What Does the Punisher Have to Say About Gender, Russia, and the Alt-right?
Frank Castle is back baby! Season 2 of The Punisher is here and y’all know what that means. More grunts, primal screams, and men behaving badly than a tennis match…
The latest season of The Punisher is packed with plenty of action, but it also has a fair bit of social & political commentary. Don’t believe me? Read on, but before you do…
Warning: the following contains SPOILERS!!!
Gender
As you’d expect, Frank gets to beat the crap out of a whole lot of bad hombres. It’s like his favourite pastime!
However, this season has Frank beating up a whole bunch of nasty women too! It was extremely shocking to watch.
Call me old-fashioned… but I remember a time when it was never okay for a man to hit a woman. Even if she’s charging at you with a knife (like many of the women here do) you’d hardly ever see male heroes beat women up.
In this season, Frank beats up women left, right, and centre! Is this what people want when they ask for gender equality??? The right to get punched, kicked, and stabbed just like the blokes?
If so, I’m not ready for that. Maybe I’ve just got to get over it, times are changing, men and women are all behaving badly.
I just don’t know if I can watch a show or movie where the hero beats up women all day when I’ve been conditioned to protect them instead.
Even assassins in film seem to have a code! No women or children. I thought the same applied to vigilantes. I guess I was wrong.
Russia
There are so many plot threads this season that I’m surprised the writers found time to mention a hot topic at the moment, Russia.
In particular, Russians trying to influence American politics. The Punisher tracks one of these Russians down who he believes is trying to obtain incriminating photos of a future presidential candidate. A means of influencing an election. Sound familiar?
The twist comes when it’s revealed that the Russians aren’t interested in obtaining the pics so they can release them to the world, rather blackmail the presidential hopeful by threatening to expose the truth. Again, very familiar.
We’ve heard the reports about Trump and Russia colluding to win the election. We’ve also heard rumours that Putin has footage of Trump hiring Russian escorts to pee on the same bed the Obamas used in Moscow!
It’s so weird, yet I wouldn’t put it past him. Trump is a weird guy and as petty as they come. No one will ever out petty him! But outplay? That’s a possibility when Putin is involved.
The Alt-right
Even before season 2 came out, Netflix was teasing a new villain for Frank…
He was described as a member of the Alt-right because of course he’s of the Right! Everyone who’s a villain right now is from the Right!!!
On top of that, he’s a religious nutjob and based on his old tattoos, a former White Supremacist. Damn, that’s as evil as they come!
Luckily, Frank is on the case to teach this guy a lesson the only way he knows how, but there’s a twist. Turns out this villain is an assassin working for the real baddies… a rich, white couple! Surely conservatives, right?
Turns out the old bastards were using the hitman’s religion and children against him.
We’ve seen time and time before, religion can be used as a tool of power to corrupt and control the most vulnerable. Nothing new here, we already knew it!
Thanks for reading, more Punishment awaits…
