#detective heart of america the final freedom

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[nyarlathesleeper]

Follow-up tiem baybeeeeeee

Detective Heart of America: The Final Freedom is an independent film made by Jason Steele AKA Filmcow. It acts as a follow-up to a series of two shorts he filmed about the titular character and his attempts to save America from absurd criminals. I'll revisit these shorts eventually, but I'll mostly be focusing on the film itself. I love this film to no end. It's a ridiculous, fairly stupid story, but it's genuinely very funny and full of meaning. Assuming my internal ramblings are accurate. Spoilers for the whole franchise, of course.

At first, the movie is fairly similar to the shorts, Heart of America is given a job to save America from someone buying its debt from China using Bitcoin. A normal Filmcow plot if I've ever heard one. He chases various leads, encountering characters from the shorts, until he comes face-to-face with the mastermind behind the whole plot: The time-traveling, reality-warping robot Ouya. Ouya erases America from existence, replacing it with the infinitely worse country of Fug. We all hate Fug. Heart of America tries to bring America back to existence, going through what America used to be, what it stood for, even how it came into existence. He learned from the Native Fugmericans, about their knots, their bugs, and their carrots. Then the aliens invade, and after the resistance group he joins is attacked, he and Ouya make their way to the alien's base of operations: The local JW Marriott. After locating the source of the aliens' power, the two discuss what must be done with it, Heart of America electing to make the entire world America, forever. This includes making Africa the US, but larger. The Eiffel Tower was replaced by The Statue of Liberty (funny, given the statue was created by the French government). And even the Moon, our dear sweet Io, was made into the US. Thus America was saved forever.

Okay the plot is batshit insane, so why do I love it so much? There's obviously the overwhelming amount of Jason Steele charm. Awkward conversations between characters, funny voices, random bullshit that occasionally stuns the characters as much as the audience, and a healthy amount of frankly juvenile jokes about Nazi boner germs and the like. There is also, for me and many, the notable political angle.

Jason Steele has always (kinda) been one for political commentary. Some of his oldest videos are about mocking Barack Obama for loving Mr. Mime, or John McCain for being kinda crazy and talking to vegetables and such. His video about the 2012 presidential debate is awfully apt, given recent events. Recently, his finale to Charlie the Unicorn has been pretty thoroughly taken to be a criticism of capitalism and its lack of desire to actually do anything about changing the world in any way that would prevent us from dying horribly. And I think its fair to say that a movie about trying to save America from being erased has some notable things to say as well.

There's of course the Native Fugmerican culture segment, which serves to mock people who appropriate native cultures without understanding them. The beginning and ending of that segment touches on how America, as well as all the other countries that Ouya has created and destroyed, began with the genocide of native peoples.

Most of the political commentary, however, comes into play near the end of the film. In the last 10 minutes or so, we're given a bit more detail as to what Ouya is and what its goals are. To keep it brief, Ouya is a device from the far future who can manipulate reality at will. It has repeatedly created and destroyed country after country in order to draw out the future overlords of Earth, the "aliens" from earlier, who have a similar device of their own. The aliens' device is different, though. It makes permanent changes, and Ouya aims to use it so that devices like it and Ouya can never work in the first place. Otherwise, the universe will be ruled by a tyrannical government whose reach and scale of oppression is so overwhelmingly monstrous, that the people who created Ouya deemed it an infinitely worse alternative to what they recognize as repeated genocides. What this means is that Heart of America, in making the entire world America and preventing Ouya from completing its mission, has doomed the world to being eternally dominated by tyranny.

This raises a few points of commentary that I think are worth examining. First and foremost, Heart of America is the bad guy. Jason Steele is no stranger to writing protagonists who are world ending monsters (see Llamas With Hats for another example), but Heart of America is interesting because he truly believes that what he is doing is right. Something I've neglected to state in this post is that Heart of America is portrayed by a statue of a Bald Eagle, one of the most potent American symbols, and a fitting choice for someone literally named "Heart of America." HoA (not a home owners association) is meant to represent the classic American patriot who really doesn't know anything about America, but believes in the liberty and freedom crap wholeheartedly. When trying to list all of the states, he's only able to put down Florida, Texas, California, Wyoming, New York City, and Vermont. He's generally uninterested in the other countries that Ouya destroyed, as well as the natives that died because of American colonists. All he truly cares about is the idea of America and American freedom. This is highlighted most directly by Ouya in the climax when it states, "No. But if you care about freedom, true freedom, this is the only way." This is responding to HoA asking whether preventing these devices from working will bring America back. And in response, HoA makes the entire world America. This is very clearly the worst possible outcome, and Ouya reacts as such. America is doomed to become the very oppressors that Ouya was trying so desperately to stop. This is supported by the credits, of all things, which shows the American flag changing, as it presumably adds more and more worlds to its intergalactic empire. It bares a striking resemblance to the masks the aliens have.

