For some reason climate change is still being debated in some circles. This may be because we live in a world where people just want to argue about literally everything no matter what it is or even why.  For the purposes of our question today we’re going to take it as a fact that climate change is a real thing, and it’s going to have real consequences for you and me and everything else in the world.

Accepting climate change is a fact is one thing, but understanding what it means is quite another. People aren’t wrong when they say that the Earth has gone through periods of climate change in the past. We’ve had at least five ice ages, we’ve had periods of warming, and there’s still life on earth. Does that mean we could weather a serious climate change with little difficulty? How much climate change is too much? And, most seriously, is it possible climate change could wipe out humanity?

Those are some weighty questions and since it’s all speculative, we can’t be one hundred percent sure. But we can rely on what some experts think!

Climate vs Weather

One thing to remember is a thing deniers over overlook intentionally or otherwise. Just because it’s cold one day doesn’t mean climate change isn’t real. Climate refers to average conditions over a longer period. 

If the temperature on November 1st is below freezing and that’s not normal, you can go online and arrogantly say “pfft, so much for climate change” but it misses the big picture of the fact it’s actually abnormal to be freezing on November 1. It also disregards that maybe June 1 was 10 degrees hotter than it has ever been in history. These are trends, not individual instances. 

Too many people think of climate change like it’s the money in their wallet. “Hey look, I have $100, that’s awesome!” But their bank account is overdrawn and they’re actually $1,000 in debt. That $100 is weather. The debt is climate change. Big picture stuff!

Global Temperature Trends

If you’re still not 100% sure about climate change we can look at global temperature trends. Have there been warmer days in the past? Absolutely. But remember, we’re looking at trends. 

Global records of temperature began in 1850, and we’ve been recording temperatures since then. As of the beginning of 2024, 2023 was the warmest year on record. It was 1.18 C above the 20th century average. These aren’t big numbers we’re dealing with across the board and that’s why we can get a freak snowstorm in late April 2023 when Spring is supposed to be springing and still experience the warmest year on record. Because later that same year, over 2,700 people in the US died and had heat-related complications listed on their death certificates. That’s a record for heat related deaths and shows that people need to focus beyond one random cold day to argue against warming temperatures when there are too many random hot days pushing the mercury in the other direction throughout the year.

The ten warmest years in recorded history were all in the past decade. That means every year is now one of the warmest years in recorded history as of 2014. It just keeps getting worse. As of November 2024 was on track to become the new warmest year on record. 

By 2030, temperatures are expected to be 1.9 C to 2.7 C higher. This temperature increase has been attributed to countries like China which have seen swiftly rising emissions from fossil fuel burning over the last years. While their use is hitting a plateau, it also rose faster than anticipated. 

Likewise, there is a fear that the US government may abandon any promises it made to stem emissions and combat climate change, which could see further increases across the board.

How Hot is the World Getting?

In 2016 the Paris Agreement was signed and ratified by 55 countries that agreed to reduce greenhouse emissions in order to prevent global temperatures from rising by 1.5 C above pre-Industrial levels by 2030. However, 2024 is already on track to have hit that 1.5 C marker. It’s believed this trend will continue for at least one of the next five years. In the year 2015  it was believed there was a 0% chance this would happen. Now it’s at about an 80% chance.

Since 1980, the number of places in the world that experience extreme heat events has increased 50 times. We’re not trending in a good direction.

Why 1.5C?

The 1.5 C mark didn’t come out of nowhere. There has been serious study about the potential effects of long-term global heating. So, if 2024 was 1.5 above pre-industrial levels it doesn’t necessarily mean that the world is ending. The problem is, if those temperatures are sustained over some decades. If we can’t decrease the temperature, and 1.5 Celsius above pre-industrial becomes the norm then there are various ecosystems and regions on the earth that will not be able to sustain their current conditions. Basically, we’re talking about creating deserts and destroying farmland, forests, that sort of thing.

Some people who sound fairly educated on the topic will argue that climate change is not a thing to worry about because it’s a natural part of Earth’s history. So why not take a look at some of their statements and why they may not be as accurate as climate change deniers think? 

