Leigh Scott over at the conservative entertainment site Big Hollywood argues that Kick-Ass is the “quintessential” Libertarian film.  Scott has seen the film twice and asked his staff to all see it and through his second screening he pondered why he loved it so much.  And then it hit him:

And then, halfway through my second screening, it hit me. “Kick-Ass” may be the first truly Libertarian film I’ve ever seen.

Throughout his rant, Scott comments on everything from the Religious Right to Roger Ebert’s extreme dislike of the film.  For the latter he feels it’s Hit Girl’s role as an independent woman/young girl that’s truly offensive to Ebert.  Ebert praises the violence of Tarantino and as Scott points out gave two stars to Hounddog which shows a young girl around Hit Girl’s age being the victim.  So of course the only thing different is the characters independence.  It’s an interesting theory and not one I can necessarily agree or disagree with.  The only one that can answer that is Ebert himself.

But Scott’s main argument is that there is no gray in Kick-Ass.  The individual rules and takes matters into their own hands.  The good guys are good and the bad guys are bad.  To that I disagree.  The Red Mist enters a gray area at a point and the main character Kick-Ass ponders quitting for various reasons, again a gray area.  So this argument doesn’t quite hold up.

At one point, in a hilarious riff on the main theme of the “Spider-man” films, Kick-Ass states that “with no power, comes no responsibility.

Scott then takes the above quote and saying it’s a “central tenant of modern leftist thought.”  The problem is, he’s wrong.  The modern tenant leans more towards helping other individuals and not relying on the government as he claims.  Giving and volunteerism is a pillar of the Obama Presidency, a theme they sound over and over again.  It’s the right that decries this saying it’s socialism and indoctrination.  In an interesting study it found that religious beliefs play more into likelihood of giving to charity, not political party.

Scott does conclude with this:

At it’s thematic core, it’s about the struggle between good and evil, personal responsibility, and the importance of the individual. It is a solid, truthful message wrapped up in a morally questionable package.

Aren’t most comics this?  Captain America, Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, though they might have some angst at times they’re the good guys and they fight bad guys.  They are individuals who stood up to defend others.  So does that make all comics pro-Libertarian?