Bush vs. Gore vid
Dec. 14th, 2025 05:59 amHappened across this Bluesky post embedding a TikTok of a vid about Al Gore "losing" the 2000 election to George W. Bush, set to a Sabrina Carpenter song. Enjoyed and wanted to share.
If you live someplace where there is a regular place a lot of people go on weekends, like a farmer's market or a popular park, maybe there is something of a fringe or liminal area where sometimes people set up folding tables and sell stuff or campaign. Girl Scout cookies, petition signings, and so on.
If you are in the US and you want to meet likeminded neighbors because of the recent election results, and you think there are some of those in your neighborhood, you could drag a little folding table and folding/camp chair out to that spot this weekend, with a paper sign.
I did this the past 2 weekends. One sign just said "Worried about the election? Me too". The other said "Vent about the election; Plan for Jan. 20th". The second time I went, I brought a second chair, so I could invite someone to sit down for a moment to talk, and I brought a few books on politics or organizing that I am finding helpful.
I have now had like 15? 20? meaningful conversations with neighbors I didn't know before.
I also brought bits of paper with my Signal username and the Signal logo and a note to go to Signal.org to download the app. I'm messaging with a few people I met. And two of them have told me about new local efforts I can join.
Sometimes I wore an N95 mask, sometimes I didn't. I don't remember whether fewer people approached me when I did that.
Yeah, maybe 2-3 of the conversations were frustrating in ways that felt handle-able -- a 15-second chat with someone who's glad about the election results, a 10-minute chat with an immigrant who disagreed with my priorities and approach but not SUPER rudely (and he definitely had a point or two that I am mulling over), a 10-minute chat with a person who thinks her own life is pretty unlikely to be affected by what's coming and kept returning to the topic of the Democrats' flaws.
But those experiences were far outweighed by the substantive and useful conversations I've had and the connections I've made. What are some likely risks? What specific things can our households do to prepare? What specific actions can we press our local and state governments to do to mitigate risks to us? And, emotionally, finding someone in person who also feels some mix of scared/wary/angry/sad/determined/grimly laughing/tender and sharing our spirit with them.
Heads-up that you could potentially do this too.
If you are in the US and you want to meet likeminded neighbors because of the recent election results, and you think there are some of those in your neighborhood, you could drag a little folding table and folding/camp chair out to that spot this weekend, with a paper sign.
I did this the past 2 weekends. One sign just said "Worried about the election? Me too". The other said "Vent about the election; Plan for Jan. 20th". The second time I went, I brought a second chair, so I could invite someone to sit down for a moment to talk, and I brought a few books on politics or organizing that I am finding helpful.
I have now had like 15? 20? meaningful conversations with neighbors I didn't know before.
I also brought bits of paper with my Signal username and the Signal logo and a note to go to Signal.org to download the app. I'm messaging with a few people I met. And two of them have told me about new local efforts I can join.
Sometimes I wore an N95 mask, sometimes I didn't. I don't remember whether fewer people approached me when I did that.
Yeah, maybe 2-3 of the conversations were frustrating in ways that felt handle-able -- a 15-second chat with someone who's glad about the election results, a 10-minute chat with an immigrant who disagreed with my priorities and approach but not SUPER rudely (and he definitely had a point or two that I am mulling over), a 10-minute chat with a person who thinks her own life is pretty unlikely to be affected by what's coming and kept returning to the topic of the Democrats' flaws.
But those experiences were far outweighed by the substantive and useful conversations I've had and the connections I've made. What are some likely risks? What specific things can our households do to prepare? What specific actions can we press our local and state governments to do to mitigate risks to us? And, emotionally, finding someone in person who also feels some mix of scared/wary/angry/sad/determined/grimly laughing/tender and sharing our spirit with them.
Heads-up that you could potentially do this too.
I'm running a fundraiser for the Election Protection Hotline, 1-866-OUR-VOTE. No matter your position on the 2024 US election, I'm guessing you want the votes counted fairly. So I'm trying to raise USD $25,000 for Election Protection.
Not a US resident or US citizen? Hate all the major parties? No problem! You'd be donating to The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonpartisan US nonprofit founded in 1963, which houses the Election Protection Coalition. Anyone, anywhere in the world, can donate.
