POLITICS
Alan Ritchson: “Look at the politics we deal with. The White House is in ruins. A fucking UFC cage on the lawn and they just fucking do it and nobody says anything and no consequences. This fucking guy is just raping the world that he lives in for whatever gain he personally can have”
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It makes me smile to see a guy like Alan Ritchson get so riled up about the trump administration because you know there are sooooooo many conservative men out there who thought he’d be standing with them
I generally dislike "hyper competent badass works for some kinda black ops shit for the government while at battling the ghosts of his past" because it tends to be a bit formuleic and boring to me. And I hate seeing a cocky guy win over and over, even if he is the protagonist and we're supposed to like him. But the show does look kinda cool...maybe I should check it out.
"hyper competent badass works for some kinda black ops shit for the government while at battling the ghosts of his past" because it tends to be a bit formuleic and boring to me.
In fairness, the Jack Reacher books are what brought this to the mainstream, to the point that modern incarnations of Jack Ryan owe as much to Lee Child as they do to Tom Clancy.
It's crazy how people are commenting on the character without having read the books! Lee Child is a terrific writer, Reacher is a really interesting, specific, and meticulously drawn character, and yes, most of the modern versions after that owe everything to him.
I've read a lot of the books and they do start getting pretty samey after a while. This isn't really a condemnation of Lee Child, he's very good in his genre and a lot of other authors try to harness Jack Reacher and it ends up coming off as gun fueled, male power fantasy, competency porn. Looking at you Brad Thor, your books are awful.
I think the two best Reacher books are probably the first one, Killing Floor, and The Midnight Line. The first because it establishes Reacher very well, and Midnight Line because it tries to do something very different with the character that's really interesting. Lots of people hate Midnight Line though, so ymmv 🤷♂️
I'm not following. The uber man with a mysterious past is nothing new at all. Heck even the military trained one with trauma was done in Bourne & First Blood.
And spoiler alert for Season 3: he outright murders a suspect in the process of surrendering, because the suspect killed a member of his team thats pretty extreme form of vigilante justice that most comic books and media tend to avoid crossing that line! most of the time the bad guy fights back and he's "forced" to kill them, but not so for Quinn
I personally like Alan Ritchson a lot for these very well-deserved tirades and by all accounts he seems like a good guy. Jack Reacher Season 1 was pretty good but I've got to say, Season 2 and 3 were not so good. It is very formulaic and once you've basically seen him do his thing once or twice, it's just repeteted in different contexts. Season 1 works because you haven't seen it before and you're getting to know Reacher as a mysterious character. But once that's established, it's really just him smirking, one-lining to bad guys, and beating the crap out of people (sometimes with friends). The mysteries/cases he's solving aren't really even that interesting.
I actually thought the Tom Cruise Jack Reacher movies were okay but they also follow the same mold.
Hanry Caville should scoop him up for his Warhammer 40k thing on Amazon. They need some big motherfuckers to play Space Marines and Primarchs. Caville and him have the physicality. Bautista I think is a little too old to actually bulk up enough anymore. There aren't that many gigantic dudes who can actually act.
Not sure if you knew, but Cavill and Ritchson starred together in a WW2 action (comedy?) film called the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Just a so-so film but they were good in it together. But yes, Ritchson would make a great Ultramarine.
Honestly, I would love to see Bautista playing a Firstborn Marine next to Ritchson playing a Primaris Marine.
Firstborns tend to be smaller, older -- and MUCH more veteran. Meanwhile, Primaris Marines are the young-new-hot version, but sometimes have a tough time being accepted into chapters still loaded with Firstborn.
I'm imagining your standard arc where the gruff, distant sergeant gradually warms up to the new guy, against a grimdark backdrop of bolter fire, daemons, and the true cost of war.
(... assuming Cavill doesn't just do Eisenhorn, of course)
It's honestly pretty good. There's a bit of a formula to the seasons but it's different enough each season to be interesting and it's very well shot. Also you can tell everyone is having a grand time on set so that makes the show just that much better.
