Many Americans Cannot Go On Vacation, So They Play Video Games Instead

Image; مهدی بلوریان https://www.farsnews.ir/photo/13980606001205/

One of my favorite YouTube channels is Minecraft & Chill, where a calm British announcer describes what idealistic "seeds" a player can generate for the optimal playing experience. "Imagine if your Minecraft world had the perfect location for a castle, a cozy cabin, or even a secret village," the announcer says, tranquil music playing in the background.

Minecraft is "procedurally generated," meaning the world is entirely different whenever you load a new game. However, you can input a string of numbers called a seed to get a world with specific attributes. Minecraft & Chill is a channel that takes the guesswork out of finding a world to play in. The joy of the channel comes from imagining what kinds of bases you can build in these idyllic settings: what worlds you can travel to.

"It looks like a travel guide for people who cannot travel," my partner remarked one day as I watched it.

It's a comment that has stuck with me because I use video games as an outlet for travel, and when I look at my fellow gamers, I see many doing the same thing.

Travel can be expensive

I remember really wanting to travel during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. I was stuck in quarantine, repeating the same routine over and over again, and I wanted to get out of there. The hobby I retreated into to “scratch that travel itch” was video games. I played titles such as Inkle's brilliant 80 Days (2014) and Bethesda's less put-together Elder Scrolls Online (2014), which allowed me to simulate the experience of going to new, often fantastical locales.

Many Americans had the same itch because the lessening of COVID restrictions caused rates of travel to more or less return to pre-pandemic levels, and it's overwhelmingly leisure travel. Shannon Osaka wrote in The Washington Post in 2023: "…traveling for vacation and other leisure activities has increased to offset the number of meetings now occurring via Zoom and other platforms."

Yet, inflation has led many Americans to change the kinds of vacations they take, even as Americans' plans to travel have increased. A survey commissioned by Forbes shows that taking fewer trips, going on road trips instead of flights, traveling during the offseason, and staying at less luxurious accommodations are all “on the table” for many Americans as ways to cut expenses this travel season.

These budget strategies make sense, given that travel costs have decidedly increased over the years. According to the Consumer Price Index, airline tickets alone shot up by 25% last year. From the many fees adopted by airline companies (such as baggage fees) to the increase in food costs, it's simply more expensive to travel now.

In essence, the rise in travel costs has made vacations less glamorous as an act of necessity (unless you are rich, that is).

Video game prices are increasing as well—the cost of everything is rising in this capitalist hellscape. Game developers, like airlines and vacation rentals, are squeezing as many price hikes, fees, and additional transactions as they can, but the price of a virtual experience will always be less expensive than in-person travel. As Gieson Cacho writes in The Mercury News:

“Sometimes a European vacation isn’t in the cards. Budget constraints prevents that plane trip and lodging or family commitments means that one can’t leave home. When that happens, video games offer an answer. Many of them can transport players to a desired destination though it may not be a one-to-one reproduction. Some of those destinations may not be even real at all.”

If one cannot afford the costs of a "traditional" vacation, it makes sense that many people are taking virtual retreats instead.

Virtual travel can be more fun

Video games serve as a type of escapism. You can engross yourself in them far longer than your typical movie or even television show. A modern TV show has eight to twelve episodes per season. The Witcher 3 (2015) has 100+ hours of content.

The player's frame of reference is also different. Unlike a movie or show, where you are passively watching something from the viewpoint of a third-party observer, with a video game, you take on the frame as the person doing the action. You often are the person traveling and going on exciting adventures. "In just a few clicks," Amar Hussain argues in Nerd Bear, "you can be flying over mountains, traversing jungles, driving through the British countryside, or diving under the sea."

This trend has only intensified as video game developers have focused more and more on "immersion" in recent years, where the players feel like they are, at least in part, experiencing the fictional world of the game. As a result, video games make players feel at the center of this experience because that's what games are typically designed to do.

This is very different from real-life travel, which has increasingly become less fun. The lessening of COVID restrictions—and the subsidization of "cheap" travel by corporations and governments—has led to an overcrowding of traditional vacation spots. For example, one travel company's founder last year recommended not going to the typical Mediterranean hotspots, arguing:

“Not only because these top locales are overpriced, but they are overrun with Americans this year, compromising on the international flavor and ambiance you would ordinarily get in the Mediterranean.”

If you want to see the sights in real life, you will find them increasingly crowded with other Americans obscuring the view.

Additionally, even before the pandemic, there was a gentrifying element to travel where not only could a narrow slice of the population afford these Instagram-worthy vacation hotspots, but it inevitably changed the local landscape of the places where such vacationers were going. As Rebecca Jennings writes in Vox:

“In attempts to woo wealthy cool-seekers, developers design restaurants, hotels, and public spaces to look like facsimiles of the restaurants, hotels, and public spaces determined by Silicon Valley investors to be what cool people should want. A coffee shop in Beijing now can look the exact same as one in Buenos Aires and as one in your hometown. Our tourist dollars, after displacing innumerable families from neighborhoods they’ve occupied for generations, then turn those same neighborhoods into playgrounds specifically for us.”

Real-life travel contributes to displacement because capitalist firms value the housing and desires of vacationers over locals. You come for the "authentic" culture and, in the process, remove the people who make that culture possible.

But in a game, you don't have to worry about ethics at all — at least not directly. It's a simulated environment that allows you to "skip the line" for the best views, shops, and locales while not displacing real people in the process.

When society is this toxic, games' disconnection from the real world can arguably be read as a plus—at least, that’s what I used to tell myself.

A roaming conclusion

Out of a population of over 300 million people, only about 40 million flew outside of the US in 2023, and that is by no means a yearly occurrence for every one of those passengers. That's roughly 8% of the population. Traveling to glamorous locations is (and has historically been) a rich man's (or woman's) game.

On the other hand, video games are an activity for the masses. Most Americans play video games on a regular basis. If one survey by TechJury is to be believed, 60% of Americans play video games every day. In an age where mobile games are cheaper than ever, it's far easier to play a video game than plan that Instagram-worthy trip to Porto, Tokyo, or what have you.

And don’t get me wrong, I love video games and consider myself an avid gamer, but I do see a strange dysfunction with our collective retreat into said games. It's not something we are necessarily doing so frequently because we all hate travel and other in-person activities, but rather because they are becoming so unsustainable, harmful, and expensive that we are retreating to the fun (and atomization) of video games by default. People got really into gaming during the pandemic because their activities were limited, and finances, although not as all-encompassing for everyone as a plague, have created those same kinds of limitations for many.

I am glad that the era of “cheap” airplane travel is dying because it was never sustainable — either economically or financially — to lift and propel that many people into the atmosphere every day. Travel, as it’s currently structured, is wasteful and exploitative, and that is not okay.

Yet I do want to continue traveling, even if it's at a different level of opulence than our society has grown accustomed to. There are rituals that come with traveling that I enjoy, such as the joy of a friend showing you their favorite places or sharing your culture with others. There are people who I feel closer with because I visited them, and engaged in that exchange.

I worry that we will increasingly miss out on those experiences, and our only consolation prize will be a screen—one that we don’t necessarily like that much but certainly was on sale.

The Horror of Watching Our Generation Lose Itself to Covid

Photo by Tyler Nix on Unsplash; edited to include people shadows

June 18th was my birthday, and I spent it inside, taking care of my partner, who had contracted both COVID and pinkeye — two things that can be related in a minority of cases.

I had not tested positive, but I wanted to avoid spreading the virus to others, so about a week beforehand, we started isolating together, as my partner needed my help with care. This is not the current recommendation from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), which I have learned has stopped asking people to quarantine within 24 hours of symptoms improving overall. If a fever is present, it has to be eliminated without using a fever-reducing medication. Note: the person is still encouraged to mask, wash hands frequently, engage in social distancing, get tested, etc., for five days afterward.

This does not seem adequate to me as people can still be infectious even if they show no symptoms at all, and it was a recommendation that was widely criticized by many members of the medical community. Dr. Lara Jirmanus from the health watchdog group The People’s CDC told CBS News before the guidelines were released: “Frankly, there has been no change in the science. Most people continue to be shedding the virus for about nine days, with a range of six to 11 days.”

This conflict between the infectious period, as defined by the science, and the CDC’s recommendation for isolation made it very confusing as a layperson to determine how long my partner and I should quarantine.

The surprises kept coming when my partner consulted a virtual doctor and was told in no uncertain terms that he could go about his day. He asked if there were any precautions he should take, and she said no (something, again, the CDC does not recommend, as there are still precautions people should take five days after symptoms have lessened). He was still showing symptoms and could still spread it, yet that was the advice he was getting from a so-called expert—advice that was not even in line with the CDC’s recommendations.

The messaging on COVID is abysmal — truthfully, it has been for a while now — and I worry about the long-term effects that will come from all of this advice.

Sickness everywhere

A lot of my friends have been getting sick recently. I see them hacking and coughing at parties and coffee shops. I watch them rub their snot all over their hands without sanitizing them with disinfectant or soap. It’s quite heartbreaking to watch.

I have also been sick a lot. I wrote an article in April about how I got the sickest I had been in a while after traveling, and based on the many sick people I saw around me, it did not seem like an unusual occurrence. As I wrote in that article:

“The man to my left was coughing. A lot of people on the plane were coughing. I had a mask on, but he didn’t. A lot of people didn’t have masks. There wasn’t hand sanitizer in many places in the airport anymore, and passengers were not given it.”

We have created a culture where sickness is common. An analysis from Bloomberg News has found that infections for many diseases, not just Covid, have increased dramatically since the pandemic. According to the report: “Over 40 countries or territories have reported at least one infectious disease resurgence that’s 10-fold or more over their pre-pandemic baseline.”

In the US, these appear to be predominantly influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Many factors have contributed to this increase, climate change being a big one.

Yet, while not stated in that analysis, it cannot be ignored that cases of COVID-19 have routinely been noted to have long-term impacts on our immune systems. COVID may not have caused the death rate of the Black Death. However, its effects are still quite debilitating, and millions of Americans have contracted long Covid, which has been associated with a dizzying array of health problems.

• One study found that long-covid generated a “higher burden of disability than either heart disease or cancer,” with over 80 complications ranging from blood clots to fatigue. Note: this study was conducted before the vaccine rollout and the development of antiviral treatments for COVID-19.

• You may have heard that COVID-19 can reduce a person’s IQ. Even mild cases of COVID-19 can cause longstanding brain damage, such as memory loss and inflammation akin to “seven years of brain aging.”

• It can disrupt the blood-brain barrier, contributing to potential brain fog.

• Covid has been noted to generate a substantial inflammation response that can contribute to autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.

• It’s also can potentially trigger deadly cardiovascular and metabolic illnesses.

Generally, Americans are not taking the necessary precautions to prevent the spread of this debilitating illness—and given the confused messaging I have remarked on, it’s not surprising. The CDC stopped requiring that “hospitals report COVID admissions and occupancy data” back in April of 2024, and it seems to me like an effort to reduce panic. As Marianne Cooper and Maxim Voronov noted of our government’s response in Scientific American:

“If the COVID situation is tracked and the public warned, things don’t feel normal. But if we don’t monitor or mention it, then things can feel ‘back to normal’ — fine, even.”

As a result, many Americans have stopped testing for COVID-19 and have likewise stopped getting their boosters altogether. A study released last year showed that most eligible Americans did not get a booster in 2022, and we have no indication that 2023 was much better in this regard.

Yet the annoying part is that the rich and powerful know that this disease is disabling. According to Dr. Phillip Alvelda, in an interview with the Institute for New Economic Thinking, some of our most prestigious institutions have adopted robust protective measures against COVID-19. As she remarks on the White House’s current COVID prevention procedures:

“…the White House has maintained the very strictest abatements to protect people who live and work there from the virus: In order to enter the White House, they have to have had no symptoms for 14 days, the latest booster vaccinations up-to-date, and a negative rapid test. They have nine or better fresh air exchanges per hour and all filters are upgraded to MERV 13. They have also installed 220 nanometer Germicidal UV lamps. After a positive test, you have to have a PCR Test negative to return to work.”

And yet, that investment is only being made for some. My friends are getting sick. I am getting sick. We are being told to go about our days as if things are normal — to return to work — and yet our leaders clearly see a reason to apply a different standard for themselves. As Dr. Phillip Alvelda continues in that interview:

“Most people have had COVID three and a half times on average already. After another four years of the same pattern, if we don’t change course, most people in the U.S. will have some flavor of Long COVID of one sort or another.”

A sickening conclusion

I worry about what will happen to this generation. We have already witnessed so much misery that it is sometimes hard to believe that this wave of negligence is not normal. We should not have to accept an entire population getting a debilitating illness.

That is not what “acceptable” governance looks like.

Many people are talking about collapse in broad, sweeping terms (see Forget Collapse: Things May Be Like This Until You Die). They point to the spectacle of destruction: bombs dropping in nuclear armageddon or great storms tearing up our ecosystem. These stories show everyone’s standard of living evaporating after one tragic day.

But to me, collapse does not have to be so grand. Collapse often reads as neglect. A government so intractable that it cannot even begin to solve fundamental problems. A government that would rather watch its public whither and die than do a damn thing about it.

This Trans Femme Has Never Felt Part of The Sisterhood

This image was originally posted to Flickr by elements_of_this_world at https://flickr.com/photos/135717563@N05/32056333643 and modified to include a trans flag gradient.

I remember one of the first times I went into a female bathroom. It was in a library, and an older woman came in with a walker. She looked me up and down and then loudly asked if this was the women’s bathroom. I don’t know if she was being cruel or simply oblivious, but it made me feel like shit.

Since then, I have never felt comfortable in women’s spaces. Even as my hair and boobs grew out and people started referring to me as ma’am and miss, there was always a hesitancy I had: Am I femme enough?

Do I deserve to be here?

I see so many people calling me and my fellow trans peers sisters, but sometimes it’s hard to believe that these words are anything more than talk.

Can trans people be part of the sisterhood?

One of the stereotypes I grew up on is the idea of the “sisterhood.” I would see this camaraderie among some, though certainly not all, women in movies (and in real life, as I grew up with sisters). Women would go into the bathroom together to gossip and provide aid when men were unnecessarily cruel. They would counsel each other through the misogyny of modern society. There was a sense of care I witnessed, always from afar. As proclaimed by the Emerge Woman Magazine:

“Sisterhood refers to the bond created between women who share a deep sense of empathy, understanding and support for one another. It goes beyond biological or familial ties and encompasses a long-lasting, unconditional friendship characterized by mutual respect, trust, and loyalty. Sisterhood promotes unity among women encouraging them to uplift each other towards greatness.”

A naive part of me expected to be included in this bond once my transition became more “passable” (i.e., when I was more readily read as a femme), but I have never felt it. There is a chill in the air I feel around women: a nervousness that one false move or word will lead to my discrediting, to being gendered a man or even an “It”.

And part of that anxiety is mine — something I must continue to work through.

However, it’s also how this alleged sisterhood sometimes operates that makes me uncomfortable, particularly from the actions I see from my fellow white women. When I go into the women’s bathroom now, as I have done for years, I see a lot of cruelty in those conversations by the mirror: a camaraderie often built around tearing each other down.

The other day, I was at the gym, terrified that I was showing too much stubble and that my T-shirt was unwomanly, only to hear two femmes gossiping about the women around them. They said something to the effect that wearing tight clothing was unsightly. That one woman was not wearing a bra for the benefit of the men around her. I wondered, briefly, if they were talking about me. I had forgotten to wear a bra that day. I had decided to go to the gym anyway, telling myself that no one would care — that I was engaging in a nasty case of the spotlight effect.

But clearly, people notice when such deviations happen.

People comment on my appearance all the time. They point to me during dinners and afternoon walks. They whisper about me from across the room, wondering which box I fall into, which myth I satisfy. They tell me which bathroom to use and sometimes even disagree with themselves over it. And many of my worst critics are women.

I am not the only one who feels the sting of such comments. Many trans people describe the sense of urgency they have when it comes to learning how to maintain their appearance. As the trans video essayist Natalie Wynn remarked in her video Opulence: “…that pain basically spurred me to work on my glow-up like it was the cure for cancer, like my life depended on it, which is how it felt.”

To become a white trans sister, I often feel like this is the only option: to forgo my complaints and wants and cling to the white supremacist standard of beauty. To work on that glow-up, the hair, the voice, the body — to be the same.

That doesn’t feel like sisterhood as much as it does a type of death.

This marginalization is common

It would be a mistake, however, to attribute this sense of marginalization to just white trans women — by no means is it only our problem. All women at the margins feel it.

The Black feminist scholar bell hooks wrote an entire book on how white women marginalized Black women in “feminist” spaces. Her book title was itself a reference to a famous speech by Sojourner Truth, talking in part about how Black women were being excluded from the conversation of womanhood and feminism (see Ain’t I a Woman?). As she said in that speech in 1851:

“That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man — when I could get it — and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?”

It was a stunning condemnation of the racism in then-contemporary spaces that we remember to this day because it still resonates. Writing about the racist sexism she felt during second-wave feminism in her book, bell hooks noted that this sense of exclusion from white feminist women was often done under the banner of unity (i.e., what we could call sisterhood). White women feminists would attempt to talk about the problems of all women and inevitably exclude Black women in the process. As hooks writes:

“In most of their writing, the white American woman’s experience is made synonymous with the American woman’s experience. While it is in no way racist for any author to write a book exclusively about white women, it is fundamentally racist for books to be published that focus solely on the American white woman’s experience in which that experience is assumed to be the American woman’s experience.”

As we can see, women on the margins have been talking for a long time about the line where sisterhood begins and ends and how often some of the worst gatekeeping has come from their fellow “sisters” — a trend that is still very much alive in the present. In the words of Amber Wardell, Ph.D. in her 2024 essay Is “Sisterhood” What We Need?:

“…American women of all identities have been raised under white supremacy and patriarchy. Many of us have not done the necessary work to deconstruct these indoctrinated ideas. As a result, even exclusively female spaces cannot be entirely safe, especially for women with multiple interlocking marginalized identities. Indeed, women’s spaces are often replete with various -phobias and -isms that continue to make non-white, trans, queer, disabled, neurodiverse, or economically disadvantaged women feel unwelcome and misunderstood.”

It is hard to believe that such a sisterhood includes all women when often many “women” spaces exclude human differences in the name of “unity”.

An unsisterly conclusion

I don’t think the sisterhood has ever truly existed. The limiting nature of the sisterhood is not something uniquely part of my transgender experience but innate to patriarchy itself. The unity of sisterhood is not so much about liberation as it seems to be about conformity: about silencing those you disagree with and calling it peace.

Amber Wardell, Ph.D., mentions in her essay that true solidarity comes not in sisterhood but in coalitions, where different groups come together to achieve common goals.

“Coalition in the intersectional feminist movement focuses on the attainment of common objectives that center the needs of women with multiple marginalized identities, who are resisting oppression on multiple fronts. Understanding that women’s liberation is inextricably linked to racial, social, and class equality, coalitions forsake the futile pursuit of sisterhood and focus instead on dismantling all systems of oppression that affect women.”

These coalitions are fragile moments on the periphery where we are brave enough (and often maligned enough) to say yes, all women, all femmes belong here. We will not judge trans women, Black women, poor women, disabled women, fat women, immigrant women, and the many other multitudes of women that exist because we recognize that the only way forward is together.

It is the privileged — the rich, the white, the non-disabled, the cisgendered, the straight, etc.— who need to hold their judgment and ask if they would rather have their sisterhood or their coalition.

For they cannot have both.

The Star Trek Episode that Predicted the Future of Homelessness in the United States

Image; Edited Photo by Ivana Cajina on Unsplash with text and DS9 station image added.

City blocks that are filled with unhoused people. Laws against sleeping on the street. Intense militarization that keeps impoverished people in line so that they don't rebel.

Given the rise in unhoused people we have seen across the United States, this might sound like modern-day America, but I am describing the time-traveling two-parter Past Tense from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, in which Commander Benjamin 'Ben' Sisko (Avery Brooks) and his compatriots Doctor Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) and Lt. Cmdr. Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) find themselves in the "past"—what is to them 2024 America—only to be trapped in a concentration camp for the homeless.

