ConBravo and script update!

Hi, everyone. Just a quick update. In case you didn't see it on social media, I will be appearing at ConBravo on July 27 - 29 in Hamilton, Ontario. I am a featured panelist, and I'll be hosting the Internet Critic Q&A and autograph session. For more information, check here: https://2018.conbravo.com/

And now, a script update. These scripts are different from the final product. Some lines were cut, but here is everything unedited.

MOTHER!

 PART 1
 Mother is a 2017 film written and directed by Darren Aronofsky. The father places a crystal of a pedestal, and the ruined house becomes whole again. The mother awakens and discusses the father's writer's block. The father invites two people into their home against the mother's wishes. More of the intruders' family arrives and one is murdered by another. Months later, more and more people arrive to read the father's poem, distressing the mother. She gives birth, and the people kill the child. She sets the house on fire, destroying everything, and the father begins again with the crystal and a new wife. So, what is even going on in this movie? One interpretation is that Mother explores the desire to be loved. And how this can be dangerous to both oneself and the people around you. The father, a poet, has writer's block. He is loved by his wife, and they are expecting a child, but this is not enough to make him happy. Even when the child is born, the father is focused entirely on his work and the adoration of his work by strangers. People who he does not know. People with whom he shares nothing except an interest in his poems.
 We see this desire from the perspective of the mother. Rather than watch the father hard at work in his study, we see the mother feel violated. Invaded. People arrive in her home, filling it up to the point of it being intolerable.  Eventually, the home that she so carefully put together is destroyed. The home is a kind of stand-in for her life. More like...THEIR life together. It is torn apart, bit by bit. She only wants a quiet life. A simple life. A loving husband and a child of their own, but the adoration of others – that's what the father needs. The mother wants real love. The love of her husband and the love that she will give to her child. But the father wants the love of everyone else. The love of strangers. Of admirers. But this love is a false love. It is controlling. The father treats the mother like less than a person. Someone with no agency in her actions. It is demanding and can never be satisfied. Eventually, their love – their life together – is over, and the mother burns the house to the ground. The father ruined the house, but the mother is the one who finally calls it quits. A divorce of sorts. Afterwards, a new woman appears in the bed. A new wife for the father to abuse. And with this, the events start all over again.
 [Hero's Hand]
 AUDIO 2     Mother is a 2017 film written and directed by Darren Aronofsky. One interpretation of the film is that it is autobiographical. The father is Aronofsky himself. A creator. A writer. Someone who fashions art and hopes that the world will understand it and appreciate it. The father is a poet. Years ago, his writing was in vogue – much like Aronofsky was the toast of the town with critically acclaimed films like Black Swan and The Wrestler, but now he is stuck trying to develop something new and original. The fans have moved on, and he wants them back. The mother is Aronofsky's former partner, Rachel Weisz. Even outside of the personal, Mother could be an examination of the creation of art in general and the culture around artwork. The culture around media. More and more people flock to the father's home to lavish praise upon his poem, and this becomes a kind of drug to the father. The desire for fame is intoxicating. The father would do anything to keep the people in the house. To keep the people reading his work – even at the cost of his personal relationships, specifically with the woman he professes to love.
 We also see condemnation of these “fandoms” – they desire, they want, they need. They ARE needy. The paparazzi, the obsessed fans. Their interest in the art does it more harm than good as they ruin the house and devour another creation: the child. Admirers of media can be selfish, and the artist themselves can be just as selfish. In the end, this will not stand, and the mother's wrath burns down the house. The father, learning nothing from these events, begins everything again – dooming himself and his new partner to the same fate. The allure of the fame that comes with creating art is too great. …
 [Choir Ambience]
 Mother is a 2017 film written and directed by Darren Aronofsky. One interpretation of the film is that it's an allegory for the rise and fall of humanity, told through the Holy Bible and with a goal of teaching the importance of caring for both human beings and the Earth we inhabit. In the beginning of the film, the father – who is God – creates the universe. The mother – who is Mother Earth – awakens. Her life with God is a kind of marriage, but God maintains stifling control over her. It's not an equal partnership. The father being noted as much older than the mother means that God pre-dates the Earth because God pre-dates everything.   
 AUDIO 3
 God invites two people into their home. The couple represent Adam and Eve from the Book of Genesis.  None of the characters in the film are given proper names, but I will refer to them by their Biblical counterparts here. Adam's rib is used taken out and used to make Eve. In the film, we see “Adam” has a wound on his rib. Eve tempts the mother with a dangerous fruit – in this case, spiked lemonade. The couple intrude into the one place in house they are not allowed to go: the study. The touch the one thing they are not allowed to touch: the crystal. This is similar to the breaking of the Adamic covenant when Adam and Eve eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Once the couple does this, everything is ruined. The mother says she wants to make her home paradise. Adam and Eve take humanity away FROM paradise. When the father boards up his study, this is referencing Adam and Even being cast out of the Garden of Eden, never to return. Adam and Eve introduce their two sons. They represent Cain and Abel. One brother kills the other and runs out into the woods. This is the same in the Bible. In the Old Testament, God requires many things of his people, but chiefest among all else is worship. God requires followers and faithfulness to him alone. It is the first commandment. And so, the father – God – invites more and more people into his home, despite the protestations of the mother – Earth.
 Their house floods due to the carelessness of the people. Earth warns them, but they do not heed this warning. This is a reference to the Great Flood. The house suffers plagues as seen in the Book of Exodus: plagues of blood, fire, darkness, frogs, the death of the first born and so forth. The poems that enthralls all these people are the books of the Holy Bible itself. The inspiration for the father's new poem is the baby growing inside the mother – in other words, God is writing the New Testament because of Jesus. When this happens, the people go from simple idolatry to escalated violence, a nod to holy wars and other zealotry related to Christianity. When the mother gives birth, the child is worshiped as the Messiah. The people kill the child, much in the same way that humanity killed Jesus Christ. They eat the child, referencing the practice of eating the eucharist and drinking wine as if they were the flesh and blood of Christ. The mother admonishes them for their misdeeds, but the people beat her. Now we're getting to Aronofsky's point. That humanity is growing overpopulated, wicked and is not taking care of our Earth. Remember, the mother is Earth, and the people are killing her.  
  AUDIO 4  
 The mother escapes and makes her way to the cellar and the furnace oil tank. It is not a coincidence that oil is what destroys the house, which represents the world. Our energy corporations are destroying the world. When the mother finally asks the father who he is, he says "I am I,” which is a reference to the “I Am” interaction between God and Moses. Moses said to God, “If I go to the Israelites and tell them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ – what should I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I am that I am.” And he said, “You must say this to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’” If it were not obvious about the identity of the father already, in the credits, everyone is given lowercase names. Even the title of the film contains no capitalization. The other exception is the father's name – Him – which is capitalized. Among Jews and Christians, God's “Him” pronoun is always capitalized. There are many interpretations to this film, but Aronofsky and other cast members have confirmed this one in interviews. It's not meant to be a secret. Aronofsky has said of Mother Earth:   
 “She's given us life on this planet. All she does is give us life. We also see nature’s wrath in the scene when Mother is attacking the crowd. The allegory is, here are these incredible infinite resources given to us and we abuse it all. We don’t follow lessons from kindergarten to clean up your own mess. We are empathizing with Mother Nature, feeling her pain and her wrath. … The religious text is great mythology.” It may be uncomfortable for critics and fan theorists to call authorial intention the “correct” interpretation. Any interpretation of a film is absolutely worth discussing so long as it is supported by the text of the film, but allegory – specifically – is about intentions. In fact, it REQUIRES intentions because, in a sense, it is a lesson set to art. And the allegory of God, humanity and how we treat our world has been confirmed by the writer/director. That much is not debatable. We are free to see a film any way we choose, of course, but this allegory is not meant to be subtle, and claiming Mother is meant to be something else entirely means purposefully ignoring the text of the film. By the way, I love this movie. Don't @ me.    

