#a thot

dandadan gets stuff right (to me) but i do wish tatsu would follow up about the trauma from being in sexually violent situations. i guess in animanga they dont typically deal with the physical repercussions but clearly he and those working on it understand, at least to some degree, that this is a fear and serious concern particularly for women and girls. i like the series so much so i feel like my radical side is warring with how much i enjoy it but that is something i wish was a part of it even if it breaks up the flow.

i guess the medium in general should deal with the emotional repercussions over the deep violence they face but i guess since it never stops you can’t really deal with it. it’s never post traumatic lol

i desperately wish for one of these works, with an interesting character like momo, to be written by a woman and explicit about what that experience must be like for them in japan. this is a really decent approximation of what very young people have in young women. this and frieren—which i find hard to believe doesn’t have involvement of women—are some fantastic examples of girls’ and women’s strength and what a complex, interesting, strong and confident person one can be. very healthy sense of selves and place in the world.

so while i can tell this is largely from a man’s mind, this is a great female character for young people. i don’t feel as if the nudity is exploitative or gaze-y though i get why it is uncomfortable for others. honestly if we lived in a better world, if we didn’t know how men treat women esp in conservative regions or countries, this would be SO much easier. i could say oh there’s a lack of sexualization but how can i fault women concerned about the first episode or this arc? i can’t!

but my payoff was understanding what turbo baba was trying to do and what it represented. this is a big theme within the story because this series/work focuses heavily on the character’s inner lives and how the occult and spirits interfere or shape it. what could we do with that? what do japanese girls want to see?

btw showrunners and writers and even actors absolutely monitor these forums/the internet. you are all foolish if you dont believe so. not only does the fuckin translate button exist, capitalist pieces of shit tend to be able to speak english. move on. (posted on mdl first so some of it may not apply directly but point stands. i havent perused the tag bc idc. mbc hasnt issued any clarification and apparently they dont care. ok. fuck south korea for not pushing against the worst thing to ever happen to them: the united states of america. but congrats on jimmy carter dying)

look i liked this drama, and i love sensuality and sexuality which i think these two brought and is sorely lacking in ALL media but particularly with asian media (and yes including queer asian stuff). i liked what they did with the fl and the subversion and i could talk about that all day long—hee joo is incredible to me.

i could even put a radical spin on what the creators were doing and what people think that ‘mistranslation’ meant but at the end of the day, orienting myself as an artist who is antagonistic to a concrete display of, at the very least, cowardice in cowering to our capital overlords and empire AND empire itself, and as a critical thinker, i am tired. i am sad people put their comfort over the real lives of people and i’m angry at my own inertia. artists pride themselves on being progressive, we are supposed to be thinkers, opening our and ppls worlds, and sacrifice ourselves for upheaval. we arent doing that. and south korea has to contend with their contribution to what this looks like and allowing their culture to be folded into the people who wanted it destroyed.

this isnt as bad as snowdrop at all but it decimated their credibility as it should. i refuse refuse refuse to live like this. you should too.

And since everyone is like “ur not helping the cause” (that they barely know anything about anyway) ok LET me help. Hopefully you do not report this post or mods delete it. i am sharing information and words that so many people seem to want and say they are not hostile to:

if you can please donate to a gfm a friend is managing (link below) and SHARE it with people. if you can, donate to other mutual aid efforts and especially black families in LA, afro palestinian families, afro workers in lebanon, and sudanese gfms as those are often looked over even more. search for these on twitter; i dont know all their twitter names directly but this should orient you towards them: munigaza, gazafunds, sudanfunds, khartoum food kitchen, the user mothtongue_ posts many GFMs and not only for palestinians.

check out gaza workshops (link below); you donate and can go to radical workshops. i am going to a few upcoming ones and looking forward to ones on artistry. hopefully there will be one in the future on filmmaking.

