Barbenheimer: The Dawn of Man

Included spoilers:

Barbie (movie)

Oppenheimer (movie)

2001: A Space Odyssey (movie)

Doctor Strangelove (movie)

XX - Rian Hughes (book)

Loki (show)

Loki (comics)

Asteroid City

The Matrix Trilogy

The Iron Giant

Westworld

-breathe in and out - okay, ready. I'm Mira. Welcome to a grand reflection

Intro:

Quick disclaimer, : This episode set is going over many recent and not-so-recent movies and TV shows. I don't want to spoil anything for you.

But let's take a second to sit with what it means to spoil something. When we say something's spoiled, we mean it's gone bad. I think fears of a piece of media being spoiled are warranted if it's got a one-and done twist, or part of a longstanding series. The entertainment equivalent of milk gone too long in the fridge. Sour and unenjoyable. But there's a whole different set of things that need to be spoiled in order to fully enjoy. That's the beauty of fermentation. In fact, I think this sort of spoiling is what gives us come of the best things to consume. Cheese, wine, Kimchi, yoghurt, pickles, Mead... the list goes on. An intentional spoiling can enhance the end experience and maybe even get us a little altered in a good way.

So, Included in these next few podcasts are: The Barbie movie, Oppenheimer, the works of Stanley Kubrick, The Creator, The Matrix franchise, Into and Across the Spiderverse, Asteroid City, and the Loki TV show. Probably more. (Quick List at top of show notes)

With that said: I urge you to step into this whole things unafraid of contamination, and instead revel in the fact that you're about to partake in a well-aged treat. There's too much cross-contamination and jumping around to hope to keep this thing quote-unquote "pure".  There's no getting through this one without getting a little messy.

Okay, still in? cool. Purity be damned, spoilers ahead, lets dive in!

-breathe in and out - Okay, ready. I'm Mira. Welcome to a grand reflection. ["Let's do things differently this time. Like, so differenty" - Across the Spiderverse] OH! Yeah, okay. good idea spider-gwen.  Intro music?[MUUUUSSSSSIIIICCCCC!!!!} Okay, ready. I'm Mira. Welcome to a grand reflection.

But real talk: what else could be different? Well, for one, I think I was too married to the idea that this all needs to be natural and unscripted. There's a phrase from the movie Asteroid City: [You can't wake up if you don't fall asleep" -Asteroid City]

It's a messy phrase to untangle, and I think it can be taken multiple ways (and, we will definitely get into some of those ways later on), but one way I take it is that sometimes the need for the real and unscripted is actually less effective than allowing it to unfold a little more like a story. So, We're trying the story route. And, I'm going to use some movies this season to really help me to step into it. ["this is a bad idea' - Loki s1e1 ]

It all feels pretty meta, right? Using a season about stories to let the story of this podcast better unfold? Oh, but we'll get to the meta stuff later. For now, just know that this is all scripted. ['None of this is real?" "What is real? How do you define real?" -the Matrix] It's real in the sense that it's coming from me still. I'm reading off of something I wrote ahead of time. And, that's actually a wonderful thing for many reasons that I can't quite get into yet. Consider that another foreshadow.

But for now, let me bring you up to speed on some changes I've been going through. Last we talked was spring, and that was the trans Easter episode. ['If I am to deny my transness..." - Transfroming Easter episode]I don't know about you, but for me, that episode was revelatory. Like, the kind of thing that bring revolutions. oh! but, shoot.  That's yet another thing for later. Let me loop back another time, and tell you where I've been all summer.

Catch up:

So, in that Easter episode, I outed myself. Emerged from the grave so to speak (or at least the closet). And, as fearful as I was about having it all out in the open, it had tremendous benefits. First, it gave me some peace of mind, and melded together two parts of myself that felt in opposition. ["A beautiful merging of form and function" - Loki, s2e5] Figuring out a way to have my faith and my internal identity not only co-exist, but actually inform and enrich each other has been incredibly useful on the never-ending journey to wholeness. Another benefit was that I got a few surprises as far as support goes. People I didn't know were listening in, but messaged me afterward with very kind and affirming words.

One of the most important surprises regarding that was my mom. She had been behind on episodes, and I assumed she would listen to them chronologically. I told her it was important in order to see where my thoughts have been going, and that catching up would also mean understanding me better. I expected to ease her into it as she listened along.

