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Why 'Get Out' Probably Should Have Won Best Picture The most groundbreaking movie of the year might be indie’s best hope. by Everett Shen IF YOU OPENED THIS ARTICLE EXPECTING A fuming rant about all the reasons why The Shape of Water didn’t deserve the Oscar, you’ve come to the wrong place. While Guillermo del Toro’s otherworldly fairy tale may have left something to be desired in the originality department, its melodious cinematography and steampunk romanticism ambitiously pushed the boundaries of visual storytelling and did so with a measly budget of $20 million. As a nominee that checked all the appropriate boxes and went a little beyond, it was a fitting choice. In fact, the only time I slightly doubted the night’s outcome was when del Toro’s film didn’t take home the Spirit Award for Best Feature the day before, a reliable predictor of the Academy Award counterpart for the past six years. Instead, the Silver Eagle went to the producers of Get Out, a horror flick about a black man who comes to some disturbing realizations while meeting his girlfriend’s white parents for the first time. That night, I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. But 24 hours later, Warren Beatty announced the winner, and the world returned to normal. Defying All Odds Call me stubborn, but I still believe that out of all the nominees, a Get Out win would have been the most groundbreaking. Detractors of the film claim it was too commercial in nature to qualify for an Oscar; yet, the commercial success of Get Out was never a certainty. In fact, it’s hard to overstate the miraculousness of such a film ever making it off the producer’s desk, let alone to the big screen. Jordan Peele said it best

Left: Oscar for Best Original Screenplay Right: Jordan Peele

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OSCAR FIRSTS 1921 Wings

First Best Picture

1940

Hattie McDaniel

First African American Performer to win an Oscar Gone with The Wind

1957

Miyoshi Umeki First Asian Performer to win an Oscar Sayonara

1971

Chief Dan George First Native American to be Nominated Little Big Man

1974

Tatum O’Neal First Child Actress to win an Oscar Paper Moon

2010

Kathryn Bigelow First Woman to win Best Director The Hurt Locker

2013

Alfonso Cuarón First Hispanic to win Best Director Gravity

2018

Jordan Peele

First African American to win Best Screenplay Get Out

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during his acceptance speech for Best Original Screenplay: “I stopped writing this movie about twenty times because I thought it was impossible.” In an industry where serialization and adaptations have created a reliable machine for maintaining a lucrative bottom line, how do you convince studios to release a controversial original film that seems downright suicidal? How do you tell a story villainizing white Americans, who represent just over 60% of all moviegoers, and still manage to create a cultural phenomenon, not to mention one of the most profitable films of the year? And who dares to do it with their directorial debut? Gamechanger 2017 was the year of the outsider, from Internet rappers to Trump, and Get Out is a shining example. Time and time again, Peele, who says his favorite genre has always been horror despite making a name in sketch comedy, demonstrates an understanding of the fact that engaging people emotionally is more effective at teaching about prejudice than clumsy tirades that sacrifice narrative for message. While the old adage “if you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you” was the philosophy behind “Key and Peele,” Get Out accomplishes the same thing with disquietude in place of humor. But to trivialize the process of actually producing the film would be a big mistake. According to interviews, stress from shooting was enough to cause Peele to break into tears on a daily basis, while a budget of just $4.5 million created issues such as not having enough extras. But the gamble paid off, with an eventual 630% return on investment, beating out Spiderman Homecoming and Thor: Ragnarok in the same year—the last thing anyone could have expected

and probably the best present a Marvel skeptic such as myself could have received for Christmas. With national box office revenue at a 25-year low, and a mass exodus to Netflix in recent years, the market has given its unequivocal verdict on the new normal of reboots and sequelitis. Depth and mass appeal have all but become the new Harry Potter and Voldemort—neither can live while the other survives— but the rise of films like Get Out just might turn the tide. A story that’s as entertaining as it is profound is worth its weight in gold. Those who think that maintaining the “purity” of cinema will save it might as well save themselves some time and put movie theaters into history museums. Walking the Walk Of course, making a load of money doesn’t guarantee that a movie is any good. Get Out’s genius lies in the audacity of its concept, which takes the social thriller and places it in the 21st century, without a layer of sugar-coating to be found—in this regard it’s unlike anything else I’ve ever seen. A good deal of films about racism, especially those that win awards, like 12 Years a Slave or Selma, take place within a certain framework, often occurring in the past, allowing prejudice to be viewed as a forgotten relic. Others miss the mark by making the stories too impersonal or filling them with poverty porn. In contrast, the protagonist of Get Out is an average individual living in a world most viewers would have trouble distinguishing from their own, thus making the events in the film feel like they could be happening in the house across the street. Even more common in such films is the presence of an enlightened savior, or “the good white person,” who the viewer can latch on and relate to, thus making them