Then, on Saturday Oct. 26th, expect 8 minutes of nerd jokes about open source software and how programming skews your brain, and none about politics. (Only 8 minutes because that's as long as a stand-up meeting should be.)
Please donate, and spread the word!
(Mastodon/Fediverse, Bluesky, LinkedIn, Twitter. Here's a square image for groupchats/Instagram.)
thought experiment
Sep. 17th, 2024 01:57 pmI thought this when I first watched it, and I still think this:
it is fascinating to imagine a US resident from, say, January 2011 watching the Celebrating America special from January 20, 2021 and trying to work out what had happened in the intervening ten years.
Why is Tom Hanks speaking with steely resolve? Why is he reassuring me that the nation's capital has been secured? Why are there no live audiences for these musical performances or speeches? Why are people standing so far from each other? Why are we talking about doctors and nurses so much? Was there a bioterrorist attack?
If the 46th President has just been inaugurated, what happened with #45 and why is no one mentioning their name? Why are #44, #43, and #42 having a conversation about unity and supporting the new guy, across party lines, and how the new guy can count on their support, but the most recent tenant at the Resolute Desk is not present to say the same thing? Is this a damnatio memoriae situation? Did they die?
The tone of the whole thing, to me in 2024, brings home how much we had just been through and were still going through. What they emphasize, what they refrain from explicitly saying, the song choices, everything. And I find a kind of grim reassurance in it. Like: yes, it really was that bad. You aren't misremembering that. Your scars come from something real.
it is fascinating to imagine a US resident from, say, January 2011 watching the Celebrating America special from January 20, 2021 and trying to work out what had happened in the intervening ten years.
Why is Tom Hanks speaking with steely resolve? Why is he reassuring me that the nation's capital has been secured? Why are there no live audiences for these musical performances or speeches? Why are people standing so far from each other? Why are we talking about doctors and nurses so much? Was there a bioterrorist attack?
If the 46th President has just been inaugurated, what happened with #45 and why is no one mentioning their name? Why are #44, #43, and #42 having a conversation about unity and supporting the new guy, across party lines, and how the new guy can count on their support, but the most recent tenant at the Resolute Desk is not present to say the same thing? Is this a damnatio memoriae situation? Did they die?
The tone of the whole thing, to me in 2024, brings home how much we had just been through and were still going through. What they emphasize, what they refrain from explicitly saying, the song choices, everything. And I find a kind of grim reassurance in it. Like: yes, it really was that bad. You aren't misremembering that. Your scars come from something real.
the intersubjectivity of "weird"
Jul. 26th, 2024 10:36 amKamala Harris's campaign sent out a press release saying, among other things,
That phrasing, with the question mark, is (per Gretchen McCulloch, internet linguistics expert), reads as more internet-y than we usually get from US Presidential candidates:
I'd say that "Old and quite weird?" counts as the internet style of question mark because it's indicating rising tone of voice/uncertainty rather than accompanying question syntax (wh word or do/is/etc at the beginning of the sentence)
I'm also struck by the informality of "this guy" and the choice of a comma rather than a colon for "we only have one question, is Donald Trump ok?"
The "quite weird?" line has struck a chord with some folks (examples from Bluesky):
And some folks are thinking about the usefulness of the subjective word "weird", and its splash zone.
and
response:
I'm late getting ready for my day, but I want to mark how useful the intersubjective derogatory power of "weird" is. It's like "creep" or (per this Black programmer's experience) saying something is "uncomfortable". It's easy for a person with structural power to use "this makes people uncomfortable" to deflect accountability for a decision. But also the subjectivity of "uncomfortable" is why it has extra power for marginalized people, as Erynn Brook discussed on Twitter a while back.
I am not making the time right now to think about this in more detail, but, it's interesting.
After watching Fox News this morning we only have one question, is Donald Trump ok?
Main takeaways Trump gave to the American people: ....
- Trump is old and quite weird?
- This guy shouldn’t be president ever again
I'd say that "Old and quite weird?" counts as the internet style of question mark because it's indicating rising tone of voice/uncertainty rather than accompanying question syntax (wh word or do/is/etc at the beginning of the sentence)
I'm also struck by the informality of "this guy" and the choice of a comma rather than a colon for "we only have one question, is Donald Trump ok?"
The "quite weird?" line has struck a chord with some folks (examples from Bluesky):
There's absolutely nothing normal about anything he's done or said in decades! Finally, FINALLY it's the official messaging of the loyal opposition, and it's inarguable.
