Speaker 1: It's twelve o two a m. On CLENDAFU and you're
Speaker 1: listening to Night Call. Hello, and welcome back to Night Call,
Speaker 1: a call in show for our dystopian reality. I'm Tess
Speaker 1: Lynch and with me are Molly Lambert and Emily Rashida.
Speaker 1: Today we are also joined by special guest Ezekiel Quaku.
Speaker 1: He's a writer and editor based in Oakland. He's also
Speaker 1: politics editor at New York Magazine's Intelligencer, and people send
Speaker 1: him photos of flags, which we will get to later.
Speaker 1: We're very excited to have him on today. Welcome Ezekiel.
Speaker 1: Thank you, nice to have you on. Um, we have
Speaker 1: some breaking news this week as of this morning. I
Speaker 1: think Molly, you tweeted that like a hundred different people
Speaker 1: texted you that we got Gillane, we got her. Ezekiel,
Speaker 1: have you been following? Are you an Epstein head? Are you? Uh?
Speaker 1: I had to like follow him professionally. Yeah, so I
Speaker 1: don't know if I don't know if I would call
Speaker 1: it being it's not voluntary in your case, yeah, totally involuntary.
Speaker 1: I um, yeah, so I had to dive pretty deeply
Speaker 1: into it. He's sort of like for New York Magazine.
Speaker 1: He's sort of like a classic New York magazine story. Definitely,
Speaker 1: we like went all in and like did this big
Speaker 1: feature on his black that was a cover. If I
Speaker 1: recall because I was there, then yeah, he has to have.
Speaker 1: I mean. One of the things that's interesting about it
Speaker 1: is that these people are in so many Getty images
Speaker 1: of New York high society parties. Page six just did
Speaker 1: a slide show yesterday that was just like famous people
Speaker 1: with Gilain and it's all just from like premiers and
Speaker 1: benefits and parties and some of them probably it was
Speaker 1: just that they met her that one time and got
Speaker 1: a photo with her. But who knows. Who knows a
Speaker 1: lot of people were in deep She was found in
Speaker 1: New Hampshire at a home owned by Yolanda Haddie. No. No,
Speaker 1: she was found in New Hampshire at a home that
Speaker 1: she bought for a million dollars called tucked Away. One
Speaker 1: word her WiFi password. People. Yeah, like New Hampshire is
Speaker 1: also we're breaking bad ends apparently, And it's where like
Speaker 1: hides out when he's like changes his ident or he
Speaker 1: gets like like witness protection or something I forget. He's
Speaker 1: like he gets like a private it's like private witness
Speaker 1: protection where yeah, he goes out there and like no
Speaker 1: one knows he's like in a cabin. Yeah, and nobody's
Speaker 1: supposed to know where he is lives for your which
Speaker 1: is also the title of the Sopranos episode where Vito
Speaker 1: s about a four who ran away to New Hampshire
Speaker 1: as well. He was hiding out and may never have
Speaker 1: been found other than he tired of life not working
Speaker 1: in the mafia and went to go check on his family. Listen,
Speaker 1: when you don't want to get trod upon or be
Speaker 1: exposed for being accessory to sex ring, head to New Hampshire.
Speaker 1: But why did I think there was a Yolanda Hadid link?
Speaker 1: There is a Yolanda Hadid link, Okay? Which is that? Uh?
Speaker 1: Somebody on Twitter claimed that they saw Gilane in the Netherlands,
Speaker 1: where Yolanda is from and has a house, and they
Speaker 1: were like, I wonder why Guilane is here, And then
Speaker 1: they put it together later that she's friends with Yolanda
Speaker 1: and possibly Yorlando was hiding her allegedly. Oh hoo, okay,
Speaker 1: but this is not in New Hampshire. This is some
Speaker 1: time in between now and last October. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: the their lens. But that's one of the theories that
Speaker 1: she's been moving around from safe house to safe house,
Speaker 1: and it seems like everyone who's been helping her is
Speaker 1: like some other crazy woman. Um like that's who was
Speaker 1: whole hiding her out in the Universal City too, was
Speaker 1: like some powerful lady who she was friends with let
Speaker 1: hers stay at her Universal City house allegedly. The thing
Speaker 1: I don't understand about it is like, why wouldn't you
Speaker 1: stay in one place and try not to be seen.
Speaker 1: It feels like every time you would change locations, that's
Speaker 1: like a new chance to be exposed because your Carmen
Speaker 1: san Diego. I mean, did she grab her hair, did
Speaker 1: she get did she have a collection of wigs? I mean,
Speaker 1: you don't have fun with this, I suppose if you want.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that anyone has seen her yet.
Speaker 1: Somebody printed like a Society page thing where that had
Speaker 1: one of her friends being like everyone wants to see
Speaker 1: if she's gained weight and looks old because socialites are
Speaker 1: horrible people. U But people claim they heard her voice
Speaker 1: on the press conference call yesterday that there was like
Speaker 1: a British woman. People also think maybe she made a deal,
Speaker 1: that she's going willingly because she's been cooperating with the
Speaker 1: Feds and she's gonna name names. I mean that's the reason. Like,
Speaker 1: that's the whole reason this is news is that she's
Speaker 1: like the number one source for whatever was going on
Speaker 1: besides Jeffrey Epstein, right, Like that's why this is important.
Speaker 1: Maybe our New York politics expert can help with this,
Speaker 1: but there it was allegedly related also to the Burman
Speaker 1: firing the other day, the SDN Y thing where they
Speaker 1: like Bill bar fired Burman. Some people think some people
Speaker 1: were wondering, like I know, like there's some conspiracy. I mean,
Speaker 1: no one really knows, but I know some people are
Speaker 1: speculating that perhaps the they decided to change strategy when
Speaker 1: the when the you guy was brought in, maybe they
Speaker 1: were trying to get her to flip on on say
Speaker 1: the president of i IT states. But um, maybe they've
Speaker 1: given up that strategy and that's whether they're just bringing
Speaker 1: her in now. But I don't have no idea. And
Speaker 1: this this Berman the sorry, he's a New York State
Speaker 1: attorney who like that was the guy that they like
Speaker 1: announced his resignation and he was like, wait, I didn't
Speaker 1: resign like that. It was just like a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago. I feel like a day or two after that,
Speaker 1: or maybe right around then, another billionaire involved with this
Speaker 1: circle of people, Steve Ban, committed suicide and people were
Speaker 1: speculating that it was related to some files being unsealed
Speaker 1: that have all these John does in them. Deep Deep,
Speaker 1: That's all that I can say, allegedly. Deep. Speaking of Deep, Um,
Speaker 1: I brought a new thing to the group that is
Speaker 1: a weird app that the kids are all into. I'm
Speaker 1: obsessed with this now called and Anautica. Tess. Why don't
Speaker 1: you explain it? Okay? So, random Autica is an app
Speaker 1: that launched, I think at the beginning of this year,
Speaker 1: but became very popular during quarantine. UM. It's particularly popular
Speaker 1: with people on TikTok. So what what randon Autica does
Speaker 1: is it assigns you, um random coordinates that are close
Speaker 1: to your geographic location. And what the user does is
Speaker 1: they set an intention. So, for instance, UM, some of
Speaker 1: the intentions people have set have been to find a
Speaker 1: lost cat, to see something purple, or just the word love,
Speaker 1: which sometimes goes fine, and then they film themselves going
Speaker 1: to these locations. But there have been all of these
Speaker 1: strange occurrences within the app that have then been broadcast
Speaker 1: on TikTok Uh, which have ranged trim like, oh, funny coincidence.
Speaker 1: I was trying to find a lost cat and then
Speaker 1: I found a random baby cat, and the baby cat
Speaker 1: led me to a line of Joshua tree in the desert.
Speaker 1: How weird a cat? I found a cat. But then
Speaker 1: there were people and I don't know what intention they set,
Speaker 1: but um they were led to a suitcase full of
Speaker 1: human remains. Yes, I watched that video. Yeah, Um, other
Speaker 1: people have been led to graveyards, abandoned villages in the forest.