To artists especially: get involved. we ONLY ONLY ONLY have each other. dont fall behind guys and buckle up. trust your ability to engage with and dissect media and art, be critical of it, love it, and do not lie about it to yourself. nothing—not a single goddamn thing—is apolitical and LEAST OF ALL art. and remember you are supposed to be ones who can think critically, if you fashion yourself as progressive or whatever the fuck, you are not supposed to be like everyone else. no one is telling you that you cannnot enjoy a show or art. tighten up and get over the idea of personal comfort. it isn't a big deal. we are alive and god willing your geography if ur in america has kept you moderately safer.

Links:

https://www.workshops4gaza.com/ gofundme https://www.gofundme.com/f/donate-to-basmas-hope-for-a-brighter-future

because with that we can find the answers and spaces of how women defy.

and without an analysis of who sae on is, the context he is created in, and even the actor's approach we miss the beauty of hee joo. the reason why i am so drawn and enamored by hee joo, is because of who she has become despite the oppressive environment she's in. she bounces from one captor to the next—one father to the next (patrilineage! the family!) but through all that

she can't handle being imprisoned. she's a con woman and she's so fucking smart. literally she became another person overnight and is so determined. all that pain inside her and she hasn't ended her life, for love of her father really, and unfortunately love of her mother. we got to know her best through her freaking out when one too many people said she's disposable...when sae on did. a man almost killed her and instead of wilting she sprung into action. she knew no one else cared and that was it; this man wonders why she isn't dead yet and that was what made her have enough.

and the thing about wanting a divorce so badly, being willing to die for it, almost dying for it, how she just wants freedom, is she's falling in love while fighting for it. because marriage often is imprisonment under the strictures we live in (and shouldn't be mediated and sutured by/to the state but whatever) particularly, and even more so in south korea, for women (which is why it was funny when whatshisfacesorryforgothisname was like "she didnt steal from the emergency funds did she?")

anyway both characters make sense but if sae on's gender wasn't a big part of what this show is doing and trying to ameliorate the source material then there'd be no point. i know people balk at the idea that this has little bearing on life but what we are shown absolutely does and artists have peddled this lie that insults our own intelligence and our audience's so we don't have to own up to what we make. particularly when it comes to things that are overtly political or touch on "social issues" (politics) then it's myopic to curb people's concerns with well it's not real life and that's not why we watch. but we do tho we like mimesis or simulacra that's why visual art is so incredible and why artists do it

Forgive me (sike idc) for injecting my ancommie art brain but: I don’t know who needs to hear it but castigating Jack as some monster instead of a kid from the fucking slums who is “stuck” in some sort of (supposed nebulous referent-less) cycle that cannot be solved as opposed to purposefully kept there by imperial colonial [racial] capitalist exploitation⁰ with some pretty difficult but clear¹ possibilities for struggle and understood solutions is a limit on our imagining of a future and want for change as well as just sullying this story (outside of critiquing the work itself) for you. I don't know why we are glossing over the fact that you have to pay to live and also global determinants of health.

Why do the poor the world over have such low quality of health and life and therefore die first? Why are they overwhelmingly black and the darker peoples of the world? The colonized or subjugated? When did we move from the right to life and health to the right to coverage or being able to afford it?²

Is it not interesting that Joke's father is a doctor and his livelihood is linked with this system? Do you think that, maybe, how the father is and his job show a congruency? Why do individuals have to go above a system and yet are still invested in this system? And since Joke was a part of this nuclear family then ousted when he dared to transgress its rule—the unit based off of generating labor and necessary for one's survival since it is the only safe financial place to land and rely on—is it not significant that he isn't acknowledged by that father over things that could save someone? I'm super tired so I'm not making as much sense as I'd like. To quote from this comprehensive piece³ on Health Communism: A Surplus Manifesto by Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Artie Vierkant:

“Illness—you point out—is the only possible form of life in capitalism. In fact, the psychiatrist, who is wage dependent, is a sick person like each of us. The ruling classes merely give him the power to “cure” or to hospitalize. Cure—this is self-evident—can’t be understood in our system to mean the elimination of illness: it serves exclusively as the maintenance of the ability to go to work where one stays sick.” (Turn Illness into a Weapon: A Polemic Call to Action by the SPK, 1972)³