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feel better by alleviating any guilt they could feel. Get Out has neither. Or rather, it takes Rose, the one seemingly normal Armitage, and turns the audience’s sense of comfort in her against themselves. By the time Chris, the protagonist, wakes up to find himself tied to a chair, you find yourself double-checking your arms and legs just to make sure—no matter what race you may be. Most strikingly is the fact that the film attacks not just racism, but specifically liberal racism. While topics like homosexuality and feminism are hardly controversial for Hollywood anymore, most viewers would likely find it hard to swallow something that might just be directed at themselves. It’s difficult to imagine anyone who could present the same idea in a more powerful way. By taking moments that are merely discomforting, like Rose’s father’s out-of-the-blue “I would have voted for Obama for a third time” comment and building them up to a truly horrifying reveal, Peele shows us that even the wokest of progressives might harbor a disturbingly ingrained bigotry that shouldn’t be given the benefit of the doubt, as Chris soon discovers. Those who try to escape from a bout of serious introspection after a viewing of Get Out might as well be trying to escape from TSA officer Rod Williams. Behold the Future So what am I getting at? (This is the part where I go off the record and share my own personal opinions as a filmmaker.) Diversity in film has been something I’ve been hearing more and more of, ever since the row over #OscarsSoWhite, but have always had mixed feelings about, especially when it comes to Asian Americans like myself. Obviously there are certain red lines that can’t be crossed when it comes to portrayals; but, I’ve never seen the point

of inserting a random minority character into a film for the sake of being more diverse, which seems to be what plenty of people have come to view as the proper legacy of the movement. For instance, Asian Americans make up less than 6% of the population—giving them even one out of every five lead roles is technically overrepresentation, and may result in perceived tokenism that harms more than it helps without solving any deep-rooted problems. Movies like Get Out and last year’s The Big Sick, which documents the comedic trials of a Pakistani man dating a white woman, convince me that movies made by minorities, about minorities, are the future. That is, movies that focus solely on the experience of one contemporary ethnic group, as opposed to those that lump them into every other demographic, which are inauthentic and fail to provide consolation or meaning to their struggles. No two communities suffer the same ailment, and their stories deserve to be told and understood. Once the authority to narrate is restored to its rightful owners, the way minorities are viewed and portrayed will slowly but surely improve. And that’s why I felt nothing but sheer joy when, backstage at the Oscars, Peele described his film as part of a “renaissance." I didn’t mind it much that Get Out didn’t get the gold: because the movement has already begun. Get Out has shown both audiences and executives that such stories can find not only a market, but huge success across all demographics. Already, Universal has ordered a new film from Peele with five times his previous budget, due to come out in two years. We now see an ongoing drive to dispel box office myths and to breathe new life into cinema for disillusioned viewers. That’s something I can get in on.

Do you like Huey Lewis and The News? by Ashley Wang Do you like Huey Lewis and the News? The 1980s were a good time for rock music, from Gothic rock to post-punk to new wave. So much about the decade was “new”: the craze was about the bigger, the better, the future. Only in a decade with an incredible culture of self-aggrandizement could hairstyles like the mullet and Jheri curl have had such success, truly being the Age of Excess. It only stands to reason that it was also the age of yuppie culture. Short for “young urban professional,” perhaps today you would think of them as “corporate fat cats”. Regardless, we all know the look: wide lapels, pinstriped suits, gelled hair, and suspenders. Notable hobbies include fine dining, working out, and cocaine. You know the type. Patrick Bateman is a yuppie,

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ed me a stray cat Feed m and he is proud of it. His life holds very few pressing problems, being free from financial struggles. He works at the company his father owns and blows off what little work he is responsible for onto his poor, lovestruck secretary, Jean, knowing that his time is better spent on activities like extensive skincare routines, renting pornographic videotapes, snorting cocaine in club bathrooms, and listening to pop rock with his cherished Walkman. His friends, all fellow yuppies, talk about coveted restaurant reservations and business card design. Whenever he interjects with mundane topics, say, contemporary societal issues, he is immediately shot down. Bateman can’t even get in a word about his favorite activity: serial killing. Despite a busy life, Bateman manages to squeeze in time for miscellaneous torture and homicide. The decapitated heads of unlucky homeless people and hookers are left in his freezer next to the sorbet. Not that more “valuable” members of society are spared; even other yuppies meet their ends in his apartment. Since life would be dry without some entertainment, he makes sure to educate his victims with pop trivia about his

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favorite bands. From the “consummate professionalism” of the album Sports to the merits of Phil Collins as a solo artist, by pontificating to his treasured guests, Bateman manages to merge his two passions in life; if we glossed over some details, his lifestyle could almost be admirable. To this day, the enduring question about American Psycho (2000), based on the violent and gratuitous novel by Bret Easton Ellis, is the validity of Patrick Bateman’s sanity. He’s practically a victim himself. Though the film has less detail than the novel, with murders usually occurring offscreen, we are presented with explicit evidence of Bateman’s absolute disregard for the sanctity of life. Were there any doubt left of his unlimited (and rather creative) sadism, he kicks a dog harshly right after murdering its owner. Despite his experience, he is far from cautious. He leaves corpses in his closets like suits, and a prospective victim almost gets away before he manages to miraculously drop a chainsaw on them. He is seemingly investigated by Detective Kimball for the disappearance of Paul Allen (who he chopped up with an axe), yet Allen allegedly materializes multiple times in London. He confesses multiple times rather blithely (instead of mergers and acquisitions, he tells a girl that he specializes in

