‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Didn’t Pull Its Punches Against Real World Issues: “Sometimes things just take on a life of their own”
Daredevil: Born Again‘s use of the Anti-Vigilante Task Force is causing a stir with some fans online. Disney+ unveiled the Season 2 premiere of their show this week. Matt Murdock is tangling with Mayor Wilson Fisk’s personal goon squad.
The Anti-Vigilante Task Force is ripped straight from the comics. But, showrunner Dario Scardapane says that he’s a bit unnerved by the political resonance of unaccountable government agents beating up immigrants and settling political dilemmas.
Scardapane spoke with SFX Magazine about the AVTF and their resemblance to ICE agents. (All of this was in the works far before the recent events in Minnesota and around the country that tossed ICE into mainstream conversation.) They wrote this show a while ago, so it is eerie to see it represented on-screen this way. However, the times are the times, and art will reflect reality when you least expect it. Check out the showrunners’ response to all of the fervor around Fisk’s Task Force right here down below.
Daredevil and the Anti-Vigilante Task Force
“The playbook is pretty well established, so when we were writing this stuff we were like, ‘Here’s what he does.’ The anti-vigilante task force is part of the comics,” Scardapane argued. “We built them and costumed them based on the comics. There are a few sequences that were shot a year ago that could be off the news, and it’s weirding all of us out.”
That makes all of us. ICE is carrying a pretty low approval rating amongst the majority of Americans. It’s easy to root for your neighbors and other city dwellers when they’re being set upon by people with nefarious means. It’s easy to just hand wave this off as complaining from more left-leaning social media users. But, those national averages aren’t budging these days.
Daredevil: Born Again delivers timely commentary
Everyone is in such a tizzy with those agents from the task force, that they missed another piece of our current landscape as well. The BB report segments that populated the first season are back. Our young reporter is both producing propaganda for the Fisk regime and someone is trying to undermine it.. There’s a bunch of people online talking about that Max Headroom style satire segment in Daredevil: Born Again Season 2. Talking to Movieweb producer Sana Amanat described how those moments exist as a commentary on our media landscape right now.
“And also how modern media is used to manipulate, to share information, both as propaganda but also as a tool to manipulate truth, but also truth to power,” Amanat observed. “I think that is a constant back-and-forth, and it’s always hard to decipher. We had a little bit of fun with it. I think we had a lot of fun with ‘the city without fear’ stuff, and found some really unexpected jewels in it.”
It’s clear that the world of the MCU is influenced by parts of our own. But, in a race to make claims about a show that’s been in the hopper for a long time now, people are trying to grapple with our reality through this program. It’s Daredevil: Born Again team is making a statement about our modern world. Hysterically, they just read what was on the wall years ago. And now, we are closer to the worst case scenario presented in this show than we ever thought possible.
(featured image: Disney+)
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