“Christians today have become the most vitriolic tribe,” said Ritchson, who himself identifies as a follower of Jesus. “It is so antithetical to what Jesus was calling us to be and to do.”
He has three main shows that he’s part of, the first is Blue Mountain State, it’s a raunchy college football comedy, not that great, but Ritchson steals the show, the next is a comic book series, Titans, based on DC’s Teen Titans, he plays Hawk and as someone who read Hawk & Dove he plays Hawk near perfectly, so the third is Reacher, this is the first series where he’s the star, very good detective style series about a former Military Police Officer who headed a special investigations squad, but now lives a “Billy Jack/Rambo-esque” lifestyle of traveling and putting down villains.
All three are fantastic in their own way, Ritchson also has a few movies he’s been in as well.
I’m impressed just by this. It isn’t often that you see a self professed Christian celebrity actually calling out the hypocrisy of evangelical Christians and pointing out they’ve become antithetical to Jesus’ teachings.
He’s using his platform in a way that’s been sorely missing in society. For evangelicalism to properly die, it needs to be defeated at both the polls and from within.
Every “real” Christian I know can’t stand Trump and all of this other garbage, it always seems to he the fake Christians who tell people that they should go to church while they themselves don’t, and similar folks who seem to love Trump and the prosperity gospel.
Don’t get me wrong, I know there are whole congregations of idiots, but I’m just saying the ones I know personally who are very into their religion yet retain their open mindedness seem to be the ones who are against this crap, meanwhile “religious types” like my own father who never go to church and constantly try to push religion on me and the rest of the family, always seem to be the Trumpers. (Also not surprising my dad is a retired LEO)
Yeah that’s my general experience too. “Real” Christians understand that they’re not supposed to judge, because they’re sinners like everyone else. They might not like abortion, but they don’t want to legislate their beliefs nor judge someone who does get one.
Jesus chose to hang out with prostitutes and poor people. He protected them from self righteous crowds, and fed the hungry and healed the sick. He even happily paid his taxes lmao. He didn’t go establish a theocracy or force people to do things. He told people to love each other, no matter who they were. The Good Samaritan is a parable against xenophobia and racism.
Biblical Jesus is actually a pretty cool dude. The WWJD crowd would do well to actually act like him.
But that’s why they latch on to him. They WANT to kick off the rapture so they can all get to ride the escalator to heaven while looking down on the world and say “told ya so.”
I’ve read a couple Ritchson interviews. He seems like a good dude. I watched Reacher and figured him for just some muscle that looks good on screen, but he’s had to work pretty hard and been through a bit to make it to where he is. Most commentary by him seems pretty good, even if I don’t necessarily appreciate religion, and I hope he stays on the rails for a good career.
I like him but he’d make a bad Bruce Wayne. You can’t hide that bulk, everyone would know he’s Batman right away. His Batman would be a beast though, just crushing everyone
With the way I suddenly see people using the term “Media Literacy” everywhere, i start to wonder how “media literate” these people can be if they don’t know how obvious it is they learned that term last week.
Yes, but casual insults aside I do actually wish they were more aware of the things happening around them. A lot of them go through the day to day life barely catching a glimpse of news from Cable TV, and they think themselves the “normal ones”.
Went to a family friend’s pool party and one of the guests was a full MAGA chud. She bounced between singing Trump’s praises as this immaculate saint figure and slapping shoulders because he was such a big swinging dick who loved snatching the poon.
The Trump crowd doesn’t even strictly disagree with Ritchson. They’re just mad at the phrasing. If he’d made some cavalier remark about how Trump can fuck any woman in America if he feels like it and you should be honored when he grabs your pussy, they’d be singing his praises. If he’s joked about how Trump can pull the wool over every one of those idiot liberals’ eyes cause he’s just so wily, they’d cheer.
The words do reach them. They don’t care. They have their iconic superhero of a President. He’s living the life they want, sexual assault and financial dirty tricks and all.
I don’t think that’s entirely true. He’s got an online following that is an extremely vocal minority, but that hardly accounts for the full 74.2 Million people who voted for him in 2020. Maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle.
