117: Starship Loopers

The girls are joined by writer Ezekiel Kweku for the top half this week. A Ghislaine news roundup and some television show fueled speculation about why Ms. Maxwell was staying in New Hampshire. Then it’s Randonautica, the creepy geocaching app taking Tik Tok by storm. Would any of us be game to follow a set of random directions to potentially enchanting surprise locations? Or does that sound like the worst idea ever? Then it’s a deep dive on the American flag with noted flag expert Ezekiel. Can the flag be reclaimed for good or is it out of bounds forever? For the second half of the show, Super Producer Joelle Monique joins us as we talk about Paul Verhoeven’s satirical adaptation of Robert Heinlen’s Starship Troopers. Is an obvious critique, like Verhoeven’s critique of fascism in Starship Troopers, always implicit in images or will it always go over some people’s heads? Does good intent matter if your image goes viral out of context as a GIF? Fascism, flags, and flaming bugs on an all new Nighy Call!

FOOTNOTES

1. Ezekiel's website
2. Randonautica at The Cut
3. Randonautica at Vice
4. Ezekiel on Twitter
5. Flag Tumblr
6. Jasper Johns flag
7. Sarah Rahbar flag
8. Stanley Forman flag
9. Ezekiel on the history of flags in Black protest art (for MTV News)
10. Ezekiel's DJ twitch stream
11. Starship Troopers trivia
12. Verhoeven interview in Empire

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's twelve o two a m. On CLENDAFU and you're
listening to Night Call. Hello, and welcome back to Night Call,
a call in show for our dystopian reality. I'm Tess
Lynch and with me are Molly Lambert and Emily Rashida.

(00:23):
Today we are also joined by special guest Ezekiel Quaku.
He's a writer and editor based in Oakland. He's also
politics editor at New York Magazine's Intelligencer, and people send
him photos of flags, which we will get to later.
We're very excited to have him on today. Welcome Ezekiel.
Thank you, nice to have you on. Um, we have

(00:43):
some breaking news this week as of this morning. I
think Molly, you tweeted that like a hundred different people
texted you that we got Gillane, we got her. Ezekiel,
have you been following? Are you an Epstein head? Are you? Uh?
I had to like follow him professionally. Yeah, so I

(01:07):
don't know if I don't know if I would call
it being it's not voluntary in your case, yeah, totally involuntary.
I um, yeah, so I had to dive pretty deeply
into it. He's sort of like for New York Magazine.
He's sort of like a classic New York magazine story. Definitely,

(01:29):
we like went all in and like did this big
feature on his black that was a cover. If I
recall because I was there, then yeah, he has to have.
I mean. One of the things that's interesting about it
is that these people are in so many Getty images
of New York high society parties. Page six just did

(01:51):
a slide show yesterday that was just like famous people
with Gilain and it's all just from like premiers and
benefits and parties and some of them probably it was
just that they met her that one time and got
a photo with her. But who knows. Who knows a
lot of people were in deep She was found in

(02:12):
New Hampshire at a home owned by Yolanda Haddie. No. No,
she was found in New Hampshire at a home that
she bought for a million dollars called tucked Away. One
word her WiFi password. People. Yeah, like New Hampshire is

(02:34):
also we're breaking bad ends apparently, And it's where like
hides out when he's like changes his ident or he
gets like like witness protection or something I forget. He's
like he gets like a private it's like private witness
protection where yeah, he goes out there and like no

(02:54):
one knows he's like in a cabin. Yeah, and nobody's
supposed to know where he is lives for your which
is also the title of the Sopranos episode where Vito
s about a four who ran away to New Hampshire
as well. He was hiding out and may never have
been found other than he tired of life not working
in the mafia and went to go check on his family. Listen,

(03:15):
when you don't want to get trod upon or be
exposed for being accessory to sex ring, head to New Hampshire.
But why did I think there was a Yolanda Hadid link?
There is a Yolanda Hadid link, Okay? Which is that? Uh?
Somebody on Twitter claimed that they saw Gilane in the Netherlands,

(03:39):
where Yolanda is from and has a house, and they
were like, I wonder why Guilane is here, And then
they put it together later that she's friends with Yolanda
and possibly Yorlando was hiding her allegedly. Oh hoo, okay,
but this is not in New Hampshire. This is some
time in between now and last October. Yeah, and then
the their lens. But that's one of the theories that

(04:02):
she's been moving around from safe house to safe house,
and it seems like everyone who's been helping her is
like some other crazy woman. Um like that's who was
whole hiding her out in the Universal City too, was
like some powerful lady who she was friends with let
hers stay at her Universal City house allegedly. The thing
I don't understand about it is like, why wouldn't you

(04:25):
stay in one place and try not to be seen.
It feels like every time you would change locations, that's
like a new chance to be exposed because your Carmen
san Diego. I mean, did she grab her hair, did
she get did she have a collection of wigs? I mean,
you don't have fun with this, I suppose if you want.

(04:45):
I don't know if that anyone has seen her yet.
Somebody printed like a Society page thing where that had
one of her friends being like everyone wants to see
if she's gained weight and looks old because socialites are
horrible people. U But people claim they heard her voice
on the press conference call yesterday that there was like
a British woman. People also think maybe she made a deal,

(05:08):
that she's going willingly because she's been cooperating with the
Feds and she's gonna name names. I mean that's the reason. Like,
that's the whole reason this is news is that she's
like the number one source for whatever was going on
besides Jeffrey Epstein, right, Like that's why this is important.
Maybe our New York politics expert can help with this,

(05:29):
but there it was allegedly related also to the Burman
firing the other day, the SDN Y thing where they
like Bill bar fired Burman. Some people think some people
were wondering, like I know, like there's some conspiracy. I mean,
no one really knows, but I know some people are
speculating that perhaps the they decided to change strategy when

(05:52):
the when the you guy was brought in, maybe they
were trying to get her to flip on on say
the president of i IT states. But um, maybe they've
given up that strategy and that's whether they're just bringing
her in now. But I don't have no idea. And
this this Berman the sorry, he's a New York State
attorney who like that was the guy that they like

(06:14):
announced his resignation and he was like, wait, I didn't
resign like that. It was just like a couple of
weeks ago. I feel like a day or two after that,
or maybe right around then, another billionaire involved with this
circle of people, Steve Ban, committed suicide and people were
speculating that it was related to some files being unsealed

(06:38):
that have all these John does in them. Deep Deep,
That's all that I can say, allegedly. Deep. Speaking of Deep, Um,
I brought a new thing to the group that is
a weird app that the kids are all into. I'm
obsessed with this now called and Anautica. Tess. Why don't

(07:02):
you explain it? Okay? So, random Autica is an app
that launched, I think at the beginning of this year,
but became very popular during quarantine. UM. It's particularly popular
with people on TikTok. So what what randon Autica does
is it assigns you, um random coordinates that are close

