Pandemic Update and Scripts!

Hi, everyone. It seems like everyone is giving updates related to how (if at all) the pandemic will affect output. I want you to know that unless I become sick, there should be no delay in episodes of Renegade Cut. My channel is a solo project. I don't need to meet with anyone to get my work done. I don't anticipate any interruptions going forward.

With that out of the way, here are some previously unreleased episode scripts.

POST-9/11 ACTION MOVIES

 Following the tragic events of September 11th, the United States of America went through a tectonic shift in politics and culture. The former was expected. Historically, after any breach in security, no matter the size, those who always wanted security over individual rights get their way. Those who always wanted war, not peace, get their way. Those who have economic interests in both of these things have their eyes turn into cartoon dollar signs and anyone who objects is labeled, at best, unpatriotic, and at worst, a traitor. That doesn't exactly play well with the voters. The shift in culture was also expected, but individual incidents are unpredictable. Before the war in Afghanistan, popular actor Richard Gere remarked that compassion is more powerful than vengeance. He was heavily booed – at a benefit concert, no less. Popular comedian and talkshow host Bill Maher got in hot water for suggesting that bombing other nations from a distance is cowardly and was forced to retreat from the airwaves for a while. And popular country music act The Dixie Chicks, in the lead-up to the Iraq War, were blackballed from country radio stations for telling an audience at a concert that they don't support the invasion of Iraq.   
 The very psyche of the nation had changed. US fetishization of the military is a long tradition, but now people were shocked and offended by anyone not supporting the president. People did not want the star of An Officer and a Gentleman preaching tolerance. People did not want these celebrities – these “Hollywood elites” – urging caution about engaging in a forever war that would claim the lives of countless civilians. No. Whether they realized it or not, the people of the United States of America wanted something else from Hollywood. They wanted...catharsis. Hollywood and the US military and intelligence agencies have always had a cozy relationship. When a Hollywood producer approaches the Pentagon and asks for access to military assets to help make their film, they have to submit their script to the entertainment liaison offices for vetting. Ultimately, the man with the final say is the Department of Defense’s chief Hollywood liaison. US government involvement also includes script rewrites on some of the biggest and most popular films, including James Bond, the Transformers franchise, and movies from the DC and Marvel cinematic universes. The CIA even helped make an episode of Top Chef. The influence is great, including script re-writes and approval on how the military and intelligence agencies can be portrayed. Hollywood studios could simply make their movies without authorization from the Department of Defense or Central Intelligence Agency.    
 AUDIO 2
 However, this would be to the detriment of the budget of the film. The government provides financial incentives for Hollywood to play ball, which means most major studio productions will take advantage of this in order to compete with other major studios. Some movies such as Act of Valor and Top Gun were so dependent on military cooperation that they simply couldn’t have been made without submitting to this process. Others were not so lucky. A sequel to Top Gun was planned but was not made predominantly because the military rejected it. Movie budgets have skyrocketed in recent years, and reducing risk by bringing the DOD into the picture is more appealing than ever. A Top Gun sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, is finally being made due to support from the DOD. The US government has worked behind the scenes on over 800 major movies and more than 1,000 television titles. The DOD and CIA want Hollywood productions to portray the military and intelligence agencies as paternalistic and with the people's best interests at heart, especially during a time of war and crisis, which means that DOD and CIA access is contingent on supporting the war on terror.   
 Of course, all this state support and state censorship affects action movies more than any other genre. There aren't too many romantic comedies that require the use of a stealth bomber. Action movies have always been popular, but there was a time when comedies were blockbusters. Home Alone, Crocodile Dundee and such. Some of the first blockbusters were horrors or thrillers like The Exorcist or Jaws. Blockbusters outside of the action genre like Titanic and Frozen are rare. A glance at the highest grossing films of all time shows most of them are action movies. This means that the DOD and CIA hold the keys to the kingdom for the most popular and most sought-after movies. Science fiction action movies like War of the Worlds required cooperation from the DOD. Superhero action movies like Captain America: The First Avenger received state assistance as well, as the military believed Steve Rogers a fine example of a US veteran. Man of Steel features its own version of 9/11 – a foreign threat that is brutally killed by a character who always looks like he is draped in the American flag.   
 AUDIO 3
 Superman himself is an alien, but the movie sidesteps this in the end. [“I'm from Kansas. I'm about as American as it gets.”] Man of Steel and a hundred other action movies with 9/11 imagery provided a catharsis for the psyche of the US public, and the DOD is naturally happy to take advantage of this still-present insecurity among the population. Here is an excerpt from the agreement between the DOD and the Man of Steel production obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. “DoD has approved military assistance as in the best interest of DoD, based on the 17 August 2011 version of the script. The production company must obtain, in advance from DoD, concurrence for any subsequent changes being proposed to the military depictions made to either the picture or the sound portions of the production; before these changes are undertaken.” But what about traditional action movies? The shoot-em-ups? The movies starring the unstoppable, gun-toting merchant of death who is always portrayed as in the right no matter who gets blown up? Perhaps the best example of post-9/11 action movies comes from the “Fallen” series of films, featuring the fictional secret service agent Mike Banning. How does the Fallen film series portray US interests both abroad and domestic?   