But she terrified me with a message saying she skipped ahead listened to my most recent episode a couple of days after I released it.  I should have made a spoiler alert for her, am I right? Anyway, she sent me a long message saying how much she loved me and expressed how bad she felt that she just didn't know. She expressed the need to come up to see me in person and hear about this part of myself that she's eager to meet more of. I think subconsciously I was both postponing this conversation and waiting for it to happen.  I was afraid of losing that beautiful lifeline of family because I've relied on that connection a lot in the past for well-being. And, my mom's side of the family is all really close. If I didn't have her support, I would likely lose the support of most of whom I call family as well. So it was all a huge subconscious burden lifted. But, she visited and saw how happy I've been, and has been affirming ever since.

I actually had scheduled an appointment with my doctor a couple of months before doing the Easter episode. However, because of how overloaded my doctor's schedule tends to be (just like all of healthcare in America), the appointment had to be scheduled months in advance. Initially, I had scheduled it as an exploratory appointment. Basically, I just wanted to hear what sort of possibilities were out there for me, and hadn't decided at the time if I even wanted to do any sort of transition.  But something about knowing I had the support of loved ones sealed the deal for me when it came to deciding to take hormones. By the time I got to the appointment, which was just after I released the episode, I had already made up my mind and told my doctor that I was interested.

It turned out pretty straightforward. Oregon is really supportive when it comes to gender care, and I'm extremely grateful for that. All I had to do after telling my doctor was do a quick blood test to make sure nothing weird was going on behind the scenes, as well as to create a baseline for where my hormones were so we could know if the dosing was good. Once that cleared, I was written a prescription and was good to go pick up the estrogen from my local pharmacy.

I know that seems intense. reckless even. And without much hesitancy on the doctor's end. But I just want to take a moment to reflect on how these hormones actually react in the body. The changes take years, just like any puberty. It's more about giving the body new instructions as it rebuilds itself than it is drastically mutating the body. It takes months before there are any so called "Irreversable damages", which is a phrase often used by those opposed to the process. But those supposed mutilations of the body are no different than changes that happen during a natural puberty. And, those teenage changes happen whether someone wants them to or not.I really don't think the changes are irreversible though, whether it's a first or second puberty. But, it is a big pain to deal with and adjust for. I'll give them that. but it means there's no neutral ground here. But regret rates are insanely low compared to other things we let kids do with their bodies like join the military or bring a pregnancy to term. I would give anything to have had the chance to go on hormones as a teen, and it does feel like I'm now in the process of undoing a lot of those changes brought on by testosterone so long ago.

My point is that the chance of risk was low and the chance of benefit was high. Starting a dose of hormones is as simple as taking a pill once a day for a while and seeing how it makes you feel. the changes don't come quick and there's lots of room to opt out the moment it feels weird. ['Or you take the red pill, and see ho deep this rabbit hole goes.']

I took my first dose at my favorite tree in the whole world, which is located at the Japanese Zen Gardens in Portland. I needed it to feel sacred and holy somehow. you know what, that should totally be a bonus story episode. So, look out for that. anyway, it's been about 6 months now, with about 5 months on my current dose. (they usually start you really low just to make sure nothing weird happens).

So, yeah. It's been an interesting summer. The changes are slow and steady, but I'm looking very "in between' these days. And it shows no signs of stopping. But even if it did stop and I suddenly plateaued, that would be fine too. I'm still in a better place than I was. It's been absolutely wonderful, but also a lot to process.  As far as my internal world goes, it's pretty straightforward. I feel better on estrogen. It's hard to explain because it's such a subjective and personal thing, but it's like I'm finally running on the right fuel. My senses feel softer and more acute, and my relationship to my emotions feels more attentive and balanced. My muscles have changed, and it feels more natural to move through the world.

Before, it was like if someone close to you died, and you inherited their house. so like, you live in it, right? But out of a misplaced sense of honor for the dead, you don't move anything around or remodel. you keep it as pristine as possible. then one day, you have a revelation: they wanted you to live in it, and that means making it your own. you aren't a guest. it's your house. So you start changing things as it makes sense. rearranging the furniture, painting the walls, and eventually even adding new rooms and changing the layout. is it disrespectful? no! quite the opposite. it's what they wanted to begin with: for you to truly call the place home.