(07:22):
to your geographic location. And what the user does is
they set an intention. So, for instance, UM, some of
the intentions people have set have been to find a
lost cat, to see something purple, or just the word love,
which sometimes goes fine, and then they film themselves going
to these locations. But there have been all of these

(07:42):
strange occurrences within the app that have then been broadcast
on TikTok Uh, which have ranged trim like, oh, funny coincidence.
I was trying to find a lost cat and then
I found a random baby cat, and the baby cat
led me to a line of Joshua tree in the desert.
How weird a cat? I found a cat. But then

(08:04):
there were people and I don't know what intention they set,
but um they were led to a suitcase full of
human remains. Yes, I watched that video. Yeah, Um, other
people have been led to graveyards, abandoned villages in the forest.
It's bizarre and so and nobody really knows if there's

(08:24):
Like I mean, people probably do know that there's actually
no magic in the app, but that it's just people
are so bored that you're if if you have a
ton of people using an app and they're making connections
because their brains need that exercise, that a lot of
the connections will be strange. That does not explain finding

(08:44):
a suitcaseful of human remains. Though. Yeah, yeah, this is
all very pokemono like, but for like appropriately it's like
a Uigi board combined with pokemones. Yeah, it's like Pokemon
go with no Pokemon. Yeah, well it's a little Yeah,

(09:09):
it feels like this weird reaction to like everybody has
to be inside and so like people kind of find
the most because like the other thing about having like
about lockdown or whatever, unless you're going to go out
to a restaurant or a bar or something and take
your life into your hands, is that if you're not
doing that but you want to be out of the house,
there's actually not that much stuff to do, so like

(09:30):
it's like kind of a make It's like a make
play and uh yeah, the whole it just gives you
like a task. It taskifies going outside, which is kind
of like bound like like there's stuff outside. It turns
out like suitcases with dead bodies in them. I don't know. Also,
everything feels so both chaotic and empty that I think

(09:54):
the idea of going to a place that like has
been instilled with meaning and you have to look at
it with the with your intention in mind and kind
of try to make that connection. Uh, it's like part
of it, I think. Yeah, it's it's become a verb
to Rando nodding, which I like, so would any of

(10:17):
you do this? Would any of you download the app
and actually do this. I raised my hand for sure.
I used to do I used to dabble in geo
cashing back in the day. I guess it's like it's
geo cashing, except it's done like seemingly at random, Like
these points are are determined by the app. That's the

(10:38):
That's the spooky thing is that are these location Who's
determining these locations? And I feel like this is a
setup for a serial killer? Yeah, definitely. Why would you
do this? Because I'm so bored, Joel, I'm so bored.
I was gonna say, like, because you're fourteen and stuck
at home. I was not. I did not think my

(10:59):
co host would be like, yes, yes, I also will.
I was really excited by the story of like the
person finding the baby cat, and that was all it
took for me to be like I would. All of
a sudden, I was like, puppy. I mean, it's the
possibilities are not endless. There, it's a short list of animals,
but I want to do it. That outweighs the potential
of finding a suitcase of human remains, it does. I mean.

(11:22):
I went on a new hike the other day the
other day, like last week and that, and not like
because I had just been inside so much. Normally that
would just be like whatever, it's a fun it's a
new hike. But just that was like, oh God, am
I gonna die? Like I I like I I follow
these instructions that were on some random website for like
how to do this certain hike around that I've never
done in Griffith Park, and I was like, oh, what

(11:42):
if this leads me to my death? Like who knows?
Have you ever done a hike wrong? Oh? All the time.
Usually the first time I do a hike wrong, if
I'm trying it out, yeah, or you're like trying to
find a like a pin and you're just like this
doesn't seem like the right way. Yeah, And there's always
there's this weird I remember when I first started hiking
a lot in l A And it was around the

(12:04):
like kind of that very very long drought that lasted
for years, and so I would be looking at photos
of what like where I was, so I was supposed
to look like, and it was like unrecognizable because because
it was green and all the pictures um. So yeah,
like you can feel like you're getting pranked by nature sometimes.
Do any of you guys have TikTok? This is only
just related to the to the appurten that's not something

(12:30):
you're required to do for in your line of work.
Is like that Epstein's. I mean I feel like I
like Twitter curates the TikTok's that I would be interested
in and puts them on Twitter. So it's like I
don't have time to go on it myself. Yeah, I
don't need another time sync. Yeah. To me, it feels

(12:52):
like what people describe it. It's like, oh, it's just teenagers.
It's like, no, that's a why no adults should be
on TikTok. When did I went on TikTok just to
just to be random nodding? Would that be wrong? Joel?
I could see Joe l being like, don't do it.
I remember when TikTok. When I first heard of TikTok,
it was connected with like people in other countries, like cooking,

(13:15):
doing doing tasks. And it wasn't until like I don't know,
maybe five or six months ago that I understood it
to be like an app for teens. I want to say,
it's like YouTube, where maybe it started out, it's more
just like recording random things for that period of time,
and then it turned into people being like, how can
I use this to make my brand? Yeah? Sure, there's

(13:39):
like a fall The YouTube fallout right now is really
interesting because it's all of the like first wave stars
of that platform who are all really bad people, it
seems like, and they're all leaving or being forced off
because they all have a black face video and some

(14:00):
of them like got ahead of it, and others like
Shane Dawson it just seems like the worst person alive.
But again, you're just like, this is who got famous
on YouTube? The algorythm supported Yeah, Like, I don't know,
and I never got that into you. I mean, obviously
everybody uses YouTube. It's like a utility like anything else.

(14:21):
But I never understood the idea of YouTube as a
platform as a as an addictive thing to keep coming
back to and be a part of. Like I'm always
just like maybe the thing I'm looking for is on YouTube,
So that is it's all very impenetrable to me as
an ancient person. I suppose I became very intrigued by
I was like, who would do this? Why would they

(14:42):
do this? And then I um had to watch those
unboxing videos to satisfy my children's curiosity. And then I
looked at how much those people made and I was like, YouTube,
what a place. Maybe I loolong on YouTube. Um, I
want to talk a Ezekiel's flags. May Wee. Molly made
the comparison that you and the flags are like her

(15:06):
and glass bricks at least a few weeks or a
few years ago, particularly the peak of the glass bricks.
Sometimes you just find a thing that's like your thing.
But I feel like, what, well, let's have you talk
about it. I was going to say, I think the
flags feel more meaningful to me than the bricks are
kind of repetitive. With the flags, I feel like the
more of them there are, they do really interesting things.

(15:28):
You think, how did you How did you plant your
first flag? Uh? Yeah, it was kind of a happenstance obsession.
I Um. I posted a flag in association with I
think the the US men's soccer team was playing, so

(15:50):
I was just like, oh, it's America. I'm gonna post
this flag. Go team USA. UM. And then I came
back to it up them like a month later because
it was July fourth, So I was looking at some
some flags, and then it became developed into an obsession.