“murders and executions”) yet they always hear more innocuous phrases. An ATM tells him, “FEED ME A STRAY CAT.” (He almost succeeds.) Others laughing off his strange behavior becomes a recurring motif; understandably, such contradictions drive Bateman into a state of frenzy. Yet to focus on this question entirely would be to ignore actual thematic issues. Harron, the director, uses it as mere misdirection. There is no dearth of films utilizing this tactic to mask true meaning. Christopher Nolan’s existential sci-fi thriller Inception (2010) bears remarkable similarities in its ending. Even someone who’s never seen Inception knows the gist of its plot, due to its permeation in pop culture: it’s a dream in a dream in a dream, and the boundary between real life and dreams is repeatedly questioned. At the end of the film, though the protagonist, Cobb, has achieved his happy ending, he may still be in a dream. Though Nolan has provided clues that Cobb is, in fact, in real life, the ending was never meant to be about such technicalities. Cobb himself chooses to disregard if he is in a dream or reality, an indicator of Nolan’s true intentions. The current state of reality doesn’t matter. Cobb has spent energy and time to achieve his happy ending; he’s not willing to forsake that just because it might not be real. The “gimmick” of the whole movie, the dream layers, are just that: a mere vehicle for the real message lurking behind them. Nolan also alludes to this in his neonoir mystery, Memento (2000), albeit in perhaps the opposite way. The protagonist, Leonard, chooses to disregard reality, so as to give himself purpose. Though Nolan doesn’t idealize Leonard’s actions, he again points out that deep down, it doesn’t matter. Leonard is thus allowed to define his own reality; as long as he’s happy, who cares if it’s all an illusion? The closing shot of American Psycho mirrors Inception, though a major difference lies in the protagonist’s agency (or lack thereof). Bateman’s version of reality is decided for him. After an attempted confession to his lawyer, he discovers that nearly

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me a stray cat Feed me a everyone thinks he’s too much of a loser to be a serial killer. Stunned, he stares listlessly into the camera and accepts his fate. “My pain is constant and sharp, and I do not hope for a better world for anyone,” he intones in voice-over. “This confession has meant nothing.” Again, Harron leaves no definite clues regarding the veracity of his confessions; are his hallucinations indicative of his murders existing only in his mind, or just further evidence of his instability? Bateman can by no standards be considered a conventional protagonist. He isn’t even much of an antihero, and unless you’re also a homicidal yuppie, he’s as unrelatable as it gets. Still, he is, in some regards, a sympathetic character. American Psycho, as a whole, is a slick, sleazy caricature of the irreverence and glorified posturing of the ’80s. Yet, if he was nothing but a vehicle for a lampooning of ’80s excesses and materialism, he wouldn’t have had a pessimistic internal monologue presented through voiceover. Throughout the film, in contrast to his almost Hippocratic smile, stretched to an unnatural extent, he introspects to increasingly despairing degrees. “I have all the characteristics of a human being,” he states without inflection in a beauty salon, “but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion except for greed and disgust.” The externally presented Bateman is superficial―he clearly knows how to navigate the world he’s confined to. Despite this, he’s clearly self-conscious and self-aware―despite a disturbing propensity for violence, he comes off as the weakest in the presence of other yuppies, as if he knows that he’s only barely keeping up with what, to them, comes naturally. At the most critical moments, Bateman’s mask of sanity becomes just that: a physical mask of failing composure, visibly trying to rein himself in. During his office interrogation with Detective Kimball, who is even creepier and more off-putting than the serial killer in the room, he is clearly awkward in his attempts to rebuff questions. When he breaks up his engagement with Evelyn, his fiancée, he lacks the faculties to do

it gently, and leaves the scene with great discomfort. Luis Carruthers’s confession of love leaves him shaking, and he leaves the building flustered, unable to respond when people behave unpredictably. Under such circumstances, he becomes emotionally vulnerable. With such reactions, Bateman becomes nearly recognizable as a human being. He may even be the most compassionate of his friends, and even they consider him weird. He early on launches into an impromptu speech about fixing societal issues to his clearly indifferent yuppie colleagues. “We have to encourage a return to traditional moral values,” he says earnestly. “Most importantly, we have to promote general social concern and less materialism in young people.” The other yuppies disregard him almost completely; only Carruthers deigns to respond, and only because he is in love with Bateman. Bateman is under constant internal turmoil, and in the end this culminates in a climactic bout of madness. He shoots an old lady at the ATM (that he tried to feed a cat to) and goes on a murder spree that culminates in a passionate confession left via voice-

mail to his lawyer. His lawyer doesn’t believe him, much to his distress; conveniently, his location for corpse storage is somehow cleaned out. He faces his own personal reckoning: his hopes of ever being taken seriously are completely dashed. His name proves prophetic, having been baited into pivotal weakness. He knows that he’s insane, and he knows that his actions are, without doubt, morally wrong. “But even after admitting this, there is no catharsis; my punishment continues to elude me, and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself,” he narrates with great care. “There are no more barriers to cross.” The film ends with one final shot of his eyes in closeup. They are completely blank; he does not blink. He has distanced himself far, far out of reach, beyond where anyone could hope to find any concept of the real Bateman. Is he an American psychotic, or an American psychopath? “There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman; some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me: only an entity, something illusory,” he states lifelessly. “I simply am not there.” Bateman, after all, knows that at the end of the day, it just doesn’t matter.

