The Fire Never Dies Pop Culture Collaborative Thread

Meshakhad

Meshakhad

This is a spinoff of my timeline The Fire Never Dies (check my sig) focused on the pop culture of the TFND-verse, particularly American comic books (although I'd love to see film and eventually TV get a look in).

Since I'm not quite ready to share control with others, I'll be making the final determination about what is and isn't canon.

Here are a few broad guidelines:
- As of 1921, the American Socialist Union has explicit legal protections against discrimination on the basis of race or gender.
- Racism still exists but is widely despised, given the legacy of the KKK.
- Sexism is more common, but women are rapidly entering the workforce.
- Homosexuality has been decriminalized, but is still taboo.
- All American businesses are now worker-owned cooperatives. It is legal for an outside entity to provide funding in exchange for creative influence, but not for a share of the profits.
- All media cooperatives have an elected production committee that decides what gets made. Their attitudes generally reflect those of the studio's workforce.
- Technology will be assumed to be progressing roughly the same.

Comic Books:
- With the American comic books industry represented by a single union, my plan is that in the realm of mainstream superhero comics, there will (eventually) be a single shared universe. No DC vs Marvel rivalry.
- Superhero comics will probably focus more on teams than IOTL.
- Wonder Woman will exist and will be gay from the outset (although expect this to be controversial).

Film and Television:
- In addition to the various "private" studios, there are two government-run studios: Industrial Film Cooperative and Red Army Studios. IFC mostly makes propaganda (and, increasingly, documentaries) while RAS produces war movies (many of which are really good).
- Red Army Studios' directors stable includes Buster Keaton and George Patton.
- One studio, New York-based Lady Liberty Productions, is dominated by female filmmakers.
- Most other studios will hire female filmmakers, but still assume that they can only make films aimed at a female audience.
- Star Trek will eventually exist.
 
Meshakhad

Meshakhad

Here are a few topics for initial discussion:

Batman
Batman's OTL origin is obviously unsuitable for a hero. I am currently leaning towards turning him into a villain, albeit possibly one of the more reasonable villains who occasionally teams up with the heroes. If so, then I will absolutely go with a heroic Joker. Another suggestion has been to divide Batman's character in two, with a villainous Batman (possibly renamed Owl-Man, drawing on the OTL Earth-3 version) and a heroic one who loses the rich guy backstory and relies more on his intelligence and gadgets. We could even have both Proletarian!Batman and Heroic!Joker as a team, with Batman playing the straight man to the Joker's antics.

Iron Man
Obviously won't be a billionaire. Instead, when Iron Man eventually exists, he'll probably be a military researcher working for DARPA or its TTL equivalent.

Superman
Superman's backstory is a great fit. However, I think his actual powerset will need some work. Either he just gets toned down so he's fast and strong but not godlike, or perhaps his powers rely on others to empower him.

Diversity
At least some of the TTL Golden Age heroes should be black. We can expect Golden Age heroes to be men (except for Wonder Woman) but their love interests should do stuff other than get kidnapped/murdered. I personally like the idea of love interests being sidekicks as well. Once we get to the 1950s, there should be a lot more female superheroes (some being Golden Age love interests upgraded to heroes in their own right) and later LGBT superheroes.
 
volantredx

volantredx

Meshakhad said:
Superman's backstory is a great fit. However, I think his actual powerset will need some work. Either he just gets toned down so he's fast and strong but not godlike, or perhaps his powers rely on others to empower him.
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If he's kept at his original levels of power he'd be at the level we see Spider-Man at in most comics. He's not a living god or anything until the Silver Age.
 

Ironichristian

I think if we keep his powers at the same kind of level as the old fleischer cartoons that would work even if only to make sure they're not retcond because they're really good
 
volantredx

volantredx

To change the topic slightly from comics, what about Noir stories, specifically detective stories? Marlow and Spade were huge hits around the same time the FND timeline is at, and in many ways they advance revolutionary concepts (the rich being corrupt, the police being useless, and most of the most competent and most capable characters are women). The one issue is that in a society without the idle rich, a lot of the key villains are gone. I guess they could be set pre-war and deal with the bourgeoisie being thwarted by a proletariat detective just before the revolution. Or it could be dealing with black markets and criminal underbellies trying to use the revolution to get rich. Integral to the entire theme though is a sort of downbeat cynicism for other people that might seem too real in a society that just fought a bloody civil war, and is trying to look to the future.
 