"Have you guys noticed that the emperor has no clothes? You're seeing this too, right?"
to me it reads as "... y'all see this too, right? why is no one else saying it?" incredulity + "this is maybe not 100% proper to say in a press release but I'm gonna say it anyway"
It's asking, "you guys see this too, right?"
"Have you guys noticed that the emperor has no clothes? You're seeing this too, right?"
to me it reads as "... y'all see this too, right? why is no one else saying it?" incredulity + "this is maybe not 100% proper to say in a press release but I'm gonna say it anyway"
It's asking, "you guys see this too, right?"
And some folks are thinking about the usefulness of the subjective word "weird", and its splash zone.
Last year I shut down the my family group thread by simply replying to their right wing banter with “WHAT A BUNCH OF WIERDOS OOPS WRONG THREAD”. Calling them dumb doesn’t work because that can’t *possibly* be true in their minds. Weird works. No one wants to be weird, and we (non-narcissists) all have at least a tiny voice inside us that wonders if we are. Feed that voice.
and
*I* am weird. Weird is GOOD.
Republicans are irrational, evil, ignorant, and ridiculous.
Calling them "weird" is an insult to the unusually reasonable people who have been called "weird" our entire lives.
Republicans are irrational, evil, ignorant, and ridiculous.
Calling them "weird" is an insult to the unusually reasonable people who have been called "weird" our entire lives.
response:
Words don’t have single meanings. “Weird” can mean “wonderful”, and it also sometimes means “creepy, offputting, and repellent.” Context matters. Words aren’t Lego blocks.
I'm late getting ready for my day, but I want to mark how useful the intersubjective derogatory power of "weird" is. It's like "creep" or (per this Black programmer's experience) saying something is "uncomfortable". It's easy for a person with structural power to use "this makes people uncomfortable" to deflect accountability for a decision. But also the subjectivity of "uncomfortable" is why it has extra power for marginalized people, as Erynn Brook discussed on Twitter a while back.
I am not making the time right now to think about this in more detail, but, it's interesting.
"I went to graduate school to study political theory, in hopes of figuring out what to do about the dilemmas that weighed on me. But it took something else to give that theory meaning in my own life." Alyssa Battistoni's "Spadework: On political organizing", in the Spring 2019 issue of n+1, shares her experience in union organizing. (I was gonna post this to MetaFilter but saw someone already had.)
The relationality of organizing is maybe the hardest thing to understand before you’ve done it. But it is the most important. This is not because people are governed by emotions instead of reason, though they sometimes are. It’s because the entire problem of collective action is that it’s rational to act collectively where it’s not to act alone. And you build the collective piece by piece.....
...Many were suspicious of organizing itself: we said that grad students should be able to choose for themselves whether they wanted a union, but here we were trying to convince people that they did. It didn’t seem very democratic. Why not just take a vote right away? We could even do it online — the software was pretty good these days.
I thought the union was intensely democratic — we were, after all, seeking some amount of self-rule in our workplace and asking more people to take part in it. But democracy was more than aggregating our individual preferences or adhering to procedures; it was more like the attempt to find the general will. We were declaring ourselves a people, and that meant coming to see ourselves as part of a collective, not just a sample of rational actors. We want nondomination, another political theorist in the department said; things are pretty good now, but we’re vulnerable to arbitrary power. This went over surprisingly well with the empiricists. Finally — the academic discussion I’d been waiting for! In any case, it was true that I wanted to persuade people of my position. I thought the union was good, and important, and I wanted them to vote for it. But I didn’t just want their votes; I wanted them to want the union. There was no union without them. .....
But this isn’t the part of the essay where I conclude that political life is tragically impossible. It’s where I try to figure out how to get back to it.
"You are not a pie. You are never done."
Jul. 8th, 2022 09:19 am"My Mother In Law is queen of 'that sounds hard, so you shouldn't even try.'" On the connections among fixed mindset, conservatism, and unconstructive survivalist prepping. From the same author: on survivalism and prepping and silver and gold.
So yeah this may be an issue of me out-crazying you because I’m not coming at this from a perspective of “fiat currency is good” I’m coming at this from a perspective of “precious metals are actually pretty worthless as a survival strategy if you’re anticipating a society in which people will shoot you to take your diesel so start a compost pile, learn how to mend clothes, keep chickens, grow vegetables, and load ammo if that’s the society you’re worried about.”