At the time, it was written as a cautionary tale of what could happen if America let militarization and wealth inequality exacerbate, but as we have ignored these lessons, the 2024 of Star Trek and the 2024 of today are starting to look frighteningly similar.

This is America

When Past Tense was being made, this future was already much closer than some suspected. As the episodes were being filmed, showrunner Ira Steven Behr remarked on reading a story from the Los Angeles Times about how the city's then-Riordan Administration was planning to move the unhoused people of the day from the downtown to "an urban campground on a fenced lot in the city's core industrial area."

In many ways, this is unsurprising as the creators were not imagining the future as much as heightening the present reality. Writers Robert Hewitt Wolfe and Ira Steven Behr were allegedly inspired to co-write this episode based on their interactions with unhoused people. Wolfe telling Vox:

“My wife worked with homeless and mentally ill people as a psychotherapist. Ira [Steven Behr] said what convinced him to do the episodes was walking through Palisades Park in Santa Monica and seeing all the homeless people there. They’re still there. It hasn’t changed. We weren’t being predictive. We were just being observant.”

In Past Tense, it's this struggle with America's long criminalization of homelessness that takes center stage. Our leads — Benjamin Sisko and Julian Bashir — are immediately swept away to a "Sanctuary District" for allegedly sleeping on the street, which is illegal in this version of America. "There's a law against sleeping in the street," a cop (Dick Miller) instructs coldly before carting them off to a concentration camp.

Right away, there is an important similarity to current America that we need to point out. The legality of sleeping on the street may depend on where you live, but such a right is getting more tenuous every day. While the 2018 Ninth Circuit case Martin v. Boise ruled that a city cannot have an anti-camping ordinance without proper shelter for unhoused people—which is why many states and municipalities within that jurisdiction (e.g., California, Washington, Nevada, Oregon, etc.) have had much more visible homelessness in recent years— even these localities have tightened their restrictions.

For example, the city of Portland recently narrowed restrictions on street camping to make it, if not outright illegal, much, much more difficult. According to KPTV Portland, "…camping that blocks businesses, private property, or a public sidewalk will be banned." While violators will first be offered "diversion programs," mainly in an effort to avoid an ACLU-driven challenge under the pretext of Martin v. Boise, failure to comply will risk fines or jail time.

Theoretically, if the city does not have enough beds for the unhoused population, they can keep their camping area as long as it remains "tidy," but given the subjectivity of such a thing, an appeal to "sanitation" will undoubtedly be used to clear such camps in the future.

Other states outside the ninth circuit are under even fewer restrictions. Texas has banned camping on public lands. It's a felony to do so in Tennessee. Municipalities and states nationwide have passed or attempted to pass laws that limit camping and have also frequently cleared encampments.

However, the limited protections in Martin v. Boise seem to be at risk. The yet-to-be-determined Supreme Court case of City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson, would decide if governments could "arrest or fine people for sleeping outside when adequate shelter is not available." A ruling in the affirmative would mean that local localities can pass such restrictions with impunity—a likely scenario given the conservative nature of the current Supreme Court (something that may have already passed, depending on when you are reading this).

We are quickly heading to a reality in which what that guard said in the episode Present Tense is considered true: sleeping on the street will be illegal.

The racism and ableism of the housing system

Another similarity that should also be noted is the racism that Past Tense highlights within the homelessness system. It's not surprising that police officers sweep up the Black Ben Sisko and the Brown Julian Bashir, but the white-presenting Lt. Cmdr. Jadzia Dax avoids such scrutiny. This oversight metaphorically represents the racialized caste system so common in America. As Zack Handlen remarks in AV Club:

“…the ease with which Dax is able to get what she wants and move through the upper echelons of society, while Sisko and Bashir struggle to get breakfast, is telling.”

Although the data on the number of unhoused people in the United States is far less robust than many advocates would like, the information we do have reveals a racialized element. A Cornell-led study tracked the rate of homelessness from 2007 to 2017 and found that Black and Indigenous people were far more likely to experience homelessness. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness:

“African Americans make up 13 percent of the general population but more than 40 percent of the homeless population. Similarly, American Indians/Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, and people who identify as two or more races make up a disproportionate share of the homeless population.”

Likewise, there is also the fact that homelessness is impacted heavily by people's mental health. "Some of these people are mentally ill," Bashir remarks of the sanctuary residents, "They need major medical treatment."

Yet, as Commander Sisko notes, they often do not get it. Mental health has long been reported to impact housing (and vice versa). According to Deborah K. Padgett in the peer-reviewed BJPsych Bulletin, there is a dearth of psychiatrists who accept Medicaid (the most common type of insurance homeless people who have insurance are on), making "coverage virtually unattainable in many parts of the US."

Like the illegality of camping on the street, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine merely described the reality of the unhoused epidemic in America — one that has gotten worse over time.

The emergence of sanctuary districts

A significant difference in the episode is that although Captain Cisko talks about Sanctuary Districts being set up in every major city across America—i.e., designated zones where the government allows “non-criminal” unhoused people to live in squalid conditions —we are not presently there. We may give unhoused people few places to live, force them to clear out, and destroy their stuff when it becomes too "unsightly," but they are not yet confined to specific locations.

Although, don't be too optimistic; the tide has started to turn in that direction. Many cities are operating legal homeless camps, even as they ban outdoor camping in other areas, effectively making de facto sanctuary districts.

In Montana, where the state legislature is fiercely debating limiting homeless encampments, the county of Missoula has created a "Temporary Safe Outdoor Space," which aims to redirect residents to more permanent housing. The project’s aim is noble, but given the dual goal of making homelessness out of sight across the state, it’s easy to see a project like this get overburdened.

In Portland, Oregon, the city has pledged to build city-run homeless encampments while, as we have already established, limiting where "illegal" encampments can exist — something that threatens to overwhelm existing infrastructure.

In Austin, Texas, the state Department of Transportation has gifted a space off US Highway 183 to an emerging self-governing district called the Esperanza Community, which is already at capacity. It's, again, a wonderful idea that I am worried could be warped into something terrible, given that Texas has banned camping on public land.

In fact, an entire cottage industry has started to arise as businesses such as Sprung Structures market themselves to cities and states across the country to build such housing. A financially “viable alternative” considering that market limitations (i.e., landlords being unwilling to house people with challenging conditions at a reduced rate) make it difficult to find affordable housing in the "traditional" marketplace.

Commander Sisko may have been off about the exact date of Sanctuary District's ubiquity, but it's a future that very much seems on the horizon.

A grounded conclusion

The episode ends on a hopeful note—well, as hopeful as a dystopia can be, anyway.

In early September of this year, the Sanctuary residents riot over their mistreatment. They capture some guards, and the US government, like it so often does, overreacts, killing hundreds of unhoused people.

In the Star Trek universe, this inciting event allegedly led to a tide change in how America handles homelessness. "The riots will be one of the watershed events of the 21st century," Sisko monologues. "…Outrage over [the death of residents] will change public opinion about the sanctuaries. They'll be torn down. And the United States will finally start correcting the social problems it had struggled with for over 100 years."

It's difficult to tell if this prediction will come to pass. Science fiction is only a mirror of the present, not a crystal ball of the actual future. Sisko was talking about how the writers of the time believed we should solve this problem — a worthy lesson to consider.

"Eventually, people in this century will remember to care," Sisko says. I hope we have the courage to listen.

The Surprising Reason Pop Culture Monsters Are So Adorable

Image; Dad-wikimasters

The protagonist turns a corner, and there is a creature. Its jaws are extended, and rows upon rows of teeth are revealed that can bite down on our lead in an instant. An alien growl sends a shiver up our spines. We are confident their death is imminent, and then something happens: the monster closes their mouths, their face softens, and they look just so utterly adorable.

Pop culture is filled with so many cute and fuzzy monsters that we cannot help but love. Pikachu from Pokémon. Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon. All over the world, people's homes are filled with plushies, action figures, and body pillows of these adorable monsters.

Yet, it's not all positive. Our love for these creatures reflects a deep-seated bias within humanity that has far more wide-reaching consequences than what we decide to watch on the silver screen.

When they resemble pets

Pokémon (1997-present) is probably the most widely known show about monsters, yet its creatures are so cute that many forget that its name is a portmanteau of the words “pocket” and “monsters.” Our protagonist, Ash Ketchum (Rica Matsumoto/Veronica Taylor/Sarah Natochenny), is escorted by creatures who can erupt into flames, chuck objects into the stratosphere, and more, and those terrifying feats hardly register, given how adorable Pokémon are.

We mostly don't think of “Pocket Monsters” as monsters, and that's because they emulate our relationship with pets. Ash Ketchum hugs, feeds, and takes care of his terrifying little creature in the same way you would a cat or a dog. This brand mimics the relationship of animals humans already care for deeply (at least most of us), and so it makes sense that Pokémon would trigger an empathetic response.

Image; OLM Team Kato

Pokémon is far from the only property that does this. Most games and shows where you "collect" monsters replicate this dynamic (see Digimon, Ni No Kuni, etc.). Cute monsters are trainable and obedient, and terrifying monsters are not domesticated but wild.

We see this dichotomy represented in the anime My Daemon (2023), a world similar to Pokémon, albeit much darker, where monsters or "daemons" have overrun the world, and a narrow group of people can train them. Our lead, Kento (Miyuri Shimabukuro/Cassandra Lee Morris), owns a daemon called Anna (Kokoro Kikuchi/Cristina Vee) that, although covered with terrifying eyes and pink flesh, treats Kento with love and respect, never appearing to put him in danger.

Anna is cute.

Image; Igloo Studio

That is, except when she loses herself in rage over her desire to protect Kento. In these moments, she transforms into a terrifying, slender monstrosity with slanted eyes and wolf-like features.

Image; Igloo Studio

The scariest part is that she has no control over these moments. She becomes feral. I argue that this feralness causes Anna to shed her cuteness. She has moved from being a pet to a danger — to just a monster.

When we recognize their pain

Another way to hijack our empathy for monsters is to learn they need help. A common trope in media is for a creature to terrorize a locality, only for our hero to learn that the monster is lashing out because it is hurt. The source of their pain is usually a thorn, arrow, spear, or other prick-like object embedded into the monster's hide or flesh — something the creature cannot remove themselves.

An ancient version of this trope can be found in the Aesop tale of Androcles and the Lion, where an enslaved person has run away from his cruel master. He is hungry and alone in a forest when he hears a roar from a monster and tries to flee, but unfortunately, his foot gets stuck in a root. Androcles anticipates his death, but when a wild lion approaches, it begs him to remove a thorn from his paw.

Androcles empathizes with the lion’s pain because he is used to being harmed by his former enslaver. He removes the thorn, and the two become friends.

Yet, this pain we empathize with is not always physical. To return to My Daemon, in the episode A Tough Decision, there is a terrifying creature called Baron (Nobuyuki Kobushi) that resembles the parasitic creatures from the Metroid games. In most narratives, this is the type of creature you gun down for points.

Image; Igloo Studio

Yet, as viewers, we develop immense empathy for Baron because he's under the ownership of an abusive handler. We empathize with his pain as his owner shocks him into submission. He whimpers in a way we can understand, pity, and maybe even relate to.

The emotional pain of monsters we click with is not always theirs. Another common trope is to learn that a monster is only terrorizing an area to protect its offspring, whatever those may be. A modern example is the owlbear from the video game Baldur's Gate 3 (2023), who you discover after entering a cave and find that she is merely protecting and providing for her cub. While you can kill her (BG3 is an open-ended game that allows you to do many terrible things), it's not framed positively. If you don't kill her, other enemies will instead, and your character will remark on how the mother owlbear deserved better.

If we recognize a maternal instinct in a monster, our empathy for the creature seems to widen, especially for the babies it protects.

Image; Larian Studios

Yet again, feralness (i.e., the potential to harm people) often comes into play here. The Queen in the Alien movies is also protecting her children by sending out face-huggers to devour human hosts from the inside out, but that type of procreation is so foreign to how we perceive ourselves it's rare for it to earn our empathy.

It's also important to note that we must recognize the pain inflicted upon the creature or its offspring, which biases the verbal communication and body language we are used to. If the creature's expressions are unreadable, then we, as viewers, never get comfortable enough to empathize.

A great example of this is the alien invasion movie No One Will Save You (2023), in which protagonist Brynn (Kaitlyn Dever) and, consequently, the viewer have trouble deciphering the invaders’ intentions. There is an excellent scene in a hallway where the alien makes an obscure symbol, and I cannot tell what it means to this day. The whole point is that no one really can.

Image; 20th Century Studios; Star Thrower Entertainment

It is too unknown to be cute.

When they look like us (evolutionary speaking)

As we have alluded to, similarities with how humans act and, more importantly, look are a quick way for people to develop empathy with monsters. Most Pokémon, particularly the more popular ones, have wide eyes and mouths that more closely resemble humans. Whether you are looking at Pikachu or Dragonite, they have the ability to smile, laugh, and emote by saying their own name.

Image; OLM Team Kato

When creatures are depicted as having such expressions and vocalizations, it is much easier for us to develop empathy for them. It's not a coincidence that many fictional creatures that we consider "alien" and "evil," from the tentacled Mindflayers of Dungeons & Dragons to the frightening inter-dimensional aliens of The Mist (2007), resemble non-mammalian animals such as insects and octopuses.

Online, whenever these monsters are "cutified" by various artists, they usually superimpose large eyes and other facial features to make them more human-like. The Deviantart artist pokketmowse, for example, turns a menacing Dungeon & Dragons’ Beholder into something adorable by softening the skin, narrowing its frame, causing it to blush, adding eyelashes, and adding a smile—all mammalian features.

This idea of cuteness being related to mammalian traits doesn't just apply to fictional animals either. In environmental conservation, there is a concept known as "charismatic megafauna," a term given to creatures that humans identify with, such as lions, elephants, and gorillas. These animals often become the ones used at the center of conservation campaigns or, in the case of the giant panda with the World Wildlife Fund, the face of organizations.

Unsurprisingly, these creatures' "charisma" often relates to their human-like features. As written by Sutirtho Roy in Wildlife SOS:

“Anthropomorphism is defined as the tendency to attach human attributes to non-human (animal, plant or inanimate) matter. Often, the process is intuitive, leading us to attribute certain animal characteristics being similar to humans.

Size of the animal and its physical features are factors that prompt sensitive reactions from human beings. Charismatic animals therefore fit well into descriptive categories like “cute” or “cuddly” because of large and forward-facing eyes, delicate and infantile features and fuzzy, round faces among others.”

This overidentification with such animals is not always good, as it leads to our neglect of creatures such as snakes and insects that do not have these features but may still be vital to a particular ecosystem.

This is why some environmental groups have attempted to switch over to the language of “habitat protection” rather than focusing on individual animals, as our tendency to bias "cuteness" can sometimes get in the way.

This a more pressing problem that pertains to more than just fictional monsters.

A monstrous conclusion

For as long as humans have had stories, there have been demons, terrors, and other monsters. Creatures that stab, maim, and kill humans from the darkness and illicit a sense of panic that causes us to want to retreat into ourselves.

And for just as long, some of these monsters are creatures we can empathize with — animals that resemble our pets, parents, and caregivers. Creatures who wear smiles and make sounds we can relate to on a human level.

However, this sense of empathy is not universal. We tend to bias creatures that act like us, feel and express emotions in the same ways as us, and are often mammalian, just like us.

Fiction is a tool that, at its best, can expand our empathy for different people, scenarios, animals, and even things. I hope to see our anthropomorphism combated more in future stories. With the environment at risk from our own activity, there is far more at stake than simply what creatures we shriek at on the silver screen.

Doctor Who Gave Us A Trans Villain We Can Stand Behind

Image; BBC

When we first meet Maestro (Jinkx Monsoon) in The Devil's Chord, they burst energetically out of the hood of a piano fully at an 11 out of 10. Everything about them is over-the-top. They are an otherworldly being personifying music itself, and they love the tones created by nuclear armageddon most of all.

It's obvious that the Maestro must be stopped — they are the villain, after all. Our heroes, the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and his companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson), spend the rest of the episode trying to defeat a villain propelled not by shame or stigmatization but by an unabashed confidence in their desires and wants—a characterization that is rare in trans media, even today.

The trope of trans villainy

Hollywood has a long history of demonizing queer people, particularly gender "deviant" people. Sitcoms ranging from The Jeffersons (1975-1985) to The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1957-1960) have long played gender nonconformity for laughs, and you don't have to look too much to find downright villainous portrayals.

For example, the infamous Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho (1960) centers on such "deviancy" as a plot twist. The entire film focuses on the murders happening at the infamous Bates Motel. The viewer is led to believe that the mother of the motel proprietor is somehow responsible, but you ultimately learn that she is dead.

Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) has been cross-dressing as her as the result of an alleged mental breakdown. His gender nonconformity is quite deadly.

This legacy relates to The Motion Picture Production or "Hay's" Code (1934-1968) and The Code of Practices for Television Broadcasters (1952-1983), which validated society's anti-queer norms by demonizing LGBTQ+ representation in media. While transness was not referenced directly, the Hay's Code insisted on films portraying the "correct standards of life." The Television Code was more explicit, saying that "criminality," which gender nonconformity was at the time, "shall be presented as undesirable and unsympathetic."

And even when these codes were repealed, this negative stereotype lingered.

For the longest time, the go-to association for a trans person was the serial killer Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine) from The Silence of the Lambs (1991), who was skinning women alive to create a body suit in order to, as actress Jen Richards remarks in the documentary Disclosure (2020), "appropriate the female form." Before that, there was the murderous Angela Baker (Felissa Rose) in Sleepaway Camp (1983) or the vindictive Dr. Robert Elliott (Michael Caine) in Dressed to Kill (1980).

Trans characters should be allowed to be villains — trying to make trans characters positive all the time is equally problematic — but their gender dysphoria shouldn't cause their villainy. That paints the unhelpful association that being trans causes people to be "bad."

There are still transphobic films that get made that fall within the trope of trans villainy, but they are not as common in the present moment, and new tropes are thankfully being built in their stead.

The breaking of the trope

As we have started to move past this antiquated vision of trans villainy, the way trans villains have been depicted has started to become more multifaceted.

A great early example of this is The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), with the vicious alien scientist Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry). While the film was undoubtedly constrained by the norms of the time, there is more empathy for Frank-N-Furter than we see in prior and even many future portrayals of gender nonconformity. When they die at the hands of their former allies Riff Raff (Richard O'Brien) and Magenta (Patricia Quinn), it is played as something the audience should feel sad about — not something to laugh at or applaud.

Mr. Robot (2015–2019) is another more modern example of this three-dimensionality. As the leader of the Dark Army terrorist group, the trans character Whiterose (BD Wong) is brutal in enacting her vision for world domination. She serves as one of the show's primary antagonists, but her actions are driven out of a more philosophical aim to make the world better than out of some innate depravity.

Yet both these examples, although multifaceted, are rooted in the shame that comes with society's rejection of queer people. Frank-N-Furter does not feel like they belong anywhere in the universe, melancholically singing how they feel unease wherever they go (see the song I'm Going Home).

Likewise, Whiterose is driven by a desire to assert herself in a world that hates her. She has been closeted her entire life because she does not think it's possible to assert her identity and hold onto power at the same time. Whiterose has used her vast fortune to invest in a magical type of fringe science that will allegedly remake reality into something not so terrible.

Maestro is different from these portrayals in the sense that they are not of this world. Born outside the universe, they are a queer writer's imagination of what queer evil would be like untethered from the taboos of modern society. When Maestro is first introduced in 1925, a man misgenders them, and they confidently correct him, unbothered by the potential backlash that could ensue.

"I'm them," they explain, bored by the man's very presence.

There is no shame surrounding Maestro's portrayal. Although they may be homicidal and dastardly, they know who they are and do not care about our society's conventions.

In fact, they break them. Maestro steals music from all of humanity for their own selfish desires, and I couldn't be happier to see it (on-screen).

A disconcordant conclusion

Of course, it's impossible to write a character who is truly detached from the norms of our society, as the writer who births them is inevitably very much attached to such things. We are always implicitly discussing the present, even when focused on the fictional past.

