Hello, and welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics. Today, we're talking
about some of my favorite topics. We're talking about challenging the roles the way
people see who is good, who is bad, and who is a monster.
We're talking about gender, We're talking about metaphors. We're talking about allegories.
We're talking about nights in a modern day setting with social media. Most
importantly, we're talking about the Netflix movie Pneumona and just how cute and dangerous
a pink rhinoceros can be. All that more. After a commercial break,
we have no control over welcome back. This is Matthew. I'm your host
us day. Then pronouns. This is a movie that just came out on
Netflix. If you haven't seen it, don't worry about it. We'll give
you some some plot details, although I definitely recommend he's just hit stop and
listen to it first. There will be a lot of spoilers ahead. But
I watched this movie and I just instantly knew there was so much about it
I wanted to talk about, and I wasn't sure who eat actually be the
right person, And so I put out a kind of call to some of
my close friends, and someone who hasn't been on the podcast before, but
I really wanted to get in the podcast, responded, and that's my friend.
Bo. Bo was someone who I know from judging. But I've really
enjoyed following them on Facebook and social media and the like and hearing what they
have to talk about on so many great topics, and soon we're excited to
having them on the podcast. So, Bo, why don't you say hello
and introduce yourself? And why when I postioned about this movie you wanted to
respond, Hey, so hello everyone. My name is Bo. I am
Mix and Match today them he him or she her pronouns. By the way,
I do a little bit of everything professionally. I'm a personal assistant to
game design consultant, a legal advocate, and electrician, a software developer.
I like to double. I like to try things out and explore different avenue
is, different facets of what appeals to me. And that's why when I
saw the call to talk about this movie Pneumona, I was so excited about
it because this movie is very near and dear to my heart already after it
has only been out a week two weeks at this point, and that same
sort of idea of the like amorphous, like flexibility and fluidity of life.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. One of the main themes of
the movie is the need that people have that a lot of people have to
put things into clear boxes. And we'll talk more about that specifically, but
they need to classify everybody else and to decide who is good who is bad,
and to think what are you? And how foolish that can be?
So so much to talk about. Moving forward to this, let me give
a quick plot summary, and also I should say this is a it's a
movie. It's based on a graphic novel by the same name that is somewhat
different, but it has the same characters and a lot of the same themes
and scenes. But this is kind of more of a specific origin story,
whereas my understanding of that graphic novel is more kind of like a set of
vignettes involving these characters. But hopefully I think what that means is that we'll
get a whole bunch more of that. But so in the movie, we
start out by learning the myth of this kingdom that long ago there was this
little girl name is it glorel Glora? Thank you? That glore f was
threatened by a monster and was willing to hold a sword at the monster and
say, go back into the shadows from whence thou came? And that that
became kind of the founding myth of the kingdom, and so the order of
Knights that formed to follow her ever since their descendants have been the night that
protect the Kingdom from monsters. And we flashed forward two thousand years later.
Now it's a very modern society. There's you know, very much like our
own, even a little bit more advanced. There's social media, there's neon
lights, there's glitz and glamor, but there's still kings and knights. And
so every time a new group of knights as being inaugurated knighted, I guess
it's presented in the Glorious Dome as this big, sort of huge, kind
of like coronation celebration thing. And this year, for the first time,
something crazy is going to happen. It's going to be the first time that
a peasant knight, someone who isn't from They never really fully explain who the
Royalty is, but I think it's supposed to be clearly implied that it is
the descendants of those original knights, and so the big deal this time,
though, is that Balluster, who is a peasant who showed incredible bravery as
a child, that he is going to be knighted, and there's all sorts
of concern. Is he going to be able to keep us safe? No
one knows. We get to the nighting ceremony and something goes horribly wrong.
A kind of laser beam shoots out of the hilt of the sword the queen
is giving him, and the queen is killed. And in a scene that
I asked, the responded to quite a lot, although it's subtenly done that
it's easy to miss. But basically, another night named Ambrose, who has
been very clearly implied has a romantic relationship with Balister, reacts and cuts off
his arm that's holding the weapon that killed the queen, and so somehow Balister
escapes, and we cut to sometime later. Balister is in this little cabin
hiding from everything, and he has built himself a mechanical arm, and along
shows up this little girl who is maybe like Ballister, doesn't know the age
of children, and gets made fun of that. I think she's supposed to
be I think prefubescent, but not by much, and she is, as
my spouse described her, the perfect little Ferald Goblin child. All she wants
is murder and to find his evil layer. She's kind of disappointed with to
find out that he doesn't think of himself as a villain, but she's there
to be his sidekick and to help him get revenge on all the people he
harmed. And they go through a lot of the normal kind of like getting
to know each other's stuff, and he doesn't want her help, but then
he needs her help. She says, you're gonna get arrested. He says,
of course not, and then he gets arrested. The humor in the
movie is just an absolute top notch. And then she shows up to help
him out of prison. He makes her promise that he won't freak out when
she learns what her secret is, And it turns out her secret is she's
a shape shifter and she can turn into all of these like huge animal forms,
all of whom are still pink and utterly adorable. But managed to help
him break out, and there's a whole scene with her being a rhinoceros and
a whale and all sorts of other things. They escape. He's concerned about
it, but they kind of, you know, do a lot alike,
getting to know each other more, figure things out, but he keeps asking
what are you? What are you? And we see that the rest of
the Kingdom gets really freaked out about this. They decide that these two are
both terrible people. She's a monster, he's a traitor. Ambrose, who
is his love interest and then cut off his arm, is assigned to kind
of take him down, and he's obviously having some real concerns about this,
but he feels he must do it. There's high jinks, there's adventures,
and eventually the two of them figure out a way. They figure out that
the director of the Knight Institute, the people who teach all these rules and
ideas about how the world should be and how the Kingdom should be, that
she actually framed Balluster because she didn't believe that a peasant could ever be a
Knight, and so she framed him and in doing so also killed the Queen,
who she thinks betrayed everyone by letting go the safety of the kingdom.