(16:11):
I think probably I was probably part of what was
going on, was like mildly depressed, which made me susceptible
to obsessive behaviors. But yeah, so I started looking up
these you know, American flags in in an art um

(16:34):
and it started. I think it probably accreedd more significance
than just like a random obsession as I as I
kept looking at the flags, um because it's like a
it's a super powerful symbol in the sense that like
it has very strong connotations, but then an artists can
like attach all kinds of different meanings to it. Um.

(16:58):
So seeing seeing the ways that people were able to
mobilize the flag, utilize the flag, and take advantage of
these strong associations and sort of bend them to their
to their purpose was interesting. Yeah. I feel like the
Jasper John's flag is like always taught and like a
modern art class is just kind of an example. Yeah.

(17:23):
Like the Yeah, the three flags especially, I think that's
probably the most famous art piece with a flag in it,
one of the probably one of the more famous images
of the flag period. Along with um, it would Giema
flag raising and crossing of the Washington crossing the Delaware

(17:44):
that painting. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any favorite flag
related artwork other than the Jasper John's. I have a
flag in my in my living room. This is actually
a product of my obsession with the flag, because I
started a tumbler two so that I would stop borrowing

(18:07):
bothering my followers on Twitter. He liked follow me on
Twitter because of the flags. Um, so I started tu
It's called it's E flags E F L A G
S dot tumbler um, so you can see. So the

(18:31):
way I got this was, I there's an artist. This
is by an artist named Sarah rebar Um and she
has like a whole series of mixed media flags that
she's that she's done, and I would post them on tumbler,
like you know, with her name. And I posted so

(18:52):
many of them that she like contacted me on tumbler
to say thanks for posting my flag. I mean, she's
a she's a well established artist, but like she's not
like a name brand person um. And so I asked
her if you had any because I had tried to
look for prince of her art um I couldn't find any.

(19:15):
So she sent me that, uh, that poster that makes
me miss Tumbler. Also, yeah, is there a place people
can since since we're on zoom and we could see
what you just showed us, but can you is that
image online and people could find it or we can
link to it or something. Yeah, I'll send you a
link to it. Yeah, it's cool. It looks like a

(19:35):
kind of collage work though of it a bunch of
like mixed media flags. She basically takes an American flag
and like layers other fabrics and objects on top of them.

(19:56):
I have a question for you, as a connoisseur of
all this flag are like, what are your feelings about
the just the design of the American flag aesthetically and
then whatever other category you know, criticism that you have
around it. I'd like to know your thoughts on it.

(20:17):
I think one of the super things, super difficult things
about it, it's like so familiar as an object to
me that it's hard to like say what I think
about it aside from like all these associations that I
have with it. Yeah, it's it's weird. It's it's like
a super weird flag. Like if you try to if
you try to like remove all the associations you have

(20:39):
from it. Um, there's too many. There's probably too many stripes,
there's too many stars. It's kind of like it's kind
of clutter. It's busy. It's too busy. But I think
the uniqueness, especially like the field of stars, the pattern

(21:00):
that it's in is super unique. So that makes it
like I can't think of any other flag where you
can see just like a little piece of it and
you know that it's the American flag, or you can
just see the stars in that distinctive pattern and you
know it's the American flag. Um. Which is which is
cool for artists because like you know, they can deploy

(21:23):
it so flexibly. You can change the colors and it's
still the American flag. UM. You can you can drop
the stars and people still recognize it. You can drop
the stripes and people still recognize it. UM. So like
as a as a symbol, it's super successful. I don't know,
like as a piece of design, we're maybe not that successful.

(21:46):
I know a lot of people think it's super ugly.
I think that represents America well though, Yeah, yeah, it's
ugly and it's kind of tacky and there's a lot
going on, but you can always tell what it is.
It always is itself. Zekiel, do you feel like your
relationship with the flag has changed, like as you've done

(22:07):
the project? I mean, since I've thought about it so much,
it probably like I've probably attached more meaning to it
than and the average person would. So I think it's
a very powerful symbol. I don't get like super patriotic
feelings or anything like that when I look at it,
just because like the number of things that it's been

(22:28):
that it can attach itself to sort of removes that feeling.
So like you can have you see the flag, like
so I have picture of the flag of you know,
in Iraq with American soldiers, UM, pictures of the flag
on the moon. People to point the flag, like in protests,

(22:49):
people to point the flag, like during the sixties, like
Martin Luther King to point the flag, or civil rights
marches to point the flag, aids activists to point the flags.
It's like in some senses like it is a symbol
of America, UM, but it's also like a symbol of
America as it exists, but also like a symbol of

(23:12):
what people want it to be. UM. People think it
is at its best or what it should be or whatever. Um. Yeah,
So I always feel like the flag on in space
or like on the moon is one of the wildest
contexts for it because I think it makes a lot
of sense to be used in protests and stuff like that.

(23:34):
But there's something about it being in space. I mean, grant,
if you are a person who believes that we landed
on the Moon, then like the the idea that like
our stupid flag is there. I mean, like, you know,
I'll all criticisms, some good points and everything, like why
is that object on this thing that orbits our planet?

(23:55):
Like it just feels so small in that context. I
always like kind of flabbergasted by that image being used
as like an image of victory or like conquest or something.
But I don't know, I'll miss no opportunity to say
that America got to the Moon because of the Nazi
scientists that they brought over Operation paper Clip. Have you

(24:18):
have any of you watched the Apple TV program for
All Mankind? No? I haven't. How is this It's it's
pretty good, I thought, I mean it's it's kind of
like I'm a kind of a space nerd type. So
it was a big battle star ahead, so I was like,
oh maybe we should watch that. Yeah, So like it's

(24:39):
an alternate it's an alternate history of the space race. Um,
and like they imagine us like not stopping moon trip.
I don't remember how the divergence happens from our timeline,
but anyway, Um, one of the things that they go

(25:00):
into is like how this was dependent on Nazi scientists.
And there's like this big one of the one of
the characters in the show, So like it ends up
being like you get women astronauts to wait earlier, so
you get women astrocts in like the sixties. Um. And
one of the science one of the female scientists, her mentor,

(25:22):
is a Nazi scientist. And there's like this big reckoning
that ends up happening where um, he's called before Congress
and like because in the show it's like a power play,
they're trying to get rid of him, and so they
like suddenly remember, oh yeah, this guy's a Nazi, Like
call him to account for all of his all of
his crimes, and I get rid of him. But like

(25:45):
through it they like there's like a reckoning of like
how the space race depended on these horrible Nazis that
we redeemed for their scientific accomplishments. Yeah, wow, Ezekiel, you
should definitely check out stars Troopers. Yeah, it's like a
weird a weird gap in my in my viewing because

(26:07):
I like science fiction, so it's I don't know why
I haven't seen it. It's a good time to watch
Starship Troopers, as we all discovered, if you're interested in
what yeah, what if the space race had continued. It's
a very thing about that. Um. I had an argument
with my mom the other day about the flag because

(26:28):
she gave me a little flag that came like a
realtor left a calendar that had an American flag, and
she was like, you can have it, and then she
immediately was like, don't burn it. Was like, Mom, I'm
not gonna do it on camera, but she was like,
you know, we have to like rescue it from all

(26:51):
the horrible meanings, especially it's like taken on right now,
you know, we have to like take it back. And
I was like, I don't know if it can be
taken back anymore. You know, like when I see an
American flag just on somebody's house now, like I get
a little freaked out, you know, even if it is
the fourth of July. It just like it reads differently.