Yet it's interesting to see the outline of what transness can look like detached from shame. We talk about pride so much within the queer community. It was a necessary defense mechanism in response to a society that shamed queer people into oblivion.

In Maestro, I see the next step: the glimpses of a world without shame — nuclear apocalypses and all.

The Case for Queer People to Talk About Sexual Violence

Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

I remember my first sexual encounter was with a man (let’s call him A) in high school. We played hooky during gym class and made our way to the men's bathroom (this was before I transitioned). I didn't know what I was doing and was very uncomfortable doing it, but A insisted. He brought me to the bathroom stall and f@cked me raw. Talk of condoms was never mentioned. Nor testing or consent. He pushed into me for several minutes before we were interrupted by a student walking in.

I don't remember how the sex went. I do remember walking home later that day, telling myself over and over again that it wasn't rape. I had wanted to be there at first, I reasoned. I had not stopped it. Worse, I had sat there lifelessly to the point where he remarked how still I was.

How could I have been raped when I did nothing?

I remember crying in the bathroom shower at home as I washed away the blood from my body. I told no one what happened. It took me years to be honest with the assault, and even as I went to therapy and started taking medication, I was deeply uncomfortable with sex, always believing I was one hookup away from someone hurting me.

Recently, I have started talking about my assault, and it's been liberating. I can have sex again, and it's opened up space within me that I didn't think was possible. In fact, I wrote an entire book where one of the main characters experiences sexual assault, and I am not afraid to admit that it draws heavily from personal experience. (See The Bubble We're In.)

The shame and guilt I have felt has dissipated, and I want to make the case for such vulnerability in the queer community, where we normalize talking and listening about our experiences with sexual violence as a means of strength.

The stigma surrounding sexual harassment and assault

In general, it's tough for people to talk about sexual assault and harassment for a variety of reasons. Researchers in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS One have found that sexual-violence stories, either negative or positive, are generally perceived as more challenging to share than other tragedies and less likely to be shared.

One of the reasons for this is internal or a person's self-image. Academics in the peer-reviewed Violence Against Women Journal found that self-stigma from sexual violence victims can correlate with "increased levels of trauma symptom severity."

There is also the social stigma that comes from being believed (or not) by your support network, which has been noted to have a huge impact on your self-image. As summarized in that Violence Against Women Journal article: "Considering self-blame, if a survivor's social network responds by blaming her for the assault, self-blame is greater than if she is not blamed by her support network."

Finally, there are cultural stereotypes that make being believed more difficult. For example, there is an infamous stereotype that someone sexually harassed or assaulted is to be blamed for their assault if they wear "revealing" clothing, have a "promiscuous" pattern of behavior, and other such actions.

All of these lenses intersect, as cultural and subcultural norms can influence in-group norms (and vice versa), which impacts one's self-image.

With LGBTQ+ people, there is the added wrinkle of anti-queer opponents often linking us to sexual abuse. There is a malicious conspiracy theory, popularly proposed by conservatives going back decades, that being sexually assaulted is what made us queer in the first place. Anti-gay advocate Joseph Nicolosi is noted for saying in 2009: "If you traumatize a child in a particular way, you will create a homosexual condition." Some may not wish to be open about their experiences for fear of validating such odious myths or being discredited because of them.

There is also the moral panic of us being called groomers, where many modern-day conservatives believe queerness to be inherently linked to pedophilia (see I'm Trans & Society Removed My Comfort Around Children). We do "not reproduce, but must recruit," goes the infamous bigoted saying, and in an effort to downplay the Groomer Conspiracy Myth, some may downplay their experiences of sexual violence altogether.

And so many queer people often have a hard time talking about sexual assault and harassment, with underreporting being quite common, particularly with queer students. The systemic biases queer people face intersect with the already stigmatized nature of sexual assault to make it less likely that queer people will report anything.

Helping to preserve communities of healing

Yet, as queer people, we don't have the luxury of hiding or being withdrawn, no matter how much society conditions us to do so. We are more vulnerable to sexual assault and harassment than our straight and cisgendered peers by a significant margin, especially when we focus on bisexual people and other less accepted sexual orientations and gender identities: something that compounds with race, sex, and class. According to the Bureau of Justice, for example:

“The violent victimization rate for bisexual females (151.2 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 16 or older) was eight times the rate for straight females.”

This problem is serious and well-documented. We need to help each other here, and talking about our bad sexual experiences (and, more importantly, listening to the experiences of others) is part of how we bridge that gap. The American Psychological Association has a formal guide for psychologists on how to deal with patients who have experienced sexual assault, and one of the most important things is providing a space free from judgment, writing:

“So far, the data suggest that survivors often receive mixed reactions in their informal support networks…Family and significant others were particularly likely to issue ultimatums to the survivor about getting formal help and to get frustrated if the survivor did not...

…survivors delay telling others because they fear being blamed for the assault and because they don’t want to burden others. Some worry that if they tell family members, they might react violently against the offender.”

Fostering an environment where we accept people's stories is a type of care that not many automatically receive. It's a lesson for all of us to pause when our family members, friends, peers, and loved ones tell us heavy news and to listen before we respond.

Yet it cannot just be about talking and listening: awareness and empathy are only a tiny part of the battle.

We also need to materially support communities of care that provide resources for those who have experienced sexual assault and harassment. When I wrote The Bubble We're In, I tried to make the main character, Sebastián, neither a victim nor a survivor. The event is part of him, but it's only a part of him — one he processes through community. He attends a community therapy session at a local LGBTQ+ Center, which helps him begin to heal.

It's a touching scene, but it's also increasingly a fantasy. Unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer of these spaces in modern America. Some have closed down due to the moral panic we are currently experiencing. From Texas to Florida, LGBTQ+ centers in schools all across the country have been shut down.

Others are undergoing financial problems. The Milwaukee LGBT Community Center, for example, never quite recovered from the recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The William Way LGBT Center in Philadelphia has had its funding slashed multiple times over the last year.

And listen, charities should not be seen as the ultimate solution, and not all of the people who run them are good at their jobs. I live in the Washington, D.C. area, and infamously, an LGBTQ+ Shelter here, Casa Ruby, was so mismanaged that the city cut all funding, and its owner is currently facing legal troubles for diverting funds meant for the nonprofit into her personal account.

We need to be critical of these services as well (and shut them down when they fail us), but that doesn't change the fact that something needs to fill these gaps. Our community is already strapped for cash, and many of us cannot afford the United States' expensive and overburdened mental health system. These centers are a lifeline, and many are quite threatened this pride season.

A prideful conclusion

There is a reason pride in ourselves became a rallying call within the queer community. Society immersed us in shame, and as a defense mechanism, queer activists got loud about it. As one organizer of this movement remarked in an interview with The Allusionist in 2015:

“People did not have power then; even now, we only have some. But anyone can have pride in themselves, and that would make them happier as people, and produce the movement likely to produce change.”

Yet sometimes, it feels like pride has morphed into a dangerous form of respectability politics, where we only feel proud to uplift the good parts of the community: the queers with talent, awards, money, and accolades. The times our community produces joyous art and “civil” acts of resistance—the positive experiences and nothing else.

However, part of having pride involves being comfortable with all of ourselves. If we are proud of the people we have become and are becoming, we should be allowed to talk about all the experiences that have shaped us — both the good and the bad.

I was sexually assaulted.

It happened, and I see my ability to talk about it as a means of survival and strength. I got through it because I was able to chat about it with loved ones, friends, and professionals, and I want others to have the same opportunity. We should want to make space for queers who are processing the all-too-common trauma of sexual assault and harassment, and when it comes to on-the-ground aid in our communities, the money and resources are often just not there.

This pride, in between the parades and parties, I beg you to donate to your local queer community center, LGBT sex workers coop, or any other community-run initiative working for us and by us. We are the ones that must protect each other.

Doctor Who Tried (And Failed) To Save White Supremacists — Should It Have?

Image; BBC

Doctor Who (1963—present) is about a person, well, a Time Lord, traveling through time and space. He is an adventurer who saves humans in peril from alien foes, and a typical episode can take the viewer anywhere from the distant past to contemporary Britain to our space-faring future.

In the episode Dot and Bubble (2024), he travels to the moon of FineTime — a party planet where rich socialites only have to work two hours a day and then spend the rest of their time partying in virtual reality. They do not interact with people directly; instead, they see the world through a curated chat bubble of close friends and subscribers.

There, he encounters a civilization rooted in white supremacy, and we are left wondering if they are even worth saving.

The racism of FineTime

To the keen observer, you recognize the white supremacy of this society almost immediately. Everyone there is white. Characters are surrounded by images of their friends at all times, and there is not a single person of color in sight.

At first, one might be mistaken in believing that this is simply structural racism (i.e., when a society's systems uphold racism, irrespective of the opinions of any one individual). The main character for the episode, Lindy Pepper-Bean (Callie Cooke), makes it quite clear that only rich people are allowed on FineTime. Wealthy people are often white, especially when portrayed in media, and so if you are the type of person who is not unsettled by default white spaces, this portrayal might not phase you at all.

Yet the racism of Lindy seeps in immediately. Her moon is secretly under attack by insect-like aliens. When the Doctor, played this season by Black and queer superstar Ncuti Gatwa, tries to help her via virtual messages, she immediately ignores him. She does not ignore, however, his white, blonde-haired companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson), who gets a begrudging Lindy to talk to the Doctor. When she first does this, after attempting to block him multiple times, Lindy initially thinks he is a different person from the one she blocked because, unstated, all Black people look alike to her. She spends the rest of the episode disparaging the Doctor, including telling her friends that "he's not as stupid as he looks."

Her racism is stated explicitly at the end of the episode when Lindy meets the Doctor in person, and she rejects his offer of taking her and her friends off-world via his spaceship.

"We couldn't travel with you," she states coldly. "Because you, sir, are not one of us. I mean, you were kind. Although it was your duty to save me. Obviously. I mean screen-to-screen contact is just about acceptable, but in person? That's impossible."

Instead, she opts to go into the wilderness in an attempt to restart FineTime society. As one character remarks on their plan: "…we can go out there to this planet. And we can fight it and tame it and own it. We'll be pioneers. Just like our ancestors."

They are effectively attempting to restart the horror of their racist, settler-colonial society somewhere else, and as their boat embarks, my hopes for success are not with them.

The racist trolly problem

This twist is interesting because we, as the viewers, have been watching Lindy fight for survival against the alien invasion the entire episode. She serves as our point of view character and where our empathy is briefly placed. But by this moment in the episode, we are no longer rooting for her because we now know she and her entire society are rooted in a vile form of white supremacy.

And yet the Doctor pleads for her to still come with him, saying: "I don't care what you think. Okay? You can say whatever you want. You can think absolutely anything. I will do anything if you just allow me to save your lives."

They scoff at his aid, calling his vastly superior spaceship, the TARDIS, "voodoo." They then go off into the woods, where their lack of survival skills spells almost certain death for them.

On a character level, you can argue that the Doctor has a soft spot for people facing extinction. He is the last of his kind—a people that were quite imperialist in their own right. This history has colored his psychology, causing him to empathetically fight for the preservation of even the most monstrous of creatures. An earlier episode had the Doctor trying to save a murderous booger monster (see Space Babies). He is, of course, going to try to save a person whose entire species is teetering on extinction.

There is further the argument that a person engaged in rescue operations, which the Doctor is, should not pick and choose who they save. We do not ask firefighters to assess someone's ethics and morality before saving them from a fire, and there is good reason for that. It would lead to a whole lot of discarded people — though given the hierarchies embedded within our society, you can argue that that selection already happens (see I Was a Firefighter for 35 Years. Racism Today Is as Bad as Ever).

If the Doctor were to succeed here in helping the survivors of FineTime (and he does fail), I shudder to think of what future he might have helped build. Lindy has made no personal changes in the slightest. In fact, in a bid to survive the alien invasion, she kills off the only “Good White Guy” who might have been able to see past his own hierarchical thinking. If the Doctor helps Lindy and her friends survive, he will likely increase the likelihood that this white supremacist society will survive.

The episode creates a kind of racist trolly problem (i.e., in reference to a philosophical thought experiment where you are asked to choose which group of people a trolly will run over), where we are left to contemplate whether we should help those we consider despicable, even if they don't want our help. If a white supremacist is in trouble, do you try to help them, or do you let them die in the hope it builds a better world?

For the Doctor, the answer is clearly the prior, to help them, but because his aid is rejected, we are left wondering if his decision was the correct one. Given that the residents of FineTime would rather die than receive his help, you can make the strong argument that this question doesn't even matter.

A wibbly, wobbly conclusion

As Lindy's boat is departing in a desperate attempt to restart her supremacist civilization, I think of what I would have done at that moment. I am not sure I would been nearly as kind as the Doctor, and that's interesting because, in many ways, I am the future descendant of the people on that boat — at least metaphorically. My ancestors were white supremacists who "pioneered" (i.e., genocided) a land in the name of progress: a land we popularly call the United States of America.

I think of all the pain my ancestors caused: the cultures and languages lost, the lives destroyed, the environments altered for the worse.

I think of the pain we are still causing.

There is a tendency of "reformed" colonizers to over-identify with current oppressors in an attempt to "save them" from themselves. We all like to think that we can talk our racist friends, parents, or grandparents off that boat, and Doctor Who's Dot and Bubble makes clear that that's impossible.

Lindy is not going to be saved, nor does she want to be. She wants her racist society, FineTime, to live on forever, and maybe we should stop trying to save people like her.

They clearly would rather die in their own bubbles than listen.

Are Elections Truly Democratic or Just an Illusion?

Photo by Janine Robinson on Unsplash

I will start this article—like I do most ones about elections—by saying that you should vote during this upcoming election if you want to. Elections take, at most, only a couple of hours, one or two days a year. A far more significant barrier is that for the states that don't have automatic registration, your name has been removed from the rolls before you vote (so please ensure you are properly registered before voting).

That said, I have shifted my opinion on how I perceive elections. They are less a forum where all ideas can have their day and more like a jousting match, where candidates—and the rich backing them—gauge applause (i.e., votes) to see the best way to rule. While I think it's fine to participate in that ritual, these jousting matches are not democratic in the sense that the public has a say in policy.

Instead, they are a form of consensus-building among elites purposefully used to insulate their rule from the will of the majority.

A brief recount of the elitist origins of elections

My position may sound confusing because elections (i.e., where people vote, often via ballot, to choose a representative or other public official) are often seen as synonymous with democracy. David Van Reybrouck mentions in his book Against Elections how we have all become electoral fundamentalists, writing:

“Electoral fundamentalism is an unshakeable belief in the idea that democracy is inconceivable without elections, and elections are a necessary and fundamental precondition when speaking of democracy. Electoral fundamentalists refuse to regard elections as a means of taking part in democracy, seeing them instead as an end in themselves, as a holy doctrine with an intrinsic, inalienable value.”

And yet, when founding fathers such as James Madison argued for elections, which at the time were rare in Europe except for maybe the election of the Pope, they were doing so because they thought such a process would have explicit political outcomes. Madison, in particular, feared both minority and majority control, writing in Federalist Paper 51: "If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure."

As a result of this concern, America created institutions such as the Senate (i.e., a chamber in the US legislature where each state has two representatives) and the Electoral College (i.e., a method of electing the president that tends to inflate votes from less populous states) to insulate American leaders, at the time often composed of the slave-owning elite, from the majority's will. As a result, we now regularly elect presidents and congressional bodies that are not representative of what most Americans want.

This anti-public, pro-elite bias becomes even more transparent when you look at the anthropological roots of elections. David Graeber and David Wengrow mention this tension in The Dawn of Everything, writing:

“The political philosophers of later Greek cities did not actually consider elections a democratic way of selecting candidates for public office at all. The democratic method was sortition, or lottery, much like modern jury duty. Elections were assumed to belong to the aristocratic mode (aristocracy meaning ‘rule of the best’), allowing commoners — much like the retainers in an old-fashioned, heroic aristocracy — to decide who among the well born should be considered best of all; and well born, in this context, simply meant all those who could afford to spend much of their time playing at politics.”

We spend so much time in our society heralding the democratic virtue of elections, but as we can see, elections were never intended to be democratic. They were always a tool used by elites to control the masses.

Elections are still for elites

When we talk about "reforming democracy," we ignore this history, often instead focusing on narrow electoral reforms: e.g., abolishing the electoral college, automatic voter registration, mandating everyone vote, changing how ballots are cast via Ranked Choice or Approval, etc. It's always about shifting electoral procedure and never whether we should select another democratic method entirely.

However, we have been experimenting with elections for over a century, and many countries have implemented these reforms, but it hasn't lessened the central problem with elections. Australia mandates voting for all its citizens, and corruption and declining trust in government are still the norm. California was the first state to adopt automatic registration, which did not significantly affect public trust. The world over has likewise adopted "secret ballots" (i.e., the voter's identity is not revealed to the public), and it has not lessened the crisis of modern democracy.

Why is this?

Graeber and Wengrow theorize that there are three ways to gather power: a right to violence, control of information, and charisma. Elections are about this last point, i.e., selecting charismatic leaders. These are people who have the training, skills, knowledge, and social capital to get other people to like them, and that leads to potential moral hazards. As the two anthropologists write:

“…it is worth recalling that ancient Greek writers were well aware of the tendency for elections to throw up charismatic leaders with tyrannical pretensions. This is why they considered elections an aristocratic mode of political appointment, quite at odds with democratic principles...

With elections, the inherent focus on likeability leads to an unstated focus on selecting individuals with privilege because those are the ones who generally can afford to acquire such skills and/or are awarded for them. It's not a coincidence that many people deemed "worthy" of electoral leadership come from wealthy backgrounds, receive prestigious schooling, or, often, both. This fact is evident in America, where over half of the people elected to the Senate and House are millionaires, and a not-so-insignificant amount have attended prestigious universities. These politicians also usually need significant investment to even run a campaign (we are talking potentially millions or billions of dollars), which often beholden them to more wealthy interests.

Yet it's hard not to find a part of the world where this focus on the privileged isn't the case with electoral politics.

• In South Korea, the Citizens' Coalition for Economic Justice estimated recently that the average wealth of lawmakers was 3.33 billion won or $2.44 million USD per person (note: this includes real estate and securities assets).

• In the UK, it's hard to acquire this estimate as members of Parliament are not required to disclose their personal financial information to the House of Commons, but given the rampant wealth accumulation by those in the Tory party, we can speculate that it is significant (note: current prime minister Rishi Sunak has a net worth of over 600 million pounds or north of 800 million USD).

• In India, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) found in 2022 that the upper (Rajya Sabha) and lower (Lok Sabha) houses of Parliament possessed, on average, ₹20.47 core (over $2 million) and ₹79.54 crore ($9 million), respectively.

• In France, the pathway to power in government often involved attending the recently closed (circa 2021) grande école (ENA), which schooled four French presidents, including Emmanuel Macron.

Furthermore, individual concentration of capital is not the only issue. There are also concerns about nepotism and cronyism, where charismatic people in power tend to give preferential treatment to their friends and family. This is a problem in even countries known for their functioning democratic institutions.

When we look at the Scandinavian social democracy of Norway, for example, there has been a well-documented culture of giving, receiving or asking for bribes. Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store has received steady criticism for appointing personal friend Jens Stoltenberg to a high-profile NATO position. Former Prime Minister Erna Solberg has long been suspected of assisting her husband with stock trades.

As we can see, this focus on the privileged in politics is not because of Citizens United (i.e., campaign finance laws), the Electoral College, or whatever your US-specific justification might be, but a more general trend found in most electoral democracies. Elections tend to prioritize the privileged, with even self-proclaimed socialist politicians often being quite wealthy themselves.

If someone manages to get elected who is both working-class and has not received elite schooling, they are navigating against a system not meant for them. Many such politicians struggle to swim upstream and either get gobbled up by established interests to keep their power or quickly lose pace and become one-term candidates.

Politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is an excellent example of this. She entered office as a disruptive influence, but as her tenure matured, she quickly softened her approach to be slightly left of the (American) center. Some of this was undoubtedly due to the pressures she faced from Democratic Leadership, as it's widely speculated that the party establishment wished to gerrymander her out of her district following her upstart victory in 2018.