It might be true that the ones you meet online are very vocal, but there are a lot of people in person who will sing his praises, put flags on their car, their house, and everything else they can reach. They’ll deride any ‘liberal’ and come up with every straw man they can to lampoon for the amusement of the circle around them. I see them when I visit family, when I converse with people at the local park, and even in casual conversations in the workplace. They are everywhere, and it’s crazy how comfortable they feel with being open about their vitriol.
What I’m saying is if those people, an incredibly too large demographic who put up flags and crosses next to pictures of Trump, actually knew more about what is going on in the world and in politics other than a shallow biased conservative media outlook, they probably wouldn’t support Trump. Only a small fraction actually know what he’s done and still support him.
Studies support this theory with more educated individuals leaning democrat than republican, the trend continuing as level of education increases, and additionally studies also show democrat voters are more capable of discerning fake news from real news on a wide variety of topics. Another recent poll showed Texas conservatives were unaware that their political party’s abortion ban held absolutely no exceptions.
Studies support this theory with more educated individuals leaning democrat than republican
That’s dubious. More people with college debt lean Democrat, but that’s largely thanks to age and population distribution. People with high incomes skew Republican, and plenty of them are in law or medicine or finance.
And even this tend isn’t reliable long term. The collapse of the Union movement combined with the right wing radio consolidation killed the blue collar Dem voter base. Hardly someone to brag about. Republicans were historically the intelligencia minority and took a hard right popular turn under Nixon/Reagan.
The Texas “liberal turn” has been confined to major metro areas and squelched by the same vote suppression tactics state officials employed in minority ghettos for decades. There’s very little reason to believe this state will turn blue any time soon.
Lmao wtf do you mean “collapse of the Union movement”? The railworkers got the paid sick leave they were striking for, UAW is making the GOP sweat and cry, the SCOTUS (compromised as they are) just made it easier for people to file discrimination suits when workers are forced to relocate or lose their job.
This is exactly the shit I’m talking about. More conservative mindsets like this are purely due to lack of awareness of events.
The share of U.S. workers who belong to a union has fallen since 1983, when 20.1% of American workers were union members. In 2023, 10.0% of U.S. workers were in a union.
This, while the size of the US labor force doubled.
But they are so happy the show is “anti-woke” with its lead being a yoked-up hobo manly Mary Sue male fantasy.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy it for the light entertainment but I find it hilarious that conservatives get mad when a slender woman beats up a whole bunch of strong men but find it perfectly normal for a guy who never works out, eats exclusively fast food to have a bodybuilder’s body, be more or less unbeatable, get the ladies and know all the things he needs.
He’s the ultimate “lone wolf”/“alpha male”. Zero attachments, no daily grind, on the road, yoked, badass, solves all the cases, never afraid, no fucks given, plays by his own rules.
I find it highly entertaining but he’s as realistic as the Black Widow character from Marvel. Lee Childs was in talks to write James Bond books and when the deal fell through, he made his own ultra-macho superhero fantasy.
Ritchson should totally play the lead in a Wolfenstein adaptation. Have him smash Nazis and make closet-Nazi conservatives angry.
Yes, of all the books of that ilk, Reacher just never resonated with me, and I feel like you may have helped me come to realize why. Jack Ryan (amongst others in Clancy books), Mitch Rapp, they all kind of gave a background on how the character got there, and even took time to show them training in some fashion. Jack Reacher just did.
Yes, simple fantasy/escapism is fine for entertainment. Speaking of Jack Ryan, the current TV series pretty much turned him into a Mary Sue character but very seriously and drily.
I do savor the irony of conservatives preaching Reacher as their “anti-woke” hero while crying when a fantasy features people not fitting their archetype doing the same things (notably women).
Ive read two reacher books and they’re fucking hysterical. I cant believe how god damned dumb they are (first one was a gift from a client and I felt obliged to read it. second my wife got me as a joke).
Two bad dudes, thick as oak trees squared up to me. Bad choice. One made a move to see if I’d flinch. I didn’t. His friend’s eyelid flickered just a tiny but when his fake-out plan failed. Fear. I span around and swept my leg through both of their legs. All four of their kneecaps exploded into red mist and sent pressure shockwaves up their vascular systems with enough force to blow their eyeballs out of their sockets. Four peach pit sized occular orbs with red ribbons arced across the parking lot. Your move. Checkmate. I went back inside the bar and finished my beer looking like I’d been airbrushed with crimson. The beer was warm.