BLADE RUNNER 2049

 [What Is Artificial Intelligence?]
 AUDIO 1
 Artificial intelligence is the presently hypothetical possession of intelligence or the exercise of thought by machines such as computers or androids. In Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049, bio-androids called replicants are created by humans to perform labor. They differ from other androids in science fiction because they are made primarily from organic substances, but they are programmed much like a computer. Other forms of artificial intelligences exist in the narrative as well, such as Joi – a digital AI who presents as a hologram. Replicants can rent apartments and have jobs, but they do not have the same legal status as human beings. They can and are executed without trial. They are essentially slaves. Digital AI like Joi has even less freedom, if that were possible. Artificial intelligence may be an inevitability in the real world, but with this eventual breakthrough will come questions about how artificially intelligent beings will interact with our world, our legal system and our culture. Because the technological boom was fairly recent compared to the long history of philosophy, the study of AI from a philosophical standpoint is in its infancy.   
 Though, even at this early age of the development of AI as it relates to philosophy, there is a lot to cover. So, let's do just that. … People who believe humans are the only rational individuals on Earth would say that only rational individuals have standing as as moral agents and status as moral patients, meaning subject to certain moral harms like betrayal and violation of rights. The question surrounding hypothetical artificially intelligent beings is “Are they thinking? And if they are, are they not owed the same rights as rational HUMAN beings?” AI is a broad term. It has been used to describe computer chess, but for the sake of streamlining, when “AI” is used here, it will mean AI that has passed some kind of threshold in which the being is “thinking.”  Because this level of AI has not been widely agreed to have been accomplished yet, science fiction like this film provides a means in which to speculate how it might be used and abused in the future. In Blade Runner 2049, Joi is a computer program with the ability to think – as best we can tell.   
 AUDIO 2
 Proponents of the idea that Joi can think might subscribe to Computationalism, the belief that all thought is computation. [Girl in room] The human mind's productive capacity or creative imagination of thought and language is perhaps the principle evidence in for this theory. It explains how finite devices like human brains can have infinite capacities – such as capacities to understand the myriad of possible sentences of natural languages by a combination of recursive syntax and compositional semantics. It also explains imagination as something infinite rather than limited. Thought is a kind of computation. Computers perform computations. Therefore, computers can think. That does not mean computers can think particularly well or with an autonomy, but it does prove that what a computer is doing is also what we, as human beings, are doing, and there exists the possibility of greater thinking for computers in the future. Joi is a computer program, and she is able to make computations. Joi can think.   
 And based on her interactions with K, Joi can apparently think very well, including having complex thoughts and the capacity to make decisions like when she desired to come with K to the wasteland even at the risk of her own life. The narrative of the film and the portrayal of Joi make it easy for the audience to sympathize with her, particularly when she dies, but if you asked that same audience if they believe computers can “think,” they might respond that they do not. They might believe in Dualism, the concept that our mind is more than our brain and this consciousness has a non-material, spiritual dimension. A dualist would say that thought is a conscious experience, and if they do not believe a machine can have a consciousness, they would claim Joi cannot think and is not intelligent and is not “real.” Oddly enough, some who subscribe to the opposite of this theory, that being that the consciousness is the creation of biological functions alone, might also claim that Joi is not real because she has no biological functions. She does not have a biological brain.   
 AUDIO 3
 Proponents of Joi's intelligence might counter that Dualism is scientifically unfit and that the mind-brain identity argument relies on a premise far too speciesist to be considered a rational theory, at least as it relates to AI. In the 19th century, Charles Babbage made an automated mechanical calculator called a “difference machine.” Ada Lovelace, a mathematician, said of it “The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. It can follow analysis; but it has no power of anticipating any analytical relations or truths. Its province is to assist us to making available what we are already acquainted with.” This quote from a century and a half ago, despite massive leaps in technology since then, is still believed by many. In other words, no matter how advanced our machines, even if they are advance to the technology seen in Blade Runner 2049, will still not be enough to convince everyone of the possibility that computers can think.    
  In response one might say that organisms like human beings are likewise deterministic systems. Our genetic code determines much of what we will do, and we are “programmed” with it against our will.  [Is K a Person?]  
