Cory's Reads #3: Is it over?
As the COVID-19 pandemic nears its conclusion, will it take pop culture along with it?
“Is it over?”
We’re all familiar with that moment.
The horrors of war subside. The aliens vanish. The bloodshed comes to a close and from the rubble emerges a battle-tested family, a lost orphan, or a wounded hero.
They take a deep breath, then a cautious glance to their left and to their right. “Is it over?” they ask the emptiness around them.
Here in the United States, we are on the precipice of one such moment. Even as concerns over reaching herd immunity to COVID-19 remain (go get your vaccine please!), Americans are venturing outside of their homes, reentering the world with a strange combination of anxious resistance and reckless abandon. I acknowledge that “is it over?” can be a ridiculously politicized question to ask in the United States, where “it” was somehow never a concern for so many Americans in the first place. Nevertheless, the very opportunity to ask the question is a privilege, one that our nation is so heinously withholding from other parts of the world.
By now, you are likely familiar with the extent of the COVID-19 crisis in India, as well as the United States’ recent about-face on the issue. Facing mounting political pressure, the Biden administration committed to donating nearly 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to India and other countries facing a recent surge in COVID-19 cases. The U.S. had been stockpiling the AstraZeneca vaccine despite the FDA not yet approving its domestic use, and will continue to await the FDA’s approval before beginning to distribute it across the globe.
Biden’s decision is a good one, but it might be a case of “too little, too late.” It also does not erase the misguided sense of nationalism that he and his administration have practiced over the last several months. All along, the United States’ position has been that it must vaccinate its own population first and foremost. This perspective comes despite earlier research suggesting that a more globally egalitarian approach to vaccine distribution could have cut the number of deaths worldwide in half. Of course, an empire built on bloodshed cares little for human lives. Only money talks. And yet, a study from the International Chamber of Commerce suggests that the current model of wealthy nations selfishly stockpiling vaccines could result in a global GDP loss of over $9 trillion. A nationalist approach to vaccine distribution benefits only the select few corporations in control of the distribution. Of course, those corporations are the Biden administration’s most immediate concern. Even as I commend the president for finally reversing his stance on waiving vaccine patents, I find his hand-wringing over the issue rather bizarre considering he promised to waive the patents during his 2020 campaign.
I could certainly dedicate this week’s newsletter to exploring the evils of allowing corporate powers to dictate the flow of a global health crisis, but that’s not what you come here for. We’re here to talk about movies! And this article will feature several, starting with Denis Villenueve’s 2016 film Arrival, a sci-fi thriller whose alien invasion leaves little room to wonder “is it over?”
In Arrival, an alien invasion serves not as a threat, but as an opportunity. While the initial arrival of the heptapods is met with humanity’s trademark hostility, Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) soon discovers that the aliens have come to deliver a “weapon.” The discovery is obviously quite alarming to Louise’s superiors, but this is no ordinary weapon. The heptapods have gifted humanity a new language, one that flattens the linearity of time and opens up endless avenues of communication. Whereas the alien invasion initially divides the global community along national lines, the aliens’ eventual offering unites it. The result is one of the most philosophically layered sci-fi films of the 21st century, with a particularly compelling final twist that I will not spoil for the uninitiated.
It is easy to interpret Arrival as a metaphor for global catastrophe of any variety. The COVID-19 pandemic may not have been an alien invasion, but there are some undeniable similarities. A foreign object arrived on our planet, first in one location and then in several others. Soon, the whole world had to coordinate a response. In both cases, such efforts were largely unsuccessful, as countries retreated into their own ideologies and interests. But as the global community eventually learns in Arrival, what divides us is precisely what can unite us. We could write off the heptapods’ circular language as a simple stroke of pie-in-the-sky, sci-fi magic, or we could understand it as the very same gift offered to us by the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, and the several other existential issues facing humanity today. As the research regarding vaccine rollouts suggests, global cooperation isn’t just some sort of feel-good mantra; it is an unstoppable agent for positive change.
So why haven’t the lessons of Villenueve’s Arrival taken hold? After all, United States Secretary of State Anthony Blinken says that he “will always defend human rights at home and abroad,” a laughable assertion that reads more like a threat than a promise. Surely, Blinken and his peers around the world would see what is at stake during this inflection point in global history. Surely, his insistence upon upholding human rights would entail ending U.S. support for the Saudi blockade in Yemen, providing free healthcare to American citizens, and vaccinating the members of the global community that need it most.
Of course, Blinken’s definition of “human rights” does not entail anything of the sort. It instead relies on advancing similarly narrow definitions of freedom and democracy. To put it plainly, it relies on advancing capitalism.
So what gives?
