "deeper meaning" of Starship Troopers is that Paul Verhoeven does not know the meanings of words, especially "war" and "fascism," but knows how to make stuff look cool, and might be developmentally disabled. 

 

This is the *perfect* kind of guy for directing your 80s-90s style action movie. You get maybe a superficial gesture of deeper meaning, but the "rule of cool," and the crude sensibilities of a ten year old boy are driving the project.  

This thread is an argument for bringing back the Paul Verhoeven-type Hollywood libtard. The non-dysgenic, manchild that can't help but make pro-fascist films because they like cool stuff.

Verhoeven represents the ideal amount of dumb degeneracy needed to make good action sci fi 

This is the best proof that Verhoeven failed to counter the spirit of Heinlein, who wrote Starship Troopers in a fit of rage at nuclear disarmament.

The remake is happening because libs have been totally defeated in the "media literacy" discourse.