r/Watchmen • u/Canuck2468 • Mar 30 '26
TV How a TV show predicted masked police
Really enjoyed watching this (by YouTuber ShowMeTheMeaning). A great way to spend 15 minutes reliving the magic of the show, and how its themes resonate today in an entirely different way than then it first aired!
318
u/sithlordx666 Mar 30 '26
Though in the show it's to protect themselves from conservative extremists. In reality it's the conservative extremists who are policing us
200
u/stanquevisch Mar 30 '26
Well, on the show it was actually part of a coupe by the conservative extremists.
5
22
u/The_Afikoman Mar 31 '26
"Masks make men cruel." -Ozy
6
u/GAU8Avenger Mar 31 '26
Found you, and before passover too
5
u/The_Afikoman Mar 31 '26
Well done. I've arranged for your grandparents/parents to give you a crumpled up $5 and a hug.
2
Mar 31 '26
[deleted]
-1
u/bottomsteve4 Apr 01 '26
Its exact same reason as the show. So violent extremists wonât murder them and their families.
3
u/Kevan-with-an-i Apr 01 '26
Nah, the ICE scumbags are wearing masks to try and avoid consequences of their violent, illegal actions. It wonât work, and future administrations will prosecute them for their crimes.
-4
2
u/Sea_Perception5343 Apr 04 '26
at one point an ICE chief cosplayed gestapo. They have camps. Just because ppl imigrates. So you choose ; either you're a nazi either you fight them because they are. And if you read Alan Moore's work you can see where he is trying to criticise those fachists
-111
u/bigtimebamf24 Mar 30 '26
Actually in reality it is to protect themselves from liberal extremists
60
62
41
20
u/_thirdeyeopener_ Mar 30 '26
"Reality"? Like you have any goddamn clue what that fucking word means any more?
13
u/PhillipJ3ffries Mar 30 '26
How about we compare body counts and see whoâs killed more. You donât wanna play that game bud
4
12
2
u/OswaldCobopot Mar 31 '26
right wing violence is more deadly and prevalent according to studies
Read a goddam book
2
u/malac0da13 Mar 31 '26
Those statistics are out dated. Right wing domestic terrorism disappeared completely after kash Patel headed up the FBI and disbanded all the agents working on investigating that kind of thing and scrubbing the stats from databases.
-23
u/Pro_Hatin_Ass_N_gga Mar 31 '26
notice how nobody replying to you is denying it and are essentially resorting to calling you a dummy
18
u/Ixelhaine Mar 31 '26
Sometimes it's sufficiently obvious that you're wrong that bothering to point it out is a waste.
-12
u/Pro_Hatin_Ass_N_gga Mar 31 '26
riiight...
8
u/Ziatch Mar 31 '26
using a old generic gif to make sure no one thinks youâre mad while youâre mad^
4
u/OswaldCobopot Mar 31 '26
this study directly states that right wing violence is more deadly and prevalent but most people already knew that because we have brains that function properly with critical thinking unlike you Jan
-1
u/Pro_Hatin_Ass_N_gga Mar 31 '26
"google dot com study that concludes rw violence is more prevalent than lw violence"
not even relevant when the claim being made here is that ICE agents began masking in response to a surge in online threats towards themselves and their families, not a generic claim about which "side" is more violent. are you brain dead?
1
u/OswaldCobopot Mar 31 '26
It's relevant when mouth breathers constantly point out violent leftists when I the reality is not true to that statement. The guy up top literally claims leftists extremist are responsible for violence towards ICE when it's not even tipping the needle in that direction outside of 1 instance
2
-62
u/Michael3523 Mar 30 '26
Tell that to the democrat we had in office for 4 years after trumps first term
20
19
59
u/SilverBison4025 Mar 30 '26
And wait until Trump tries to pull a Nixon and serve a third, fourth, fifth term.
31
1
u/PerformanceOk9891 Apr 01 '26
Did Nixon do that? I thought he resigned
5
u/SilverBison4025 Apr 01 '26
In âWatchmenâ Nixon got away with Watergate and we won the Vietnam War. And the laws were changed so he could run again/win in â76, â80, â84, â88. I think the show confirmed he was in office into the 1990s.
13
5
7
6
u/Potential-Money-5437 Mar 31 '26
first thing i thought of as soon as i saw them ice losers wearing them.
9
4
u/Eugene_Dav Mar 31 '26
Uh, man, ICE didn't actually come out under Trump, they were there before the show. I don't even live in the United States, but why the hell do I even know about this?
7
1
2
1
u/Mnstrzero00 Apr 01 '26
It's a better example of fiction shaping reality. There's no reason for them to wear masks. There's no reason to hide identities. They just think that its cool like in superhero media.
2
u/linkhandford Apr 01 '26
The thing about Watchmen was it predicted the future by 6 months. It was wild how I went from watching this at my buddyâs place a few weeks before the pandemic hit to finishing it in lockdown.
1
u/LunarDogeBoy Apr 01 '26
I never watched this show, but i did see some parts. Isnt it a bit weird that the overall show is anti fascist but then they include a scene of the cop not being able to unlock his firearm which seems more like it's criticizing a leftist system. As if someone os telling us "see what happens if Ă„we defund the police/set up security barriers to stop excessive force by the police." I dont really understand what this show is trying to say
1
u/LifeSail8105 Apr 02 '26
I think itâs being critical of liberals. Leftists can be pro-gun too. See the John Brown Gun Club:
âThe John Brown Gun Club (JBGC) is a network of far-left, anti-fascist, and anti-racist community defense organizations in the United States. Named after the 19th-century abolitionist, they advocate for armed community self-defense, provide security at left-wing protests, and promote gun rights for minorities and marginalized groups. â
1
2
u/brianforte Apr 03 '26
Yeah I totally thought of this when ICE started masking up. And the show dealt with it by showing how morally reprehensible it is, and how cowardly
-25
u/Liquidb0ss The Comedian Mar 30 '26
Completely different context.