Despite the rhetoric we often hear, this system is not designed for the common man or woman to enter office, and elections are a huge reason why.

How to engage in true democracy

The natural question becomes, if elections are so bad, how should we govern? Should we revert to a monarchy or some benevolent form of authoritarianism? Am I arguing for technocracy?

No. It must be stressed that I am not against democracies. I believe democracy is the best way to govern, but I think there are better ways to reach a democratic consensus than through an election. We have already briefly talked about one method, which is aleatoric democracy, or selecting leaders through lot or sortition (i.e., choosing leaders at random). This system has been used throughout history, from ancient Athens to parts of South Asia.

One thing that speaks in this method's favor is that we already use it in America to decide whether or not someone is guilty of a crime (i.e., jury duty)— literally life and death in some cases. This is done as a call toward impartiality by getting as large a slice of the public as possible.

It's easy to imagine the same system being used to select our leaders. Imagine a world without elections and career politicians. Someone devotes one year of their life to office and then moves on. And that person is far more likely to be statistically representative of their actual country than the elite representatives elections are designed to give us. In the words of Alpa Shah in What if We Selected our Leaders by Lottery?:

“This idea of leadership prioritizes the notion of service and duty to the collective, and devalues merit, status, wealth or power acquisition by individuals which create political and economic inequalities between people.”

Lot could be used in combination with other methods, such as direct democracy, which was also used during Ancient Athens. The assembly of Athens allowed any citizen (regressively constrained by class and sex) to decide magistracies and other important political matters. Many small towns and cities aren’t that much bigger than Ancient Athens, which had upward of 60,000 citizens at its height.

It's often argued that sortition would be inefficient for larger political bodies such as the US Senate, and maybe that could be true (again, lot could be used for these larger roles), but this criticism also assumes a level of efficiency that doesn't exist with the modern system. The American Congress is so dysfunctional that it often struggles to do basic tasks such as passing a budget or repairing vital infrastructure. By this logic, elections aren't a valid method either.

More to the point, our electoral system already has a robust history of state-wide referendums, where citizens vote for the passage or rejection of laws. We have technology in place that far surpasses that of ancient Athens. Consequently, we can assess public opinion on a range of issues on a massive scale. It does not take much imagination to adapt this process — which often requires legislative approval in many polities — and allow referendums to be passed into law when the public ratifies them.

In essence, removing the electoral intermediaries from the equation.

Whether our society advocates sortition, direct democracy, or some combination of aleatoric, direct, and electoral methods, there are clearly many worthwhile paths ahead.

A political conclusion

Elections are not democratic—they never were. Their roots come from an elitist fear of majority rule, and over time, they tend to favor those already at the top of the economic and political hierarchy. The United States has helped import electoral democracy worldwide, but it has not lessened the class-based stratification we see in nearly every modern country.

To end our current era of instability, we must abandon elections in favor of greater democracy. We must implement a combination of lot and direct democracy that allows our modern governments not just to survive but to thrive.

For once, let's leave it up to chance.

I’m Trans & Society Removed My Comfort Around Children

Photo by Ben Wicks on Unsplash

I used to love looking after children. I found it fun to invent games and run around (and still do), and that made me a really good babysitter. I was once, unprompted, paid a $50 tip at a family event (this was before inflation) and offered a babysitting gig on the spot.

I liked looking after the kids. At one point, being a parent was all I wanted. It was something I dreamed about, part of my life plan whenever I talked about the future.

However, that dream slowly got displaced by a deep discomfort with being around children. While I liked the idea of childrearing, over and over again, I was presented with the idea that queer people like me were inherent pedophiles. "They're giving kids porn and telling third graders that they should masturbate," Libs of TikTok creator Chaya Raichik lied in a now infamous interview with Taylor Lorenz. "They're giving middle school children guides to gay sex, anal sex, sex toys."

The message I hear — the one I unwittingly internalize — from false statements like this one is that queers are dangerous around kids and, even more than that, that we are unfit to be parents. As anti-LGBTQ politician Rick Santorum remarked in a Pew Research Center interview in 2008 about same-sex child rearing:

“What society should be about is encouraging what’s best for children. What’s best for children, we know, is a mother and a father who are the parents of that child, raising that child in a stable, married relationship, and we should have laws that encourage that, that support that.”

This sentiment from anti-LGBTQIA advocates has ruined my comfort around children, and I wanted to talk about this meme's deep, unsettling roots and how it affects the queer community’s psyche today.

A history of being called groomers

Conservatives (and I mean this more broadly than just Democrats or Republicans) didn't just start calling us "groomers" (i.e., accusing queer people of training children to be susceptible to sexual exploitation) when Chaya Raichik came onto the scene. It's an old meme that we see pop up time and time again. I always think of the infamous 1961 "educational" film Boys Beware by Sid Davis Productions, made to be shown in schools, which depicts homosexuality as a sickness where adult men prey on kids. In the words of the film's upbeat narrator, describing the Groomer character Ralph:

“Ralph was sick. A sickness that was not visible like smallpox but no less dangerous and contagious: a sickness of the mind. You see, Ralph was a homosexual. A person who demands an intimate relationship with members of their own sex.”

The story goes on to depict Ralph grooming a young boy to provide favors (it's implied they are sexual) in exchange for money, gifts, and attention. That film repeats the same stereotypes as modern-day conservatives such as Chaya Raichik, and it was delivered over half a century earlier.

As we can see, this has been going on for a long time. Academic Michael Bronski wrote in the Boston Review that this may be part of a larger moralist trend within Christian theology. As he argues in that piece:

“Gays are in good company, not that it is much comfort: Christians have a long history of accusing religious, ethnic, and sexual minorities of abusing, molesting, and killing children. In medieval Europe, Jews were frequently accused of ritually killing Christian children — the blood libel — often to use their blood to make matzah. Fictitious victims…were even canonized as saints to drum up fervor for pogroms. The accusation that queer people are “grooming” children to be gay or question their gender is just the modern equivalent of the blood libel: the molestation libel.”

And so, from this perspective, it's best not to think of this anti-LGBT+ moral panic as something unique to queerness but one linked to religious backlashes overall — moral panics that reemerge from time to time, albeit with sometimes different political targets (see the D&D scare, the daycare hysteria, etc.).

Even if you accept that premise, we can see that an anti-queer sentiment has been building for over a century. James Kirchick argues in his piece for New York Magazine that the conspiracy theory of queer people trying to indoctrinate and subvert not just children but entire governments can be traced back to several high-profile cases in the early 1900s. This era was when homosexuality started to be classified as not just an act people did but a prescribed identity (see Debating the Morality of Heterosexuality).

He initially cites the early 1900s "Eulenburg Affair," where Prince Philipp Eulenburg, the advisor and friend of Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II, had their alleged correspondences revealed to the public via the press by muckraking journalist Maximilian Harden. The press spun up a narrative allegedly showing that the "pacifist" tendencies of the Kaiser were the result of this gay clique. As Kirchick writes:

“Homosexuals were confederates in what one Swiss journalist termed ‘a new Freemasonry’ transcending national borders, covert enemies of the state who advocated cosmopolitanism and diplomacy over nationalism and martial virtue.”

We can see here a direct link between the conspiratorial thinking of then and today. The gays here, like the Jewish people in similar conspiracy theories, are seen as a plot undermining the German state. Homosexuality was not only linked with deviancy but was potentially treasonous. Kirchick would go on to describe several more political scandals in his essay, including the outing of Massachusetts Senator David Walsh for attending an all-male brothel salaciously alleged to have nazi spies.

Meanwhile, in the background in America, but very much connected to how the public would come to view homosexuality, the academic Michael Bronski describes a wave of "sex crimes" in the 1930s. These were vastly exaggerated by conservative politicians, who used the moment to scapegoat sexual deviants, which queer people were considered to be. This fearmongering led to the passage of “sexual psychopath laws” under the pretext of protecting women and children. These laws committed suspected offenders indefinitely to mental institutions, and queerness was often linked to this trend. As Bronski argues in that Boston Review piece:

“…in practice, sexual psychopath laws were often used, particularly postwar, against homosexual men who were engaged in consensual same-sex activity, even as they were continually portrayed as preying on young boys.”

Over time, that pathologization of homosexuality linked queerness in many conservatives' minds to degeneracy and pedophilia. To the point that, in the 1970s, Anita Bryant infamously campaigned against a queer-friendly law in Florida under the conservative Save Our Children coalition. She pushed the insidious conspiracy theory that LGBTQIA+ people cannot reproduce, so they must "recruit" — in essence, the modern-day grooming narrative.

As you can see, anti-queer people have been calling us pedophiles forever. There have been decades of this meme that “queer people preying upon kids,” and, as we shall soon see, it affects how queer people see themselves.

How it f@cks with your head

To this day, I cannot walk past a playground without feeling dirty. I push past them quickly and keep my interactions to a minimum because I am worried that others will perceive me as a monster for merely being in the same space as kids. That causes me to look at children and see them as people you cannot interact with and cannot parent.

Where did this disgust come from?

In no small part due to the history we have already cited, the mental health of the queer community is not great. It's well-documented at this point that LGBT people, particularly trans and nonbinary youth, have experienced, during this latest moral panic, an increase in suicidal ideation, as well as mental health issues such as substance use and depression.

Likewise, childrearing and queer identity are a dicey intersection. Studies have routinely reported a stigma among queer parents, which can affect their mental health. In the words of authors Rachel H. Farr and Cassandra P. Vázquez in their article for the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Psychology: "Stigma felt by parents about their family composition may in turn negatively affect their mental health as well as perceived competence in parenting through internalized homophobia."

And so, if queer parents are already reporting a disproportionate amount of stigma, both externalized and internalized, that comes with having a "non-normal" family structure, it should surprise no one that many opt out of that process entirely. According to the census, same-sex households are much less likely than opposite-sex households to have children. When we look at user information from places like Reddit, stigma is often cited. "I don't want kids either genetically or adopted," goes one Reddit commenter. "It's just too much work, and LGBT parents face more discrimination even still in the 2020s than their straight counterparts."

Reddit has many subreddits devoted to this topic — a treasure trove of good qualitative information. Some of the reasons the commenters give for not wanting children are bureaucratic and financial. It's still not exactly easy to engage in surrogacy or adoption, even today, and the costs for such procedures and applications can get pricey pretty quickly. With the exception of cis gay men, LGBTQIA+ people are poorer on average than straight, cisgendered people, so it makes sense that financial barriers would be a significant factor.

There is also the political reason of not wanting to participate in normative life scripts. "There isn't the same societal pressure on gays to have children as there are straight people," one user declares, "…I know way too many straight people who've had children just because 'it's what you do.'"

Yet buried amongst these points is a deep discomfort around kids. "I despise children," goes one user, "and I am glad that I'll never have to worry about having one accidentally." Another writes: "I hate children, so gay or straight, I wouldn't want one either way." "I am wildly uncomfortable and annoyed around children," declares one user, "I never know what to say to them, and they give me anxiety."

There is this tension over queer identity as it relates to children, and I believe a part (though certainly not all of it) relates to this internalized anti-queerness. We are told over and over again that we are a danger to children, and for some, that pushes them to maintain their distance. As one Redditor commented on why some gay men avoid having kids: "Some are scared of the old stigma [where] some people have this insane mindset that they believe gays are Paedophiles [sic]."

You get called a pedophile over and over again, and eventually, even though the claims are baseless and cruel, a dark part of yourself starts to believe it.

It's psychological warfare

Society was not kind to queer people growing up (in some ways, it still isn't). I remember how the headlines used to go in my childhood. Politicians would be interviewed about their anti-queer views, and they would paint LGBTQIA+ people as almost aliens incapable of doing the things “normal” Americans can. Organizations like the Westboro Baptist Church would make all sorts of ridiculous claims like homosexuality being responsible for hurricanes and soldiers' deaths, and they would get air time and attention from the media (they are still active, by the way).

This background noise taught me a lot of unhealthy things about my queer identity: that I was sinful, that I should be ashamed, that I was dangerous. It's hard for that kind of stuff not to seep in. I have done a lot of work to unlearn these messages, but the one drilled into me still is my profound discomfort being around children. I do not think I belong around them — a belief reinforced by conservatives all throughout my life.

I hate this, and more to the point, I hate the people who made me think this way. I know I'll eventually unlearn it, and given the number of queer parents out there, many already have, but f@ck those who made that unlearning necessary.

Calling someone a groomer or a pedophile just because they are queer is not a victimless crime. It is a profound type of psychological warfare that warps the minds of the intended targets, and I wish all those who do this a lifetime of uneasiness.

Blockout 2024: Why People Are Done With Celebrity Culture

Image; TikTok/haleyybaylee via MSN

Nicknamed the "digital guillotine" or "operation blockout," people are calling for a boycott of all celebrities, many of whom attended the 2024 Met Gala. "Block them, block them, block them all," the user thelifeof__ recommended to her millions of followers. "The only way this works is if we go in as a collective," continues user Alexis Nicole, "Us in District 12 need to fight back."

The origin of this digital movement is simple. This year, outside the Met Gala, influencer Haley "Baylee" Kalil, who was not invited to the Gala herself, lip-synced (and posted online) a phrase that would infuriate many: "Let them eat cake." It immediately garnered criticism and morphed into a more general anti-celebrity sentiment.

The backlash, like with the phrase's infamous origin, has been brutal, with many boycotting not only Kalil herself but celebrities in general, who have lost millions overnight.

The Met Gala as detached

Historically, "Let them eat cake" has been attributed to French Queen Marie Antoinette, who became a symbol of aristocratic greed. She was beheaded via the guillotine during the French Revolution for allegedly conspiring with foreign powers as well as other crimes such as incest (note—although utterly detached, as most nobles were, from the plights of French peasants, she probably didn't say this particular phrase).

Over time, this statement has since come to represent the meme of an out-of-touch elite that fixates on opulence while the peasantry starves. It was this framing that many online used when Haley Kalil lip-synced, "Let them eat cake." As user Beck Berwick remarked shortly after the initial video:

“When you say ‘Let Them Eat Cake’…as you are going to the Met Gala dressed like that. It feels like you're looking down on other people. It feels like you are disregarding what other people are going through and the suffering others are trying to bring awareness to. It’s not you're intention, probably, but its how it comes across.”

While Kalil, again, did not go to the Gala, she was still representing it as a host for E! News, interviewing celebrities about the event. According to Kalil, her comment (allegedly) was not meant to remark on elitism — a joke that would ring hollow anyway since she is an influencer, met gala invite or not.

It's ironic this reaction was not anticipated as the theme for the dress code that night was The Garden of Time, based on J.G. Ballard's short story of the same name about the "masses" or "rabble" overtaking the estate of an aristocrat, who uses magical time flowers to halt their advance (and possibly extend his lifespan). Designers used the theme to create ephemeral outfits of "fleeting beauty" — some of them too delicate to ever be worn again — but the story implies the very reaction that Haley Kalil received. It is ultimately about an aristocrat burning extra resources — in this case, magical flowers — to maintain their privileged position.

It speaks to the comfort of the wealthy that they not only feel comfortable hosting such a party during a moment of great wealth inequality — this is your reminder that the price for a single ticket is $75,000 — but that they could not perceive that such an ostentatious display would not earn such hatred.

After all, it's in the very story they referenced.

Boycotting Hollywood

This was not the first time Hollywood elites had done something that earned such ire in recent years. From the song Imagine sung by Gal Gadot and other A-listers, to Kim Kardashian's 40th birthday party during the pandemic, the climate against celebrity culture is noticeably shifting. As Brian Moylan wrote in an editorial for NBC about the Imagine fiasco:

“The general consensus was that a bunch of rich celebrities imagining a world with “no possessions” while people around the country suffered a social, health and economic crisis wasn’t what the world needed at the time.”

It's that sentiment we are seeing a lot these days— and although hatred of celebrity culture and the rich more broadly is nothing new (see the "Eat the rich" meme), the nature of social media means that often these celebrities benefit directly from our clicks, views, and attention. A relationship we are all painfully aware of at this point. As commentator Elaine Lui told The Ringer during the early stages of the pandemic:

“These are entertainers, ultimately. And whether or not we want to admit it, we created them. We enable them. We make it possible for them to exist.”

It's for this reason that the Blockout movement is calling on people to divest from celebrity culture. "Block celebrities so they don't earn ad revenue from you," comments one user. "You know the last time Kim Kardashian made money from me? It was December 13th of last year. It's when I blocked her."

From Ariana Grande to Britney Spears, the names of celebrities vary depending on the user, but they are generally highly influential A or B-listers who either attended the Met Gala or, in some cases, who have not spoken out on issues believed by users to be necessary, such as the genocide in Gaza.

It's no coincidence that this movement is emerging side by side with the pro-Palestine movement, which has made Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS) of the state of Israel one of its primary goals. Even before "Operation Blockout," there has been a widespread effort to engage in consumer boycotts of companies such as HP and SodaStream for their support of Israel, as well as more targeted divestment campaigns (see more details here).

Returning to the Beck Berwick video, one of the things that horrified so many was that a Pro-Palestine protest was occurring nearby, and in fact, attempted to get close to the event before being halted by police. There was an attempt to get these celebrities to use their influence — the thing we give them through our attention — to talk about this issue, which was met with silence.

And so now (some) people are trying to take that influence away. In the words of the user theluncheonlawyer:

“When we talk about [Palestine], we are getting arrested. These protesters are getting carted off to jail…People are getting fired for talking about this. Celebrities, what’s happening to you? You losing a couple of sponsorships but you still get that movie deal. I doubt you're losing views as to where you're going to be destitute and not have another job. But we, as regular people, are. We are putting more on the line than you. So yeah, you gonna have to get catch the smoke.”

The blade falls down

It remains to be seen whether this movement will be successful. Most boycotts do not work, even when they are very targeted and do everything the "correct way." Some believe that algorithms and marketing teams are too adaptable for this type of action to work anymore (see user thisisharlie's criticism on this matter). Others have commented that this feels performative. As user Chrisitan Divyne remarked:

“To me, it feels a little, ‘where’s your black square?’ It feels a little superficial. The hallmark of any good protest or boycott is a direct and specific goal…[while here] we’re blocking and unfollowing any influencer who isn’t using their platform to talk about Gaza, wide net, unclear aim.”

There will always be those who remain skeptical of an action at the moment, and that’s healthy. We should never uncritically accept a type of action because others say it’s "the right thing to do." Our time and attention are being pulled in many directions, and it’s worth debating the intentions of those asking for our time, even from allegedly good people.

However, as the genocide in Gaza continues and our culture of rampant inequality exacerbates, it is worth noting that the anger people are feeling right now is warranted. Things are indeed f@cked.

If the elites are worried about a digital guillotine, they should be afraid of what else remains on the horizon if these calls go unlistened to yet again.

Fallout Made Me Sad for the End of Liberal Democracy

Image; Kilter Films, Big Indie Pictures, Bethesda Game Studios, Amazon MGM Studios

Fallout (2024) is a series about the end of the world. Most of the action takes place over 200 years after the "Great War of 2077," a nuclear Armageddon that has irradiated the planet, permanently changing the flora and fauna on the surface. Our heroes navigate a wasteland scarred by decisions made hundreds of years ago, the context of which has been warped by time.

If there is one message drilled into the viewer, it's that liberal Democracy does not and cannot stop this fate from coming to pass. Fallout is a show about how Democracy failed to prevent corporate forces from taking over (and ending) the world and how it's utterly incapable of stopping history from repeating itself.

A thought that makes me incredibly sad.

The End of America

The show wastes no time skewering the meritocracy so often associated with American Democracy — i.e., the "American Dream," the idea that if you work hard, you will succeed. There is a scene where protagonist Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell), a vault dweller living in a self-proclaimed meritocracy, tells a wastelander (Dale Dickey) that the vaults will save America. Ma June, the woman Lucy is talking to, sardonically quips: "And when exactly were you planning on saving America?"

It's a cutting line meant to highlight the nonsensical nature of this meritocratic sentiment — at this point, America is already gone.

As the scene progresses, we learn that the vaults are where the rich fled when the bombs dropped. Ma June goes on to say that, "The vaults were nothing more than a hole in the ground for rich folks to hide in while the rest of the world burned." It had nothing to do with helping people. Saving the American Way was simply the propaganda Vault-Tec, the company that made them, used to extract further profits from anxious Americans and make them feel less worried about liberal democracies' race toward collapse. Propaganda that has survived to the present day.