(27:11):
Do you think that the American flag can be reclaimed
or do you think the point is to like, you know,
set it on fire. I feel like I think it
can be reclaimed. I mean a lot of the flag
has flown over a lot of horrible things, UM, sometimes
even concurrently with people claiming it. You know, you can

(27:34):
even like the civil rights context is the one I
always returned to you. You know, you can find another.
Another famous picture of the flag is during an anti
bussing protest in Boston, UM. A guy getting just like
sort of speared with with the flag on a pole.
Seen this picture before, UM, And so that's been like

(27:57):
used in an anti civil rights context. At the same
time time, people were flying the flag for two in
you know, sort of deploying it to say like America
should be a country that treats its isn't equally. So
I feel like the flag could be reclaimed if people,
I mean, you can lay claim to it if you want.

(28:17):
Kendrick Lamar, Kendrick Lamar has did his I don't I
don't remember which music awards it was, but he had
like a giant art piece with the flag flying behind
his his performance. So I feel like, I guess my
answer is like I don't think it needs to be
particularly reclaimed. I have the same feeling like when I
see if I see someone flying the flag on like

(28:39):
their pickup truck, I sort of feel like, this is
not a this is probably not a good person. Yeah. Maybe, well,
and that goes back to like post nine eleven. I
feel like that's the first time for our generation that
the flag really got weaponized and in a kind of
conservative context. But yeah, I remember people put up a
lot of flags on their dorm walls, on the front

(29:02):
of their doors, on their dorms, and I went around
and just like turned them all upside down. Why were they?
They're doing that a brown for what? Just pere anywhere
we're getting that that jingo ism, you know. I mean
that's what I think is like scary about any kind
of patriotic signifiers, Like it can be used for for evil,

(29:23):
but it also like, yeah, I can be used for good.
Like I also, I feel like the flag, it depends
on the context, like you were saying, depends who's flying it.
It's like the country that you're in. It's like a
micro cause it's like, is it like does that count
as like a synic doche or like like whatever that

(29:44):
word is like for the country, But it's not, isn't
it SYNECTICU is like the name of the movie. Never mind,
I don't know what. I don't know how to pronounce it.
I've never actually attempted to pronounce it out loud. But
like the thing that's sort of this is like the
micro cause him of a larger thing that can be
kind of um used to speak about it. And I

(30:06):
don't know whenever. I'm not an expert at this sort
of thing, but like it does feel like in that way,
the flag is sort of perfect as a symbol because
it is this. It is completely it's importance and and
it's it's virtue or or lack thereof, is like completely
dependent on the context and who's holding it and what's

(30:27):
going on with it. It's kind of a neutral entity,
just like the country. Yeah, that's my that's my thing.
Like I remember someone getting really upset at me posting
pictures of the flag and they're like, you know this
the flag has people have flown the flag for all
kind of all kinds of horrible reasons, and so I

(30:50):
don't think you should be posting flag guard or I don't.
I don't remember what exactly said, but that was like
the paraphrase of his his his meaning my is like
it's not like it is not like say a swastika,
where the meanings super determined and it can only really

(31:11):
mean one thing. I feel like the flags has been
used in enough context that it it can have good
or bad reasons depending on who's flying it in what context.
Didn't why, Yeah, it's like a mirror. It's like I'm
sure somebody has made a mirror flag at some point, somebody. Yeah,

(31:33):
is he killed? Do you have any like second and
third favorite flags? Oh? Yeah, Um, I don't know, I
have too many. I have trouble. I have trouble picking
favorite anything, trouble picking favorite movies. Yeah. Oh, that's like
the worst question to ask me ever, Like I can

(31:55):
never pick a favorite anything, favorite movie particularly But yeah, yeah, um,
I saw this Jasper John's flag recently that I really liked.
It's um, I don't remember I think it it came
by saw it because some gallery was selling it. Let

(32:16):
me see if I can quickly find it on my computer.
But I just loved, like, the way it was it
was layered. I'll send you I really like. I really
like the David Hammonds did the African American Flag, which

(32:39):
is a color swapped American flag. Um. Yeah, that one's
pretty iconic. I feel like that that's that has uh span, Yeah, yeah,
that one has set a long lifespan. Yeah. I was like,
I was looking for this. I saw this thing going

(32:59):
to oh my Twitter recently and now I'm like, realis
and I should have looked into it before this. There's
some sort of thing called like the My American Flag
project where people are like redesigning the American flag, which
feels like somebody weird, somebody somebody sent that to me.

(33:20):
I mean, like now, it's it's super funny because now,
like you, I think somebody mentioned I don't know if
somebody mentioned it, but like people, when people see the
American flag like a flag in like an art piece
or just like they see it out in the wilds,
they'll send it to me. It's like my brand now

(33:45):
for better for worse. Like somebody somebody sent me that
that my American Flag project. Yeah, I think the I
think the ones that I saw, one of them was
actually the just the African American flag. I don't know
if the person needs a history of it or like
it was an accident or what the deal was with that. Yeah,

(34:05):
have you ever made a flag cake? I have no skill?
What are you talking about like the stuff? Yeah? Have
you no? But I'm thinking about it now. I want
to make a make flag the American flag out of food. Um, well,

(34:26):
if you? Yeah, if have you? Is there any other
symbol that you think like has this sort of quality
because I think like you think you hit on something
so right about like like like what you're say at
the beginning, where it's just like you don't it's like
a thing that you don't have a feeling about almost
anymore because it's so ubiquitous, because it's so a part

(34:48):
of like if you've grown up here, it's a part
of your childhood. Like I don't know if they still
make kids like do the Pledge of allegiance in school.
That was something we had to do when I was
in like at least through elementary middle school. Like like
like there are a few things that kind of rival.
I'm trying to think of other things that have that,
like you know, just feel that bone deep at this point. Um,

(35:11):
I guess this kind of depends on cultures, but yeah, yeah,
I can't think of anything in the American context where
that has that sort of neutral it's that has that
sort of power as a symbol while also having like
sort of neutral connotations. I mean, it is super I mean,
and and the American people's I feel like our relationship

(35:32):
to our flag is kind of unique to like, I
don't I don't feel like other other countries. From from
what I've read, it doesn't feel like other countries have
the same relationship with their own flag. Like we like
the Pledge of allegiances about the flag. The national anthem
is also about seeing the flag. It's kind of odd.