Speaker 1: It's bizarre and so and nobody really knows if there's
Speaker 1: Like I mean, people probably do know that there's actually
Speaker 1: no magic in the app, but that it's just people
Speaker 1: are so bored that you're if if you have a
Speaker 1: ton of people using an app and they're making connections
Speaker 1: because their brains need that exercise, that a lot of
Speaker 1: the connections will be strange. That does not explain finding
Speaker 1: a suitcaseful of human remains. Though. Yeah, yeah, this is
Speaker 1: all very pokemono like, but for like appropriately it's like
Speaker 1: a Uigi board combined with pokemones. Yeah, it's like Pokemon
Speaker 1: go with no Pokemon. Yeah, well it's a little Yeah,
Speaker 1: it feels like this weird reaction to like everybody has
Speaker 1: to be inside and so like people kind of find
Speaker 1: the most because like the other thing about having like
Speaker 1: about lockdown or whatever, unless you're going to go out
Speaker 1: to a restaurant or a bar or something and take
Speaker 1: your life into your hands, is that if you're not
Speaker 1: doing that but you want to be out of the house,
Speaker 1: there's actually not that much stuff to do, so like
Speaker 1: it's like kind of a make It's like a make
Speaker 1: play and uh yeah, the whole it just gives you
Speaker 1: like a task. It taskifies going outside, which is kind
Speaker 1: of like bound like like there's stuff outside. It turns
Speaker 1: out like suitcases with dead bodies in them. I don't know. Also,
Speaker 1: everything feels so both chaotic and empty that I think
Speaker 1: the idea of going to a place that like has
Speaker 1: been instilled with meaning and you have to look at
Speaker 1: it with the with your intention in mind and kind
Speaker 1: of try to make that connection. Uh, it's like part
Speaker 1: of it, I think. Yeah, it's it's become a verb
Speaker 1: to Rando nodding, which I like, so would any of
Speaker 1: you do this? Would any of you download the app
Speaker 1: and actually do this. I raised my hand for sure.
Speaker 1: I used to do I used to dabble in geo
Speaker 1: cashing back in the day. I guess it's like it's
Speaker 1: geo cashing, except it's done like seemingly at random, Like
Speaker 1: these points are are determined by the app. That's the
Speaker 1: That's the spooky thing is that are these location Who's
Speaker 1: determining these locations? And I feel like this is a
Speaker 1: setup for a serial killer? Yeah, definitely. Why would you
Speaker 1: do this? Because I'm so bored, Joel, I'm so bored.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, like, because you're fourteen and stuck
Speaker 1: at home. I was not. I did not think my
Speaker 1: co host would be like, yes, yes, I also will.
Speaker 1: I was really excited by the story of like the
Speaker 1: person finding the baby cat, and that was all it
Speaker 1: took for me to be like I would. All of
Speaker 1: a sudden, I was like, puppy. I mean, it's the
Speaker 1: possibilities are not endless. There, it's a short list of animals,
Speaker 1: but I want to do it. That outweighs the potential
Speaker 1: of finding a suitcase of human remains, it does. I mean.
Speaker 1: I went on a new hike the other day the
Speaker 1: other day, like last week and that, and not like
Speaker 1: because I had just been inside so much. Normally that
Speaker 1: would just be like whatever, it's a fun it's a
Speaker 1: new hike. But just that was like, oh God, am
Speaker 1: I gonna die? Like I I like I I follow
Speaker 1: these instructions that were on some random website for like
Speaker 1: how to do this certain hike around that I've never
Speaker 1: done in Griffith Park, and I was like, oh, what
Speaker 1: if this leads me to my death? Like who knows?
Speaker 1: Have you ever done a hike wrong? Oh? All the time.
Speaker 1: Usually the first time I do a hike wrong, if
Speaker 1: I'm trying it out, yeah, or you're like trying to
Speaker 1: find a like a pin and you're just like this
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like the right way. Yeah, And there's always
Speaker 1: there's this weird I remember when I first started hiking
Speaker 1: a lot in l A And it was around the
Speaker 1: like kind of that very very long drought that lasted
Speaker 1: for years, and so I would be looking at photos
Speaker 1: of what like where I was, so I was supposed
Speaker 1: to look like, and it was like unrecognizable because because
Speaker 1: it was green and all the pictures um. So yeah,
Speaker 1: like you can feel like you're getting pranked by nature sometimes.
Speaker 1: Do any of you guys have TikTok? This is only
Speaker 1: just related to the to the appurten that's not something
Speaker 1: you're required to do for in your line of work.
Speaker 1: Is like that Epstein's. I mean I feel like I
Speaker 1: like Twitter curates the TikTok's that I would be interested
Speaker 1: in and puts them on Twitter. So it's like I
Speaker 1: don't have time to go on it myself. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't need another time sync. Yeah. To me, it feels
Speaker 1: like what people describe it. It's like, oh, it's just teenagers.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, that's a why no adults should be
Speaker 1: on TikTok. When did I went on TikTok just to
Speaker 1: just to be random nodding? Would that be wrong? Joel?
Speaker 1: I could see Joe l being like, don't do it.
Speaker 1: I remember when TikTok. When I first heard of TikTok,
Speaker 1: it was connected with like people in other countries, like cooking,
Speaker 1: doing doing tasks. And it wasn't until like I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe five or six months ago that I understood it
Speaker 1: to be like an app for teens. I want to say,
Speaker 1: it's like YouTube, where maybe it started out, it's more
Speaker 1: just like recording random things for that period of time,
Speaker 1: and then it turned into people being like, how can
Speaker 1: I use this to make my brand? Yeah? Sure, there's
Speaker 1: like a fall The YouTube fallout right now is really
Speaker 1: interesting because it's all of the like first wave stars
Speaker 1: of that platform who are all really bad people, it
Speaker 1: seems like, and they're all leaving or being forced off
Speaker 1: because they all have a black face video and some
Speaker 1: of them like got ahead of it, and others like
Speaker 1: Shane Dawson it just seems like the worst person alive.
Speaker 1: But again, you're just like, this is who got famous
Speaker 1: on YouTube? The algorythm supported Yeah, Like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: and I never got that into you. I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: everybody uses YouTube. It's like a utility like anything else.
Speaker 1: But I never understood the idea of YouTube as a
Speaker 1: platform as a as an addictive thing to keep coming
Speaker 1: back to and be a part of. Like I'm always
Speaker 1: just like maybe the thing I'm looking for is on YouTube,
Speaker 1: So that is it's all very impenetrable to me as
Speaker 1: an ancient person. I suppose I became very intrigued by
Speaker 1: I was like, who would do this? Why would they
Speaker 1: do this? And then I um had to watch those
Speaker 1: unboxing videos to satisfy my children's curiosity. And then I
Speaker 1: looked at how much those people made and I was like, YouTube,
Speaker 1: what a place. Maybe I loolong on YouTube. Um, I
Speaker 1: want to talk a Ezekiel's flags. May Wee. Molly made
Speaker 1: the comparison that you and the flags are like her
Speaker 1: and glass bricks at least a few weeks or a
Speaker 1: few years ago, particularly the peak of the glass bricks.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you just find a thing that's like your thing.
Speaker 1: But I feel like, what, well, let's have you talk
Speaker 1: about it. I was going to say, I think the
Speaker 1: flags feel more meaningful to me than the bricks are
Speaker 1: kind of repetitive. With the flags, I feel like the
Speaker 1: more of them there are, they do really interesting things.
Speaker 1: You think, how did you How did you plant your
Speaker 1: first flag? Uh? Yeah, it was kind of a happenstance obsession.
Speaker 1: I Um. I posted a flag in association with I
Speaker 1: think the the US men's soccer team was playing, so
Speaker 1: I was just like, oh, it's America. I'm gonna post
Speaker 1: this flag. Go team USA. UM. And then I came
Speaker 1: back to it up them like a month later because
Speaker 1: it was July fourth, So I was looking at some
Speaker 1: some flags, and then it became developed into an obsession.
Speaker 1: I think probably I was probably part of what was
Speaker 1: going on, was like mildly depressed, which made me susceptible
Speaker 1: to obsessive behaviors. But yeah, so I started looking up
Speaker 1: these you know, American flags in in an art um
Speaker 1: and it started. I think it probably accreedd more significance
Speaker 1: than just like a random obsession as I as I
Speaker 1: kept looking at the flags, um because it's like a
Speaker 1: it's a super powerful symbol in the sense that like
Speaker 1: it has very strong connotations, but then an artists can
Speaker 1: like attach all kinds of different meanings to it. Um.
