#this is entirely incomprehensible not only because it's in german but also because it's 100% inside jokes

[binch-i-might-be]

I'm cleaning out a dresser thingy in my room to break it down and. I found the song parody about our former economy/geography teacher I wrote in tenth grade that our class literally displayed on the wall of our classroom. someone hold me

[littleeyesofpallas]

Funny thing about idiots who try and hide behind, "I believe in separation of art and artist!" Is that there is not and has not ever been any actual legitimate art theory of separation of art and artist. People frequently misattribute it to Barthe's Death of the Author, despite that not being the meaning or function of that essay at all. Often people come upon some concept of "separation of art and artist" as either a half misheard/misremembered paraphrasing (else as a kind of primitive reinventing of the wheel, but in a very ungabunga appropriate fashion the wheel they think they've thought of all on their own is square.) But the origins of the idea go back to what was called New Criticism in the 1940s. You may not have ever heard of them as they were a ""literary philosophy"" that only ever existed in the United States, focused mostly on poetry but did feebly try to expand into other art forms, and even at its height really only thrived in the specific academic scenes of the American South. They are not especially well remembered because they were rendered entirely obsolete in the 1960s-70s because, and you'll never guess, feminism and the civil rights movement proved them a complete and total sham. That's a big claim let me back up...

In the mid 40s New Criticism's rise stemmed largely from the resistance to the German roots of preceding 19th century literary analysis. In Europe literary analysis had spent the past 100 years refining an emphasis on tracing links of how authorial intent and the context there of defined a work. New Critics argued that knowing facts about authors and putting work in its historical and cultural context and understanding the meaning of words and their intended uses was counterintuitive to experiencing art, and instead posited that real art stood on its own. That is to say, that they thought you could/should read words on a page and be able to judge the work's artistic value and integrity based upon the feeling in that moment and any pontificating or unpacking thereof. They championed this idea largely in support of popular poets of the time like T.S.Elliot as a kind of ward against accusations of them all being idiot fanboys who only liked Elliott's work because they knew it was Elliott's. But it was painfully transparent even to their contemporary detractors that it was all just a flimsy halfbaked excuse to not do the work of actual literary criticism.

Anyway, so how did wiminz and the blacks ruin this party for a bunch of entitled, hypocritical, southern, white collar, agrarian-fetishist land inheritors. (Oh yeah, as a random tangent of their supposed artistic values, they were also very about resisting industrialism and preserving ""the agrarian lifestyle"" which was of course specifically referring to the farming culture of the antebellum south.). Well, go figure, when people who weren't white, conventionally educated, and/or male started gaining traction in poetry these dweebs, with their "art should speak for itself" pseudo-philosophy suddenly lacked the context to meaningfully read the expression of people writing from a lived experience that wasn't cookie cutter identical to their own. So to them all that new fangled poetry and prose about life as a woman or as a black person in America were utterly incomprehensible. But while they couldn't make heads or tales of Langston Hughes, or Gill Scott Heron, the rest of academia was picking up on it all just fine.

Go figure. Who could have possibly known that their thin veneer of academic pretention and pseudo-intellectualism would be so ill equipped to actually process or even approach art as art?? Everyone. Literally the rest of the world and most of the rest of American academia at the time. Everyone knew they were full of shit from day one. They were only fooling themselves. They were basically the world's lamest, least interesting cult.

So go figure that when someone tries to invoke, "separation of art and artist!" all I can think of is how I've got good odds betting that that person's tiny little peabrain must have gone through the exact same frantic fanboy coping mechanisms that a bunch of loser T.S.Elliot groupies sitting around burning grammy and grampa's plantation money to cosplay English majors did back in the 1940s-50s to excuse themselves from having to actually learn any critical thinking or reading comprehension skills.

[guigz1-coldwar]

'An familiar face': New chapter for "Redemption in a Spirit in a Cold War" is out !

"An familiar face"

Chapter Summary : Yirina is getting to work with Zasha & Park on some transmissions from the KGB....but an old face brings back old fears....

To read it on AO3, click here !

Words : +3300

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Moscow.....It's been an long time I didn't step in here and I don't think I would like to stay here too much, a feeling that I'm sure that Zasha is sharing with me even if we are no longer alone with Park, Garrett, Greta & now Mason, Woods and I can say Song too....not Hudson however....guy's an dick, why I would be happy to see his face around all day ? Me & Zasha were like in the good old 'Motherland' and it's sure that we really want to have Portnova back quickly before we left the country behind us and maybe never think about it again.