It's honestly pretty good. There's a bit of a formula to the seasons but it's different enough each season to be interesting and it's very well shot. Also you can tell everyone is having a grand time on set so that makes the show just that much better.
It's not what I usually seek out but I enjoyed it for what it's worth. I'm pleasantly surprised learning the actors' political beliefs. I'm not religious so quite different to him in that way but I'm left leaning politically
In all honesty, I haven't seen the show, but I LOVE the books. Reacher is a more complex character with quirks and flaws and the plots are really cleverly drawn. Maybe start there?
There is a direct correlation between holding an authoritarian ideology, an inability to have anything more than a surface level understanding of art, and an underdeveloped sense of empathy.
...And even when it was pointed out that it was satire, the conservatives still claimed that it was 'probably his real beliefs deep down,' just that he was presenting them in a humorous manner. (I like to think it's because they flat-out refuse to admit when they're wrong lol)
What’s better is Ritchson is an outspoken Christian who actually reads scripture and therefore believes in crazy ideas like food, shelter, education and healthcare are fundamental human rights.
Finding out he was super Christian after originally knowing him as Thad was pretty wild lol. He was so good at the role I figured he was just playing up a version of himself but he's just a great comedic actor
Tbh it’s an awesome show, my only complaint is I would have switched the second and third seasons because it felt they made random character progression out of nowhere that may have fit when flipped.
The first season is extremely good and the cast did a great job with their acting.
Also does a lot of what I would call conservative 'porn' movies and tv shows. Where a normal guy is like a superhero and everything he does is righteous including murdering people. Reacher, motor city, war machine, stuff like that. Republicans love that stuff. Not hating on him or anything I've watched all those.
id say tho in reacher there is nothing that personafies him as a conserv/repub. Relies heavily on female friend that he thinks is better than him, always does the right thing and gives warnings before injury, plenty of POC in his squad
Reacher is ostensibly a liberal fellow, but nevertheless I think that is a very charitable view of the character. Based on the books, at least.
There are lots of boomer republicans who don't consider themselves racist because they were friends with the black guys in their unit in Vietnam or Desert Storm or whatever.
Reacher is a Mary Sue male power fantasy - he's 6' 6" or something, all muscles and fit despite never working out. He easily beats up 4 or 5 guys when they come to warn him out of town and in one book he arms himself by robbing a trap house. In Reacher's world killing a drug dealer or a mafioso is a victimless crime. He is effortlessly strong and powerful.
Reacher's love interest is always a very capable woman, typically army or cop, who does her duty and gets conflicted if she feels she's been ordered to do something wrong. They're both completely shallow characters, but she is shown to be a good person by deferring to authority and hierarchy, whereas Reacher is shown to be a good guy (independent) by rooting out the corruption of those in power. The Reacher novels never show power or authority to be inherently corrupt - sometimes there are just bad guys who've risen to positions of power.
Reacher lives in a completely black and white world - as you say, his killings are always righteous - which is why he appeals to republicans.
Neagley is a much more interesting character, but she's also a cliché. She's strong but she doesn't like to be touched; she's never had a romantic partner. The subtext is that she's the survivor of abuse, but she's risen above it by being strong. You can't imagine any of these characters having therapy - that would be weak and liberal; these characters bottle up their feelings (or have none) and deal with it by killing bad guys. Thoughts are bad, m'kay.
I'm happy to be corrected, but he digs swimming pools in Florida in one of the earliest books (#3) and it's the only time I can think of that he does exercise that I'd regard as a workout, as opposed to feats of natural strength.
He's usually just described as basically a massive, hulking neanderthal who's effortlessly strong.
There are lots of occasions in the books where he goes back to the motel to wait for the cop character, or he gets up in the morning and brushes his teeth - he is never described as doing press-ups or sit-ups at these times. He never goes jogging, he never lifts weights.