Lol. Is that an actual quote? It is hilariously bad. Reminds me of the Remo pulp fiction series I used to read as a kid when there was nothing else to read. That was even more over the top, but by much less than I would’ve thought from watching the Tom Cruise Jack Reacher movie. Might have to read one just for shits and giggles.
its not, I was riffing, its not that exaggerated but its like that.
Its like: Two guys square up to me. Big mistake. I swing wide with a right hand hay maker and he crumples like wet newspaper. His friend steps back. Too late. I gave him his chance. My fist fire out and collapse his solar plexus. He’s gasping for air as I stand over him. “Whos’s paying Franly to follow me?”, I demand. etc etc
TIL: Kevin “Thad” Castle is the tritagonist of Blue Mountain State. He is the ever inspiring team captain of the BMS football team. He is also the main protagonist of Blue Mountain State: The Rise of Thadland. He was portrayed by Alan Ritchson.
It’s possibly the peak of bro comedy. It’s fairly tongue-in-cheek and mocks it’s own hyper-macho characters enough that I think all the toxic masculinity works. As long as you watch it with that in mind it ages pretty decently.
I mean, the Rock Rock did just recently come out with his whole “yeah but both sides” cowardice. Apparently too many right-wingers buy his stupid energy drink and tequila for him to feel comfortable defending democracy in even the laziest, most minimal ways.
I’m absolutely convinced I read something about him regarding a controversy with China and Fast & Furious but I can’t find anything about it now. Am I just imagining it?
I know that a lot of celebrities like LeBron James have kowtowed to China while they openly commit crimes against humanity, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised. That film series is a big worldwide franchise of the type that stands to make a lot of money off Chinese release. But in that case, the studio may have tied his hands contractually on the matter. This situation is 100% him.
This year, he did an interview with Fox News and said that he wouldn’t endorse anyone this year because his 2020 endorsement caused “division” that “tore him up in the guts”.
Because speaking out about a terrorist, traitorous, fascist, narcissistic, violent, fraudulent, rapist, criminal mob-boss who is running for POTUS is less important than being accepted by dangerous cultists.
Knowing them they probably purchased the Tom Cruise versions because, let’s be honest, attention to detail and critical thinking are not their strong suits.
I tried to link to EvilBit’s comment but it didn’t work, here it is pasted from above: “I mean, the Rock Rock did just recently come out with his whole “yeah but both sides” cowardice. Apparently too many right-wingers buy his stupid energy drink and tequila for him to feel comfortable defending democracy in even the laziest, most minimal ways. “
Those Maga people unironically dancing to killing in the name of is my favourite piece of real life comedy, up there with the curb your enthusiasm inspired press conference at a gardening company.
I always thought he was a large man who existed to solve problems in the way only a very large man can, namely with large manliness and possibly physical violence, but I only really watched clips of the show so idk
The point is, Jack reacher is extremely anti-authority.
In one story while reacher was still in the military he outright murdered in cold blood his Superior officer because he was going to get away with a crime
I only read the first one. Isn’t Reacher just a swole ex-Marine turned PI?
Yes, but you have to look at whose nose he’s breaking. The typical villains in a Reacher novel are evil corporations or greedy tyrants. In “Gone Tomorrow”, the villains are the post-Patriot Act feds who represent a country where civil rights are a myth.
But the people on the right who love Reacher for his mighty masculinity are the same people who were shocked that Rage Against The Machine “went political”. I wonder how long it will take them to realise that Reacher usually kicks the butts of people they would like to vote for.
I wouldn’t be surprised if these are the same guys with punisher emblems on the back of their truck along with their blue lives matter flags…or for bonus points, a mashup of those 2 things
Read “Punisher: Max”. It’s gross and annoying that they identify with the character, but it’s not hypocritical as people often claim. Some versions of the Punisher do hate cops, but not the popular one most have read, If anything, that version was very similar to a murderous Reacher.
Some people hate those who see the world as it really is. The people who killed Jesus were just like that. The so called christians who are angry at this guy are just like the people who put Jesus up on that cross. The pathetic part is that they can’t see what they really are.
I wonder how many ultra conservative Reacher fans realize that the author is British. Probably very few, which is entertaining for the irony although doesn’t really matter much in general.
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