The Silly Zone

me: 'pete townshend deadass put his boyclit pen-to-paper style on his ancient papyrus and wrote an entire generation's worth of music to gently moan to'..?

moon: yeah

it's a rock opera and it's got elton john and tina Turner in it, yeah, it's got the pinball wizard song, right, goofy times with the who

Tommy Walker is explicitly disabled in a way that reads nowadays as autistic and traumatized, and canonically experiences neglect, physical abuse, and childhood sexual abuse because of the ways in which he is disabled. he is sexually abused by his uncle and, arguably, his cousin, stepdad, and mom. (I think the beans/soap/mirror bedroom "Tommy Can You Hear Me" sequence is. unfortunately. an extremely thinly veiled metaphor.)

his disabilities combined with his talent for pinball turn him into an exploited child/young adult celebrity that his family uses to build their own personal wealth and he gets turned into inspiration porn for the pseudochristian cult they start, which expands further when he "miraculously" regains his sight, hearing, and speech as a 30 year old christ allegory. it's wretched because he does genuinely feel like he can help people by sharing his lived experiences with them, but it's too late - his parents have already turned his example and teachings into a pricey commodity and people who have paid every penny they owned for enlightenment end up violently rebelling against the lies they were (literally) sold, despite Tommy's best intentions.

and what does he get after a lifetime of suffering that culminated in his genuine attempts to help people? he sees his family murdered, everyone who ever supported him marching away into the distance, and he swims off into the sea and to apparent enlightenment, alone.

just. it's such a movie. I must've watched it a couple dozen times in my teen years. it's absolutely the product of its time but it's got a LOT to say about the exploitative nature of organized religion, cults, faith healing, "Disability Parents" (you know what I mean,) show parents/parent managers, cycles of abuse/exploitation, cycles of trauma, military worship, incest, heteronormativity/corrective rape, celebrity worship culture, etc... and like! it's not for everyone, but I still think everyone should have to watch it at least once.

Butthole Surfers + Stick Men with Ray Guns + The Marching Plague

Part of how authoritarianism works is telling you that you can't stop it. And you can't stop it by yourself. But it wants to stop the train of thought there and let you fall into despair.

You need to remember the next part: you don't have to stop it by yourself.