Good morning!
Welcome to Issue 50.1 of Digestable, your thrice-weekly mouthful of real things happening in the world, minus alarmist pandemic news.
Today’s news, fermented:
Gosh, what’s new? Andrew Cuomo is still an asshole. Apparently, the party alignment of white men doesn’t impact whether they act like they are exempt from the rules.
Derek Chauvin’s trial is starting today, and jury selection includes some concerning questions.
Off to our contributors for today, and don’t miss the bonus advice column at the bottom!
In other surprises, the moon has a secret tail.
(via)
The Second Look
Half-baked cultural criticism from Gabriel Coleman.
I’ve been diving into the Marvel Cinematic Universe the past couple of weeks, out of lack of stimulation and procrastination. My friend Richard describes the films as a “concentrated sugar high:” attractive people in body-hugging outfits and an emotional whiplash of tragedy and comedy all strung together in a series of fast paced fight scenes so mind bending you’re not sure where the CGI begins and the actors end. And then they do the thing at the end of a big fight where they boost the soundtrack volume so high I have to immediately turn my computer’s volume down - just endorphins on endorphins.
I want to talk about one specific character, Thanos, the supervillain of the Avengers crossover series. Stop reading now if you’re spoiler-phobic. Thanos is the last surviving member of the alien race known as “Titans,” who hail from Saturn’s moon. As Thanos explains, the other Titans supposedly succumbed to famine because they refused to implement his plan to avoid planetary starvation. I can definitely see why Thanos wasn’t so popular back home, his plan was a planet-wide cull of half Titan’s population to “conserve resources,” conducted by lottery to ensure fairness. But like any bad politician with fascistic tendencies, Thanos kept shopping his sustainable 50% population reduction around the universe, wiping out exactly half of a bunch of planets and expecting folks to be thankful for their newfound resource abundance. In the plot of the Avengers movies he sets his sight on gathering the magical Infinity Stones which, when used together will allow him to take his 50/50 plan universal.
It’s bad, Thanos is bad, duh. The Avengers crossover movies are so packed with superhero cameos and montages that there can’t be too much of a plot. In the comics Thanos wants to kill half of everybody because he’s in this wild sexual death cult, but the movies substitute Thanos’s complex backstory with a seemingly complex moral standpoint - he’s a genocidal maniac but it’s for the greater good, a.k.a. “sustainability.”
Ecofascism comes up in this newsletter a lot and yes, Thanos is an ecofascist. Even if his mass death doesn’t fall along lines of race or class, sentencing the entire universe to mass death to realize one man’s environmental model is fascism. It’s important to see Thanos in the context of the 2018-2019 world in which they were written. We find ourselves in a continually worsening environmental crisis and nobody - at least none of the major news networks or our most powerful elected officials - know how to deal with it. You can see the Marvel writers grappling with this in the Avengers franchise, knowing drastic action is needed to save the planet, and grasping at old debunked environmental ideas from the 70’s like Paul Erlich’s neo-Malthusian book The Population Bomb to conceptualize what that action may be. It’s upsetting but not exactly surprising. These old ideas are still what everyone thinks environmental action looks like - an anti-human movement that demands incredible personal sacrifice, culminating in the denial of reproduction and even human sacrifice.
Thanos frustrates me because his simplified motives paint a simplified idea of environmental thinking. Nobody in the movie tries to sit down with Thanos and discuss with him exactly why his plan won’t work or what other universal food provision strategies exist. If we think of the movie’s characters allegorically, the big bad environmental movement (Thanos), is heroically vanquished through the cooperation of military nationalism (Captain America) and technocratic imperialism (Iron Man). Also is anyone else creeped out by the weird scandanavian white supremacy in the Thor franchise?
So to finish things out I’d like to list all my issues with Thanos’s plan to save/destroy the universe:
He’s so insistent that the population must be cut in half exactly. Why 50%? Seems a bit excessive. Can I see which models you were looking at?
Also, my dude, populations grow, especially when resources are abundant (aside: the only good way to read Malthus is that he’s trying to understand how Britain’s new fossil imperialism generated abundance breaks with pre-imperial agrarian population dynamics). If this is your plan you’re just going to have to come back in another however many years and kill half of everybody again. Sustainability? I think not.
ALL THE BUZZWORDS Oh my GOD! “The universe is finite, its resources, finite.” Like as far as we know the universe is actually infinite, and who the fuck talks about the universe’s resources? Also also WHAT RESOURCES? You can’t drink oil, you can’t eat vibranium. What Do You Mean “”””Resources??”””””
50% of what? There are definitely times in the movie where characters say “half of all life in the universe” but that’s clearly not what happens. If half of ALL life was eliminated there would 1. be half as much “food” and 2. all ecosystems in the universe would collapse. What really happened was that half of all “eaters” were killed - but there’s no explanation of how Thanos (or the Infinity Stones) distinguish “eaters” from “food.” Also does a man o’ war jellyfish count as 1 organism or several thousand organisms?
Scale: You’ve got a one size fits all plan that works for every planet, non-planet, and pseudoplanet in the universe Thanos?
WHERE’S THE FOOD?? For a movie that’s all about preventing starvation there’s barely any scenes of people eating, absolutely no indication that anyone is actually starving, or analysis as to why folks may or may not be starving. Not denying that hunger is a real Earthly problem that stems from imperial exploitation, but Thanos just showing up and saying “you’re hungry trust me I can fix it” is pretty imperialist itself.