But since we got nothing on Portnova except for her presence in Moscow, our trip here is gonna last more than usual. Garrett & Greta decided to provide help to Woods's group and also helping us for an bit, acting like intermediaries between the two groups and that was meaning that only me, Park and Zasha will be entirely focused on Portnova while Woods and his team would do their own business at their side. Since Portnova is still an KGB agent and we're in the middle of the USSR, it's better that we stay an low number on her.

Woods gave us an small workplace inside the warehouse and to be honest, even if it was small, it was enough for the three of us. An simple desk that we were sharing with Park & Zasha and on it, the necessary materials to decrypt transmissions. Next to the desk, a free wall was used for us to put pictures for our work as we didn't have any dashboard, the main one getting used by the others. But even with that, we had to wait an large part of the day until the beginning of the night before Garrett managed to find for us the means to intercept the KGB transmissions from the city.

With that intel, me & Zed started to work on the first transmissions we succeded to intercept from the KGB since Perseus is infiltrated everywhere. Of course, Park was there to assist and at the same time, we make her learn of our work as the KGB was using my code to be certain, meaning that either someone learned of my code or it was Portnova herself and only her.

"Wow, I can say that your code is kinda hard to decrypt." Park said, astonished as she was trying to decrypt an transmission me & Zasha make for her as a training exercice as we were both working on separates real ones. The transmissions we intercepted before were able to give us some intels about the KGB's activities in the city but nothing to help us with Portnova...everything was beneficying Woods's team in reality.

"It took years of training to create something like that." I told her as I drop my pen that I used back on the table, next to the paper I was decrypting to look at her. "And if you're talented enough, you can break it in an very short time." I added, tapping with my index finger on the paper, with an smile.

"Seems that cryptography is written in your veins." She remarked, grinning at me as she moved her chair closer to me.

"Well, I don't remember exactly where did all of this start to be something for me but yeah, I can say that." I exclaimed, not wanting to brag about myself before I turned around to look at Zasha. "What about you, Zed ?" I asked.

"Uhm ?" They moaned as they were focused on working, my question breaking them away from decrypting the transmission they were busy on. "You want to know how I learned cryptography ?" They demanded and we nodded to them as they weren't listening entirely to us. "Well, it was always something I wanted to do before I entered the Soviet army in the 10th Hichaurskiy Detachment as a border trooper." They started to reply, putting their pen down to take their cup of coffee in hands.....it was the fourth cup of coffee in the day....

"And after that, you joined the KGB, if I remember ?" I chuckled, remembering the very first memory I got back when I met Zasha in my old office....it was like one of my first memories.

"Exactly." They took an sip of their coffee before looking back at us. "You maybe wonder how I met Yirina ?" They looked at Park, knowning that it was maybe an question that she was asking herself since she learned of Zasha's existence.

"Well, I was wondering that." Park put her arm on the desk and holding her head with it, looking curious to Zasha.

"To start, Perseus did wanted to put an test to every KGB cryptographer except for Yirina : we have to break an code in an short amount of time and I was the first one to do this." They affirmed, confirming the memory I got....they really did this in an short time. "Yirina chosed me & since, we were like best friends." I smiled at them as they put their cup down, breathing with their mouth close. "She's the only one in the KGB alongside Portnova who wasn't troubled by what I am." They added, making me make an friendly tap on their shoulder.

"And in here, we all proud of what you are, Zed." I affirmed, making them smile before I looked at Park who agreed about my statement.

"I agree at 100 % about what Yirina just said." She exclaimed, sure of her words as Zasha grinned before they mimicked the same position as Park.....well, they were looking very curious, with an question in their mind.

"Tell me of something....." They started. "When the two of you has started to date ?" At hearing this, I looked at Park, almost blushing about it....could say that it was an risky question to ask us.

"Uhm..." I bit my lips, rolling my eyes away as I wasn't so sure of talking about. "It was back in an old CIA safehouse to say." I put my eyes on Park and her eyes went wide before she knew it was too late to back down.

"Yirina was the one to do the first step." Park put her hands on my shoulders as I was looking at Zasha who was grinning about learning of that. "We kissed in the darkroom of the place and since, we're together."

"If we don't count the fact that I was in an coma." I added.

"Yeah, if we don't count that." Park whispered before I could feel her arms getting wrapper around my shoulders. "She's making me more happy since she came back into my arms."

"Me too." I affirmed as I touch her arms with my hands, smiling as Zasha was looking at us....we were like acting like two teenagers in love before we moved back to our former positions, still blushing from that. "Well, those transmissions are not going to get decrypted themselves." I breathed and then we were back to work.

Having Park & Zasha at my side working with me.....it was so wonderful for me, it was like more Park getting accepted by Zasha like I was accepted by her friends and that was so cool, it make me feel more alive. After that friendly moment, we were back focused on the transmissions that we were on and for an first, it was looking like we could start to have something that could help us to save Portnova from Perseus.