So yeah, it feels like I'm finally at home in my body. Which, is great! Or, should be great. But it's been a lot to process when it comes to being out there in society.

This is gonna sound like a non-sequitur, but there's an old idea called Gnosticism. Gnosticism is the idea that all physical forms are inherently dirty and corrupted. Every object and every person has an ideal form beyond the physical, and our biggest hope is to escape from the physical and into the perfect. Gnosticism was around during Jesus' time and, largely due to the apostle Paul's refutation of it, tends to be this recurring specter labeled as inherently counter to the gospel. Pauls's critique of it had merit. The early church was trying to do work on the ground in the real world. and, they were basing that all on the hope that came with the resurrection of Jesus. Saying that bodies are inherently corrupted doesn't fit well with Jesus as God. it's like saying that god himself is corrupted.

So, if you're thinking... wait a minute Mira. That idea that the world is something to be escaped from, and our earthly bodies are inherently corrupted sure sounds an awful lot like Christians wanting to go to heaven to finally escape the depravity of original sin. Well, yeah. It's just another personal case in point for me that I was on to something last episode. It sure seems like Paul is way more interested in the hope of the resurrection than the supposed ticket to heaven we all receive from Jesus' death. It really does seem like the New Testament revels in the joy of bodies that keep on living on the earth, despite the vulnerability of death.  But tied in that are also implications of revolution, anti-empire, and anti-violence mindsets, which are just too counter-cultural for most Christians to take in and be transformed by. The seeming contradiction of calling out Gnosticism while in many ways living out its core tenants can be explained by blinders caused by the story of Jesus being altogether too radical and extreme to really take in deeply.

But here's where it gets interesting. A common critique of trans identities among many serious religious scholars is that it's all just a modern emergence of Gnosticism. The labeling of trans as gnostic comes from the often-stated trans talking point of "being trapped in the wrong body". The notion definitely seems to say that there's a perfect form that's hidden, and needs to be identified and sought so that you can escape from your corrupt body, and into the ideal form that's waiting for you.

At first, this sounds like a valid critique, but it honestly doesn't fit my own personal experience. The problem is that I never felt wrong in my body. The only time it felt gross or corrupted was when I was in those traditional Christian structures, and was simply using it as a tool for the quote "coming kingdom". Something to be used up and eventually discarded for the sake of heaven. But once I left the church, I reconnected to my body and saw it as sacred. As a shelter and a sanctuary to rest in. To go back to the analogy I used earlier, it never felt like a home, but it did feel like a house I could live in and be safe in. It was still comfortable and never felt like something I needed to escape from in any way. In fact, the biggest risk was probably never treating it as mine. If it wasn't my home, I was free to abandon or discard it when it no longer was useful to keep. And this was only compounded because of gender dysphoria making me feel more and more distance to my body. A sort of retreat into the idea realm and away from the senses.  In transitioning, however, I'm adorning it with everything I love, and truly treating it as sacred and irreplaceable. Looking forward to moments of direct attention and joy with her. So it seems like the best way to avoid the gnostic disassociation of the body is to take whatever steps necessary to call the body home. This includes remodels sometimes.

Taken from another angle, we could consider existentialism. Existentialism rose out of the ashes of the Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was attempt to deal with the disconnect, hopelessness, and overall lack of meaning that came with the horrors arising from modern science and thought. The existentialists saw human beings as being unique on earth because of their tremendous freedom to choose. They believed that existance preceeded essence. In other words, that there's no essential morality or purpose to humankind except that which we create by conscious choice.

The terrifying reality for the existentialists is that any one of us can become anything. None of us are immune to the deepest evils, and the most horrible people can transform into good. And that's not even getting into the deep subjectivity and changability of what good and evil even are. At the end of the day, we are burdened with freedom which can become an obligation. Because if we forge our own way forward instead of being tied to a predetermined fate, then we are obligated to choose what our lives will become. Even not choosing is a sort of choice.

This doesn't really fit well with notions of "knit together in the womb", or "original sin", that modern Christians are so fond of.  Christianity seems to have a resistance to the notion of subjectivity and the idea that a person's individual experience has value. Or, even that truth isn't a specific entity to arrive at. I suspect that this is why American Christians bag on postmodernism so often.