Meshakhad

Meshakhad

volantredx said:
To change the topic slightly from comics, what about Noir stories, specifically detective stories? Marlow and Spade were huge hits around the same time the FND timeline is at, and in many ways they advance revolutionary concepts (the rich being corrupt, the police being useless, and most of the most competent and most capable characters are women). The one issue is that in a society without the idle rich, a lot of the key villains are gone. I guess they could be set pre-war and deal with the bourgeoisie being thwarted by a proletariat detective just before the revolution. Or it could be dealing with black markets and criminal underbellies trying to use the revolution to get rich. Integral to the entire theme though is a sort of downbeat cynicism for other people that might seem too real in a society that just fought a bloody civil war, and is trying to look to the future.
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Yeah, I don't see those being popular due to the cynical element. Noir would be more likely to take hold outside the socialist sphere.
 
Godot

Godot

A socialist America and popular culture anything near what it is OTL are incompatible. Socialism regards popular culture as a bourgeois construct, and Marxist doctrine believes that after the establishment of socialism, a wholly new proletariat culture would necessarily emerge.

I just don't think Star Trek and superhero comic books would be produced under a socialist system, or anything close to it.
 
Meshakhad

Meshakhad

Assouf said:
A socialist America and popular culture anything near what it is OTL are incompatible. Socialism regards popular culture as a bourgeois construct, and Marxist doctrine believes that after the establishment of socialism, a wholly new proletariat culture would necessarily emerge.

I just don't think Star Trek and superhero comic books would be produced under a socialist system, or anything close to it.
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You're limiting yourself to a very rigid and authoritarian view of socialism. TTL American socialism is not authoritarian. In fact, the ASU's film industry essentially operates under market socialism, with the studio cooperatives largely motivated by a desire for profit. If Lady Liberty Films' production committee approves multiple films that fail to earn a profit and don't earn their employees bonus checks, those employees will vote out the production committee in short order.
 
Godot

Godot

Meshakhad said:
You're limiting yourself to a very rigid and authoritarian view of socialism. TTL American socialism is not authoritarian. In fact, the ASU's film industry essentially operates under market socialism, with the studio cooperatives largely motivated by a desire for profit. If Lady Liberty Films' production committee approves multiple films that fail to earn a profit and don't earn their employees bonus checks, those employees will vote out the production committee in short order.
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Even in that case I've no clue how popular culture would be anything at all like what was developed OTL. If everything's so rosy socially speaking, why would anyone feel the need to predict the just and fair humanity seen in Star Trek? If everyone's more equal, why would superheroes catch on, other than the universal constant of fantasies for little boys who don't want to clean their rooms?

The establishment of even only a market socialist system would have pretty significant knock-on effects on culture on a national and individual scale alike. In the best and most open years of socialist cinema in Europe, for instance, you saw the creation of Soviet Osterns (rooted in the opening of Central Asia through collectivism and government infrastructure initiatives) and stuff out of the Czechoslovak New Wave which was revolutionary in its own right, largely in reaction to the repressiveness of the Soviet system.

After a wholesale societal upheaval like the events described in your timeline I imagine you'd see a blossoming of avante-garde revolutionary media to rival the likes of many of the most radical filmmakers of the European New Wave movements - not, as it were, derivative hero narratives.
 
Meshakhad

Meshakhad

Assouf said:
Even in that case I've no clue how popular culture would be anything at all like what was developed OTL. If everything's so rosy socially speaking, why would anyone feel the need to predict the just and fair humanity seen in Star Trek? If everyone's more equal, why would superheroes catch on, other than the universal constant of fantasies for little boys who don't want to clean their rooms?

The establishment of even only a market socialist system would have pretty significant knock-on effects on culture on a national and individual scale alike. In the best and most open years of socialist cinema in Europe, for instance, you saw the creation of Soviet Osterns (rooted in the opening of Central Asia through collectivism and government infrastructure initiatives) and stuff out of the Czechoslovak New Wave which was revolutionary in its own right, largely in reaction to the repressiveness of the Soviet system.

After a wholesale societal upheaval like the events described in your timeline I imagine you'd see a blossoming of avante-garde revolutionary media to rival the likes of many of the most radical filmmakers of the European New Wave movements - not, as it were, derivative hero narratives.
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To be fair, we will be getting plenty of avante-garde stuff. In time, it might well become predominant. In many cases, directors and studios alternate between conventional fare and avante-garde. Eventually, I think the norm will be media that appeals to the tastes of the general audience but is heavily informed by the more experimential, art-house works.