  … Early in the film, K and Lieutenant Joshi learn that a replicant gave birth to a child – an ability previously thought impossible. In Blade Runner 2049, human society controls the means of production – because replicants are considered “things” and not people, but it also controls the means of reproduction. The very existence of replicant reproduction breaks down the wall between human and replicant from a biological standpoint. If there are fewer and fewer differences between humans and replicants, sooner or later, the underclass of replicants will demand equal rights either legislatively or, as seen later in the film, through rebellion. Joshi believes such a rebellion is too dangerous and orders the child destroyed. K remarks that he has never killed anything with a soul before, suggesting he does not believe replicants – like himself – have souls. “To be born,” he says, “is to have a soul.” Why do replicants not have souls? Why is he so sure of this?   
 AUDIO 4
 Why is he so sure humans DO have souls? Why would being born naturally create or imbue in someone a soul but being constructed in another way would not? Where does all this come from? The ancient Greek notion of the human soul animating the body dates back as early as sixth century BC when Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus compared souls to magnets. Connections between the soul and moral characteristics like courage and justice as well as cognitive functions like practical thought were firmly established by the 5th century BC. But it is not clear whether the notion of the soul, as it developed from Homeric poems, was a well-formed, coherent concept. In Ancient Egyptian religion, the human being was believed to be made of various components: some physical and some incorporeal.  When K says that to be born is to have a soul, this is actually a notion in Christian theology called traducianism – meaning that the soul is transmitted through natural generation with the body. The individual soul is derived the souls of the parents.    
 Christian believers in traucianism say all that “begetting” includes the image of God, but since God is non-corporeal, this must mean the immaterial aspect of human beings – the soul. Christian opponents say that since humans cannot control their own existence, their existence cannot be caused by themselves. K is using a very old way of looking at whether or not someone is a person – whether they are blessed by God, and while it may be valid to him, much like Dualism, it is scientifically unfit and cannot be resolved. When he was made, K and all replicants are given artificial memories that help them develop into fully realized people or at least give human beings the impression that they might be. K also has memories of events that actually happened to him from the point of his creation onward. Those opposing an artificially intelligent being's sentience and K's personhood specifically would use this as evidence, but memory is a tricky thing. Our memories are imperfect, but this does not mean we are not REAL any more than it invalidates K. Memory is information that has been stored and typically can be recalled. Our childhood memories have been stored because we experienced them, and K's “childhood” memories have been stored by the scientists who made him. The origin of these memories is irrelevant.  
  AUDIO 5  
 Have you ever misremembered something? You were so sure it happened one way but later learned you were absolutely wrong? This fact does not suddenly strip away your personhood. A lot of arguments about AI and human intelligence revolve around what is natural, but something that is artificial is not automatically less valuable or less “real” than something that is natural. Arguments against the sentience of a hypothetical artificially intelligent being stress that said being's behavior is only a collection of rote responses based on pre-determined input, and arguments against the hypothetical artificially intelligent being having a soul revolve around complete lack of evidence and an inability to connect one's behavior with that of the soul. The problem with these arguments is that it comes in contact with a logical fallacy in philosophy called “proving too much” – a concept previously referenced on this show. “Proving too much” is the act of arguing against something that uses evidence resulting in a conclusion that actually defeats or impairs the point the interlocutor was attempting to make.   
 For example, if a creationist claimed that biological evolution was a fraud based of some inconsistencies or gaps in the geological record and that irrefutable evidence is necessary to make such a claim, the creationist's declaration of the prerequisite of irrefutable evidence would actually be an even stronger argument against their own viewpoint. In the case of arguments against artificially intelligent beings having sapience or souls, we run into a similar fallacy. Let's use K as the example. [Consciousness/No Consciousness]The opponent would say that a human being has a consciousness and its communication to others is a reflection of that, and that K DOES NOT have a consciousness and its exact replication of communication is only a matter of programmed behavior and false memories. [Identical Behavior] However, if K behaves and communicates in roughly the same way a human does, the declaration that K has no consciousness and is only a collection of impulses and data [Both have consciousness or both don't] is also a declaration that a human being is the same thing. The consciousness, in both cases, in an illusion.   
 