(35:56):
It's like, yeah, it's like this thing that just stands
in for it. It's like we're not gonna really actually
say anything. We're just gonna say, like we like the flag.
It's it's such a weird tradition, kind of rhetorical tradition.
I just feel like your Twitter threads are really incredible
and like one of the few things on Twitter that
I'm like, this is art. You know, this is someone

(36:19):
who's using social media for good in a really cool,
interesting way. Um Decider, Now, Yes, but it just reminds
me of film film school stuff to where they show you, like,
you know, images next to each other and how they
relate to each other, and just seeing seeing them as
a long stream like that, UM, in conversation with each other.

(36:42):
I think. I think it's so cool. Yeah, and it's
cool you've been doing it for six years. Yeah yeah.
I sort of don't post them on ton Twitter anymore,
but I still look at them all the time, find
new pictures of them and stuff. People sending glass bricks
under the table all the time. People will send them
to me and be like, are we are you still
doing this? Are you still looking at the bricks? This

(37:04):
account still active? Well, Ezekiel, thank you so much for
joining us today. UM we mentioned your Twitter. It's the Shrillist.
You have also been djaying on Twitch. I know. Yeah.
If you wouldn't mind sharing a link to that that
we can share with our listeners, I think we'd all
enjoy it. Where do you find those backgrounds for your

(37:27):
dj stets? Um? I think the last few backgrounds have been, um,
I did Sam Sorrow once, I did Brock. There's all so.
I I'm kind of a film nerd, so I just
found some movies that didn't have narratives and had interesting

(37:48):
if you have if you have suggestions, I'm I'm all out.
If you have suggestions, I'm wide open. When your next
DJ set, your next twitch set um do you have,
I'd probably be next Thursday. I don't really have a
schedule because I have children, so I'm not sure. It

(38:12):
also always depends on how soon they go to bed,
but it's like usually Thursday or Friday nights is when
I try to do it. Cool. I like a DJ
who doesn't know when he's going to play, because it's
like when when the wind call, when the world needs music. Yeah, yeah,

(38:33):
you're DJ set relaxed me a lot last week. So cool.
I'm glad. Thanks for doing that. Thanks, thank you. We
are going to take a quick break and when we
come back, we will be discussing Starship Troopers. Welcome back

(38:58):
tonight call. For the second half of the show, We're
going to talk about little Paul verhoeven movie called Starship Troopers,
based on a Robert Heinlein novel. Famously right wing, militaristic
sci fi novel, The Verhoeven Starship Troopers is a parody
of fascism, and militarism. But at the time a lot

(39:20):
of people didn't pick up on that. Still people don't
pick up on that, which is remarkable. I don't know how.
I don't know. I mean, I think I was thinking
about it because we've been talking a lot about like
things that people call satire and whether it counts as
satire if nobody understands that it's satire, you know, does

(39:41):
that just make it the thing it's parodying? Um? I
feel like that's come up a lot in the black
Face discussion about sitcom's getting pulled. Um, this is particular.
Are you talking about that one? Yeah, because a lot
of people ask me about that, and I think, you know,
I obviously thought about it a lot. But also it's
like a lot of people were upset because they were like, well,

(40:01):
they're just pulling these sitcom episodes, but like they should
do that after we've defunded and abolished the police, like not.
It's like they're doing all the like, let's celebrate things
before the thing has been done that you would be
celebrating by doing, and you know the instances of the
Golden girls in mud masks and the like. Highly self

(40:21):
aware Roger Sterling and black face from mad Men seem
different than the black face instances that are clearly just
horrible people do. It also seems like you you know,
I think Creina Longworth said about Song of the South
that it's like, when you make these things unavailable, you
risk turning them into fetish objects. Um. A lot of
people who like Community were really mad because it was

(40:43):
like a beloved an episode, beloved by fans, and it's
like a half second joke in the middle of a
whole episode. Yeah, They're like, just re cut it, you know,
without that joke so we can still enjoy this episode.
But I think also it's just like just just give
money need to black creators and showrunners to make new stuff. Um. Yeah,

(41:04):
And I think like I think like in the case
of something like Starship Troopers and and and the Roger
Sterling episode, I think that like art's going to have
to comment on this stuff sometimes. I mean, I want
to say, also, like I think mad Men did a
really bad job with race overall. Like that was one

(41:25):
of my definitely criticisms of the show, and I definitely
thought it was going to tackle it at some point
in some kind of real way, and it just never
really did, except through things like that Roger Sterling scene
the character of Don had like a lot on her
shoulders and didn't come in into like what four seasons
in five seasons in I can't remember, And I think

(41:46):
they really just like avoided They thought it was like
too much of a third rail for the show. It's
like it'll make every other character on the show seemed
like an asshole, which they are. Um Even in that scene,
I remember thinking like, is it realistic that like some
people express disgusted at this or would they all just
like fake it while their boss did his black face routine,

(42:06):
Like we're definitely supposed to be grossed out by like
some of them doing it, But then some people are like, oh,
like I'm having a good reaction to this. That will
never be shown, you know, we'll never delve into these
issues ever again in the show. I mean, aside from
the historicity of uh, people being discussed or not disgusted

(42:27):
by a minstrel performance on an episode of Mad Men
that takes place in the sixties, Like, I do think
that that that as a as a work of art itself,
as mad Men is, Like, I think that episode does
a really good job of making you feel like discussed
around this and it's so awkward and it's not funny,

(42:49):
like this is like one of this is what kind
of makes it stand out for me is that it's
not funny. It is like appropriately like you kind of
want to turn it off because it's so cringing seen.
But I think that that's like aside from like, oh
but our hero Don Draper's woke, it doesn't like this, Like,
I think that it does a good job of getting
that across. At the same time, even though I think

(43:11):
it does in the episode, people still like just made
gifts of that, you know, and then it just becomes
like an image taken out of context, and like that
can that can also happen with almost anything. I mean
you can't. I feel like that can't be something that
keeps you from making trying to address things like that.
Like I was glad that instead of just avoiding it,
like you said, the third Rail, that they kind of

(43:32):
like had that in there. It is so uncomfortable. Um,
but also I mean, going back to Starship Troopers a
bit like it's it's very similar in the sense that
like you can take a piece of Starship Troopers and
use it to make the opposite argument that the movie
is making and like and it is kind of crazy.
I was looking at old reviews, um how many people

(43:53):
critics misunderstood this, Janet Maslin. I mean everybody was like,
you know, this movie is intended for really immature eleven
year old boys who just want to see like crazy
violence and ship getting blown up, and like, you know,
it's so militaristic, like how horrible. And it's like, yes, exactly,
it's so militaristic, how horrible. Um, I I loved this movie. Uh,