Apparently, the KGB is suspecting one of their owns to have some 'differents opinions' and by luck, that person is working inside Portnova's team since some times even if the proofs are still unclear. This person did became an target for us and what Zasha was decrypting gave us more infos about that person : name's Lukas Ritter, an former East-German pilot of the LSK that was transferred to the KGB thanks to his cryptography skill after an mission that did go wrong. That was the only thing we got from him.

After that, I took the transmissions we just decrypted as Park was still working on her exercice, to hook them on the wall we were using as an dashboard. Once I was done, I was ready to move until my eyes fell on the picture of Perseus himself and I couldn't remove them from it before I closed my eyes....trying to think.

I found myself back into the old safehouse in West-Berlin as I was near the dashboard, putting on it some of my work I have done to trying to decrypt the old Operations Chaos that was organized by an rogue CIA agent called Robert Aldrich. As I was finished to put everything I've got, I was ready to move until I found something weird hooked to the dashboard, just below the files about the operation that we just did in Ukraine.

It was an sort of an keychain with an mysterious man on it with the inscription 'Burger Town' that was like holded by this little figurine hand. I took it in my hand very curious about it until I fell a hand on my left shoulder.

"I could see that you find Bubby." I turned my head around to see Lazar standing next to me with an smile.

"Buddy ?" I whispered, looking back at the keychain.

"No, Bubby." Lazar corrected me. "B-U-B-B-Y." He added as I rolled my eyes to him.

"Laz', I know, no need to spell me the word." I exclaimed, making him laugh an little as me I was still curious about something. "Why did it end up here ?" I asked.

"Oh, Woods found it when you, Park, Mason & him walked through the fake Burger Town restaurant in that base in Ukraine." He responded, taking an look at the keychain. "Woods claimed that it was maybe filled with russian intels."

"And ?" I raised an eyebrow

"In here, we all know that it isn't true because Woods loves Burger Town, especially Bubby." Lazar added as he tap with his hand on my shoulder in an friendly way.

"So, we can remove it from the dashboard ?" I suggested as it was just an simple keychain from an american fast food.

"No, you're crazy !" Lazar faked an incomprehension, looking scared. "Woods is gonna kill us all if Bubby isn't here." I looked at the keychain, wondering who would kill for this before I took a deep breath.

"Fine." I said in an lazy voice as I put back the keychain at its place. "If we don't want to get us all killed by an onion." I scoffed, making me & Lazar laugh an little.

"Yeah, it's better." He affirmed as he looked around to see no one. "Hey....did you tell Park about your feelings ?" He asked discreetly and I shook my head. "You told me that you will do it today."

"I'm not...in the right mood, okay ?" I expressed, biting an small part of my lips as I look at him. "I'm gonna tell her later."

"You will." He poked at me before he could see Adler coming in. "We'll talk later then." He then removed himself from me, leaving me alone next to the dashboard as Adler was coming back to get to me.

"So, you finished to talk with Lazar ?" He asked me in an harsh tone, arriving next to his desk.

"Yes." I simply replied as I was looking back to the dashboard and not at him before my eyes fell on the only Perseus picture we had on the safehouse and I was like hypnotized by it for about a lot of seconds

"You know, those transmissions aren't going to get decrypted themselves if you're continuing to stare at this picture." Adler remarked as he move to get next to me

"I know but this face...." I started as I put my hands on my waist, this picture was like talking to me, hearing his voice through my ears and it was strange....very strange...."It's looking so familiar to me." I whispered in an low voice.

"You're kidding ?" Adler scoffed as he was taking an cigarette from his pocket to light it up as I was serious in my voice.

"No...it seems that....I know this man....I don't know how but something's off about me." I exclaimed sure about my words as I continue to look at Perseus's picture.

"You must be tired, kid." Adler said in an lazy voice before he move, feeling his left hand on my right shoulder before he took a deep breath to speak....

"Bell, we have a job to do !"

"Yirina ?" I opened my eyes again...back into reality in the CIA safehouse and still feeling an hand on my right shoulder. I slowly turned my head around to see Park herself, looking worried. "You're okay ?" She asked me.

"Uhm...yeah." I replied but my voice was betraying so much and my face....looking so damn pale.

"It's been like 5 minutes you stand up here, looking at this picture." She pointed at the picture of Perseus himself as I wasn't feeling so well in me right now.

"I know but this face...." I started to say and....in my voice, it was Bell speaking....not me. "It's looking so familiar to me." I whispered....still feeling me as Bell as I could feel more dizzy in my head and Park getting more worried about me.