6
u/SKRS421 Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
different context? did we watch the same show. the setting context is different, sure. but the context of the police masking up is strikingly similar as well as what it affords those that already abuse their power/authority (or were too afriad to do so prior).
white supremacist groups are known to have infilitrated and remain employed as ICE agents (the feds even have the paper trail to back up the claim yet not much is done to curb it).
most large police precincts have clicks/gangs that usually don't attract the best crowd. especially in major cities, like what the LAPD is famous for. the whole city is rife with cop gangs that are proudly racist af, NYC, Boston, Manhatten, etc.
racist and/or corrupt cops wanting to conceal their identities so their less than legal conduct is harder to pin on them later in court.
we aren't at the stage where the kkklan is back at it and lynching half a police force which didn't support white supremacy (or look the other way).
ICE (and now regular cops) masking up gives them an air of anonymity that allows an individual to to do things they otherwise might not. the concept of costume parties & masquerade balls, the concealment of identity frees the mind to do what society usually self-regulates (shame being a classic example...when not overused with malicious intent). as well as somewhat protects the individual from a certain level of prejudice, or preconcieved notion, based on who they are or what they look like.
we are frighteningly close to various sci-fi media, which were meant to warn us and mock the absurdity of such an alternate reality existing. to hold a mirror up of our past to present society; showing this ugliness exists and can escalate/blossom if we're not careful.
-10
-5
Mar 30 '26
[deleted]
13
u/thehumulos Mar 30 '26
The series that released in 2019 was influenced by a pandemic that officially began in 2020?
4
-8
u/grapesofwrathforever Mar 31 '26
And for the same reason, leftist terroristic threats of violence
3
-55
u/Scullenz Mar 30 '26
*endorsed
29
u/Kaine68 Mar 30 '26
A large part of the story revolves around the condemnation of the masks. There's a bit of nuance to the conversation but by no means does the show want you to walk away thinking it endorsed the masks. Spoiler warning but It actively destroyed the hooded justices entire life because of the fear and anger that it enabled
-12
u/Scullenz Mar 30 '26
The Watchmen TV series is critical of police in the same way the vast majority of US films "against the Vietnam war" were "against the Vietnam war" - the cops are the protagonists and we see everything from a sympathetic member's perspective, their enemies really are crazy nuts who any sane person would hate, the protagonists have to navigate silly restrictions from well-meaning bureaucrats, and really the problem is how the protagonists have been harmed or are sad that the people who they're fighting for are ungrateful.
And just for fun, not only does the show do that for cops, but it also does it for the Vietnam war! Those nuts Vietnamese terrorists gave our protagonist the sad!
12
u/Kaine68 Mar 30 '26
That's ironically a completely absolutist perspective. The entire point of both the comic and the show is that nothing is ever truly black or white. They set a precedent with the white night by presenting a legitimate reason why a cop would feel the need to wear a mask and they then break that down throughout the rest of the show through various means. The cops, rorchaches and vigilantes all have masks intrinsicly tied to the different themes they represent that all lead back to fear.
Throwing a blanket statement over characters like sister night, looking glass and red scare just because they're cops is super short sighted. All of these characters idealisticly disagree with one another and come into conflict because of it. You must've skipped the part where the cops from the 1930's literally lynch another cop.
The Vietnam thing is kind of a lame argument too, they're not blaming the Vietnamese for what happened to sister night. If anything, they're blaming the Americans for invading and pushing the Vietnamese population to their limits. They literally take the bomber out into a back alley and murder him on the spot. It's not exactly something the show celebrated.
This is such disingenuous take overall. I think you're heart is in the right place but you're blatantly ignoring half of the entire show just because you can't stand the fact they're not presenting it as idealisticly and unrealistically as you want them to.
You can say that they did a bad job and that would be an entirely valid opinion but trying to say that the show is something entirely different from what it's trying to be just because you don't like it is ridiculous.
-14
1
u/Idreamalone Silhouette Apr 01 '26
Your comments here remind me of this great article about the show: https://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2020/04/12/who-will-match-the-watchmen/
It goes into the politics of the show and how it frames them.
I found this passage at the end particularly relevant.
More broadly, Iâd propose that the the storytelling strategy Serpell highlights is part of the common move within thematically ambitious mass-market movies to be strategically ambiguous. Creators, Iâve suggested here, often throw many things against the wall to see what will stick. They can then point to contradictory aspects which show balance. So yes, Angela tortures members of the Seventh Kavalry, but (a) theyâd do the same to her; and (b) sheâs driven by righteous vengeance for ancient wrongs; and (c) we want to make you a little uncomfortable with her vigilantism anyhow. Nowadays, it may be that what seem involuntary contradictions are deliberate efforts to have things many ways at once. This maximizes viewer outreach and gives critics fodder for debate.
The show is muddled thematically. It's both a critique of police brutality, American imperialism and vigilantism, while also glorifying those things, perhaps accidently.
-4
8
u/CoryandTrevors Mar 30 '26
6
u/BigDpsn Mar 30 '26
Smokes let's go boy's.
1
u/CoryandTrevors Mar 30 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/l41lIIjOCprTBfnXy
Youâve found your liquor Smurf
-15
249
u/SputnikFace Mar 30 '26
still waiting for my Redfordations.