Speaker 1: So seeing seeing the ways that people were able to
Speaker 1: mobilize the flag, utilize the flag, and take advantage of
Speaker 1: these strong associations and sort of bend them to their
Speaker 1: to their purpose was interesting. Yeah. I feel like the
Speaker 1: Jasper John's flag is like always taught and like a
Speaker 1: modern art class is just kind of an example. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like the Yeah, the three flags especially, I think that's
Speaker 1: probably the most famous art piece with a flag in it,
Speaker 1: one of the probably one of the more famous images
Speaker 1: of the flag period. Along with um, it would Giema
Speaker 1: flag raising and crossing of the Washington crossing the Delaware
Speaker 1: that painting. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any favorite flag
Speaker 1: related artwork other than the Jasper John's. I have a
Speaker 1: flag in my in my living room. This is actually
Speaker 1: a product of my obsession with the flag, because I
Speaker 1: started a tumbler two so that I would stop borrowing
Speaker 1: bothering my followers on Twitter. He liked follow me on
Speaker 1: Twitter because of the flags. Um, so I started tu
Speaker 1: It's called it's E flags E F L A G
Speaker 1: S dot tumbler um, so you can see. So the
Speaker 1: way I got this was, I there's an artist. This
Speaker 1: is by an artist named Sarah rebar Um and she
Speaker 1: has like a whole series of mixed media flags that
Speaker 1: she's that she's done, and I would post them on tumbler,
Speaker 1: like you know, with her name. And I posted so
Speaker 1: many of them that she like contacted me on tumbler
Speaker 1: to say thanks for posting my flag. I mean, she's
Speaker 1: a she's a well established artist, but like she's not
Speaker 1: like a name brand person um. And so I asked
Speaker 1: her if you had any because I had tried to
Speaker 1: look for prince of her art um I couldn't find any.
Speaker 1: So she sent me that, uh, that poster that makes
Speaker 1: me miss Tumbler. Also, yeah, is there a place people
Speaker 1: can since since we're on zoom and we could see
Speaker 1: what you just showed us, but can you is that
Speaker 1: image online and people could find it or we can
Speaker 1: link to it or something. Yeah, I'll send you a
Speaker 1: link to it. Yeah, it's cool. It looks like a
Speaker 1: kind of collage work though of it a bunch of
Speaker 1: like mixed media flags. She basically takes an American flag
Speaker 1: and like layers other fabrics and objects on top of them.
Speaker 1: I have a question for you, as a connoisseur of
Speaker 1: all this flag are like, what are your feelings about
Speaker 1: the just the design of the American flag aesthetically and
Speaker 1: then whatever other category you know, criticism that you have
Speaker 1: around it. I'd like to know your thoughts on it.
Speaker 1: I think one of the super things, super difficult things
Speaker 1: about it, it's like so familiar as an object to
Speaker 1: me that it's hard to like say what I think
Speaker 1: about it aside from like all these associations that I
Speaker 1: have with it. Yeah, it's it's weird. It's it's like
Speaker 1: a super weird flag. Like if you try to if
Speaker 1: you try to like remove all the associations you have
Speaker 1: from it. Um, there's too many. There's probably too many stripes,
Speaker 1: there's too many stars. It's kind of like it's kind
Speaker 1: of clutter. It's busy. It's too busy. But I think
Speaker 1: the uniqueness, especially like the field of stars, the pattern
Speaker 1: that it's in is super unique. So that makes it
Speaker 1: like I can't think of any other flag where you
Speaker 1: can see just like a little piece of it and
Speaker 1: you know that it's the American flag, or you can
Speaker 1: just see the stars in that distinctive pattern and you
Speaker 1: know it's the American flag. Um. Which is which is
Speaker 1: cool for artists because like you know, they can deploy
Speaker 1: it so flexibly. You can change the colors and it's
Speaker 1: still the American flag. UM. You can you can drop
Speaker 1: the stars and people still recognize it. You can drop
Speaker 1: the stripes and people still recognize it. UM. So like
Speaker 1: as a as a symbol, it's super successful. I don't know,
Speaker 1: like as a piece of design, we're maybe not that successful.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people think it's super ugly.
Speaker 1: I think that represents America well though, Yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: ugly and it's kind of tacky and there's a lot
Speaker 1: going on, but you can always tell what it is.
Speaker 1: It always is itself. Zekiel, do you feel like your
Speaker 1: relationship with the flag has changed, like as you've done
Speaker 1: the project? I mean, since I've thought about it so much,
Speaker 1: it probably like I've probably attached more meaning to it
Speaker 1: than and the average person would. So I think it's
Speaker 1: a very powerful symbol. I don't get like super patriotic
Speaker 1: feelings or anything like that when I look at it,
Speaker 1: just because like the number of things that it's been
Speaker 1: that it can attach itself to sort of removes that feeling.
Speaker 1: So like you can have you see the flag, like
Speaker 1: so I have picture of the flag of you know,
Speaker 1: in Iraq with American soldiers, UM, pictures of the flag
Speaker 1: on the moon. People to point the flag, like in protests,
Speaker 1: people to point the flag, like during the sixties, like
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King to point the flag, or civil rights
Speaker 1: marches to point the flag, aids activists to point the flags.
Speaker 1: It's like in some senses like it is a symbol
Speaker 1: of America, UM, but it's also like a symbol of
Speaker 1: America as it exists, but also like a symbol of
Speaker 1: what people want it to be. UM. People think it
Speaker 1: is at its best or what it should be or whatever. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I always feel like the flag on in space
Speaker 1: or like on the moon is one of the wildest
Speaker 1: contexts for it because I think it makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense to be used in protests and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But there's something about it being in space. I mean, grant,
Speaker 1: if you are a person who believes that we landed
Speaker 1: on the Moon, then like the the idea that like
Speaker 1: our stupid flag is there. I mean, like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'll all criticisms, some good points and everything, like why
Speaker 1: is that object on this thing that orbits our planet?
Speaker 1: Like it just feels so small in that context. I
Speaker 1: always like kind of flabbergasted by that image being used
Speaker 1: as like an image of victory or like conquest or something.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, I'll miss no opportunity to say
Speaker 1: that America got to the Moon because of the Nazi
Speaker 1: scientists that they brought over Operation paper Clip. Have you
Speaker 1: have any of you watched the Apple TV program for
Speaker 1: All Mankind? No? I haven't. How is this It's it's
Speaker 1: pretty good, I thought, I mean it's it's kind of
Speaker 1: like I'm a kind of a space nerd type. So
Speaker 1: it was a big battle star ahead, so I was like,
Speaker 1: oh maybe we should watch that. Yeah, So like it's
Speaker 1: an alternate it's an alternate history of the space race. Um,
Speaker 1: and like they imagine us like not stopping moon trip.
Speaker 1: I don't remember how the divergence happens from our timeline,
Speaker 1: but anyway, Um, one of the things that they go
Speaker 1: into is like how this was dependent on Nazi scientists.
Speaker 1: And there's like this big one of the one of
Speaker 1: the characters in the show, So like it ends up
Speaker 1: being like you get women astronauts to wait earlier, so
Speaker 1: you get women astrocts in like the sixties. Um. And
Speaker 1: one of the science one of the female scientists, her mentor,
Speaker 1: is a Nazi scientist. And there's like this big reckoning
Speaker 1: that ends up happening where um, he's called before Congress
Speaker 1: and like because in the show it's like a power play,
Speaker 1: they're trying to get rid of him, and so they
Speaker 1: like suddenly remember, oh yeah, this guy's a Nazi, Like
Speaker 1: call him to account for all of his all of
Speaker 1: his crimes, and I get rid of him. But like
Speaker 1: through it they like there's like a reckoning of like
Speaker 1: how the space race depended on these horrible Nazis that
Speaker 1: we redeemed for their scientific accomplishments. Yeah, wow, Ezekiel, you
Speaker 1: should definitely check out stars Troopers. Yeah, it's like a
Speaker 1: weird a weird gap in my in my viewing because
Speaker 1: I like science fiction, so it's I don't know why
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it. It's a good time to watch
Speaker 1: Starship Troopers, as we all discovered, if you're interested in
Speaker 1: what yeah, what if the space race had continued. It's
Speaker 1: a very thing about that. Um. I had an argument
Speaker 1: with my mom the other day about the flag because
Speaker 1: she gave me a little flag that came like a
Speaker 1: realtor left a calendar that had an American flag, and
Speaker 1: she was like, you can have it, and then she
Speaker 1: immediately was like, don't burn it. Was like, Mom, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna do it on camera, but she was like,
Speaker 1: you know, we have to like rescue it from all
Speaker 1: the horrible meanings, especially it's like taken on right now,
Speaker 1: you know, we have to like take it back. And
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know if it can be
Speaker 1: taken back anymore. You know, like when I see an
Speaker 1: American flag just on somebody's house now, like I get
Speaker 1: a little freaked out, you know, even if it is
Speaker 1: the fourth of July. It just like it reads differently.
Speaker 1: Do you think that the American flag can be reclaimed
Speaker 1: or do you think the point is to like, you know,
Speaker 1: set it on fire. I feel like I think it
Speaker 1: can be reclaimed. I mean a lot of the flag
Speaker 1: has flown over a lot of horrible things, UM, sometimes
Speaker 1: even concurrently with people claiming it. You know, you can
Speaker 1: even like the civil rights context is the one I
Speaker 1: always returned to you. You know, you can find another.