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Taika Waititi’s Marvel debut is a thrilling spectacle fit for the gods. Thor: The Dark World (2013) was one of the most forgettable and mediocre Marvel movies of all time. With a boring villain, out-of place comedy, and Thor often overshadowed by his younger brother, Loki, the film had nothing exciting to offer to the Cinematic Universe. Last year’s Thor: Ragnarok gives the series a makeover, assembling a new director (Taika Waititi), a brand new squad (Valkyrie, Hulk, and Loki), and some bombastic comedy, making Thor’s once lackluster place in the Avengers canon a thing of the past. Although Ragnarok follows some aspects of the Marvel formula (a villain tries to get a super powerful weapon in order to conquer the entire universe), it focuses its time on a side quest instead of direct confrontation between the villain and the hero. To summarize, Hela, Odin’s first child, comes back from exile and conquers Asgard while Thor, Loki, and Hulk are stuck on a gladiator-esque planet run by “The Grandmaster” and his primary warrior “Valkyrie.” This unique plot separates Ragnarok from the majority of Marvel movies, continuing the studio’s diversification of its storytelling approach.

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We further see this in the way protagonist Thor’s divine status is portrayed. Every movie in the franchise so far has connected Thor to some earthly element, whether that be Jane (his ex) or the safety of Earth’s citizens, in order to make Thor more relatable and likable to us mortals. In Ragnarok, Marvel realizes that Thor is a god and merely “bringing him down to Earth” doesn’t actually make him any more relatable. As a result, the film has very few scenes on Earth, making room for some colorful, outer-space action extravaganzas. At many points the film is reminiscent of Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), in the sense that many of the action scenes have hardcore 80’s rock music to go with them. Yet far from being a welcome addition to Thor’s presence, this seems to be more of a tacked-on feature, an attempt to follow in the success of Guardians’s notable soundtrack. Both films are packed with comedy, an aspect critical to their success; however, the comedy in Ragnarok is more organic and idiosyncratic (four-fifths of the comedy is improvised), separating it from it’s comedic predecessors. For the most part, this pays off. But at some points it feels like the characters who

deliver the jokes don’t understand the gravity of the situation. The comedy is a huge plus, but occasionally takes away from the seriousness of the movie. One of the best parts of Ragnarok is how it contributes to the existing personalities of its protagonists. Hulk actually communicates in the film, for once, and expresses the likes, dislikes, and frustrations that go hand-in-hand with the inner struggle between Bruce Banner and the angry green dude. Thor, on the other hand, undergoes a complete transformation: we see him change from a serious, noble character to someone with a sense of humor and liveliness, whether that be expressed in hilarious reactions to seemingly simple situations or sarcasm. All in all, Ragnarok is, hands down, one of the best Marvel movies I’ve ever seen, balancing in-depth character development with hilarious comedy. Though it suffers from a number of inconveniently located jokes, it introduces a new Thor, one who we’ll hopefully get to see more of in the upcoming Infinity War*. *Article was written prior to release of Infinity War

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The Witch draws from Kubrick and Friedkin to deliver a possessing terror. In an industry fraught with cheap jumpscares and inordinate amounts of gore, Robert Eggers’ directorial debut The Witch (2015) not only brings the horror genre back to its deep psychological roots, but also provides a new take on witchcraft and the occult, winning the directing award at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. Drawing inspiration from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) and William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973), The Witch inspires fear not by what is seen, but by the invisible forces that eventually lead to the ruination and disintegration of a family. Following a Puritan family of seven excommunicated from their colony and forced