Over and over again, we see Vault-Tec, a stand-in for corporate America, co-opting these emotions for control. It's learned that Lucy's vault, number 33, is not actually a functioning democracy as she believed but a front controlled by the post-apocalyptic successors of Vault-Tec. Cryosuspended employees from before the Great War secretly manage the vaults, ensuring that their people are always elected into positions of power.

Vault 33 provides the illusion of Democracy and nothing more.

Even before the apocalypse in 2077, Vault-Tec had hollowed out American Democracy. The American government exhausted itself with a jingoistic resource war against China, and so the company picked up the pieces, becoming one of the largest employers in the US. Pieces that the company was not interested in putting back together again.

It's initially believed that either America or China launched the first bombs that led to the devasting Great War, and maybe one of them officially did, but Vault-Tec engineered that collapse. We are told this point-blank at a boardroom meeting that the company intended to drop the bomb all because they believed that the ensuing destruction would benefit them.

Part of this logic was short-term thinking. As the character Charles Whiteknife (Dallas Goldtooth) says of capitalism's perverse incentives to maintain bad situations indefinitely for profit:

“The US government has outsourced the survival of the human race to Vault-Tec. Vault-Tec is a private corporation that has a fiduciary responsibility to make money for its investors. And how does it make money? By selling vaults….[but] they can’t sell vaults if these peace negotiations go through.”

Vault-Tec sabotaged that peace to maintain its competitive edge. But it also wanted more than profits; it wanted control.

To do that, the company's leadership reasoned that they had to drop the bomb and destroy the remnants of American Democracy so a new society they could mold from scratch would emerge. In the words of Vault-Tec employee Bud Askins (Michael Esper) in a pre-War flashback:

“Time is the Apex predator. And in the event of an incident, time is the enemy with which we will defeat all of our enemies. That is how we will win the great game of capitalism. Not by outfighting anyone, but by outliving them.”

As we shall soon notice, this wait-and-see approach is integral to Vault-Tec’s plan to dominate the world after the Great War.

Culling the wasteland

While the wasteland was (and is) a bad place for most former Americans to live, even in the company's early planning stages, they were aware that humanity might survive the fallout of nuclear armageddon.

And indeed, people did survive. Democracy rose from the ashes. The New California Republic (NCR), a liberal polity established in the wake of the games that inspired this series, became one of the dominant forces in the wastelands by 2241. One of our protagonists, Maximus (Aaron Moten), grew up in their capital, Shady Sands, only for it to be blasted into oblivion by Vault-Tec so that they could have their sought-after "fresh slate."

We only see the destruction the company left behind: a giant crater where the NCR capital used to be. "That's how Vault-Tec deals with competition," one character monologues. "Just like they did 200 years ago."

There is a cycle here where Vault-Tec destabilizes the wasteland to maintain control, waging a shadow war against the surface, so its vaults are the only places of comfort and safety. They may be running vicious experiments on most of their occupants to see which idea will create the "perfect" society, but at least you can get good food, hot water, and shelter.

In the meantime, as the company slowly whittles away at its competitors so it can control the future, the only forces that can survive in the wasteland up above are grifters exploiting you for resources and fascists that shoot first and ask questions later.

The most prominent example of the latter is the Brotherhood of Steel, a militaristic theocracy that hoards weapons built before the Great War and uses them to maintain control. In the closing moments of the season one finale, it's this organization that crushes a nascent revival movement for the New California Republic.

The NCR Revival movement was headquartered in an egalitarian commune in an old observatory up in the hills. Their goal was a noble one: to make nuclear fusion — a technology Vault-Tec had hoarded since before the war because it would have crushed their business model — and give it to the wasteland so that society could restart. The Brotherhood of Steel, envious of what that technology could do for military expansion, destroyed that NCR compound and took cold fusion for themselves, once again killing any hope for Democracy in the wasteland.

When the NCR was destroyed (again), it felt like learning a dream you thought had died was killed again. Democracy tried to thrive, and instead, it was destroyed by the world corporate America created: a war of all-against-all, curated by unseen, trigger-happy managers.

A downer of a conclusion

It's hard to walk away with a positive message from this show. Fallout is deeply cynical about capitalism's anti-democratic nature, which is a strange message for Amazon to perpetuate. Vault-Tec, an Amazon-like company that can arguably be seen as a stand-in for capitalism more broadly, repeatedly throughout the series destroys liberal Democracy (the ones it can't control anyway), and it always succeeds.

There is a touching last line in which the dying NCR revolutionary Lee Moldaver (Sarita Choudhury) preaches to lead Maximus to keep fighting his fascist organization, saying, "Maybe you can stop them. Maybe you can't. Maybe all you can do is try." It's a love letter to liberal Democracy—one in which we are meant to believe that if we keep up the fight, eventually, the dream of the NCR will manifest somewhere out there.

And yet, this optimism feels naive. Moldaver fails, and her life's work is crushed by an authoritarian regime that will co-opt her most significant scientific discovery to oppress the wastelands.

The only positive society in season one is Vault Four, a former science-led technocracy violently overthrown by its test subjects. They kill their oppressors and establish a pluralistic, arguably communist society where all resources are shared. Yet even this society is one bad day from collapse, as seen when Maximus steals their primary power source.

Taken altogether, Fallout seems to suggest that liberal society is utterly incapable of fighting the forces of fascism and corporatocracy that seek to undermine it. It's a depressing thought to consider. As we potentially hurdle toward that outcome ourselves, hopefully, we will move past the failures of liberal Democracy and find a middle ground between being overtaken by corporations and letting them annihilate us for profit.

If time is the apex predator, we'll find out eventually.

The Way We Think of the Collective in Science Fiction is Changing

Photo by Stefan Cosma on Unsplash

In her 1938 novella Anthem, objectivist writer Ayn Rand, horrified by the Soviet Union she fled, imagined a dystopic, collectivized society where even preferences and friendships were frowned upon. This rejection of individuality was so pronounced in this world that the pronoun "I" had left the popular lexicon in favor of "we," "our," and "they."

Rand's work is not unique in its thorough disdain for the collective. Cold War fears of the Soviet Union led to all sorts of demonizations of this kind. The most prominent in the popular imagination is probably the villainous Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994, "Q Who," Season 2, Episode 16), a hivemind that forcibly integrates other races into their collective, with their catchphrase: "We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own…resistance is futile."

There were many similar examples. The Cybermen from Doctor Who (1963–1989; 2005–present) were a group of former humans turned androids intent on turning all of society into identical versions of themselves. We can also look at the Master from the video game Fallout (1997) trying to create a race of super mutants, the "IT" hivemind in A Wrinkle in Time (1962), and the sameness created by the dystopic society in The Giver (1993). These collective projects are always depicted as the erasure of individuality and often are a terrifying evil that must be fought against at all costs.

However, in recent years, we have seen a shift in the popular conception of how the collective is being portrayed in science fiction. Where once it was an idea of ridicule and fear, it's increasingly being depicted more positively.

The collective as benevolent

Before we discuss more recent changes, it's important to note that counternarratives about the collective have always existed, even if they were not as readily embraced as the critical narratives we have already mentioned. Although constrained by the prejudices of the time, Arthur C. Clarke's novel Childhood's End (1953) concludes with all children becoming a benevolent superintelligence known as the "Over-mind." Arguably, this transformation is not depicted in a menacing way: an evolution that's more bittersweet than evil.

The same can be said with the last two books in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, Foundation's Edge (1982) and Foundation and Earth (1986), where it's learned that the future of humanity will not be the precise mathematics of psychohistory or the behind-the-scenes meddling of the Second Foundation but led by a planetwide hivemind called Gaia. This superorganism has interconnected all organic and inorganic matter on its surface and is what our protagonist chooses as the default state of humanity.

These depictions run counter to the dystopic Randian conception of "equality" in Anthem that she so despised, but like the Borg and Cybermen, they are still top-down approaches. These collectivist outcomes for humanity are decided as the best course of action by either an outside force, such as the alien Overlords in Childhood's End, or, in the case of the Foundation series, a single individual.

They are not bottom-up movements but rather brought on by a benevolent authoritarianism.

When the collective is framed as one totalizing entity like this, the horror behind people's reactions makes sense. Whether the assimilating superorganism in question is kind or cruel, beings like the Borg and the Over-mind run counter to how we operate as human beings. We are individuals just as much as social creatures, and imposing another will on top of those identities can almost seem like dying. With the Borg and the Cybermen, your body and memories may continue to exist after they assimilate you, but it isn't "you" anymore, and that's terrifying.

Yet it's important to remember that the mere act of coming together doesn't automatically lead to that outcome. There is more to collectives than just the individual or ego death. As we have moved beyond the Cold War period, writers have begun to shift away from the dichotomy of a collective in science fiction being either all good or all bad.

New storytelling has started to depict the joining with other beings as a unique form of existence worth celebrating.

The collective as multi-faceted

Interestingly enough, Star Trek is an excellent example of this. In Star Trek: The Next Generation, three years after the episode that introduced the Borg, Q Who (and in real life, three years after the fall of the Berlin Wall), we are introduced to the Trill, a symbiote-host species where at least two beings merge to permanently create one consciousness ("The Host," Season 4, Episode 23). The joining process between these two beings is not depicted as evil or malicious but simply another type of existence.

By the time we get to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993–1999), these beings are so regular for both the Federation and the viewer that one of our leads, Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell), is a Trill.

In the cyberpunk film Ghost In The Shell (1995), cybernetics have advanced to the point where human consciousness can leave its body, or “shell,” and interface directly with the Internet. Ghost has become the slang term for consciousness itself, and our protagonist, Major Motoko Kusanagi (Atsuko Tanaka/Mimi Woods), in a process very similar to the Trill, decides to merge her "ghost" with an Artificial Intelligence to create something beyond either of them.

A counterexample of dual consciousness, where two or more entities merge to create something new but do not lose their individual parts, is the cartoon show Steven Universe (2013–2019). Crystalline aliens called Gems can "fuse" with each other to create a new being.

However, these "fusions" do not erase the previous identities. The new form is depicted as an ongoing conversation between the organisms, which, in the case of the fusion Fluorite (Kathleen Fisher), can include many beings. Unlike the Trill, this new existence never subordinates the previous beings, and if consensus is ever broken, one or more can choose to leave. Ruby and Saphire — two gems that make up the fusion Garnet — do this multiple times throughout the show when they encounter disagreements.

The thriller Sense8 (2015–2018) showcases the premise that groups of eight people can telepathically and empathetically be connected through a "cluster." Fellow sensates both maintain and do not maintain individuality. The characters go about their regular days as individual consciousnesses, but at any point, they can talk with each other telepathically and swap feelings, sensations, and abilities.

As viewers, we empathize with the sensates, who are hunted by the individualist humans. The latter fear clusters for the changes they can bring about to human society.

Returning to the Borg, their totalizing image has softened by the time we get to Star Trek: Voyager (1995–2001). Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) comes across a group of former Borg in the season three episode "Unity," which provides a more nuanced conversation on the ethics of joining a hive mind. Officer Chakotay (Robert Beltran) disagrees with a Borg "co-operatives" plan, not because it’s a unified intelligence but one created by force.

From Star Trek to the Culture series (1987–2012), we could list many examples that show us this synthesis model, where the merging or joining of consciousness is not force-driven but instead done by consensus.

A new frontier in how we think of the collective.

A collected conclusion

Star Trek: Picard (2020–2023) depicts the Borg even more emphatically. We see many ex-Borgs reintegrating as individuals, and in Season 2, the Borg superorganism itself goes through a cultural transformation when lead Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill) becomes the new Borg Queen. Borg Agnes leads her race not to conquer but, in a surprise twist, to create a society based on cooperation rather than assimilation — a society which petitions to join the Federation.

This recontextualization of the collective is happening all throughout science fiction. As we move away from the totalizing demonizations and praises of the collective that the Soviet Union inspired, our depiction of it has become more nuanced. It’s not always benevolent or evil; it’s often just a new form of being, with all the advantages and pitfalls that entails.

And as we become more comfortable with the collective and shed the atomization of the previous era, how we depict it in our media will continue to evolve.

Let's make it so.

How Right-Leaning U.S. Press Weaponizes the Anti-Trans ‘Cass Review’

Image; Front page of Cass Report

For years, the scientific consensus on puberty blockers for children has been relatively straightforward. They cause no significant harm, and most of their effects are easily reversible.

As recently as last month, a study presented at the American Physiological Society's annual American Physiology Summit found:

“…that the short-term developmental delay of the uterus and ovaries caused by the puberty-blocking treatment in young female rats was reversible. A majority of reproductive function also recovered immediately after puberty blocking withdrawal. This study can help inform adolescents and their families in the decision to take puberty-blocking medication.”

While more research is always welcomed in replicating this study (especially when confirming these results in humans), this is just one drop in decades of literature on this subject. The research on this topic seems to suggest that such care increases positive mental health and that the effects of puberty blockers are again reversible.

Additional concerns, such as a decrease in bone density and neurological changes, are still not well understood. The prior might be caused by things such as lack of exercise, not from the medication itself, and there is a reported “bone density catchup” when people start taking hormones, but again, more research is needed. These drawbacks don’t seem to outweigh the many benefits.

In the past, anti-trans advocates have cited single studies to counter this consensus, but for a long time, these have been easily dismissed by citing the statements by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology, and the many, many other medical organizations that recognize the overall positive impact a gender-affirming approach has on development for transgender adolescents.

However, one new review may challenge this viewpoint — not because its methodology is particularly robust — but because it has the backing of a nation’s health service (i.e., the NHS). We are talking about the Cass Review — a meta-study that claims that existing literature is “remarkably weak” despite ultimately not finding any evidence to conclude that puberty blockers create significant harm. The British press has uncritically shared this claim that the Cass Review has disrupted decades of medical knowledge, and that reaction has started to spread to American media as well.

We are seeing a troubling trend as those on the right use this review to dismiss decades of established research so that care for trans people can be chipped away.

This is bad science

From the outset, it should be noted that the Cass Review is flawed. The report applied a highly rigorous standard that did not fit the context of transgender pediatrics. One hundred of the studies it reviewed were labeled as having “low-quality evidence,” which is not a moral judgment, despite how the report may frame it, and means something different in science. The “gold standard” for a study has always been randomized controlled trials, but because of the nature of puberty, doing RCTs for blockers would be entirely unethical and, in some cases, pointless.

As Dr. Sam Wong, president of the pediatrics section of the Alberta Medical Association, told the CBC:

“Within a few months, it’s obvious to the person that they’re on puberty blockers or they’re not on puberty blockers. So … they have feelings and they have impressions of what they should be going through. So that’s going to influence the study itself.”

Additionally, because of the limitations of pesky things such as ethics and subjectivity, there are many situations — not just with endocrinology — where there is only “low-quality evidence” to support care routines. A physician, Dr. Jake Donaldson, continues in that CBC article:

“[Even something as routine as treating a kid’s ear infection with antibiotics or painkillers may not have robust evidence]. That doesn’t mean we just every time we see an ear infection we turn around and walk the other way. Sometimes, an ear infection needs to be treated, sometimes it doesn’t.”

A standard is being applied here that we do not apply to other areas of medicine — one that is transparently discriminatory.

One would think that pediatrician Hilary Cass, the head of the infamous Cass Review, would be aware of this, but it’s clear that her bias is shining through. For example, Cal Horton notes in The Cass Review: Cis-supremacy in the UK’s approach to healthcare for trans children that the report had many biases, including a source bias, writing:

“…[it does not] cite or engage with an existing body of literature on anti-trans prejudice amongst healthcare professionals…Within Cass Review reports however, quotations from interviewed healthcare professionals do display indications of potential ignorance, bias or anti-trans prejudice. These include healthcare professional quotes that express concern about trans children being created by peer pressure or social media, or the dismissal and belittling of trans children’s identities. All healthcare professional views, including those demonstrating ignorance, dismissiveness or hostility to trans children are presented as valid and valuable inputs to the Cass Review, with no discussion of the potential for anti-trans prejudice or ignorance amongst healthcare professionals.”

This refusal to engage in the existing literature, as well as to screen professionals who hold anti-trans biases, has led to a skewed situation on the solutions recommended in the Cass Review. There is a significant emphasis on advocating for the language of “exploration,” something commonly associated with “Gender-Exploratory Therapy,” which has been likened to conversion therapy. The preferences and comfort of professionals, even ones who are actively discriminatory, are valued over the autonomy of the children in question. The report relies on the language of caution, which, according to Horton, ignores that “conversion therapy can be veiled under a banner of caution,” pathologizing transness as something that might be solved given enough time rather than an identity to be respected.

There is a huge double standard here where the affirmative model is depicted as ideological and aggressive, while non-affirmative models (i.e., conversion therapy) are considered objective. As Horton continues:

“Cass Review commentary positions non-affirmative approaches as ‘neutral,’ contrasting them to affirmative approaches that are framed as ‘ideological.’ There is no recognition of the ideology underpinning approaches that deny the existence or validity of trans children.”

The report is advancing an anti-trans bias while using the language of objectivity to launder those opinions. Dr. Cass has gone on record as being firmly against conversion therapy, so it’s difficult to tell the intent of this language. This may be merely unconscious bias seeping into the report's authors — although, given the apparent gaps we have mentioned, that feels almost too charitable. Her disavowal could also be political cover meant to discourage criticism. It might even be both. Most conversion therapy, after all, is not labeled as such due to the stigma currently attached to it, and that rhetorical distancing may have tricked some authors.

Regardless, this language, whether unconscious or not, is discriminatory and is currently being weaponized by the far-right press.

The response of traditional conservative media

Since the Cass Report is not framed hyperbolically, many believe it to be the height of scientific rigor. “Calm discussions of transgender medicine are rare,” writes The Economist. “With incredible courage,” goes David Brooks in The New York Times, “[Cass] shows that careful scholarship can cut through debates that have been marked by vituperation and intimidation and possibly reset them on more rational grounds.”

These reactions represent a disturbing trend in media, where journalists and other media writers conflate a position being pronounced unemotionally as said position being rational and correct. If something sounds reasonable, few assess whether it actually is.

The aesthetic of moderation is more important to many of these writers here than actual reporting.

However, the truth doesn’t change no matter how loudly and angrily someone says it. The Cass Review is willfully disregarding the science at play, and many trans people are angry about that because they understand how it will be used to take away their rights. If a journalist ignores the truth because it doesn’t always come at them nicely, well, that’s just bad journalism and indicates a profoundly reactionary bias.

Yet the narrative of many conservative opinion writers and journalists is that all the criticisms against the Cass Review are merely coming from over-sensitive activists (and their allies). “In a world without partisan politics,” quips Helen Lewis in The Atlantic, “the Cass report on youth gender medicine would prompt serious reflection from American trans-rights activists, their supporters in the media, and the doctors and institutions offering hormonal and surgical treatments to minors.”

Lewis is insinuating here that it’s the bias of the trans community and their allies that has warped the medical establishment. She is advocating for a conspiracy theory that has no solid basis in reality.

Columnists such as David Brooks and Helen Lewis like to think that they are separate from the conservative, anti-trans movement because they are “nice” about their unexamined bigotry. Brooks even calls Republican-led anti-trans laws “brutal,” but when he advances the same talking points and half-truths as the anti-trans movement, the separation is in aesthetics only. Brooks goes on in his article to promote the widely discredited idea that social contagion could be responsible for the increase in trans youth, writing, “[One theory] is that teenagers are being influenced by the popularity of searching and experimenting around identity.” He may not think he’s as harmful as the Republican legislatures passing anti-trans laws, but by advancing this misinformation, he is walking alongside them.

Someone kindly telling you your rights should be removed is no different than someone doing it cruelly.

In the meantime, while these journalists are laundering bad science because they like the vibes of this report (and left unsaid, they like how it validates their biases), the far-right media is taking that acceptance and running wild with it.