"The Cold Equations" responses
Dec. 2nd, 2021 09:47 amA new story in Clarkesworld's December edition: "The Cold Calculations" by Aimee Ogden, an extremely political and full-throated response to "The Cold Equations". I'd say a point Ogden is making is: the laws of physics aren't what kills that stowaway, it's socially constructed austerity that does that, and we can change social constructions, together.
I particularly noticed it because of an Omelas-related conversation on MetaFilter recently that also included discussion of "The Cold Equations". I talked about the Ogden story with my spouse today and he put together something that I hadn't -- that "The Cold Equations" is a bit like ticking-time-bomb scenarios (as in the TV series 24, etc.) that authors and policymakers use to justify torture. We make up these stories and then use them to justify awful systemic harms, as though the stories are models of reality, but those stories are made-up!
I particularly noticed it because of an Omelas-related conversation on MetaFilter recently that also included discussion of "The Cold Equations". I talked about the Ogden story with my spouse today and he put together something that I hadn't -- that "The Cold Equations" is a bit like ticking-time-bomb scenarios (as in the TV series 24, etc.) that authors and policymakers use to justify torture. We make up these stories and then use them to justify awful systemic harms, as though the stories are models of reality, but those stories are made-up!
Patience and love
Apr. 21st, 2021 11:12 amAs I celebrate my fifteenth wedding anniversary and think about the long durable things we work on, I am thinking about patience.
"Somebody Will". "I am willing to sacrifice something I don't have / For something I won't have / but somebody will someday."
I've been attempting to work on my patience. I'm working on a book which will be the longest document I've ever written, and which will probably go through more and longer editing and revision passes than anything I've ever made. I'm doing this because I see an infrastructural need in free and open source software, and even if this book succeeds it will take years to change the field. The project of FLOSS, itself, trying to liberate people from being programmed by the software we use, is so huge and slow. And that's only one of the wheels against which I want to put my shoulder; there are so many gross, exploitative, destructive systems I want to smite.
I'm sustained by words by Tressie McMillan Cottom:
"You just have to know that they won your lifetime. It doesn’t mean you don’t try or work or whatever but you have to learn to fight for wins you won’t experience. That’s life, I think. That’s what I get from old Black people. You do it because it needs to be done, not because it’s being done for you."
and by João Costa Vargas:
“Once we accept that we are not wanted. Once we accept that we are not loved. It is very liberating. .... once we accept the logic of the runaway slave.... we can begin to do the work of abolition.”
I am loved; the support of loving friends -- like my spouse -- makes it more possible to accept the possibility, the reality, that I/we have opponents and that they do not love me/us. And to plant seeds that I hope the next generation can harvest.
"Somebody Will". "I am willing to sacrifice something I don't have / For something I won't have / but somebody will someday."
I've been attempting to work on my patience. I'm working on a book which will be the longest document I've ever written, and which will probably go through more and longer editing and revision passes than anything I've ever made. I'm doing this because I see an infrastructural need in free and open source software, and even if this book succeeds it will take years to change the field. The project of FLOSS, itself, trying to liberate people from being programmed by the software we use, is so huge and slow. And that's only one of the wheels against which I want to put my shoulder; there are so many gross, exploitative, destructive systems I want to smite.
I'm sustained by words by Tressie McMillan Cottom:
"You just have to know that they won your lifetime. It doesn’t mean you don’t try or work or whatever but you have to learn to fight for wins you won’t experience. That’s life, I think. That’s what I get from old Black people. You do it because it needs to be done, not because it’s being done for you."
and by João Costa Vargas:
“Once we accept that we are not wanted. Once we accept that we are not loved. It is very liberating. .... once we accept the logic of the runaway slave.... we can begin to do the work of abolition.”
I am loved; the support of loving friends -- like my spouse -- makes it more possible to accept the possibility, the reality, that I/we have opponents and that they do not love me/us. And to plant seeds that I hope the next generation can harvest.
not to harp on it
Jul. 9th, 2020 02:07 amSo, Harper's Magazine published an open letter with a bunch of signatories, and many people are discussing it, its phrasing, its context, its impact, and so on.