Joke comes from a family with money. They aren't super rich but they have what Jack (and now Joke!) doesn't. His father is in a position where he could throw rules out the window to help his son's friend even if that has consequences. Ostensibly had Joke not done what he did, Joke would always have access to decent healthcare or money. Or he would have gotten a job that would allow him to have it or afford it. He also would lead a life where his health is most likely going to be optimal. (A bit of a stretch since we are still in a pandemic and the globe is dying and they live in a place where people are affected by MAN MADE CAPITALIST climate disaster and racist ecocide that is going to primarily affect those in rural areas and people are fucking sick but I digressss) What kind of air are these people breathing? What's in these pills? Why is there no sustained contact with health professionals (that don't suck—also a thing)? Why are we so okay with elderly alienation and their death? Poor death?

This captures several major themes of the book, namely, the impossibility of health under capitalism; the potential of solidarity between physicians and patients, despite the power dynamics that otherwise separate them; and the need to turn illness into a weapon to dismantle capitalism itself. Adler-Bolton and Vierkant write: “Health under capitalism is an impossibility. Under capitalism, to attain health you must work, you must be productive and normative, and only then are you entitled to the health you can buy. This fantasy of individual health under the political-economic conditions of capitalism only ever exists as a state one cannot be, to which one must always strive. [SPK] called this cultural imaginary of health a “biological, fascist fantasy” because it obscures the true and violent architecture of economic systems of extraction underneath the shadow of a capitalist-realist depiction of the perfect worker.” (pp. 10-11) ³ (x)

So with all this known why the fuck are people so goddamn angry at Jack? And for Tattoo too. I didn't really touch on this in all this text but my main point is that it's interesting that we don't know what we're mad at beyond a betrayal when for the both of these men they "betrayed" the rich boy. In Save's case he betrayed the poor ones, his comrades, the ones who are suffering like him. My anger towards him is much greater but I still get it. (To be clear: I am angry at him and it is even worse because it isn't directed at anyone but the poor. His friend's grandmother. And it's a tale as old as time. If he wasn't such a little bitch he would be able to withstand it but he isn't. If I think even harder I wonder if this signal's the closer one is to these types of people, the more they suture themselves to capital out of survival, the more they believe they will be protected by heinous acts but I am tired lol.)

They're all poor boys from the fucking slums but our main concern is Joke, the rich-ish boy—who is right btw cos we love robbing the rich yet still his old class position and upbringing very clearly influences how we view him and his agency. It is done to him like with Arun and the necklace—a gay boy with an abusive father—and Rosé—a woman with an abusive father(?)—and her life. They are entitled to these sympathies first!

The formatting bugs me so I'm gonna reblog the rest.

Footnotes:

i am really worried about jabalia right now lol idk sorry to ppl that follow me but i'm a black anarchist communist and feminist filmmaker and i don't support the "united states of america" or the west. the west enabled a genocide against my people where my family was pushed to settle in america, america stripped my personhood and my mother's last name from her hands.

half of me knows my home but never had a chance for it because the scramble for africa made borders and hatred intercommunally and the other half has no fucking clue what part of west africa we were kidnapped from to become owned human beings to build the modern world. i have no love for this place. i have love for resistance and those of us who struggle now. black people will be free, palestine will be free. i have lived too long for life to just look and feel like this. mass destruction, death, climate disaster, racism racism racism racism queerphobia ecocide femicide transphobia racism exploitation death prison harm racism dying harm death death death death they want us dead (all of which are american dreams)

i'll rebut some stuff here esp leading up to the election. all resistance and struggle is justified. the rich must be eaten. i accept none of what we have now. i cannot live in misery i won't do it. something must be done. no placating of our feelings all we can do is love and sacrifice.

yes i know my enemies. they're the teachers who taught me to fight me. compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission, ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite. all of which are american dreams. all of which are american dreams. all of which are american dreams. all of which are american dreams. all of which are american dreams. all of which are american dreams. all of which are american dreams.