One thing I actually mentioned also is that the Kingdom is protected by a big
wall, because the whole idea is that there's scary scary monsters outside the wall,
and we need to stay inside the wall to be safe. So it
looks like everything is fine. They oh, because Ballister and Nemona come up
with a plan to frame the director, make the director confess her plan,
and they record it goes out to everyone. Everyone figures it out, but
the director has an ace upper sleeve. She has proof that Nemona actually is
the monster from all the way back a thousand years ago that Gloria fought.
And not only does Ambrose believe this, not only, and so she's able
to be like Ambrose, you're being manipulated, you know. Don't trust your
lying eyes, trust me, trust Glorias, trust the myths you've always been
taught and know it is. He believed it, but when he finds out
Ballister, someone believes it, and Ballister challenges Nemona and calls her a monster,
and Nemona just utterly breaks down and runs away, and we get in
a scene that I think, if you can watch without coming to tears,
there's something wrong with you, Fanny. Just such a beautiful, heart wrenching
scene. We seen Amona's origin story and she told this kind of fake origin
story when she was trying to make fun of Baluster for him needing to know,
like what is she? But we found out that her origin story actually
has some basis in truth, and that it is kind of based around a
well, and it's that she just kind of was this little force of energy
kind of going through the world that saw a bird and tried to become a
bird and be friends with it, and then the bird was scared, and
then she tried to become other animals like fish and deer, and they were
all scared. And then a little girl saw her, and she turned into
a little girl when she saw this other girl, and the girl saw her
but wasn't scared and gave her a present, and the two became friends.
And we get lots of and the little girl is clearly Glorif and we get
lots of scenes and the two of them being happy and frolicking and play,
and I think they're supposed to be implied a sort of like, you know,
they are best friends at a prepubescent age where they could very well grow
up to have a romantic connection. But you could read it either way,
I think, and both readings are completely fine. At one point, Glorth
wants to get an apple, and Nemona turns into a bird to get her
the apple, and she's really worried that Glorith is going to freak out,
but Glareth doesn't. And now they have great adventures with a little girl and
her shapeshifting friend, and you know, she gets to ride her as a
horse and play in the woods as a gorilla, all kind of these great
things until Gloris is like, you know, frolicking with her friend when her
friend is a bear, and some adults find them and get very scared and
point all these swords and things at her and say, oh, you're a
monster. You're a monster. Glaith, come be safe, you know,
get away from that monster. And here's the moment that kind of really breaks
Nemona, where Gloth listens to all the adults saying that's a monster, and
that becomes more powerful to her than her own memory of this being her friend.
And at first Glareith had said no, no, she's harmless, she's
my friend. But now Gloth like picks up the sword and says, go
back into the shadows, whence thou came? And so this is kind of
all the pieces have that fallen together. We understand everything, and I think
this's just it breaks Nemona, and Nemona turns into this huge, huge,
monstrous form and comes into town, breaking everything. But what we realize is
and content warning here for descriptions of desire for extreme levels of self harm.
So if that's not something you want to hear talked about, probably skip forward
a little bit and we'll try to your content whereas again, but it will
be a topic that comes up again. But anyway, what we reveal is
that what Glorith wants to do, sorry, what Nemona wants to do is
she comes to this statue of Glois holding this huge sword, and she wants
to drive the sword through her heart to end it all, and she starts
to do so, but Barrister is now back and he prevents her from doing
so with his mechanical arm, and they kind of reconnect and he apologizes,
and this leads everyone to figure out the real truth that these aren't monsters,
that they were the heroes. But in kind of it seems at the end
like she has had to end herself to destroy the wall and kind of bring
freedom and glory to everything, and so people are living kind of happily.
Ever after everyone's remembering them as heroes. Baluster and Ambrose are now clearly together
again. And then in the last but Balister's clearly sad because he thinks Namona
is gone. He doesn't know if she's she's dead, or if she's just
kind of gone back into the memorial nature from what she came or whatever.
But in the last scene he goes back to his sort of old hut and
he looks sad and dejected, but then he sees the kind of purple light
that often surrounds her, and we hear her voice say boss, and he
says, oh, it's about to say an exuative when we cut to the
credits in the music. So, did I miss anything? Obviously, there's
a lot of good details. It's a hilarious story. I missed a lot
of the fun parts. But did I cover the most important parts of the
story? Yeah? You covered most of it nice all right. Well,
so let's let's talk more about what is it about the story that really gets
you? So? Oh big question to start with. So I think that
this story, and especially the changes made from the comic version of this story
that we originally saw, do a really fantastic job of updating the queer story
that it always has been to the modern era and what presently is facing the
queer community at large. There's a lot of pieces that we can draw direct
parallels. So a core part of the advertising, a core part of Pnemona's
initial message reaching out to Balister was that they'll make you look a villain,
and once they see you as a villain, that's all you'll ever be,
right. And I think that that really strikes a chord with a lot of
people these days, especially in the transgender community, but in the queer community
in general, that the vilification of the queer community can dig so deep and
that becomes all anybody knows about you, all a stranger will see. Yeah.
One thing I was really struck by when watching this is thinking about all
these posts you're seeing where people will take the smallest little thing and twist it
and twist it to make it seem horrible. I was just reading about a
case where two women were out in the park and they kissed and a child
was present, and her there got them arrested for sexual harassment of a child.
You know. And and there are the stories will hear about drag brunches
or transgender people where things that we take in a whilely out of context,
and to me it is so baffling, and because all possible evidence is like,
there is no grooming within the queer community. There's grooming in every community,
but the idea that the queer community has a grooming issue more so than
any other community is complete hogwash. That there's nothing inherent about LGBT, you
know, queer rights or queer pride that is in any way harmful to children.