Right: Anna Taylor-Joy The Witch grossed $40 million against a budget of $4 million

to live in the frontier wilderness of 1630s New England, Eggers paints a hauntingly vivid picture of colonial life, shooting under a dreary, overcast sky and drawn out candle-lit tableaux. As the film progresses into its subsequent acts, Eggers continues to maintain the verisimilitude that he establishes early on. From the mud-walled cabin to the archaic English dialogue, the director’s five years of research during pre-production is made evident and plays a prominent role in the film’s bleak atmosphere. By placing the audience into the shoes of god-fearing colonists accompanied by shrill string crescendos and droning choral performances, Eggers recreates the zeitgeist of an era when the diabolical

was thought to be lurking around every corner. What is most impressive about The Witch is not the meticulous attention to detail or stellar performances by Anya Taylor-Joy and Harvey Scrimshaw, but the film’s identity as a feminist parable. When the family’s youngest child, Samuel, goes missing while under the supervision of the family’s oldest daughter Thomasin, the only natural conclusion for the distraught family is that Satan has stolen Samuel, making Thomasin complicit with the Devil. As the film progresses, Thomasin is increasingly ostracized by her religious family for her burgeoning womanhood. She is arraigned for the family’s crop failure, as well as the death of the oldest son Caleb, who wanders home delirious after becoming lost in the surrounding woods. Following her family’s eventual dissolution, Thomasin enters the woods where she comes across a meeting of the occult, freeing herself from the “city upon a hill.” Finding herself finally independent of the oppressive piety of her family and Puritan society, the film concludes with Thomasin spellbound in ecstasy. As horror movies go, The Witch is not particularly terrifying in the same way one may associate with box office successes such as Halloween (1978) or The Conjuring (2013); rather, The Witch presents itself as a dark, psychological horror film that strays away from overt displays of terror, opting to show a far more insidious, personal fear: a fear of what lies within both us and those around us.

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What Kill La Kill lacks in clothing, it makes up for with eye-catching animation and clever references. With their shared sense of absurdity, Studio Trigger’s Kill La Kill (2013–2014) is a celebration of the proclivity to nudity in Japanese animation and an ode to the animated series Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (2007), director Hiroki Imaishi’s magnum opus. The show’s protagonist, Ryuuko Matoi, is a medley of tropes from Japanese media: part tenkosei, part ronin, part mahou shoujo, and part sukeban: a transfer student who’s also a delinquent “magical girl” loner. On a quest to find those responsible for her father’s murder, Ryuuko declares war on the fascist student council of Honnouji Academy, armed with only half a pair of giant scissors and a sentient sailor uniform named Senketsu. Studio Trigger’s gift is packaged with vibrant colors and dynamic animation, and stuffed with historical references, wordplay, and farcical

Right: The only school-appropriate image we could find from this show

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tropes. But, in spite of Kill La Kill’s critical acclaim, the show may not be as well-received by every viewer due to its frequent fanservice nudity and cultural references that newcomers to Japanese media may be unable to appreciate. The world of Kill La Kill is animated in every sense of the word. Studio Trigger combines the stylized aesthetics of the colorful and bustling slums of Honno City with the slick and uniform greys of Honnouji Academy to create a lively and diverse setting. Each character is an exaggerated subversion of Japanese character tropes—one of the head honcho’s loyal commanders, disciplinary committee head Ira Gamagori, is the typical hulking enforcer with a “soft side,” but subverts the trope with his sadomasochism. In

a word, Kill La Kill is fun and manages to up the ante with increasingly climactic action. Ryuuko’s progressively stronger and stranger gauntlet of foes displays Trigger’s brilliant character design and action choreography. Though several episodes are held back by inconsistent animation quality, Kill La Kill is a beautiful action anime. However, the biggest hurdle for most viewers seeking to enjoy Kill La Kill will be its nudity. Yes, there are frequent panty shots, and the battle suits are essentially magical combat lingerie. But, part of what makes the nudity more acceptable to the viewer is the acknowledgement of its absurdity and inconvenience. The characters in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann barely bat an eye at the utterly impractical scantiness of their outfits, leaving us alone in our discomfort. Though Ryuuko is initially embarrassed by her state of near-undress, she eventually grows to accept it, and so does the audience. Early on, it is established that to fully synchronise with Senketsu and maximize his power she must no longer be ashamed of his scantiness, embracing both her body and her potential. Nudity is central to Kill La Kill’s plot, as combat is based on magical uniforms, all of which contain a varying amount of a powerful, but hard-to-control, element called life fibers. The greater the content of life fibers, the more powerful a uniform is, but the skimpier it becomes as well, to inhibit the danger of coming into contact with the material. On her quest, Ryuuko even allies with a covert faction of anti-life fiber activists known as Nudist Beach, further satirizing the abundance of nonsensical nudity in anime. The show’s clever incorporation of nudity into

foreign film its plot emphasizes positive messages about body image acceptance by showing Ryuuko’s struggle to accept her own body. Regardless, at its core, the nudity is still blatant fanservice. It’s not a particularly thoughtful commentary on nudity in anime, as there is a lack of diversity of perspective in its presentation, so if viewers are still uncomfortable by episode six, it would be advisable to drop the show. Yet, Imaishi’s world is more than just gratuitous skin and blistering battles—it’s infused with puns and clever references to Japanese history and religion. Most apparent to English viewers are the similar-sounding terms “fashion” and “fascism” that describe the totalitarian student council. The title