(44:18):
not to steer it too far away from the madment thing,
but it's it. I think it's similar, you know, it
is so I said, it's fascist face exactly. Like some
people were saying it's too successful. They were like, it's
too good at portraying this like shiny, beautiful fascist world
that like the critique is undermined by like how cool

(44:38):
it looks. No, everything looks horrible in it. The ships
are all ugly as fuck, like as as a sci
fi connoisseur, like they have ugly ships and starship troopers,
and I feel like that's intentional. So they have the
it's all Nazi design, like it's not even you know,
it's it's just directly taken from Nazi designs, like the

(45:01):
you know, the trench coat that Doogie Howser was wearing
at that and obviously it's like a Nazi trench coat.
And yeah, aside like the stuff that is even direct
nods to Nazi Germany, which there are plenty, and this
movie like even just the tackiness of it, Like I
don't think that it's that it's beautiful and maybe there's

(45:24):
this like a whole politics of taste thing, but it's
like that kind of thing where you if you step
over into like a right wing website or you go
down a rabbit hole or something like that and you're like, oh,
the graphic design sucks here, like on top of the politics.
It's like it is that kind of feeling, like that
the whole interface for the Federal network, the do you

(45:44):
want to know more thing is like the worst kind
of you know, Fox News esque infographic type ship. Like
it's I don't know, I think like it hits the
nail and it actually feels prescient now because that was
like what this is like, yeah, so this is where
it all happened. Yeah, so it's very it feels like

(46:07):
like Fox News and those sorts of um outlets sort
of took the Starship Troopers um aesthetic and ran with it.
Un ironically. Yeah, well it's it's parodying propaganda outlets, and
there's so much of that now in the way that
it's adapted itself to the Internet, and that like really

(46:27):
ancient racist and anti Semitic memes of like resurfaced in
that way is so crazy to me, but also sort
of not you know, not beyond comprehension, because yeah, if
you put things, if you put these really ugly messages
in this very like slick packaging, this movie also makes
you feel really gross and uncomfortable about all of that stuff.

(46:51):
And the whole opening is just a recreation of apart
from Triumph of the Will, Yeah, there's something so unsettling
about that uniform many Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think
the thing that I always think of and kind of
forget in between reviewings of Starship Troopers is um how
much it feels like Harry Potter, Like it's a part

(47:16):
of this like genre that's also very big in like
anime and manga and stuff of like the school narrative,
because they start off at school. It's like three friends,
like where will their futures lead them? Like the like
the future is so big and they're like there's they
have so much promise and like they're going to excel
in and this class or this class like games and

(47:37):
wait what does it call it? Games and theory like
like um, yeah, and everybody has like their their expertise
and it's this very like it's this narrative that kind
of takes the system that these characters are in for
granted and it's like, see, it's fun. It's like a
game to work your way up through the academy or
through the military or like to become a citizen or

(47:58):
whatever the case may be. Um, And I think, like
that's such a brilliant I mean, I think that's just
in the novel, but I think to kind of use
that sort of seemingly benign thing of like a story
about friends in school to become this fascist narrative is
like very very it cuts deep. Yeah. And it's also

(48:20):
this world where it's sort of like presented as being
like post gender and post racial, like it's very diverse
and there's no racism and men and women shower together
and it's not sexual, but also like women are drone pilots,
Like yeah, yeah, that's like a RoboCop thing too. Denise
Richards is totally like an anime fascist girl. That's all

(48:44):
I could think about. She's like perfect looking. She she
is so unnaturally beautiful that it makes you uncomfortable like
her her like violet eyes. Right, they both look like
total like dy arian Superman and woman. But then I
was reading more about the book and I found out

(49:06):
that in the book, his character's Filipino and it was
whitewashed in the movie. And her character, I think is
Brazilian and her name is Carmen. Yeah, they're all they
all have like Spanish names, I think. Well, I noticed
in the IMDb trivia because I was very confused by that.
This is my first time seeing Starship Troopers, which I

(49:27):
swear I thought I saw in college, but I was
either two stoned or didn't actually see Starship Troopers. Um.
But in the trivia, Casper vand And said um that
he was often asked why blonde haired, blue eyed actor
would play the Argentinian Juan Rico. He suggested his character
was the descendant of exiled Germans. Argentina was famously a

(49:48):
hiding place of German war criminals after World War Two,
and they do, I mean they have that kind of
like German Nazi youth. Look. It seems it seems on
purpose in the in the film, Yeah, he is Dutch
um which is and and Verhoven lived in Nazi occupied
Netherlands as a child, so he there was a quote

(50:11):
from Behoven where he called it all quiet on the
Final Frontier. Nice. So it is also like a critique
of Star Wars type stuff, any kind of like we're
going to the Academy. One thing that hit really different
on this viewing was the fact that the spaceport is
the l A Convention Center, because we very recently saw
the l A Convention Center occupied by the National Guard.

(50:34):
Oh and I was like, yeah, we saw it occupied
by a National Guard. That was like their headquarters. It
was also in face off, like yeah, we've been at
the l A Convention Center a lot lately. Uh. The
thing that I love about Starship Troopers, and I was
also thinking about this, this is like kind of on
my mind after watching Watchmen recently, is that I love

(50:56):
a work of adaptation, and in this case, a work
of adaptation shin that is like actively pushing against its
source material and like being really actively critical about it
and and using that criticism as like to create something
new essentially. And um, and I think like in the
case of Watchman, you have something that's sort of like

(51:17):
and this on top of the themes that are presented
by the original Watchman. Like, I think, um, that stuff
is super inspiring to me because I think we see
so much adaptation, Like the idea of I P is
so ruling everything in Hollywood right now, and it's just like,
what if you could do something on the level of
a Starship Troopers where you're like, Okay, this book fucking sucks,
but what if I could do something with it? Like

(51:39):
there's a great the quote for for Hoove and about it.
His screenwriter Ed Neumeyer new Meyer, who also wrote RoboCop,
brought him the book and and wanted to adapt that
he was just like a fan of it from childhood
or whatever. And uh so he gave it to Paul Verhoeven.

(52:00):
This is an interview and Empire. Um, and he said
I stopped after two chapters because it was so boring,
says Verhoven of his attempts to read Heinlin's Opus. It
is really quite a bad book. I asked ed Newmeyer
to tell me the story because I couldn't read the thing.
It's a very right wing book. And with the movie,
we tried and I think at least partially succeeded in
commenting on that. At the same time, it would be

(52:22):
an eyr key can have it all the way through.
We were fighting with the fascism, the ultramilitarism all the
way through. I wanted the audience to be asking are
these people crazy? So I don't know, and I think,
like for me it works, but obviously for some people
that like didn't didn't get through. But yeah, and you
know he's he mentions the bugs as sort of just
like this stand in for any kind of like military foe. Um.