"Yirina, you're not well." She exclaimed as she put her both hands on my shoulders. "What's wrong ?" She questioned me, turning me around as I could see Zasha also looking at me, worried too.

"I...I don't know....something's off about me !" I said, repeating the same words in that memory before I look at my hands, trembling and feeling more than weird. "Park, I...I don't feel so good." I then found myself losing balance as my heart was like beating unusually before I fell in Park's arms, my eyes crying.

"Shit, Yiri." She was sounding so panicked as she received me falling in her arms, I could feel her own pain by touching her. "Zasha, help me quick !" She ordered as I could see briefly Zasha running from their chair to get to me.

"What's happening ?" They asked to Park.

"Something bad." She replied, her breaths sounding more heavier and louder. "We're going to put her in the couch, take her legs." She added before I could feel my legs going off the ground, holded by Zasha.

They then started to move me through the whole safehouse to get to the couch Zasha used to sleep and during that, I could see the confused look on the others faces. I tried to look away from them as I was like crying with my eyes. I was put on the couch, laying down on it as Zasha and Park stayed near me, not wanting me to pass out as the others started to gather around them, wondering what was happening.

"What's got into her ?" Garrett was the first one to ask Park as me, I was looking at the ceilling, my hands posed on my chest, my breaths more frequent are louder. Park was kneeled, having put her hands on top of mine while Zasha

"Why is she like that ?" Greta added, confused as hell before I looked at everyone and especially at Mason who was looking bad for me, he know well of what was happening, he has gone through hell....and it was my turn to do it.

"I'm going go take the medkit." Song exclaimed, walking away from the scene.

"Park, tell us." Woods demanded, looking worried as he was next to Mason.

"I don't know but...." Park started, holding back her tears as looking at her was making me sad. "She maybe see something that she didn't want to see....or having heard something that she didn't want to hear." She added and I nodded at the last part, focused on catching back my breath. "You heard something ?"

"Ad....Adler...." I breathed and only by that, I could see Park, Mason & Woods eyes face decomposing themselves, already knowing of it.

"Shit, you heard him tell his fucking phrase." Mason chuckled, clenching his own fists before I could see him struggling on his face. "Damnit....I might need some fresh air or rest again." He then walk away, getting to his room as he was probably refacing some bad memories in him before I could see Song coming back with the medkit.

"You gonna feel better after that little shot." Song affirmed as she was getting out of the medkit....an syringue and then I started to panick like I was seeing Adler again before he injected me with an syringue right into the eye socket.

"No, please....don't do this !" I pleaded, panicked as hell as I was seeing myself back into that stretcher 3 years ago. "I can't....Park....don't let her do this." I added, looking at Park who was like me and also crying in her eyes. "I'm....don't let this needle touch me." I ordered before I cried again fully this time as Park was like petrified and she couldn't do anything only to recomfort me but as Song was getting next to me, I could see Zasha coming by next to her.

"Hey, you didn't hear what she said ?" They exclaimed, almost angry in their voice, putting themselves right in front of her. "She doesn't want that."

"But...."

"There is not but, Song." Zasha said, cutting her straight in her words, taking an quick look at me panicking with Park, holding me. "You're going to hurt her more than ever if you inject her with that." They pointed at the syringue in her hand. "Trust me, you don't want to do this." They added before I could see Garrett arriving behind Song.

"Kwan....I think that they're right." He affirmed, putting his hands on her shoulders. "I can't let you do that." He added, sniffing almost sad.

"Okay." Woods started, moving himself to get between Park and everyone else. "It might be better that we let her breath freely and to go to rest." He proposed as I could see everyone except Park & Zasha, looking at me before the other nodded, starting to leave. Garrett & Song were the first to leave to go to their room before Woods left too, leaving only me, Park, Zasha & Greta here.

"Uhm, I think I will go sleep in the car if you want." She proclaimed, joining her hands together as she wasn't looking good. "It's better that you two stay here for her." She added, talking to Zasha & Park before she decided to left the warehouse, leaving us alone.

"Does that....does that happen frequently ?" Zasha asked, curious about it as they moved next to Park, she shook her head.

"No, the last time she did this....it was days before this event in New Jersey." Park replied, looking more sad than ever before she put my hands inside hers. "Yiri, I'm here with you, no one is going to harm you."

"Yes....yes." I breathed as I was trying to pull out a smile on my face even if I was crying off my state as Zasha moved their hand on touch my right leg.

"We're here for you, Yirina." They added with an small grin on their face. "We will never let you down." I smiled at hearing them....it was true, real....they will not let me down....I looked at Park relieved.

