117: Starship Loopers

We're very excited to have him on today. Welcome Ezekiel. Thank you, nice to have you on. Um, we have some breaking news this week as of this morning. I think Molly, you tweeted that like a hundred different people texted you that we got Gillane, we got her. Ezekiel, have you been following? Are you an Epstein head? Are you? Uh? I had to like follow him professionally. Yeah, so I don't know if I don't know if I would call it being it's not voluntary in your case, yeah, totally involuntary.

I um, yeah, so I had to dive pretty deeply into it. He's sort of like for New York Magazine. He's sort of like a classic New York magazine story. Definitely, we like went all in and like did this big feature on his black that was a cover. If I recall because I was there, then yeah, he has to have. I mean. One of the things that's interesting about it is that these people are in so many Getty images

of New York high society parties. Page six just did a slide show yesterday that was just like famous people with Gilain and it's all just from like premiers and benefits and parties and some of them probably it was just that they met her that one time and got a photo with her. But who knows. Who knows a lot of people were in deep She was found in New Hampshire at a home owned by Yolanda Haddie. No. No, she was found in New Hampshire at a home that

she bought for a million dollars called tucked Away. One word her WiFi password. People. Yeah, like New Hampshire is also we're breaking bad ends apparently, And it's where like hides out when he's like changes his ident or he gets like like witness protection or something I forget. He's like he gets like a private it's like private witness protection where yeah, he goes out there and like no

one knows he's like in a cabin. Yeah, and nobody's supposed to know where he is lives for your which is also the title of the Sopranos episode where Vito s about a four who ran away to New Hampshire as well. He was hiding out and may never have been found other than he tired of life not working in the mafia and went to go check on his family. Listen, when you don't want to get trod upon or be exposed for being accessory to sex ring, head to New Hampshire.

But why did I think there was a Yolanda Hadid link? There is a Yolanda Hadid link, Okay? Which is that? Uh? Somebody on Twitter claimed that they saw Gilane in the Netherlands, where Yolanda is from and has a house, and they were like, I wonder why Guilane is here, And then they put it together later that she's friends with Yolanda and possibly Yorlando was hiding her allegedly. Oh hoo, okay, but this is not in New Hampshire. This is some time in between now and last October. Yeah, and then

the their lens. But that's one of the theories that she's been moving around from safe house to safe house, and it seems like everyone who's been helping her is like some other crazy woman. Um like that's who was whole hiding her out in the Universal City too, was like some powerful lady who she was friends with let hers stay at her Universal City house allegedly. The thing I don't understand about it is like, why wouldn't you stay in one place and try not to be seen.

It feels like every time you would change locations, that's like a new chance to be exposed because your Carmen san Diego. I mean, did she grab her hair, did she get did she have a collection of wigs? I mean, you don't have fun with this, I suppose if you want. I don't know if that anyone has seen her yet. Somebody printed like a Society page thing where that had one of her friends being like everyone wants to see if she's gained weight and looks old because socialites are

horrible people. U But people claim they heard her voice on the press conference call yesterday that there was like a British woman. People also think maybe she made a deal, that she's going willingly because she's been cooperating with the Feds and she's gonna name names. I mean that's the reason. Like, that's the whole reason this is news is that she's like the number one source for whatever was going on besides Jeffrey Epstein, right, Like that's why this is important.

Maybe our New York politics expert can help with this, but there it was allegedly related also to the Burman firing the other day, the SDN Y thing where they like Bill bar fired Burman. Some people think some people were wondering, like I know, like there's some conspiracy. I mean, no one really knows, but I know some people are speculating that perhaps the they decided to change strategy when the when the you guy was brought in, maybe they were trying to get her to flip on on say

the president of i IT states. But um, maybe they've given up that strategy and that's whether they're just bringing her in now. But I don't have no idea. And this this Berman the sorry, he's a New York State attorney who like that was the guy that they like announced his resignation and he was like, wait, I didn't resign like that. It was just like a couple of

weeks ago. I feel like a day or two after that, or maybe right around then, another billionaire involved with this circle of people, Steve Ban, committed suicide and people were speculating that it was related to some files being unsealed that have all these John does in them. Deep Deep, That's all that I can say, allegedly. Deep. Speaking of Deep, Um, I brought a new thing to the group that is a weird app that the kids are all into. I'm

obsessed with this now called and Anautica. Tess. Why don't you explain it? Okay? So, random Autica is an app that launched, I think at the beginning of this year, but became very popular during quarantine. UM. It's particularly popular with people on TikTok. So what what randon Autica does is it assigns you, um random coordinates that are close to your geographic location. And what the user does is

they set an intention. So, for instance, UM, some of the intentions people have set have been to find a lost cat, to see something purple, or just the word love, which sometimes goes fine, and then they film themselves going to these locations. But there have been all of these strange occurrences within the app that have then been broadcast on TikTok Uh, which have ranged trim like, oh, funny coincidence.

I was trying to find a lost cat and then I found a random baby cat, and the baby cat led me to a line of Joshua tree in the desert. How weird a cat? I found a cat. But then there were people and I don't know what intention they set, but um they were led to a suitcase full of human remains. Yes, I watched that video. Yeah, Um, other people have been led to graveyards, abandoned villages in the forest.