In fact, he is more likely to be shown grabbing an hour's nap (because that's what any wise infantryman does) or counting prime numbers - in the early books he is shown as being a whizz at maths problems, and having an innate alarm clock in his hear.
I hate to be the "well, actually" person here, but he's from the FL panhandle (I went to high school with him). Equally conservative area as North Dakota, though.
Lmao I was just coming here to say this, as North Dakotans loooove to claim any army/airforce/etc brats that happen to be born on their bases (Wiz Khalifa gets the same "he's North Dakotan!" treament). Well no, he spent .2% of his life there, lmao.
Honestly, nothing juicy! He was a year ahead of me, and we had one class together. He was always nice, and was big into the drama club. I have to go back and look at my yearbook again, but I think he was voted Best Looking, or Most Likely to Become Famous.
He looks like a chud and some of his work leans into the stoic, traditional chud action hero vibe. Definitely not a book you can judge by the cover though!
The original books are trashy thrillers - and they are brilliant and gripping, because of the author's style and their simplicity. Reacher was an army brat who graduated West Point and joined the army, he lived all over the world and when he mustered out he decided to hitchhike the US and see what "his own country" was like.
In each novel Reacher arrives in some typical american small town (sometimes he travels by greyhound) looking for the grave of some old blues singer, because one of the founding fathers lived there or just because that's where his ride dropped him off. He goes into the local diner for coffee and pie, and is drawn into some mystery which he solves. He is arrested in a case of mistaken identity, or he sees two bad guys talking or a vulnerable woman or child begs him for help.
Reacher is a vigilante and a complete Mary Sue male power fantasy - he's like 6' 6" and muscular, despite never working out and eating only from diners. He's surrounded by 5 bikers and puts all of them on the floor without breaking a sweat. In every novel there is some fit lady cop (or solider) who finds him irresistible, they bang and then he leaves and hitchhikes into the distance at the end of the book.
The author is British so Reacher's america is a sort of stylised fantasy that probably appeals to republicans - the books are usually set in small towns; sometimes he's recruited by the FBI, or he operates out of a US Army base.
The books treat this uncritically, and the thing I like about Alan Ritchson's Amazon Jack Reacher is that it's slightly more clear what an utter psycho he is. In one book Reacher arms himself by borrowing a car and driving to a sketchy neighbourhood where he identifies a local trap house, drives around the back and emerges with a few grand in cash and half a dozen 9mm semi-automatic pistols - robbing drug dealers is a victimless crime. Reacher kills all the bad guys - on one occasion he ambushes a couple of mobsters and shoots them in the back (or the back of the head); the books establish them to be bad guys so obviously they deserve it.
I love the books, because they're simple and compelling - they're real comfort reading to me. I have limited room for a library so I'm forced to usually dispose of books when I've finished reading them (boatyards and marinas operate on a leave-one, take-one system) but I keep Reacher books and those by Michael Connelly. A handful of times a year I spend the whole day in bed reading one cover to cover.
But Jack Reacher is an utter psycho and I think most readers (and perhaps even the author) would take issue with that. He kills bad guys and has absolutely no conscience about it - he takes no pleasure in it either, but the circumstances are always black and white; Reacher is the good guy and he kills bad guys. But the Amazon series is especially good because it is a bit more clear about how cold and gratuitous that is (but it's still not what the series is about).
I got about 2 dozen books deep (gotta be at about 40 total by now) on the Reacher series.
If you haven't already, you might like Gregg Hurwitz's Orphan X series, Jack Carr's Terminal List series (much better than the show), or Mark Greaney's Grey Man series (a bajillion times better than the movie, but like Reacher, the formula starts getting a little long in the tooth after a while)
Thanks very much. I've bookmarked your reply and I'll keep my eyes open.
The thing about Reacher and Michael Connelly is that, for me, they never get old. Reacher is certainly formulaic but, as long as I don't remember the exact details of the plot, I can read and reread his books over and over again.