Speaker 1: Another famous picture of the flag is during an anti
Speaker 1: bussing protest in Boston, UM. A guy getting just like
Speaker 1: sort of speared with with the flag on a pole.
Speaker 1: Seen this picture before, UM, And so that's been like
Speaker 1: used in an anti civil rights context. At the same
Speaker 1: time time, people were flying the flag for two in
Speaker 1: you know, sort of deploying it to say like America
Speaker 1: should be a country that treats its isn't equally. So
Speaker 1: I feel like the flag could be reclaimed if people,
Speaker 1: I mean, you can lay claim to it if you want.
Speaker 1: Kendrick Lamar, Kendrick Lamar has did his I don't I
Speaker 1: don't remember which music awards it was, but he had
Speaker 1: like a giant art piece with the flag flying behind
Speaker 1: his his performance. So I feel like, I guess my
Speaker 1: answer is like I don't think it needs to be
Speaker 1: particularly reclaimed. I have the same feeling like when I
Speaker 1: see if I see someone flying the flag on like
Speaker 1: their pickup truck, I sort of feel like, this is
Speaker 1: not a this is probably not a good person. Yeah. Maybe, well,
Speaker 1: and that goes back to like post nine eleven. I
Speaker 1: feel like that's the first time for our generation that
Speaker 1: the flag really got weaponized and in a kind of
Speaker 1: conservative context. But yeah, I remember people put up a
Speaker 1: lot of flags on their dorm walls, on the front
Speaker 1: of their doors, on their dorms, and I went around
Speaker 1: and just like turned them all upside down. Why were they?
Speaker 1: They're doing that a brown for what? Just pere anywhere
Speaker 1: we're getting that that jingo ism, you know. I mean
Speaker 1: that's what I think is like scary about any kind
Speaker 1: of patriotic signifiers, Like it can be used for for evil,
Speaker 1: but it also like, yeah, I can be used for good.
Speaker 1: Like I also, I feel like the flag, it depends
Speaker 1: on the context, like you were saying, depends who's flying it.
Speaker 1: It's like the country that you're in. It's like a
Speaker 1: micro cause it's like, is it like does that count
Speaker 1: as like a synic doche or like like whatever that
Speaker 1: word is like for the country, But it's not, isn't
Speaker 1: it SYNECTICU is like the name of the movie. Never mind,
Speaker 1: I don't know what. I don't know how to pronounce it.
Speaker 1: I've never actually attempted to pronounce it out loud. But
Speaker 1: like the thing that's sort of this is like the
Speaker 1: micro cause him of a larger thing that can be
Speaker 1: kind of um used to speak about it. And I
Speaker 1: don't know whenever. I'm not an expert at this sort
Speaker 1: of thing, but like it does feel like in that way,
Speaker 1: the flag is sort of perfect as a symbol because
Speaker 1: it is this. It is completely it's importance and and
Speaker 1: it's it's virtue or or lack thereof, is like completely
Speaker 1: dependent on the context and who's holding it and what's
Speaker 1: going on with it. It's kind of a neutral entity,
Speaker 1: just like the country. Yeah, that's my that's my thing.
Speaker 1: Like I remember someone getting really upset at me posting
Speaker 1: pictures of the flag and they're like, you know this
Speaker 1: the flag has people have flown the flag for all
Speaker 1: kind of all kinds of horrible reasons, and so I
Speaker 1: don't think you should be posting flag guard or I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't remember what exactly said, but that was like
Speaker 1: the paraphrase of his his his meaning my is like
Speaker 1: it's not like it is not like say a swastika,
Speaker 1: where the meanings super determined and it can only really
Speaker 1: mean one thing. I feel like the flags has been
Speaker 1: used in enough context that it it can have good
Speaker 1: or bad reasons depending on who's flying it in what context.
Speaker 1: Didn't why, Yeah, it's like a mirror. It's like I'm
Speaker 1: sure somebody has made a mirror flag at some point, somebody. Yeah,
Speaker 1: is he killed? Do you have any like second and
Speaker 1: third favorite flags? Oh? Yeah, Um, I don't know, I
Speaker 1: have too many. I have trouble. I have trouble picking
Speaker 1: favorite anything, trouble picking favorite movies. Yeah. Oh, that's like
Speaker 1: the worst question to ask me ever, Like I can
Speaker 1: never pick a favorite anything, favorite movie particularly But yeah, yeah, um,
Speaker 1: I saw this Jasper John's flag recently that I really liked.
Speaker 1: It's um, I don't remember I think it it came
Speaker 1: by saw it because some gallery was selling it. Let
Speaker 1: me see if I can quickly find it on my computer.
Speaker 1: But I just loved, like, the way it was it
Speaker 1: was layered. I'll send you I really like. I really
Speaker 1: like the David Hammonds did the African American Flag, which
Speaker 1: is a color swapped American flag. Um. Yeah, that one's
Speaker 1: pretty iconic. I feel like that that's that has uh span, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that one has set a long lifespan. Yeah. I was like,
Speaker 1: I was looking for this. I saw this thing going
Speaker 1: to oh my Twitter recently and now I'm like, realis
Speaker 1: and I should have looked into it before this. There's
Speaker 1: some sort of thing called like the My American Flag
Speaker 1: project where people are like redesigning the American flag, which
Speaker 1: feels like somebody weird, somebody somebody sent that to me.
Speaker 1: I mean, like now, it's it's super funny because now,
Speaker 1: like you, I think somebody mentioned I don't know if
Speaker 1: somebody mentioned it, but like people, when people see the
Speaker 1: American flag like a flag in like an art piece
Speaker 1: or just like they see it out in the wilds,
Speaker 1: they'll send it to me. It's like my brand now
Speaker 1: for better for worse. Like somebody somebody sent me that
Speaker 1: that my American Flag project. Yeah, I think the I
Speaker 1: think the ones that I saw, one of them was
Speaker 1: actually the just the African American flag. I don't know
Speaker 1: if the person needs a history of it or like
Speaker 1: it was an accident or what the deal was with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: have you ever made a flag cake? I have no skill?
Speaker 1: What are you talking about like the stuff? Yeah? Have
Speaker 1: you no? But I'm thinking about it now. I want
Speaker 1: to make a make flag the American flag out of food. Um, well,
Speaker 1: if you? Yeah, if have you? Is there any other
Speaker 1: symbol that you think like has this sort of quality
Speaker 1: because I think like you think you hit on something
Speaker 1: so right about like like like what you're say at
Speaker 1: the beginning, where it's just like you don't it's like
Speaker 1: a thing that you don't have a feeling about almost
Speaker 1: anymore because it's so ubiquitous, because it's so a part
Speaker 1: of like if you've grown up here, it's a part
Speaker 1: of your childhood. Like I don't know if they still
Speaker 1: make kids like do the Pledge of allegiance in school.
Speaker 1: That was something we had to do when I was
Speaker 1: in like at least through elementary middle school. Like like
Speaker 1: like there are a few things that kind of rival.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of other things that have that,
Speaker 1: like you know, just feel that bone deep at this point. Um,
Speaker 1: I guess this kind of depends on cultures, but yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't think of anything in the American context where
Speaker 1: that has that sort of neutral it's that has that
Speaker 1: sort of power as a symbol while also having like
Speaker 1: sort of neutral connotations. I mean, it is super I mean,
Speaker 1: and and the American people's I feel like our relationship
Speaker 1: to our flag is kind of unique to like, I
Speaker 1: don't I don't feel like other other countries. From from
Speaker 1: what I've read, it doesn't feel like other countries have
Speaker 1: the same relationship with their own flag. Like we like
Speaker 1: the Pledge of allegiances about the flag. The national anthem
Speaker 1: is also about seeing the flag. It's kind of odd.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, it's like this thing that just stands
Speaker 1: in for it. It's like we're not gonna really actually
Speaker 1: say anything. We're just gonna say, like we like the flag.
Speaker 1: It's it's such a weird tradition, kind of rhetorical tradition.
Speaker 1: I just feel like your Twitter threads are really incredible
Speaker 1: and like one of the few things on Twitter that
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is art. You know, this is someone
Speaker 1: who's using social media for good in a really cool,
Speaker 1: interesting way. Um Decider, Now, Yes, but it just reminds
Speaker 1: me of film film school stuff to where they show you, like,
Speaker 1: you know, images next to each other and how they
Speaker 1: relate to each other, and just seeing seeing them as
Speaker 1: a long stream like that, UM, in conversation with each other.
