Viral Hegemony
Last week Avatar became the highest-grossing film of all time, surpassing Cameron’s last megalithic venture, a film which marked his departure from nuclear critique science fiction to techno-futurist capitulation. Less interesting to me than his lauded visual and technological prowess is his attention to multiple aspect ratios and marketing strategies, which focused on a plurality of theatrical presentations (IMAX, 3D, etc.) that account for the disproportionate audience-to-income rates. Producers will be paying attention to that.
The movie itself? Much foofaraw has been made about the narrative’s white guilt parable and apparent ecological plea. Beyond Cameron’s more cringe-inducing attempts at subtext (Jake Sully, fucking Unobtainium) lies a rather more disturbing parallel:
July 2005 and August 2006 witnessed the creation by the United States Army of several counterinsurgency programs, namely the “Human Terrain System.” The program, now lauded heavily by the Obama administration, is responsible for embedding anthropologists within military units (predominantly in Afghanistan and Iraq, though there are plans for expansion into Africa), ostensibly to provide military operations with palliative intel and to ease the respective cultures toward its invaders. Proponents have the easy job of explaining that HTS creates relationships that help reduce cultural misunderstanding that lead to violent conflict; what isn’t always necessarily addressed is how the very social sciences are being weaponized into hegemonic oppression.
A space marine pretends to be a blue ThunderCat in order to influence and colonize their culture on behalf of human (white, American) industrial interests. He succeeds, but decides to lead them in a violent rebellion against the oppressive technological forces of humanity, but white hegemonic ideology is ultimately triumphant as it overcomes and outperforms this non-white tribal melange at its own game. Colonialism and paternalism have made this story appealing since Edgar Rice Burroughs. The nightmare of hegemony is that it turns domination into an abstraction, even a moral one that doesn’t necessarily align with its exterior dialogue. Thus an ecological plea and fantasy about the joys of tribalism becomes something more sinister; the Na’vi consent to their new white savior because, as Laclau and Mouffe described in Hegemony and Social Strategy, it is the goal of hegemony to dictate to another class that, above all, it is to be subservient.
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Almo’s latest is decent enough. Cruz’s boobs are better than decent. What? I fucking dare you to judge me.
The top searches for this blog continue to be inspiring:
daggering, thirst park chan wook, daggering adult fucking, what’s in the basket
I consider myself to be a pretentious person, but in no way a mature one. The comments on the Best Foreign Language Films of 2009 post (see below) are making me want to fill a Super Soaker with my own urine and seek retribution for all the goddamn bellyaching, sanctimoniousness and just generally tittish behavior therein. I know this is the internet, and therefore any communication is delivered with the forethought and consideration of a walking anus, but when every damn comment is a petulant, sublingual indictment of my person or choices…well, that grates.
Responses to the column seem to fall into two varieties: the first - “AIN’T DONE NE’ER HURD OF DIS YURE GAY LULZ QU33F!!!1~`” can be dismissed out of hand, but the second – “Where’s Sin Nombre and Thirst? This list is clearly gay and retarded!” really bring my piss to a boil.
I saw Sin Nombre – a nice film with attractive cinematography – good but not great. I saw Thirst, which was refreshingly Lynchian but otherwise not up to Park Chan Wook’s usual standards. I prefer to interpret the demand for their inclusion as: “Hey, I saw two foreign language films last year, or at least two I didn’t hate: Sin Nombre and Thirst! I didn’t see a goddamn thing from this list, therefore I must be validated by harkening for what I did see!” Fuck you.
It should also be noted that I am not above editing comments which I consider irredeemably offensive, such as those that bust me for grammar slips and/or typos or are just bitchy for no discernible reason. If you’re considering saying something like “This list sucks” or “This review is fucking terrible” without an adequate rebuttal or backing, don’t be surprised when you look back to find your comment now says “I’m a stupid ugly moron with an ugly face and a big butt and my butt smells and I like to kiss my own butt.” Some of my fellow Pajiba peers find editing comments unethical; I say fuck that, we’re arguing from a position of power.
In conclusion, I hope we can all play nice and, if sauciness and petulance are truly deemed necessary, we may at least endeavour our comments to be funny. If you can’t seem to find a way to back up a contrary opinion or phrase it in a way that doesn’t make we want to rape your mouth, well, prepare to get fucked with.