Right-wing people foaming at the mouth

This report had an immediate effect on the confidence of the right in pronouncing the supposed “dangers” of gender-affirming care. Mia Gingerich noted this in her report for Media Matters for America, writing: “Right-wing media were quick to use publication of the Cass Report to claim vindication for their pervasive and politicized anti-trans coverage and to push further extreme rhetoric.”

Gingerich, for example, discusses how Fox News co-host of The Five, Greg Gutfeld, said the report was proof that “people” had purposefully deceived parents and children. He concluded this was a sign of a “proactive attack on vulnerable humans” based on “nonscience.” This comment is a sort of fascistic dog whistle, telling viewers to be worried about the transgender “other” waging an alleged war on their children.

Anti-trans narratives use this misrepresentation to justify and encourage severe “backlash” against trans people and gender-affirming care providers.

With this information, we are seeing even more extreme pronouncements on what should be done next. For example, an article from the Deseret News, which the Church of Latter-Day Saints ultimately owns, said that the report justified the consideration of conversion therapy, writing:

“The concept of ‘conversion therapy’ also needs to be rethought, according to the Cass Review. Given the significantly higher rate of mental health comorbidities of gender dysphoric children compared to controls, it is important that mental health professionals be allowed to investigate whether a child’s gender dysphoria may be relieved through psychological interventions. Proposed bans on ‘conversion therapy’ might stifle such needed therapy.”

For any who doubts the end goal isn’t conversion therapy, here’s the quiet part being said out loud. We see the subtext of the report, which alluded to conversion therapy through indirect talk of Gender-Exploratory Therapy, being made transparent.

And make no mistake, the thing being challenged is the acceptance of transgender people in public life, regardless of what level of medicalization they pursue. “[The Cass Review] should embolden government officials and policymakers to put a halt to the pseudoscience of gender transition,” John Stonestreet and Jared Hayden write in Breakpoint, a publication for an evangelical think tank bent on spreading Christianity. “Not to mention allowing revolutionary gender ideology to influence things like the rewriting of Title IX.”

Far-right commentator Scott McKay goes even further in The American Spectator, comparing those who support gender-affirming care to a father sexually molesting his child. He claims a wife would be justified in murdering her husband for this and, left unsaid, that people would be justified in murdering supporters of gender-affirming care. “…how is ‘transing’ a kid, not an abuse worse than sexually molesting him or her? We’ll let that hang for a while.”

It’s a call to unalive people.

We are seeing this report used as a pipeline where “concerns” over transitioning, most of which are medically unfounded, get used as justification for further discrimination and violence.

A sobering conclusion

The Cass Review has already profoundly impacted trans people in the United Kingdom. Even before the full report was released, the interim one was used as a justification to “restrict” care for transgender people. A quasi-black market for hormones is now emerging, and unlike the exact dosage and regular blood screenings that come from legitimate prescriptions, this will undoubtedly lead to unforeseen medical complications and maybe even deaths.

The danger of the report for Americans is that this will lay the foundation for a counter-narrative for trans care. Republican state legislatures have needed very little evidence, much of it outright fabricated (all of it misconstrued), to begin stripping away trans rights. The perceived legitimacy of the Cass Report provides them even more ammunition.

After all, New York Times op-ed writers are not the only ones who value the aesthetic of moderation over the actual substance and information on an issue. Plenty of Americans pride themselves on being at the center of an issue, even if one of the poles they are moving closer to is an outright lie.

The Cass Review is one block in an emerging, fabricated consensus. Let us hope there is enough time to dismantle it before it ever bears fruit.

The Delicious Villany of ‘Blue Eye Samurai's" Abijah Fowler

Image; Blue Spirit

Blue Eye Samurai (2023) is a combination of an anti-Mamma Mia (2008) and Kill Bill V.1 (2003). Our lead is Mizu (Maya Erskine), the child of an interracial "pairing." She is derogatorily referred to as a "white devil," an "Onryō" (i.e., a vengeful type of spirit), or worse, and goes on a mission to kill her father, whom she blames for her "cursed" existence. She has four contenders to track down and kill, as because of Japan’s closed borders, there were only four white men in the entire country when she was conceived. She now wants revenge and as a trained sword fighter, Mizu just might have the skills to accomplish her goal.

The antagonist for the first season — and one of her potential fathers — is Abijah Fowler (Kenneth Branagh), a weapons smuggler who wants to bend the Japanese Shogunate to his will. Fowler is an evil man, but he is self-aware of his evil, providing a fascinating foil for the viewer to observe how colonialism works in action.

A cruel, detached, transactional evil

We first meet Fowler cloaked in shadow. Casually reclined in a chair, he orders that Mizu be tailed (and killed) by a band of mercenaries called The Four Fangs. "Double their price and be done with it," he orders, very used to ending the lives around him, both from afar and up close. He spends the series killing, mangling, and destroying all those who displease him.

To Fowler, most everything is a one-sided transaction. "You pay money for a job you don't wanna think about, so you don't have to think about it," he tells his partner-in-crime, Heiji Shindo (Randall Park), while painting an illustration he will soon burn. "It's the whole point of money," he proclaims.

Fowler is driven by the belief that money entitles him to other people's time.

This belief in deals even applies to the divine. There is one telling scene where he enters a chapel and tries to bargain with God Himself. Christianity is something that he does not believe in. The chapel was only built because the architects of the Tanabe Island fortress assumed all white people were devout Christians, and it shows in how he negotiates:

“We’re not friends. I haven’t, uh, spoken to you in some time. Wouldn’t do you the dishonor of asking for a favor. But I believe there’s something I can do for you. They’ve been godless here as long as they’ve been…Heathens, surely, these Japanese…I plan to cut that shogun’s head from his shoulders and reimagine this nation more to my liking. Now, normal days, I’d imagine you're indifferent to that outcome…But I’ll tell you this, though. If this all goes my way, I will go ahead and take it for a sign that you tilted the wind to my back, and I will, in kind…I will send for your priests to bring them your Word and hand you a nation of souls. My thanks, if you see fit. It’s no matter to me either way.”

He is essentially upselling God to help him conquer a nation, and it's chilling.

Outside of this transactional logic for control, there seems to be little he believes in. He is not driven to take over the Shogunate out of any ideology or religion. The only things that guide him are resentment, entitlement, and a desire for personal enrichment.

He does not like being confined to a fortress on Tanabe Island, as he cannot leave the entire year except for his yearly pilgrimage to Kyoto to pay tribute to the Shogun. He believes that his smuggling operations have entitled him to gratitude from this country he is illegally staying in, telling Shindo: "The shogun lets us operate so long as he can deny I exist. Soon, he won't have that luxury."

His whole bid for power is one gigantic tantrum to leave Tanabe Island.

Yet, despite holding no values beyond his own supremacy, Fowler is self-aware. He comprehends how colonialism works in reality. "No one murders as much as the British," he says with a wry smirk. "It's our number one export." And he knows this because he is a victim of British imperialism. He describes to Shindo how he lived through an artificial famine created by the Tudors, who burned food crops in Ireland to squash a rebellion (presumably, he's talking about the Tyrone Rebellion).

With almost prophetic knowledge, he explains that if successful with his coup, he will have a profound impact on Japan's culture, saying in a monologue to the now-defeated shogunate:

“I couldn’t discover a new world, so I’m gonna reveal one. My new shogun will break open your welded borders. Open Japan wide to the West. We’ll flood your land with our people, our music, our shame, bread, and milk, until you think an ugly face like mine more beautiful than your own.”

This speech is poignant because he is right, of course. White Supremacy has done all of these things. As a tiny example, skin whitening creams remain popular throughout Asia, including Japan, even though such practices not only detrimentally affect people's self-esteem but arguably negatively impact their skin too. From beauty norms to religion, the shame and sensibilities of the West have been imprinted on everyone.

Fowler is saying the quiet part out loud about what the West will do (and, in the present, has already done) to Japan—a rare level of self-awareness among colonialism's villains. He is a baddie who knows precisely what destruction he is reaping.

A blue conclusion

In many ways, we have never recovered from the imperialism of this period. Western powers, driven by their superior weapons and supremacist ideologies, expanded around the world, not only taking and killing but also leaving devastating cultural imprints on the people they changed. Everything from the criminalization of homosexuality in numerous countries to conservative notions of gender can be traced to the norms forcefully established during this period — an era some would argue has never truly ended.

But before we got that self-hatred and shame, it began with men like Abijah Fowler, who spread the doctrine of white supremacy around the world because it benefited them.

With Blue Eye Samurai, we get a villain who is still evil but self-aware—a decolonialist's colonialist—one who can push aside the propaganda and flattery of the past and show us the horror just beneath it.

Chants of Sennaar: How AI Can Fracture A Society

Image; Rundisc

The 2023 game Chants of Sennaar is, first and foremost, about language. You play an unnamed traveler moving up a Tower of Babel-esque structure. Each level is host to a different society with a different language, and it's on you as an outsider to decipher the many words and phrases you encounter.

Described in its marketing as "the Dark Souls of language games," Chants of Sennaar expects you to learn its many languages by observation. While there are words littered about everywhere, it's through actions and context that you learn the ones you need to advance the story. The game forces you to piece these words together, writing down your best approximations in its internal notebook until finally, like learning any language, the rules click into place, and you understand them.

Like the Tower of Babel story itself, the people of this world are divided, and this is reflected in their language. For example, the religious society you start in refers to themselves as "Devotees," and the militaristic society above them as "Warriors." Those Warriors call the Devotees below them the "Impure" and the society above them the "Chosen." Those Chosen, an artistic society, call themselves "Bards" and the warriors below "Idiots." These words are not simply one-to-one swaps but indicate these societies' differing values: ones that mock and revere the people above and below them.

As you progress, you learn the source of that disconnection: an AI that has taken over everything.

The fictional ways AI can oppress humanity

There are many doomsday examples of what happens when actual artificial intelligence emerges (something that might never happen). The most common is the apocalypse. We see through examples such as the film Terminator (1984) of an artificial intelligence managing to destroy most of humanity, usually through a fiery, nuclear armageddon.

Another is enslavement. The Matrix (1999) is perhaps the most famous example here, where a robotic society has forcefully plugged humanity into an alternate reality to take advantage of their collective body heat. A more recent example is the last season of Westworld (2016–2022), where the "hosts" repurposed our dependency on screens to make us more obedient (see Westworld and the Limits of White Imagination).

However, in Chants of Sennaar, we get another rarer example — pacification.

The AI in question has not enslaved or exterminated the society the player has come across, the "Anchorites," but curated a virtual world where residents have voluntarily plugged in. When you reach the uppermost level, you come across citizens detached from the other societies, both socially and physically. These beings, called "Fairies" by the prior level, are so disconnected from those beneath them that they have become myths, but their removal is less fantastical and more depressing — they have given up on interacting with the physical world.

Your character walks the rain-soaked streets — an almost cyberpunk aesthetic bleeding in — as you observe row after row of plugged-in Anchorites slumped in their chairs for such long periods that some might be actual corpses.

The entity facilitating the Anchorites's disconnection is an AI called "Exile," which does not want you to end its people's isolation. An Anchorite sends you on a scavenger hunt to restore the communication arrays throughout the tower, and Exile blocks your progress with killer robots you have to sneak past. When this fails, Exile envelops you into a distorted virtual reality, a heightened one similar to what the Anchorites occupy themselves in. It tries to stop you from letting language flow freely between all the tower's levels.

It may seem strange for a language game to have an AI antagonist, but it's pretty topical. Modern AI is not generalized intelligence — we do not have a working definition of intelligence, let alone the ability to recreate it — but rather a predictive algorithm fed an Internet's worth of data. It's through these examples, as well as the human labor used to weed out errors, that language models like ChatGPT can function. It makes sense that the villain of this Game is an AI because the way such models work is the opposite of Chants of Sennaar. AI does not struggle through contextual examples but is fed every iteration of an answer key, infinitum, hoping to use that data to predict a distinctive iteration. Modern AI replaces the frustrating and exciting elements of language learning with a voice telling you an answer.

Of course, the easiest way for an AI to give you that answer is for a language to stay predictable and static—to stifle the interplay between cultures that leads to new words and rules. That is the very thing that has happened in the game.

Yet, again, Exile was not some master plan of a robotic overlord seeking conquest but something the Anchorites brought on willfully in reaction to human difference. As one of the Anchorites tells your character: "Foreign [people] came to the tower. [We] stopped talking [with each other]. [Everyone] feared [each other.] My people left in exile."

In response to contact with other humans, the Anchorites wanted to remain static and not change their society. So, they created Exile, which ensured that would happen, allowing a rigid caste system beneath them to fall into place.

A nuanced conversation on AI

Chants of Sennaar is a beautiful game. Progressing through the various levels is like taking those first steps into a new land. You see a window into small, intimate moments that feel all too real in the way only some of the best fiction can do.

This game also symbolizes what happens when we stop talking to one another. When we let the fear of human difference alienate us from our fellow man. It is a cautionary tale against the screens and machines we have put in front of us to block out our contact with the world and from the people who make us uncomfortable.

Many of our previous conversations about AI in pop culture have been quite simplistic. Creators have often depicted it as a force apart from humanity—something seeking to destroy or enslave us. AI is an "other" that we cannot relate to. Skynet and the central intelligence of The Matrix are so anti-human that they might as well be aliens conquering us from beyond the stars.

However, as AI's development accelerates, the reality of its depiction in media has become more nuanced. We are not dealing with aliens that will turn us all into paper clips but a tool that can be designed to amplify some of our worst impulses. From this perspective, AI is not something separate from us but an extension of humanity and, in the current context, our capitalist system.

In Chants of Sennaar, an AI is used to block out the world. We decide how its application will unfold in our future.

Final Fantasy Rebirth: Let Us Kiss Barret, You Cowards

Image; Square Enix

I recently played Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (2024) and found it to be a fun treat. The Final Fantasy series has always had a campy aesthetic detached from reality that I genuinely love, and Rebirth is camp on overdrive. Players can ride giant birds called Chocobos, transform themselves into frogs, and perform as characters in a theatrical Shakespearean play.

The game continues Square Enix’s 2020 Final Fantasy VII Remake, in which a splinter group of eco-terrorists try to stop the monopolistic Shinra Electric Power Company from draining the planet dry. This time, the main protagonist, the mercenary Cloud Strife (Takahiro Sakurai/Cody Christian), an ex-Shinra soldier and genetic experiment, is traveling the world with his environmentalist friends to try to stop the misanthropic and narcissistic alien-hybrid Sephiroth (Toshiyuki Morikawa/Tyler Hoechlin) from destroying the world. Rebirth is a profoundly political text that often has challenging conversations on environmental activism, capitalist exploitation, and the role violence plays in revolution.

There is a lot of good here. And yet, while I did love this game, I was frustrated by its dating mechanic, which I felt went out of its way to ensure we knew that the protagonist was totally “not” gay.

Briefly examining queerness in Final Fantasy Rebirth

First and foremost, it needs to be noted that there were queer non-playable characters in this game — although, with the exception of the fabulous Andrea Rhodea (Tomokazu Sugita/Trevor Devall), they were not prominent. Many viewers have also written about an alleged queer subtext surrounding our lead characters. For example, Cat Bussell in TechRadar argued:

“Rebirth makes it very easy to form a homoromantic reading of Cloud and Sephiroth’s relationship. Cloud’s thoughts, intrusive or otherwise, are consistently occupied by Sephiroth. Tracking him down to prevent his plan to destroy the world makes for the main crux of Rebirth’s story, after all. However, the intimate body language and conversations between the two are consistently loaded with subtext.

In a scene toward the end of the game which is teased in a trailer, Cloud charges at Sephiroth, only for the silver-haired villain to pull our protagonist close and embrace him, cradling him in his arms in a manner that’s somehow both tender and deeply sinister. While Sephiroth’s actions are undoubtedly controlling and creepy, they starkly challenge traditional gender norms about how two male characters interact. Cloud and Sephiroth’s relationship is consistently colored in this way, infused with this transgressive closeness.”

And yet, it must be emphasized that despite the game’s queer background characters and its campy aesthetic, none of the leads are textually LGBTQIA+. As in, there is no spoken dialogue, direct romantic or intimate actions such as kissing, or written text that tells us that Bussell’s interpretation, and the many like it, are anything more than headcanons (i.e., what a viewer believes or wants to be true about a work that is not “officially” confirmed by its creators).

This non-queerness with our lead characters would be fine — I don’t think every game has to have LGBTQIA+ leads — if not for a strange dating mechanic that goes out of its way for Cloud to go on several “non-date” dates with its male characters.

The femme dates

Throughout Rebirth, the lead, Cloud, can interact with his other compatriots during key plot points, which contributes to a hidden scoring system that allows him to eventually go on a date with one of five characters (or a fabulous boys’ night that is entirely platonic) near the climax of the game. Cloud returns to the Golden Saucer — a Disney World spoof — to have a romantic evening of attending a show of the play Loveless and, finally, a ride for two on the Skywheel.

Three of the characters you can take on this date are femme-presenting: Yuffie Kisaragi (Yumi Kakazu/Suzie Yeung), the Wutai revolutionary and ninja who wants to find materia to save her people; Aerith Gainsborough (Maaya Sakamoto/Briana White), the last-of-her-kind sorceress with a heart of gold; and Cloud’s childhood friend Tifa (Ayumi Ito/Britt Baron), who is a kickass fighter committed to ending Shinra. These characters all have nuanced backstories that I think were written adequately.

When it comes to their character models, they are “traditionally attractive.” They are skinny, pretty, and beautiful in all the ways that would appeal to the white supremacist, cisgendered, heteronormative gaze.

Two of these femme dates are romantic and arguably the most rewarding from a courtship perspective. The highlight of Aerith’s arc is the Loveless minigame, where her character sings a beautiful solo (No Promises To Keep, sung by Loren Allred), and depending on how high your score is with her, you either end the night with her head on Cloud’s shoulder or holding his hand. Tifa is even more explicit with either a passionate hug or kiss.

Even Yuffi gives Cloud a peck on the cheek on the Skywheel and appears as the love interest in the Loveless minigame, where she comes into your cell to rescue you.

However, the two other characters, the masc ones, have no such romantic overtures— they are the villains of the play and utterly undateable.

Gay, non-date dates

When it comes to the two masc-presenting characters, the dates are not framed romantically within the text. One of the characters, Red XIII or Nanaki (Kappei Yamaguchi/Max Mittelman), is an anthropomorphic dog-like creature whose relationship is entirely friendly. In his scene with Cloud on the Skywheel, he talks about his concern for his friend Aerith. It’s not about him at all, and I am not sure how you can read anything more than an entirely platonic relationship from it.

The only other male character you can go on a date with is Barret Wallace (Masato Funaki/John Eric Bentley), the leader of a splinter cell of the eco-terrorist group Avalanche. Barret is a controversial and rich character whose backstory was extensively elaborated on in Rebirth. We learn about his modest roots from a coal mining town that Shinra economically ruined when the company’s power reactor melted down—a reactor he initially campaigned for, only to regret his decision years later. Barret is a complex character who, unlike Cloud, has emotional depth.

His date with Cloud begins sweetly. Barrett knocks on Cloud’s door, saying, almost flirtatiously, “Well, well, I wake baby from his nap?” Cloud, though, does not bite, acting thoroughly disinterested the entire time. “Are we really doing this?” he says, bored at one point in the night.

As we get to the minigame during the Loveless play, where Cloud must take on the persona of a Shakespearean-esque character, Barret is not portrayed as the love interest in the story, like the femme leads are. He is not dressed as a prince or even (subversively) as a princess, but rather, in every iteration of the minigame, he is depicted as the villainous Varvados, a man who calls your love a charade if you select him.

In fact, from what I can gather, when you go on your “date” with him, Aerith takes on the princess role every time in the minigame (though please correct me if your research says differently).

When Cloud and Barret go on the Skywheel, no hands are touching. There are no heads leaning on shoulders. No almost kisses or hugs. Instead, Barret takes the time to open up to Cloud in a heart-wrenching monologue about his former love interest, Myrna. He tells Cloud that “once you find your soulmate, you never let ’em go…” Yet Barrett, as the lack of action at that moment makes clear, is not this person. Barrett scolds Cloud for not being direct enough and passing up on his true soulmate, who is implied to be one of the other characters — i.e., Aerith or Tifa.