 
 AUDIO 6
 By claiming that K has no soul due to the extreme lack of evidence and the way he behaves, that also becomes an argument against the human soul as well due to the same lack of evidence, and if K's behavior is nearly indistinguishable from a human, then this argument leads to the idea that a human has no claim to a soul either. It appears to be all or nothing, and if the answer is nothing – no souls for anyone – then human beings are not special enough to differentiate themselves from artificially intelligent beings on the basis of importance. … [Tears in Rain] It is no wonder that replicants and digital AI in Blade Runner 2049 have not had their revolution yet. The technology came faster than the debate on whether or not an AI is a person. In the original film, we see a handful of replicants escape but this action is personal rather than political. They seek more life for themselves, not to overthrow the government. In the sequel, we see the beginnings of a resistance in one scene, but they have yet to take any major action even decades after the creation of replicants.   
 Believing machines might be able to think is frightening to people because humanity is slow to grant rights and privileges to more people if the people who currently have rights and privileges are not benefited from this action in some way. The future of Blade Runner 2049 looks familiar – not necessarily visually but socially. Niander Wallace, the antagonist of the film, says the all great civilizations are built on the backs of a disposable work force. The world, he claims, lost its taste for slavery, and because of this, replicants are necessary. He does not see a replicant as a person, and thus, they are exploitable as slaves – which historically has been the rationalization for slavery. We should not want a future controlled by the philosophy of someone like Wallace. Artificial intelligence is something we need to start thinking about now rather than when it happens.   