(52:46):
Robert Highland wrote the book during the Cold War because
he was mad we weren't having hot wars anymore. He
was like, we should be like developing nuclear weapons and stuff. Um,
And he blamed it this is such a sci fi
nerd guy thing to do. He blamed it on like
young people having too much freedom. It was like, uh,

(53:10):
was the downfall of society that society would remake itself
as this like perfect fascist world after like juvenile delinquents
destroyed America, you know. Yeah. Is there's a scene in
the classroom at the beginning where, um is it Dizzy
is like, oh, I thought like violence doesn't solve everything,
and her teacher like puts her in her place, and

(53:33):
like there's so much that flies by in that scene
that's fascinating, Like where like the teacher essays of like
something that's given to you has no value. Only something
that's taken by force has any value. Um, and like
the moral difference between the citizen and the civilian. Uh yeah,
like total recall. There's a lot of stuff in this

(53:53):
about having to earn your rights, having to earn your citizenship.
Well that's like when they're in the shower, I'll take
other everyone's asking like why did you enlist? And I
mean among the answers. Or someone wanted to go to
Harvard and they were like, but I can't go unless,
like I'm a citizen, and you know, then they'll help
pay for it. Someone else was like I want to
have babies and so I need to be a citizens.

(54:15):
So any kind of yeah, everything is is dictated by
your service in the military. Yeah, and it sort of
demonstrates like the way that you know, US military recruiting
does that It's like these people aren't evil, They're just
like poor simps who got you know, promised things. This
is like a better plan for them than anything else.

(54:36):
You feel bad for them. Well. Also, the promotional videos
that they kind of make of these kids who are
so like almost seem that they're jacked upon emphetamine with
the excitement of fighting the arachnids. Um. I mean, it's
it's very similar to the kind of propaganda that the
that is used by the military to entice people who are,

(54:59):
you know, in high school basically you need a way out.
This made me read a lot about the Reich Labor Service,
which was problem in Nazi Germany. It was basically like
they leveraged unemployment to get all these young people to
join the Nazi labor Service, and it was basically what
is in this movie where you earn your rights, you
earn things by executing your service. That's how you earn citizenship.

(55:24):
And it was kind of presented in this very like
gender equitable way as like one of the great things
about like Nazi Germany will be that like women will
have you know, promise the future of women in the workplace,
uh in a fascist regime, and like you can go
whenever you want, right like you'll have you'll there will
be a place for you if you help, like you know,

(55:45):
trod everybody else under your boot who's lesser than you.
There was also the whole thing about like I thought
the interesting, like the sports aspect of it at the beginning.
It was also kind of funny. It like links like
sports and like sex and the military altogether is like
part of a never ending ring of youthful energy. And

(56:05):
it's like it's like the presentation of an enemy, like
anything that you can narrativize is like this guy's gonna
take your girl, or like this is the rival football team,
or you know, or those bugs want to kill you.
Like it's that these these people only respond when there
is an enemy that they can like they have like
Casper Veending's character basically a zero direction in his life

(56:28):
unless something is trying to take something that's his, whether
it's his like his his hometown getting attacked by the bugs,
or somebody tried to steal his girl, Like that's the
only thing that mobilizes him. It's all percent reactionary. That's
what's also scary about now, is you know, looking at
the stuff about the rich labor force, it's like, oh,

(56:48):
everybody was unemployed and they were directionless and all they
wanted was like to have a job again and to
have someone to tell them what to do. And you
know a lot of people were just following order. Is
like not everybody was a Nazi general, but a lot
of people were just like complicit by being part of
it because they didn't have any better options. There's uh,

(57:11):
I think the l a p d um Twitter account
recently has been posting like stories of officers or something
to I don't know, to like in gender sympathy for
the l a p D or something, or to humanize copaganda. Yeah, yeah,
straight from the cops in this case, Like yeah, it's
always it always comes from the cops, but it's on

(57:34):
like every local news show and stuff like that. But
it's stuff like you know, like I grew up poor
and like I was the first person from my family
to go to college and like I and like in
this last one, I think this is just today like
the tweets that's something like you know I had every excuse,
like did not say what the excuse was for. Like

(57:54):
I had every excuse, I guess what to be like
a not not a cop um, but I didn't take it,
like and I decided that I wanted to like serve
my city by being in the military. It's so Starship
Troopers all this ship like it's so like like I'm
doing my part. Like it's just very um transparent for sure.
And the fact that you have like a white power

(58:16):
army in this movie but it's diverse is like very unsettling. Um,
Like you can have Jake Bucy and black women fighting
side by side in the military. Man you see another
through line? Yeah, we so what other movie was the

(58:37):
Freaky guy in Contact? He is the freaky guy? So
he apparently everybody was suffering from heat stroke um while
filming Starship Troopers. I guess when they were in the
bad Lands in Wyoming. Um maybe that was there, but
everybody it was like a hundred and twenty five degrees.
And I thought I read that Jake Bucy suffered a
horrible like a stroke stroke or something and they had

(58:59):
to take like a week off. But he is he
is giving an amazing performance. Again, I'm like it it
besides being a really like timely critique of militarization and um,
you know a lot of stuff that we're seeing going
on now. It also like the the excitement and the

(59:19):
fervor and the like optimism of these kids in this
movie is so intense in that it's being used for
such evil, but it's like this bright, big white tooth
smile and these big guys, it's so scary. They're being
told that they're going to be heroes and legends, like

(59:41):
they see everybody at the beginning of the movie who's
missing limbs, you know. And that actor, by the way,
is actually um a double ampute, which I did not know.
He was great. Yeah, he encounters all these people that
are like, oh, you're going to fight the bugs like
good walk but like infantry made me the man I
with like points system anything where it's like they're telling

(01:00:03):
you know, you're you're just like a you're a meat
shield basically, but they are selling you this idea that
you're something other than that. You guys are really making
me want to revisit this movie because I haven't seen
it since I was like ten. I think that's yeah,
it's on Netflix now. I mean, like I can't imagine
being a child and watching this. It's so it's hyper violent,

(01:00:28):
cool and like there's such a What I remember most
about it is the coldness with which like punishment was
applied and the way in which they addressed like all
of their desks, and that like really freaked me out.
I was like, especially the whipping scene because I was
fresh offs and I was like, what is happening with
all these because my parents are showing me so violent
and horrifying. Um. But I was interested to hear what

(01:00:51):
you guys think about especially I don't know if you
have any thoughts on it, but like the costuming specifically
and the way it's sort of like if you if
I think about fashion at this time, like late nineties
early because it's like what seven yeah, um, and this
idea of like military clothing suddenly becoming hip, especially the

(01:01:13):
like yes yes and the big pants and stuff. Did
that leave any impression on you guys? Yeah? I mean
I think I think style is the way that people
often launder fascism, you know, is like oh but it's
such a good logo, um, which I feel like we
were kind of talking about with the flag before, like