Speaker 1: I think. I think it's so cool. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: cool you've been doing it for six years. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: I sort of don't post them on ton Twitter anymore,
Speaker 1: but I still look at them all the time, find
Speaker 1: new pictures of them and stuff. People sending glass bricks
Speaker 1: under the table all the time. People will send them
Speaker 1: to me and be like, are we are you still
Speaker 1: doing this? Are you still looking at the bricks? This
Speaker 1: account still active? Well, Ezekiel, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining us today. UM we mentioned your Twitter. It's the Shrillist.
Speaker 1: You have also been djaying on Twitch. I know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If you wouldn't mind sharing a link to that that
Speaker 1: we can share with our listeners, I think we'd all
Speaker 1: enjoy it. Where do you find those backgrounds for your
Speaker 1: dj stets? Um? I think the last few backgrounds have been, um,
Speaker 1: I did Sam Sorrow once, I did Brock. There's all so.
Speaker 1: I I'm kind of a film nerd, so I just
Speaker 1: found some movies that didn't have narratives and had interesting
Speaker 1: if you have if you have suggestions, I'm I'm all out.
Speaker 1: If you have suggestions, I'm wide open. When your next
Speaker 1: DJ set, your next twitch set um do you have,
Speaker 1: I'd probably be next Thursday. I don't really have a
Speaker 1: schedule because I have children, so I'm not sure. It
Speaker 1: also always depends on how soon they go to bed,
Speaker 1: but it's like usually Thursday or Friday nights is when
Speaker 1: I try to do it. Cool. I like a DJ
Speaker 1: who doesn't know when he's going to play, because it's
Speaker 1: like when when the wind call, when the world needs music. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're DJ set relaxed me a lot last week. So cool.
Speaker 1: I'm glad. Thanks for doing that. Thanks, thank you. We
Speaker 1: are going to take a quick break and when we
Speaker 1: come back, we will be discussing Starship Troopers. Welcome back
Speaker 1: tonight call. For the second half of the show, We're
Speaker 1: going to talk about little Paul verhoeven movie called Starship Troopers,
Speaker 1: based on a Robert Heinlein novel. Famously right wing, militaristic
Speaker 1: sci fi novel, The Verhoeven Starship Troopers is a parody
Speaker 1: of fascism, and militarism. But at the time a lot
Speaker 1: of people didn't pick up on that. Still people don't
Speaker 1: pick up on that, which is remarkable. I don't know how.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, I think I was thinking
Speaker 1: about it because we've been talking a lot about like
Speaker 1: things that people call satire and whether it counts as
Speaker 1: satire if nobody understands that it's satire, you know, does
Speaker 1: that just make it the thing it's parodying? Um? I
Speaker 1: feel like that's come up a lot in the black
Speaker 1: Face discussion about sitcom's getting pulled. Um, this is particular.
Speaker 1: Are you talking about that one? Yeah, because a lot
Speaker 1: of people ask me about that, and I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I obviously thought about it a lot. But also it's
Speaker 1: like a lot of people were upset because they were like, well,
Speaker 1: they're just pulling these sitcom episodes, but like they should
Speaker 1: do that after we've defunded and abolished the police, like not.
Speaker 1: It's like they're doing all the like, let's celebrate things
Speaker 1: before the thing has been done that you would be
Speaker 1: celebrating by doing, and you know the instances of the
Speaker 1: Golden girls in mud masks and the like. Highly self
Speaker 1: aware Roger Sterling and black face from mad Men seem
Speaker 1: different than the black face instances that are clearly just
Speaker 1: horrible people do. It also seems like you you know,
Speaker 1: I think Creina Longworth said about Song of the South
Speaker 1: that it's like, when you make these things unavailable, you
Speaker 1: risk turning them into fetish objects. Um. A lot of
Speaker 1: people who like Community were really mad because it was
Speaker 1: like a beloved an episode, beloved by fans, and it's
Speaker 1: like a half second joke in the middle of a
Speaker 1: whole episode. Yeah, They're like, just re cut it, you know,
Speaker 1: without that joke so we can still enjoy this episode.
Speaker 1: But I think also it's just like just just give
Speaker 1: money need to black creators and showrunners to make new stuff. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think like I think like in the case
Speaker 1: of something like Starship Troopers and and and the Roger
Speaker 1: Sterling episode, I think that like art's going to have
Speaker 1: to comment on this stuff sometimes. I mean, I want
Speaker 1: to say, also, like I think mad Men did a
Speaker 1: really bad job with race overall. Like that was one
Speaker 1: of my definitely criticisms of the show, and I definitely
Speaker 1: thought it was going to tackle it at some point
Speaker 1: in some kind of real way, and it just never
Speaker 1: really did, except through things like that Roger Sterling scene
Speaker 1: the character of Don had like a lot on her
Speaker 1: shoulders and didn't come in into like what four seasons
Speaker 1: in five seasons in I can't remember, And I think
Speaker 1: they really just like avoided They thought it was like
Speaker 1: too much of a third rail for the show. It's
Speaker 1: like it'll make every other character on the show seemed
Speaker 1: like an asshole, which they are. Um Even in that scene,
Speaker 1: I remember thinking like, is it realistic that like some
Speaker 1: people express disgusted at this or would they all just
Speaker 1: like fake it while their boss did his black face routine,
Speaker 1: Like we're definitely supposed to be grossed out by like
Speaker 1: some of them doing it, But then some people are like, oh,
Speaker 1: like I'm having a good reaction to this. That will
Speaker 1: never be shown, you know, we'll never delve into these
Speaker 1: issues ever again in the show. I mean, aside from
Speaker 1: the historicity of uh, people being discussed or not disgusted
Speaker 1: by a minstrel performance on an episode of Mad Men
Speaker 1: that takes place in the sixties, Like, I do think
Speaker 1: that that that as a as a work of art itself,
Speaker 1: as mad Men is, Like, I think that episode does
Speaker 1: a really good job of making you feel like discussed
Speaker 1: around this and it's so awkward and it's not funny,
Speaker 1: like this is like one of this is what kind
Speaker 1: of makes it stand out for me is that it's
Speaker 1: not funny. It is like appropriately like you kind of
Speaker 1: want to turn it off because it's so cringing seen.
Speaker 1: But I think that that's like aside from like, oh
Speaker 1: but our hero Don Draper's woke, it doesn't like this, Like,
Speaker 1: I think that it does a good job of getting
Speaker 1: that across. At the same time, even though I think
Speaker 1: it does in the episode, people still like just made
Speaker 1: gifts of that, you know, and then it just becomes
Speaker 1: like an image taken out of context, and like that
Speaker 1: can that can also happen with almost anything. I mean
Speaker 1: you can't. I feel like that can't be something that
Speaker 1: keeps you from making trying to address things like that.
Speaker 1: Like I was glad that instead of just avoiding it,
Speaker 1: like you said, the third Rail, that they kind of
Speaker 1: like had that in there. It is so uncomfortable. Um,
Speaker 1: but also I mean, going back to Starship Troopers a
Speaker 1: bit like it's it's very similar in the sense that
Speaker 1: like you can take a piece of Starship Troopers and
Speaker 1: use it to make the opposite argument that the movie
Speaker 1: is making and like and it is kind of crazy.
Speaker 1: I was looking at old reviews, um how many people
Speaker 1: critics misunderstood this, Janet Maslin. I mean everybody was like,
Speaker 1: you know, this movie is intended for really immature eleven
Speaker 1: year old boys who just want to see like crazy
Speaker 1: violence and ship getting blown up, and like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's so militaristic, like how horrible. And it's like, yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: it's so militaristic, how horrible. Um, I I loved this movie. Uh,
Speaker 1: not to steer it too far away from the madment thing,
Speaker 1: but it's it. I think it's similar, you know, it
Speaker 1: is so I said, it's fascist face exactly. Like some
Speaker 1: people were saying it's too successful. They were like, it's
Speaker 1: too good at portraying this like shiny, beautiful fascist world
Speaker 1: that like the critique is undermined by like how cool
Speaker 1: it looks. No, everything looks horrible in it. The ships
Speaker 1: are all ugly as fuck, like as as a sci
Speaker 1: fi connoisseur, like they have ugly ships and starship troopers,
Speaker 1: and I feel like that's intentional. So they have the
Speaker 1: it's all Nazi design, like it's not even you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's just directly taken from Nazi designs, like the
Speaker 1: you know, the trench coat that Doogie Howser was wearing
Speaker 1: at that and obviously it's like a Nazi trench coat.