SUSPIRIA

 AUDIO 1
 Suspiria is a 1977 horror film directed by Dario Argento. It is also a fairy tale, with all the trappings and history that comes with it. Suzy Bannion, an American dancer, arrives in Germany to study dance at a prestigious academy. Upon arrival, she meets – in passing – a woman who is murdered. As she settles in, Suzy notices a lot of strange occurrences at the academy. She learns that the school was once inhabited by a woman the locals believed was a witch. Suzy discovers a secret passage that reveals the witch. She defeats her, the other followers of the witch apparently die without their queen and the entire academy burns. Suspiria checks many of the boxes of classic fairy tales – including the horrors that have long since been sanitized into our current understanding of said tales. The dance academy is in a dark forest, such as in Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood and countless other fairy tales that use the forest as a symbol of the unknown. SUZY is wearing white while standing in the rain. The virginal sacrifice who requires rescuing from a good prince. In this case, a prince that will not come. Suzy passes out due to the malevolence of the coven of the academy – akin to sleeping spells in Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.  
  In the beginning, during the credits, a narrator gives us an opening that may as well begin with “Once upon a time.” In the end, Suzy burns the witches and their home in the name of the virginal innocent. But there is another aspect of fairy tales that is part of the DNA of the film. The portrayal of women. Is Suspiria better off for having so much in common with a fairy tale, or is the film – and many other horror films – a product of something that reinforces negative stereotypes on society? A survey of classic fairy tales that are still commonly told in the western world yields a distinct trend that focuses on validating women through submissive beauty while men are portrayed as active and violent. Fairy tales are not only reflections of societal values but are actually tools that perpetuate patriarchal concepts that maintain gender hierarchy. Their influence does not end in the storybook, though. Fairy tales and other classic literature have influenced modern storytelling, including movies, by being the bedrock upon which later stories are built. Movies, especially horror movies, thrive on exploiting the stereotypes that tie together sexuality and violence that children are initially exposed to through fairy tales.   
 AUDIO 2
 When the Brothers Grimm collected their fairy tales over a century ago, they gathered the stories predominantly from German women, mostly spinners who worked communally. This was to preserve stories told in the oral tradition for future generations. The stories underwent changes from their original source – women – into the domain of patriarchal Germany. Many tales originally contained ancestral rape or attempted rape by the father, but this was replaced by the male authors with a stepmother character that resents the protagonist's beauty. In Suspiria, beauty is commonly referenced. Susie is told she is beautiful when she arrives at the dance school. The antagonist of the film is a burned, ancient witch with grotesque features. The other villains are secretive, older women – one in particular a kind of matronly, conventionally unattractive woman who preys on the young, pretty women who dance at the school. This is the wicked stepmother figure in practice, if not in name. Director Dario Argento has said of this “I like women, especially beautiful ones. If they have a good face and figure, I would much prefer to watch them being murdered than an ugly girl or man. I certainly don't have to justify myself to anyone about this. I don't care what anybody thinks or reads into it.”    
 Well, if Argento does not care what anybody thinks or reads into it, he will not mind if we do just that. The lead characters in fairy tales are usually women, possibly because they were originally told by groups of women. The reader is typically able to determine a character's morality based on their physical appearance. These are written down in the 19th century and had their roots in centuries long before, which meant that the most important attribute a woman could possess was her attractiveness. This patriarchal attitude bled into fairy tales – even those told by women, due to what is sometimes called internalized misogyny. Take Snow White, for example. In the Grimm Fairy tale, a mother says “How I wish that I had a daughter that had skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony.” She gave birth to Snow White, but she soon died. The father marries a new woman – a wicked stepmother – who becomes envious of Snow White's beauty. According to the co-screenwriter, Suzy from Suspiria is based on Snow White. Her beauty is envied by older women, and this puts her in danger.    
  AUDIO 3  
 Suzy is the naive innocent tormented by an evil witch. Women who are not beautiful in fairy tales are suspicious. The beautiful queen disguises herself as an old peddler to get close to Snow White. In a fairy tale, a good woman submissively accepts her role in life while waiting for a prince to appear and control her. In Suspiria, this is not entirely true. Its cast is almost entirely women, and the parts for men are all supporting roles – mostly cameos. This may have something to do with one of the screenwriters being a woman herself, much in the way that fairy tales were largely about women due to the German women who helped the Brothers Grimm collect them. The “prince” of the story is the pair of intellectuals who tell Suzy about witches. Before this, she was suspicious but ignorant. The problematic elements of Suspiria have nothing to do with casting. There are a lot of roles for women in this picture. The issue is how they are portrayed. The characters are drawn terribly thinly and contain stereotypically madonna/whore or virgin/crone dichotomy. The madonna-whore complex began in psychoanalysis, referencing men's inability to see women as either innocent virgins or vile, debased prostitutes with nothing in between.    
 This societal attitude creeps its way into movies – particularly horror movies – all the time. In Suspiria, we certainly see this dichotomy played out both visually and narratively. This attitude is entrenched in fairy tales as well. If he protagonist is good and beautiful, then the evil character must exhibit the opposite physical appearance. There are exceptions, but they are rare. They also exhibit traits that threaten 19th century feminine ideals, meaning instead of passive, they are strong-willed and had their own desires besides that of marriage. In Suspiria, witches are described as wanting to acquire great wealth for themselves and had great ambitions. This is in contrast to the fairy tale feminine ideal. … So, let's go back to Argento's admitted desire to watch beautiful women get killed. One death scene in the film is a man, but it should be noted that a lot of the violence is happening off-screen or at a distance whereas the opening death scene is among the most graphic in horror movie history. She is beaten, stabbed, hanged and then she bleeds out. Now, of course, it's a horror movie. People generally die in films of its genre, and some even handle it well, but there is this bizarre sense of voyeurism toward the objectified female body in Suspiria. In the film, the murderer does not stalk the women. The camera does.  
  AUDIO 4  
 It's a film where women are not sexualized – there is almost no direct mention of sex and certainly no sex scenes – but it is a film in which women are mutilated instead. It's a film in which women are active and have all the starring roles, but they are empowered through a man's narrow vision of what female empowerment can be. Suzy is not ambitious. Instead, she kills the woman who is ambitious, and that woman is depicted as a witch to drive that point home. It is a film in which women punish each other, which is also another feature in fairy tales. In modern times, fairy tales have been adapted into film, most notably by Disney. They are highly sanitized versions, but many of them still contain the ethos of fairy tales as it relates to women. Suspiria is anything but sanitized. It is more in line with the gruesome narratives of earlier versions of the same fairy tales that Disney got its hands on, but yet, it delivers similar lessons. Fairy tale literature – not all of it, but a lot of it – reinforces the idea that women should be wives and mothers. That they should be submissive and self-sacrificing. Good women in stories are silent, lacking ambition and eager to marry.   
 In Snow White, the dwarfs make sure that Snow White can cook, wash and clean the house. They also make the condition that the girl should not go out of the house or entertain everyone. Snow White is so innocent that she is deprived of developing independence. In Suspiria, there are not enough men for Suzy to even consider marriage, but her portrayal and subsequently the portrayal of her adversaries ties in neatly with stock fairy features. Opposition to this usually comes in the form of arguments from tradition. “It has always been this way.” but that is actually an argument against it and evidence that everyone knows it has, in fact, always been this – to the detriment of women and society in general. Fairy tales change depending on the biases of the interpreter. The Brothers Grimm changed the traditional male villain with a female one, and said villainesses were ugly, envious and generally old. Disney went a step further, giving the audience visuals. Argento went even further, bringing the ugly side of these stories to the forefront but not in a way that examines it – only perpetuates it. Not all fairy tale movies embody these negative traits, of course. Pan's Labyrinth handles the material more responsibly and distances itself from said traits. Fairy tales influence the minds of children, and as they grow, these concepts evolve into their worldview. For an “adult” fairy tale like Suspiria, or really any film that contains these traits, it merely reinforces that already well-established view.   