"By the way...I managed to decrypt the transmission you gave me." She started before she moved one of her hands towards my cheek, cleaning the few tears that was falling down. "It was saying....'I love you, Park' " It....it was an idea I've got for an exercice with her and I was like so happy that she succeeded to do this.

"Don't worry, Yirina. We're here." Zasha repeated again as I could see some tears on their face too that they cleaned up fast....I have an big impact on Zed & Park and they did have an bigger impact for me......

"Thanks you to be here for me, Zed.....thanks you, Park....my beloved."

[nellied-reviews]

The Empty Man Cometh Re-listen

Hey, it's episode 9 of my Wolf 359 re-listen, which means it's time for a particularly iconic episode:

The Empty Man Cometh

In which Eiffel freaks out, Minkowski freaks out and Hilbert freaks out. Seriously, that's the whole episode. 

This episode, like I said above, is iconic. It's memorable, it's tense, and it's funny, in a dark, weird sort of way. Plus, it's the example par excellence of why Command are the Actual Worst. I had some very fond memories of it, going in, many of which it didn't entirely live up to, even if I generally enjoyed the episode.

As the episode begins, though, it does set its situation up really well. We have an ion storm incoming, after all, which works as a handy bit of spacey technobabble. We kind of suspect, until the final reveal, that the ion storm might have something to do with this Empty Man thing, which encourages us to view the episode's biggest threat as something vaguely external to the Hephaestus, something coming from the vast, impersonal void of space.

After this groundwork, however, all we get is essentially one long build-up and release of tension. We've already seen Wolf 359 trying for a horror episode - hello, Super Energy Saver Mode - so we already know this is something the show can do. And unsurprisingly, it does it pretty well here too, only using the "aaaargh, there's something weird out there" monster film model instead of the "aaargh, there's something weird in here" ghost story model. It's a simple idea, and it plays out pretty much like you'd expect, right until the end of the episode.

The messages the Hephaestus receive, I have to say, are amazing in their sheer weirdness, and I have a real affection for the moment where Eiffel shoots down the idea that they're somehow mistakes. He's 100% right that a real error would just be random letters or numbers, and pointing it out feels like a nice genre-savvy touch. Plus, after several episodes of Eiffel walking straight into horror movie clichés, it's nice to see some common sense from him.

Unfortunately, knowing that they're deliberate only makes the messages more mysterious, since they give the crew literally nothing to go off. The messages are clearly warnings, but beyond that, it's very hard to figure out what, if anything, the crew are supposed to do off the back of them. The messages put pressure on the crew by counting down ominously. But apart from that, it's essentially meaningless input. There are no instructions for the crew, no useful bits of information. There are just some very confusing words on a printout.

And, given the revelation that it was all a psychological experiment, might this not be the point? Perhaps Command want to know how humans react to their own powerlessness in the face of the totally incomprehensible, the terrifying Unknown. In fact, given that Command have a real interest in human communication with aliens - the ultimate terrifying Unknown - this would actually make sense. Heck, it even makes sense for them to specifically be doing this onboard the Hephaestus - theirs is the ship that Command expect to make contact with real life aliens, any day now. We could maybe see this experiment as a sort of psychological inoculation, preparing the crew for moment they finally get a message from the Dear Listeners.

Either way, if it's psychological reactions Command want to observe, we get them here by the bucketful. Eiffel, for example, alternates between freaking out and trying to convince himself that it's stopped. Hilbert, from what we can see, turns to technology, buckling down and running scans, while Minkowski is the one comparing the messages, trying to pull out patterns. It's an admirable impulse, but I suspect it's exactly what Command are playing off here. As humans, we love to find patterns. It gives us a sense of control. But faced with something that is incomprehensible, the sense of control slips away. And so, as level-headed as Minkowski seems, she freaks out in the end just like the others.

It's also worth mentioning that this is the point where the episode pulls out all the stops to freak us out, too. Seriously, from the use of tense music and creepy sound effects, to the absence of Hera's reassuring presence during large parts of the episode, to Eiffel whispering the final message, all of this is so spooky. I mean, things build to a peak, the power cuts out, everybody's losing their mind, and then-

Oh. It was all a psychological experiment. Ugh, Command. Why are you like this?

It's a deliberately dissatisfying, anticlimactic ending. We want to heave a sigh of relief that the Empty Man isn't real, that the crew survived. But any positive feelings linked to the release of tension are drowned out in righteous indignation and - for us, if not for the crew - a feeling that we've been robbed of the exciting horror story we were expecting. We, along with the crew, have had the rug pulled out from under us, and while it's something the show's done before - remember, uh, last episode, within which Box 953 never got explained or followed up on? - it's the first time it's felt cruel. Box 953 was an accident, accidents happen. But this? This is just mean-spirited, so we end the episode firmly aligned with Minkowski and Eiffel in their feelings of anger and betrayal.

