Far-Right Fictions: The Far Right and the Politics of Films, Series and Videogames, Vol. 32 - 2025, No. 3
Fictional Frontlines: A Mapping Review and Research Agenda for the Study of Far-right Engagement with Films, Television and Video Games
With audiovisual fiction still largely overlooked in recent literature on the far right, this article turns its attention to research dedicated to the intersections between the far right and films, television series and video games. Based on a mapping review, we first identify main trends in existing literature, finding that it is mainly focused on (1) history and memory, (2) far-right regimes, and (3) film, and is (4) largely based in humanities approaches. Building on this and on recent developments in the literature, we then propose four ways forward to ensure that future research on the far right and audiovisual fiction is more attuned to (1) the contemporary far right, (2) the heterogeneity that characterises the far right today, (3) the significance of series and games as additionally important forms audiovisual fiction and, (4) the specificities and complexities of far-engagement with audiovisual fiction in a digital context.
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The Extreme Right at the Movies: Fiction, Affect and Film Reviews
The extreme-right practice of reviewing mainstream films is an overlooked, yet central part of their communicational activities. To more fully grasp the ideological function and effect of this practice, it is fruitful to revisit some fundamental questions about why extreme-right actors produce and/or engage with cultural forms and objects such as fictional narratives. Drawing especially on Fredric Jameson, it is suggested that the production/appropriation of fictional narratives can be analysed as a production of ideological affects. Affects which, in practices such as film reviewing, might then come to flow from the fictional to the political realm.
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Disney Professor: Jordan Peterson’s Media Commentary as Far-right Mythopoesis
This article analyses Jordan Peterson’s video lectures about Disney films, which he uses to expound a theory of myth based on his 2002 book Maps of Meaning. This semiotic analysis of his lectures and YouTube media commentary focuses on how he constructs myths using visual-verbal metaphors, then positions himself in the centre of myth through visual media as the wise guide and conquering intellectual hero. This analysis shows his vision of myth supports reactionary politics. His mythopoetic commentary reshapes male supremacy as deep personal, semiotic and social meaning.
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Critiquing Audiovisual Fiction from the New Right: The German Far-right Podcast “Von Rechts Gelesen”
While a podcast reviewing popular culture is nothing out of the ordinary, the German podcast “Von rechts gelesen” (VRG—Read from the right) might appear unusual: It is a culture and literature podcast produced by a group of German far-right activists. Yet, the podcast is emblematic of the way far-right thinkers and activists have set their sights on popular culture to win over the “hearts and minds’ of the population at large. Focusing specifically on how the podcast both performs and reflects on metapolitics through discussing films, TV series and videos games, the article shows how audiovisual fiction serves as a canvas for the Neue Rechte to argue in favour of cultural homogeneity, warn of the dominance of an anti-nationalist liberal-capitalist ideology but also find (hidden) meanings that supposedly reveal an elite losing its grip. Indeed, in today’s world, where politics has moved online, and is not reflected in but rather happens through the world of popular culture, there are arguably few things as metapolitically meaningful as discussing audiovisual fiction.
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Respawning the Hero: Metapolitics, Historical Fiction Video Games and the Shifting Strategies and Subjectivities of Far-right Influencers
This article critically examines how far-right influencers engage with historical fiction video games to articulate far-right cultural imaginaries. Through a Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis of “Let's Play” videos and video essays, it explores how far-right influencers negotiate temporal imaginaries, antagonisms, and subject positions within platformed gaming content. Moving beyond existing work on reactionary politics in gamer culture, I draw on insights from game studies to highlight the unique character of games: spaces that enable the performance of nostalgic fantasies, particularly of heroism and civilisational struggle, whilst also imposing structural constraints disrupting these narratives. These moments of friction give way to ideological manoeuvring, as far-right influencers strategically shift between roles – transhistorical heroes, guardians of historical accuracy, aggrieved defenders of gamer culture – deploying discursive flexibility to navigate and exploit the affordances and constraints of their technological, narrative and pop cultural environments to propagate far-right worldviews. These shifting performances illuminate ontological anxieties and subject positions far-right ideology seeks to stabilise, and provoke broader reflections regarding how discourse is shaped by and responsive to its structural environment. I conclude by considering how attention to these dynamics might inform antifascist cultural counter-strategies through attunement to affective, playful and imaginative sites of struggle.
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If it Ain’t Woke, Don’t Fix It: The Revanchism of Bad Object (Anti)-fans
This article contributes to the understanding of fan dynamics and far-right politics by offering a theoretical framework to explain the transformation of fans into anti-fans/reactionaries. Through analysing the fan backlash against True Detective: Night Country and Rick and Morty after the original male creators were “replaced,” this article demonstrates how interaction with a bad object triggers fans to embrace revanchist nostalgia. These fans-turned-anti-fans seek to punish those involved in the supposed destruction of their beloved series while attempting to rebuild what it was before. By considering how these fans argue the series are only worthy of their fandom if they are written and produced by men, this article theorises that far-right fan activity illustrates how revanchist nostalgia unites anti-fans and transforms once-loyal viewers into vicious defenders of an imagined past if a series embraces diverse perspectives and/or distances themselves from their previous hypermasculine norms. This article underscores the ways in which (anti-)fan culture, audiovisual media consumption, and far-right ideologies intersect, revealing how reactionary fan responses are not merely focused on the content of the media but are rooted in maintaining ideological dominance and resisting progressive change.
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The “Right” Atmosphere: Audiovisual Material and the Far Right
This commentary, first, looks both back at the contributions to the Special Issue Far-right Fictions: The Far Right and the Politics of Films, Series and Videogames and forward by pointing to future avenues for research on uses of audiovisual fiction by the far right. This is followed, second, by a conceptual suggestion regarding the notion of “atmosphere”. The latter speaks to the contributions by further highlighting the relevance of thinking about audiences, with the commentary drawing on Lunt's media-/audience-oriented reading of Böhme’s conceptualisation of “atmosphere”.
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