THE THIN RED LINE

 AUDIO 1
 The Thin Red Line centers on three related but separate relationships – all connected to the uncertainties of life: To whom should we be loyal? With whom should we share our love? Is there another world beyond ours? The first question is investigated through the relationship between Colonel Tall and Captain Starros. Tall wants the troops to mount a frontal attack on the Japanese. Starros believes that this is suicide for his men and refuses the order. Should Starros have done that? To whom should he be loyal? His commander officer or his men? For Malick, this war film is not commentary on war. It is more spiritual than that. Much of the spirituality of his films comes from his own personal life. He was a devout Anglican but has struggled with his faith. He studied philosophy at Harvard and Oxford, even studying briefly under Martin Heidegger and Stanley Cavell. He also taught philosophy at MIT. When watching this adaptation of the book, we can see what Malick found useful and personal. When Starros refuses the order, and he and his commanding officer debate this later, it may be more apt to say we are actually witnessing a confrontation with God.   
 The struggle between reverence and the questionable actions God asks of us. Tall says [clip of 1:58:30 – 1:58:45] Over the course of the film, the subject of “nature” is broached. Nature and grace. Some theists believe in grace above nature, meaning God’s salvation is something that adds to, and fulfills, the natural realm. This was popularized by Saint Thomas Aquinas. It may be what Starros believes, having a kind of benevolent view of nature. He sees his men as having souls worth protecting. Tall might believe in grace against nature, associated sometimes with Anabaptists. The Fall of man corrupted the natural world ontologically in such a way that salvation causes Christians to withdraw from the world and live a Christian life separate from it. Tall's inner monologue suggests that he focuses only on the material world, suggesting he may simply believe in nature without grace, the atheistic point of view. The second relationship is between Bell and his wife. To whom should we give our love? Is our faithfulness rewarded? Is our FAITH rewarded? In this case, it is not. Bell has been faithful to his wife, but in her loneliness, she has found someone else and asks for a divorce. His faith was not rewarded in the end.
 AUDIO 2
 The third relationship is between Witt and Sgt. Welsh. At the beginning of the film, Witt is AWOL – spending his days with the Malenesian people. He is recovered by Welsh. Later in the film, Witt and Welsh converse about metaphysical truth. Is this the only world or is there something more? Another world. Visually, we see this represented by Witt's time with the Melanesians. He is at peace. The war is somewhere else in the distance. This is his Heaven. But spiritually, he is referring to the true Heaven. This is the conflict in this relationship. When Witt is recovered, Welsh says [12:44] Witt disagrees, claiming he has seen another world, though sometimes he believes it is only his imagination. Welsh references God, but he seems to take the position that this – what we experience – is God's world. His creation. But there is no other world. There is nothing else. We are created only to live one life and then dissolve. Welsh says that Witt sees something that he, himself, could never see. Witt says that it may only be his imagination, a common struggle among the faithful to determine God's existence being either truth or merely the hope of the faithful.   
 Throughout the film, Witt has questions, and Welsh has conclusions. Witt wonders if all human beings share on soul. One self. Welsh does not consider this. In the battlefield, various soldiers comment on what they believe human beings are. Faced with the horrors of war, they find it difficult to believe that humans are divinely inspired or significant or special. They abandon the concept of grace and come to accept that human beings are products only of nature and that such grace does not exist. In fact, it is fitting that such questions take place in a film that is set during World War II because the aftermath of the war lead to a rise in the popularity of existentialism. The movement began in the decades prior, but the devastation of the war lead to a renewed interest in discovering true human nature outside of a traditionalist viewpoint. 20th century philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre had been imprisoned in Germany in 1940 but managed to escape, and become one of the leaders of the Existential movement. We see a variety of animals in the film. In fact, the entire picture opens up with an alligator – one in which we meet again later on. Existentialists would say that while animals are driven by instinct, human beings have enough intelligence that are both benefit from and are cursed with the ability to choose and to contemplate their own existence.   
 AUDIO 3
 In the film, one solider's narration says that war turns men into dogs. Poisons the soul. In other words, war brings about existential thought. One solider's narration suggests that human beings are only...meat. There is nothing inherently noteworthy about the human body, and if the human body has no soul, then the human body is only flesh and bone – no more special than that of an animal. Another soldier remarks that we are...dirt. We see his words come to life when we see a man half buried in the dirt later on. Witt's inner monologue returns, asking where evil comes from. What is it that we are doing to each other? Existentialists believe that the curse of our freedom means that we are always responsible for our own choices. Existence precedes essence, they would say. Our existence precedes any purpose to our lives, meaning God does not exist and give our lives meaning. We simply arrive and must make our own way. The liberation of ourselves as individuals means that we have complete moral freedom. What will our choices be? Making moral choices as a consequence of free will. Sartre said “We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are — that is the fact.”    
  Starros must make a moral decision regarding his men. Welsh must make a moral decision about what to do with Witt. The burden of free will. Existentialism sides with nature as truth and grace as a falsehood. It's not a moral judgment, though. Only a judgment of truth. Witt rejects this, but if the film has a point, it is that the metaphysical truth about life and death, life after death, it cannot be resolved in this world. In his monologue, Witt says that he hopes to meet death with the same calm as his mother. The only immortality imaginable is found in a calm that can appear at the moment of death. Eternal life can only be living in the instant of one's demise and not being afraid. Witt volunteers to be used as a decoy and leads off a squad of Japanese soldiers into the jungle. When he is inevitably caught, he stands still while the squad yells at him, possibly demanding that he either defend himself or lay down and surrender. But Witt remains still, believing he is going to die. He is killed, and in that moment, he is calm. Existential dread is often called angst. For Witt, a life dedicated to angst robs him of his immortality. Instead, he is calm in the face of death.    
  
