Video essayist F.D Signifier has made varied movies about what he calls edgelord motion pictures—media that includes cool lone-wolf heroes—and the best way they work together with the portion of their fanbase that encompass a male, largely white viewers drawn to their depiction of masculinity. Struggle Membership, The Matrix, Joker, and even one thing like Assault on Titan all rely in the direction of this. They’re fascinating watches, and effectively value trying out.
On the finish of his most up-to-date video (see above), he involves a putting conclusion: Makes an attempt to handle edgelords by means of edgelord media are in all probability in useless as a result of there’ll all the time be part of that viewers who will simply bear in mind the badass stuff and ignore (or not even discover) the criticism. To make an edgelord film, you want edgelord moments, and that’s what a specific sort will gravitate in the direction of. If you happen to make violence look cool, that’s what some folks will bear in mind above all else.
I can positively see the place F.D Signifier is coming from. However regardless of my sense that he may very effectively be proper, I’m going to toss in my suggestion for an edgelord title that I feel is the more than likely to succeed in that viewers and drive its criticisms dwelling: Chainsaw Man.
Fujimoto Tatsuki’s manga Chainsaw Man facilities round Denji, a destitute boy who does menial duties for gangsters and goals of 1) shedding his virginity 2) consuming bread with jam. Via an odd confluence of occasions, he features the ability of the Chainsaw Satan and turns into Chainsaw Man, with a chainsaw for a head and chainsaws on his arms…and likewise he can simply make chainsaws come out of his physique. The collection is crass and extremely violent, and Denji acts as this highly effective hero who breaks all the foundations.
Besides, the place different edgelord fiction may go away any revealing commentary about its protagonist to the tip (Struggle Membership, Assault on Titan), or sofa its transgressive politics in imagery and metaphor (The Matrix), Chainsaw Man consistently juxtaposes the “sigma male” qualities of Denji together with his personal pathetic nature. Not often does a badass scene or arc happen that isn’t instantly minimize on the knees whereas the collection questions that badassery within the first place. Whereas it’s nonetheless attainable to disregard Denji’s sadder qualities, Chainsaw Man actually throws it within the viewers’s face again and again. There are even instances the place Denji himself explicitly expresses frustration over how shallow he may be, and the way he usually needs he wasn’t that means.
I don’t have any empirical proof that Chainsaw Man has reached anybody within the method I’ve described. The truth is, I usually see the other, as elements of the Chainsaw Man fandom focus on refracted items as a substitute of the entire: the brutal violence, the character Makima’s domme aesthetic, normal wackiness, and so forth. However whereas not less than a piece of that viewers may by no means be taught, the collection itself repeatedly pulls aside its personal energy fantasy solely to place it again collectively after which tear it up once more in a steady cycle. It by no means relents, and I feel that persistence might repay.