What I'm ruminating on is the signatories, and the effect of an open letter signed by (at current count) 152 people, some fraction of which are major or minor celebrities in academic/literary/policy/arts/something circles. I went through the list and found 47 names that I recognized, 36 of which I could confidently describe with a sentence (what they do/what they're known for) even if I don't know that work (like, I haven't ever really listened to Wynton Marsalis or read the fiction of Jeffrey Eugenides).* For those I know, I have different opinions of many of their bodies of work! Like, Atul Gawande, Zephyr Teachout, Dahlia Lithwick, Arlie Russell Hochschild, Steven Pinker, David Brooks, Salman Rushdie, John McWhorter, Margaret Atwood, and Anne-Marie Slaughter -- my assessments vary.
And it's interesting how this affects how people read and react to it. Like, I don't follow a lot of sports, but one reason an All-Star Team is appealing to watch because people who follow various different regular teams can watch the same game together. And so, similarly, people from a bunch of different fandoms and hatedoms, people who eagerly follow Zephyr Teachout and people who think David Brooks has the right idea, people who are already upset with Steven Pinker and people who have never liked the work of Greil Marcus, all can find a common conversation (and possibly shout at each other). I would love for someone else to make a "Infinity War Is The Most Ambitious Crossover Event In History" visual joke about this.
* I think I have met 4 of them, and one of them would recognize my name. In one case I took the photo that is on the French Wikipedia page about that person. In another, back when I worked at a Berkeley bookstore 18 years ago, I remember I sold them a copy of American Psycho. I bet you neither of them would remember me.
Edited the next day to say: I should have foreseen that this entry would lead people to want to comment to talk about the content of the letter itself! Whoops. Am freezing some comment threads & screening all comments here so I don't have to moderate those particular political conversations in the comments here; really I just wanted to joke about the "Most Ambitious Crossover Event In History" observation. No hard feelings, I hope.
What I'm ruminating on is the signatories, and the effect of an open letter signed by (at current count) 152 people, some fraction of which are major or minor celebrities in academic/literary/policy/arts/something circles. I went through the list and found 47 names that I recognized, 36 of which I could confidently describe with a sentence (what they do/what they're known for) even if I don't know that work (like, I haven't ever really listened to Wynton Marsalis or read the fiction of Jeffrey Eugenides).* For those I know, I have different opinions of many of their bodies of work! Like, Atul Gawande, Zephyr Teachout, Dahlia Lithwick, Arlie Russell Hochschild, Steven Pinker, David Brooks, Salman Rushdie, John McWhorter, Margaret Atwood, and Anne-Marie Slaughter -- my assessments vary.
And it's interesting how this affects how people read and react to it. Like, I don't follow a lot of sports, but one reason an All-Star Team is appealing to watch because people who follow various different regular teams can watch the same game together. And so, similarly, people from a bunch of different fandoms and hatedoms, people who eagerly follow Zephyr Teachout and people who think David Brooks has the right idea, people who are already upset with Steven Pinker and people who have never liked the work of Greil Marcus, all can find a common conversation (and possibly shout at each other). I would love for someone else to make a "Infinity War Is The Most Ambitious Crossover Event In History" visual joke about this.
* I think I have met 4 of them, and one of them would recognize my name. In one case I took the photo that is on the French Wikipedia page about that person. In another, back when I worked at a Berkeley bookstore 18 years ago, I remember I sold them a copy of American Psycho. I bet you neither of them would remember me.
Edited the next day to say: I should have foreseen that this entry would lead people to want to comment to talk about the content of the letter itself! Whoops. Am freezing some comment threads & screening all comments here so I don't have to moderate those particular political conversations in the comments here; really I just wanted to joke about the "Most Ambitious Crossover Event In History" observation. No hard feelings, I hope.
a slight silliness
Jun. 22nd, 2020 10:27 am[JOKE STARTS HERE]
As a woman of color over 35 years old who is a US citizen, I was of course approached by the Biden campaign as a potential vice presidential nominee.
Bio: Tech entrepreneur since 2015; has served on multiple nonprofit boards and testified before state legislature and city council committee hearings; first woman of color to be a maintainer of the Python Package Index; has memorized several US Presidential campaign theme songs via Oscar Brand's Smithsonian Folkways album.
