Long story short: Was listening to music, heard something vaguely sea-shanty-esque, and am now in a piratical* mood.
So, yeah, what's everyone's favorite (visual) pirate media?
Actually, although right now I'm in the mood for visual media, feel free to throw out any written/audio recommendations as well!
Cheers, and hope everyone is still having a good one!
* Good fucking word, by the way. Piratical is a Hall of Fame contender.
I only watched season one of Black Sails and thought it was pretty gritty depiction of pirates. I can't fully recommend it since I watched it in 2014 and I honestly don't know how woke it is, I do recall watching the entire first season so it can't be that bad. I would recommend you watch the first episode and see if it's your pace.
And not pirate themed but Master and Commander is just a great movie.
Black Sails is extremely woke.
SPOILER ALERT
First off, there is man-on-man kissing and romance that becomes central to the plot. Secondly, one of the Caribbean street whores turns out to be a Shakespeare-meets-Machiavelli-in-denial female genius. No formal education whatsoever to speak of, but she speaks like landed gentry. Third, one of the factions is led by a female 'who is every bit their equal, don't you even think about it'. And she will be there for the entire duration of the show, having some sort of rivalry of sorts with the Caribbean street whore. Fourth, one of the 'bad-arse' pirates in the show is a red-head female who can fight like the best of them. You're supposed to be intimidated by her, but in reality you just laugh.
There is also a slave revolt of some sort and a pact with a slave island that is needlessly deferential to a people that essentially hacked their way to freedom.
oof, I don't remember most of that. I wasn't going to go back and watch it but man, pre-gamergate me just didn't pay attention to that kind of stuff.
I do remember the man guy killing his left-hand man and the ship crashed and they're marooned at the end of the season and I didn't really care about what happened next and never bothered with the second season.
All true, but it was before wokewood spit in my eye, and I really liked watching John Silver turn from pissant conman to the diabolical absolute unit at the end. The little boy in me who read Treasure Island and went 'daymn' at the end of that was satisfied.
Much pointless drama was skipped though. If the scene didn't have Silver or Flint, I skipped it. Rackham's scenes were a coin toss.
rofl@Rackham. He looked so absolutely cringe. Cosplayer.
Clown, that was fun to watch when being a clown. When activist, skip.
I've also seen the first season. It was pretty good, although did have some not so great elements. Still thinking of rewatching it, as well as Crossbones.
Man, it is wild when you think about it, how so many cool settings are so underutilized. Why isn't there more pirate media? Why isn't there more western media? Or noir?
For all the modern hacks' love of rebooting, they always just plug it into what's currently already popular, but don't bother bringing back past genres, by and large.
Considering the state of modern entertainment, I suppose we should count that as a blessing...but it's still weird all the potential they've left by the wayside.
I think westerns would be a big hit, for example.
All three of those are examples of masculine male leads. So verboten today unless they can subvert it somehow.
If you really want to go down this rabbit hole, learn about the Rural Purge. https://infogalactic.com/info/Rural_purge
Short version: the American people liked westerns and spy shows, but the ruling pedowood class wanted suburban depravity, so they cancelled "everything with a tree" with zero care for what people actually wanted to watch. Ever wonder how Bewitched, I Dream of Scantily clad Genies, and Three's Company followed just a few short years after show like Happy days, Lassie, and Bonanza?
While pirates are not usually mentioned, it's no stretch to think they fell into the same grouping.
And yes, despite popular belief, Westerns never fell out of style. There was never an over-saturation point that people got tired of seeing them. The degenerates in pedowood just got tired of making them. Because there was an expectation of a masculine male lead, good vs evil, exemplification of freedom and self governance, etc.
The people always loved a good western because it exemplified American values. Pedowood hated them for the same reasons.
I think there's a decent amount of western films and shows being made. I'm not in the industry but I imagine as far as budget goes it's pretty cheap to make a western, remote settings, limited cast, little to no special effects, budget friendly armorer, very cost friendly to churn out by comparison to other genres.
Pirate and nautical has way more production cost and logistics. Again, I'm channeling my inner Cliff Clavin, but I think Pirates of the Caribbeans, like Marvel hero flicks, CoD, and Walking Dead, is so big and mainstream those trying to get in on the fad end up losing their asses because people in general don't care about genre, they just want something good with mainstream appeal.
What the fuck do I know, my media consumption consist mostly of 80s to early 2000s sitcoms. Oh, recently binged Love Boat, DO NOT binge the Love Boat! it has the same string background music and you end up getting the tetris effect. Other than that, what an easy turn off your brain, have it on in the background while you play work type of show.