Climate Denial Arguments

If you ever get into a debate online with a climate skeptic, they will probably bring up the idea that the Earth’s climate has changed many times over history. We already mentioned ice ages and periods of warming and yes, the earth’s climate has changed many, many times in the 4 billion years this planet has been here. But that isn’t the full story.

To say there’s no need to worry because greenhouse gasses have spiked throughout history is to overlook what happened next, not to mention the fact we’re making it happen faster than it ever did naturally.  

These spikes have been followed by massive ecosystem changes, species extinctions, and ice ages. The effects are long term but they are fairly consistent. Humans only focused on the next ten years won’t see or maybe even care about these longer-term effects, but history shows they are real. 

Some people will also try to claim there is dissension in the science, that not all experts agree on climate change. And sure, not all experts agree, but some people will argue that the earth is flat, that doesn’t mean there’s any real debate among scientists. According to NASA, 97% of scientists still working in the field agree humans are causing climate change. 

There have been stories published in the media about how climate change could have benefits like nicer, milder days in places like Canada. Again, that’s true. Canadians won’t have to endure as many harsh winters, but it kind of overlooks the bigger picture. 

The consequences of climate change include things like those 2,700 deaths that we mentioned earlier. Also increased tornado activity, floods, droughts, loss of crops, species extinction, ecosystem destruction and so on.  It’s even directly linked to modern slavery where those affected by climate disasters are forced into poverty and slavery to survive. So sure, you might get to enjoy a green Christmas, but when July comes around, maybe a whole town full of people on the other side of the world die because it’s over 50° C.

Trying to find a silver lining in climate change is a fool’s errand at best. It’s believed the total cost to the global economy could be around $23 trillion by 2050.

How Hot Would The World Need to Get to Be Unlivable?

So, let’s say we all agree that climate change is happening, humans are causing it, and it’s not a good scene. There are various ways to interpret that last part. We know that we’re causing the extinction of various species, serious weather events are becoming more common, and human lives are being lost as a result. But at what point does it become untenable? How hot does the world need to get before all of us are hurtling towards certain doom?

We don’t need to hunt down isolated stories of heat related deaths; they happen regularly around the world. In 2024, over 1,000 people died when temperatures hit 52° C during the hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. In Europe, about 47,000 deaths were linked to heat extremes. It’s already happening.

Research has shown that humans can only endure 31°C at 100% humidity before they can no longer regulate their temperature. That’s for young, healthy people. If you’re older or suffer any health conditions, it’s going to be lower. That means you need help to lower your temperature if it gets to that point because you can’t do it on your own, and you’ll suffer consequences including heat stroke and potentially death.

You need to remember when you look at these temperature figures that the humidity is what really causes the problem. If you live in a dry climate like Arizona, you can handle higher temperatures because you’re going to sweat and cool yourself down. If Arizona’s hottest day came with 100% humidity, you’re not sweating anything away. You’d have to endure that heat in all its glory and that could be lethal.

This temperature/humidity rating is also very subjective. If identical twins are in the same place at the same temperature, but one has been working all day, that one is going to fall victim to heat stroke sooner, and at a lower temperature or humidity. As global temperatures rise, larger areas fall into this zone for longer periods of time, making it impossible for some people to survive. 

If we hit 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels, then 2.2 billion people in the Indus River Valley throughout India and Pakistan, another billion in China and 800 million in Sub-Saharan Africa will be in that intolerable zone for extended periods every year. Add that up and that’s four billion people, or half of the entire world. 

If we reach 3 C, you can expect those same conditions in the US all along the east coast and as far inland as Chicago. South America and Australia would endure the same. We’re expecting to reach that 3° by the year 2100 if we can’t turn climate change around. If we even hit 2 degrees higher by then, it’s been predicted that as many as one billion lives will be lost as a result. 

If temperatures get to a consistent point between 40 C and 50 C then many species, humans included, will be unable to survive. That’s an extremely unlikely outcome on a global scale, thankfully, but it may happen in some isolated areas that will force populations to flee as a result. 