How seriously is she being considered?: Opinions differ on this point. Sources in the Harihareswara camp say she's "quite a contender" but Biden staffers suggested that "who?" and "how do you spell that?"
Signature issues: Has championed sustainability and inclusion in open source software; worked towards open data in government; played a high-profile role in ensuring consistent supplies of biscotti in her household during the pandemic; as a project manager, consistently used time zones when referring to times (e.g., "8am ET") in meeting planning emails, rather than leaving others to guess.
Relationship with Biden: They are not close, but have multiple times been in the same city at the same time.
Pros and cons: Harihareswara is among the 20 best-known leaders in the key "Dreamwidth feminists who also use emacs" demographic, and her fanvidding skills may come in handy in case the digital media team needs help at crunch time. Also, even though she cannot fluently speak Kannada or Hindi, some Americans of South Asian descent will be mildly more likely to vote for a ticket with an Indian name on it (although Biden's opponent can point to his many appointments of South Asian-Americans to counter this factor). However, she is a less prominent voice on issues that party insiders feel will be more central to this year's election, such as domestic politics, international politics, the economy, health care, policing, the environment, food security, reproductive rights, constitutional law, tax policy, the role of religion in public life, racism, the Due South Ray Wars, and agriculture.
On being considered for vice president: "Was this in an email? I'm behind on email."
[END OF JOKE]
As a woman of color over 35 years old who is a US citizen, I was of course approached by the Biden campaign as a potential vice presidential nominee.
Biden, 77, says he wants a running mate who is ready to assume the presidency, who shares his priorities and with whom he is “simpatico.”
Bio: Tech entrepreneur since 2015; has served on multiple nonprofit boards and testified before state legislature and city council committee hearings; first woman of color to be a maintainer of the Python Package Index; has memorized several US Presidential campaign theme songs via Oscar Brand's Smithsonian Folkways album.
How seriously is she being considered?: Opinions differ on this point. Sources in the Harihareswara camp say she's "quite a contender" but Biden staffers suggested that "who?" and "how do you spell that?"
Signature issues: Has championed sustainability and inclusion in open source software; worked towards open data in government; played a high-profile role in ensuring consistent supplies of biscotti in her household during the pandemic; as a project manager, consistently used time zones when referring to times (e.g., "8am ET") in meeting planning emails, rather than leaving others to guess.
Relationship with Biden: They are not close, but have multiple times been in the same city at the same time.
Pros and cons: Harihareswara is among the 20 best-known leaders in the key "Dreamwidth feminists who also use emacs" demographic, and her fanvidding skills may come in handy in case the digital media team needs help at crunch time. Also, even though she cannot fluently speak Kannada or Hindi, some Americans of South Asian descent will be mildly more likely to vote for a ticket with an Indian name on it (although Biden's opponent can point to his many appointments of South Asian-Americans to counter this factor). However, she is a less prominent voice on issues that party insiders feel will be more central to this year's election, such as domestic politics, international politics, the economy, health care, policing, the environment, food security, reproductive rights, constitutional law, tax policy, the role of religion in public life, racism, the Due South Ray Wars, and agriculture.
On being considered for vice president: "Was this in an email? I'm behind on email."
[END OF JOKE]
After I wrote this review of Manikarnika and this tiny review of, among other things, Victoria & Abdul, I started showing Black Panther to my spouse and I was talking with him about it and about Thor: Ragnarok. And I started wondering aloud why Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok, which are about royalty, actually have reasonably interesting things to say about geopolitics, while Captain America: Civil War tries to and is incoherent.
( (Do I actually believe everything I say here? Not 100% sure. Iron Man 3 spoiler ahead.) )What I said about Victoria & Abdul and about Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi was: "both of which seem to think the problem with the British oppression of India is that local subjects were deprived of a wholesome, classy, righteous queen (rather than, say, that Indians were deprived of representative democracy)." And I think that message isn't just about the Raj. I mean, representative democracy is cognitively demanding and there are a million ways it's broken and everyone has to keep making decisions. Wouldn't it be nice for someone else to do it for us??
But -- no. We tried that.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
yasaman, basically I am waving my hands around not sure whether I'm full of crap, and would particularly welcome your input here!