Speaker 1: And yeah, aside like the stuff that is even direct
Speaker 1: nods to Nazi Germany, which there are plenty, and this
Speaker 1: movie like even just the tackiness of it, Like I
Speaker 1: don't think that it's that it's beautiful and maybe there's
Speaker 1: this like a whole politics of taste thing, but it's
Speaker 1: like that kind of thing where you if you step
Speaker 1: over into like a right wing website or you go
Speaker 1: down a rabbit hole or something like that and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: the graphic design sucks here, like on top of the politics.
Speaker 1: It's like it is that kind of feeling, like that
Speaker 1: the whole interface for the Federal network, the do you
Speaker 1: want to know more thing is like the worst kind
Speaker 1: of you know, Fox News esque infographic type ship. Like
Speaker 1: it's I don't know, I think like it hits the
Speaker 1: nail and it actually feels prescient now because that was
Speaker 1: like what this is like, yeah, so this is where
Speaker 1: it all happened. Yeah, so it's very it feels like
Speaker 1: like Fox News and those sorts of um outlets sort
Speaker 1: of took the Starship Troopers um aesthetic and ran with it.
Speaker 1: Un ironically. Yeah, well it's it's parodying propaganda outlets, and
Speaker 1: there's so much of that now in the way that
Speaker 1: it's adapted itself to the Internet, and that like really
Speaker 1: ancient racist and anti Semitic memes of like resurfaced in
Speaker 1: that way is so crazy to me, but also sort
Speaker 1: of not you know, not beyond comprehension, because yeah, if
Speaker 1: you put things, if you put these really ugly messages
Speaker 1: in this very like slick packaging, this movie also makes
Speaker 1: you feel really gross and uncomfortable about all of that stuff.
Speaker 1: And the whole opening is just a recreation of apart
Speaker 1: from Triumph of the Will, Yeah, there's something so unsettling
Speaker 1: about that uniform many Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think
Speaker 1: the thing that I always think of and kind of
Speaker 1: forget in between reviewings of Starship Troopers is um how
Speaker 1: much it feels like Harry Potter, Like it's a part
Speaker 1: of this like genre that's also very big in like
Speaker 1: anime and manga and stuff of like the school narrative,
Speaker 1: because they start off at school. It's like three friends,
Speaker 1: like where will their futures lead them? Like the like
Speaker 1: the future is so big and they're like there's they
Speaker 1: have so much promise and like they're going to excel
Speaker 1: in and this class or this class like games and
Speaker 1: wait what does it call it? Games and theory like
Speaker 1: like um, yeah, and everybody has like their their expertise
Speaker 1: and it's this very like it's this narrative that kind
Speaker 1: of takes the system that these characters are in for
Speaker 1: granted and it's like, see, it's fun. It's like a
Speaker 1: game to work your way up through the academy or
Speaker 1: through the military or like to become a citizen or
Speaker 1: whatever the case may be. Um, And I think, like
Speaker 1: that's such a brilliant I mean, I think that's just
Speaker 1: in the novel, but I think to kind of use
Speaker 1: that sort of seemingly benign thing of like a story
Speaker 1: about friends in school to become this fascist narrative is
Speaker 1: like very very it cuts deep. Yeah. And it's also
Speaker 1: this world where it's sort of like presented as being
Speaker 1: like post gender and post racial, like it's very diverse
Speaker 1: and there's no racism and men and women shower together
Speaker 1: and it's not sexual, but also like women are drone pilots,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, yeah, that's like a RoboCop thing too. Denise
Speaker 1: Richards is totally like an anime fascist girl. That's all
Speaker 1: I could think about. She's like perfect looking. She she
Speaker 1: is so unnaturally beautiful that it makes you uncomfortable like
Speaker 1: her her like violet eyes. Right, they both look like
Speaker 1: total like dy arian Superman and woman. But then I
Speaker 1: was reading more about the book and I found out
Speaker 1: that in the book, his character's Filipino and it was
Speaker 1: whitewashed in the movie. And her character, I think is
Speaker 1: Brazilian and her name is Carmen. Yeah, they're all they
Speaker 1: all have like Spanish names, I think. Well, I noticed
Speaker 1: in the IMDb trivia because I was very confused by that.
Speaker 1: This is my first time seeing Starship Troopers, which I
Speaker 1: swear I thought I saw in college, but I was
Speaker 1: either two stoned or didn't actually see Starship Troopers. Um.
Speaker 1: But in the trivia, Casper vand And said um that
Speaker 1: he was often asked why blonde haired, blue eyed actor
Speaker 1: would play the Argentinian Juan Rico. He suggested his character
Speaker 1: was the descendant of exiled Germans. Argentina was famously a
Speaker 1: hiding place of German war criminals after World War Two,
Speaker 1: and they do, I mean they have that kind of
Speaker 1: like German Nazi youth. Look. It seems it seems on
Speaker 1: purpose in the in the film, Yeah, he is Dutch
Speaker 1: um which is and and Verhoven lived in Nazi occupied
Speaker 1: Netherlands as a child, so he there was a quote
Speaker 1: from Behoven where he called it all quiet on the
Speaker 1: Final Frontier. Nice. So it is also like a critique
Speaker 1: of Star Wars type stuff, any kind of like we're
Speaker 1: going to the Academy. One thing that hit really different
Speaker 1: on this viewing was the fact that the spaceport is
Speaker 1: the l A Convention Center, because we very recently saw
Speaker 1: the l A Convention Center occupied by the National Guard.
Speaker 1: Oh and I was like, yeah, we saw it occupied
Speaker 1: by a National Guard. That was like their headquarters. It
Speaker 1: was also in face off, like yeah, we've been at
Speaker 1: the l A Convention Center a lot lately. Uh. The
Speaker 1: thing that I love about Starship Troopers, and I was
Speaker 1: also thinking about this, this is like kind of on
Speaker 1: my mind after watching Watchmen recently, is that I love
Speaker 1: a work of adaptation, and in this case, a work
Speaker 1: of adaptation shin that is like actively pushing against its
Speaker 1: source material and like being really actively critical about it
Speaker 1: and and using that criticism as like to create something
Speaker 1: new essentially. And um, and I think like in the
Speaker 1: case of Watchman, you have something that's sort of like
Speaker 1: and this on top of the themes that are presented
Speaker 1: by the original Watchman. Like, I think, um, that stuff
Speaker 1: is super inspiring to me because I think we see
Speaker 1: so much adaptation, Like the idea of I P is
Speaker 1: so ruling everything in Hollywood right now, and it's just like,
Speaker 1: what if you could do something on the level of
Speaker 1: a Starship Troopers where you're like, Okay, this book fucking sucks,
Speaker 1: but what if I could do something with it? Like
Speaker 1: there's a great the quote for for Hoove and about it.
Speaker 1: His screenwriter Ed Neumeyer new Meyer, who also wrote RoboCop,
Speaker 1: brought him the book and and wanted to adapt that
Speaker 1: he was just like a fan of it from childhood
Speaker 1: or whatever. And uh so he gave it to Paul Verhoeven.
Speaker 1: This is an interview and Empire. Um, and he said
Speaker 1: I stopped after two chapters because it was so boring,
Speaker 1: says Verhoven of his attempts to read Heinlin's Opus. It
Speaker 1: is really quite a bad book. I asked ed Newmeyer
Speaker 1: to tell me the story because I couldn't read the thing.
Speaker 1: It's a very right wing book. And with the movie,
Speaker 1: we tried and I think at least partially succeeded in
Speaker 1: commenting on that. At the same time, it would be
Speaker 1: an eyr key can have it all the way through.
Speaker 1: We were fighting with the fascism, the ultramilitarism all the
Speaker 1: way through. I wanted the audience to be asking are
Speaker 1: these people crazy? So I don't know, and I think,
Speaker 1: like for me it works, but obviously for some people
Speaker 1: that like didn't didn't get through. But yeah, and you
Speaker 1: know he's he mentions the bugs as sort of just
Speaker 1: like this stand in for any kind of like military foe. Um.
Speaker 1: Robert Highland wrote the book during the Cold War because
Speaker 1: he was mad we weren't having hot wars anymore. He
Speaker 1: was like, we should be like developing nuclear weapons and stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: And he blamed it this is such a sci fi
Speaker 1: nerd guy thing to do. He blamed it on like
Speaker 1: young people having too much freedom. It was like, uh,
Speaker 1: was the downfall of society that society would remake itself
Speaker 1: as this like perfect fascist world after like juvenile delinquents
Speaker 1: destroyed America, you know. Yeah. Is there's a scene in
Speaker 1: the classroom at the beginning where, um is it Dizzy
Speaker 1: is like, oh, I thought like violence doesn't solve everything,
Speaker 1: and her teacher like puts her in her place, and
Speaker 1: like there's so much that flies by in that scene
Speaker 1: that's fascinating, Like where like the teacher essays of like
Speaker 1: something that's given to you has no value. Only something
Speaker 1: that's taken by force has any value. Um, and like
Speaker 1: the moral difference between the citizen and the civilian. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: like total recall. There's a lot of stuff in this
Speaker 1: about having to earn your rights, having to earn your citizenship.