Keep in mind, it’s not just the heat that we need to worry about. Melting ice causes the sea level to rise which swallows coastal cities. More hurricanes, floods, tornadoes and droughts all contribute as well.

Can Humanity Survive Global Warming?

That 1 billion deaths figure that we say that earlier is an outlier. That’s the extreme end. Some predictions are as low as 40 million. That’s like all of Canada dying, or both Michigan and Texas going out together. Now take a moment to appreciate the fact that you just heard us refer to 40 million deaths as the low end of things. That’s the best-case scenario kind of outcome and that is absolutely horrifying. 

In general, few climate scientists think that climate change is going to wipe humanity off the map, but it’s also something we shouldn’t rule out entirely. We will probably endure this and we will adapt. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to be pretty, there won’t be severe consequences, and we won’t lose a lot of people along the way. It’s going to be ugly.

What we’re going to see is mass migrations to survive climate change. People who live on islands are going to be forced to flee because, as sea levels rise, islands will disappear. Tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of people are going to have to migrate out of the extreme temperature zones that are no longer fit for human life. 

Crops are going to have to be adapted to prevent starvation and farmers will need to switch to new ones in certain places. Growing seasons will change, availability of water will change, or a dozen other factors affecting agriculture will need to be addressed all around the world.

Climate change has happened, is happening and will continue to happen. How bad it gets is only something we can guess, but here’s hoping we continue on a path towards preventing as much damage as we can.

Seduction of the Innocent was the title psychologist Fredric Wertham chose for his 1954 book. No, it wasn’t a romance or an erotic thriller. It was an exposé of a product dangerous to the mental health of adolescents everywhere—or so he insisted. His target: comic books that he regarded as violent and risqué. These scandalous periodicals, he claimed, encouraged delinquency among their juvenile readers by exposing them to sex and violence. When facts and other evidence didn’t support his theory, he twisted them to fit.

Despite the preposterous character of his charges, his claims alarmed parents, teachers, and politicians. They also led to the voluntary self-policing of the comic book industry, as publishers began to censor their titles so their contents would be approved by the Comics Code Authority (CCA), created in 1954 by the Comics Magazine Association of America.

Surprisingly, even after publishers abandoned their voluntary participation in the censorship program, some of them, including the industry’s biggest and best known—Marvel Comics and DC Comics—continued to censor their own titles.

The ten comics on this list were deemed too hot to handle. As a result, they were censored by their own publishers.

10 King Conan

The second issue of Volume 2 of Marvel Comics’ King Conan (2022) showcases a new character, the scantily dressed Matoaka. Both her name and her costume—a brass breechcloth, a brass bra, and matching neck rings—offended Native Americans. The image both “sexualized” Powhatan’s daughter and appropriated Native American culture. Matoaka was the “private name” by which the historical Pocahontas chose to be called; Pocahontas was a nickname.

The character’s origin also offended Native Americans. According to the fictional Matoaka’s backstory, she was exiled from her South American homeland after she fell in love with an explorer from another land. She then revealed to him the location of her country’s treasure, which led, in turn, to the rape and the pillaging of her own country. In a Twitter comment, Kelly Lynn D’Angelo, a Native Haudenosaunee writer, summed up another related reason for the disgust she and other Native Americans felt. “The sexualization of a real young girl that was r*ped and killed affects our murdered & missing indigenous women TODAY.”

The comic book’s editor, Jason Aaron, apologized for the comic’s depiction of the character. To atone, he announced he would donate his pay for the offending issue to the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center and promised that the “character’s name and appearance [would] be adjusted for the rest of this mini-series and in all digital and collected editions.”^[1]

9 DC Giant-Sized Superman

Walmart inked an exclusive contract with DC Comics to sell reprints of original stories, some of which are collected in DC’s Giant-Sized Superman, issues 9 and 10 (2018–2019). However, mindful of its shoppers, Walmart insisted that some changes be made to the original artwork by the late Michael Turner, finding some of his female characters’ manner of dress a bit suggestive.