( (Do I actually believe everything I say here? Not 100% sure. Iron Man 3 spoiler ahead.) )What I said about Victoria & Abdul and about Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi was: "both of which seem to think the problem with the British oppression of India is that local subjects were deprived of a wholesome, classy, righteous queen (rather than, say, that Indians were deprived of representative democracy)." And I think that message isn't just about the Raj. I mean, representative democracy is cognitively demanding and there are a million ways it's broken and everyone has to keep making decisions. Wouldn't it be nice for someone else to do it for us??
But -- no. We tried that.
yasaman, basically I am waving my hands around not sure whether I'm full of crap, and would particularly welcome your input here!"Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi"
Feb. 4th, 2019 07:06 am(Capsule review by my spouse at his blog.)
I saw ads for this on Indian TV around Republic Day and thought, cool, sort of Wonder Woman action vibes plus a martial-arts-dance sequence plus anticolonialism! It's a big enough blockbuster that it's showing in some NYC theaters, so I took my spouse plus a couple friends to it the other night.
The friends in question are white, and one of them likes big action movies (we see the MCU together) but is pretty ignorant of history, especially world history. So I prepped them, double-checking that they did know that the British occupied India for basically most of the 19th century, and that we weren't too keen on that. I didn't want to spoil them for the film but I wasn't sure of exactly what events would be covered in the film. So I told them: I'm pretty sure that this film assumes you know that, in 1857, there was a rebellion against British rule. From the fact that India got its independence in 1947, you may infer that this rebellion didn't work out for us. So, British rule depended on a middle management layer of locals, including Indian clerks and Indian soldiers called sepoys.... And I explained the bit about the cartridges.
And we wondered what exposition would happen -- would there be a Star Wars-style info crawl at the start explaining who/what/when/where? Nope! More like, halfway through the movie, you see some soldiers and an onscreen caption reading "Cartridges were sent...." and then, mutiny montage. So I unknowingly guessed THE EXACT RIGHT chunk of history to preload into my friends' heads so they weren't COMPLETELY at sea.
But of course I could see/hear some other messages that they couldn't. Like how Manikarnika was being positioned as a kind of figurative avatar of Kali or Durga. Or the chanting of "Har Har Mahadev" (anodyne English subtitle: "Victory is ours"; actually an invocation to Lord Shiva so specifically Hindu that Hindus yell it during anti-Muslim pogroms and chanted it during Partition violence, and it's super noteworthy when Muslims say it as part of a "communal harmony" initiative). The anti-casteism message (the scene where the villager serves Laximbai milk) is tiny, and the "hey Muslims were a huge part of the mutiny!" message feels practically nonexistent. And yeah that closing where there's an Aum symbol written in fire on the ground (also sort of end-of-Ramayana Sita imagery, as I read it). And the pointed scene where the Queen of Jhansi rescues a calf from being slaughtered (read: only awful barbarians might want to kill and eat cattle!). And all the treason and betrayal by other Indians, and all the "motherland" and "we try peace but we'll fight to defend ourselves" and "honor" and "so awesome to have a chance to be a martyr!" talk. This is a disturbing movie. It has fun bits in it, it has moving bits in it, but I came away distressed.
See, I haven't seen Lagaan* in a while, but in Lagaan, all the Indians work together. All castes, Muslims and Hindus together, women and men together, a guy with a disability turns out to be an amazing pitcher, and so on. Aamir Khan's character shows some leadership and you get a lot of training montages and it's about beating violent coercion with excellence and discipline and cleverness. Manikarnika is not like that. Manikarnika is about the joy of killing British soldiers, about the indivisible pride of the motherland and the people on/from it, and about a vision of Hindu nationalism that has no room for Ambedkar or Gandhi. And this is a huge blockbuster hit in a country that means a lot to me.
I need to read Harleen Singh's The Rani of Jhansi: Gender, History and Fable in India (Cambridge University Press, 2014) or a similar work before I say: this movie is historically inaccurate. And it weirds me out that it's hard for me to find reviews where people talk in depth about what's going on in this movie, politically. Is it all happening in Hindi, which I don't know and can't read? Am I completely misreading it? Is it not even worth explicating because it's so obvious to every Indian sourcelander watching it? (Indian news sources do point out that this seems almost part of a BJP pre-election campaign push.)
I'm worried, you know? Maybe one reason I'm not seeing people talk about this online is because they're afraid of retribution.
* I could swear that one of the British officers in Manikarnika is played by the same guy who played the main villain in Lagaan. IMDb seems to disagree. Maybe it's just similar facial hair.