In fact, we're the ones defending children who are so often put at
risk by by homophobia. And yet people will see real life examples of this
but then still fall back on the ideas they're taught. And to me,
with both Gloris and Balastar, you get that of they have a lived experience
of Pneumona being a feral god, them a child who often talks about wanting
to murder everybody, but actually, like you know, there's a number opportunity,
Like we never actually see her kills of someone. We see her talk
a big game, and we see her want to hurt people for pretty good
reasons, but like you know, there's a scene where she turns into a
cat. She makes a big deal about like dropping a rat into her mouth,
but she intentionally drops it just to the side of her mouth, and
we see clearly she doesn't harm the rat, but with both gloris and blister.
When the myth comes back to them, when all the other voices come
back to them and say that's a monster, they're willing to let that idea
override their own lived experience of this person. Right. And so there's a
parallel from the original source that I want to talk about in a bet with
regards to like express and grief and the ways that people will lash out.
But something I want to get too specifically relating to that story you told about
the news article the women and arrested in the park. So the director,
the director of the institute who trains nights, makes a speech at one point
about her nightmares, this scenario that she has lived and run through her head
since childhood, of a crack in the wall that she tells everyone, look
out, look out, there's a crack in the wall, and no one
will listen to her. And it grows and grows and grows until suddenly the
monsters are upon them. And it's done in this very very convincing way where
you can tell that the director has herself fully terrified at the concept of lowering
your guard for a moment, to any crack in your vigilance and that's it.
The monsters will come for you. And so that idea I think of
the like imagining harm, imagining threats, and working yourself up about it to
the point that you fully believe that you are making the difficult decisions to protect
yourself and to protect other people that you have to because no one else is
willing to make those difficult decisions. That's I think a very very poignant parallel
to the anti trans and anti queer backlash, where people genuinely convince themselves that
they are doing this for the benefit of the public, for the greater good,
no matter their harm. Yeah, it's really true, and I think
you can see that with everything from like the bathroom fears to the sports athletic
fears, things like that. And I do think the fact that the way
the director is presented and the fact that, you know, one of the
whole points is that I think Mallister and Pnemona have so much in common,
you know, in this regard. It's a it's a story you've seen a
million times before where pneumona is the person who's been suffering the oppression all along.
Ballister is the person who has just experienced the oppression for the first time,
and they're going to wind up teaching each other because she's going to teach
him that it's much worse than he thinks he's Also they're going to teach her
that there is some hope that she can be loved and that they both can
be loved. And I think there's a really great tension between the two,
and I think the fact that the that the director has both is the embodiment
of both of those prejudices, both the fear of the monster and the fear
of the peasant. The fear of Ballister is one of the knights, is
very very intentional because it's um and the fact that I think that Ballister is
portrayed as a person of color, it is not incidental here in a world
that is not entirely but it's primarily made, and the director is portrayed as
white. And obviously this is a fantasy world and it's not to, you
know, always project the racial or sexual or gender politics of our own world
onto that one. But the author Andy Stevenson, who also he wrote um
Shira and wrote lumber Janes and some other great stuff. You know, I
think he's always been made clear in a lot of his works that, yeah,
he wants to comment on uh you know, he might be commenting on
sexuality, on a gender, on racial politics, and all the same,
and and and so. Part of the point is that not not that they're
all the same, but that the walls that protect you know, uh,
the walls that are protecting from you know, gender or sexuality, or the
same walls that are protecting white supremacy, or the same walls that are protecting
patriarchy, etcetera, etcetera. And the idea that the director is, as
you said, quite literally so scared in a crack of any of those walls,
it is very intentional. Yes, absolutely, they The story does not
make any sort of overt racism explicit in the setting. But even looking at
other lines from the director, during the jailbreak scene, when the director and
the knights left behind at the institute are sort of picking through the rubble,
she comments that the knights are squabbling like common children. She says, rallies
them all to say that we are born to protect this kingdom. It's in
our blood. We have a descendant of Gloriff to lead us. She hammers
home repeatedly that knighthood and the mantle of protecting the common good is a matter
of blood and nobility and those born to do this, and it has very
much that bend to it of the same white supremacist the same racial politics that
we see in real life being dropped up by exactly the same folks who have
issues with the trans community exactly. Now, one of the other beautiful things
about the story is not only is it I think the queer in the trans
allegory goes deeper because it's not just about that the hate is the same.
But Nemona as a shape shifter, the way she spoke really read to me.
I mean for me as as an n binary person, I really identified
with it. I'll speak with it as well. But I'd love to give
you the mike first, Like, how did that part of Nemona's story resonate
for you her being a shape shifter. Yeah, that's the way she talks
about it, and like that it gives a great line about how it itches
to stay in her skin as a girl all the time. Yeah. Absolutely,
I saw so much of myself in the way that Nemona talks about the
sort of itch to shape shift, the itch to like become something else.
She comments that like if she tries to hold in her shape shifting, then
she wouldn't die, but she wouldn't be living. And credit to the editors,
there is in the background of that scene actually a trans flag visible in
one of the buildings. But like, as someone who is gender fluid myself,
it speaks so much to my experience of like, sometimes I enjoy presenting
a certain way, putting on a not even mask really, but putting on
a certain facet of myself. And other times I'll prefer a different presentation,
a different voice, a different way of posturing that isn't pretend it isn't a
mask. It's different, but it's still me and that's really important. And
that's done so beautifully in the way Nemona shape shifts and specifically talks about her
shapeshifting in that all of it's her, sometimes as a bear and sometimes as
a rhinoceros, and sometimes as a shark, but she is Nemona. Yeah,
And that's the thing she keeps saying every time Malister tries to pin her
down because he keeps saying, but okay, but what are you really and
her response is I'm Nemona, and he gets mad. He says, that's
not a real answer, And I think part of the point is it is
his ignorance, but I think we're supposed to understand that, like he is
being challenged, but he comes to understand it by the end of the movie.
And you know, I think one of the most beautiful parts of it
that what he says to her right after he stops her from pushing herself onto
the sword. He said, the first thing he says is I see you.