The “material” of Artemis’s thong-style bodysuit, latex by the looks of it, worn in an issue of Superman/Batman, was extended to cover her hips, lower buttocks, and upper thighs. In a Supergirl from Krypton reprint, Superman lifts Artemis aloft as he chokes her. The choking survives in the censored version of the comic book cover, but Artemis’s original costume does not. Again, its “material” has been extended, this time to cover an expanse of her upper thighs.^[2]

8 Heroes in Crisis

If choking was found acceptable, so, apparently, was the depiction of a dead or dying villain bleeding onto the floor. On the cover of issue 7 of the Heroes in Crisis series (2019), Poison Ivy lies prone on a mat, bleeding from the side of her head and from a slashed wrist. As Andrew Rodriguez points out, after the image was “leaked online somehow, DC retracted the cover, changing it because five people thought that the image of Poison Ivy was too sexy.”

Her exposed cleavage was objectionable; her bleeding was not. In the revised version of Turner’s artwork, her costume is extended to cover her offending bosom. Oddly, in the process, her costume’s trademark green color turned blue, and the floor mat vanished. The blood beneath her head is now concealed by her hair, and the blood around her wrist has been made to resemble a strand of red ribbon.^[3]

7 Miracleman

The first issue of Miracleman (2014) was flagged for revision after Alan Moore took over the comic’s authorial duties in 1982, transforming the protagonist into an antihero who became involved in more sinister adventures during the rest of the series’ run. When Marvel Comics gained ownership in 2009, the company’s editor announced the need to make a few changes to the comic’s digital edition.

In the end, two versions of the comic were released, the original and the censored. The former was made available under a 17+ age restriction as Miracleman: Parental Advisory Edition #1 (2014). The reason for the brouhaha? One of its characters had dared to bare their buttocks. In the censored version, underpants have been added.^[4]

6 Spider-Woman

When Milo Manara, the well-known illustrator whose drawings tend toward the erotic, posed her in a variant cover for the 2014 issue of Spider-Woman, issue 1, the title character became sexualized. Leaning forward on her hands and knees, her legs apart, the female wall-crawler creeps over the edge of the top of a building, several skyscrapers behind her, suggesting the height of her apparent climb. Her familiar costume, rendered in pastel colors, is more pink and light peach than its standard red and gold.

Although her suggestive posture implies movement, the type of action it is intended to imply is open to interpretation. Enough members of the public saw the possibility of lewdness in Manara’s depiction to protest, and Marvel’s editor-in-chief Axel Alonso, responded with both an apology, explaining that the variant cover was for a limited edition of the comic book meant for collectors. For that reason, the company was okay with retaining the image of Spider-Woman as the artist saw her. Manara’s version of the character was sold at auction to a collector who paid $37,000 for the privilege of owning it.^[5]

5 Batman

The first issue in the Batman: Damned series (2018–1019), which appeared in the company’s adult-oriented DC Black Label imprint, shocked readers with its full-frontal nudity. The Caped Crusader appears from the waist down, his nakedness apparent but with details hidden by a dark shadow falling across him in one panel. The only hint of his penis is a few lines, visible despite the shadow, which outline a part of the organ. Based on the feedback the company received from the comic book hero’s fans, DC’s powers-that-be concluded that nudity is not appropriate, even for their mature line of comics.

Future printings of the issue will not include so much as a glimpse of Batman’s genitals, and the digital version of the comic, like those of the printed version, will replace the offending panel of the story with one in which the shadow blocks out all offending parts of his anatomy. Censoring the image was the right call to make, DC admitted, since Batman’s exhibitionism didn’t really add anything to the story.^[6]

4 The Authority

The Authority was originally published by WildStorm, which was owned by AOL/Time Warner from 1990 to 2018, the same company that owned DC Comics during this time period. It was fairly frequently targeted for censorship by DC. Writer Mark Millar and artist Frank Quitely’s inclusion of several characters that were parallels to counterparts in DC’s titles caused much of this censorship. Censored panels were either revised or replaced altogether with new drawings.