The only positive? I do feel like this shared, terrifying experience brings the crew closer together, as evidenced by their plan to write a sternly worded letter and send it to Command tomorrow. I'm not sure how effective it will be. But the thought's nice. Plus it might give them a sense of control back, and who am I to argue with that? 

It's a bright moment at the end of an episode that otherwise leaves us frustrated and angry, putting us through the psychological wringer alongside the crew. As an exercise in building up tension, it's effective, and it doesn't completely lose that tension on a re-listen, even knowing the ending. I still found myself jumping at some of the noises in this, you know? And scary countdowns will always be scary!

That said, I do think that some of the impact this had the first time I listened to it was lost this time. The first time I listened to this, after all, I remember getting freaked out by the prospect of the Empty Man, but also invested in figuring out what it was. Knowing that the messages are meaningless, I was less invested in that this time round. And weirdly, I also remember finding the crew's freak-out and their subsequent rage at the anticlimactic nature of it all funnier the first time round - perhaps because it was so unexpected? In any case, that didn't carry over as much this time, either.

Nevertheless, I would say that this episode was still perfectly fine, and my ill-will towards Command has, if anything, intensified. But it was certainly a different experience on a re-listen, with different things standing out. Which, in the end, is what a re-listen is for, I guess. Some episodes improve dramatically. Some don't. For me, this one falls into the latter category, which might just be due to how strong a reaction I had to it the first time I heard it. And that's fine. Not every episode can - or should - be made for fans on a re-listen.

And hey, if you found it just as good, or better, the second time round? More power to you ^-^

 Miscellaneous thoughts:

Minkowski saying that they might survive this with minimal damage *shakes head*. Has nobody on this station heard of tempting fate?

Is the pulse beacon relay sound effect actually a cash register sound? It's effective, either way - I love how clunky it sounds :)

This episode is also a really good opportunity to show us how the pulse beacon relay works. Which totally won't be relevant ever again. Nope. Not at all.

Un momento por favor, Doctor Hilberto." Why does this line amuse me so much?

"Decide what to do with the time that is given to you." Aaaaaaaaah bad bad bad!

Hilbert speaks Russian, Swedish, Norwegian, German and Afrikaans?! How did Afrikaans get in there? (headcanons 100% welcome here)

Aww, Minkowski thinks they should all get a good night's sleep. Sound advice in most situations tbh

[cookinguptales]

Wonder Woman (2017)

So I went to a prescreening of Wonder Woman last night and I had some thoughts. For the tl;dr types, I’ll just say that it’s a really, really fantastic superhero movie and one that I think we desperately need right now. It’s a little rough in spots, but I really think it’s one of the best superhero films I’ve seen in years. Perhaps ever.

That said, it’s a pretty emotionally grueling one to get through; the ultimate message is one of hope, but you sure go through some shit to get there. If the goal is some mindless fun, take that into account before you choose this film. Also, though this film is relatively progressive on issues such as race, sex, and sexuality, it was really pretty appalling re: disability. I’ll get into my reasons for saying that at the very end of this review, but I will warn you that I cannot talk about that without reference to Extreme Spoilers. So they’ll go under a spoiler heading a the end.

Quite long -- it’s really an extensive review and a mini-essay about ableism in the film -- so here’s a cut.

I will start this review out by saying I have never been the biggest fan of Wonder Woman. I don’t mean to say I didn’t like her. More that I just never felt a strong connection with her, as much as I wanted to. So I’m coming at this from the POV of someone who was familiar with Diana’s story but who wasn’t a megafan and as someone who wasn’t necessarily expecting to be blown away. That said, I totally was. I wasn’t expecting this to be a movie for me, specifically, but damn it all if it wasn’t the kind of message I needed right now.

To get the necessary out of the way, Diana is absolutely spectacular in this movie. Gal Gadot plays a Diana who is strong, fierce, and kind, with a raw intelligence that’s only tempered by her confusion towards humankind’s seemingly incomprehensible customs and cruelties. She’s beautiful as she learns and breathtaking as she fights and readers, I am now gay as hell for Wonder Woman. (I mean, I can’t say that she’ll make you gay, but if you, like me, are a wlw, this movie will be a treat.) Like, Wonder Woman is honestly a pretty difficult kind of character to pull off if you don’t believe in her intrinsically, but the creators of this movie clearly did. She is a woman who is unapologetically strong, unapologetically kind, and never demonized for her hope. She never, ever veered into corny. She said unbelievable things simply and with conviction and damn it, you believed her. More than any other superhero I’ve come into contact with (and I’ve come into contact with a lot), this Wonder Woman is here to give you strength.