And that to me is such a beautiful sentence because what he's saying is
he sees all of her. It's not that he just sees the girl or
it just sees their anocero or the whale or the bay or any of it.
It's that he sees all of her and that she is Pneumona. And
yeah, for me, that also really resonated because for me, I don't
think of myself as fluid necessarily, but the need to put myself into a
specific gender box has always really not worked. And it's part of why non
fine air and queer because kind of the box of not being in a box,
and in a weird way. I also feel this in something that is
not related to my gender at all, but as a fundamental part of how
I appear to the world, which is when I put my prosthetic leg on
and when I go out in a wheelchair, because I am perceived as fundamentally
differently depending on those two things, and sometimes I am in control of that,
because I just am like, this is how I want to be seen
today, and sometimes it's okay, well, actually, like my leg really
hurts, or I'm going to a place that I can't use my wheelchair and
it's not something I can control. So it's not a perfect metaphor of by
any means, but it's fascinating to me how much people will perceive me differently
based on those things, and will often think of me as, oh,
you're you're you're normally this, but you're sometimes that you know that, So,
like my normal state is being on two legs or my normal state is
being in the wheelchair, and the fact is neither of those are true.
I'm I'm I'm adaptable and um yeah, So for me that also just resonated
so hard that idea of absolutely, stop trying to put us into a box,
you know, trying to stop stop trying to feel safe by thinking everything
can be put in these neat little boxes. Absolutely. I love the bit
about like, normally I'm this and sometimes no, no, no, the
conversation between Baluster and Pneumona when she is pressing him to accept her as his
sidekick and he says, can't you just be you? I don't follow girl
you. She's like, but I'm not a girl. I'm a shark.
And that, like, like you said, challenging that idea of their being
a normal state and a not normal state. All of it is her.
Yeah, even to the point where at one point she becomes a boy,
and she becomes a boy. I think in that moment for very clearly strategic
reasons, because it's a disguised so that she can manipulate people in the like,
oh look, I'm just a cute, harmless little boy. But she
doesn't say I'm going to pretend to be a boy. She's just like,
now I'm a boy. And I think that line was again very very intentional,
right exactly, Balluster, and now you're a boy. And her response
is I am today, not I'm pretending to be or anything like that.
Just I am yeah for now. And I think one thing I also really
spoke to is this idea that you know so much of the debates today and
this is not only like the attacks from the right, but I think just
as people are trying to figure themselves out that term exactly, I think there's
often a sense of like, oh, I to learn what my true gender
is and everything else was wrong, or I need to learn what my true
sexuality is. And I think, you know, and I don't identify as
fluid, so you can probably maybe tell me if this isn't a misapplication of
the term, but part of what I understand it would be both in terms
of gender, but also, you know, fluidity can apply to sexual orientation.
It apply to a lot of things. You know. It is the
person who would say, not, oh, I used to think I was
bisexual and now I realize I'm a lesbian, but say, yeah, I
was a bisexual in my twenties, now I'm a lesbian. Ten years from
now, I might be something else, you know. And I think similarly,
you know, people can be that like there are people who I think,
like they know what their gender is, there they need to do things
to make sure that their body matches their gender, or should say, make
sure that the way people perceive them based on their body is going to match
what their gender is. And that's a whole other can of worms. But
you know, and I'm not I'm not by any means saying like, oh,
no, everything is fluid. I think for some people, like they
know exactly what their gender is and it might conform with their sex asside of
birth or it might not. But for other people, their own their gender
itself is going to be fluid. And then that's another part of the discussion
that we don't often leave room four of, Yeah, a teenager is going
to be this when they're a teenager, and maybe they're gonna be something different
their twenties, and maybe something in their thirties, and or maybe they're gonna
be something on Tuesdays and something else on Thursday. Absolutely, there was a
fantastic post to that effect I remember seeing recently that really stuck with me.
That was a response to the idea of sexuality or identity being a phase.
And their response was, well, yeah, it is a phase. But
like the moon goes through phases, water goes through phases show me anywhere that
there is a permanent state of being. And I really liked that that sometimes
people do explore their gender, their sexuality and land in this is me.
This box is like matches my experience and it is as close to my own
definition of myself as possible. And that's great. And there are plenty of
people out there for whom the identity or sexuality changes, even if it's fixed
at some times and then later they discover something new, or people who genuinely
fully believe themselves and feel that they are their gender assigned at birth and then
that changes. Yeah, there's definitely like there's a degree to which people rally
around specific labels or specific flags as identity, and those are very helpful for
describing shared connection with one another. But I think it's important that people don't
pick a new box to put themselves in, because there's always going to be
people that there is never a large enough box. There is never a perfect
way to define all of the walls to surround. The inside is me and
the outside is not me. Yeah, and I think that's the story is
very intentional about that both being the personal struggle, but also, like you
said, the outside is the inside is me, the outside is not me.
That's also the walls of the city that they're in. And this whole
idea of gloris did this, and so it's fixed in time. There's gonna
be a weird analogy, but I think it makes sense. I'm from New
York City, as I will frequently talk about, and I kind of like
an Irish immigrant, and that I love my home and I will never tolerate
it to be disparaged and I don't ever want to live there again. But
I went back to New York a couple weeks ago, and every time I
go back, I see the parts that I love and I remember, and
I'm like, oh, this is what New York is supposed to be and
the things that have changed, And mostly I see that, you know,
a lot of people who didn't grow up in New York are moving to New
York and changing things. And a part of me grumbles about that, goes,
oh, you're not really New Yorkers. You don't know how New York
is supposed to be. But part of what is allowed me to change that
is realizing, like my mother moved to New York as a young adult,
as did most of the people were doing so now, and that the New
York I grew up with isn't what New York was always and forever until it
changed. It is constantly changing, and my grandparents probably were horrified about the
New York that my parents helped to create and on. And that's the thing
is, I think it is very easy for us to look at things exactly
as they are now, or maybe as our parents told them that they were,
and say, therefore, that's how it always is and that's how it
always should be. And we want to kind of like fix a moment in
time instead of realizing it was fluid all the way after this point and it
can continue to be fluid all the way forward. Yeah. Absolutely, And
it's difficult to admit to being wrong, to admit that the things that you
know about the world might be incorrect that your parents taught you about the world.