In one case, Apollo and Midnighter, it had been implied, might be gay. Their sexuality had never been made explicit, though, until Millar left no doubt that the pair were lovers by allowing them to kiss in issue 27. DC is likely to have censored this act out of concern that Apollo and Midnighter—as characters that paralleled Superman and Batman—might suggest to fans that there was a same-gender relationship between the Man of Steel and the Caped Crusader, which could damage the sales of their titles. A similar reason might have led DC to censor an image of the Engineer, Hulk’s Authority counterpart, flipping off her adversary’s dead body. In the printed version, the British “two-finger [Victory] salute” replaces the Engineer’s raised middle finger.^[7]

3 Batman/Catwoman

The cover of the seventh issue of Batman/Catwoman (2021) was criticized for its depiction of its protagonist’s bloody face and hands. With the bodies of masked police officers in riot gear heaped and tumbled behind him, Batman clutches one of the fallen by the collar, lifting him from the ground as he stares in anger at the face of the unconscious cop. Against the blue-gray pile of his fellow officers, who are also badly beaten and unconscious, the black silhouette of Batman’s cape and cowl, like his red face and hands, make a stark and dramatic contrast.

Oddly, the revised version of the cover is, if anything, more lurid than the one it replaces. The picture itself is the same. The differences are that the blood does not entirely cover Batman’s face and hands, making him seem masked and gloved. The crimefighter’s face is more visible, as are his hands. The sight of them reveals him to be a man of flesh and blood, rather than a dark, depersonalized avenger.

In the original cover’s illustration, not a single drop of blood has splattered the limp, unconscious body of the police officer whom Batman lifts from the ground or any of his fellow officers. In the censored version, he, like Batman, is bloody, his blood revealing his vulnerability as a victimized human being. In this case, the censorship of the original image results in a much more dramatic and sympathetic portrayal of both Batman and the fallen police officers, showing the humanity beneath their respective costumes and uniforms.^[8]

2 Dark Knights of Steel

The limited series Dark Knights of Steel (2021–2022), set in an alternate universe to that of Earth’s, unfolds a complex, convoluted plot. Part of it involves Superman’s sister Zala-Jor-El’s avenging the death of Superman’s father, King Jor-El, after Green Man assassinates him at the behest of King Jefferson. Her vengeance takes the form of her own killing of the king’s son before she embarks on a murder spree, during which she kills the alternate universe’s Metal Men with a fury of which only she is capable.

Her slaying of Gold is especially brutal: she thrusts her left arm through him so fiercely that her hand, emerging through his back, is covered in and drips his blood. To censor the extreme violence of the drawing, a sound effect, “RNNGH,” was added to cover her bloody hand.

The same tactic is employed in a subsequent panel, a different sound effect concealing the emergence of the ship’s spar through Jefferson’s abdomen. As Ben Sockol observes, in writing about these censored panels, Zala-Jor-El, unlike her brother, isn’t bothered by moral scruples concerning the commission of acts of violence in the interests of personal vengeance.^[9]

1 Punisher

Originally, Punisher was depicted as an unscrupulous, murderous vigilante. In 1974, when he made his debut, and for the last two decades of the twentieth century, such a character was not altogether unacceptable. Crime, including murder, was on the increase, and drug abuse was rampant. The fact that Punisher was himself a victim of crime also made him sympathetic. As times changed, the antihero became an increasingly unfavorable and less bankable character. The Punisher’s weapon of choice, an M16 automatic rifle, also puts him at odds with a growing number of people concerned about gun violence, as does his oft-demonstrated willingness to kill his adversaries.

In 2021, Marvel began seeking to “reboot” the character by adding horns and tusks to the white skull logo he wears on his black shirt to make it resemble the Japanese demon known as an oni and by having Punisher fight his battles without the aid of his trusty M16 rifle or other guns. His fans may not be on board with these censorious revisions. Screen Rant’s senior writer Francesco Cacciatore, for one, is not convinced that Marvel’s modifications of the character’s costume and character will succeed. The company’s efforts to make Punisher more appropriate for today ignore the fact that “the character, as he was originally conceived, is simply not suitable for these times.”^[10]

Having a counterintuitive, provocative interpretation of a mainstream film is an easy but effective way to be heard, since it allows the person who comes up with it to ride the coattails of a well-financed ad campaign or a project that connected with millions of people. Consequently there are a lot of popular opinions of movies that were arrived at without much concern for accuracy. It’s not that this causes much real harm. Still, it tends to get in the way of appreciating an intellectual property’s real aesthetic value and messages. So we’re trying to help correct the record as much for the sake of the creators as we are just because people being loudly wrong is annoying. 