This scene frustrates me because I would have been okay with Cloud just dating Aerith or Tifa. I didn’t need a queer dating option, but the gendered way the game handles the femme and masc dates is strange. Why let us go on a date with a masc-presenting person only to harangue us for not choosing the femme people?

The original 1997 game also had these date scenes. Barret’s date was platonic then, too, and I would assert, unlike this adaptation, blatantly offensive. There’s a scene where they enter the event square, and the announcer claims they are the 100th couple to enter that day, only to see that both of them are men and say: “Oh, wait….no, you’re not.” The homoeroticism was played for laughs then, and I am glad that was left behind in this remake.

But now, 27 years later, I wanted more than not to be offended. I wanted to hold Barret’s hand. So much has been updated about the original game—why not this?

A fantastical conclusion

This gripe is especially prominent since I know these creators have no problem with queer inclusion. One of the things I loved about this game’s predecessor, Remake, is that they updated a cross-dressing subplot from the original Final Fantasy 7 that was utterly offensive and made it less so. As Matt Kamen says of that original quest:

“One of the more legitimate concerns surrounding the FFVII Remake was how it would update the notorious crossdressing subquest. In the PS1 original, players could complete a number of objectives in Wall Market — the red light district of the sprawling Midgar City setting — to gather items that would help Cloud masquerade as a girl, in order to trick crimelord Don Corneo and help rescue your ally, Tifa. In 1997, it was played as a gag, making Cloud a “trap” while also making the very idea of two men in a bedroom together a punchline.”

In Remake, however, we don’t get a retread of that homophobia and transphobia. Cloud dressing as a woman is not seen as an oddity or punchline but as a joyous expression of gender. “True beauty is an expression of the heart. A thing without shame, to which notions of gender don’t apply,” the character Andrea Rhodea says after a fantastic dance minigame.

We don’t quite reach that level of queer excellence again in Rebirth, but we could have — if only we had been able to kiss Barret.

All in all, I liked a lot about this game, especially with Barret. Unlike the 1997 game, he was a more fleshed-out person. Emotionally, it felt like he had range, showing us when he was in pain and crying when he felt sad. But not being able to show Barret affection bothered me. I was there, in the booth of the Skywheel, waiting for the moment to come when Cloud would realize that he was that person, the soul mate Barret was lecturing about, and it never came.

With a sequel on its way, hopefully, we don’t have to wait 27 years this time to get that.

America's 'Bread and Circus' Society Is Not What You Think

Photo by Wesual Click on Unsplash

Many of my fellow Americans love entertainment. We talk about it during group chats and family dinners, post about our favorite shows on social media, and spend long periods glued to a screen—over seven hours a day, according to DataReportal. If one thing is more American than apple pie, it's telling colleagues they have to watch the latest show.

As we shall soon learn, the US government also spends an extraordinary amount subsidizing this and other forms of entertainment. As our society experiences several crises that we might not recover from (e.g., climate change, rising authoritarianism, fascism, etc.), it's clear that we, at least within the heart of the US empire, are living through a doubling down of the “bread and circus” approach to pacification.

In other words, the longstanding joke, "Everything is falling apart, but there sure is good TV," exists for a reason. It relates to how our government has decided to use distraction and comfort as a means of control while denying us the resources we need to survive.

The ye olden circus

By bread and circus, I mean the Latin concept of "panis et circenses," where a government is accused of subsidizing diversionary affairs, such as entertainment and cheap food, over fostering a more robust public life. The phrase is often attributed to the Roman poet Decimus Junius Juvenalis or "Juvenal" (born roughly from 55 CE to 128 CE) in his work "The Satires," specifically number ten.

Some context is probably needed here. For the bread part, Rome, as a Republic, started to subsidize grain at low to no cost under a "Grain Dole" for a significant part of its (citizen) population. The dole was first passed via a law introduced by Gaius Gracchus (154 BCE — 121 BCE), whose tribune was in 123 and 122 BCE. Most grain, not just the grain for this dole, was largely imported abroad from colonial holdings and client states such as Sicily, North Africa, and later in the time of the Empire, Eygpt. The government's management of the "Annona," or food supply, was so vital that it was named after the literal Goddess of said grain stockpiles. It required such a massive amount of investment that, at the time of the Empire, there was a “praefectus annonae,” an official tasked with overseeing it, who had officers throughout the empire.

For the circus element, the Roman government put on elaborate public games and performances called "ludi" that often coincided with major religious festivals. These would occur in all sorts of places, including grand locations such as the Circus Maximus, a massive chariot racing stadium in Rome. These weren't the circuses as we know them today. The Latin meaning of the word references merely "a ring or circular line," talking more about the stadiums and arenas where chariot races and other games were held (note: this is why "bread and circuses" is sometimes referred to as "bread and races" or "bread and games"). The state (as well as wealthy individuals) would host elaborate ludi to appeal to the public, often serving as the Roman people's primary type of entertainment.

Juvenal criticizes the decadence of these festivities, specifically of the rich in his Satires, but also how the aristocracy is bending to the weight of immigrants and “New Money.” He holds a nostalgic, reactionary framing when he introduces bread and circuses, writing:

“[The people] shed their sense of responsibility

Long ago, when they lost their votes, and the bribes; the mob

That used to grant power, high office, the legions, everything,

Curtails its desires, and reveals its anxiety for two things only,

Bread and circuses.”

Juvenal believes here in returning to an earlier time, in this case, the glory of the old Roman Republic, which he thought was a time when people cared more about civic life rather than just subsistence and entertainment. As articulated in the Literature and History podcast:

“Juvenal, especially in the earlier satires…the deeper concern is that Rome’s social order is transforming, that pedigree and education no longer count for anything, and that the old aristocracy, putrefying under the influence of new money, immigrants, and grotesque conspicuous consumption, is hoarding all the wealth while hardworking artists and tradespeople starve on the street.”

It's an opinion filled with half-truths. The Roman Empire was vastly unequal, with many, indeed, starving on the streets. Poor people in the city were frequently crammed into tenements called "insulae." This housing was made of less sturdy materials, making it prone to collapse, as well as a host of other calamities ranging from flooding to disease. As mentioned in the World Atlas: "The first couple of floors [of an insulae] typically were the best to live on. They had larger rooms, windows, balconies, and running water. This was a luxury compared to the upper floors, which usually had one room for an entire family to fit into. These upper rooms often had no natural light, no water supply, or bathroom facilities."

As one of the most populated cities in the world at the time, keeping this down-on-its-luck population in check was vital for any regime's political survival. And yet, to assert, as Juvenal does, that this pacification was also not a defining aspect of Roman democracy during the Republic is ahistorical. Bribing the public for political influence was not a new practice that suddenly came about in his lifetime. As mentioned, it dates back to the Republic when politicians tried to buy voting blocs with grain allotments — a practice that ambitious emperors were keen to adopt.

The wealthy, charismatic, and powerful often tried to leverage the food supply and entertainment for political clout. Juvenal's comments come off as your typical conservative blaming the "masses" for systemic problems—an issue that has remained with us in the modern day.

Modern-day bread

Conservatives today tend to liken programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and other welfare programs to this same "bread and circus" critique, casting them solely as individual moral failings. As Conner Tuttle lectured on the conservative The Tuttle Twins podcast:

“When we think about the political problems that we have today, so often, I think it comes down to bread and circuses as well, that so many people are dependent upon the government for their income, food, the benefits. They’re getting subsidies, they’re getting tax benefits, they’re getting food stamps [i.e SNAPs], they’re getting welfare…And so in that sense, the government is giving them bread. It’s giving them money basically, which is the equivalent. They need it to sustain their life.”

The Tuttle Twins are misinformed about the ease of this relationship for the lower classes (more on the upper classes later)—both now and in ancient Rome. Conner Tuttle seems to think that SNAP and other welfare programs are "free money" the government hands out with little thought. However, American Welfare programs are notoriously hard to get on, including SNAP, which is means-tested, meaning, according to the House Budget Committee, the program only "benefits individuals and families living at or near the federal poverty level."

In 2024, that's an income of $15,060 a year for individuals.

There are furthermore work requirements attached to the program, and — barring some exceptions such as homelessness, having a small child, or having a federally recognized disability, etc. — you aren't going to be eligible for too long unless you start working. SNAP also remains heavily stigmatized, both in what you can use to purchase with it (e.g., no hot foods, pet food, alcohol, etc.) as well as there being a gap between the number of people eligible for the program and the number enrolled.

The Roman system also had barriers, particularly for poor people. Under the Roman Empire, the Grain Dole became both more institutionalized and much more limited. The Empire lowered the number of eligible citizens to restrict the overall cost to something around 200,000 citizens (although the number varied depending on what period of history). An enormous bureaucracy was involved in this grain's transportation and distribution, as detailed lists were deemed necessary, so only “qualified” Romans would be entitled to such resources. These positions had long waitlists, and later, since they could be sold or inherited, they tended to bias more established Romans. As written in the Oxford Classical Dictionary:

“The grain distribution was not aimed at curbing poverty in Rome. Recipients who died were replaced by others, but one had to be on a waiting list in order to become a recipient. So it does not seem that the most marginal of Rome’s inhabitants would have been particularly represented on the lists. On the contrary: the lists were probably dominated by those who were settled and well integrated in the city, who had a permanent job or profession, a skill or stable employment. Non-citizens and newly arrived migrants from the Italian countryside were not among the plebs frumentaria.”

This fact may go against our more modern, conservative association to liken such welfare programs to "handouts" for the poor and marginalized. However, as we have just seen, that was not the case in Rome. These programs were about stopping political revolts, not about eliminating systemic poverty. Why would a highly stratified slave state like Rome care about something like that?

America's system is different from Rome's in the sense that programs such as SNAP are generally geared toward more marginalized Americans. Many of its recipients are elderly, disabled, or children, and it goes up when unemployment increases. However, like any program with hurdles, the most marginalized, such as undocumented immigrants, people with drug-related felony convictions in some states, and individuals on strike, are not eligible at all. You can't just be below the Federal Poverty Level and need help to get on this program.

Just like in Rome, proper citizenship (however it is nebulously defined) is demanded.

Given its requirements, SNAP is not geared toward ending systemic poverty either. It has now been whittled down to the point where it is a small part of the budget. All economic security programs are around 8% as of 2023, including everything from SNAP to the Earned Income Tax Credit to school meals to unemployment insurance. Recipients are not given that much — in many cases, less than $10 a day — and that's very hard to live on, let alone move beyond one's class.

It also bears emphasizing that the rest of the welfare system is not much better. Horror stories about the application process surround programs such as Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) to the point where hiring a lawyer to navigate it is often a must. Regular Social Security can also make huge mistakes with how it calculates payments, and years later, demand that money back once it "corrects" its mistake. Free money is not just being handed out on purpose. Most of these programs require ongoing contributions to the economy for all, but the direst of circumstances and the money provided hardly allows people to "live large" when they do get it.

From where I stand, this difficulty with accessing care is integral to both the American and Roman "bread and circus." True redistribution would place the peasantry and the aristocracy, or in our day, workers and capitalists, on equal footing and is just as dangerous to the upper classes as providing no resources at all. A highly mobilized, cared-for population with tons of leisure time starts to ask fundamental questions about how power is concentrated.

Conversely, the point is to make the minimum investment possible for enough people so that the "masses" do not have the energy to engage in anything but diversions. Rome was not a utopia where poor people lived off the largesse of the government—a vast segment of the population was enslaved and not eligible for such benefits—and the ones who were eligible competed for them on long waitlists they might never get on.

Yet benefits aside, they were more than able to see the games — and, in this regard, America does not seem to be much different.

The modern-day circuses

Unlike the ludi of the Roman Empire, our entertainment today is mainly in the private sector. There are fireworks in the capital of Washington, DC, along with free festivals and museums on the National Mall, but they pale in comparison to the light shows of Disney World or Macy's Fourth of July fireworks. Our “decadence” certainly exists — and we'll get into it — but it's much more enmeshed with corporate actors, and boy, do we have a lot of it.

A great example is sports stadiums. Private entities own the overwhelming number of American sports teams. However, public funds are still used in their construction. According to Clark Merrefield in The Journalist's Resource, summarizing a paper in The Journal of Policy Analysis and Management:

“Across [the MLB, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League] there have been eight new stadiums or arenas built since 2020, at a total construction cost of roughly $3.3 billion, according to a September 2023 paper in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. About $750 million in public funds went toward those construction projects.”

That's only over three years. We are talking about tens of billions of dollars across the last three decades, where state and local governments have subsidized anywhere from a quarter to over fifty percent of each of these projects. Many of these efforts were and continue to be financed by municipal bonds that are exempt from federal taxes (and often state taxes), which means that we, as taxpayers, ultimately lose out on paying for these constructions while having very little control over them—projects that studies routinely find to be not good public investments. As Roger Noll at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research told Stanford News of one particular construction: "SNFL stadiums do not generate significant local economic growth, and the incremental tax revenue is not sufficient to cover any significant financial contribution by the city."

Stadiums are not the only privately held diversion the American government is investing heavily in, either. Where the Romans had their games, now we have TV. According to Nielson's 2023 State of Play Report, over 1 million unique titles are available to the typical US consumer across all "linear" and "streaming" services, with nearly 100 streaming services and over 30,000 channels. This figure does not include the billions of YouTube videos or the billions more videos across Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, etc. We are a nation inundated with a boundless amount of choices regarding the content we can watch, and the cost is only that of an Internet subscription — something that most Americans have.

Although most of this programming is not owned directly by the government, our state and federal governments are more than willing to foot the bill, often through the tax system. The state of New York, for example, offers hundreds of millions in tax incentives to the film industry every year. We are talking about billions of dollars when we look at the incentives across every state each year. There is a straightforward transfer of wealth happening directly from the taxpayer to the film industry, and it's not clear that we benefit much from it. Our government gives these industries our money for such entertainment, and these firms then turn around and charge us for it — all based on the economically dubious concept that that money will trickle down to us.

We could spend the rest of this article detailing how the US government subsidizes our entertainment, or at the very least, the rich who own it. However, I want to emphasize that these "decadences", while subsidized so us plebes can theoretically access them, are much more in the domain of the affluent than the "poor." It's the wealthy who spend their fortunes on entertainment and travel more than any demographic.

They also spend their money on things you or I can hardly ever do, such as lavish parties, mansions, yachts, private planes, and luxury goods. Last year alone, billionaire Michael Rubin threw a massive 4th of July white party at his $50 million beachfront mansion. Attendees ranged from Jay-Z to Tom Brady, with impromptu performances from Usher and Ne-Yo. Pizzas were transported from the elite Brooklyn restaurant Lucali, and guests sipped on the ever-expensive Ace of Spade Champagne and Dusse Cognac. It was one of many such private parties that year.

Such elaborate celebrations also happened in Rome — they probably happen wherever inequality intensifies. While the Empire put on large games and festivals, poor people could hardly compete with the elaborate banquets of the rich, where the wealthy allegedly ate to such excess that they vomited. As written by Nina Martyris in NPR:

“The Roman banquet evokes voluptuary images of men in togas reclining on couches and glutting themselves on wild sow’s udders and stuffed snails, while servants stream in bearing platters heaped with heavily sauced and delicately spiced foods from all over the world: ostrich from Africa, pepper and sugar cane from India, cumin from Ethiopia, sumac from Syria, olives from Greece, and that perennial Roman favorite, the fleshy homegrown fig. Wine is drunk in copious amounts from double-handled silver cups, while a lyre plays in the background. There are performing troupes, poets, even the occasional leopard, and sometimes rose petals flutter down from on high. One sadistic host, the Emperor Elagabalus, built a banquet hall with a false ceiling that tilted open, allowing a torrent of flowers to rain down upon his unsuspecting guests, smothering to death those unable to crawl out from under the floral deluge.

Or so the story goes. As with many wild stories retelling Roman debauchery, this one, too, comes to us heavily sauced — or heavily perfumed in this case. What is beyond dispute, though, is that gastronomy was fetishized and raised to the level of a fine art by the Romans, and its apogee was the banquet.”

When people talk about Rome, there is this myth of universal decadence. Conservatives paint this picture that everyone was f@cking and partying all the time, and that's why the Empire declined. As the patriarchal meme goes: "Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times."

This feeling is perhaps best summarized by Edward Gibbon in his wildly inaccurate epic Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, where he universalizes Romes's collapse into one about human nature, where the empire's alleged prosperity leads to a devastating decadence. As Gibbon writes:

“The long peace, and the uniform government of the Romans, introduced a slow and secret poison into the vitals of the empire. The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same level, the fire of genius was extinguished, and even the military spirit evaporated. The natives of Europe were brave and robust…their personal valour remained, but they no longer possessed the public courage which is nourished by the love of independence, the sense of national honour, the presence of danger and the habit of command.”

Yet this poorly defined "poison," what many conservatives would call "decadence," was not universal to all in Rome, and I can hardly see what it has to do with something as complex as the unraveling of an empire. Rome collapsed because it was an imperialist power that relied on client states and colonies to supply much of what it needed for its operations, including its grain supply. It had an overextended bureaucracy, and as it lost the ability to control such territories for reasons that are still widely debated, it fractured. The intricacies of this decline are certainly up for debate, but even if "decadence" were one of the many reasons — and there has been no serious evidence that this is the case (see The Modern Cultural Myth of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) — it would be a decadence enjoyed by a narrow minority, and caused by vast inequality.

And, like then, America now has people lamenting about decadence and moral weakness, and it is also a lie meant to cover up a more sobering truth.

A declining conclusion

Modern-day conservatives often want to point to Rome and use it as an example of how poor people engaging in entertainment, as well as society's increasing acceptance of social minorities, are the causes for the supposed decline of American Empire. And yet, everything I have seen points me in the opposite direction. Bread and Circus is not a moral failing caused by poor people playing too many video games or watching too much TV, nor is it a sign of inevitable collapse, but rather merely a policy of control meant to pacify a culture of vast inequality.

Rome was not a place where everyone had equal access to its affluence. Those considered "non-Roman" received constant discrimination and even bigotry. If you read Juvenal further, you will come across some of the most bigoted comments toward Greek people and other ethnicities of his day (SatIII:58–125):

“That race most acceptable now to our wealthy Romans, That race I principally wish to flee, I’ll swiftly reveal, And without embarrassment. My friends, I can’t stand A Rome full of Greeks, yet few of the dregs are Greek! For the Syrian Orontes has long since polluted the Tiber, Bringing its language and customs, pipes and harp-strings, And even their native timbrels are dragged along too, And the girls forced to offer themselves in the Circus.”

Rome was a highly stratified society brimming with prejudices, and I know that dynamic exists in America, too. We are a culture of great material wealth, but that's hardly shared with everyone. Many people struggle to capture the tenuous benefits offered by the US system if any are received at all. We must navigate a Byzantine bureaucracy while the wealthy experience things almost beyond imagining for the rest of us. In place of systems of care, we have been given the means to dole the pain: our entertainment. We spend money on TV, phones, and video games because there is hardly anything else to cling to. Care is not guaranteed in this system; only pixels on a screen.

If we can survive the Anthropocene, future descendants will undoubtedly have a morbid fascination with our current fixation with television and other forms of entertainment. Our escapism is evident in the present, and as long as the historical record survives, it will probably be apparent to the future as well. It remains to be seen, however, how this fascination will be interpreted — will the future chastise the masses like Juvenal for allegedly being complicit in their own suffering, will they place their ire on the rich, as I have done, for architecting that pacification, or will some new unforeseen dichotomy arise (as they tend to do)?

I don’t know, but in the meantime, I'll see you around, staring down at your screen.

Camp (Usually) Doesn't Win Awards & It's Homophobic

Photo by Denise Jans on Unsplash

One of my favorite films of this year has been one most people hated or, at the very least, ignored: Lisa Frankenstein (2024), a lovechild of Oscar winner Diablo Cody of Juno (2007) fame. I saw it near midnight in a practically empty theater and enjoyed every minute. There is an inside joke from this movie, my partner and I still say, months later, and reflecting on it is almost bittersweet because most people don't know what I am talking about even when I explain the reference.