 For one, Olympus Has Fallen appeals to the psyche of the US public by invoking 9/11 – not explicitly but implicitly. The sight of important US icons being destroyed and terrorism on US soil. Images like these existed prior to 9/11, of course, but Olympus Has Fallen also has more overt references to 9/11 and the war on terror, such as suicide bombers and justification for torture. Unlike actual torture as interrogation, which is consistently proven to be ineffective and resulting in misleading information, the torture in Olympus Has Fallen is 100% accurate and correct. It's portrayed as both morally right and demonstrably effective. What is the audience meant to feel when Mike Banning tortures someone for information? Catharsis. Endorsement. Olympus Has Fallen wears its nationalism on its sleeve. When a government official is taken away from the terrorists, she recites, and this is not a joke, the pledge of allegiance. We also get the standard amount of US flags – at first torn down by the terrorists – but then raised up when the terrorists and ultimately defeated. Olympus Has Fallen provides a catharsis for the US public, many of whom have begun to be tired of the forever war, by showing a final victory – something that can never happen in a war against a concept.   
 AUDIO 4
 Director of Olympus Has Fallen Antoine Fuqua had help from the state in the form of a few men, one other who was working for the DOD. One such government consultant was Ricky Jones, who according to Fuqua “worked for the government but not Secret Service.” Jones played a major role in shaping the film, not just making changes to the script but also being on set constantly while the film was being made. Fuqua says these men helped him to figure out “what he could get away with and what he couldn’t” and that “there were some things like, okay, we’ve got to take this out. We can’t show that.” Thus, they had as crucial a role in shaping the script and the resulting film. The next film in the series, London Has Fallen, takes the action to the United States' closest military ally: The United Kingdom. The antagonist and his terror cell are Middle Eastern, playing to post-9/11 xenophobia and also – because it's set in the UK in 2016 – playing to more localized xenophobia. BREXIT style! In this scene, a man says London has “barbarians at the gates.”   
 London Has Fallen starts off with a homophobic comment between Mike Banning and the President and then calls back to it later. But mostly, the movie's more egregious sins are related to US foreign policy and US xenophobia. The film makes no distinction between Middle Eastern terrorists and Middle Eastern people when it spouts this cringey line: [F***headistan] And in case that was too subtle, Banning also says this: [Every single one is a terrorist a**hole until proven otherwise.] Mike Banning does not simply defeat the terrorists, he revels in their pain, as the film wants the audience to revel in it as well. He stabs them menacingly and repeatedly, the catharsis for the western audience played up to an agonizing degree. Banning engages in torture even more in this film, further reinforcing discredited rendition techniques employed by the US military. Once again, the film series wears its nationalism on its sleeve. When the President is dragged away, he recites the presidential oath of office. Woof. When Banning confronts one of the terrorist leaders, he beats him while saying that the US will still be here and reign for “a thousand years.”   
 AUDIO 5
 In other words, the movie references – perhaps by accident – historical ultra-nationalist rhetoric. A thousand year reign? Hmm. Where have we heard that before? This law enforcement officer executes someone for not complying even though he was apparently unarmed and posed no immediate threat. The movie frames this as necessary and good. And finally, the end of the film has the US military drone strike the bad guy while someone off-camera states that there are no civilians in the area, washing the hands of the global war on terror and massive civilian casualties. By most estimates, more civilians have been killed in the war on terror than soldiers or terrorists. Of the film, Steven Lloyd Wilson of Pajiba wrote: “There’s absolutely no hint of irony in the film. Just the blind paranoia that everyone in the world hates us for no reason whatsoever, and that they’ve completely infiltrated our entire society, while still somehow being outsiders who are objectively bad. This is a film that features the opening scene of an American drone strike annihilating a wedding party of hundreds of civilians, and thus creating the vengeful antagonist. And then ends with Morgan Freeman giving a speech about how big our collective balls are and how intervention is our moral right as history’s good guys™.    
 It’s small, hateful, and stupid, and perfectly encapsulates a Trump voter’s world view.” Finally, that brings us to Angel Has Fallen, a movie marketed so badly that some people did not realize it was a sequel to Olympus Has Fallen and London Has Fallen. Angel Has Fallen features Mike Banning being framed by a private military company, which is the latest euphemism for “mercenaries.” PMC scandals hurt the public image of mercenaries several years back, and Angel Has Fallen uses this to draw distinction between the Department of Defense and PMC's – even though both have been guilty of war crimes throughout the course of the war on terror. In the film, the Vice President ignores this and instead contrasts the US military with PMC's. Notice that the Vice President character still uses nationalistic language to denounce the crimes of PMC's. He says most are “not even American” – which is a nativist talking point – and also not true. Academi, previously known as Blackwater and referenced in the film, is an American company. When the US government tries to track the PMC, they claim they are not able to do this because they are not in any federal databases. This cannot be true because most mercenaries who work for private military companies are often ex-military or ex-law enforcement.   