  
  AUDIO 4  
 How Witt wants to lead his life has nothing to do with truth. It has nothing to do with the relationship between grace and nature, and determining an answer to that. Malick, as a student of philosophy, is deeply familiar with the concept of existential angst. He famously translated 19th century philosopher Martin Heidegger's “The Essence of Reason.” Heidegger used the term “angst” as a reference point for the human being's confrontation with the impossibility of finding meaning in a meaningless universe. “If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life - and only then will I be free to become myself.” Witt's resolution is similar. He deals with this angst, this impossibility, is that he has resigned himself that he does not have answers to the big questions of life. Remember, it is Welsh that claims he has answers – perhaps the wrong answers, perhaps not. Witt only has questions. In the beginning of The Thin Red Line, Witt says that we can't all be smart. But his worldview is not meant to be anti-intellectual, nor is the film. Questions about nature and grace are worth asking. His worldview is meant to be...calming. It's not giving up. It's not dread. Witt's life and ultimately his death are about the acceptance of the things that he cannot change.   
 

THOR RAGNAROK

 AUDIO 1
 So, in Thor Ragnarok, the God of Thunder lets himself get captured by Surtur to learn about his evil scheme. Surtur [SER-TER] wants to use the Asgardian eternal flame to grow very, very big and destroy Thor's realm. Thor beats him with his Thor powers and all is right. Except it isn't, because Thor's father, Odin, is secretly on Earth and Thor's brother Loki has been impersonating him with magic for a while now. Thor and Loki find Odin, who reveals the brothers have an older sister who had been banished for wanting to dominate every known culture in the cosmos and bring it under the rule of Asgard, and we really need to talk about colonialism, you guys. [TITLE] Colonialism is historically the policy of a nation hoping to extend its authority INTO other territories and OVER the people of other territories. In effect, the aim is the exploit the new territory for wealth, power, wealth and even wealth. To the colonizer, people are exploitable resources too. They can be taxed without being represented. They can be enslaved. They can be also be outright killed if they consume or occupy too much of the resources – like land – that the colonizing power wants for itself.
 The people who originally controlled the territory but do not anymore are either subjugated or scattered to the wind as refugees – oh we will come back to THAT. In Thor: Ragnarok, Thor and Loki meet Hela. She crushes Mjolnir into a million pieces, and realizing that they are outmatched, Loki calls for an escape. We discover that Odin was not always the benevolent ruler of Asgard the way he was depicted in the previous two Thor movies. Odin's Asgard was a colonizing power. He and Hela conquered various realms. A lot of people died. A lot of gold was captured. [Where did you think all this gold came from?] On a personal level, this is shocking for our protagonist. Thor always saw his father differently. On a political level, there is...a lot going on here. European colonization may have its roots in Portuguese exploration, particularly as it related to the spice trade. This was the late 15th century. And then after Christopher Columbus did his...thing, Spain and Portugal began to compete with one another over finding and exploiting territories previously occupied by their indigenous people. France got in on the action, and the British Empire REALLY got in on it, and it became standard operating procedure for powerful nations for centuries.
 AUDIO 2
 That's why in Black Panther, the most amazing thing about Wakanda is not that it has vibranium but that it was never colonized. If you look at a map of Africa and point to a random spot, it is almost guaranteed that place had been violently colonized by Europeans. That's why Shuri casually called Everett Ross a colonizer and why it was so funny slash sad. Colonialism is often justified or lionized in the public through the handy methods of racism and nationalism. Sure, it can be financed without that, but both public support and internal justification helps is helped along through the time-honored desire to see oneself as better than the other. Let's not forget about casual indifference, though, as typified by Skurge who goes along with Hela's plan to restart Odin's colonization nightmare for reasons that are completely apolitical and instead just cuz. He redeems himself in the end, though. Hela says that the people of the other realms were weak and needed to be controlled and exploited. Her might made right. When she returns to Asgard due to riding a rainbow with Thor and Loki, she discovers that Asgard is not what she once knew, and although the realm is prosperous, she sees this peace and quiet as a lack of toughness.   
 She wants to...Make Asgard Great Again. She is particularly incensed by the fact that Odin not only rebranded himself as the kinder gentler god of wisdom and not the god of war. In Norse mythology, he's kind of both. There is no direct one-to-one allegorical parallel between Asgard's colonization of mythical realms and historical colonizations. America. Germany. The gang's all here. European colonialism is not longer in vogue, and nations who participated in the subjugation of indigenous cultures would prefer not to discuss that, or if they do, not commit to reparations or any meaningful dialogue. In America, concepts like Manifest Destiny – the justification for the violent removal of Native Americans – and later American imperialism receive only passing mentions in our public school history books, if at all. And in choosing not to learn from history, we perpetuate a culture that is comfortable continuing it. This is showcased in the scene in which Hela finds that Odin's history of pillaging other realms has literally been painted over. Asgard's violent past does not come out of nowhere, though.    
  AUDIO 3  
 In the first Thor movie, the first act centers around the Frost Giants trying to steal back the Casket of Ancient Winters, which was stolen from them when they lost a war against Asgard. And then in The Dark World, Dark Elf Malekith despises Asgard because Odin’s father defeated the Dark Elves. So, Asgard had a lot of violent conflict in its history, but if Asgard is anything like nations on Earth, their history books probably portrayed their enemies as the aggressors. In Ragnarok, we do not get a full blow-by-blow history, but based on what Hela reveals, it seems like the Frost Giants and many others may have been on the defensive. Thor Ragnarok actually gets a lot right about colonialism. If it got anything wrong, at least in terms of historical representation and how to win against powerful entities that do not acknowledge your human rights, it's how in how it portrayed Asgard's move away from colonialism. Historically, a colony gains its independence from its oppressor through resistance. The Haitian Revolution was a successful anti-colonial and also anti-slavery insurrection.    
 Sometimes non-violent resistance works, such as in the case with the Ghandi's policy towards Indian independence, but it was still a resistance that required civil disobedience. In Thor Ragnarok, Odin just has some kind of “come to Jesus” moment centuries prior to the events of the film. Oppressive and exploitative rule does NOT end due to the sudden and unexpected benevolence of violent dictators. It's the most unbelievable thing in a film that also has giant green rage monster in a gladiator helmet. Oppressive and exploitative rule ends following uprisings, occasionally legislatively but traditionally through active revolution. And lucky for us, the film shows us a revolution. In Thor Ragnarok, we actually different eras related to colonialism. Asgard is a postcolonial nation-state, meaning that itself was a colonizing force. NOT that it was colonized. Postcolonial nations that were the aggressors still contain both a cultural legacy and an economic legacy. The spoils of its previous exploits will always continue to influence what it has because it was the foundation for its wealth. Hela remarks about the gold of Asgard, taunting Thor with where it came from.   
 
