No, this isn't about the political situation in the USA because, let's face it, I have other problems. I just finished watching the excellent Arcane with my older son. And besides all the themes on family, love, loyalty and all that jazz I noticed that the second season towards the end pivots into three sides battling for the future of Piltover and mankind (including all those other races shown on screen, I assume) in general. You have the scrappy alliance of Piltover and Zhaun representing freedom (more or less). You have Viktor and his posthumanism. And then you have the fascist menace: Might makes right, strength is all that matters, also our goons wear masks to you don't see them as people but as a highly trained and unified fighting force. Which is probably what they see themselves as, the way they act.
It is a good story, with an immense amount of details and emotional depth. It doesn't hammer its points home. And that is probably what makes it effective. It never mentions fascism. It just shows thing being done. Has characters explain what they do. And you feel it's wrong.
I believe that is where antifascist media that don't come from _the left_ succeed. Of course, in a polarized society, there are those who will call anyone left of them radical and anyone right of them fascists. I'm not talking about online-shouty-people. I'm talking about the silent majority, the actual mid of society.
Coming from a farely left-leaning family I always felt that authors from the very left make for very bad storytellers, at least when and if they try to push an agenda. China Mieville may be the exception to the rule – although he doesn't really push an agenda so I don't know if he counts.
Good antifascism comes from the middle of society. Why? Because that's who you need in order to defeat fascism. You can have your crew of scrappy activists but if you speak that language of discourse, you're already losing the middle. What is good antifascist literature? One that respects what the middle has to loose. Three examples:
Krabat by Ottfried Preußler - a book taking place sometime in the 17th century, long before fascism was even invented. But it was written by that author as a way to deal with his own youth in Nazi-Germany. It's about the temptation of the easy way to power by evil means. And that love can and will conquer hate if given the chance. Excellent YA book.
Harry Potter - Rowling is by now a hated figure among a lot of people and I won't go into that debate here. The Harry Potter series is, however, starkly anti-fascist. The evil wizards always want to rule over those they deem inferior. You have bureaucrats who will gleefully support their cause once they gain power. It's these people who made fascism in Germany possible. Umbridge is the small public servant who uses a new system for evil and is probably more despicable than Voldemort ever was.
Lord of the Rings - while a lot of nerds kind of misread the text (yeah, the author has some racist ideas. Doesn't mean he was one of your kind), this epic has exactly three important messages to tell: Fascism is bad. Environmental destruction is bad. Friendship is the best damn thing we have to face horrible circumstances that fate and the times we live in may drop us in.
I would put Arcane in that list. Yeah you can go all-realistic, show the horrors of, say, Nazi-Germany. But that makes it very concrete and easy to mentally avoid. "That's Germany. In the 1930s. Not my place and time." If it's about teaching values that go beyond specific locales, I think fairytales and fantasy stories may be the better choice. And don't hammer the point home. Subtext is, after all, not just for cowards.
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