 AUDIO 6
 Again, the movie washes the hands of the Department of Defense of any wrongdoing or involvement. The movie also tiptoes around telling the audience that the Russian hacking is just “fake news.” Banning is framed by the PMC. They planted evidence and made it look like Mike colluded with the Russians. In an interview, director of Angel Has Fallen Ric Roman Waugh suggested that his films are love letters to the US military. “I am a massive military supporter.” So, if there was any doubt about the political leanings of this film series, those doubts should be gone by now. Let's not kid ourselves about what's happening and what we're seeing. This year, for the first time ever, Americans born after 9/11 will be able to enlist in the armed forces. Official military polling shows that fewer and fewer young Americans consider the military as a career or as a transitional step. The lowest numbers in decades. Beyond this polling, the actual recruitment figures from last year did not meet the quota set by the military. Revelations about war crimes thanks to whistleblowers and other factors have soured people on enlisting. Following 9/11, there was a surge in recruitment – the state activated the population's nationalism. But since then, the nation has been in an unending war, which means two things. First, there is never a sense of urgency. The war is status quo.   
 Second, those interested in enlisting simply to help pay for their university education can no longer tell themselves that maybe their service will take place entirely during peacetime. If the war never ends, there is no peacetime. To combat this, the DOD has become more aggressive with its recruiting, including as it relates to Hollywood action movies. Independence Day: Resurgence had close ties to the DOD and specifically to the United States Army. Resurgence actively helped the Army enlist young Americans through their collaborative website. Another example is Captain Marvel, which plays like an advertisement for the United States Air Force. That's just how action movies work now. The combination of Hollywood needing something to offset costs and the DOD needing a way to increase enlistment has made the two entities need each other now more than ever. Perhaps the only big Hollywood action movie series that doesn't seem to feature any US military assets, references to 9/11 or references to post-9/11 politics is John Wick. That's not to say it's completely divorced from politics in general – its fetishization of guns is pretty standard for the genre – but the film series encloses itself from foreign policy and world affairs by building its own isolated underworld and has no regard for who is in the White House. This film series is a bit of an outlier, though. 9/11 and the subsequent War on Terror are now intertwined with Hollywood action movies. So long as they're performing drone strikes over there, we'll be seeing drone strikes on the big screen. The producers of the Fallen movie franchise have confirmed there are at least three more sequels coming as well as various television series. And guess who's happy about that. The DOD has an invested interest in this happening, and considering there is no plan to end the global war, we're going to be stuck with this status quo for a very long time. 

HOME ALONE

 Home Alone was the origin of the “kids rule” 90's, that Nickelodeon, parents just don't understand corporations pretending to be kids claptrap of Blank Check and Baby's Day Out and a million other pretenders to the Home Alone Throne. Remember when Wednesday Addams just merced her entire summer camp? [F*** you, I won't do what you tell me.] She just straight up burned 'em alive? I mean, I assume they survived, much in the same way that no matter what Kevin McAllister did to the Wet Bandits, their bodies would absorb the pain and physical trauma and bounce back up like looney tunes characters. But at its heart, Home Alone, which is a great movie, don't @ me, is a story of family, of Christmas, and of the insulated world of white, upper middle-class suburbia and the socially conservative revenge fantasy of trespassers getting legally shot to death with no consequences due to the incredible reach of castle doctrine. In the United States, castle doctrine designates that a person's home as a kind of safe zone for the homeowner or renter in which they can employ force – even lethal force – on anyone they deem an intruder and trespasser. Regardless of whether said intruder poses any legitimate threat, if the homeowner says they felt threatened by someone on their property, the “threat” can be eliminated by any means necessary.
 [“I'm gonna give you ten seconds to get off my property before I pump your guts full of lead.”] Castle doctrine extends itself so far that you can walk on to someone's property and into their garage to talk to them – completely unarmed – and the homeowner can kill the unarmed person in the garage without legal consequences. This infamously happened in Montana. The homeowner was not threatened, but he used castle doctrine as an excuse to legally kill the victim. See, the homeowner had a grudge against him for allegedly sleeping with his wife. [“You've been smooching with everybody.”] Castle doctrine completely protected him from prosecution.  Many states in the US have strengthened these conditions by creating a Stand Your Ground law, which is effectively castle doctrine for anywhere else outside your home. If you claim you were threatened, sometimes even if you started the conflict by, say, arming yourself with a gun and tracking down an unarmed teenager who wasn't doing anything wrong, you probably won't be convicted of anything. You might even use that notoriety to become an even bigger piece of s**t, the likes of which are told only in campfire stories to children. The conditions of the Stand Your Ground law depends on the state and the wording of the law, but they all operate in a similar fashion.   
 AUDIO 2
 Now, some places in the US don't operate on strict castle doctrine or strict stand your ground. This is commonly called Duty to Retreat, and it works like this: you can still defend yourself if your life is definitely in danger, but if there is a reasonable opportunity to avoid killing someone, then you can't just decide to kill them anyway. This seems like the most reasonable way the law should work, but in the US, only a couple places operate this way. The states in the purple operate under both castle doctrine and stand your ground laws, so, you know, most of the country, the states in blue operate under both castle doctrine and stand your ground laws – even in your car, the pink states operate under castle doctrine and stand your ground at least in practice, and the peach states have castle doctrine but not stand your ground. There are only two places in the United States of America that operate under the significantly more reasonable duty to retreat: Vermont and Washington DC. So, only one state and the District of Columbia. Castle doctrine on paper might be about your safety, but it is so broad and far-reaching that it can be exploited, such as the case in Montana. Castle doctrine and stand your ground laws exist partly due to the socially conservative, violent culture of the country.   