It's bizarre and so and nobody really knows if there's Like I mean, people probably do know that there's actually no magic in the app, but that it's just people are so bored that you're if if you have a ton of people using an app and they're making connections because their brains need that exercise, that a lot of the connections will be strange. That does not explain finding a suitcaseful of human remains. Though. Yeah, yeah, this is all very pokemono like, but for like appropriately it's like

a Uigi board combined with pokemones. Yeah, it's like Pokemon

go with no Pokemon. Yeah, well it's a little Yeah, it feels like this weird reaction to like everybody has to be inside and so like people kind of find the most because like the other thing about having like about lockdown or whatever, unless you're going to go out to a restaurant or a bar or something and take your life into your hands, is that if you're not doing that but you want to be out of the house, there's actually not that much stuff to do, so like

it's like kind of a make It's like a make play and uh yeah, the whole it just gives you like a task. It taskifies going outside, which is kind of like bound like like there's stuff outside. It turns out like suitcases with dead bodies in them. I don't know. Also, everything feels so both chaotic and empty that I think the idea of going to a place that like has been instilled with meaning and you have to look at it with the with your intention in mind and kind

of try to make that connection. Uh, it's like part of it, I think. Yeah, it's it's become a verb to Rando nodding, which I like, so would any of you do this? Would any of you download the app and actually do this. I raised my hand for sure. I used to do I used to dabble in geo cashing back in the day. I guess it's like it's geo cashing, except it's done like seemingly at random, Like these points are are determined by the app. That's the That's the spooky thing is that are these location Who's

determining these locations? And I feel like this is a setup for a serial killer? Yeah, definitely. Why would you do this? Because I'm so bored, Joel, I'm so bored. I was gonna say, like, because you're fourteen and stuck at home. I was not. I did not think my co host would be like, yes, yes, I also will. I was really excited by the story of like the person finding the baby cat, and that was all it took for me to be like I would. All of a sudden, I was like, puppy. I mean, it's the

possibilities are not endless. There, it's a short list of animals, but I want to do it. That outweighs the potential of finding a suitcase of human remains, it does. I mean. I went on a new hike the other day the other day, like last week and that, and not like because I had just been inside so much. Normally that would just be like whatever, it's a fun it's a new hike. But just that was like, oh God, am

I gonna die? Like I I like I I follow these instructions that were on some random website for like how to do this certain hike around that I've never done in Griffith Park, and I was like, oh, what if this leads me to my death? Like who knows? Have you ever done a hike wrong? Oh? All the time. Usually the first time I do a hike wrong, if I'm trying it out, yeah, or you're like trying to find a like a pin and you're just like this

doesn't seem like the right way. Yeah, And there's always there's this weird I remember when I first started hiking a lot in l A And it was around the like kind of that very very long drought that lasted for years, and so I would be looking at photos of what like where I was, so I was supposed to look like, and it was like unrecognizable because because it was green and all the pictures um. So yeah, like you can feel like you're getting pranked by nature sometimes.

Do any of you guys have TikTok? This is only just related to the to the appurten that's not something you're required to do for in your line of work. Is like that Epstein's. I mean I feel like I like Twitter curates the TikTok's that I would be interested in and puts them on Twitter. So it's like I don't have time to go on it myself. Yeah, I don't need another time sync. Yeah. To me, it feels like what people describe it. It's like, oh, it's just teenagers.

It's like, no, that's a why no adults should be on TikTok. When did I went on TikTok just to just to be random nodding? Would that be wrong? Joel? I could see Joe l being like, don't do it. I remember when TikTok. When I first heard of TikTok, it was connected with like people in other countries, like cooking, doing doing tasks. And it wasn't until like I don't know, maybe five or six months ago that I understood it

to be like an app for teens. I want to say, it's like YouTube, where maybe it started out, it's more just like recording random things for that period of time, and then it turned into people being like, how can

I use this to make my brand? Yeah? Sure, there's like a fall The YouTube fallout right now is really interesting because it's all of the like first wave stars of that platform who are all really bad people, it seems like, and they're all leaving or being forced off because they all have a black face video and some of them like got ahead of it, and others like Shane Dawson it just seems like the worst person alive. But again, you're just like, this is who got famous

on YouTube? The algorythm supported Yeah, Like, I don't know, and I never got that into you. I mean, obviously everybody uses YouTube. It's like a utility like anything else. But I never understood the idea of YouTube as a platform as a as an addictive thing to keep coming back to and be a part of. Like I'm always just like maybe the thing I'm looking for is on YouTube, So that is it's all very impenetrable to me as an ancient person. I suppose I became very intrigued by

I was like, who would do this? Why would they do this? And then I um had to watch those unboxing videos to satisfy my children's curiosity. And then I looked at how much those people made and I was like, YouTube, what a place. Maybe I loolong on YouTube. Um, I want to talk a Ezekiel's flags. May Wee. Molly made the comparison that you and the flags are like her and glass bricks at least a few weeks or a few years ago, particularly the peak of the glass bricks.

Sometimes you just find a thing that's like your thing. But I feel like, what, well, let's have you talk about it. I was going to say, I think the flags feel more meaningful to me than the bricks are kind of repetitive. With the flags, I feel like the more of them there are, they do really interesting things. You think, how did you How did you plant your first flag? Uh? Yeah, it was kind of a happenstance obsession.

I Um. I posted a flag in association with I think the the US men's soccer team was playing, so I was just like, oh, it's America. I'm gonna post this flag. Go team USA. UM. And then I came back to it up them like a month later because it was July fourth, So I was looking at some some flags, and then it became developed into an obsession. I think probably I was probably part of what was going on, was like mildly depressed, which made me susceptible

to obsessive behaviors. But yeah, so I started looking up these you know, American flags in in an art um and it started. I think it probably accreedd more significance than just like a random obsession as I as I kept looking at the flags, um because it's like a it's a super powerful symbol in the sense that like it has very strong connotations, but then an artists can

like attach all kinds of different meanings to it. Um. So seeing seeing the ways that people were able to mobilize the flag, utilize the flag, and take advantage of these strong associations and sort of bend them to their to their purpose was interesting. Yeah. I feel like the Jasper John's flag is like always taught and like a modern art class is just kind of an example. Yeah.

