/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

I reread Vineland and rewatched One battle for this. Modern /tv/ is too stupid for this, /film/ and /lit/ would find it boring or wouldn't get the discussion. You'll probably get more mileage here than any of them would have because this isn't so much about the plot structure or anything.
Although yes, One Battle After Another is the "blockbusterization" of the original novel. In the original Zoyd (Bob) is a side character to Prairie (Willa) and is actually third "protag" to Frensei(Perfidia) and Brock Vond(Lockjaw) mostly because he also doesn't look for her, he goes off screen because he is the one who sends away Prairie to go to DL(Deandra) from the start to split up so Vond can't get them together. Also because the book is 50% flashbacks, and that's probably because this is Pynchons attempt to put various short stories together into an over arching plot, but it means most of the book isn't action heavy. In fact any and all action is sort of kept to a flashbacks and single shot or hand to hand 1 on 1 combat.
This is because PTA doesn't understand the left or what Vineland had to say about it. Thanatoids are a big aspect of the original book. Thanatoids are debatable but are ultimately just Pynchons way of describing the average person becoming a treatlerite in first world nations due to immediate comfort and entertainment being granted to them, especially in the 80s, of which ones like Weed Atman, a leader of the 2nd major left wing org in the book, who was thought dead, is a part of. The entire thing is a massive critique on how quickly pacified the entire American left is, and PTA completely flushes it down the toilet for quick scenes of Mexicans fighting riot police.
In the actual book, whenever the army and cops get involved, the thanatoids don't do shit. DL (Deandra) and Takeshi (Sergio or at least close as possible to them in the book) take back Prairie with them to check out the situation at the same time the rest of her family go back to Vineland, and they note how scared everyone is and none of them do shit.
This is because the entire book this is just part of life too to a lesser measure, Americans are absolutely fine with fascist like regimes and PMCs strolling their streets as long as it doesn't affect them, it's only when Brock Vond starts to push it a little too hard that they get upset enough to be scared. Not act, just get scared.
-In fact earlier in the book during a flashback it's made clear during Weed Atman's day the entire reason people run to him and create a leftist org centered on him is because an ex Nazi working for the DEA is already doing what Brock does in the future by riding around in a helicopter for CAMP and ruling the local Cali county with an iron fist. This implies before Vond there was already someone else doing this, and there "always will be" in a sense, who ends up being replaced because Vond is the one who pacifies Atman and his org with Frensei as his pawn, not the Nazi who isn't even aware of the op going on.
-In the first (or 2ndish) chapter Zoyd gets a scare after a squad raids a restaurant he's at only for it to be revealed they're a private security army for a local asylum trying to capture ex DEA Hector. Who is not in the movie because PTA reduced a lot of it and Hector kind of just exists to be an easy out for Frensei.
It's pretty apparent how hopeless the situation is by the end as they eventually all come back to Vineland and no one does anything, Zoyd plans on eventually trying to get some guns and taking the fight to Vond, but so many people tried assassinating Vond that he knows it's impossible, so it's of no surprise that even as they hide out in the woods Vond finds them pretty easily and kidnaps Prairie for like 5 minutes.
Which brings me to Brock Vond himself, Vond in the novel is pretty clear cut evil fascist I'd say that his character in the movie, although entertaining is pretty much a liberalized white washing based on "racism is bad."
Yeah racism is bad, but Vond is as fascist as it gets, he doesn't see race because he is outright Lombrosian. He goes around measuring criminals skulls and considers them non human regardless of race. He might send people to impersonate him unknowingly and get them killed but putting innocents in danger is the most innocent thing he's done compared to how he views the world.