(01:01:34):
you know, That's what's scary about symbols, as they can
be used to kind of cover up crimes. That's what
we talk about in the Olympics a lot my anti
Olympics group, because a lot of people are very attached
to the graphic design of the Olympics UM. But again,
it's like that's used to kind of cover up a
lot of abuse and financial fucked up behavior. I think

(01:01:57):
also like going back to the sort of um the
sort of egalitarianism between like genders and this like it
is kind of an andragugous thing. Like Denise Richard does
not aside from like the party scene or whatever. She's
not like dressed sexy or anything. She's just like a pilot.
And there's this sort of like and I feel like

(01:02:18):
that's something that always is getting that's always a point
of conversation in like genre stuff and in video games
it's like why can't the woman who's holding the two
machine guns, you know, like not be sexual? See, I
find it just I find it just as scary when
she's like cutie Panzer Division, Like that was so scary

(01:02:40):
to me. She's just like yeah, when she's wearing the
Nazi uniform and just like smiling like shooting, and you know,
and then at the end when Doogie Houser feels the
bug when they see you, like the last living bug
and it's afraid and they all cheer. Well, that's like
the most on the nose. The um Patrick Harris's costume

(01:03:03):
is like the most post on the nose s S
Officer type ship. To Joel's point, I think a lot
of that stuff came back under the guys of like
we're so far removed from actual Nazis, we can do
this as fashion now, like Hugo Boss can be a
legitimate brand that advertising, right, Like Hugo Boss did come
back really big in the nineties for sure, but also

(01:03:25):
like all these seventies rock guys bought Nazi memorabilia, you know,
to be like Edge Lords of the seventies, Prince Harry, Right,
lots of people think it's like we're so far away
from it, but we're never that far away from it, clearly. Yeah.
I mean it's also like, like I do think it's

(01:03:46):
interesting that we're talking about starship troopers and this kind
of stuff right after talking about the flag, because like,
I don't know, I mean, I I still keep coming
back to the fact that there are just two completely
different readings of this movie, and that we're all very
confident and comfortable with our reading. It was what it

(01:04:07):
was intended to be read that way. But it's it's
weird that people can like miss putting together all of
these elements and all of these clues about the message
behind this movie. Like people who are really seasoned at
like taking apart movies, and I mean, I wouldn't say
or they just you know, believe in The Forever War.
There is a book, like an anti war sci fi

(01:04:27):
book written in response to this book called The Forever War,
where it's like the the Minians sort of like realized
that they're being used for cannon fodder and that um.
But for Hovan said, this movie was really his own
response to like America after World War Two becoming just
like increasingly imperialistic and involving itself in all kinds of
conflicts that it didn't need to be part of. But

(01:04:50):
you know, America had to be convinced to go into
World War two because a lot of people did not
think we belonged there. We're on the fence for a
long time about World War Two. It turns out well
he's for having said too that this is based parts
of it are patterned after Triumph of the Will, but
also after the Frank Capra response to Triumph of the
Will that was meant to like in gender the same

(01:05:13):
kind of patriotism and Americans and be like, this is
why we have to go do this, um, because Frank
Capra was like terrified by Triumph of the Will. He
was like, this is such a good work of propaganda.
We have to make an equally good work of propaganda.
And there's some stuff in the Frank Capra one that's
totally false. There's like a you know, it's obviously very

(01:05:34):
racist towards the Japanese, but there's just like some some
conspiracy stuff in it that was maybe used to help
speed the process along of getting America on board. No.
I've been um listening to the current hardcore history about
the Pacific theater of World War two a lot, and

(01:05:55):
it's very interesting to see the whole West Coast history
of of demonizing Japanese people through all that in ways
that I kind of knew about it in a cursory way,
but never never in depth. Um. But yeah, it's wild um.
And again it is all about finding a common enemy

(01:06:17):
on getting creating a narrative and like and then and
then created a system that can be seen as blameless,
like somehow the the idea of police in this country
being something that people just take for granted and that
it works and like, well, we gotta have police. We
can't not have police. Um, Like it's the same as

(01:06:40):
this military system in this film. Like I was going
back to the flogging scene that the gentleman mentioned Joel mentioned,
is uh, like there's something in that scene where I think,
like if you don't get it by then you're kind
of like I don't know what to I don't know
what to tell you because it's just like there are
a couple parts like that too. Well the I think

(01:07:02):
like by the like from the opening segment, like if
you don't get that, but also by that scene scene
because it's like the idea of that scene is not
Oh my god, this this system that I have signed
up for is hurting me and is blaming for some
me for some like this horrible thing that happened that
ultimately I didn't have that much control over and now
I'm being like publicly flogged for it. Uh. It's like

(01:07:26):
it's like, no, this is good for him. This is
gonna like make him better within this stem, which is
so like that's you know, and and then and so
the hero of the movie then, or the hero of
the Highland story at least is the system that and
that the system will make this person better, uh, and

(01:07:47):
that you can be improved through it, and the system
knows best. There's like a brief mention of showing executions
on TV. Yeah, yeah, tonight at six the electric chair. Yeah, yeah,
the only difference I think. I you know, this also
made me think about the Purge, which has come up
a lot in my mind in the past. While um

(01:08:10):
in that, I was like, you're right, like the Nazi
uniform now, like the uniform that scares me now is
not a trench code. It's like, you know, the bugaloo stuff,
Like it's somebody with like a Blue Lives Matter sticker
on their car and like a Hawaiian shirt. You know.
Still the fatigues, the cargo shorts. Yeah, just like that
to me is even scarier because it's like so dressed

(01:08:31):
down and informal. You know, it's like it's terrifying. I'm
just I'm just dude. To a cook out. Somebody was
posting once today that we're all these like Disney like
Mickey Blue Lives Matter flag inside a Mickey and it
just says like daddy on it. You know. I was
like that, that's the scariest thing I've ever seen. Take

(01:08:54):
it away, no, thank you. Well, if you haven't seen
Starship Troopers in a while, might be a good time
to watch it. And if you think that you don't
like it, it might hit different now. It might might
pointed out like say that I saw Jaws yesterday. I
don't know what time is anymore. But you have a
mayor denying people or not informing his community about a

(01:09:18):
deadly shark and opening the beaches because listen July and
we need to make money and this is how we survive.
Oh my god, we're all freaking weird. Is the timeliest
thing to it was Ship the other day or maybe
like I'd recorded it and I was like, this is
too real. But it's also such a good movie. And
so you're saying l al Fresco is Joss, Yes, Yes,

(01:09:43):
is Garcetti the giant shark? Is he Bruce? He's the mayor?
Oh my god? Well yeah, check that out. It makes
for good Fourth of July view, and I think if
you have to stay inside for your Fourth of July,
might as well watched our ship Troopers and and Jaws.
Sounds American enough to me. That's a good double bill.

(01:10:06):
We all back that double bill. Yeah, thanks for listening
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(01:10:26):
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(01:10:47):
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(01:11:08):
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