Like the Yeah, the three flags especially, I think that's probably the most famous art piece with a flag in it, one of the probably one of the more famous images of the flag period. Along with um, it would Giema flag raising and crossing of the Washington crossing the Delaware that painting. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any favorite flag related artwork other than the Jasper John's. I have a

flag in my in my living room. This is actually a product of my obsession with the flag, because I started a tumbler two so that I would stop borrowing bothering my followers on Twitter. He liked follow me on Twitter because of the flags. Um, so I started tu It's called it's E flags E F L A G S dot tumbler um, so you can see. So the

way I got this was, I there's an artist. This is by an artist named Sarah rebar Um and she has like a whole series of mixed media flags that she's that she's done, and I would post them on tumbler, like you know, with her name. And I posted so many of them that she like contacted me on tumbler to say thanks for posting my flag. I mean, she's a she's a well established artist, but like she's not

like a name brand person um. And so I asked her if you had any because I had tried to look for prince of her art um I couldn't find any. So she sent me that, uh, that poster that makes me miss Tumbler. Also, yeah, is there a place people can since since we're on zoom and we could see what you just showed us, but can you is that image online and people could find it or we can link to it or something. Yeah, I'll send you a

link to it. Yeah, it's cool. It looks like a kind of collage work though of it a bunch of like mixed media flags. She basically takes an American flag and like layers other fabrics and objects on top of them. I have a question for you, as a connoisseur of all this flag are like, what are your feelings about the just the design of the American flag aesthetically and then whatever other category you know, criticism that you have around it. I'd like to know your thoughts on it.

I think one of the super things, super difficult things about it, it's like so familiar as an object to me that it's hard to like say what I think about it aside from like all these associations that I have with it. Yeah, it's it's weird. It's it's like a super weird flag. Like if you try to if you try to like remove all the associations you have from it. Um, there's too many. There's probably too many stripes, there's too many stars. It's kind of like it's kind

of clutter. It's busy. It's too busy. But I think the uniqueness, especially like the field of stars, the pattern that it's in is super unique. So that makes it like I can't think of any other flag where you can see just like a little piece of it and you know that it's the American flag, or you can just see the stars in that distinctive pattern and you know it's the American flag. Um. Which is which is cool for artists because like you know, they can deploy

it so flexibly. You can change the colors and it's still the American flag. UM. You can you can drop the stars and people still recognize it. You can drop the stripes and people still recognize it. UM. So like as a as a symbol, it's super successful. I don't know, like as a piece of design, we're maybe not that successful. I know a lot of people think it's super ugly.

I think that represents America well though, Yeah, yeah, it's ugly and it's kind of tacky and there's a lot going on, but you can always tell what it is. It always is itself. Zekiel, do you feel like your relationship with the flag has changed, like as you've done the project? I mean, since I've thought about it so much, it probably like I've probably attached more meaning to it than and the average person would. So I think it's

a very powerful symbol. I don't get like super patriotic feelings or anything like that when I look at it, just because like the number of things that it's been that it can attach itself to sort of removes that feeling. So like you can have you see the flag, like so I have picture of the flag of you know, in Iraq with American soldiers, UM, pictures of the flag

on the moon. People to point the flag, like in protests, people to point the flag, like during the sixties, like Martin Luther King to point the flag, or civil rights marches to point the flag, aids activists to point the flags. It's like in some senses like it is a symbol of America, UM, but it's also like a symbol of America as it exists, but also like a symbol of what people want it to be. UM. People think it

is at its best or what it should be or whatever. Um. Yeah, So I always feel like the flag on in space or like on the moon is one of the wildest contexts for it because I think it makes a lot of sense to be used in protests and stuff like that. But there's something about it being in space. I mean, grant, if you are a person who believes that we landed on the Moon, then like the the idea that like

our stupid flag is there. I mean, like, you know, I'll all criticisms, some good points and everything, like why is that object on this thing that orbits our planet? Like it just feels so small in that context. I always like kind of flabbergasted by that image being used as like an image of victory or like conquest or something. But I don't know, I'll miss no opportunity to say that America got to the Moon because of the Nazi

scientists that they brought over Operation paper Clip. Have you have any of you watched the Apple TV program for All Mankind? No? I haven't. How is this It's it's pretty good, I thought, I mean it's it's kind of like I'm a kind of a space nerd type. So it was a big battle star ahead, so I was like, oh maybe we should watch that. Yeah, So like it's an alternate it's an alternate history of the space race. Um, and like they imagine us like not stopping moon trip.

I don't remember how the divergence happens from our timeline, but anyway, Um, one of the things that they go into is like how this was dependent on Nazi scientists. And there's like this big one of the one of the characters in the show, So like it ends up being like you get women astronauts to wait earlier, so you get women astrocts in like the sixties. Um. And one of the science one of the female scientists, her mentor,

is a Nazi scientist. And there's like this big reckoning that ends up happening where um, he's called before Congress and like because in the show it's like a power play, they're trying to get rid of him, and so they like suddenly remember, oh yeah, this guy's a Nazi, Like call him to account for all of his all of his crimes, and I get rid of him. But like through it they like there's like a reckoning of like how the space race depended on these horrible Nazis that

we redeemed for their scientific accomplishments. Yeah, wow, Ezekiel, you should definitely check out stars Troopers. Yeah, it's like a weird a weird gap in my in my viewing because I like science fiction, so it's I don't know why I haven't seen it. It's a good time to watch Starship Troopers, as we all discovered, if you're interested in what yeah, what if the space race had continued. It's

a very thing about that. Um. I had an argument with my mom the other day about the flag because she gave me a little flag that came like a realtor left a calendar that had an American flag, and she was like, you can have it, and then she immediately was like, don't burn it. Was like, Mom, I'm not gonna do it on camera, but she was like, you know, we have to like rescue it from all the horrible meanings, especially it's like taken on right now,

you know, we have to like take it back. And I was like, I don't know if it can be taken back anymore. You know, like when I see an American flag just on somebody's house now, like I get a little freaked out, you know, even if it is the fourth of July. It just like it reads differently. Do you think that the American flag can be reclaimed or do you think the point is to like, you know, set it on fire. I feel like I think it

can be reclaimed. I mean a lot of the flag has flown over a lot of horrible things, UM, sometimes even concurrently with people claiming it. You know, you can even like the civil rights context is the one I always returned to you. You know, you can find another. Another famous picture of the flag is during an anti bussing protest in Boston, UM. A guy getting just like sort of speared with with the flag on a pole. Seen this picture before, UM, And so that's been like