 AUDIO 4
 Colonizing nations often have a culture and economic legacy related to either exploiting or enslaving indigenous people, which brings us to Sakaar – a planet that does not seem to colonize or invade other planets, as far as we know, but it does share a similar ideology to other historical colonizing powers: importing slaves from outside its borders. Much like real world nations and their history with slavery, its leaders dance around the morality of this with fanciful language and vague justifications: [The S word] As the movie ramps up, we do get to see a revolution take place on Sakaar. It somehow begins and ends in the span of a day or so with the slaves and other downtrodden people immediately conquering an entire planet, making one wonder why they didn't do this centuries ago, but whatever. Anything to get that post-colonial post-credits scene real quick. At the end of the movie, Thor decides that the only way to save what is left of his people is to destroy Asgard itself. Thor can't beat Hela, but the gigantic Surtur can. Remember him, from the beginning of the video essay? Well, Thor's plan works. He and Loki make Surtur the biggest and baddest, starting Ragnarok – the end of days for the realm of Asgard.   
 Narratively, Asgard is destroyed because a giant fire monster exploded it, but from one thematic perspective, Asgard is destroyed because of retribution. A reckoning. Surtur physically lays waste to Asgard because it did not deserve to exist. But I dunno. There might be something else here. Here's the thing. We get this quote: [Asgard is a people, not a place, twice] – I mean, that must be the point, they say it twice. BUT this isn't some bittersweet way of Thor and company saying that Asgard lives on in the hearts of children or something. He's saying that grabbing and expanding territory is not what makes Asgard...Asgard. A leader should look after his people – not invade the lands of other people and enslave them. And that's what Thor does in the end. He looks after his people, gets everyone onto the spaceship and flies off towards Earth where they will be – let it all sink in – REFUGEES. People who are initially dependent on the kindness of a foreign people to welcome them into a new home. Thor Ragnarok's de facto theme song is “Immigrant Song” by Led Zeppelin, a song written from the perspective of Vikings rowing west from Scandinavia in search of new lands. It even references Valhalla from Norse mythology. The song telegraphs the ending of the film as much as it states its politics. It's almost as if the movie has an underlying message about the importance of international cooperation as it pertains to both the acceptance of refugees and the goal of making the Earth a better post-colonial world by fostering the peace that would eventually rid us of the possibility of even having the dire situations that create refugees in the first place. [This revolution has been a huge success]