Here we are, telling and interpreting stories that seemingly get at the heart of some of the most existential issues of our time, while the world around us chugs along per usual. It’s an unsettling dynamic, one that threatens my very existence. I’ve dedicated myself to unpacking pop culture artifacts and assigning them various meanings, potentials, and responsibilities. Yet there remains a lingering sense that culture has become a world unto itself. Pop culture has siloed itself off from the rest of the world, ensuring a disconnect between the ideas promoted in movies like Arrival, and the ideas carried out in a real-world crisis.
To be clear, I am not the first person to identify this development. In his brilliant docuseries Can’t Get You Out Of My Head, filmmaker Adam Curtis puts forth this very argument, citing several examples throughout history. Culture has become the battleground upon which our battles are fought. But the outcome of both those battles and the theoretical violence wrought along the way remains in the department of culture, never to escape. Curtis’ thesis helps explain why the CIA might have adopted the language of progressivism in a recent recruitment video, whilst continuing to suppress social movements and commit war crimes around the globe. By embracing a cultural shift, an evil institution like the CIA hopes to maintain power and deflect our attention elsewhere.
I understand these words can sound like the ramblings of a crazy conspiracy theorist, and maybe that’s because I am one. But it is important to recognize the division between culture and reality, and how global powers have worked to maintain such a division. I recommend Curtis’ work as a crash course on the topic, but I will do my best to express my own concerns regarding this omnipresent barrier to change.
In doing so, I will turn to a rather unlikely source in Mike Rianda’s The Mitchells vs. the Machines. Netflix’s latest hit is an animated comedy about a dysfunctional family whose road trip is interrupted by a sudden AI takeover. Like so many other films from Sony Pictures Animation, The Mitchells vs. the Machines features some absolutely stunning animation, further helped by the involvement of producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. The voicework is top-notch, the casting is clever, and the script is genuinely hilarious. 2021 has been an underwhelming year for film thus far, but The Mitchells vs. the Machines will likely remain one of the year’s very best for months to come.
Rianda’s film serves as a thoroughly poignant exploration of what it means to be a family in the digital age, where love and support are often bizarrely filtered through channels both literal and virtual. Even before watching The Mitchells vs. the Machines, I expected the film to really resonate with a lot of families. What I didn’t expect, however, was the film’s direct confrontation of corporate hegemony in the tech industry. Most notably, as PAL — the film’s equivalent of Apple or Google — founder Mark Bowman (Eric Andre) realizes that his proprietary AI has gained sentience, he remarks: “it's almost like stealing people's data and giving it to a hyper-intelligent AI as part of an unregulated tech monopoly was a bad thing.”
Hopefully, that line makes it pretty clear as to why I love this movie so much. It’s absurdly funny, yet all too chilling. Surely, its inclusion in the film is not part of an attempt to groom an army of prepubescent leftists, although that would be nice. Rianda and co-writer Jeff Rowe almost certainly stuck that one in there for the parents (or the 23-year-olds watching it in their friend's apartment.) Consolidation of corporate power seems to be a concern for all of us, particularly as it relates to the tech and telecommunications industries, and yet that concern remains confined where else but in the realm of culture.
Indeed, it is difficult to dump such praise on The Mitchells vs. the Machines without acknowledging the corporate environment from which it came. Sony began production on the film in 2018, and was even planning to distribute it theatrically in January of 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic ultimately forced the company to alter course and sell the distribution rights to Netflix instead. For as much as I love The Mitchells vs. the Machines, it might as well be the poster child for what we are talking about when we talk about culture as a separate reality. The film’s corporate origins render it not just a participant in America’s corporate culture, but a beneficiary of it. Critique this environment as it might, The Mitchells vs. the Machines could barely exist without it. The film relies on the inclusion of several popular songs from artists such as Grimes, BTS, and The Talking Heads. Co-stars Chrissy Teigen and John Legend lean into their real-life personas as Hailey and Jim Posey, the Mitchells’ obnoxiously perfect next-door neighbors. There’s even a giant Furby halfway through the film! These creative decisions make sense in the context of the film, indulging in the same sort of excess that pervades so much of pop culture today. But in order to hammer home their own ideas about our corporatized world, Rianda and the rest of his team had no choice but to join it. No wonder Rianda’s anxieties about unregulated tech oligopolies remain confined within the world of The Mitchells vs. the Machines; allowing them to escape would render the film’s corporate parents obsolete.
The Mitchells vs. the Machines is just the latest in a long line of films having their cake and eating it too. Fortunately, it never quite devolves into a commercial for its own corporate incubators like Disney’s Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018) or Warner Bros.’ upcoming Space Jam: A New Legacy (accuse me of judging a book by its cover if you must, but watch the film’s trailer and tell me you disagree) but it simultaneously serves and rebels against its master nonetheless.