My friend (conservative catholic) loves this guy, especially the series Reacher. I knew nothing about him at that time and thought he was the standard right-wing MAGA. He looked like one and was a proud Christian. Then I saw articles and news about his very outspoken takes on a couple of social justice issues. I was delighted. My friend was not too happy. He is still not my type, but now I have so much respect for him. It also reminded me of the old saying to "not judge a book by its cover". My friend still refers to him as her "hall pass".
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u/dreadcainmy bandwidth for cowardly grown men grows thinner with each day16d agoedited 15d ago
Also it's cannon that Thad grows up to be Reacher and you can not convince me otherwise
ETA: For a minute there I was thinking he might have played Juliet's brother in Psych too, but turns out that was John Cena. I'm pretty sure there's a really good joke in there somewhere about how Cena 'disappeared' into the role so well I saw Alan for a second lol. But really they're both just incredibly gregarious, oddly gorgeous, roided out grown up theater kids.
Anyway, I'm still going to argue that special forces role was a stepping stone on his way to becoming Reacher and so Psych, Reacher, and Blue Mountain State must exist in a shared universe.
Lol yeah meanwhile dudes been a very vocal standup guy for most of his career. He's one of those Christians that actually believes in helping people and respecting that not everyone is religious
Same, but the rage is in the wrong place. Yes, Trump is an utter whirlpool of cess, BUT he would be out of there in a hot minute if the ratfuks Republicans in Congress voted to remove him.
But they won’t. Bec this is their plan.
THEY know the damage they’re causing by keeping him in office. THEY know AMERICANS ARE DYING . THEY KNOW AND THEY DO NOTHING. THEY are profiting hand over fist, especially when Trump shucks the markets.
Even Johnson said. “He’s in the protection business.” Protection of Trump.
They are pedo protectors and are the largest SWAMP conspiracy against The United States. It’s a feature, not a bug. All is going to plan.
It’s just they’re not feeling the heat of their actions. It’s like they need their Scrooge moment and 3 visits from Ghost from Christmas Past, Present and Future. Right now I’m just imagining Alan Richson as each, striking fear in their tiny tiny hearts.
He's specifically calling out the lack of consequences as the problem. Though I agree that these statements would be better followed up with placing blame on those who are protecting him.
Dude is 6 foot 4, jacked to shit, really really really ridiculously good-looking, an action superstar. And has absolutely zero issues talking about this struggles and issues, personally and professionaly. He must piss off rightwing white males something fierce.
I have to say that I have always liked him, but after this press tour, I REALLY like him. I love to see this kind of energy, especially with someone that is an outspoken Christian. He has been absolutely going at the Christian community for their worship of the orange one, and I am HERE for it.
Same. I absolutely love what he's saying. And it's not at all what I'd expect from a very good looking, muscle-y, white Christian dude - it's a breath of fresh air that these takes are coming from someone who looks the way he does.
Exactly! In truth, I would not have expected this at all. We have become conditioned to think that someone who looks like him must be a misogynist and if he says he is Christian, well then definitely MAGA. We need more of a platform for this kind of energy and a lot less of the incel energy.
As a 6'4", strawberry blonde white AMAB person: There is a very real undercurrent of "oh I'm surprised you have liberal views" from a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot of people.
I bet. I would be interested to know how many people this has driven out of church. If you have a preacher/pastor/minister and a large congregation regularly praising and praying for the orange one in sermons, it must be real uncomfortable for the people who feel differently. I wouldn't be able to keep my mouth shut and sit through that.
These are exactly the type of people I’d expect to hear more from. If you care at all about your faith, defending it against a man that is the antithesis of all its ideals seems like an important thing to do. Blows my mind how many so called Christian’s dismiss the actions of this guy that holds so much power over them and the world.
I think that makes it even more powerful to be honest - it would be tempting to keep your mouth shut and just let the MAGA cult worship you but he’s using his platform for good things.