10. The Lion King as a Kimba Ripoff

The idea that the 1994 Disney pop culture phenomenon plagiarized the 1966 Osamu Tezuka IP Kimba the White Lion enjoyed massive, unquestioned distribution. For example, there’s this YouTube video, which got millions of views and is just a splitscreen of Kimba, 1994’s The Lion King, and the 2019 remake. Articles on sites like Cracked.com got in on the action, too, to the tune of millions of views. A passing glance will show why: Kimba sounds like the name of the Lion King protagonist Simba, after all. Lion King has dark-furred villain Scar and Kimba has dark-furred facially scarred villain Claw. Both feature a comic relief warthog, villainous hyena sidekicks, and so on.

Enter YouTube reviewer Adam Johnston to set the record straight with a very thorough video stretching more than two hours. For example, he pointed out how, in the aforementioned video, all the supposedly matching shots came from a 1997 Kimba reboot likely made to ride on the success of Lion King, not the 1966 movie which was mostly just episodes of the TV show edited together. This is especially obvious considering the massive difference in film grain, color saturation, and animation frame rate comparing a ’60s Japanese TV show to a feature film. 

Further he explains that Simba is “lion” in Swahili, and cited an explanation by NBC executive Fred Ladd that the show/character got renamed Kimba (it’s Jungle Emperor Leo in Japan) because “Simba” as a generic phrase couldn’t be trademarked and thus they couldn’t protect merchandising rights. The characters that are said to parallel those in Lion King do not have similar personalities to those in the Disney film and are largely insignificant bit characters. For example, Claw is nothing like Scar in terms of his relationship to the protagonist or his importance to the series. This is just scratching the surface of his very thorough analysis. But as Johnston says in the video, the real lesson about Kimba and The Lion King: it’s that people shouldn’t have passionate opinions on matters where they haven’t consulted the primary sources because some social media account or another will be able to manipulate you very easily otherwise.  

9. Joker is a Pro-Incel Movie

When Todd Phillips’s R-rated pop culture phenomenon debuted, critics and police were both spreading the message that the movie would likely inspire dangerous behavior from the sexually frustrated. Indiewire called it “a toxic rallying cry for self-pitying incels.” Even Time magazine said the lead character “could be the patron saint of incels.” Police were dispatched to theaters to guard opening screenings out of fears there’d be a repeat of the 2012 Aurora Theater shooting. 

While the protagonist Arthur Fleck is not portrayed as sexually active except in his imagination, he never expresses any of the grievances associated with incels — i.e., there’s no blaming of women or PC culture, as noted in The Guardian. All the people he explicitly lashes out at (Wall Street traders, network TV host Murray Franklin, his coworker, Thomas Wayne) are Caucasian men, and mostly higher class than him. The Guardian went on to devote an entire article to how the real villain of the story is government austerity because it costs Fleck his medication and contributed to the garbage strikes that have raised tensions in the city so high that there are massive riots inspired by Fleck’s crimes. It’s why the movie was enthusiastically embraced by such left wing media figures as Michael Moore.   

8. Eyes Wide Shut is a Coded Expose about Ruling Class Child Predators

In 2019, the arrest and subsequent highly suspicious death of child predator Jeffrey Epstein brought Stanley Kubrick’s final film back into cultural prominence. After all, it features a scene where Tom Cruise’s doctor character sneaks into a ruling class orgy and later has his life threatened if he lets the information out. It brings to mind suspicious aspects of Epstein’s conviction, such as the fact that his prosecutor, future secretary of labor Alexander Acosta, wrote him a “sweetheart deal” where all of his co-conspirators were automatically granted legal immunity, which is practically screaming a cover-up. Considering Kubrick’s prominence in pop culture that allowed him carte blanche with A-list talent, it feels quite plausible he knew horrifying things you and I don’t about the upper class. A theatrically distributed film would seem to be a way available to him to spread the word far and wide.  