itself is a pun, as “kill” in Japanese is “kiru” ( ), which can mean to kill, cut, or wear. To Japanese viewers, much of the plot is foreshadowed by the name Honnouji Academy, an obvious reference to the infamous Honno-ji Incident of 1582, when daimyo Oda Nobunaga was forced to commit suicide after the successful betrayal and rebellion of his general Akechi Mitsuhide. Additionally, the rivalry between archenemies Ryuuko and Satsuki Kiryuin represents the immortal struggle between the horned demon Oni and the sun goddess Amaterasu in Japanese mythology. Their attire and presentation is evidence to their place in the relationship—Satsuki is presented in dazzling white, towering over others with the literal sun beaming behind her, while Ryuuko’s edgy attitude, red-and-black palette,

and horned costume design evoke demons. Unfortunately, for non-Japanese viewers, many of Kill La Kill’s references and wordplay are left unappreciated, leaving them unaware of hidden meanings cleverly embedded in the show’s small details. Even binging the show can ruin the experience, as the sole action song, “Don’t Lose Your Way,” can lose its luster after being repeated so often, instead of waiting for the latest release every week. Still, Kill La Kill is a funny, vibrant show. Though its wit may be lost on viewers less acquainted with anime, its clever humor and references, diverse characters, and climatic action make it a must-see for anime fans or anyone looking to further explore the medium.

The New Religion in Bollywood by Anika Sonig

ith chaotic sounds of impatient honking and loud conversations, fragrant smells of sandalwood, and vibrant colors of fleeting traffic and rangoli designs, New Dehli felt exactly the same as I had always remembered it when I visited for my cousin’s wedding. With perhaps one exception. At the airport, I noticed an absurd number of promotional movie posters everywhere from walls to baggage claim conveyor belts. When I went to the shopping mall, I observed the same phenomenon. I also noted them on taxi cars, subway trains, and restaurant windows. Before long, the truth became apparent: all of this excessive marketing was reflective of a larger trend. The Indian Cinema industry, otherwise known as Bollywood, is known for its vibrant colors, dramatic plotlines, songs, and dances. Brad Pitt once said in an interview with an Indo-Asian news service that he “would love to work in a Bollywood film as there is so much drama and color in the films there.” As the largest movie producer worldwide for the last few years, Bollywood releases more than 2,000 movies every year, while Hollywood releases just over 700. Mumbai, a city on the west coast, is the Los Angeles of India. Thousands of people flock

to this city to become a part of this multi-million dollar industry. In 2016, more than 1.9 billion movie tickets were sold in India, which places it as one of the leading film markets in the world, generating 2.5 billion dollars in revenue. In today’s Bollywood industry, crowds are pulled in through marketing and advertising, which reached almost 430 million dollars in 2017, a result of growing competition between domestic and international markets. The “hype” created by marketers is a pretty accurate way to predict a film’s success, which is why filmmakers today have started to adopt unique strategies to stand out in a highly competitive business. Today, it is totally normal for a Bollywood movie to have a website, Facebook page, Snapchat, YouTube, and Twitter account. There are also innumerable movie posters posted on various locations from billboards in urban cities to the sides of auto-rickshaws. Marketers utilize these techniques to help build a reputation for productions, create real-time conversations between people, and engage audiences — the younger generation — through the internet, which has over 70 million social network surfers in India. Apart from posters and social media pages, people involved in films also play a large role in

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India’s box office sells 1.9 billion tickets per year, making it the largest in the world. their marketing. Actors, directors, and producers continuously post on their various social media accounts and engage viewers for months before movies are actually released. They launch video teasers, music videos, Instagram Boomerangs, Snapchat videos, and Dubsmash clips. Actors make appearances on late night talk shows, reality shows, and even dance competitions to promote their films. According to the Deccan Chronicle, trailers typically make their first appearance after about 25 posts and three press conferences. To put things into perspective, the first teaser of a big-budget production Raees (2017) was released in July 2015, while the movie itself was released in January 2017. Another example of a unique marketing stunt was the development of a mobile app created by Disney India that allows people to connect with main characters of the movie. These creative marketing tactics are sometimes effective but are always expensive. In 2012, average marketing costs for a Bollywood motion picture ranged anywhere between 1.5 to 2.5 million dollars. Sometimes the price of marketing a movie exceed its production cost. There used to

over 2000 movies are produced annually in India, almost 4 times as many as in the US.

be a time in India when filmmaking was considered an artistic endeavor, but now it has become less focused on quality and more driven towards gaining profits through marketing techniques. With excessive promotion, actual content has suffered quite a bit. Formulaic marketing campaigns provide audiences every little detail about upcoming films, so much so that they reveal many crucial details of plotlines, which may very easily decrease public interest. According to The Express Tribune, since so much money is being spent on promotions, and only half as much on actually creating Bollywood productions, a good deal of over-promoted movies leave audiences disappointed. Instead of coming up with new ways to interact with viewers through every possible method of communication, Bollywood filmmakers should invest more in the crucial factors of their releases, such as the screenplay and cinematography of productions. It’s clear that marketing is getting out of hand when an animated children’s mystery movie called “Hari Puttar” is released right after the Harry Potter series starts to become world famous.