Speaker 1: Well that's like when they're in the shower, I'll take
Speaker 1: other everyone's asking like why did you enlist? And I
Speaker 1: mean among the answers. Or someone wanted to go to
Speaker 1: Harvard and they were like, but I can't go unless,
Speaker 1: like I'm a citizen, and you know, then they'll help
Speaker 1: pay for it. Someone else was like I want to
Speaker 1: have babies and so I need to be a citizens.
Speaker 1: So any kind of yeah, everything is is dictated by
Speaker 1: your service in the military. Yeah, and it sort of
Speaker 1: demonstrates like the way that you know, US military recruiting
Speaker 1: does that It's like these people aren't evil, They're just
Speaker 1: like poor simps who got you know, promised things. This
Speaker 1: is like a better plan for them than anything else.
Speaker 1: You feel bad for them. Well. Also, the promotional videos
Speaker 1: that they kind of make of these kids who are
Speaker 1: so like almost seem that they're jacked upon emphetamine with
Speaker 1: the excitement of fighting the arachnids. Um. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's very similar to the kind of propaganda that the
Speaker 1: that is used by the military to entice people who are,
Speaker 1: you know, in high school basically you need a way out.
Speaker 1: This made me read a lot about the Reich Labor Service,
Speaker 1: which was problem in Nazi Germany. It was basically like
Speaker 1: they leveraged unemployment to get all these young people to
Speaker 1: join the Nazi labor Service, and it was basically what
Speaker 1: is in this movie where you earn your rights, you
Speaker 1: earn things by executing your service. That's how you earn citizenship.
Speaker 1: And it was kind of presented in this very like
Speaker 1: gender equitable way as like one of the great things
Speaker 1: about like Nazi Germany will be that like women will
Speaker 1: have you know, promise the future of women in the workplace,
Speaker 1: uh in a fascist regime, and like you can go
Speaker 1: whenever you want, right like you'll have you'll there will
Speaker 1: be a place for you if you help, like you know,
Speaker 1: trod everybody else under your boot who's lesser than you.
Speaker 1: There was also the whole thing about like I thought
Speaker 1: the interesting, like the sports aspect of it at the beginning.
Speaker 1: It was also kind of funny. It like links like
Speaker 1: sports and like sex and the military altogether is like
Speaker 1: part of a never ending ring of youthful energy. And
Speaker 1: it's like it's like the presentation of an enemy, like
Speaker 1: anything that you can narrativize is like this guy's gonna
Speaker 1: take your girl, or like this is the rival football team,
Speaker 1: or you know, or those bugs want to kill you.
Speaker 1: Like it's that these these people only respond when there
Speaker 1: is an enemy that they can like they have like
Speaker 1: Casper Veending's character basically a zero direction in his life
Speaker 1: unless something is trying to take something that's his, whether
Speaker 1: it's his like his his hometown getting attacked by the bugs,
Speaker 1: or somebody tried to steal his girl, Like that's the
Speaker 1: only thing that mobilizes him. It's all percent reactionary. That's
Speaker 1: what's also scary about now, is you know, looking at
Speaker 1: the stuff about the rich labor force, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: everybody was unemployed and they were directionless and all they
Speaker 1: wanted was like to have a job again and to
Speaker 1: have someone to tell them what to do. And you
Speaker 1: know a lot of people were just following order. Is
Speaker 1: like not everybody was a Nazi general, but a lot
Speaker 1: of people were just like complicit by being part of
Speaker 1: it because they didn't have any better options. There's uh,
Speaker 1: I think the l a p d um Twitter account
Speaker 1: recently has been posting like stories of officers or something
Speaker 1: to I don't know, to like in gender sympathy for
Speaker 1: the l a p D or something, or to humanize copaganda. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: straight from the cops in this case, Like yeah, it's
Speaker 1: always it always comes from the cops, but it's on
Speaker 1: like every local news show and stuff like that. But
Speaker 1: it's stuff like you know, like I grew up poor
Speaker 1: and like I was the first person from my family
Speaker 1: to go to college and like I and like in
Speaker 1: this last one, I think this is just today like
Speaker 1: the tweets that's something like you know I had every excuse,
Speaker 1: like did not say what the excuse was for. Like
Speaker 1: I had every excuse, I guess what to be like
Speaker 1: a not not a cop um, but I didn't take it,
Speaker 1: like and I decided that I wanted to like serve
Speaker 1: my city by being in the military. It's so Starship
Speaker 1: Troopers all this ship like it's so like like I'm
Speaker 1: doing my part. Like it's just very um transparent for sure.
Speaker 1: And the fact that you have like a white power
Speaker 1: army in this movie but it's diverse is like very unsettling. Um,
Speaker 1: Like you can have Jake Bucy and black women fighting
Speaker 1: side by side in the military. Man you see another
Speaker 1: through line? Yeah, we so what other movie was the
Speaker 1: Freaky guy in Contact? He is the freaky guy? So
Speaker 1: he apparently everybody was suffering from heat stroke um while
Speaker 1: filming Starship Troopers. I guess when they were in the
Speaker 1: bad Lands in Wyoming. Um maybe that was there, but
Speaker 1: everybody it was like a hundred and twenty five degrees.
Speaker 1: And I thought I read that Jake Bucy suffered a
Speaker 1: horrible like a stroke stroke or something and they had
Speaker 1: to take like a week off. But he is he
Speaker 1: is giving an amazing performance. Again, I'm like it it
Speaker 1: besides being a really like timely critique of militarization and um,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of stuff that we're seeing going
Speaker 1: on now. It also like the the excitement and the
Speaker 1: fervor and the like optimism of these kids in this
Speaker 1: movie is so intense in that it's being used for
Speaker 1: such evil, but it's like this bright, big white tooth
Speaker 1: smile and these big guys, it's so scary. They're being
Speaker 1: told that they're going to be heroes and legends, like
Speaker 1: they see everybody at the beginning of the movie who's
Speaker 1: missing limbs, you know. And that actor, by the way,
Speaker 1: is actually um a double ampute, which I did not know.
Speaker 1: He was great. Yeah, he encounters all these people that
Speaker 1: are like, oh, you're going to fight the bugs like
Speaker 1: good walk but like infantry made me the man I
Speaker 1: with like points system anything where it's like they're telling
Speaker 1: you know, you're you're just like a you're a meat
Speaker 1: shield basically, but they are selling you this idea that
Speaker 1: you're something other than that. You guys are really making
Speaker 1: me want to revisit this movie because I haven't seen
Speaker 1: it since I was like ten. I think that's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's on Netflix now. I mean, like I can't imagine
Speaker 1: being a child and watching this. It's so it's hyper violent,
Speaker 1: cool and like there's such a What I remember most
Speaker 1: about it is the coldness with which like punishment was
Speaker 1: applied and the way in which they addressed like all
Speaker 1: of their desks, and that like really freaked me out.
Speaker 1: I was like, especially the whipping scene because I was
Speaker 1: fresh offs and I was like, what is happening with
Speaker 1: all these because my parents are showing me so violent
Speaker 1: and horrifying. Um. But I was interested to hear what
Speaker 1: you guys think about especially I don't know if you
Speaker 1: have any thoughts on it, but like the costuming specifically
Speaker 1: and the way it's sort of like if you if
Speaker 1: I think about fashion at this time, like late nineties
Speaker 1: early because it's like what seven yeah, um, and this
Speaker 1: idea of like military clothing suddenly becoming hip, especially the
Speaker 1: like yes yes and the big pants and stuff. Did
Speaker 1: that leave any impression on you guys? Yeah? I mean
Speaker 1: I think I think style is the way that people
Speaker 1: often launder fascism, you know, is like oh but it's
Speaker 1: such a good logo, um, which I feel like we
Speaker 1: were kind of talking about with the flag before, like
Speaker 1: you know, That's what's scary about symbols, as they can
Speaker 1: be used to kind of cover up crimes. That's what
Speaker 1: we talk about in the Olympics a lot my anti
Speaker 1: Olympics group, because a lot of people are very attached
Speaker 1: to the graphic design of the Olympics UM. But again,
Speaker 1: it's like that's used to kind of cover up a
Speaker 1: lot of abuse and financial fucked up behavior. I think
Speaker 1: also like going back to the sort of um the
Speaker 1: sort of egalitarianism between like genders and this like it
Speaker 1: is kind of an andragugous thing. Like Denise Richard does
Speaker 1: not aside from like the party scene or whatever. She's
Speaker 1: not like dressed sexy or anything. She's just like a pilot.