Not a one-to-one, but close. Enough to evoke the idea that what America inevitably becomes is exactly what Ouya feared most.

The idea that America isn't exactly the most freedom loving nation shouldn't be a controversial take to those within the proper circles. Enforcing our will on others for the sake of material and political gains is a common trend in American history. From our numerous wars with Mexico, to Vietnam, to leveraging our business relations for pressuring other countries into economic servitude, America has its fingers in almost every pie on the global stage, and it's usually to the detriment of the pie. Heart of America, then, is the blind fool, who believes America to be a nation without fault. Well, mostly, he does acknowledge that subprime lending is a problem. The point is that Heart of America is the kind of person (bird?) who goes to bat for America at nearly every turn, maybe acknowledging the odd thing here or there as bad, but never in a way that challenges the systems America is built upon. He's the perfect American exceptionalist, believing that being more like America will be the solution to every problem facing the world. Very literally, he makes everything America and just considers his work done. He blatantly ignores the idea that Ouya's warning might have any actual weight, charging ahead anyway, creating the world that Ouya came from to begin with. It's with this in mind that the HoA line, "I know you come from a place without America, which is the saddest thing I can think of, but that won't be a problem for anyone ever again!" becomes so much more ironic. Ouya did come from America. America was the only thing it ever knew. And Heart of America is the progenitor of all that pain and suffering. Another detail sticks out to me, that being the aliens' reality writing device. Ouya notes that it was designed by slaves, and that its appearance was, "... a small, final act of defiance" that was not understood by their oppressors.

This is the device. It is shaped like a heart. Assuming that Ouya is from America, that would make this the heart of America. The device responsible for endless tyranny, endless oppression, endless suffering, is Heart of America. Poetry.

Detective Heart of America: The Final Freedom is a movie about a lot of things. Sunny D, Shark Councils and Shark Powers, Merman Jesus, a German space elevator, and a 5th Dimensional Demigod. But it's also about the brutality that good intentions can create. How if you live life without questioning the system, even if you like that system, you could cause unimaginable pain. How the most devoted to an idea may be the ones to betray it most brutally. And how we, as Americans, owe it to ourselves and the world to ensure that we don't contribute to a regime that can and will destroy everything so that the ones in control can live unopposed. Freedom is non-negotiable.

I have other thoughts about this movie that I might share later. Some act as counters to my main mindset surrounding this movie, but are other potential takeaways that I haven't fully thought through. I should probably sleep for now tho, lol.

[darudedogestorm]

to me the 4th of july isnt even a holiday its just an excuse to rewatch detective heart of america: the final freedom

[theguywithaplan]

List of Video Games Turning 10 Years Old in 2024

Alien: Isolation

Assassin's Creed: Rogue (the one where you play as an Assassin turned Templar.)

Assassin's Creed: Unity (the one set during the French Revolution.)

Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky

Azure Striker Gunvolt

The Banner Saga

Bayonetta 2

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea (the DLC where you go back to Rapture)

A Bird Story (a sort of spin-off of "To the Moon")

BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! (is this a sequel to 1 or a prequel to 1? I forgor)

Bravely Default (in North America)

Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (the one with K*vin Sp*cey)

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 (to date, the last new Castlevania game to release)

Child of Light

The Crew (going offline at the end of March)

D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die (a wonderfully strange game from the guy that made Deadly Premonition)

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (in North America)

Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (in North America)

Dark Souls II

Deception IV: Blood Ties

Demon Gaze

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls

Disney Infinity 2.0

Divinity: Original Sin (from the team that would go on to make Baldur's Gate 3)

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze

Dragon Age: Inquisition (the winner of GOTY at the very first TGAs)

Drakengard 3

Earth Defense Force 2025 (EDF! EDF! EDF!)