That's a big part of Ambrosius's struggle in the movie, too, is
that he is trying so hard to be the Night that everyone expects him to
be as a descendant of Glorus, and so it's difficult for him to question
the Institute or to question the systems that's around him. It's difficult for Baluster
as well, but he gets a little bit more push from Mnemona on that.
But challenging that concept of what you grew up and what you're used to
is so core to this movie. Yeah, and let's talk more about that
specifically. A person on Twitter where I follow quite a lot, the negotiator
Omar. That's his name. The actual name is the negotiator at the Negotiate
A ninety five in the In the show notes, he's constantly talking about how
this movie has a very clear anti establishment, you know, question the institutions
around you bent to it. How do you see that playing out in this
movie? Yes, absolutely, That's one of my favorite parts of this movie
is that Pneumona and Balluster sort of balance each other in the duality of the
system can't be reformed, tear it down, versus we can make this work.
The system works. People need to have faith. It's just a bad
actor. We need to deal with the director. So it's very much the
sort of rebellion versus assimilation that has been a queer struggle for the entire time
there have been queer people. The idea that some people will aim to to
fit their identity and fit how they present themselves into a majority non queer society
and assimilate for their own comfort and for the comfort of others. And some
people are so radically queer, so radically different in their identity, that assimilation
isn't possible. There's no way for their identity and who they are to fit
the existing pattern. So I love that that's a focus of this movie in
a way that Ballister's belief all the way up to the director's like correction video
of this wasn't me. All the way up to that point, Ballister believes,
no, no, we can't shake people's faith in the institute. We
can fix this. And Pnemona, on the contrary, is trying to tell
him, no, there'll never be a place for us in this city.
Right And and there's actually a really beautiful moment where that flips at the end
where Ballister tells this leads back to what you mentioned very early in the episode
about the two of them teaching each other in a lot of ways, where
Ballister reaches the realization that there will never be a safe place for us here.
We have to abandon it, like we have to leave the city,
go over the wall. No one will change how they see us, and
Namona says, well, you changed how you see me. Yeah, we
shouldn't have to run, and so that's when they decide to make a stand.
Yeah. I really appreciate that we framed that because there's a great deal
of specificity to how that conflict has played out within queer and trans and game
lesbian movements. But it's also one that in some form another plays out in
almost every justice movement you can find. You know, it is often reduced
to Martin Luther King versus Malcolm X, which is not really accurate, but
there definitely were those two sides, and a lot of the civil rights movements
and a lot of the feminist movements. You look back at the union struggles
of you know, from the late eighteen hundreds all the way to the nineteen
forties or fifties, and you had everyone from capitalism is great, we just
want more capitalism to let's tear down capitalism entirely, like these are always and
I'm a big believer that most movements need the two of them intention but a
lot more of the like let's look at the problems of the whole institution.
And one thing that I really love about this is that. I think it
also another aspect that it adds is that the amount that you are willing to
question every part of the institution often is directly tied to how much privilege has
the institution give you, any given you Because Pneumona is the person who I
mean, the entire institution was quite literally built against her. She's never seen
the good in this baluster is someone who he was able to find his way
into the institution, you know. But but notably, we don't ever hear
him saying, so now we should like, now that I become a knight,
we should tear down the idea that only nobles can be knights. And
maybe he says that offscreen, we don't know, but I think it's I
think it says something that we never say. That He has someone I think
brought into the idea of not that it's wrong to think no peasant can ever
be a knight, but you are an exceptional peasant, and we should acknowledged
that some peasants can become knights, etc. You know, he's somewhat brought
in, but then once it's only once the system turns on him that he's
willing to question it as well. And as you said, Ambrosia, he
never really he has always been benefited by the system. This system is what
it's told him that he is so good and wonderful. And I think the
movie it's amazing. It's only like a ninety minute movie, but it gives
us these three very powerful character arcs for all three of them, because he
gets to go through this moment of having to see it challenged, not because
of what it's doing to him, but because of what it's making him do.
True person he knows he loves right that, Ambrosias has this really powerful
moment. It's like finally realizing what's going on when during the Pneumona's march from
the city, he sort of looks around himself at the cannons turning inwards towards
the city itself, fire, mayhem, panic in the streets, and he
questions, what are we doing? Yeah, And that's his moment exactly that,
like you said, of like for him, it was very very much.
It took realizing what he has been made to do by his support of
this institute. Yea, though he plays into it and keeps going along with
it, even as things get more and more distastefully and even has, he's
forced to turn on his love, and he begrudgingly lets himself be sort of
dragged along doing worse and worse and worse things, until finally it snaps and
he realizes, this is what I'm supporting. You're right. It is such
a beautiful moment, and everything about the way he turns makes so much sense,
and I think in his journey we also see another element to this that
I think is again a very intentional metaphor, which is that even when the
director is exposed, we see the director admitting on tape that she did all
these terrible things, she's still able to get out of it. And much
like you know, we've seen people in our own world who have admitted terrible
things on tape and no one seems to care because they're able to say,
oh no, no, it's just the you know, those other people twisting
it and all, and how is it? She does it by appealing to
the ancient sacred text. She shows Ambrosius the text, which is kind of
the Bible or the Constitution. I think those it's supposed to kind of represent
both of those. The way people look to those documents and go, oh,
look, we can take this one thing, regardless of anything else,
and say that proves the answer. And thus anything that any fact, any
statistic, any true story I encounter, must be false because the primacy must
be given to this document. And for Ambrosius, Ambrosia, and even for
Balluster, it's the knowledge that, like, well, we have the story
of Glorius, and it's so interesting because there's a part of me that there's
a part of me that really wishes we got more insight into Gloris's story,
because it is really surprising that she kind of goes from no, wait,
that's my friend, don't hurt her to all these adults around me. Must
be right, I pick up a sword and hold it at you and say
you're the monster. Go away. And I'm left feeling like there's a couple
of different alternatives that it could be that she was kind of a you know,
and if she's a ten year old girl, I'm saying we should like
you can throw under the bus forever. I think we can forgive her,
but that she might be someone who's just very malleable to the voices of the
adults around her. It might be that she was saying go away, or
else you're going I'm trying to warn you to run away so that you don't
get hurt, but I'm gonna do it in the language that they'll understand.