So setting aside that I probably would’ve happily watched a movie that was just Wonder Woman being Wonder Woman for two hours, the plot of this movie was actually very strong. It’s going to get a lot of comparisons to Captain America: TFA, which I think is pretty inevitable, especially considering certain plot developments late in the film, but I sort of feel like WW wanted to do many of the same things CA did but in every aspect decided to go harder. It’s a war film, but it’s also a film about Diana learning about all of the tiny casual cruelties that accompany being human, and her trying to get her head around the sheer senselessness of that while retaining her hope. As opposed to CA:TFA and her first comic book appearances, this is a World War I movie -- chosen, I suspect, because it was a particularly senseless war that used particularly gruesome tactics. There is no one true enemy in WWI, a fact which Diana is forced to learn the hard way. It is, as Steve Trevor puts it, “messy”.

At any rate, the movie opens up in a very different world -- that of the Amazons. Despite having a very limited amount of time in which to do so, the film devises a society that provokes a sort of wistfulness in the watcher. Themyscira, for all its faults, is a beautiful society set in a paradise. Diana’s eventual choice to leave is inevitable, but watchers can keenly feel exactly what she is giving up when she does so. After being raised as the only child on an island full of wise and loving female warriors, only hearing of the world of Mankind through bedtime stories, Diana’s idyllic peace is shattered when Steve Trevor crash lands on the beach and brings WWI with him. He tells her of unspeakable bloodshed in a war that never ends, and she becomes convinced that this is the work of Ares, the god of war and the Amazons’ sworn enemy. So, of course, she defies orders and accompanies Steve to the human world to try and make things right. From there, she’s buffeted in a constant storm of politics, culture shock, and cruelty as she tries to make sense of a war that is much more than just fighting.

As Diana makes her way through Europe, she comes to realize that the human world was far more complicated than she’d initially thought; this wasn’t just a question of helping good Americans and British soldiers defeat the bad Germans. She encounters victims of sexism and racism and learns that bad blood absolutely permeates the human world. She initially attributes this to Ares’ influence, but is forced to confront the fact that things are perhaps much more complicated than that -- and that no nation in this war has clean hands.

In the end, WW becomes less of a war movie and more a question of human worthiness as a whole. Wonder Woman comes to humanity as a savior and a judge -- she sees all the beauties of our world, but is repulsed by the banality of our evil. In a world that for many of us feels increasingly bleak, marred by the constant cruelties and idiocies of those with power, her message that hope remains is so welcome. Does it really matter if anyone “deserves” to be saved? Or is it just the act of saving that’s so necessary to what we are?

The heart of the movie probably comes from the relationship between Diana and Steve Trevor, which fans of the comics likely won’t be surprised to hear. But Steve never defines Diana; he is her guide to the human world, but she doesn’t always like him. The two of them have fundamentally different ideas about war, peace, and the nature of the two. Diana wants to power her way through injustice through sheer force of will, while Steve is very willing to use more pragmatic and underhanded tactics to achieve victories for the greater good. Truthfully, both have some points to make, and both of them make each other better. It’s a romance (though, as fans realize early into the movie, one that cannot possibly have made it to the present day, 100 years later) but it’s also a meeting of two well-meaning minds. The relationship between them is refreshingly egalitarian -- and when Diana sees something she wants, she takes it. (Hell yeah, sex positivity.) In other words, Steve’s a good guy and a damn pretty face, but not a single character in this movie lets him forget that Diana’s the protagonist. lol

I’ve seen Wonder Woman described as “lighter” than the other DC movies, which to me seems bewildering. There are moments of levity in the film, and it definitely got a lot of laughs from our audience. And its ultimate message is one of hope. But good lord, the devastation you wade through to get there. WW takes a largely unflinching look at the horrors of war, and I think it’s only the fact that most of the nastiest violence takes place offscreen that saved this movie from getting an R. Diana sees dead men, women, and children. She sees the wounded. She gets a look at the horrors of PTSD. She realizes that for many, war means no longer having the choice about whether to get your hands dirty. Her cast of characters, from Etta Candy to Steve Trevor to the little band of misfits that Trevor picks up to help them with their goals, is lovable. But all of them have seen horrors just like she has, and many of them weren’t endeared to the world even before it went up in flames. It can, at times, be a very, very hard movie to watch.