Speaker 1: And there's this sort of like and I feel like
Speaker 1: that's something that always is getting that's always a point
Speaker 1: of conversation in like genre stuff and in video games
Speaker 1: it's like why can't the woman who's holding the two
Speaker 1: machine guns, you know, like not be sexual? See, I
Speaker 1: find it just I find it just as scary when
Speaker 1: she's like cutie Panzer Division, Like that was so scary
Speaker 1: to me. She's just like yeah, when she's wearing the
Speaker 1: Nazi uniform and just like smiling like shooting, and you know,
Speaker 1: and then at the end when Doogie Houser feels the
Speaker 1: bug when they see you, like the last living bug
Speaker 1: and it's afraid and they all cheer. Well, that's like
Speaker 1: the most on the nose. The um Patrick Harris's costume
Speaker 1: is like the most post on the nose s S
Speaker 1: Officer type ship. To Joel's point, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of that stuff came back under the guys of like
Speaker 1: we're so far removed from actual Nazis, we can do
Speaker 1: this as fashion now, like Hugo Boss can be a
Speaker 1: legitimate brand that advertising, right, Like Hugo Boss did come
Speaker 1: back really big in the nineties for sure, but also
Speaker 1: like all these seventies rock guys bought Nazi memorabilia, you know,
Speaker 1: to be like Edge Lords of the seventies, Prince Harry, Right,
Speaker 1: lots of people think it's like we're so far away
Speaker 1: from it, but we're never that far away from it, clearly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it's also like, like I do think it's
Speaker 1: interesting that we're talking about starship troopers and this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff right after talking about the flag, because like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I mean, I I still keep coming
Speaker 1: back to the fact that there are just two completely
Speaker 1: different readings of this movie, and that we're all very
Speaker 1: confident and comfortable with our reading. It was what it
Speaker 1: was intended to be read that way. But it's it's
Speaker 1: weird that people can like miss putting together all of
Speaker 1: these elements and all of these clues about the message
Speaker 1: behind this movie. Like people who are really seasoned at
Speaker 1: like taking apart movies, and I mean, I wouldn't say
Speaker 1: or they just you know, believe in The Forever War.
Speaker 1: There is a book, like an anti war sci fi
Speaker 1: book written in response to this book called The Forever War,
Speaker 1: where it's like the the Minians sort of like realized
Speaker 1: that they're being used for cannon fodder and that um.
Speaker 1: But for Hovan said, this movie was really his own
Speaker 1: response to like America after World War Two becoming just
Speaker 1: like increasingly imperialistic and involving itself in all kinds of
Speaker 1: conflicts that it didn't need to be part of. But
Speaker 1: you know, America had to be convinced to go into
Speaker 1: World War two because a lot of people did not
Speaker 1: think we belonged there. We're on the fence for a
Speaker 1: long time about World War Two. It turns out well
Speaker 1: he's for having said too that this is based parts
Speaker 1: of it are patterned after Triumph of the Will, but
Speaker 1: also after the Frank Capra response to Triumph of the
Speaker 1: Will that was meant to like in gender the same
Speaker 1: kind of patriotism and Americans and be like, this is
Speaker 1: why we have to go do this, um, because Frank
Speaker 1: Capra was like terrified by Triumph of the Will. He
Speaker 1: was like, this is such a good work of propaganda.
Speaker 1: We have to make an equally good work of propaganda.
Speaker 1: And there's some stuff in the Frank Capra one that's
Speaker 1: totally false. There's like a you know, it's obviously very
Speaker 1: racist towards the Japanese, but there's just like some some
Speaker 1: conspiracy stuff in it that was maybe used to help
Speaker 1: speed the process along of getting America on board. No.
Speaker 1: I've been um listening to the current hardcore history about
Speaker 1: the Pacific theater of World War two a lot, and
Speaker 1: it's very interesting to see the whole West Coast history
Speaker 1: of of demonizing Japanese people through all that in ways
Speaker 1: that I kind of knew about it in a cursory way,
Speaker 1: but never never in depth. Um. But yeah, it's wild um.
Speaker 1: And again it is all about finding a common enemy
Speaker 1: on getting creating a narrative and like and then and
Speaker 1: then created a system that can be seen as blameless,
Speaker 1: like somehow the the idea of police in this country
Speaker 1: being something that people just take for granted and that
Speaker 1: it works and like, well, we gotta have police. We
Speaker 1: can't not have police. Um, Like it's the same as
Speaker 1: this military system in this film. Like I was going
Speaker 1: back to the flogging scene that the gentleman mentioned Joel mentioned,
Speaker 1: is uh, like there's something in that scene where I think,
Speaker 1: like if you don't get it by then you're kind
Speaker 1: of like I don't know what to I don't know
Speaker 1: what to tell you because it's just like there are
Speaker 1: a couple parts like that too. Well the I think
Speaker 1: like by the like from the opening segment, like if
Speaker 1: you don't get that, but also by that scene scene
Speaker 1: because it's like the idea of that scene is not
Speaker 1: Oh my god, this this system that I have signed
Speaker 1: up for is hurting me and is blaming for some
Speaker 1: me for some like this horrible thing that happened that
Speaker 1: ultimately I didn't have that much control over and now
Speaker 1: I'm being like publicly flogged for it. Uh. It's like
Speaker 1: it's like, no, this is good for him. This is
Speaker 1: gonna like make him better within this stem, which is
Speaker 1: so like that's you know, and and then and so
Speaker 1: the hero of the movie then, or the hero of
Speaker 1: the Highland story at least is the system that and
Speaker 1: that the system will make this person better, uh, and
Speaker 1: that you can be improved through it, and the system
Speaker 1: knows best. There's like a brief mention of showing executions
Speaker 1: on TV. Yeah, yeah, tonight at six the electric chair. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the only difference I think. I you know, this also
Speaker 1: made me think about the Purge, which has come up
Speaker 1: a lot in my mind in the past. While um
Speaker 1: in that, I was like, you're right, like the Nazi
Speaker 1: uniform now, like the uniform that scares me now is
Speaker 1: not a trench code. It's like, you know, the bugaloo stuff,
Speaker 1: Like it's somebody with like a Blue Lives Matter sticker
Speaker 1: on their car and like a Hawaiian shirt. You know.
Speaker 1: Still the fatigues, the cargo shorts. Yeah, just like that
Speaker 1: to me is even scarier because it's like so dressed
Speaker 1: down and informal. You know, it's like it's terrifying. I'm
Speaker 1: just I'm just dude. To a cook out. Somebody was
Speaker 1: posting once today that we're all these like Disney like
Speaker 1: Mickey Blue Lives Matter flag inside a Mickey and it
Speaker 1: just says like daddy on it. You know. I was
Speaker 1: like that, that's the scariest thing I've ever seen. Take
Speaker 1: it away, no, thank you. Well, if you haven't seen
Speaker 1: Starship Troopers in a while, might be a good time
Speaker 1: to watch it. And if you think that you don't
Speaker 1: like it, it might hit different now. It might might
Speaker 1: pointed out like say that I saw Jaws yesterday. I
Speaker 1: don't know what time is anymore. But you have a
Speaker 1: mayor denying people or not informing his community about a
Speaker 1: deadly shark and opening the beaches because listen July and
Speaker 1: we need to make money and this is how we survive.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, we're all freaking weird. Is the timeliest
Speaker 1: thing to it was Ship the other day or maybe
Speaker 1: like I'd recorded it and I was like, this is
Speaker 1: too real. But it's also such a good movie. And
Speaker 1: so you're saying l al Fresco is Joss, Yes, Yes,
Speaker 1: is Garcetti the giant shark? Is he Bruce? He's the mayor?
Speaker 1: Oh my god? Well yeah, check that out. It makes
Speaker 1: for good Fourth of July view, and I think if
Speaker 1: you have to stay inside for your Fourth of July,
Speaker 1: might as well watched our ship Troopers and and Jaws.
Speaker 1: Sounds American enough to me. That's a good double bill.
Speaker 1: We all back that double bill. Yeah, thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to Night Call this week. You can follow us on
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Speaker 1: back next week. We are also looking for stories from
Speaker 1: teachers and students who have emerged now from the very
Speaker 1: strangest school year ever. Um. We would love to hear
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Speaker 1: Um thanks a lot, and we're hoping to to show
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