Critics hated this movie (mostly). With a 51% on Rotten Tomatoes (though a much higher audience score), it was grilled for being unserious and disjointed. "It will come as no surprise that the new movie 'Lisa Frankenstein' is a real monster," laments Mark Kennedy in the Associated Press.

"It's messy and chaotic, and while that makes the movie a fun horror-comedy, it isn't a fully satisfying experience," remarks Molly Freeman in Screen Rant.

This overly negative reaction felt strange because, from the perspective of a campy pleasure, the film set out with everything it was trying to do. It had that topsy-turvy sense of humor that you often see in beloved camp classics such as Serial Mom (1994), But I'm A Cheerleader (1999), or Rocky Horror (1975). These films are cult classics now, but they often bombed at the box office when they initially premiered. Like then, it felt like critics were judging Lisa Frankenstein to a different, straighter, less queer standard.

And I see that a lot with Hollywood — what is considered serious and professional is coded as masculine, straight, and often white, and everything else must either conform to that box as best it can or push against it, frequently in vain.

Camp is indecent

The word camp is thrown around a lot these days. In her seminal essay Notes on Camp (1964), Susan Lee Sontag summarized it as the "…love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration." Campy films are like a mirror universe where the motivations and sensibilities of "traditional" society are not prioritized. We focus on characters who experience the world in ways that "normal" people find abhorrent.

As a consequence, camp films are usually not "serious." Humor is not grounded in traditional sensibilities, and therefore, it may seem off-kilter to the uninitiated. We see this with the campy drag queen Divine, whose character would say and do all sorts of unhinged things. As she remarked in the absolutely filthy Pink Flamingos (1972): "Condone first-degree murder. Advocate cannibalism. Eat shit. Filth is my politics. Filth is my life." It's an absurdist framing meant to seem darkly humorous to the viewer, and this statement is, by far, one of the tamer things in that movie.

Furthermore, camp is frequently coded or directly about queer people, Black and Brown people, and anyone else who is otherized. It resonates with identities and viewpoints that are not only marginalized by the status quo but actively reject it. Camp figures are loud and abrasive, and they hold values that are entirely antithetical to straight, cisnormative, white society for a reason.

They are willfully choosing not to conform, even when it's dangerous, even when it's absurd.

In Serial Mom, for example, the main character is a serial-killing mom whose targets are those who violate the norms of suburban society, and she is worshipped for it. While fleeing the cops near the climax, she briefly becomes a figure of adoration at a punk show. They let her in, knowing who she is, and later, post-chase, as she is being dragged out of the venue by the cops, the crowd starts chanting "serial mom." Her eventual exoneration receives intense applause from her new morbid fans, who love her because of her murderous rage.

Going back to Lisa Frankenstein, the morality of the characters was one of the significant contentions with a lot of the criticism I saw. The two leads, Lisa (Kathryn Newton) and her "Creature" (Cole Sprouse) go on a killing spree, all so Lisa can build the "perfect" boyfriend. It's an entirely unhinged and campy motivation, and some reviewers simply did not get it. As Richard Lawson writes in Vanity Fair:

…Lisa Frankenstein does a lot to alienate even those most susceptible to its appeal. It’s a gross movie, a squelch of reeking bodily fluid and severed limbs and creepy crawly bugs. The film asks that we, too, fall in love with Lisa’s monster, the magically revived corpse of a lovelorn young man who died hundreds of years ago. As played by Cole Sprouse, the creature is a lurching ghoul, hideously awkward in his own body.

Yet that love for the disgusting was the entire point of the film. We are being asked to identify with the unhinged outcasts and their murderous obsession. This love for filth is what camp is all about. If you want a nice film where the monster turns out to be sweet and hot, then go watch Warm Bodies (2013) or some other straight fantasy.

Camp is "unserious" and "repugnant," and occasionally, despite what the title of this article suggests, it even wins awards. Everything, Everywhere All At Once, the 2022 Oscar winner about a mother named Evelyn Quan Wang (Michelle Yeoh) traveling across the multiverse to rescue her tyrannical queer daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu) from her own nihilism, was campy as hell. It had an entire subplot where characters had to do unusual things to their bodies, including inserting a dildo-shaped object up their butts. This film was queer and loud, and it won widespread acclaim (though there is a massive caveat that we will discuss later).

At the time, I thought this was the beginning of a reorientation of the kinds of films we as a society decide to praise, but that's not what has happened — at least not as quickly as I would have hoped. The Oscars came and went this year, and, unsurprisingly, the moody and male Oppenheimer (2023) swept the awards. It's like when Moonlight (2016) won Best Picture, only for us to snap back to white saviorism two years later with Greenbook (2018). A film can break the mold, but it doesn't mean we stop using the old mold altogether.

While I am starting to see more camp-like contenders receive more significant acclaim (see Poor Things (2023), arguably Barbie (2023), etc.), the old mold still exists, and it's stronger than ever.

Camp and war

Oppenheimer is the antithesis of camp, falling into what I loosely refer to as "Great Man Films." Where camp actively rejects society's current hierarchies, Great Man Films are all about reaffirming the status quo through the celebration and adoration of patriarchal figures (see The King's Speech (2010), Braveheart (1995), etc.). These are films about great men of history, both real and imagined — films that focus on their concerns and worries.

For example, in Oppenheimer, based on the biography American Prometheus (2005), named after the myth about the God who gave fire to humanity, the eponymous character is depicted as uniquely special. We start the movie by glimpsing the magical quantum world that J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) sees. We are constantly shown not only how smart he is but also how he adheres to his principles at a significant personal cost.

Oppenheimer is a man who tells a racist President to give land back to the Indians and flirts with the communist party during a time of increasing anti-communism. He is a maverick, a genius, and arguably, a hero.

Great Man Films are also, as opposed to camp, entirely "serious." They have somber tones, heavy subject matter, and, most importantly, idolize trauma and loss. These men suffer, and that suffering is rarely joked about or trivialized. Oppenheimer loses his lover, Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), and has to soldier on with his work. He grapples with the weight of his tremendously vital decision to build the atomic bomb, often alone. The film ends with him moodily proclaiming that he has "ended the world" with his creation. The moments of exhilaration and tenderness we might see in camp are few and far between.

Finally, these films are about perseverance. Even when Oppenheimer loses his battle against nuclear proliferation, the narrative is based on his triumph. In this case, the film is structured around several political hearings — a hearing for Oppenheimer's security clearance as well as the Senate confirmation hearing of Rear Admiral Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) for Secretary of Commerce.

Strauss is the closest the film gets to a villain, and when Oppenheimer's allies manage to scuttle his nomination, the hearing also serves the double purpose of singing Oppenheimer's praises. He may have suffered, but he has pushed forward all the same.

As we can see, these two genres are vastly opposed to one another. There is what we may dramatically call a war between the Great Man perspective and camp, with the Great Man one currently reigning supreme. When it comes to awards, how we think of "serious" often fits these archetypes around Great Man Films— about male trauma, greatness, and perseverance — and that reflects the titles that even get made. When you think of award seasons, you think serious, and when you think serious, these traits are what films get made around, even if white men are not your subject matter.

For example, Moonlight was a great film about a Black queer man named Chiron (Alex R. Hibbert/Ashton Sanders/Trevante Rhodes) struggling to make space for himself in a world that actively hates such intersections. Its awards are well-earned, but I also cannot help thinking that it might not have received such accolades if its emphasis had not been so overwhelmingly on trauma.

Chiron endures a neglectful environment where even those who love him can't help but hurt him a little. It's heartbreaking, the type of pain often viewed as awards-worthy. Yet plenty of films deconstruct White Supremacy and Blackness in America, including brilliant campy satires such as Sorry to Bother You (2018), that don't win Oscars (or even snag a nomination).

Even with Everything, Everywhere All At Once, there is a caveat to its campy success. The entire film centers on a conservative mother's struggle to effectively come to terms with her daughter Joy's queerness — an identity that is rooted in so much pain that she wants to wipe herself from existence. Everything, Everywhere All At Once ends, not with the campy celebration of Joy or Jobu Tupaki's power, but assimilating into the traditional conservative family structure.

Evelyn accepts Joy and her girlfriend (Tallie Medel), and they become regular members of the Wang family. Jobu Tupaki consequently abandons her attempts to move beyond this singular dimension, focusing on imperfectly staying in place like her mother.

There is usually a conservative foundation amongst the most successful campy films. Hell, Diablo Cody's most famous movie, Juno, is about a white woman who ultimately decides to go forward with her pregnancy and ends up in a relationship with the man who impregnated her.

It's non-traditional in the sense of her not keeping the baby, but an acceptable type of non-traditionalism that manages not to offend conservative, forced-birth sensibilities. It would be hard to believe a fun romp about a young woman getting an abortion would win an Oscar, and I know that because it's called Grandma (2015), and few saw it.

There is a type of otherization that happens in filmography but also in society at large. Serious things are in the domain of the masculine, the rich, the straight, and often the white. Unserious things, well, they just so happen to be pushing against the norms of our society, and they are tacky for it. I am reminded of a quote from Jo Weldon's book Fierce: The History of Leopard Print (2018), writing:

Tacky, as a concept, refers to the lack of cultivation or the resistance to taste, and more often than not refers to tastes that are not suitably conservative….Tacky doesn't respect gatekeepers, and tacky tries too hard.

Furthemore, tacky is likely to be feminine, ethnic, queer, deviant; not manly, not practical, not businesslike, not serious. Tacky, like hell, is always other people.

I feel this in my bones. There is a hierarchy to taste. I cannot merely say that Lisa Frankenstein was one of my favorite films of the year and be respected as a critic because that movie is tacky. That film is queer. It is loud, unhinged, and unserious.

A Tacky Conclusion

Hierarchies of taste have been built around the world of cinema. They assert that certain styles deserve acclaim, and as someone whose identities often do not meet the more conservative values of Great Man Films, I tire of this mold. It's okay for a film to be about trauma, perseverance, or even greatness, but for these values to dominate as they currently do is intolerable.

I would like to see cinema go more in the direction of Everything Everywhere All At Once, or even Pink Flamingos, and away from Oppenheimer. I want camp to be respected for the art that it is and not merely an anomaly that wins because it manages to make the appropriate concessions to normative culture. Otherness should not have to be dressed up to seem valid. It should be allowed to break the mold, to shatter expectations, and to be praised for doing so.

I want filth to be king, and I don't care if that makes me unserious.

Dune: Part Two — The Story of How to Be a Colonizer

Photo by Jeremy Cai on Unsplash

Denis Villeneuve's Dune series is based on the 1965 book by Frank Herbert of the same name. It's about a neo-feudal society that has regressed away from automation after a war against machines in the distant past called the Butlerian Jihad.

Human-powered computation is now a necessary component for every aspect of life, including, most importantly for this space opera, faster-than-light travel. A substance known as "spice" gives the Spacing Guild's almost machine-like Navigators temporal prescience so that they can do the calculations necessary to make FTL work, and it can only be found in the desert world of Arrakis.

Dune involves the royal houses of this feudal society as they attempt to wrest control of Arrakis from its lethal environment, the native population, and each other. Our main protagonist is Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), whose family is assigned stewardship of Arrakis by the Emperor, only for most of them to be betrayed and executed by the evil House Harkonnen. By the end of the first film, Paul Atreides and his mother, Lady Jessica of Atreides (Rebecca Ferguson), are forced into hiding in the desert amongst the native Fremen.

Dune: Part Two involves Paul's comeback, as he teams up with the Fremen to win what he has lost. Yet underneath this fairly traditional tale of a disgraced noble winning back his title, is a horrifying story about how to colonize others. This domination is done through violence, yes, but more importantly, the message of Dune is how colonizers convince the colonized to control themselves.

How colonizers control

Upon initially watching Dune: Part Two, one could be forgiven for thinking this is a modern Lawrence of Arabia (1962) where a white colonizer masters a native people's ways and then organizes them against their oppressors better than they can (referred to sometimes as the "Mighty Whitey” trope). This is what some have criticized the original Dune book for. As Noah Berlatsky wrote in The Escapist in 2019 about both David Lynch's 1984 movie and the original book more broadly:

“… in Dune, as in other Mighty Whitey stories, there’s a bit more going on. Paul’s whiteness makes him an object of worship for the Fremen. But his time with them also gives him access to his full prophetic abilities, ultimately allowing him to defeat the Emperor and become the effective ruler of the universe…

…Paul’s divinity and power comes from his ability to capitalize on the resources and pain of others. On the surface, Mighty Whitey characters are superior because of their whiteness. But dig a little deeper, and their powers are borrowed or, more accurately, stolen. They are godlike because they’ve appropriated the labor and wealth of others. Paul claims to be wracked with guilt because he sees a future in which he leads the Fremen in a path of bloody destruction across the universe. But really the guilt is for his present glory, built on blood and a deceit that the story won’t, and can’t, quite acknowledge.”

And yet, director Denis Villeneuve's retelling doesn't take that direction (at least not totally). Dune: Part Two isn't a decolonization story at all, despite what the initial first half of the film and its freedom-fighting antics might suggest. It's not even really a colonizer wish-fulfillment fantasy, as the original book most certainly was, but a film about how colonizers use ideology to conquer people.

This fact is shown most prominently via a mystical prophecy the Atreides family has used — specifically Paul's mother, Lady Jessica, and the forces she represents — to indoctrinate the native Fremen. Jessica is a member of the Bene Gesserit (a pseudo-religious order of all women who have the power to manipulate people with their voices).

They are the closest this series gets to true villains, and for a long time, they have been planting the idea amongst the Fremen that a stranger who fits the description of Paul will come to lead them as their mythical Mahdi ("the Fremen's savior") or Lisan al Gaib ("the One who will save Arrakis"). Multiple characters state over and over again that this prophecy is a fabrication being used to control the Fremen. As one character says: "If you want to control people, tell them a messiah will come, then they will wait for centuries."

Religion has been one of the primary tools of colonization. We don't even have to stray from our own world to understand this fact. It's a sentiment that should be familiar to anyone who has studied Christianity, whose recent history is that of imperial powers spreading this religion to others as a method of control. From the role of Christian missionaries in usurping the Kingdom of Hawaii to State Boarding Schools in Canada and the United States used to strip native people of their culture and language, Christianity did not spread naturally around the globe but was perpetuated by force. As written in the Emory Scholarly blog on Christianity's role in African colonization:

“Essentially Christianity was a guise by which Western governments justified the exploitation and conquest of African nations….Denouncing the religious practices of Africans as witchcraft and heathenism, European nations sought to convert, and then exploit the indigenous peoples of Africa.”

The use of religion in Dune is a prelude to conquest, and it's a bloodless conquest at that. The Bene Gesserit have refined their violence, moving away from swords and other direct weapons that they leave to the realm of men, and focusing instead on the spoken word. Their Voice, magic enhanced by spice (and consequently stolen from the people of Arrakis), has been weaponized to control the actions of anyone they choose. Resistors don't need to be killed by the Bene Gesserit—they merely need to be commanded to worship, as Chani (Zendaya) is, when she is forced via the power of Jessia's Voice to give Paul Atreides her tears to fulfill some arcane prophecy.

Yet, it's not just force alone that makes such indoctrination so insidious. Colonizers cannot be everywhere all the time unless you choose to let a version of them inside your mind, and that requires a far more subtle touch of persuasion and charity.

There is a very telling line halfway through Dune: Part Two, where Lady Jessica, who has now become a Reverend Mother for the Fremen, telegraphs to the viewer how she will sway the less dogmatic North, and it has everything to do with pinpointing vulnerable people in Fremen society. She says: "Convert the non-believers one by one. Start with the weaker ones. The vulnerable ones. The ones who fear us."

Courting vulnerable populations is one of the first things a rising group will do when it tries to gain power, and religion almost always plays a part in this. If we are being cynical, it is the reason why Christianity has so many orphanages and hospitals. In anthropologists David Graeber and David Wengrow's book The Dawn of Everything, they discussed how the legitimacy of many monarchs might be directly linked to claims of looking after the "weak." As they write:

“It is possible to detect something of this logic in almost all historically documented royal courts, which invariably attracted those considered freakish or detached. There seems to have been no region of the world, from China to the Andes, where courtly societies did not have such obviously distinctive individuals; and few monarchs who did not also claim to be the protectors of widows and orphans.”

First, as Reverend Mother Jessica of Atreides says, you go after the weak and vulnerable.

The colonizer's choice

Paul feels conflicted by his mother's machinations. For most of the film, he does not want to go to the more religious South because he feels he will be swept up in the messianic image that she has cultivated for him. The Fremen in the North are depicted as being more egalitarian than the feudalism of his world, and he wants to hang on to that image— what earlier, more racist text would have referred to as "going native."

Paul sees clearly that the entire mythology built around him is a lie. He knows that the mystical powers that he possesses are not divine but a predictive power combining genetic engineering (i.e., eugenics) and spices' unique temporal properties.

Yet this truth does not matter, even when it’s said out loud by him. When he tells a group of dogmatic Fremen, led by Stilgar (Javier Bardem), that he is neither a messiah nor interested in ruling them, that makes them believe he is "humble" and even more worthy of his role. Unlike past Mighty Whitey texts, it's the indoctrination around Paul, not anything unique about Paul himself, that makes him such a force to be reckoned with.

However, these forces are not ones Paul has much control over. His insurgency in the North ends catastrophically when his hit-and-run tactics push House Harkonnen to launch a strike against Fremen strongholds, killing thousands and forcing the entire population to migrate to the safer, more extremist South — the one outcome he wanted the least. He may be the mythologized head of this new messianic movement, but he isn't a God. He is not able to control the tides of history any more than anyone else can — he can merely ride them out.

In truth, the only thing he can decide in the film is whether to embrace the role of colonizer or let another noble take his place. Paul is oblivious to this fact, but we, as the viewers, know that the Bene Gesserit have been training another royal, Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler), a member of House Harkonnen, to take on Paul's role if he does not succeed in coming to power. They are always playing "games within games" and have no problem leaning on the Harkonnens — the previous stewards of Arrakis who almost succeeded in exterminating House Atreides — as long as they can be controlled.

It should be noted that the Harkonnens are a hyperviolent, imperial power. They are also subtextually coded to be White Supremacists.

There is one scene in a massive stadium where, at the center, Feyd-Rautha is killing people for his birthday, and the viewer is treated to throngs upon throngs of enraptured white people cheering on this man's brutality (it's not subtle). Feyd-Rautha is depicted as being the pinnacle of his people's white supremacist rage. He does not just kill men and women in anger but carves them up to consume, giving the parts he does not want to his cannibalistic harem.

For the Bene Gesserit, there is no difference between Feyd-Rautha and Paul Atreides, and as the movie progresses, we start to understand why. While Feyd-Rautha ruling the Empire would be truly awful, we come to understand that Paul will be no better.

He starts to bend under his messianic role, browbeating the Fremen into following him into battle and embracing his newly discovered Harkonnen roots to better take control of the imperial throne. "We must be Harkonnens," he tells his mother coldly. In seconds, any sympathy built up for him is erased.

Ultimately, he pushes the Fremen into a Holy War across the galaxy, distorting their somewhat egalitarian culture into a theocracy that gives them "freedom" from oppressors as long as they are willing to be tools for this white colonizer's bid for power.

An imperial conclusion

There is no good outcome in Dune, either in part one or two. It is a deeply cynical text in which Paul Atreides realizes that in order to "win," he has to fight fire with fire and out-colonize the colonizers. He declares himself emperor, taking the war of all-against-all on Arrakis and thrusting it onto the galaxy.

If there is one major criticism of these films, it's not that they are white saviorist texts—this latest outing is a thorough rejection of that perspective—but that they are texts that do not see a way past colonization. It is the air Paul Atreides breaths, and its dominance is seen as inevitable, even if its players shift ever so slightly. The Fremen were occupied, and now, under the orders of a new white overlord, they shall occupy the galaxy, but the Bene Gesserit and even the dominance of royal intrigue will not change (at least if the book Dune Messiah is any indication).

Denis Villeneuve has indicated that he is interested in continuing the story, and based on this movie's success, he most likely will get that chance.

The temptation of spectacle might push him to embrace the very Mighty Whitey trope he rejected, but maybe he will continue to toe the line and deconstruct Empire again. Perhaps we might even get a glimpse beyond it — only the spice can tell us for sure.