Shah Rukh Khan, India’s highest paid actor, earns an estimated $33 million per year.

films in India are created in about 20 languages india has a screen ratio of 1 screen per 96,300 residents compared to 1 screen per 7,800 in the US.

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THE

PEOPLE vs

MASTER YODA BY MILES BARDZILOWSKI

Master Yoda. You all know the name. He’s an icon of American popular culture. First debuting in 1980 with The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda has inspired generations with his message of “size matters not,” proving we can all be great warriors so long as we have faith in that which binds the universe together. This popularity has spawned novels, comics tie-ins, and of course a never-ending supply of toys, clothes, and whatever other merchandise can have his face plastered all over it. So would it surprise you if I said he’s not the wise leader he’s cracked up to be? Not only is he not that, he isn’t a role model in the slightest. In fact, America’s second favorite frog Muppet could be the character whose actions led most directly to the rise of Darth Vader and the Galactic Empire. And this isn’t in a “Darth Jar Jar” fan theory type of way, either. This is directly from the films themselves. Aching to know how? Read on, young Padawan, as I take you through the most famous sci-fi epic in modern history from the perspective of someone about two feet off the ground.

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ODA’S STORY BEGINS ABOUT 800 YEARS BEFORE THE PHANTOM MENACE. That’s how long he had been training Jedi before that one decided to spoil the fun. Time enough to single-handedly shape the Jedi as an organization, especially when you get to the point where everyone else on the Jedi Council is either your apprentice or your apprentice’s apprentice. Which is exactly how the Jedi became the mess they were around the time of the Clone Wars. He adopted a strict interpretation of the Jedi Code and made it law, claiming any sort of emotion could be a path to the Dark Side. To avert troublesome feelings, the Jedi under Yoda exclusively trained children from a very young age to have no attachments, and to bottle up anything that might prove inconvenient. If that sounds like a cult, that’s only because it is. The first time we see Yoda is when his apprentice’s apprentice and his apprentice (Count Dooku, Qui-Gon Jinn, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, respectively) show up with a new potential apprentice, some annoying kid named Anakin Skywalker. They claim he’s the most powerful child actor in the universe ever, and the hero of a prophecy about bringing balance to the Force and destroying the Sith (even though they think the Sith are extinct). Yoda rejects the kid because he’s too old. He’s nine, by the way. This is actually the only good thing Yoda does in the entire Prequel Trilogy, because if he had stuck with this decision then at least one peaceful planet would be more than a collection on smoldering space debris. Unfortunately, it’s only about fifteen minutes before the Jedi Council lets Obi-Wan train little Ani “Are You Okay?” Skywalker, even though none of them had a reason to and they all sensed great danger in his future. But not before they send Qui-Gon back to Naboo, alone, to deal with the first phase of an incredibly convoluted galactic takeover plan that hinges on everybody in the world being an idiot (or written by one). He takes Obi-Wan and the walking red flag along just because, but Yoda and the gang decide that all the other hundreds of Jedi have better things to do. Qui-Gon dies because it’s him and his apprentice against a superpowered Juggalo with two lightsabers duct taped together, (and the apprentice gets trapped behind some walls). There are three major things Yoda did wrong here: reveal how he needs young children to indoctrinate, fail to prevent Anakin “In Space,

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Left The madman himself Middle Anakin “Slaughterface” Skywalker Right No one cared who I was until I put on the mask

Nobody Can Hear You Scream” Skywalker from being given magic and a laser sword, and get Qui-Gon killed by not giving him any sort of backup. In Attack of the Clones we jump ahead ten years. Yoda does a couple awful things in this one. The first is sending the now-adult Annoying-Kid-Slash-Child-Murderer to guard Natalie Portman alone, when they’ve clearly got the hots for each other—this is a pretty blatant inconsistency in Yoda’s thinking. For someone who preaches the evils of passion and romance, he has very few hesitations about throwing two repressed young adults with hormones like a powder keg together on the most romantic planet in the galaxy. Even if we ignore Yoda’s weird, puritanical views on sex, it’s a pretty unprofessional move considering how Anakin utterly fails to do the one thing he was sent to do, constantly bringing Padme onto open fields, romantic river rides, and pretty much everywhere else on Naboo where an assassin could set up a long-distance rifle and go to town. Later on, we see Yoda packing a small room full of children with laser swords, a pretty cutand-dry child endangerment case. But the most important awful thing he does is single-handedly start the Clone Wars. No, seriously, by bringing the clone army to Geonosis at the end of the movie, he lights the spark that starts the next half-decade of armed conflict. I think this needs to be stressed because after the battle on Geonosis when everything’s cooling down and he’s back on Coruscant, he says “Begun, the Clone War™ has” like it’s some kind of wise observation even though he started it. Keep that in mind, the way he distances himself