The Evil Within (from the creative director of Resident Evil)

Fable Anniversary

Fairy Fencer F

Far Cry 4

Freedom Planet

Guilty Gear Xrd Sign

Hyrule Warriors

Inazuma Eleven (in North America. And digital only.)

Infamous: Second Son (as well as its expansion, First Light)

Kirby: Triple Deluxe

The Last of Us Remastered (just one year after the original version came out...)

The Legend of Korra (the game from PlatinumGames that you can't buy anymore)

Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham

Lego The Hobbit

The Lego Movie Videogame

Lethal League (from the team that would go on to make Bomb Rush Cyberfunk)

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (the third and final chapter of the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy)

Lisa: The Painful (yes, really)

LittleBigPlanet 3

Lords of the Fallen (not to be confused with Lords of the Fallen, which came out in 2023)

Mario Golf: World Tour

Mario Kart 8 (the original version)

Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes (the prologue to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, which came out 18 months later)

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor

Might & Magic X: Legacy

Murdered: Soul Suspect (it's like Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, but not as good)

Natural Doctrine

Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty! (a from the ground up remake of the first Oddworld game from 1997)

Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures 2 (yes, it got a sequel. I don't know how or why.)

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax

Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth

Pokemon Omega Ruby & Pokemon Alpha Sapphire

Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy (the last time that Professor Layton himself was the protagonist. At least, until the New World of Steam comes out)

Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Pushmo World

Risen 3: Titan Lords

Sacred 3

Samurai Warriors 4

Shadowrun: Dragonfall

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse (the 3rd one)

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments

Shovel Knight (yes, really)

Skylanders: Trap Team (the 4th one)

Sniper Elite III

Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal

South Park: The Stick of Truth

Steins;Gate (in North America)

Strider (the one from Double Helix)

Sunset Overdrive

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS (or Smash 4 for short)

Tales of Xillia 2

Tales of Hearts R

The Talos Principle

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call

Thief (the reboot)

This War of Mine

Toukiden: The Age of Demons

Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark (this game merged the storyline of the War for/Fall of Cybertron games with the storyline of the Michael Bay movies. I’m not joking)

Transistor

Valiant Hearts: The Great War

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

The Walking Dead: Season Two

Wasteland 2

Watch Dogs

The Witch and the Hundred Knight

The Wolf Among Us (sequel this year!)

Wolfenstein: The New Order

Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z

Yoshi's New Island

[willibeest]

RECOMMENDATION OF THE HOUR (04/2024)

Hundreds of Beavers. Directed by Mike Cheslik, performance by who knows how many beavers, SRH, 2024.

Everyone was talking their heads off about it. I had to check it out, and it delivered in every single way.

Hundreds of Beavers really does feel like something Charlie Chaplin would have made if he knew After Effects. It's proof that slapstick is a timeless art, and that modern advances in technology can allow slapstick to transcend beyond just a few styles.

The movie is a feature-length silent cartoon, featuring the chronicles of a man gaining more hunting experience with limited resources. During the first few minutes alone, I was hit with visual gags at an astonishing pace. It's hard for me to describe what to expect without parroting what other people say.

Everybody simply needs to watch it at least once.

Honorable mentions:

Steak - Quentin Dupieux

Detective Heart of America: The Final Freedom - Jason Steele

[svetzzi]

everyone should watch detective heart of america: the final freedom at least once in their life i think

[alienjaylien]

4th of shit the people who live behind me have been lighting off fireworks nonstop since like 10 this morning. my only plans are to watch the nonstop loop of detective heart of america the final freedom streaming on youtube rn

[coffee---bean]

the aesthetic of revelation

ok so,

i connect the idea of transcendence or revelation to a kind of insanity. a kind of absurd divergence from regular society and regular mind. and that's why outsider art is kind of sort of transcendent to me ! it's a brand new thing.

there's another aesthetic thing that really conveys revelation to me, and that's failure of the form to convey the idea. and that "failure" isn't a real failure, it's just the appearance of a failure. here's an example;

so this is from the bicameral mind album RE-ANIMATOR, the lead single "in birdsong". its notable for a lot of reasons but one of them is the fact that the mix gets kind of overdone and fucked in the climax - its like its too loud and the audio quality starts to fry.