 Everyone wants to be a murder-hero – the man with the thick beard and dark sunglasses who drives around in a massive truck with tinted windows – not only prepared to defend himself with lethal force but hoping to defend himself with lethal force. The man who walks into a restaurant or pharmacy with their guns exposed, hoping people with comment on them, hoping to start a conflict. The truth is, nobody buys anything without the intention of using it, and that includes lethal weapons. Another reason these laws exist is because the US places a great deal of value on personal property, even at the expense of human life. Castle doctrine can easily be exploited if your stuff is in danger, not just yourself. You can say that you felt threatened even if the only thing being threatened is your personal property. Is your stereo more valuable than a human life? To this guy, apparently so. And that brings us back to Home Alone. Ah-ha! I knew we'd get back there. So. Home Alone, which is a great movie, don't @ me, really plays up that revenge fantasy. A revenge fantasy is the desire to be mildly wronged so that one can exact a disproportional response for violent satisfaction. Kevin McAllister is accidentally left home when his family goes on vacation to Paris over Christmas. Harry and Marv, collectively The Wet Bandits, are cat burglars who rob from the rich. They're the bad guys, I guess.
 AUDIO 3
 Kevin becomes aware of the Wet Bandits' plan to rob his house at 9 o'clock and creates a series of traps to defend his rich family's property. Before tackling the legality of this and the ethics of what Kevin is planning, can we just acknowledge that the McAllisters are bougie as hell? The movie places their home somewhere around Chicago, but clearly they live in the suburbs in a giant house with three floors and a basement. In fact, even in this wealthy neighborhood, the Wet Bandits remark how the McAllister home is the real prize, with Harry getting an almost sexual thrill out of plotting to rob them. [“Ever since I laid eyes on it, I wanted it.”] The McAllister family treats the working class pizza delivery driver like scum, by the way. First they ignore him, and then once Kevin is alone, he stiffs him on the tip and then absolutely terrorizes him by pretending someone is firing lethal rounds at him. He's just trying to make a living, you privileged butthole. The pizza delivery driver is stuck in a job in which he needs to serve the more fortunate, and Kevin's reaction to this is to treat him like garbage. You are a working class hero. You did nothing to deserve this. Kevin's never-seen uncle is so rich that he can fly them all to Paris – 14 of them – at Christmas. That must cost a small fortune. Then in Home Alone 2, in case you thought only Kevin's never-seen uncle is rich, Kevin's father flies the whole clan to Florida.
 I'm sorry, but who takes a tropical vacation for Christmas? Bougie, suburban white people, that's who. I won't get into the ethics of whether it's OK to steal from the rich, although obviously I think it's fine, obviously that's what I'm advocat-- So, castle doctrine states that in order to protect yourself from bodily harm or death, you have the right to inflict bodily harm or death on anyone who trespasses on your property. Kevin devises a series of traps to protect himself from the Wet Bandits. But here's the thing. Kevin doesn't need to do any of this to protect himself. This is not a situation in which Kevin is sleeping in his bed, hears a strange sound coming from the kitchen, grabs a weapon just to be safe, sees an intruder and then it all goes sideways. No. Kevin knows the Wet Bandits are coming. He even knows when the Wet Bandits are coming. He overhears them plotting. Shortly before the big slapstick portion of the movie, Kevin goes to church. He's safe there. In fact, he's safe anywhere besides his home. He could have remained at the church, completely safe, and if he so desired, he could have contacted the pigs to catch the Wet Bandits in the act. If he's worried about being fingered for the toothbrush crime, he doesn't have to meet with the authorities, only call them.   
 AUDIO 4
 That's what Duty to Retreat is all about. The Wet Bandits pose no physical threat to Kevin because he's in the church. The Wet Bandits aren't going to the church. They don't know he's there. They're going to the McAllister house. In a Duty to Retreat state, that is what you're expected to do. If you don't have to kill someone, then you shouldn't kill someone. If you're not in mortal danger, then you can't kill someone. The idea that Kevin is acting in self-defense – protecting himself from bodily harm – goes out the window since he's aware that the wet bandits are coming and chooses to run back to his home to inflict potentially lethal harm to the Wet Bandits. Kevin could have easily avoided any potential danger but chose not to. He's not protecting himself. He's protecting his stuff. His Christmas presents, his rich parents' silverware, et cetera. Now you might be thinking that Kevin has a “right” to protect said property. I don't know, maybe, but he could have just as easily protected his family's property by contacting the authorities, or if he doesn't trust the cops – and who would? – he could have told Old Man Marley what was happening. The old man could have alerted the community, I mean, they are in a church full of people, and the community could have acted on behalf of Kevin.
 Here's the thing. Kevin could have de-escalated the situation, but because this takes place in Illinois, which enforces castle doctrine, Kevin can probably do all of this legally. This is not an argument that what Kevin is doing is illegal. This is an argument that what Kevin is doing is unnecessary and a product of a violent culture and violent laws. One could make the argument that setting lethal traps is a legal gray area and there is legal precedent that might get this kind of home defense in hot water, but I won't be getting into all that here. I'm not a lawyer. I'm just a humble citizen who thinks we should kill less people. That should not be a controversial statement, but it apparently is. Now, because this movie is rated PG, Kevin's lethal traps will somehow miraculously not kill the Wet Bandits, but let's be real here. These are lethal traps. This is how castle doctrine works. There is a threat to the home, and regardless of how unreasonable it might seem to defend it with an escalation of violence, the courts will almost certainly side with the homeowner. Capitalism gives more power to people with more money – so more means in which to defend oneself in court and more means in which to influence the law. Any threat to that money is treated as equivalent to a threat to one's life, which is how castle doctrine stays on the books and how Kevin can do whatever he wants.   