used in an anti civil rights context. At the same time time, people were flying the flag for two in you know, sort of deploying it to say like America should be a country that treats its isn't equally. So I feel like the flag could be reclaimed if people, I mean, you can lay claim to it if you want. Kendrick Lamar, Kendrick Lamar has did his I don't I don't remember which music awards it was, but he had like a giant art piece with the flag flying behind

his his performance. So I feel like, I guess my answer is like I don't think it needs to be particularly reclaimed. I have the same feeling like when I see if I see someone flying the flag on like their pickup truck, I sort of feel like, this is not a this is probably not a good person. Yeah. Maybe, well, and that goes back to like post nine eleven. I feel like that's the first time for our generation that the flag really got weaponized and in a kind of

conservative context. But yeah, I remember people put up a lot of flags on their dorm walls, on the front of their doors, on their dorms, and I went around and just like turned them all upside down. Why were they? They're doing that a brown for what? Just pere anywhere we're getting that that jingo ism, you know. I mean that's what I think is like scary about any kind of patriotic signifiers, Like it can be used for for evil, but it also like, yeah, I can be used for good.

Like I also, I feel like the flag, it depends on the context, like you were saying, depends who's flying it. It's like the country that you're in. It's like a micro cause it's like, is it like does that count as like a synic doche or like like whatever that word is like for the country, But it's not, isn't it SYNECTICU is like the name of the movie. Never mind, I don't know what. I don't know how to pronounce it.

I've never actually attempted to pronounce it out loud. But like the thing that's sort of this is like the micro cause him of a larger thing that can be kind of um used to speak about it. And I don't know whenever. I'm not an expert at this sort of thing, but like it does feel like in that way, the flag is sort of perfect as a symbol because

it is this. It is completely it's importance and and it's it's virtue or or lack thereof, is like completely dependent on the context and who's holding it and what's going on with it. It's kind of a neutral entity, just like the country. Yeah, that's my that's my thing.

Like I remember someone getting really upset at me posting pictures of the flag and they're like, you know this the flag has people have flown the flag for all kind of all kinds of horrible reasons, and so I don't think you should be posting flag guard or I don't. I don't remember what exactly said, but that was like the paraphrase of his his his meaning my is like it's not like it is not like say a swastika, where the meanings super determined and it can only really

mean one thing. I feel like the flags has been used in enough context that it it can have good or bad reasons depending on who's flying it in what context. Didn't why, Yeah, it's like a mirror. It's like I'm sure somebody has made a mirror flag at some point, somebody. Yeah, is he killed? Do you have any like second and third favorite flags? Oh? Yeah, Um, I don't know, I have too many. I have trouble. I have trouble picking

favorite anything, trouble picking favorite movies. Yeah. Oh, that's like the worst question to ask me ever, Like I can never pick a favorite anything, favorite movie particularly But yeah, yeah, um, I saw this Jasper John's flag recently that I really liked. It's um, I don't remember I think it it came by saw it because some gallery was selling it. Let me see if I can quickly find it on my computer. But I just loved, like, the way it was it

was layered. I'll send you I really like. I really like the David Hammonds did the African American Flag, which is a color swapped American flag. Um. Yeah, that one's pretty iconic. I feel like that that's that has uh span, Yeah, yeah, that one has set a long lifespan. Yeah. I was like, I was looking for this. I saw this thing going to oh my Twitter recently and now I'm like, realis

and I should have looked into it before this. There's some sort of thing called like the My American Flag project where people are like redesigning the American flag, which feels like somebody weird, somebody somebody sent that to me. I mean, like now, it's it's super funny because now, like you, I think somebody mentioned I don't know if somebody mentioned it, but like people, when people see the American flag like a flag in like an art piece or just like they see it out in the wilds,

they'll send it to me. It's like my brand now for better for worse. Like somebody somebody sent me that that my American Flag project. Yeah, I think the I think the ones that I saw, one of them was actually the just the African American flag. I don't know if the person needs a history of it or like it was an accident or what the deal was with that. Yeah, have you ever made a flag cake? I have no skill? What are you talking about like the stuff? Yeah? Have

you no? But I'm thinking about it now. I want to make a make flag the American flag out of food. Um, well,

if you? Yeah, if have you? Is there any other symbol that you think like has this sort of quality because I think like you think you hit on something so right about like like like what you're say at the beginning, where it's just like you don't it's like a thing that you don't have a feeling about almost anymore because it's so ubiquitous, because it's so a part of like if you've grown up here, it's a part

of your childhood. Like I don't know if they still make kids like do the Pledge of allegiance in school. That was something we had to do when I was in like at least through elementary middle school. Like like like there are a few things that kind of rival. I'm trying to think of other things that have that,

like you know, just feel that bone deep at this point. Um, I guess this kind of depends on cultures, but yeah, yeah, I can't think of anything in the American context where that has that sort of neutral it's that has that sort of power as a symbol while also having like sort of neutral connotations. I mean, it is super I mean, and and the American people's I feel like our relationship to our flag is kind of unique to like, I

don't I don't feel like other other countries. From from what I've read, it doesn't feel like other countries have the same relationship with their own flag. Like we like the Pledge of allegiances about the flag. The national anthem is also about seeing the flag. It's kind of odd. It's like, yeah, it's like this thing that just stands in for it. It's like we're not gonna really actually say anything. We're just gonna say, like we like the flag.