*Hot Goss*
Brought to you by the superb Latifah Azlan.
Well folks, I haven't felt this sorely disappointed in a television series since the finale of Dexter aired nearly eight years ago. After what seemed like a promising start, the 25th season of The Bachelor will conclude -- but not before last Monday's juicy "Women Tell All" episode with all the contestants from this season. And boy, do I have thoughts.
From Anna spreading baseless rumors about another contestant, to MJ and Jessenia's heated fight, to all things Queen Victoria, this year's The Bachelor has been exhaustingly packed to the brim with drama. So I truly did not know what to expect going into this hour-long reunion but I guess I didn't expect to sit through yet another 60 minutes of the season's mean girls completely dissociating from reality as they had been these last several weeks, and doubling down on it. Instead, they zeroed in on Katie and accused her of being the source of all things toxic in the house, because she decided to bring up the out-of-control bullying and slanderous accusations that were happening to Matt James, which led to him stepping in to settle some of the drama himself. What I don't understand is why Mari and Chelsea somehow also became so defensive by Katie's actions that they decided to jump in on the Katie pile-on. No one even remembers the two of you!
The only person who showed even an ounce of genuine remorse for her actions was Anna. But I'm gonna be honest with you, had it been my name slandered and my reputation sullied, I would not have entertained Anna nor accept her apology. But I guess that's why I'm sitting on a couch drinking root beer and watching this show instead of competing -- because I lack the grace.
I realized I did not have the energy to sit through the full 60 minutes of this awful tell all about 20 minutes in so reader, I did in fact turn off the television right then and there. And I think it was just as well that I did so because here I am, combing through news articles of the episode, only to read about the fact that Matt had actually APOLOGIZED to the mean girls, and specifically Victoria, for how he treated them. Can someone more educated than I explain this to me, please?!
Anyway, this all just made it clear for me that these women are fighting over a man who is duller than a soggy saltine in a cup of day-old tea. I mean sure, Matt's body was carved from the Cliffs of Moher by God probably but like, just make a plaster cast of his abs and hang it in the Louvre for us to see so we don't have to listen to him say "Thanks for sharing that with me tonight" to literally anything these ladies share with him at all ever, including but not limited to whenever they literally tell him that they're in love with him. Oh, also, he kisses with his eyes open. Which he only recently acknowledged was a weird thing to do. Sir, I've only ever kissed my cat with these lips and even I know not to do that.
surprise!! Caro’s Advice Corner
Dear Caro,
Welp, I have suddenly found myself driving across country moving all my possessions to live in a very large city on the west coast. This is move number 6 in the last 2 years and wow I’m burnt out. It also happens to be the move “back home”. I haven’t lived near my family since I left for college at 17 and like so many of us post college pandemic folk I am making the pilgrimage back. So here’s my dilemma- how do I root myself in this new to adult me place? Most of my high school homies are not in the area any more. And this is a biiiig city during pandemic times :/ so do I move to the biiiig city where all my family is but is kind of tense and freaks me out, or do I go countryside where I’m more cozy but may get sad and lonely? Any advice on making this move as groovy as I can would be great.
Movin on back
Dear Movin on back,
I think many would agree, your journey and dilemma are highly relatable. I want to begin by affirming how scary it is to not only move to a new city, but to be making the pilgrimage back to a place where perhaps you did not think you would ever return to live. I know I took the immediate chance to move out of not only the city, but the state my family lived in. Returning home can, for many of us, feel nerve wracking and tense.
I myself am contemplating a move to a huge city move right now, and it might be helpful to walk you through my thought process as I also decide where I might fit in best in this new place. I likewise have the option of moving into the actual city, or the countryside, where things are much much calmer. This move is also a return home for myself, and considering family into the equation is also an important piece. I personally lean towards space and towards an environment where I can better control people’s access to me. The countryside always calls out to me, but I hear your fear of sadness and loneliness. I would consider possibly searching for a place where you have access to the city, more importantly a place where you have access to the social benefits of a city, and where you also have the ability to enjoy the quiet joys of nature -- perhaps somewhere a quick drive or near public transportation where you can quickly access a green space.
This might also be a place where you have enough distance between you and your family so you are better able to control when you see each other -- I mostly say this knowing that although I love my parents, I know that usually a bit of distance does our relationship wonders sometimes. Finding a place that fits these elements might not be as easy as I have written above, but I have confidence that you will prioritize what is right for you in terms of a living space.
If the social aspect of the move is what makes you nervous at the moment, I know this sounds cheesy, but search for a Facebook group for newcomers, or check out what local, COVID safe activities are happening around the city to better be able to meet new folks. Perhaps as the world continues to evolve, and the weather improves in many places, there will be better opportunities for you to meet new folks in this city. I myself am an avid reader, so whenever I find myself in a new city, I typically search out the public library or local bookstore first. These are great places to find out about local events and in general what is happening in your neighborhood. Use your hobbies as a springboard to meet new folks!
Movin on back, I know this probably feels scary, exciting, and very nerve wracking at the moment, but I have no doubt you will re-build roots as the adult version of yourself back home. You are coming back knowing more about the world than you did when you moved out, use this confidence, use your knowledge to lean into discomfort, discover new ways of being in an old and familiar place. I have no doubt you will find ways of thriving and building community as you are now.
Best of luck!
Caro