 AUDIO 5
 Castle doctrine allows Kevin to burn these men alive for what begins as a non-violent crime. He permanently scars Harry's hand like he's Major Toht from Raiders of the Lost Ark. To summarize, castle doctrine on paper is about protection, but in practice, it allows for intruders to be killed regardless of their perceived threat level and that theft of belongings or even trespassing are justification enough for death. By the way, I say the Wet Bandits' home invasion “begins” as a non-violent crime, but in fairness, once the Wet Bandits have enough of Kevin's traps, Harry threatens to bite off Kevin's fingers one at a time, which is in another stratosphere of lunacy. He's, like, I'm gonna do it one at a time. Not all at once, like he wants to savor it? What is even Harry's deal? In the end, Kevin calls the police, suggesting he could have done this the whole time, and the cops do what they do best: control the poor. I mean, protect and serve. I do enjoy the fact that the police in the movie are always either incompetent, late or are actually criminals in disguise. That amuses me.   
 At the end of the day, people with bunkers full of guns and doomsday cans of peaches will say that because the Wet Bandits trespassed on the McAllister home, regardless of the fact that their intent was theft and at least not initially violence, then they “deserve” to die. It's their “fault” – but maybe this is just me, but I'm not comfortable saying people “deserve to die” – that seems extremely dismissive of human life, even if said lives are two admittedly crummy people. I mean, let's be honest, by Home Alone 2, any argument that the Wet Bandits are proletariat heroes goes out the window. Like, in the first movie, we don't know their story, maybe they're robbing these bougie houses to feed their families. This should be obvious, but crimes of an economic nature generally happen for economic reasons. That turns out to be not to case by Home Alone 2. They're just straight-up cartoon villains who steal from the poor. The filmmakers make them a lot darker by Home Alone 2. The Wet Bandits have no backstory, no motivation. They're just the personification of crime to suburbanites and conservatives, and as the 90's rolled on and the US became more and more paranoid about crime, the Wet Bandits were exaggerated even further – from mere cat burglars in the suburbs in Home Alone 1 to despicable monsters in Home Alone 2.
 AUDIO 6
 The Home Alone movies give us a picture of crime so bizarrely, cartoonishly exaggerated that it's easy to say “Hey, screw those guys. Give 'em the chair.” But this cartoon world isn't the real world – it's just what the movie wants you to see: cat burglars as irredeemable villains who go from zero to child murder very quickly. In the real world, I just don't think lethal violence should be employed in so broad a scenario as a guy walking toward a garage. I've been the victim of crimes before. Someone tried to break into my apartment once back when I lived in Baltimore. Another time – and this is true – someone took a package off my doorstep, which was going to be a Christmas present. I had an actual Home Alone 2 Wet Bandit experience. The package was recovered, but you know what? Even if it hadn't, I still don't think I should be able to kill that guy to get my package back. Speaking of Home Alone 2, what the heck is up with Home Alone 2? Kevin is accidentally separated from his family again and has a New York vacation by defrauding a fancy hotel. I would say, cool, stick it to the man, but this is just the rich robbing the rich. So, I'm not sure who I'm supposed to be rooting for here. I wanna root for Tim Curry, but that's just by default. Kevin bumps into the Wet Bandits, who admittedly try to kill him. Kevin learns Harry and Marv are gonna rob a toy store and takes it upon himself to stop them by luring them to an empty home under renovation where he has set up some new traps. Kevin does not live in this home in New York. It belongs to his never-seen uncle, the same man who hosted them in Paris. Kevin has no real claim to the home, and even if he could argue that it belongs to his extended family, the Wet Bandits have no design on it. Kevin lures them to this building. Castle doctrine may not come into play here.   
 It doesn't even a stand your ground state. It takes place in New York, which has castle doctrine laws but not stand your ground. And that's bad news for Kevin because his traps are so much more deadly this time around. Kevin throws bricks at Marv's head – over and over again – and Marv just takes it like a champ. Like, this should have killed him many times over, but I guess he has Homer Simpson's disease where he can't even be knocked out. Good for him, I guess, a solid condition to have if you're in a life of crime. If I could just take a detour to the different but still related topic of how the poor are portrayed in Home Alone 2, that's a yikes. That's a big yikes, right? So, in Home Alone 2, Kevin is briefly forced to live among the poor after he's been caught defrauding this hotel. Oh, God. Donald Trump. Why are you connected to everything that's bad? Anyway, he can't stay at the hotel anymore, so he more or less lives in the park for a while, and every encounter with someone is like meeting an eldritch abomination.   