It's it's such a weird tradition, kind of rhetorical tradition. I just feel like your Twitter threads are really incredible and like one of the few things on Twitter that I'm like, this is art. You know, this is someone who's using social media for good in a really cool,

interesting way. Um Decider, Now, Yes, but it just reminds me of film film school stuff to where they show you, like, you know, images next to each other and how they relate to each other, and just seeing seeing them as a long stream like that, UM, in conversation with each other. I think. I think it's so cool. Yeah, and it's cool you've been doing it for six years. Yeah yeah. I sort of don't post them on ton Twitter anymore, but I still look at them all the time, find

new pictures of them and stuff. People sending glass bricks under the table all the time. People will send them to me and be like, are we are you still doing this? Are you still looking at the bricks? This account still active? Well, Ezekiel, thank you so much for joining us today. UM we mentioned your Twitter. It's the Shrillist. You have also been djaying on Twitch. I know. Yeah. If you wouldn't mind sharing a link to that that we can share with our listeners, I think we'd all

enjoy it. Where do you find those backgrounds for your dj stets? Um? I think the last few backgrounds have been, um, I did Sam Sorrow once, I did Brock. There's all so. I I'm kind of a film nerd, so I just found some movies that didn't have narratives and had interesting if you have if you have suggestions, I'm I'm all out. If you have suggestions, I'm wide open. When your next DJ set, your next twitch set um do you have, I'd probably be next Thursday. I don't really have a

schedule because I have children, so I'm not sure. It also always depends on how soon they go to bed, but it's like usually Thursday or Friday nights is when I try to do it. Cool. I like a DJ who doesn't know when he's going to play, because it's like when when the wind call, when the world needs music. Yeah, yeah, you're DJ set relaxed me a lot last week. So cool. I'm glad. Thanks for doing that. Thanks, thank you. We are going to take a quick break and when we

come back, we will be discussing Starship Troopers. Welcome back tonight call. For the second half of the show, We're going to talk about little Paul verhoeven movie called Starship Troopers, based on a Robert Heinlein novel. Famously right wing, militaristic sci fi novel, The Verhoeven Starship Troopers is a parody of fascism, and militarism. But at the time a lot of people didn't pick up on that. Still people don't pick up on that, which is remarkable. I don't know how.

I don't know. I mean, I think I was thinking about it because we've been talking a lot about like things that people call satire and whether it counts as satire if nobody understands that it's satire, you know, does that just make it the thing it's parodying? Um? I feel like that's come up a lot in the black Face discussion about sitcom's getting pulled. Um, this is particular. Are you talking about that one? Yeah, because a lot of people ask me about that, and I think, you know,

I obviously thought about it a lot. But also it's like a lot of people were upset because they were like, well, they're just pulling these sitcom episodes, but like they should do that after we've defunded and abolished the police, like not. It's like they're doing all the like, let's celebrate things before the thing has been done that you would be celebrating by doing, and you know the instances of the

Golden girls in mud masks and the like. Highly self aware Roger Sterling and black face from mad Men seem different than the black face instances that are clearly just horrible people do. It also seems like you you know, I think Creina Longworth said about Song of the South that it's like, when you make these things unavailable, you

risk turning them into fetish objects. Um. A lot of people who like Community were really mad because it was like a beloved an episode, beloved by fans, and it's like a half second joke in the middle of a whole episode. Yeah, They're like, just re cut it, you know, without that joke so we can still enjoy this episode. But I think also it's just like just just give

money need to black creators and showrunners to make new stuff. Um. Yeah, And I think like I think like in the case of something like Starship Troopers and and and the Roger Sterling episode, I think that like art's going to have to comment on this stuff sometimes. I mean, I want to say, also, like I think mad Men did a

really bad job with race overall. Like that was one of my definitely criticisms of the show, and I definitely thought it was going to tackle it at some point in some kind of real way, and it just never really did, except through things like that Roger Sterling scene the character of Don had like a lot on her shoulders and didn't come in into like what four seasons in five seasons in I can't remember, And I think they really just like avoided They thought it was like

too much of a third rail for the show. It's like it'll make every other character on the show seemed like an asshole, which they are. Um Even in that scene, I remember thinking like, is it realistic that like some people express disgusted at this or would they all just like fake it while their boss did his black face routine, Like we're definitely supposed to be grossed out by like some of them doing it, But then some people are like, oh,

like I'm having a good reaction to this. That will never be shown, you know, we'll never delve into these

issues ever again in the show. I mean, aside from the historicity of uh, people being discussed or not disgusted by a minstrel performance on an episode of Mad Men that takes place in the sixties, Like, I do think that that that as a as a work of art itself, as mad Men is, Like, I think that episode does a really good job of making you feel like discussed around this and it's so awkward and it's not funny, like this is like one of this is what kind of makes it stand out for me is that it's

not funny. It is like appropriately like you kind of want to turn it off because it's so cringing seen. But I think that that's like aside from like, oh but our hero Don Draper's woke, it doesn't like this, Like, I think that it does a good job of getting that across. At the same time, even though I think it does in the episode, people still like just made gifts of that, you know, and then it just becomes like an image taken out of context, and like that

can that can also happen with almost anything. I mean you can't. I feel like that can't be something that keeps you from making trying to address things like that. Like I was glad that instead of just avoiding it, like you said, the third Rail, that they kind of

like had that in there. It is so uncomfortable. Um, but also I mean, going back to Starship Troopers a bit like it's it's very similar in the sense that like you can take a piece of Starship Troopers and use it to make the opposite argument that the movie is making and like and it is kind of crazy. I was looking at old reviews, um how many people

critics misunderstood this, Janet Maslin. I mean everybody was like, you know, this movie is intended for really immature eleven year old boys who just want to see like crazy violence and ship getting blown up, and like, you know, it's so militaristic, like how horrible. And it's like, yes, exactly, it's so militaristic, how horrible. Um, I I loved this movie. Uh, not to steer it too far away from the madment thing, but it's it. I think it's similar, you know, it

is so I said, it's fascist face exactly. Like some people were saying it's too successful. They were like, it's too good at portraying this like shiny, beautiful fascist world that like the critique is undermined by like how cool it looks. No, everything looks horrible in it. The ships are all ugly as fuck, like as as a sci fi connoisseur, like they have ugly ships and starship troopers,

and I feel like that's intentional. So they have the it's all Nazi design, like it's not even you know, it's it's just directly taken from Nazi designs, like the you know, the trench coat that Doogie Howser was wearing at that and obviously it's like a Nazi trench coat.

And yeah, aside like the stuff that is even direct nods to Nazi Germany, which there are plenty, and this movie like even just the tackiness of it, Like I don't think that it's that it's beautiful and maybe there's this like a whole politics of taste thing, but it's like that kind of thing where you if you step over into like a right wing website or you go down a rabbit hole or something like that and you're like, oh, the graphic design sucks here, like on top of the politics.