We don't know, but I think, you know, another trope that's calling
upon is the you know, two teenagers are discovered in a compromising position,
and one of them is more kind of clearly out and the other one is
a Maybe it's not uncommon for the one to be oh oh no, no,
she just that that that one seduced me, you know, it wasn't
my fault, And like, is that supposed to be what this is speaking
too? Is it supposed to be something different? I don't know, and
a part of me wishes I did, but I think actually it makes the
story even better that we don't, because the whole point is that not only
does Nemona Nut know, but all these people who have built their whole society
on what they think Glorith meant, I have no idea what was actually going
through her head at the moment. Yeah. I really liked the origin story
with Glareth because that's actually novel that's brand new for Netflix. The original comic
did not include that, and I think that they did a fantastic job with
how that works, how the like you were mentioning before about like the sacred
texts, the like the mythos of Gloris is the foundation for this entire city,
so it can't possibly be wrong. So that's the banner that the director
uses to shield herself from accusations. But then also that's playing into that part
of the story, is playing into Pneumona's comment to Baluster very early on when
he says that he just wants to go talk to Embrogus and figure this out,
and she makes a comment about like, what you're going to trust the
guy who chopped off your arm and he and he reacts really abruptly, not
angrily or anything, but just hammering home he was disarming a weapon, right,
And she comments, oh, they brainwashed you good. And the same
with the child's reaction to Pnemona the dragon saving her from a car about to
crush her, and the child still picks up a sword and points it at
the monster because that's what she's been taught. So I think that that's definitely
like, I can see what you mean about Gloris having the like the one
foot in, one foot out reaction of like, oh I know it's safe
if I back up my parents on this, But I think a big part
of it is a sort of visual metaphor for how to this day there's a
lot of hate indoctrinated into children where it doesn't take much for parents, community
leader, faith leaders, teachers, for someone who has an agenda to plant
hate in a kid to show them that hating these people is the right way
to do. This is right because because they're evil, or because it's for
the common good, or whatever the reason is. Yeah, but that like,
children are so susceptible to being taught that hate. And I think that
that's a big part of the parallel between us watching Gloris pick up the sword
and point it at her best friend Nemona, and the parallel with the modern
day child who has her life saved and still picks up the sword and points
it at Nemona. Yeah. No, I think you're right. I'd say
it's very two children. Unfortunately, adults can often just as susceptible to hate
and these ideas. Because I don't want to keep going back to it's that
idea of the once that framing of your monster, thus you are dangerous,
falls in all the other evidence goes away. You know, the little girl
saw this dragon rescue her, but it doesn't matter. She's a monster.
Glorith saw this girl play with her and be safe with her, doesn't matter.
Now she's a monster. And to me, I think that's that's the
point that I think works so much with that that sacred text that it goes
into is we don't see the whole thing. But I would bet everything I
have that the moment that we see where Glory says, wait, no,
she's my friend doesn't appear in the sacred text. We don't get that complexity,
We don't get that nuance. We just get the moment of she held
the sword against the beast, you know, and nuance, nuance doesn't build
Tradition is the thing you gotta high of a solid, sturdy foundation of us
versus them. Yep. And it's one more place where the boxes. You
know, it's just put everything neatly into a box. You don't have to
think about it, you don't have to worry. Seven else has figured it
out. And I think this, the whole story is just such an attack
on all of that, on you know, any of these ideas, which
if you watch something like Shira which is very much about like getting past or
ideas of what is good and what is bad and who is the villain and
who is not and the mental way is that being perceived as a villain can
can tie you into knots and the trauma that can do These are very similar
themes to that. I think the author that it's something he really cares about
both absolutely and something else that I think is seen in both that like is
not really part of a lot of the conversations about Pneumona at the moment,
but something really critical as the the way that members of the queer community handle
and process and deal with their grief or their pain. Um because Nemona lashes
out. She's aggressive, she is loud and proud and in your face,
and anyone who doesn't accept that she beats them up. And the moment with
Um with Baluster noticing that she's been shot with an arrow and the tenderness that
he shows her, the genuine care stuns her Um because she's not used to
that. And Shira has a very similar story where Adorra sort of bottles herself
up in not expecting her true self to be accepted, and that means that
she has to prove herself time and again and time and again, and she
doesn't hold room for herself to be cared for. And that I think is
a like those facets of how the queer community deals with vilification, or deals
with even potential vilification, knowing that people will see you this way. Yeah,
and I think that's again one of the things of where the context matters
so much, because I think they're again there's a beautiful metaphor of Pneumona.
As you said, she lashes out, but also she's just very She's very
in your face about everything. You know, she doesn't want to be perceived
as normal, even when she's even when she's presenting herself as a girl.
I should say that even when she is a girl, she doesn't look like
she You know, when she appeared as a girl with Glorif, she had
this long, beautiful hair and she looked very feminine. Here she looks like
she came straight from a concert. You know, she's got like short hair.
She's up piercing her tattoos, but like she looks like she could.
Um, she looks very metal and her actually like metal, does have a
good number of piercings. Oh yeah, she's got some spikes along the cartilage
of one ear, a star on the other ear, study rings on both.
