Ya know I'm starting to think RFK Jr. does not actually know what autism is
Remmick, Ryan Coogler's vampire in Sinners, is written so well. You have a white, Irish vampire from the time of the colonization of Ireland by the english who is trying to deal with his own loss and 'hunger'. He wants to use Sammie. He wants to take away Sammie's music, his tradition and to use it for his own gain.
We have one more white oppressor who presents himself as a saviour. He inflitrates a black community, coming with the promise of... equality, community and freedom from death. But those promises come to fruition in a very specific manner. Remmick is the leader, for all the equality he promises. HE is the one who sets the tune the rest are singing. HE is the one whose pain is felt by every member of this 'community'. Every person that is turned connects to him in a hive-mind of collective memory and experience that HE controls and is able to use to his own convenience. Moreover, this is a collective that does not exclude the KKK-alligned family that was part of the plan to slaughter an entire black community.
Remmick represents a seemingly politically correct, predominantly white globalization. He presents himself as well-intended. He may even BELIEVE that he is. But what he offers is the death of individuality, of culture and tradition.
Okay... So I'm in a way right now with the red tide and hormones..... But I did want to say some things about SINNERS while I have a little bit of mental energy.
Stack and Smoke are two sides of the same coin, yin and yang, red and blue, Italian and Irish gang clothing style... etc.
Some people are getting carried away with analysis and it's giving more projection of what you want it to be vs. what is.... Coogler himself has cited great fun tropey horror films and pop culture touchstones like Salem's Lot (the book not the movie) and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (which I love that that's a reference) he has said his most important takeaway is "ownership of art."
The act structure that gave us that classic "caper" set-up of all kinds of characters listening to the plan and then going "you sonavabitch, I'm in." for the juke joint was my favorite part of this TBH.
It is NOT a Christian "Come to Jesus" movie and I LOVE that about it. In fact, it's the opposite.
It's a "be true to self and your gifts in the face of any god or devil", movie.
BOTH women love interests (white presenting and full-figured and unambiguously Black ,--back to that yin and yang of the twins) were beloved by a twin, both fit the elemental nature of said twin, and both had to traverse death to be with their love.
As an aside.... loved hearing a southern accent from our Asian cousins, seeing the "not my problem" energy from the Choctaw hunters, and the reminder that there was actual ancestral cultural community before "whiteness" for white people too, and why many no longer have it...
LOVED LOVED LOVED the cultural details in the character work, setting, energy, etc.... ESPECIALLY Delroy Lindo's vocal cadence.
I loved what Coogler chose to NOT show to make the energy more impactful and palpable in both sensuality and scares.
I'll be the weirdo who prefers the pure blues vs. the remix but I LOVED seeing all the ancestors and descendents come and vibe with the music...I used to have recurring dreams of a multicultural ancestral world jam session, so "that scene" hit me hard.
Remmick just follows in the tradition of Coogler villains being compelling af, but ultimately WRONG because of an essential flaw in their logic (i.e. Killmonger's misogynoir and colonizing techniques and funnily enough Remmick's colonizing techniques, klan and black using vampire telepathy for a faux community peace)
I have seen no one else mention this, but I chuckled at Saul "List of Demands" Williams playing the preacher, aka Sammie's dad
the vampire nerd part of me absolutely rejoiced at all the "traditional" vampire warding aspects, ESPECIALLY the silver, something that is often wrongly asserted as being just for werewolves
loved how filthy and raunchy the language was when it came to desire... because that's real (and I hate purity culture which is very much now tied to the alt-right white Christo-fascist pipeline right now) AND centering women's pleasure and, in many cases audacious initiative. (ahem, I see you Ryan and I see how Zinzi's in the current state she's in, congrats!! *cough* this is the healthiest type of straight man sexual energy BTW)
BE WARY of the takes out there that are overly-projecting. It's neither religious nor hotepy. It's a Southern Gothic fable/folktale about a musician with a gift surviving a magical night....
YES it's full of ancestral energy, but ultimately the central message is about being true to self when it comes to ancestral gifts and community
Sobbing uncontrollably reading through a dissertation about the college experience of students with ADHD. It is like reading a report about my life that just says over and over "My experiences are real. My hardships are real. I am not lazy, I am not dumb. My struggles were not my fault, and they were not a moral failing. The failure was with the system, not with me."
Here's a line that got me in particular:
"Hotez et al.(2022) compared the health, academic, and non-academic capacities of a nationally representative sample of U.S. first-year college students with ADHD and without ADHD. Students with ADHD self-reported lower academic aspirations and more feelings of depression and overwhelm, ranking themselves lower in their general emotional health. The fact that students with ADHD scored in the highest 10th percentile for many non-academic traits, such as artistic ability, computer skills, creativity, public speaking, social confidence, self-understanding and understanding of others, compassion, and risk-tasking, suggests that this population has strengths that are frequently underappreciated in academia."
(the paper is a thesis called "Understanding the Collegiate Experience for Students With ADHD" by Gia Long, 2022)
This Wikipedia article has a more comprehensive list
say what you want about the switch 2 but leave my beautiful wife 3.5mm headphone jack out of it iβm so happy for her she deserves this moment <3
from now on your tumblr nickname is whatever you get from this sexual identity generatorΒ β
the best joke i ever heard π
If your life is horrible and you need a new source of meaning and direction.... Do NOT find religion. Learn to identify plants.
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