There's a default response among the queer community: "I was born this way". It's very similar to the trans "born in the wrong body" statement. I think these sort of things are stated so frequently as an attempt to get these overly objective believers off their backs. It's overemphasizing an essence that preceeded existance in order to be seen as valid by those who want to invalidate you. But in my experience, I became trans because i decided its what I wanted to be. There was choice. [You are what you choose to be - The Iron Giant] Thanks Hogarth. It was informed by what I know about myself, true. But, it also took conscious action.

So there's this weird contradiction, in that as I intentionally step deeper and deeper into this loving embodiment that I see as an essential core to the message of Jesus, I also receive more and more fear and hate coming from Christians themselves. My very existance threatens to topple the entire modernist christian worldview that says truth is an object to be grasped. Because I don't fit in the structure, I threaten to destroy what gives the structure strength in the first place. ['That's why anomolies are so dangerous'] But, of course, this is nothing new. Jesus himself was persecuted by the religious elite. And that may sound like hyperbole to say that I'm persecuted. That word gets thrown around a lot, especially by Christians themselves whenever there's any sort of action taken that is counter to their vision of the perfect. But I do mean it literally. There is open hostility and animosity against me and others like me from the religious right. There's a playbook for Republicans called "Mandate for Leadership", which is put together every election cycle by the Heritage Foundation, a foundation first formed out of the politics of the Nixon administration. But the influence of policy really started with Regan. Regan received the very first Mandate for leadership, and they've made one for each republican candidate since. The purpose of these lengthy collaborative documents is to outline what should be prioritized and acted upon by a Republican President when they gain office. You can get a good idea of what policies Republicans are going to push by reading the newest edition of Mandate for Leadership. So let me read some sections from the most recent one Project 2025.

"Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered." - p37

"Where warranted and proper under federal law, initiate legal action against local officials—including District Attorneys—who deny American citizens the “equal protection of the laws” by refusing to prosecute criminal offenses in their jurisdictions. This holds true particularly for jurisdictions that refuse to enforce the law against criminals based on the Left’s favored defining characteristics of the would-be offender (race, so-called gender identity, sexual orientation, etc.) or other political considerations (e.g., immigration status)." -p553

"Enforce the death penalty where appropriate and applicable. Capit al punishment is a sensitive matter, as it should be, but the current crime wave makes deterrence vital at the federal, state, and local levels. However, providing this punishment without ever enforcing it provides justice neither for the victims’ families nor for the defendant. The next conservative Administration should therefore do everything possible to obtain finality for the 44 prisoners currently on federal death row. It should also pursue the death penalty for applicable crimes—particularly heinous crimes involving violence and sexual abuse of children—until Congress says otherwise through legislation."  p557

taken together, it does seem to say that the death penalty is applicible when it comes to sexual abuse against children, that the federal government can superceed state law in enforcing that said crimes, and that transgenderism itself counts as child predator behavior. Troubling indeed.

Now, it's not any sort of done deal, and I still hold a ton of hope. There's a radicalized subsect of the republican party that is growing and really wants all this to happen. But that's not all Republicans, and there's a lot of disagreement and in fighting.  Just this last month, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy was voted out, and they had serious disagreement over who should take his place. It took them three separate votes before they agreed on Mike Johnson, who is very much in line with the radical ideology trajectory. But, they are all still have a hard time agreeing and working together.  It's very possible that the republican party will eat itself up from the inside out. And, then there's the fact that Gen Z is voting for the first time, and they are super radicalized and super left-leaning. We may even get enough momentum for a third party candidate. And then, of course, even if we get a republican president, it doesn't mean that all this will be passed. It's very possible that the vagueness of the language will make a conservative president fearful of future abuses of power after he leaves office. Which, good for him if that's the case. But still, it's enough that I'm alert and listening. I recognize that it is possible that I will have to physically remove my body from this country in the near-ish future.