In the movie we don't get half as many flashbacks to Vond (Lockjaw) who is a DEA prosecutor in the book that looks like RFK Sr and is a vampire, in the movie he's just shown as this racist colonel following orders who eventually gets told "Oh yeah join our racist society for 30% discounts at McDonalds only if you kill your black daughter." In the book though Vond is probably the best fictional fascist ever. He doesn't get any one reason for the way he is but multiple. His first memory is laughing at the tv so hard he thinks he's going to choke to death only for the pain of throwing up to break up the loop and as a child becoming alienated from the notion of joy brough on by modern artificial society aka "the tube" bringing it about before he's ready for it. This makes Vond grow isolated from himself, and eventually he locks away parts of himself he's afraid of as much as everyone is afraid of him, his "anima" which grows just as vengeful as the rest of him. Brought about by a deep hatred of capitalist societies contradictions propping up through left wing groups filling him with rage, he psychologically becomes domineering and manipulative. He's no physical threat, he barely even has a gun, but he doesn't just get off on sexually assaulting women, he actively worms his way into others minds, acting like a dark vampiric figure sucking their energy and acting through them. His transformation becomes so apparent that there's a fun scene in the book where he goes on a plane and a little girl instantly clocks his aura and starts screaming he's going to molest her so he uses his diplomatic power to get her and her mother kicked off.
Which is why Brock also doesn't give a shit deep down if Prairie is his daughter. PTA clearly just didn't get the book because the fact is Vond only wanted to abduct Prairie just to play with his food. In the movie it's a center point because he needs her dead but in the book it's clear Vond doesn't give a shit, he plans on killing them all because they aren't humans, and the only reason he did it then is because he finally had Atman, DL, Frensei, Zoyd, and who knows how many more ex hippies living there to finally kill under the guise of the war on drugs. Prairie is blonde and blue eyed like Frensei in the book, but like the Nazis, Brock doesn't give a shit, in his puritanical and violent mentality these "criminals" are a different breed and not human. He never stopped hating communists enough to shift enemies which is why Regan cut his funding right as he thought he won. The book even mentions he never wanted kids or gave it much thought, letting Zoyd keep Prairie for years on end because he was an actual fascist who felt crusade and war mattered above all, and child raising was just a NPC retarded goycattle act, and these are practically Pynchons exact words. To make it even more concrete Pynchon sets the novel a year prior to the first forensic DNA test. Prairie see's more of her features in her dad after not seeing him for a while, implying Brock isn't the dad in the book, but the fact it is it doesn't matter. Not even because "Durr Bob raised her." But because Vond never would have seen her as anything more than an abomination he would have aborted in her mothers womb if he had the chance anyway. That's why Prairie says "My blood type is A, yours is Preparation H." Vond isn't even human by the end his fascism has transformed him into something else completely.
Credit where credit is due his death is pretty equivalent in book and movie, in the book he steals a helicopter and revolver after military support is cut and he is called back to DC, presumably to try and kill everyone on his shitlist by himself but crashes it then his soul has to be escorted to the afterlife by Blood and Vato, two characters who are implied to be modern shaman types who tow a car in a area near bigfoot earlier in the book just to set them up that way– it's a whole thing. Likewise in the movie he crashes a car after his own support network turns on him and survives only to be killed later, surreally enough to be a believable dying fantasy. It's pretty cool but it alone isn't enough to make up for the fact that PTA stripped so much out of the novel it kind of misses the entire point and actively just defangs many of its messages. Yeah I'm aware it isn't a adaptation of Vineland, just "inspired by" but here's the thing:
I think in the worst way possible PTA sort of contributes to this in a cosmically ironic sort of way. Vond and the thanatoids are either birthed or controlled by the tube, which is a metaphor for the modern worlds consumerist spectacle. By stripping the book of these complexities to make it a topical modern antifa vs the chud ICE military wignats he sort of just contributes to both the pacifying critical thinking through reducing aspects or the enraging people into further fascism aspect. The book is very much about how Frensei and 24fps intended on using film to spread awareness of leftism, only for the world they end up bringing their children to, to have pacified them further on top of birthing their worst enemies. The further I compare the two the more depressed I realize that every time some lib blindly praises it on Letterbox'd or reddit we are just guaranteed that this thanatoid world will continue for another century or more at least.
Well there you have it that's my analysis. The left has been pacified, maybe it never even existed, and fascism neither prevails nor dies, it just continues business as usual.
Goodnight