I saw ads for this on Indian TV around Republic Day and thought, cool, sort of Wonder Woman action vibes plus a martial-arts-dance sequence plus anticolonialism! It's a big enough blockbuster that it's showing in some NYC theaters, so I took my spouse plus a couple friends to it the other night.
The friends in question are white, and one of them likes big action movies (we see the MCU together) but is pretty ignorant of history, especially world history. So I prepped them, double-checking that they did know that the British occupied India for basically most of the 19th century, and that we weren't too keen on that. I didn't want to spoil them for the film but I wasn't sure of exactly what events would be covered in the film. So I told them: I'm pretty sure that this film assumes you know that, in 1857, there was a rebellion against British rule. From the fact that India got its independence in 1947, you may infer that this rebellion didn't work out for us. So, British rule depended on a middle management layer of locals, including Indian clerks and Indian soldiers called sepoys.... And I explained the bit about the cartridges.
And we wondered what exposition would happen -- would there be a Star Wars-style info crawl at the start explaining who/what/when/where? Nope! More like, halfway through the movie, you see some soldiers and an onscreen caption reading "Cartridges were sent...." and then, mutiny montage. So I unknowingly guessed THE EXACT RIGHT chunk of history to preload into my friends' heads so they weren't COMPLETELY at sea.
But of course I could see/hear some other messages that they couldn't. Like how Manikarnika was being positioned as a kind of figurative avatar of Kali or Durga. Or the chanting of "Har Har Mahadev" (anodyne English subtitle: "Victory is ours"; actually an invocation to Lord Shiva so specifically Hindu that Hindus yell it during anti-Muslim pogroms and chanted it during Partition violence, and it's super noteworthy when Muslims say it as part of a "communal harmony" initiative). The anti-casteism message (the scene where the villager serves Laximbai milk) is tiny, and the "hey Muslims were a huge part of the mutiny!" message feels practically nonexistent. And yeah that closing where there's an Aum symbol written in fire on the ground (also sort of end-of-Ramayana Sita imagery, as I read it). And the pointed scene where the Queen of Jhansi rescues a calf from being slaughtered (read: only awful barbarians might want to kill and eat cattle!). And all the treason and betrayal by other Indians, and all the "motherland" and "we try peace but we'll fight to defend ourselves" and "honor" and "so awesome to have a chance to be a martyr!" talk. This is a disturbing movie. It has fun bits in it, it has moving bits in it, but I came away distressed.
See, I haven't seen Lagaan* in a while, but in Lagaan, all the Indians work together. All castes, Muslims and Hindus together, women and men together, a guy with a disability turns out to be an amazing pitcher, and so on. Aamir Khan's character shows some leadership and you get a lot of training montages and it's about beating violent coercion with excellence and discipline and cleverness. Manikarnika is not like that. Manikarnika is about the joy of killing British soldiers, about the indivisible pride of the motherland and the people on/from it, and about a vision of Hindu nationalism that has no room for Ambedkar or Gandhi. And this is a huge blockbuster hit in a country that means a lot to me.
I need to read Harleen Singh's The Rani of Jhansi: Gender, History and Fable in India (Cambridge University Press, 2014) or a similar work before I say: this movie is historically inaccurate. And it weirds me out that it's hard for me to find reviews where people talk in depth about what's going on in this movie, politically. Is it all happening in Hindi, which I don't know and can't read? Am I completely misreading it? Is it not even worth explicating because it's so obvious to every Indian sourcelander watching it? (Indian news sources do point out that this seems almost part of a BJP pre-election campaign push.)
I'm worried, you know? Maybe one reason I'm not seeing people talk about this online is because they're afraid of retribution.
* I could swear that one of the British officers in Manikarnika is played by the same guy who played the main villain in Lagaan. IMDb seems to disagree. Maybe it's just similar facial hair.
My new MetaFilter post is about a strange edge case in the San Francisco school board election next week: what does it mean to you for a candidate to actually withdraw?
She got heavy criticism for her past statements, and says she's withdrawn. But her name's still on the ballot and her supporters are still campaigning for her. What if she wins anyway?
She got heavy criticism for her past statements, and says she's withdrawn. But her name's still on the ballot and her supporters are still campaigning for her. What if she wins anyway?