 AUDIO 7
 Kevin stumbles upon a homeless person who laughs maniacally at him like he's planning on eating his fingers or something – you know, that common thing? And then Kevin is propositioned by two sex workers, and what? No. That...no. Way to dehumanize sex workers, Home Alone 2. I mean, I realize this was made last century, but still. They basically make a mildly indecent come-on and then laugh at him. Kevin then encounters a humble cab driver who is visually framed like a demon. I get that we're seeing this from a child's perspective, but it's also the audience's perspective now, right? The worst instance of this is when Kevin befriends the pigeon lady, who is somehow both the heart of the film and is never given a name. The Pigeon Lady's origin story for why she's homeless is that she had a bad relationship once...and now she doesn't trust people. No reference to our stratified economic system or income equality. Nope. Just...she just had one bad breakup. The implication here is that the pigeon lady is homeless...by choice. According to the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, the top four causes of homelessness among families in the United States are lack of affordable housing, unemployment, poverty, and low wages, in that order.   
 The same report found that the top four causes of homelessness among unaccompanied individuals – like the pigeon lady, for example -- were lack of affordable housing, unemployment, poverty, and lack of mental health services. So, this should be obvious, but people are homeless for economic reasons. That's right! I'm making this about capitalism! Our current economic system purposefully stratifies people into economic classes and both allows and encourages the hoarding of wealth. People like the pigeon lady are homeless because Kevin's family and guys like this aren't taxed enough to provide mental health services. Because aforementioned low wages are the result of a lack of collective power and collective ownership. But sure, Home Alone 2, the pigeon lady just needs a new attitude and a pep talk from Kevin McAllister, and then she can just “decide” to not be homeless because she individually has power over our global economic system. To summarize, if Home Alone were real, I would sympathize with Kevin because, you know, he's a child, and the wet bandits are not to be trusted, but Kevin and his antagonistic relationship with the wet bandits hits a little too close to home because of the incredible rights granted to homeowners to kill anyone who trespasses on their property. Home Alone is a very conservative, white, middle-class film about an amorphous crime threat trespassing in a neighborhood where they don't belong and how justified and virtuous the suburban families are for violently defending themselves against these outsiders. It's still a really good movie – don't @ me – but it's also...a kind of family-friendly revenge fantasy. Merry Christmas. It's November!   

STAR WARS: HOW FASCISM BEGINS

 FASCISM. Let's talk about it. This should be a light topic. Fascism is a slippery word, not because it's hard to define but because people who want to obscure what fascism is or hide their connection to fascism have an investment in making fascism mean something besides what it is. Fascism is not outlawing salt and unhealthy foods. [Fascist crap.] It's authoritarian but not always totalitarian, it's not only confined to a couple states from last century, and it's definitely not someone throwing a mug at your head. [Fascist!] It's also not left-wing or socialist, and if you believe it is, you have either fallen for eighty year old, debunked German propaganda or you are consciously trying to spread eighty year old, debunked German propaganda. It's a transparent game of “I know you are, but what am I?” that is only believed by people desperate to believe it in the first place. Not only were fascist states not left-wing, they actively hated and exterminated actual socialists. Modern day “mask-off” fascists march to exterminate or strip away rights from marginalized people – they don't campaign for medicare for all. Neo-Nazis don't love Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. They don't align with far-left groups to dismantle traditional hierarchical structures in order to create an egalitarian world. They want the opposite of that. Fascists love traditional hierarchical structures, they are very excited about them.
 Maybe too excited. Fascism is part of the authoritarian right on that politics graph that people put in their avatars when they can't think of something better like Heath Ledger's Joker or a suspiciously young-looking anime character. See, I say fascism is a slippery word but not actually hard to define because historians can simply look at how fascism arose in its varying and most famous forms and find commonalities to give it a definition, and they have: the simplest and most unassailable definition of fascism is that it is a “rebirth of populist ultra-nationalism” – this is the definition given famously by Roger Griffin, a professor of modern history and political theorist at Oxford Brookes University. Although, he used a fancier word in place of rebirth: paligenetic. The more complicated definition would be “...and everything that comes from that, like the rejection of modernism, an obsession with a plot against the nation, which spreads xenophobia...” and so forth. This criteria is attributed to Umberto Eco. [“So, what does this have to do with Star Wars?”] Well, Star Wars has always trafficked in fascistic imagery. A New Hope's costume designer crafted the Empire's uniforms to put the audience in mind of Nazi Germany.
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 This might seem like a tenuous connection to some, but fascism has always relied on pageantry and an aesthetic to sell it to the people. In film, visuals are everything, and even if Grand Moff Tarkin never turns to the camera and lays out the ideology, origins and core values of the Empire and how they relate to Umberto Eco's criteria for fascism, the visuals alone are the language in which Star Wars tells the audience roughly what the Empire believes. In the Original Trilogy, there isn't a lot of focus on what the Empire believes, what their core values are. They are an amorphous “bad guy” – however, there are a few moments in which their brush up against Eco's criteria for fascism. Professor Griffin argues that fascism requires an upending of the current order and current democratic institutions. Early in A New Hope, the Empire remarks that they have finally dissolved the Senate, removing the last remnants of the Old Republic. Remember, fascism is about a rebirth of ultra-nationalism. A left-wing “rebirth” generally happens outside the system within a revolution – a marginalized people with no institutional power fighting against their oppressors with the only option they have left. A right-wing “rebirth” – fascism – happens within the system, although illegal means within the system usually occur, and can take advantage of current power structures.   