analysis

from any personal responsibility, because I’ll be coming back to it. But for the time being, there’s one thing he does in this movie that I actually kinda like, when he whips out his shortsaber (it was cold in space, alright?) and fights Count Dooku. He gives up on his own Force abilities in favor of swinging around their glow sticks. And he has to make a significant effort to swing around the glow sticks, because he’s a 1’6” gremlin man with a child-size lightsaber. His fighting style consists of bouncing around the room like a coked-up Pomeranian trying to land hits on someone big enough to just punt him across the solar system. You get a sense that this is a guy, because of his biological disadvantages, who really shouldn’t be sword fighting. It carries a sense of wrongness, even without the betrayal of his established narrative. If you’ll recall, the whole lesson we were supposed to learn from him in Empire was about how even a little guy can be a great warrior with the Force. I don’t know if it’s intentional or just one example of the director/writer being a child who couldn’t get enough laser swords, but I like the way it represents Yoda dropping everything he stands for at a moment’s notice. The final film in the Prequel Trilogy is the one that really highlights why Yoda should never be allowed to take care of children. I could talk about why he’s a massive idiot for not seeing that Palpatine was the Sith Lord, but the main point here is how he single-handedly leads Anakin to the Dark Side. Anakin’s story kicks off when he gets premonitions of his pregnant wife dying in childbirth. Throughout his career as a Jedi, Anakin has

had to hide his various traumas and mental illnesses. For starters, he was a slave for the first nine years of his life. When the Jedi came to take him away they left his mom for no reason at all, and never went back until a decade later when Anakin himself decided to go back just in time to watch her get tortured to death. Add on top of that the fact that everyone was kind of weird around him and none of the Jedi, Obi-Wan included, really wanted him around, and it’s really no wonder Anakin hid his troubles for so long. So, after a decade and a half of bottling up his emotions (unsuccessfully) Anakin turns to Yoda in his time of weakness and need. He asks how to deal with this fear that all of his loved ones are going to die. And what is Yoda’s response? You shouldn’t have loved ones. Celebrate when they die. Need I say more? The following sequence of events, with Anakin pledging his allegiance to evil, is direct fallout of Yoda’s words. His entire motivation to become evil is to figure out a way to fix everything in his garbage life, and Yoda tells him in no uncertain terms that the Jedi aren’t going to help him. That’s when Darth Sidious steps in to take over Yoda’s job as a father figure. Darth Vader isn’t tempted by the Dark Side, he’s pushed away by the Light. In that regard, Yoda contributed more to the rise of Vader and the Empire than any other character. And what is Yoda’s response, when all the Jedi are murdered and Palpatine finishes installing his fascist regime? He bails. Twenty years later he is approached by

Luke Skywalker in his swamp. He steals his food, hits R2-D2, and is generally mean to him. When Luke gets fed up with his bullying, Yoda drops the Jar-Jar act and decides the boy can’t be trained for his impatience. Then he pulls out the “too old” thing again, before Obi-Wan’s ghost finally convinces him otherwise. When Luke gets a vision of his friends in danger, Yoda says that abandoning his training will secure him on a path to the Dark Side, even though he has no intention to leave forever— he just has to prevent some easily preventable deaths. He does the exact same thing as he did with Anakin, immediately making an effort to cut him off from all his friends and loved ones, never once acknowledging that maybe humans feel things and that can be good. He repeats Obi-Wan’s story that Anakin was seduced by the Dark Side, because he refuses to accept the blame for his actions. He dies after an exposition dump that should have come much, much sooner and never experiences any sort of consequence after running away. To recap, Yoda abused and endangered children, started a war, then skipped town to avoid facing responsibility, all because he couldn't (or wouldn't) understand human emotions. His lack of emotions isn’t attributable to his species either, because there’s one more Yodaperson in the Prequel era alone. Her name is Yaddle. She’s a kindly grandmother figure who gives candy to the younglings and sacrificed herself to save an entire planet. Members of Yoda’s species have feelings—the man himself is just an actual sociopath. The amount of effort I’m putting into analyzing the Star Wars prequels might lead you to believe that I think there’s something worth analyzing here, like many of my contemporaries who want to convince themselves that the prequels are actually some kind of complex metastory from a genius auteur. I don’t think this is that. I’m not overthinking these movies. As a matter of tossing fact I get the feeling that this is the entire point of the trilogy. I return to the symbolism of Yoda tossing out the Force to swing around his lightsaber at the end of Clones. Lucas wanted the prequels to be his magnum opus, a character study about a man falling into darkness. In the RedLetterMedia video Mister Plinkett’s Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith Review the title character explains in detail all the ways Lucas styles Sith as his own Citizen Kane, a similar story about a man’s transformation into the very thing he hated most. Such a story would have benefitted from a morally gray Jedi Order, with Anakin unable to know who to trust. Yoda would be revealed to be less of the omniscient mentor figure, and more of a manipulator on par with Darth Sidious. But as a writer and a director Lucas was so utterly incompetent that it took over a decade and a half for the main message of the trilogy to receive even fringe acknowledgement within the Star Wars fanbase. The fact that any level of analysis was required to make people believe it is just proof of how awful these movies are.

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151MM 05/2018