here's a quote from the lead singer - "i said to the producer, 'can u make it sound like a mastering error has occurred, like we've actually accidentally fucked this song?'... me and alex talked about making a record that sounded like it was too big to be recorded, like it was the sound of planets hitting each other. i guess that's the closest we got to it, that little bit of distortion in the end."

other examples of the mixture of lo-fi intensity and some kind of divine revelation to me are bodys by car seat headrest,

the ending of the original tv run of neon genesis evangelion,

my favourite film detective heart of america: the final freedom

my other favourite film speed racer

yknow, it's just the feeling of something being too intense to be even conveyable. like love! it's really hard to convey a huge big love for me. or mental illness, like depression or something. or the details of your childhood, something too multifaceted to be accurately retold. stuff we could never really understand, and conveying that inability to convey by failing to convey (except that is actually a successful conveyance... wait....)

yeah!

this is relevant to my project i swear

[pepperochau]

i was rewatching detective heart of america: the final freedom (as you do on the fourth of july), and i had a thought filmcow's whole oeuvre is composed of self-referential ironically detached humor that is often the subject of derision in pop culture, rightfully so in my opinion, but filmcow's humor always manages to land with me

and sure the easy answer is "well maybe filmcow was never funny and nostalgia is clouding your judgement" but that doesn't get to the core of my feelings i think the core of it for me is that humor comes at the expense of the subject (yes, this even includes more absurdist humor like fr e sh a vaca do or the current Grimace Shake TikTok trend), and if little else the subject requires consistent treatment for that kind of humor to really land—deflating the tension of a scene with a joke is fine but the tension has to come back. tony stark yelling "HEY UNDEROOS" to clown on steve before spiderman shows up in captain america civil war does nothing for the scene but insert a joke into a situation that we already knew was going to play out a certain way. but if the whole of the encounter, the whole of the movie is maintained at the expense, if detective heart of america is kept to flounder in his ignorance until he achieves the pinnacle of idiocy as a breakthrough that still ends up being the wrong answer yet the universe rewards him because it has to reward him well that's just funny

[segemarldoodles]

Detective Heart of America: The Final Freedom (2015) 4K

I love that this streams every year,  and now its in 4k lol

[nyarlathesleeper]

As it is the 4th of July, once again, I have watched the greatest movie about America ever made: Detective Heart of America: The Final Freedom

As I haven't put my thoughts on it into words before, I'm gonna go ahead and make a giant essay post about my thoughts, so apologies to the two people who will have to scroll past it, lol

[peysk]

FilmCow Jason Steele is too brilliant to be doing what he's doing. Detective heart of America The Final Freedom is the funniest movie

[ereh-emanresu-tresni]

Three ships: honestly I don't really tend to get too invested in shipping often, esp lastingly or non-canon, to have many off the top of my head lol. Anyway BOTW Link/Mipha, Tensura Rimuru/Benimaru, Yuru Camp Rin/Nadeshiko

First ship: regrettably HP but......... Vernon/Dobby

Last song: this is on rn

Before starting this last I can think of was

Last movie: Detective Heart of America: The Final Freedom

Currently reading: I started a reread of The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper awhile back but stalled out, should get back to that soon lol. Also recently picked up This Is It by Alan Watts, have had enough chillstep remixes sampling his speeches on in background for years lmao, figured it might be reasonable to finally properly read some

Currently writing: mainly bio essays 😓😓

Tagging @niimuue @cerolinda @thecreaturenewt

Tagged by @perpetually-weirdening

Three ships: MSR, Snackie, J/7

First ship: really dating myself with this one but... Elisa/Goliath

Last song: The Chain by Fleetwood Mac

Last movie: Ever After (Drew Barrymore as Cinderella 🩷🩷🩷)

Currently reading: King of Scars. Still. Having a hard time with now far flung the stories are so it's taken me like 2 months to get halfway through

Currently writing: my first MSR fic (or fic, period) in 20 years. Should I be working on my actual book? Probably. But I'd rather write porn lol.

Tagging @phillippadgettwrites @jewish-mulder @ereh-emanresu-tresni @agent-troi

[detectiveblogofamerica]