All this means that I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be embodied, and the dangers that lie in my path should I continue down it. Which, for me at least, it feels like too great of a personal cost to NOT continue the transition at this point. I don't want to go back, and don't even know if I'd be able to handle it mentally, now that I've experienced the other side. [I can't go back, can I? Would you want to even if you could? - The Matrix] So an uncertain future with real possibility of eradication it is. Eventually, I want to circle back to how to deal with all this hate aside from just getting as far away from it all as possible, but we're not there yet. Let me first tell you about the joys of the rest of my summer. Too often, we see the pains of the world, and then forget to revel in the joys. ['Some people choose to see the uglyness of this world, the disarray. I choose to see the beauty']

So,

Joy number one: I've really been loving the physical changes in my body. This came as a surprise, considering I started the estrogen for the sake of the internal subjective experience. But now that I'm starting to see the physical changes, I'm kind of in love with them. My skin is pleasantly soft, hugs feel squishier, when I sit down it fells cushiony rather than bony. There's also a subtle but substantial lowering of my center of gravity, and I feel more elegant and flowy as I move. And clothes fit fantastically. I'm casually dealing with the fact that I might not only pass, but be attractive. Which, I kinda don't want to deal with? one step at a time I suppose, and we'll see.

Joy number two: Is that I was able to take a trip down to the Reno and Tahoe area. For the Reno part, I spent most of my time catching up with friends and visiting old places. It was suprisingly lackluster, but in a good way. What I mean is that for the most part, I'm not really tied to Reno anymore. Most friends and family have either moved, or are people I keep in touch with anyway. And most of the old places I knew have changed substantially or no longer exist. It's interesting to see a place retain memories but feel less and less like home. That's not to say I won't be back. But, it was a good release and letting go of the past that coincided well with starting hormones.

Visiting Tahoe however was a different story. That place still absolutely feels like home, and I think always will. My sister still lives in the area, and we ended up hiking to a place called Lake Aloha. It's this dreamy lake 2000 feet higher than Tahoe that you can only get to by foot. Its formed by glacier runoff, and the bed is made of solid granite. If you thought Tahoe was blue, it's got nothing on the pristine clear water of Aloha. And that blue is contrasted by the deep grey stone, and the streaks of white snow on the peaks that never goes away even in the peak of summer. I actually hiked there with my sister once before, almost ten years ago. This was just before I had decided to move to Bend, and my chronic fatigue was in full swing at the time. The 12.5 mile hike was definitely beyond my ability that first time, and it was a such struggle. But this time, it felt like a breeze. I felt capable, and was able to revel a bit in the way my muscles feel different with the transition, but also that I'm no less capable and in shape. It actually seems like if anything, I have more endurance because of the hormones. so that's pretty cool. It also felt nice to keep up with my sister who is a literal ultra marathon runner at this point. I think her longest was 50 plus miles with over 2000 feet elevation gain. So, yeah. Holding her pace felt empowering.

Joy number three for the summer: The Barbenheimer Phenomenon! You may or may not have heard of this, but it got to be a pretty popular meme for a short while. What happened was, that the Barbie movie and Oppenheimer movie [incursions] both got set to release on the same day.  And the internet had a bunch of fun combining them because they seemed so opposite to each other. Tons of memes and combined posters. I admit that this was enough in itself for me to go see them. I love it when seemingly incompatible things combine. And the posters combined a pink and black in a way that brought me back to childhood and my inner skate punk chick that I was never allowed to be. Plus, it just sounded fun to take part in a collective experience. I needed something that made me feel connected to society as a whole after the summer being filled with so much processing of trans issues.

I was reminded of a book I read a while ago called X X, or... double cross? twentieth? the book itself is never clear about its own title. anyway, it's about alien invasions. but also about how ideas propagate and how memes get created.  There's this part when the main characters have a hunch that the world's idea space is changing in new and unexpected ways, but they can't quite figure out how or why. So what they do, is they create a machine that can section off parts of it, and sort of create these digital entities that represent small facets of the worlds idea space as a whole. The way they get answers is by looking at very well-established ideas, and asking how the ideas themselves perceive the change. It occurred to me that we can use the same approach for entertainment entities with a lot of baggage and history, such as Barbie and Oppenheimer.

And I have to admit, I didn't initially like the ending of either film. They both felt less than satisfying to me. I saw Barbie first, and was put off by the last scene where she goes to the gynecologist. Which, was a letdown because it felt like maybe the message was that what it means to be a real woman and not some artificial plastic thing, all  just comes down to reproductive biology. I felt invalidated and excluded. And with Oppenheimer, I got to the end and felt like there was no hope. That we've unleashed a monster into the world, and we'll just keep destroying each other until we one day destroy everything. It felt like we're in a time where opposites can't truly combine and get along with each other. Maybe there's no hope of an end to the polarization. Maybe all this judgment about who's deserving and who isn't will always exclude, alienate, and ultimately do violence toward those that don't fit the vision of the ones in power. A sort of might-makes-right vision of the world.