Surveillance
The resurgence in Romanian cinema has followed a steadfast tract of nightmare-nostalgia with the Stalinist Ceausescu regime. Every glance seems to be backward, a troubled, furtive peek to see if anyone is following you. As a police officer shadows his young target, suspected of a casual pot habit, continuity with a police-state past and a dangerous habit of watching become more than a little pronounced. Interpellation is still a paramount concern among the post-Soviet bloc: the target subject exists only insofar as he is acknowledged by the (perhaps unwitting) ideological apparatus, on a charge the cop thinks is bullshit. Like in previous Romanian films 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, we as viewers feel as furtive observers of the transgressive. Bureaucracy in these films functions as exactly the opposite of popular American cinema and TV serials such as “CSI,” where logical systems and methodologies are propped up and hailed – behold the power of our ratiocination. In Romania this kind of logic is a cause for mourning, even after the oppressive state has been removed.
The 2009 Phillipino Film Awards
Hunger, dir. Steve McQueen
Goodbye Solo, dir. Ramin Bahrani
Coraline, dir. Henry Selick
Sugar, dir. Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck
Tulpan, dir. Sergei Dvortsevoy
Of Time and the City, dir. Terence Davies
Revanche, dir. Götz Spielmann
Summer Hours, dir. Olivier Assayas
Séraphine, dir. Martin Provost
The Girlfriend Experience, dir. Steven Soderbergh
In the Loop, dir. Armando Iannucci
The White Ribbon, dir. Michael Haneke
35 Shots of Rum, dir. Claire Denis
The Beaches of Agnes, dir. Agnès Varda
Bright Star, dir. Jane Campion
Where the Wild Things Are, dir. Spike Jonze
The Maid, dir. Sebastián Silva
Lorna’s Silence, dir. Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardennes
The Headless Woman, dir. Lucrecia Martel
The Sun, dir. Aleksandr Sokurov
Still Walking, dir. Hirokazu Koreeda
The 2009 Phillipino Book Awards
The Gate at the Stairs, Lorrie Moore
The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters
The Season of Ash, Jorge Volpi
Brooklyn, Colm Tóibín
Drood, Dan Simmons
The City & the City, China Miéville
Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
Once the Shore, Paul Yoon
Tinkers, Paul Harding
The 2009 Phillipino Music Awards
Top 20 Tracks of 2009:
20. Manic Street Preachers, “She Bathed Herself in a Bath of Bleach”
19. Dinosaur Jr., “I Want You to Know”
18. Fuck Buttons, “Surf Solar”
17. Cass McCombs, “You Saved My Life”
16. Julian Casablancas, “11th Dimension”
15. The Thermals, “Now We Can See”
14. Bowerbirds, “Northern Lights”
13. Camera Obscura, “French Navy”
12. Surfer Blood, “Swim”
11. Dirty Projectors, “Cannibal Resource”
10. The Pains of Being Pure of Heart, “Young Adult Friction”
9. Blue Roses, “I am Leaving”
8. Health, “Die Slow”
7. Phoenix, “1901”
6. St. Vincent, “The Strangers”
5. Grizzly Bear, “Two Weeks”
4. Pictureplane, “Goth Star”
3. Manic Street Preachers, “Me and Stephen Hawking”
2. Animal Collective, “My Girls”
1. Polvo, “Lucia”
Top 20 Albums of 2009:
20. The Mountain Goats, The Life of the World to Come
19. Antony and the Johnsons, The Crying Light
18. Cass McCombs, Catacombs
17. Sunset Rubdown, Dragonslayer
16. Dinosaur Jr., Farm
15. Camera Obscura, My Maudlin Career
14. Super Furry Animals, Dark Days – Light Years
13. Cymbals Eat Guitars, Why There Are Mountains
12. Bill Calahan, Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle
11. The Pains of Being Pure of Heart, The Pains of Being Pure of Heart
10. Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
9. Dirty Projectors, Bitte Orca
8. St. Vincent, Actor
7. Russian Circles, Geneva
6. Mono, Hymn to the Immortal World
5. Polvo, In Prisms
4. Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest
3. Sunn O))), Monoliths & Dimensions
2. Fuck Buttons, Tarot Sport
1. Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion
Monsoon Christmas
I’ll I’m trying to make up for my end-quarter blogging failure by doing some of those perennial end-year lists. There should also be a Pajiba piece appearing relatively soon. Stay tuned for a veritable bukkake of content.
This Christmas it rained. It rained for 72-hours straight, and then rained some more. I managed to reach Benton before the actual interstate flooded, so I could watch our state break its annual rainfall record from the comfort of my parents’ home and not the waterlogged I-30. I stayed inside reading Hillary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and quibbling with my parents. Their précis of my personality in the form of a single Christmas present was a “Haunted Landscapes” calendar.