Oh yeah, that speaks to me even more that I'm an idiot for
not seeing that. But no, you're totally right there, um, and
yeah, I think that's that's the I think one of the attacks often can
be like, oh, why do queer people have to be so in your
face about it? You know, because, as you said, there are
some of us who want to have two point three kids in a white picket
fence, just with a person of the same gender, And then there others
are like, no, I want to be very in your face about the
fact that I'm living a completely different life than anyone else is. And I
think that that this isn't to invalidate that at all, but it's to say
that I think that that because I think it's a very valid choice whether or
not you've had any trauma. But I think part of what Namona's showing is
that she's kind of in a position of when the entire world has already rejected
you, why wouldn't you reject the whole world, and why wouldn't you make
it very clear to the whole world you don't give a damn what they think,
absolutely very much the like she has a line at one point of Balluster,
like trying to calm her down, trying to ease her back from something,
and she says, we're villains, Embrace it. Yeah, And like
that is just her character through and through is the in your face, I'm
here, I'm loud, I'm proud, yeah, And so much of the
queer community is that way exactly, because like, if no one is going
to accept you anyway, if there's no degree to which you can present a
like palatable side of yourself, then why not why not just be comfortable,
decorate your body how you want, tattoos and piercings, do what makes you
comfortable, because your comfort, like, there's no degree to which you can
make yourself comfortable to others, So it's better to make yourself comfortable to yourself.
In many ways, I think of her character as kind of the living
embodiment of the phrase be gaydu crimes. Absolutely, but because like of the
like fu factor of all. But also like you know, many people I
know live by that phrase. They're not robbing banks, they're not mugging little
old ladies, they're not actually like it's much more about like rejecting the idea
of following the rules, rejecting the idea of and wells recognizing that there aren't
awful lot of unjust laws and that that you know and and you think about
it. What Pneumona's first criminal act is to rescue someone who is fairly imprisoned,
and so like that idea of again it's doing crimes because like it's recognizing
the difference between justice and law, you know, or what's right and what
is legal not legal? Absolutely, yeah, so much of so much of
Nemona's lashing out at the Kingdom, there's a fantastic, fantastic detailed is easy
to miss in the emotion of the moment. But during Nemona's march on the
city, as she is in her monster form headed towards the sort of Gloria's
statue, even towering one hundred feet tall, she is not the one wreaking
havoc on the city. She is just trying to get to the statue.
And all of the fire, the carnage, the broken buildings are this city
lashing out at her, And so there's definitely like, so Pneumona is this
like feral goblin child. She is this like rabid ball of energy. But
even in all of her lashing out and all of her like look at me,
I'm here, you have to deal with it. She doesn't do it
to hurt innocent people. She doesn't do it to be evil. She does
it because she's hurt and she's lashing out at the people who hurt her.
And the city didn't hurt her, the institute did. Yeah. I totally
hear what you're saying there, and I think it's so vital, especially because
it then takes us into a cycle that I think we see in the real
world all the time, which is that people society or institutions or governments treat
an individual or group badly, that group responds and that you know, and
whether it is a like organized protest or lashing out in anger or whatever it
is, and then their response is what's remembered. It's, you know,
look at the criminal element and not look at all the economic deprivation that has
led to that. It's look at the way these people are breaking the law
instead of look at the way that you know, we backed them into a
corner, and that was fighting back with the only option. Absolutely, So
yeah, that's that's the very like Balluster's approach versus pneumonas the assimilation versus revolution
approach, where there's so much of the pressure on the like the pressure on
the queer community that comes from the left politically speaking, is tone policing is
like, you have to do this the correct at the polite way that will
sometimes get results but often takes too long or doesn't ever find results. And
then often and again I think this is very intentional, so much of the
way that the gay and lesbian movement and then the LGBT movement, and then
very grudgingly for some the queer movement found that acceptability and found that tone policing
is by tausing trans people under the bus, is by saying, let's work
for the more. You know, it's easier to accept people living just loving
this one of the person. You know, it's easier. And the same
reason why you know, bisexuals or polyamorous people, or like anything that breaks
away from because again always the question is always society is both a box.
Is the fight to say we want to be included in the box? Or
is the fight to say we want to be given our own box? Or
is the fight to say, let's tear down the boxes, and that's where
the conflict is always going to be absolutely very much an argument for let's tear
it on the boxes. And I love it. Mhmm, yeah, And
I like that in the original comic. So in the original comic there's a
sort of different setup. The general framing is sort of the the Institute is
a villain and hero society that is shaped in that way to create a comfortable
narrative for the public to understand in these conflicts, and that institute is maneuvering
these conflicts between heroes and villains to their own political lends, and and it
ends in not just the director being killed, but also in that entire institute
being torn down. And we don't see as much of that in the ending
of Pneumona, the Netflix film, but we do get hints of it,
where so we see the gun placements on the walls being dismantled and brought down.
We see the Night in the park who is still patrolling sort of for
the public good, but is themselves disarmed as well. The Night isn't carrying
their sword yea. And I think that that is not as explicit a message
as the comic about dismantling the system of oppression itself, not just the bad
actors. But it definitely is hinting at that that, Like, it was
not just the director who was at fault for this, It was the entire
institute, and it wasn't the fault of any individual night in that institute.
So Ambrosius was supporting the institute, but it was not his fault that the
institute was anti monster. Same with Todd was personally kind of a jerk,
but he even has a moment at the end of the movie where he lays
down a flower on Namona's memorial, and his actions were supporting the institute,
but he personally was not a terrible an unredeemable person or anything. Yeah,
but even despite the personal like, even despite no one person shouldering all of
the blame for it, the institute itself was the problem and had to be
dismantled. Yeah, I think that's so true, And I think it's again,
it's kind of the point we're trying to get at with all this,
because I think often that's where we fall. It's the you know, Oh
those were just bad cops, So those were just bad soldiers. Oh,
we just have a bad you know, this particular billionaire is the problem,
this particular individual, and so often that's not the case. It's these you
can identify like particular people as as particularly you know, as more or less
abusing the power they're given by a fundamental the corrupt system. But the system
is still fundament that corrupt. It has to be torn. Now we can
keep going on this movie for hours and hours. I want to wrap this
up pretty soon. I'm gonna make one last point. They give you a
chance to kind of make one last point and then if you want to share
anything else about where people can find you, which is just and this is
something that um Nate Nate, right, is how Stevenson n Yeah, And
this is something that can be found a lot in Nate Stevenson's work. Andy
Stevenson's work. He said at one point that when it comes to the things
he creates, you should just always assume the characters are queer and less proven.