It's like it is that kind of feeling, like that the whole interface for the Federal network, the do you want to know more thing is like the worst kind of you know, Fox News esque infographic type ship. Like it's I don't know, I think like it hits the nail and it actually feels prescient now because that was like what this is like, yeah, so this is where

it all happened. Yeah, so it's very it feels like like Fox News and those sorts of um outlets sort of took the Starship Troopers um aesthetic and ran with it.

Un ironically. Yeah, well it's it's parodying propaganda outlets, and there's so much of that now in the way that it's adapted itself to the Internet, and that like really ancient racist and anti Semitic memes of like resurfaced in that way is so crazy to me, but also sort of not you know, not beyond comprehension, because yeah, if you put things, if you put these really ugly messages in this very like slick packaging, this movie also makes

you feel really gross and uncomfortable about all of that stuff. And the whole opening is just a recreation of apart from Triumph of the Will, Yeah, there's something so unsettling about that uniform many Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think the thing that I always think of and kind of forget in between reviewings of Starship Troopers is um how much it feels like Harry Potter, Like it's a part of this like genre that's also very big in like anime and manga and stuff of like the school narrative,

because they start off at school. It's like three friends, like where will their futures lead them? Like the like the future is so big and they're like there's they have so much promise and like they're going to excel in and this class or this class like games and wait what does it call it? Games and theory like like um, yeah, and everybody has like their their expertise and it's this very like it's this narrative that kind of takes the system that these characters are in for

granted and it's like, see, it's fun. It's like a game to work your way up through the academy or through the military or like to become a citizen or whatever the case may be. Um, And I think, like that's such a brilliant I mean, I think that's just in the novel, but I think to kind of use that sort of seemingly benign thing of like a story about friends in school to become this fascist narrative is

like very very it cuts deep. Yeah. And it's also this world where it's sort of like presented as being like post gender and post racial, like it's very diverse and there's no racism and men and women shower together and it's not sexual, but also like women are drone pilots, Like yeah, yeah, that's like a RoboCop thing too. Denise Richards is totally like an anime fascist girl. That's all

I could think about. She's like perfect looking. She she is so unnaturally beautiful that it makes you uncomfortable like her her like violet eyes. Right, they both look like total like dy arian Superman and woman. But then I was reading more about the book and I found out that in the book, his character's Filipino and it was whitewashed in the movie. And her character, I think is Brazilian and her name is Carmen. Yeah, they're all they

all have like Spanish names, I think. Well, I noticed in the IMDb trivia because I was very confused by that. This is my first time seeing Starship Troopers, which I swear I thought I saw in college, but I was either two stoned or didn't actually see Starship Troopers. Um. But in the trivia, Casper vand And said um that he was often asked why blonde haired, blue eyed actor would play the Argentinian Juan Rico. He suggested his character

was the descendant of exiled Germans. Argentina was famously a hiding place of German war criminals after World War Two, and they do, I mean they have that kind of like German Nazi youth. Look. It seems it seems on purpose in the in the film, Yeah, he is Dutch um which is and and Verhoven lived in Nazi occupied Netherlands as a child, so he there was a quote from Behoven where he called it all quiet on the

Final Frontier. Nice. So it is also like a critique of Star Wars type stuff, any kind of like we're going to the Academy. One thing that hit really different on this viewing was the fact that the spaceport is the l A Convention Center, because we very recently saw the l A Convention Center occupied by the National Guard. Oh and I was like, yeah, we saw it occupied by a National Guard. That was like their headquarters. It was also in face off, like yeah, we've been at

the l A Convention Center a lot lately. Uh. The thing that I love about Starship Troopers, and I was also thinking about this, this is like kind of on my mind after watching Watchmen recently, is that I love a work of adaptation, and in this case, a work of adaptation shin that is like actively pushing against its source material and like being really actively critical about it and and using that criticism as like to create something

new essentially. And um, and I think like in the case of Watchman, you have something that's sort of like and this on top of the themes that are presented by the original Watchman. Like, I think, um, that stuff is super inspiring to me because I think we see so much adaptation, Like the idea of I P is so ruling everything in Hollywood right now, and it's just like, what if you could do something on the level of a Starship Troopers where you're like, Okay, this book fucking sucks,

but what if I could do something with it? Like there's a great the quote for for Hoove and about it. His screenwriter Ed Neumeyer new Meyer, who also wrote RoboCop, brought him the book and and wanted to adapt that he was just like a fan of it from childhood or whatever. And uh so he gave it to Paul Verhoeven. This is an interview and Empire. Um, and he said I stopped after two chapters because it was so boring, says Verhoven of his attempts to read Heinlin's Opus. It

is really quite a bad book. I asked ed Newmeyer to tell me the story because I couldn't read the thing. It's a very right wing book. And with the movie, we tried and I think at least partially succeeded in commenting on that. At the same time, it would be an eyr key can have it all the way through. We were fighting with the fascism, the ultramilitarism all the way through. I wanted the audience to be asking are

these people crazy? So I don't know, and I think, like for me it works, but obviously for some people that like didn't didn't get through. But yeah, and you know he's he mentions the bugs as sort of just like this stand in for any kind of like military foe. Um. Robert Highland wrote the book during the Cold War because he was mad we weren't having hot wars anymore. He was like, we should be like developing nuclear weapons and stuff. Um, And he blamed it this is such a sci fi

nerd guy thing to do. He blamed it on like young people having too much freedom. It was like, uh, was the downfall of society that society would remake itself as this like perfect fascist world after like juvenile delinquents

destroyed America, you know. Yeah. Is there's a scene in the classroom at the beginning where, um is it Dizzy is like, oh, I thought like violence doesn't solve everything, and her teacher like puts her in her place, and like there's so much that flies by in that scene that's fascinating, Like where like the teacher essays of like something that's given to you has no value. Only something that's taken by force has any value. Um, and like

the moral difference between the citizen and the civilian. Uh yeah, like total recall. There's a lot of stuff in this about having to earn your rights, having to earn your citizenship. Well that's like when they're in the shower, I'll take other everyone's asking like why did you enlist? And I mean among the answers. Or someone wanted to go to Harvard and they were like, but I can't go unless, like I'm a citizen, and you know, then they'll help

pay for it. Someone else was like I want to have babies and so I need to be a citizens. So any kind of yeah, everything is is dictated by your service in the military. Yeah, and it sort of demonstrates like the way that you know, US military recruiting does that It's like these people aren't evil, They're just like poor simps who got you know, promised things. This is like a better plan for them than anything else.