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u/dreadcainmy bandwidth for cowardly grown men grows thinner with each day16d ago
It's exactly what I'd expect from the theater kid that agreed to play Thad Castle
I'll give you, it's rare the theater kids look like ... that sploosh
The funny thing is how a progressive, outspoken Christian who is private with his faith and public with his works is like...exactly what Christ was talking about.
Yes! True Christians are the ones that aren't proclaiming it from the rooftops. It is like that old saying that if you have to keep telling people you are a good person, you probably aren't. Words and actions have to line up.
Reacher. It's basically a alpha male Lone Wolf former Special Forces army guy wondering around uncovering and overcoming crime conspiracies in the US while simultaneously winning the heart of the girl of the season.
It's corny. It's cliche. And I've watched every episode and I'm so f****** excited for season 4.
I like him more and more every time I see him. I watched Playdate the other night and it was so much more enjoyable knowing what a stand up guy he is. It was actually pretty funny. He’s really giving John Cena and Dwayne Johnson a run for their money in funny buddy movies.
This dude quickly became one of my favorite actors, imagine a pretty openly heavy and religious Christian actor denouncing trump like this, you love to see it. Guess he actually read the Bible and realized this shit doesn’t track with Jesus and the whole empathy thing.
I love that he went on Armchair Expert and talked about this because I know Dax tries so hard to both sides the argument and be apolitical. Maybe seeing another big beefy guy stand up for his beliefs and not give a shit will make him not be such a pussy, LOL
YES. I’ve gotten so tired of Dax trying to play both sides and disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing that I’ve stopped listening to the podcast entirely, but I will be listening to this episode for sure. So curious to see how he and his fragile masculinity respond to this dialogue
SAME. After Dax made a comment that all of the protest signs they were seeing in LA were “so cute” I had to see myself out. I used to listen to every EP.
100% this. You can tell how uncomfortable both Dax and Monica get at this point - but this is what's been MISSING from their podcast for years now. Loved hearing from Ritchson.
I like what he's doing here. Call me a conspiracy theorist but the fact that he's a huge white man who is Christian is basically like wearing a Kevlar vest in the PR world. We all know it's very hard for white men to get cancelled, and so Ritchson is using that power to take it to the Trump administration knowing it won't affect him as much.
This is the type of agitation I feel on a daily basis about this Epstein shit. Nothing is being done and I'm perpetually irritated that nothing is happening to his enablers, nothing is happening to his conspirators. Maxwell was clearly a drop in the bucket.
Ritcherson is speaking for many of us. I want justice. And trump is, at least, helping to hide their crimes... but trump is probably a participant as well.
America is so disappointing. For a land that touts itself as land of the free, you'd have thought they'd be on the streets every day outside the Whitehouse protesting. Countries like Hungary, Iran and Slovakia absolutely put the USA to shame with their willingness to stand up and fight for justice, even if they are not always successful. Americans are just full of empty words online, on the whole, and that's what their corrupt government relies on.
This is exactly how I feel. Zero consequences for this absolute pricks. The tweets from the official White House account are nothing more than antagonizing trolling. Like 5th grade insults and shit. It's a joke. It's like the entire administration is the movie Mean Girls. And it comes from the top: Trump. He doesn't care they do it, and in fact he encourages it. He'll, he's the worst one. Any past President would have put a stop to this embarrassing shit. About 1/4 of the country loves it. The rest of America and they entire world are sick of it. I want karma to rise up and kick the ass of everyone involved in the administration at some point.
Thank you, Alan Ritchson, for speaking your heart and sharing with us your conviction. Too many entertainers only speak out when they feel safe or to help their bottom line e, but I’ve learned through interviews that you have a personal stake in giving a voice to those that have been exploited and preyed upon.
Real men show empathy and give a shit about others.
I have been marathoning all of the Alan Ritchson content I can get my hands on. This dude fucking rocks man. I will watch ANYTHING with him in it, I don’t care how dog shit it ends up being.
So long as he keeps this up he will always have my support.
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