The main problem with this theory is that, as Newsweek reported, Kubrick had been wanting to adapt the 1926 Arthur Schnitzler novella “Traumnovelle” since 1968, long before Epstein had been handpicked by Donald Barr for the career that would make his fortune. He had been explicit in interviews that his intent in adapting the book was more general statements about gender and fantasies than anything to do with classism. Furthermore, if Kubrick were intending to make such veiled accusations in such a highly public manner, why would Warner Bros. allow him to go through a 400 day shoot and release the end result at all if the threat of a powerful cabal hovered over the production? This won’t be the last time a version of this question is asked in this list. 

7. The Protagonist of Blade Runner is a Clone

Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi classic Blade Runner focuses on the plight of Replicants, essentially clones with artificially compressed lifespans that get forced into various forms of labor. Its protagonist is a sort-of police assassin named Deckard, who hunts down Replicants posing as humans, and who enters into a relationship with a Replicant while on a mission to take down renegade Replicants. In the course of the movie it’s revealed that a new model process of implanting memories in Replicants, pretty much the only way to ensure they don’t know they’re Replicants, is being rolled out. In 2001, Ridley Scott said in an interview that he meant for there to be a twist that wasn’t explicitly spelled out that Deckard was a Replicant himself. 

If his words were taken as gospel, then he just created a number of plot holes in the movie and a number of thematic problems. For example, as Scott Ashlin pointed out in his review, Deckard is much weaker than every single one of the Replicant fugitives he contends with. If he were walking around with implanted memories in his head, why would he receive a private audience to introduce him to that idea as he gets with the business mogul Tyrell? Most significantly, it takes away the dramatic irony of the biological human needing to rediscover his humanity through his interactions with artificial people. So no wonder the film’s screenwriter Hampton Fancher and star Harrison Ford were clear in interviews that Ridley Scott had it wrong. 

6. Black Panther Shows Isolationism in a Positive Light

When Black Panther was released in 2018, it was as much a pop culture event as a blockbuster film. To the surprise of many, however, white nationalists had a campaign to claim the film supported their values. The argument in brief is that the Afrofuturist utopia of Wakanda is so isolated that it surrounds itself with a dome of invisibility, and that the nation did so well by sealing it off supposedly was an endorsement of closed borders and similar policies. 

This ignores the fact that Wakanda’s isolationist position is established at the beginning as being a state in need of change. Having contended with the nuanced villain Killmonger’s challenge to his authority and calls for national vengeance, T’Challa’s arc ends with him ending Wakanda’s status as a secret and that aid will be provided to the rest of the world. That’s not to say every left winger has embraced it (consider how a representative of the CIA, Agent Ross, is presented heroically is massively off considering the CIA’s history in Africa) but the isolationist interpretation didn’t hold water. 

5. ET is a Christ Parable

If alternative film interpretations getting disproportionate media attention seems like a new phenomenon, let’s take a little trip back to the 1980s. In 1982, Seven Spielberg’s family alien movie was such a phenomenon that no less than the New York Times printed a lengthy editorial about it, drawing all the parallels that existed between the alien and Jesus of Nazareth. It was not a casual reading based on such obvious tropes as ET seeming to die and coming back to life or having healing powers. The author of the piece went into such lesser known aspects of the Christian religion as the Roman Catholic cult of the Sacred Heart to draw comparisons to ET’s glowing heart. 

However, even within the piece, the author admitted that these concepts long predated their presence in Christianity and thus aren’t specific references. Spielberg claimed that he anticipated these sorts of interpretations during pre-production, though since he called them “sticky religious areas” apparently he thought the response would be more negative than it was. It would be understandable to assume widespread Christian denouncement of ET by those who thought he was co-opting aspects of Christ, but according to a 2002 article by Christianity Today it led to more religious people embracing the movie. Spielberg was dismissive of the idea he would want to make a Christian parable, rhetorically asking how his mother who owned a kosher shop would feel about that. 