 Translated to Star Wars, the Rebels and later Resistance want a “rebirth” because their people are oppressed, and the Empire wanted a “rebirth” because they wanted to do the oppressing. Fascism is a response to a growing egalitarianism or influence of the minority that the majority finds humiliating and a national “defeat” that they also find humiliating. The Nazis rose to power in Germany following their humiliating defeat in World War I, the humiliation of being solely blamed for the war, and the sanctions imposed on their nation. Professor Griffin explained it like this: “Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints” “goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.” [“At last we will have our revenge.”] In the prequel trilogy, Senator Palpatine works within the system but illegally uses his position to consolidate power. He invents a scapegoat, pits his people against them, abandons democratic liberties, and pursues violence without ethical or legal constraints.
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 His goal was external expansion, the Empire itself, and internal cleansing, Order 66. [So, this is how democracy ends. With thunderous applause.] The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi actually go harder when comparing the antagonists to fascists – some of it blatantly obvious like the unmistakable imagery used here and some of it more a bit more subtle, particularly as it relates to the whole “rebirth” after humiliation and defeat aspect of fascism. In a fascist movement, the past is romanticized to the point that the image of the past is obscured. The past becomes less of a memory and more of a fiction. In Italy, the fascists wanted to rid the nation of the scourge of modernism, communism and liberalism. Italian fascism required respect for tradition and a shared past among the Italian people. Italian fascists sought to complete Risorgimento – Italian unification of different states into the Kingdom of Italy – a movement begun almost a century prior but left incomplete. To achieve the goals of Italian greatness, fascists espoused three core values: hierarchy, discipline and order. Fascism always wants to return to an older...order. More than Risorgimento, Italian fascism invoked the past by claiming that Italy was the rightful heir to the Roman Empire itself.  
 Fascism always tells people “Once we were great, but we lost our way because of our enemy, and we will be great again if we do what is necessary.” Benito Mussoulini claimed that his people, the Mediterranean, were a branch of the Aryan race, though Italian fascism was far more focused on justifying its actions through culture and religion than race. In Germany, fascism took root in a similar manner: a romanticization of the past, a perceived enemy, a unity after a perceived humiliation and a rejection of modernism. They declared a return to traditional “German” and “Nordic” values, to remove or limit Jewish, “foreign,” and “degenerate” influences, which ranged from everything to the wrong kind of art to communism. The Nazis wanted Germany to return to an older...order. They lamented their losses, and much like in Italy, told their people “Once we were great, but we lost our way because of our enemy, and we will be great again if we do what is necessary.” In Spain, modernism produced an election result for the Popular Front government of republicans, socialists, syndicalists, and communists. General Francisco Franco, a staunch anti-communist, lead the Spanish army to crush modernism and return Spain to an older, romanticized version of itself. An older...order.   
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 “Once we were great, but we lost our way because of our enemy, and we will be great again if we do what is necessary.” In Star Wars: The Force Awakens, we are introduced to the new antagonist of the series: The First Order, rising from the ashes of the Empire. Fascists love to connect themselves to the great deeds of the past and the “great men of history” – like, this guy thinks he's a knight or something, bravely defending the white race from, I don't know, Mexicans? Feminists? Whoever their scapegoat is this week. Some of them probably just like to cosplay. The name itself, The First Order, romanticizes the past and connects the Order both to the past and to the Empire, the glorious former institution, much in the same way that Italian fascists connected themselves to the fallen Roman Empire. The heirs of the Roman Empire. So, too, does the First Order tell its people that they are the heirs to the Galactic Empire. They call themselves the “First” Order, as an admission that they are brand new and modern doesn't work for fascism. Fascism requires a past – a false history of being wronged because of the envy of others – the envy of their greatness. This is not some new order, no no no, this is the “First” Order – an older...order. The originals, those tied to the greatness of the past, even if that greatness never happened.
 The Galactic Empire was built on a lie, oppressed the galaxy, abolished democracy and was defeated by a rag-tag group of rebels and a moisture farmer who loved blue milk. But that's not what General Hux tells his people. He tells them that the are inheritors of the Empire of the past and that they will rise again. In the time between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, a republic is born. Leia is no longer a princess – that's ancient and hierarchical. She is committed to democracy. A growing egalitarianism. Modernism. The First Order opposes modernism. Fascism opposes modernism. The First Order's actual politics, policies and specific ideology is purposefully kept vague by the filmmakers and the studio. Nobody wants to buy a Nazi t-shirt, but everyone is cool wearing Stormtrooper merchandise. However, The First Order's rhetoric is eerily reminiscent of how fascism begins. “Once we were great, we lost our way because of our enemy, and we will be great again if we do what is necessary.” What is “necessary” to fascists includes the eradication of “degenerate” influences. The First Order carries this out by annihilating the republic planets. The First Order is obsessed with the past because they have to be. Otherwise, their narrative falls apart.