Otherwise he really intentionally is trying to write a world in which homophobia itself
does not exist. And in his version of Shira, I should be very
clear like he did not obviously create Shira. That goes all the way back
to the eighties and he man and but he wrote the modern version of Shira
that's on Netflix that is utterly beautiful, my favorite animated shows ever, really
one of my favorite shows ever. And he does in this something he did
in other things, which is that there are all sorts of metaphors for homophobia
and transphobia, but there's a queer couple in this clearly embarrassing and Ambrosius and
the fact that they are two men who are together is never commented on or
is a problem for anybody. The one jerk character teases Ambrosius about it and
sort of wonders, like, is the fact that you have romantic feelings for
the people we think as a criminal? Is that causing you problems? And
implies that that might be why he's not a good person to lead the mission.
And it's also kind of hinted at that that he and others disapprove of
the fact of a noble having a romantic relationship with a peasant. But the
fact that it's two men is absolutely never commented on in any way, shape
or form. And I I love that because I think it is it is.
It is a very different experience to see a metaphor for your trauma versus
to see your actual trauma revisited on screen, and more important to see your
own trauma in a fantasy world. And it's just it's something I wish a
lot more writers and creators could learn from of You can talk about issues without
having to replicate them in ways that are just going to kind of be you
know, reentering abuse where it becomes almost kind of you know, exploitative or
or problematic for people to see. Absolutely, Yeah, this was a very
powerful queer story about rebelling against the systems that oppress without actually having homophobia explicit.
On Green. There is no explicit anti gay sentiment projected by characters in
the movie, but nonetheless that's still the story and the metaphor that's delivered,
right exactly. So that's my last thing, any of the last things you
wanted to bring appro mention. Yeah, the one biggest thing that I wanted
to talk about is the very stark difference in the endings of these two of
the original print comic and the movie, and the way that I think I
really appreciated the update. Yeah, And in the original comic, Pnemona splits
herself into sort of the anger of how she has been treated versus her hope
and compassion, and I like that we didn't see that split here, that
there is very much the message that like, you can hold hope and compassion
in your heart and be always like, keep your heart soft, keep yourself
open to others, but still be appropriately righteously angry and upset at mistreatment,
right, and that those are two sides of the same coin, not split
decisions and different ways to handle something. Yeah, I think it really makes
a lot of sense. And I you know, my issues of graphic novels
have been well documented on this and not issues and I think they're bad.
I just just know how my brain works. I'm so glad you read that.
My spouse also had and so she was telling me a lot about it,
and I just love getting an additional perspective well both. This has been
fantastic for people who are really enjoying having on the podcast. I might want
to find you in other places? Is the other places where you're creating content
or just where your thoughts can be found that you might want to point people
to. So I don't really have like a content portal or anything like that
on the Internet. I can be found basically anywhere that people gather Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter, discord as minor deviation and always happy to chat with folks
who find their way to me awesome. Yeah, we will have links to
those in the show notes. One thing also knowing in terms of a please
note cyberstock people, but in general, just you know, wanted to know
who our guests are. I'm not avoiding using any other parts of Bo's name
because Bo's name is Oh, which I think a really awesome story, and
I really appreciate how you have. It's kind of one more box of breaking
out of the idea that people have to have two names. So it's another
thing I've always admired about you and that people can find if they kind of
read some of your stuff. Of course, absolutely, there's actually in that
vein. That's another thing that I really appreciated. I know we've been talking
too long, but really appreciated about Nemona's answer too. Who are you with
just I'm Nemona, and she sort of forces people to conform, or forces
people to confront the fact that boxes don't fit her. And that's a big
part of my choice and a mononym that so much of modern society does not
fit me because of who I am and giving people that five minute window into
huh, that's weird. How does that work? Is a fun way to
get that ball rolling for everyone. Yeah, No, it's so true.
And I think for me, as a person who is both polyamorous and disabled,
I'm constantly facing situations of the world is built to accommodate a certain kind
of person and I don't fit. And what happens when that happens? So
I love that. So that is bo I, of course am Matthew Fox,
the Ethical Panda. If you search for the Ethic Panda, most places
you'll find me, but also the show note. The links are on the
show notes, Twitter, Facebook, email. I'd love to hear from you.
Did you watch this movie? What do you think? What was your
feedback? What was your thoughts? Would love to hear from you. I
have some feedback piling up. I'm gonna my goal for I'm not even saying
now, but I'm saying my goal for the Fall is. My goal for
the Fall is that we're gonna start doing regular feedback every episode. But for
now, I'm just gonna kind of let it build up a bit and get
probably do a feedback episode in the next couple of weeks, but please keep
sending an let us know what you think about this movie. We'd love to
hear your thoughts. And of course um on the Ethical Panta dot com.
It's where you'll find the other podcasts I do and how to support us.
Patreon is a wonderful way to support us. You get ad free episodes.
Most episodes. I can't promise all the most episodes are gonna get bonus Patreon
content, which Boone and I are going to do in a second. We
will have a short Patreon section where we're gonna talk about some other kind of
pieces of work. They're similar to this. Both has no idea what I'm
talking about, so that'll be fun too. But yeah, you can support
us on Patreon. You can support us also just by helping more people listen
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if not, thank you so much, have a great day. We have spoken