You feel bad for them. Well. Also, the promotional videos that they kind of make of these kids who are so like almost seem that they're jacked upon emphetamine with the excitement of fighting the arachnids. Um. I mean, it's it's very similar to the kind of propaganda that the that is used by the military to entice people who are, you know, in high school basically you need a way out. This made me read a lot about the Reich Labor Service,

which was problem in Nazi Germany. It was basically like they leveraged unemployment to get all these young people to join the Nazi labor Service, and it was basically what is in this movie where you earn your rights, you earn things by executing your service. That's how you earn citizenship.

And it was kind of presented in this very like gender equitable way as like one of the great things about like Nazi Germany will be that like women will have you know, promise the future of women in the workplace, uh in a fascist regime, and like you can go whenever you want, right like you'll have you'll there will be a place for you if you help, like you know, trod everybody else under your boot who's lesser than you.

There was also the whole thing about like I thought the interesting, like the sports aspect of it at the beginning. It was also kind of funny. It like links like sports and like sex and the military altogether is like part of a never ending ring of youthful energy. And it's like it's like the presentation of an enemy, like anything that you can narrativize is like this guy's gonna take your girl, or like this is the rival football team, or you know, or those bugs want to kill you.

Like it's that these these people only respond when there is an enemy that they can like they have like Casper Veending's character basically a zero direction in his life unless something is trying to take something that's his, whether it's his like his his hometown getting attacked by the bugs, or somebody tried to steal his girl, Like that's the

only thing that mobilizes him. It's all percent reactionary. That's what's also scary about now, is you know, looking at the stuff about the rich labor force, it's like, oh, everybody was unemployed and they were directionless and all they wanted was like to have a job again and to have someone to tell them what to do. And you know a lot of people were just following order. Is like not everybody was a Nazi general, but a lot of people were just like complicit by being part of

it because they didn't have any better options. There's uh, I think the l a p d um Twitter account recently has been posting like stories of officers or something to I don't know, to like in gender sympathy for the l a p D or something, or to humanize copaganda. Yeah, yeah, straight from the cops in this case, Like yeah, it's always it always comes from the cops, but it's on

like every local news show and stuff like that. But it's stuff like you know, like I grew up poor and like I was the first person from my family to go to college and like I and like in this last one, I think this is just today like the tweets that's something like you know I had every excuse, like did not say what the excuse was for. Like I had every excuse, I guess what to be like a not not a cop um, but I didn't take it, like and I decided that I wanted to like serve

my city by being in the military. It's so Starship Troopers all this ship like it's so like like I'm doing my part. Like it's just very um transparent for sure. And the fact that you have like a white power army in this movie but it's diverse is like very unsettling. Um, Like you can have Jake Bucy and black women fighting side by side in the military. Man you see another through line? Yeah, we so what other movie was the

Freaky guy in Contact? He is the freaky guy? So he apparently everybody was suffering from heat stroke um while filming Starship Troopers. I guess when they were in the bad Lands in Wyoming. Um maybe that was there, but everybody it was like a hundred and twenty five degrees. And I thought I read that Jake Bucy suffered a horrible like a stroke stroke or something and they had to take like a week off. But he is he

is giving an amazing performance. Again, I'm like it it besides being a really like timely critique of militarization and um, you know a lot of stuff that we're seeing going on now. It also like the the excitement and the fervor and the like optimism of these kids in this movie is so intense in that it's being used for such evil, but it's like this bright, big white tooth

smile and these big guys, it's so scary. They're being told that they're going to be heroes and legends, like they see everybody at the beginning of the movie who's missing limbs, you know. And that actor, by the way, is actually um a double ampute, which I did not know.

He was great. Yeah, he encounters all these people that are like, oh, you're going to fight the bugs like good walk but like infantry made me the man I with like points system anything where it's like they're telling you know, you're you're just like a you're a meat shield basically, but they are selling you this idea that you're something other than that. You guys are really making me want to revisit this movie because I haven't seen it since I was like ten. I think that's yeah,

it's on Netflix now. I mean, like I can't imagine being a child and watching this. It's so it's hyper violent, cool and like there's such a What I remember most about it is the coldness with which like punishment was applied and the way in which they addressed like all of their desks, and that like really freaked me out. I was like, especially the whipping scene because I was fresh offs and I was like, what is happening with all these because my parents are showing me so violent

and horrifying. Um. But I was interested to hear what you guys think about especially I don't know if you have any thoughts on it, but like the costuming specifically and the way it's sort of like if you if I think about fashion at this time, like late nineties early because it's like what seven yeah, um, and this idea of like military clothing suddenly becoming hip, especially the like yes yes and the big pants and stuff. Did

that leave any impression on you guys? Yeah? I mean I think I think style is the way that people often launder fascism, you know, is like oh but it's such a good logo, um, which I feel like we were kind of talking about with the flag before, like you know, That's what's scary about symbols, as they can be used to kind of cover up crimes. That's what we talk about in the Olympics a lot my anti Olympics group, because a lot of people are very attached

to the graphic design of the Olympics UM. But again, it's like that's used to kind of cover up a lot of abuse and financial fucked up behavior. I think also like going back to the sort of um the sort of egalitarianism between like genders and this like it is kind of an andragugous thing. Like Denise Richard does not aside from like the party scene or whatever. She's not like dressed sexy or anything. She's just like a pilot.