Between the two movies, it was quite a lot to take in. But, the summer has also gave me a renewed sense of the power of transformation, so I decided to trust that these narratives could be transformed or expanded upon in some way.

But I started thinking about the movies in a deeper context, and it turns out this isn't the first time unintentional double features have occurred. One of the most notable occurrences happened in 2012, Magic Mike and TED. The joke was that it was the first time in cinema history that women were going to see a movie about a stripper, and men were going to see a movie about a teddy bear. So Maybe the Mayan calendar was right? Because things in 2012 were super weird. And, I do seem to remember a polarization at that point in time too. (Quick side note: the Mayans were not right. looks like the world did not end. we're still here. How many apocalypses is that now? three? four? maybe we should just trust that the world isn't ending when we think it is. [The Left Behind Series would like a word])

Anyway, there's actually an interesting thing going on here with the studios. Magic Mike was WB, just like Barbie, and Ted was Universal Studios, Just like Oppenheimer. So there's this sort of long-term studio rivalry going on. Oppenheimer was actually the first Nolan film done under Universal. All of his previous movies were done under WB. The reason for this is that WB decided to do a simultaneous release of Tenet in theaters and on streaming. For Nolan, this was a slap in the face. He objected because he's a huge fan of cinema, and believes his movies are an experience meant to be witnessed immersively on the big screen. 

This was awakened in him at a young age, when he saw 2001: A Space Odyssey in theaters. But not just any viewing. He saw it as a limited 70mm release, which was as Kubrick shot it, and before the studio did any conversions or adjustments. What it all amounted to was, little seven year old Nolan was blown away. [2001 sound effect] It was a profound experience for him, and he's been trying to create that same sort of cracking open to his audience ever since. In fact, after he wrote Tenent, but before he directed it, he did a giant 70mm restoration of 2001: a Space Odyssey. The goal was to get it as close to the original as possible and re-create what it would have been like when he watched it at 7 years old. 

But the way WB soon afterward released Tenent straight to streaming made it clear that WB was less interested in the sacredness of the work, and so Nolan parted ways and signed on with Universal.  It seems like it was a good choice, As Universal has put out things like Jaws, Jurassic Park, and E.T., all of which have been touted as some of the best cinematic experiences out there.  And after having seen Oppenheimer, I've gotta say that the payoffs are apparent. Though still clearly Nolan, you can see more of what he can do when he's not restricted. There's a stark contrast between the overall tone and impact when you compare Tenant and Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer feels a lot more in league with the likes of Spielberg and Kubrick, relying much more on cinematography and emotional resonance than fast-paced explosive action and franchise branding.

But speaking of 2001 A Space Odyssey, it's clear that Barbie was influenced by it as well. The first scene of Barbie is hilarious, but also a direct frame-by-frame reimagining of the first scene of 2001. There seems to be something here about setting the audience's expectations.

Both films being influenced by Kubrick's work immediately made me think of two things. The first of which is that Kubrick loved to talk about what he referred to as the verbal straightjacket. The idea is that when we get too caught up in definitions and descriptions, we tend to restrict ourselves and lose sight of the deeper meanings found in the experience of it all. He would regularly say that if you want to understand 2001: a Space Odyssey, stop getting caught up in the dialogue, and instead look at what's being shown to you.

Obviously, this creates a bit of a longstanding problem for the podcast doesn't it? isn't this entire thing language?

2001 being notoriously opague in it's meaning was something Kubrick did on purpose. He saw how quick people were to turn his previous film, Doctor Strangelove, into a stereotyped couple sentences, and flatten its deep resonance. It seemed to be that people would forget the experience of the film for the sake of what they decided it meant. I wanted to look into that to see if I could get any extra insights. And, it turns out that a big running theme in the movie is insight itself. Which is difficult to recon with right? Am I flattening the movie by attempting to describe it? In recognizing that it's about the next stage of consciousness, am I shutting myself off from actually experiencing said conciousness?

I think I hear existentialism bubbling back up to the surface. Shoot. Before I go any further I need to address that.  If describing the thing takes you out of the experience of the thing itself, then what am I even doing with this podcast? By putting words to the indescribable, am I creating the illusion that truth is something smaller than what it actually is? Am I replacing a complex reality with a mere symbol? Am I attempting to eff the ineffible?