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 Then they will have dissension among them. Traitors. Kylo Ren has been manipulated by Leader Snoke into his own obsession with the past. His connection to the past and to the Empire. To Darth Vader. He has the burned helmet of Vader as his most cherished keepsake. This was Snoke's plan. [“A new...Vader.”] It's exactly what fascism always does. It recalls the past, romanticizes it, rejects modernism and manipulates people into believing the rhetoric about the past. Kylo Ren is the embodiment of the the manipulated masses who buy into fascist rhetoric about their shared history and glorious people. In The Last Jedi, he finally rejects it, stating [“Let the past die.”] but Kylo Ren does not have the clarity to recognize that this has all been a manipulation and that The First Order itself is just a retread of the past and that he is repeating past mistakes. He doesn't...quite...get it. The Last Jedi has us question the past, question the romanticization of the past and where that historically has lead, recognize the failures of the past as a means in which to progress as a people -- not to succumb to the past and try to turn back the clock. Luke Skywalker is haunted by his failures, but in the end, he learns from his failures and grows. He looks toward the future. [“I will not be The Last Jedi.”]   
 Fascism never forgets its failures because it needs the failures, it needs the pain to manipulate people. Fascism refuses to grow from the failures. Instead, it blames the failures on others, on the enemy – often an invented enemy. The past should not be “killed” as Kylo Ren says. He's the bad guy! What he says is not the message of the film! Instead, the past is a teacher, failure a teacher. Yoda says it himself: [“The greatest teacher, failure is.”] Go forward, not backward. Fascism depends on the past to galvanize the people. Fascism is of...the past, and it's best left there.
 

MERRY CHRISTMAS

 Christmas is upon us, gently brushing its way toward us – like fog. When does the Christmas season begin? The day after Halloween? The day after Thanksgiving? When the stores first put up their holiday displays or start playing Christmas music throughout the aisles? Or is it Christmastime when we first think of it? When the fog is first spotted. Christmas is crass and beautiful, empty and spiritual, painful and comfortable. Christmas has a great power in telling us how we feel. If we're happy, then Christmas makes us happier. If we're unhappy, then Christmas makes us miserable. It's a barometer, a psychic, a friend who can look us over and see us – inside and out – and sees the problem. We remember the heartaches of the year – letting go of old friends, unable to find new ones. The bills that stack up around us, the strangers on the sidewalk who look at us or avoid looking at us, the...cold. And then Christmas comes up – the most wonderful time of the year – and if all of the heartaches got to us, if they reached in and tangled us up and squeezed too tight, then Christmas knows. And Christmas makes us miserable.
 It's a tease. A taunt. Christmas is bright and jolly and happy, and if we're not bright and jolly and happy, Christmas feels like a farce. The contrast is too much to bear. Nothing is more miserable than being around happy people. Christmas is a complete stranger telling us we should smile more often. It's patronizing, condescending, infantalizing. How dare they. How dare they tell us how we should feel. How dare they assume that smiling and pretending is what we really need or that this feeling, this pain is something we chose, that it's somehow our fault. Christmas magnifies our pain. It shows us who we really are and how we really feel. It exposes us. We can try to avoid it, but how? How do you avoid something as ubiquitous as Christmas? Every shopping mall plays the same five Christmas songs on repeat. Every conversation at work ends up being about Christmas, and God help us if the office starts putting up decorations. Is that supposed to make work feel like home? Because we were avoiding putting up decorations, but they just put them up by our desks or our cubicles anyway. Nobody consulted us. Nobody asked if we were having a hard time or let us lean our heads on your shoulders.
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 Talking to people in our lives about it gets a bunch of nods and glib reassurances – or sometimes even rejection. [Only you can turn a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem.] So, we surround ourselves in Christmas instead of avoiding it. We watch the movies, the holiday specials, we go and see the trees and the lights, we go to church. We buy gifts for our friends and family, the ones who will still talk to us. We do our traditions and our songs – and we pretend. We pretend that everything is OK. If everyone is happy, and everything is happy, then why aren't we happy? If Christmas can't make us happy, nothing can. For people without a significant other or children, the holidays can be a lonely time. Seeing everyone celebrate with their loved ones while we do not demonstrates that...contrast again. That miserable contrast between what the world says Christmastime should be and what Christmastime is for us. We're not Scrooge or the Grinch. We're depressed. That's the worst of it, isn't it? Being depressed at Christmas, unhappy at Christmas, makes those who feel at ease during the holidays think us misanthropes. Judgment has been passed, and for crimes against Christmas, we are found wanting.
 “It's only once a year!” people tell us, but is that really true? Christmas season, at least in the United States, spills its way into November and nearly all of December. It's roughly two months of the year. Linus tells Charlie Brown that it's his own fault for his Christmastime depression. He has “turned it into a problem,” Linus says. But he hasn't. Not really. Charlie Brown is like the rest of us. He's depressed at Christmas. For him, the solution is to learn the Christian meaning of Christmas, but depression can't be solved by a speech. It is a long battle, one of that is never so much won as it is brought to a stalemate. We fight it all our lives and keep it at bay and hold a weapon up to its throat, and maybe if we're lucky, we can find a way to make it vulnerable and make ourselves stronger. The truth is, enjoying Christmas comes after becoming happy. If Christmas will make an unhappy person more miserable, then Christmas will make a happy person appreciate Christmas. The lights are no longer blinding. The season is no longer as cold. The people no longer the subject of envy but of familiarity. The smiles come naturally. The traditions are no longer just pretend. We watch the movies and holiday specials with sincerity. We go and see the trees and lights not out of obligation but out of a genuine love. The fog...is lifted. Merry Christmas, everyone.