All that said, I found the movie to be profoundly moving and something that I dearly needed in these trying times. I came out thinking, somewhat bewildered, that it was probably simultaneously the darkest and most hopeful superhero movie I’d ever seen. Because really, Wonder Woman is the story of a goddess coming to visit our world and seeing every last bit of evil we have to bestow upon each other -- and loving us anyway. She sees how casually cruel, how absolutely awful we can be, and still has faith that we will make things right in the end. And she’ll help us do it. She will just tirelessly fight to make sure we don’t entirely lose our way. And god, do we need it.

I would 100% recommend Wonder Woman (if you’re in the right frame of mind to watch it) and I really, really think this is a movie you should be supporting. This movie proves that excellent female-led action/superhero movies can exist, and it’d be great if we could all make sure the studios know that. It’s progressive in a lot of ways, though it certainly stumbles occasionally, and I think that’s also something to support with your wallet.

BUT. WITH ALL THAT IN MIND. Holy shit, that movie had problems with disability, and I wouldn’t feel wholly honest without delving into that a little bit. But I cannot fully talk about it without some spoilers, so like!! Proceed at your own risk.

SPOILERS!

So here’s the thing. One thing that’s very frustrating in period films is the total lack of the PWD (people with disabilities) who existed at the time. Like damn, they had horrific wars, polio, plagues, and very poor medical technology! You better believe there were PWD walking (or rolling) around, populating society back then. But I’ve come to terms with the fact that most Hollywood movies aren’t going to depict that. This isn’t about that. But it’s a concept that worsens what I’m about to say.

The fact of the matter is that there are really only two big characters with a visible physical disability in Wonder Woman, and they’re both fucking monsters. Wonder Woman doesn’t show that only bad people are wounded, but the people who Diana sees being carted off the battlefield with limbs missing and eyes gone dead are never named and never spoken of again. They are the Unnamed Wounded, and they’re as good as dead. Just victims to feel bad about. Which wouldn’t necessarily bother me -- except again, the only characters we actually see living while disabled are absolutely fucking EVIL.

The first character is Doctor Maru, the poisons expert working for the German military. Now, Maru is based on Doctor Poison, which is a character with a bit of an iffy background in comics; she was originally a WWII-era Japanese villain, and -- I mean, god, you see where I’m going with this. She was reimagined as a white villain in the New 52, which was mimicked in the movie. But instead of using race as a signifier for evil, Wonder Woman now uses disability. Maru has extensive facial scarring that is never explained (and is not present in the comics) but was likely a result of her experimentation. She wears a sort of facial prosthetic to disguise this, and it doesn’t really seem to have much of a point other than making her “creepy”. Later in the film, her evil personality (she is shown to be one of the few characters that takes actual sadistic pleasure in torturing and killing people) is linked explicitly with her facial scarring. Another character forcibly rips off her prosthetic (nooooo), exposing her scarring to a horrified Diana (nooooo) and says to “just look at her”, that’s she’s a perfect example of how rotten and corrupted humanity really is. (NOOOOO.) And Diana doesn’t join up with that person, but she doesn’t disagree with this characterization of Maru, either. She loves humanity despite people like Maru, and that’s made exceptionally clear in this scene. And the fact that, in this pivotal scene, Maru’s villainy is explicitly linked to her facial scarring (her disabled outside is a reflection of her distorted inside) without anyone questioning that statement... God, do I even have to go into why that’s fucked up?

The other character -- AND MAJOR SPOILERS HERE -- is Sir Patrick Morgan, who is the mild-mannered member of the cabinet who helps Diana and her cadre from afar. Oh yeah, also he’s actually Ares, the god bent on destroying literally all of humanity. Ares seems to lose the cane and the limp when he’s in full-on god mode, which seems to mean that the disabled persona was just an affectation -- in other words, the only other disabled character in this movie was just faking their disability (nooo) in order to seem weak and unassuming (nooooooo) but is actually a tricksy bastard fooling everyone (jfc no) and HE IS ALSO GENOCIDAL. Ares isn’t actually a bad character, but jfc. Those tropes to lean on! Why!

Like if there’s one message to take from this movie re: disabled people, it’s “don’t trust them”. And as much as I think this movie isn’t child-appropriate anyway, jfc, what a message to throw into a movie. Not only were the period-appropriate disabled people virtually erased, they were replaced with absolute monsters whose disabilities were either explicitly linked with their shitty personalities or sneaky villains whose heel-face-turns rest on notions of disabled duplicity and weakness. (If you’ve never been accused of faking your disability for accommodations or assistance, you... are a very lucky PWD.)

Wonder Woman takes such pains to be progressive on so many levels that it only seems to make this portrayal of PWD sting even more. It truly feels like we have been framed as the last acceptable target, and that we again have been relegated to the outskirts of social justice rhetoric. And so though I loved 90% of the film, I really do have to offer this caveat: jesus fucking christ, WW, do better with disabled people.