4. The Shining is About the Moon Landing

In 2010 The Atlantic published an article devoted to an independent blogger’s thesis that in 1969 Stanley Kubrick worked with NASA to fake the moon landing, no doubt inspired by the fact Kubrick was fresh off spending four years making 2001: A Space Odyssey. The interpretation tends to come from aspects of the production design over the plot of The Shining. For example, the infamous “All work and no play” is part of the confession because “All” looks like “A-1-1,” which is an abbreviation for Apollo 11.

Most significant to most viewers, because of the intuitive visual element, is the scene where Danny Torrance is wearing a sweater with “Apollo 11” on it. There’s no stated rationale for why Kubrick would feel like confessing his involvement in the alleged, presumably harmless debunked conspiracy in such an indirect manner. This hot take has been discussed on numerous websites as numerous websites and was included in the 2012 festival hit documentary Room 237. 

And speaking of hot takes that were boosted by being featured in movies…

3. Top Gun is a LGBT Film

For many viewers, by far the most memorable scene in the 1994 film Sleep with Me was a bit delivered by Quentin Tarantino that had been thought up by his Pulp Fiction co-writer Roger Avary, where he explains the subtext of the 1987 blockbuster film Top Gun. The rationale, beyond the presence of a lot of all-male crowds being photographed while slick with sweat — whether in locker rooms or playing volleyball — is that Maverick’s love interest Charlie Blackwood not only has an androgynous name but during the scene where she wins him over, she has her hair back and under a hat, which supposedly makes her look way more masculine. 

Yahoo Movies did an analysis of this theory in 2016. They interviewed screenwriter Jack Epps Jr. and he was clear that there was no intended gay subtext. Scenes were set in a locker room or playing volleyball because “it’s really a sports movie” and such locations would be where the characters exchange exposition. More significantly, Kelly McGillis was wearing a hat during that scene for continuity because it was a reshoot, and she had changed her hair color.  

2. The Predator is an Honorable Warrior

Let’s stay in the ’80s for a little bit longer and visit this 1987 action blockbuster. Ever since the iconic alien villain Predator (later dubbed a Yautja) killed most of a squad of American soldiers and then went hand to hand against Arnold Schwarzenegger, various sequels and fan articles on sites such as Gamespot have tried to paint him as an honorable warrior. The main basis for this is that the alien will only shoot humans that themselves have weapons.  

As critic Bob Chipman pointed out, the movie doesn’t support that interpretation at all. For one thing, the predator kills the soldiers without them having any way of knowing he exists, which is cold-blooded murder instead of any sort of honorable ritual. There has been no agreement, no communication, and the predator brings massively more advanced weapons, including cloaking technology. It’s less fighting duels than the widely derided practice of wildlife “hunts” where wealthy people shoot large animals that are practically chained to the ground. What’s more, when the predator is bested, he sets himself to self-destruct and laughs maliciously, which is less an honorable embrace of being bested than pure petulance. 

1. The Irishman is Sexist

Responses to Martin Scorcese’s 2019 Netflix movie The Irishman were somewhat polarized due to its length, the de-aging effects, and the relatively low key storytelling compared to Goodfellas or Casino but still generally positive. Still, there was one criticism which drew a lot of attention: Anna Paquin’s character Peggy Sheeran has very little dialogue and 10 minutes of screen time despite being married to the protagonist. The charges of sexism were sufficiently heated that a rumor emerged how Scorcese had allegedly ordered her not to say anything. 

For starters, Anna Paquin herself debunked the rumor that she’d been given any such insulting direction. Further, from the beginning, during the writing process Scorcese said to screenwriter Steven Zaillian that he wanted to give Peggy Sheeran more dialogue and screen time, but that during production he found it was more powerful to have her be a silent witness to the events. It also was more thematically appropriate because the movie is set during a time where ostensibly her character would have less of a voice, especially considering matters that “you don’t talk about.” To paraphrase an old proverb, sometimes the less characters talk the more they say. 

Dustin Koski’s further debunkings can be found on Twitter.