And there's this sort of like and I feel like that's something that always is getting that's always a point of conversation in like genre stuff and in video games it's like why can't the woman who's holding the two machine guns, you know, like not be sexual? See, I find it just I find it just as scary when she's like cutie Panzer Division, Like that was so scary

to me. She's just like yeah, when she's wearing the Nazi uniform and just like smiling like shooting, and you know, and then at the end when Doogie Houser feels the bug when they see you, like the last living bug and it's afraid and they all cheer. Well, that's like the most on the nose. The um Patrick Harris's costume is like the most post on the nose s S

Officer type ship. To Joel's point, I think a lot of that stuff came back under the guys of like we're so far removed from actual Nazis, we can do this as fashion now, like Hugo Boss can be a legitimate brand that advertising, right, Like Hugo Boss did come back really big in the nineties for sure, but also like all these seventies rock guys bought Nazi memorabilia, you know, to be like Edge Lords of the seventies, Prince Harry, Right, lots of people think it's like we're so far away

from it, but we're never that far away from it, clearly. Yeah. I mean it's also like, like I do think it's interesting that we're talking about starship troopers and this kind of stuff right after talking about the flag, because like, I don't know, I mean, I I still keep coming back to the fact that there are just two completely different readings of this movie, and that we're all very confident and comfortable with our reading. It was what it

was intended to be read that way. But it's it's weird that people can like miss putting together all of these elements and all of these clues about the message behind this movie. Like people who are really seasoned at like taking apart movies, and I mean, I wouldn't say or they just you know, believe in The Forever War.

There is a book, like an anti war sci fi book written in response to this book called The Forever War, where it's like the the Minians sort of like realized that they're being used for cannon fodder and that um. But for Hovan said, this movie was really his own response to like America after World War Two becoming just like increasingly imperialistic and involving itself in all kinds of

conflicts that it didn't need to be part of. But you know, America had to be convinced to go into World War two because a lot of people did not think we belonged there. We're on the fence for a

long time about World War Two. It turns out well he's for having said too that this is based parts of it are patterned after Triumph of the Will, but also after the Frank Capra response to Triumph of the Will that was meant to like in gender the same kind of patriotism and Americans and be like, this is why we have to go do this, um, because Frank Capra was like terrified by Triumph of the Will. He was like, this is such a good work of propaganda.

We have to make an equally good work of propaganda. And there's some stuff in the Frank Capra one that's totally false. There's like a you know, it's obviously very racist towards the Japanese, but there's just like some some conspiracy stuff in it that was maybe used to help

speed the process along of getting America on board. No. I've been um listening to the current hardcore history about the Pacific theater of World War two a lot, and it's very interesting to see the whole West Coast history of of demonizing Japanese people through all that in ways that I kind of knew about it in a cursory way, but never never in depth. Um. But yeah, it's wild um.

And again it is all about finding a common enemy on getting creating a narrative and like and then and then created a system that can be seen as blameless, like somehow the the idea of police in this country being something that people just take for granted and that it works and like, well, we gotta have police. We can't not have police. Um, Like it's the same as

this military system in this film. Like I was going back to the flogging scene that the gentleman mentioned Joel mentioned, is uh, like there's something in that scene where I think, like if you don't get it by then you're kind of like I don't know what to I don't know what to tell you because it's just like there are

a couple parts like that too. Well the I think like by the like from the opening segment, like if you don't get that, but also by that scene scene because it's like the idea of that scene is not Oh my god, this this system that I have signed up for is hurting me and is blaming for some me for some like this horrible thing that happened that ultimately I didn't have that much control over and now I'm being like publicly flogged for it. Uh. It's like

it's like, no, this is good for him. This is gonna like make him better within this stem, which is so like that's you know, and and then and so the hero of the movie then, or the hero of the Highland story at least is the system that and that the system will make this person better, uh, and that you can be improved through it, and the system knows best. There's like a brief mention of showing executions on TV. Yeah, yeah, tonight at six the electric chair. Yeah, yeah,

the only difference I think. I you know, this also made me think about the Purge, which has come up a lot in my mind in the past. While um in that, I was like, you're right, like the Nazi uniform now, like the uniform that scares me now is not a trench code. It's like, you know, the bugaloo stuff, Like it's somebody with like a Blue Lives Matter sticker on their car and like a Hawaiian shirt. You know.

Still the fatigues, the cargo shorts. Yeah, just like that to me is even scarier because it's like so dressed down and informal. You know, it's like it's terrifying. I'm just I'm just dude. To a cook out. Somebody was posting once today that we're all these like Disney like Mickey Blue Lives Matter flag inside a Mickey and it just says like daddy on it. You know. I was like that, that's the scariest thing I've ever seen. Take

it away, no, thank you. Well, if you haven't seen Starship Troopers in a while, might be a good time to watch it. And if you think that you don't like it, it might hit different now. It might might pointed out like say that I saw Jaws yesterday. I don't know what time is anymore. But you have a mayor denying people or not informing his community about a deadly shark and opening the beaches because listen July and we need to make money and this is how we survive.

Oh my god, we're all freaking weird. Is the timeliest thing to it was Ship the other day or maybe like I'd recorded it and I was like, this is too real. But it's also such a good movie. And so you're saying l al Fresco is Joss, Yes, Yes, is Garcetti the giant shark? Is he Bruce? He's the mayor? Oh my god? Well yeah, check that out. It makes for good Fourth of July view, and I think if you have to stay inside for your Fourth of July, might as well watched our ship Troopers and and Jaws.

Sounds American enough to me. That's a good double bill. We all back that double bill. Yeah, thanks for listening to Night Call this week. You can follow us on social at Nightcall pod on Twitter, Nightcall Podcasts, and Instagram and Facebook. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast, and leave us a rating and review on Apple Little Podcasts. That would be lovely. We would appreciate it. Um. You can also support us on

our Patreon at patreon dot com slash Nightcall. You can get our newsletter, bonus episodes, merge all sorts of fun stuff there. So check that out and we will be back next week. We are also looking for stories from teachers and students who have emerged now from the very strangest school year ever. Um. We would love to hear your experiences of how this period of time has been. So if you would like to give us a night Call at two four oh four six night you can

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