Loftwings and Demons

I watched Parasite (2019) recently and besides finding it possibly the most traumatizing movie I have ever seen, I was also struck by how the rich family is unable to cook, clean, or drive for themselves, and so they hire others to do these tasks for them. The people they hire have little choice but to participate in the alienation of their labor for the benefit of the rich family, even to the point of being coerced to do tasks that they weren't hired for.

There's a lot more going on in the story of course, but I was struck by the beautiful, spacious, and immaculate house the rich family possesses. It left me with such a longing--not for that house specifically, but for a home that I could call my own. This is not a new feeling, really. There's a lot of things I like about living in apartments, but there's also the constant reminder that it's not really yours, that you aren't at liberty to do whatever you like with the space, and that you have to regularly pay a steep price just to be allowed to stay there.

But there was one aspect of the rich family's home that I admired that had nothing to do with home ownership or any property of the building itself: how clean it was. And it occurred to me that this was because they had a housekeeper who performed all the cleaning tasks for them. Neither husband nor wife ever cleaned their own home, and the children were never asked to perform any chores. The cleanliness of their home was thus due entirely to the housekeeper's labor.

However, it also occurred to me that not only am I capable of cleaning my own space, but that doing so is the only way for my space to be clean without the alienation of someone else's labor. And that though the task itself is not one I am particularly skilled at or enjoy, that I always greatly appreciate the results.

Which is how I came to do a thorough cleaning of my bathroom today. I am greatly enjoying the extra cleanliness of the space. I hope to do more cleaning as leftist praxis soon.

Just had a thought about the Glass Onion scene before/after the big reveal (major spoilers)...

( Read more... )

Was thinking about how much I wish I was a better essay writer because I'd love to write a long detailed essay comparing the politics of Star Wars and Star Trek and how I think that key among their differences is that Star Wars is a dystopia and Star Trek is a utopia.  This is one of the things that I think makes comparing them in a 'which is better' fashion, despite their superficial similarities (eg. genre, era of creation), an apples to oranges comparison.  What makes an exploration of utopian ideals interesting is inherently different from what makes an exploration of dystopia interesting.  Star Wars is a galaxy in collapse, stuck in a cycle of destruction and rebirth.  Star Trek is about a galaxy coming together and the creation of peace.  

In Star Wars, the war is never won.  Victory is inevitably followed by defeat in a seemingly unbreakable cycle.  Justice and happiness are transitory, fleeting, an illusion.  Star Wars is a tragedy unfolding slowly.

In Star Trek, war is beaten back by peace, intolerance by understanding.  The depths of despair may be deep, but emergence is inevitable.  Star Trek is a story of hope with a happy ending.

Additionally, despite being the happier tale overall, Star Trek is written more with adults in mind despite being rated so it could be viewed by children, whereas Star Wars was always written with selling toys in mind and thus was written to appeal to children first and foremost.  Star Trek is also the much more explicitly didactic of the two--I've mentioned before that Star Wars is much more confused in its politics but that lack of clarity makes it much less explicit in its politics as well.  

Where the narratives coincide, however, is the mutual scorn they share for conservatives.  This is not to say that Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas share identical politics, because I think it's clear they have some very important differences in that respect.  But having seen a great deal of both and having seen a number of interviews with Lucas in how he characterizes the political aspect of his work, it seems pretty clear to me that he is often criticizing contemporary American conservatives (and I'd say that J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson's works also sort of do this in addition to revisiting the political moment of the original trilogy by it's narrative reenactment).  And I think the scorn for conservatives Roddenberry has is communicated clearly by the didacticism of Trek.

I just have so many thoughts on this and I don't think I could elucidate them all properly or even write them all down.

I'd like to now give some of my thoughts about Rey in TROS. 

( TROS Spoilers past here... )

One thing about The Rise Of Skywalker was that I found it difficult to pay attention to what was going on at times.  I don't know if the movie was just moving too fast in those spots or what, but I would be watching a scene, then start thinking about it, then realize I'd missed a part because the characters had moved somewhere else or the scene had switched to different characters.  Since I don't want to give Disney more money for this movie I'm going to wait until I can watch it at home from a secondhand DVD or something so I can actually pause and rewind the thing.  That might be the only way my brain can keep track of what's going on.

Going to see this movie on Thursday.  It's so soon now.  Even without knowing for sure how everything will play out, I know this movie can't give me the ending I really want, because it won't have the time to give all the characters involved that kind of focus and development.  These movies haven't even given the most popular characters that kind of development, much less the entire cast of characters I'm interested in.  So I'm trying to keep my expectations in that regard low.  I just want some explosions, swooshy lightsabers, and Palpatine wreaking havoc (and hopefully unleashing at least one Cackle of Ultimate Doom).

So who's seen the second Star Wars trailer for The Rise of Skywalker?  The first part's all old stuff but then they do finally show new scenes for the movie.

I have some wild theorizing below, so if you prefer to avoid any and all theories in case they might be true, you might want to avoid it. They're just whatever stuff my brain comes up with though, so unlikely to be true. I also discuss some details of the trailer, so there's trailer spoilers too.

( Thoughts on the Trailer... )