The "universal constant of fantasies for little boys who don't want to clean their rooms" is exactly why I think superhero comics will survive in some form. For quite a while, they will be almost entirely aimed at children.

Star Trek is another area I'm going to defend. To me, that fits entirely with the socialist narrative. The TTL Federation will basically be the ASU projected into the future, imagining what the hoped-for socialist utopia will look like while also using the Federation's dealings with other interstellar powers as a metaphor for the interactions between different societies on Earth. It helps that the ASU is more honest about its own failings than the Soviet Union was.

I also apologize for my presumptions earlier. If you have any sources on Soviet or Eastern Bloc cinema, I'd be very interested in them.
 

Ascendant Warrior

@Meshakhad

I was working on my draft for my Batman/Owlman thing, and I came across an issue.

My original idea was to tie thier origin into the Revolution somewhat, with the brothers being separated at a young age during a fictional 'Battle of Gotham', with Alfred saving Bruce and either the League of Assassins or the Court of Owls 'saving' Thomas Jr but mostly the Wayne Fortune. Then I had a thought...Are we going with a sliding Timescale here? I already have an idea for something closer to normal time, but I wanted your Input on that. Also, if we ARE doing sliding timescale, I'll likely pull the Revolution out of their origin. I even have something of an idea for the alternate origin.

Edit/Note: The people that ‘Saved’ Thomas are meant to remain Mysterious backers for a while. I’m not going to introduce either option at the start. We got to wait till the ‘Long Halloween’ Era first, and even then…might wait a bit.
 
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Born in the USSA

Born in the USSA

Ascendant Warrior said:
@Meshakhad

I was working on my draft for my Batman/Owlman thing, and I came across an issue.

My original idea was to tie thier origin into the Revolution somewhat, with the brothers being separated at a young age during a fictional 'Battle of Gotham', with Alfred saving Bruce and either the League of Assassins or the Court of Owls 'saving' Thomas Jr but mostly the Wayne Fortune. Then I had a thought...Are we going with a sliding Timescale here? I already have an idea for something closer to normal time, but I wanted your Input on that. Also, if we ARE doing sliding timescale, I'll likely pull the Revolution out of their origin. I even have something of an idea for the alternate origin.

Edit/Note: The people that ‘Saved’ Thomas are meant to remain Mysterious backers for a while. I’m not going to introduce either option at the start. We got to wait till the ‘Long Halloween’ Era first, and even then…might wait a bit.
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If there is a sliding timescale, you could just have later versions separated by a terrorist attack or even a "natural" disaster caused by the mysterious benefactors as a plot to kill the Waynes in a way that would hide they were the specific target 🤔
 
volantredx

volantredx

Another interesting question is not about movies or comics, but music. Obviously, Jazz and Blues music was popular in the 20s and 30s in spite of the racist agenda of the people at the time, but now with how the economy is structured and the anti-racist agenda being created by the ASU those artists aren't going to be screwed out of copyrights and payments. It'd also be interesting to see what sort of folk and country music emerges with the history of the civil war and at least some anti-Capitalist censorship from the government. A lot of songs about the laborers of the past fighting the bosses and landlords who are looking to steal from them would be the most common. As time moves forward stuff like early Rock and Roll would be very different as the Rockabilly artists were given a pretty big boost due to being able to copy off unknown black artists who had no recourse when their work was stolen. Now some of early rock's greatest hits are going to be played by the black artists who originally wrote them for a more bluesy sound.
 

Mr. History man

volantredx said:
Another interesting question is not about movies or comics, but music. Obviously, Jazz and Blues music was popular in the 20s and 30s in spite of the racist agenda of the people at the time, but now with how the economy is structured and the anti-racist agenda being created by the ASU those artists aren't going to be screwed out of copyrights and payments. It'd also be interesting to see what sort of folk and country music emerges with the history of the civil war and at least some anti-Capitalist censorship from the government. A lot of songs about the laborers of the past fighting the bosses and landlords who are looking to steal from them would be the most common. As time moves forward stuff like early Rock and Roll would be very different as the Rockabilly artists were given a pretty big boost due to being able to copy off unknown black artists who had no recourse when their work was stolen. Now some of early rock's greatest hits are going to be played by the black artists who originally wrote them for a more bluesy sound.
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You could apply that to the Harlem renaissance as a whole. The anti-racist nature of the ASU will probably help boost the renaissance to become more of a cultural touchstone in the US than it already was. Here's the context for this interesting part of African American history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlem_Renaissance
 
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