But if that's the case, Isn't 2001 also doing that? creating an image or symbol of something bigger? Maybe there's no way to escape it. I'm gonna sit with it, especially because it does really seem like this podcast has been doing some good, both for me and for others. So, I hate to get consequentialist with it, but that's going to have to do for now. maybe I'll have a better answer later.

But let's go back to Doctor Strangelove for a minute. The film is almost like a Barbenheimer in itself. It's a black-and-white dialogue-driven film about atomic weapons like how part of Oppenheimer is, but it's also a satire exploring gender norms like Barbie is. Honestly, the fifties and sixties already had a deep merging of bombs and beauty standards. It's why we call an attractive woman a "Bombshell". It's also where we get the term bikini from. The word comes from Bikini Atoll, which is where we did some of the first tests of the Hydrogen bomb.

But let's move from destruction to restoration. There's also an interesting throughline in regards to that.  Kubrick had to painstakingly reconstruct Strangelove shortly after filming because Colombia accidentally ruined the originals, much in the same way Nolan restored A Space Odyssey to its original decades later.

so now we're back to 2001: a Space Odyssey. 2001 seems to be about consciousness. It seems to be saying something about what it means to go beyond our animal nature, as signified in the first scene with the apes learning how to use tools... And then subsequently using those tools to murder a rival clan. It seems to be saying that technology has two sides to it. Both a tool and a weapon. There's one of the most famous jumpcuts in cinema history, that of a bone being thrown by an ape, and it transforming in a single frame to a spaceship. It turns out that in the original script, the ship was meant to be a military ship holding nuculear weapons.

When combined with recognizing that the main antagonist is HAL, an intelligent automated system, it's hard not feel like Kubrick wanted to tie 2001 to Doctor Strangelove. After all, Strangelove also revolves around the failure of an automated system meant to keep us safe. Both are about the illusion of securing our future through systems and structures. The Illusion that rules will save us. The fasle allure of binary switches and exact codes of either conduct or programming. He seems to be saying that there's something related in terms of the nature of AI, and the human tendency to create weapons of mass destruction.

But if Strangelove is linked to 2001, Kubrick seems to also be saying that gender and conciousness are both inextricably linked. Immediately I thought back to the first scene of barbie, and thinking about it in terms of conflict arising from advancements in our understanding of gender.

{2001 theme] The end of 2001 has the infamous space baby scene, where Dave is reborn as this seemingly intelligent giant floating infant above earth. The original story had this enlightened being face earth, and set off all the nuculear weapons in the world at once, but safely high above the ground so earth isn't destroyed, but the violence gets a reset. An interseting note on the novel: Arthur C Clark wrote it at the same time Kubrick was doing the script. Kubrick needed a boost in credibility after Strangelove in order to secure funding. He billed the movie as a cool space movie to build hype for the inevitable moon landing, and to get the general public more fired up for the space race. By comissioning well loved and optimistic sci-fi writer Arthur C Clark to write th e novel, he ensured that the premise would seem credible and well-established. But it also allowed him to have a creative say in the plot of Clark's book. So, even though the ending with the nuculear weapons wasn't in the final cut of the film, it's still at the heart of Kubricks vision.

In the movie, the last moments end with space baby Dave turning and looking at the camera directly, before fading to black. You're left with the after-image of his bright intelligent piercing eyes that seem to have stared into your soul. The implication seems to be a sort of "okay, now it's on you. will you wake up and end the cycle of violence and destruction?"

Thinking in all these terms got me excited enough to give Barbenheimer a second shot.  Next episode, we'll look at what interesting new perspectives bubbled up when I gave them a second viewing. But for now, Let's sit with this: Kubrick's message feels more relevant than ever. We've got the aforementioned trans hate tangled in with the worrying totalitarian inclinations of angry Republican radicals. We've got troubling conflict with Isreal and Palestine, and Ukrane and Russia, and an overall renewed fear of nuclear annihilation. But that's just amid other existential fears such as AI, pandemics, and climate catastrophe. It seems more than ever that there's a need for us to wake up to a new consciousness, and shed the violence and exploitation of the past.

[get up neo ] [how can you wake up if you don't go to sleep]