I’ve previously wondered if narrative itself is unfit for today’s world, but even that concern may be insufficient in exploring what truly handicaps pop culture’s potential. As Sony, Disney, and Warner Bros. continue to repurpose the pop culture signifiers of the last 50 years, I can’t help but wonder...is it over?
Is the division between culture and reality not just persisting, but rather widening? Is culture shifting so far away our world, that it barely exists at all?
Is culture...over?
Sure, we continue to watch new shows, listen to new songs, and read new books. We probably even enjoy them! But so much of our contemporary culture relies on appropriating the culture of the past. Most of my readers have probably already heard me complain about the MCU or Star Wars, but even our supposedly original cultural contributions are getting swallowed up and churned out as corporate slop. HBO is at work on a Parasite miniseries, while Oscar-winner Another Round is inexplicably receiving an English-language remake. If culture and reality are siloed off from one another, that is only by design. If the powers that be had their way, there would be no culture left at all.
And so why does culture still matter? If its social impact is stunted, and its very existence is in doubt, why am I still talking about it? Why am I still enjoying it? I often find myself conceding this point: I know that thing is unproductive or I know it is harmful but I still like it. Does it come to a point when watching an MCU film or playing Call of Duty is not just an act of cognitive dissonance, but of outright ignorance? Of course, assigning your each and every action some grand moral significance is no way to live your life, especially as it relates to media consumption. Still, the issues we face are dire. We cannot accept the ever-growing gap between culture and reality, or else we shall fall into its fiery depths (that’s a global warming reference, I suppose.) At its best, culture can direct us, educate us. But I worry that in its current form, culture only lulls us into complacency. Culture is a meaningful environment whose reach has been handicapped, whose impact has been captured and held hostage. Perhaps we, by extension, are hostages as well.
Again, I am just as guilty in this hostage situation as you are (probably even more so, considering how much time I waste watching, watching, watching...) Even my musical interests are seemingly running up against this potential “end” of culture. Two of my favorite bands right now are Grammy winners Greta Van Fleet, as well as newcomers Dirty Honey. The former band has been both praised and criticized for their similarity to rock legends Led Zeppelin. Dirty Honey, on the other hand, is a rather obvious Guns N’ Roses rip-off. Both bands are repurposing established cultural icons for the 2020’s, and have found success in doing so. But there may not be stronger evidence of the end of culture than Greta Van Fleet and Dirty Honey. Today, imitation is innovation. I have previously defended both bands on the basis that decades have passed since their inspirations sat at the center of pop culture. Besides, there is no shame in taking inspiration from or building upon the work of others. But if we are to grant pop culture any of its lingering potential, shouldn’t we ask it to capitalize on that potential?
And call me crazy, but I am absolutely willing to grant pop culture its potential. I have my doubts, as I’ve expressed ad nauseum, but pop culture remains a domain — a battleground — in which a possible future will either be won or lost. Perhaps the best characterization of pop culture comes from cultural theorist Stuart Hall:
Popular culture is one of the sites where this struggle for and against a culture of the powerful is engaged: it is the stake to be won or lost in that struggle. It is the arena of consent and resistance. It is partly where hegemony arises, and where it is secured. It is not a sphere where socialism, a socialist culture — already fully formed — might be simply “expressed.” But it is one of the places where socialism might be constituted. That is why “popular culture” matters. Otherwise, to tell you the truth, I don’t give a damn about it.
If you’re still with me, I thank you. Even as I consider the obsolescence of my own writing, I remain committed to this kind of work. If culture is nearing its conclusion, if it is further from our reality than it has ever been before, then all I can do is hope to lasso it and wrangle it closer. This, in effect, is what I hope to do with each edition of Cory’s Reads, closing the gap and blurring the line between reality and culture. I am drawn to media that does the same, like William Greaves’ mesmerizing Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One or the entirety of Nathan For You (its groundbreaking finale in particular.) Both Greaves and Nathan Fielder ignore even the slightest possibility of a gap between reality and culture, fact and fiction. They freely traverse these worlds, delighting in our confusion, yet inviting our participation. There is an inherent comfort in knowing what is real and what is not. That is the privilege afforded to us by fiction, and even some nonfiction. But I hope Cory’s Reads can be a place where such comfort and such privilege begins to crumble, where I can join the likes of Greaves and Fielder and Abbas Kiarostami (has any one director further dedicated himself to that peculiar space between the constructed and the real?) in merging culture and reality into a singular future, rife with potential and opportunity.
Or maybe I’m being too proud, putting myself in such company. Maybe I’ll just keep yelling into the void like the angsty 23-year-old that I am. Maybe we can traverse the gap between pop culture and reality, or maybe we’ve already fallen in it. Either way, I’m going to keep on writing.
Because to tell you the truth, I don’t give a damn about it.