Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1493
Five genocides in a kids show. Trigger warning on this one.
Good morning. Hello. Hi. Woke up late. Jane woke me up. Which is funny since I went to sleep 30 minutes early. Nodded off reading a snippet of an excerpt of the Appendices of Return of the King about dwarves and the exact movements of Thrain and Gandalf and Thorin and the seventh dwarf ring prior to Thrain’s capture by Sauron at Dol Goldur and why Gandalf didn’t, like, tell Thorin about that map earlier. Scintillating stuff. It’s a thing I love about Tolkien. Come up with a plot/hole question and even fifty years later, he’ll take a moment and write a whole essay addressing it.
We are listening to the new Maren Morris, who is, I think, currently my favorite of the lady country stars.
Taylor, of course, doesn’t count anymore, nor does Kacey, I think (though that recent “Lost Highway” cover might put her back in contention TBD). I checked out another one yesterday, some hot new country lady, 300MM spotify streams. Didn’t listen to a full album, so I didn’t write it down, now I’ve forgotten her name. Huh. Oh wait she has a new song with Kenny Chesny. Megan Moroney, that’s it. Not for me. A little too 80’s country for me. I love Plains, of course, and its constituent members Waxahatchee and Katie Crutchfield, but they are a bit too indie, I think, to count as country. Nah, no they’re not. But I guess I am talking modern pop country here. Oh, Pistol Annies, they are great. Love Five Acres of Turnips. And their consituent members: Miranda Lambert. Love her. Saw her do a live appearance with Taylor on the 1989 tour. Didn’t know who she was. Love The Marfa Tapes, that’s what got me into her cuz I have a soft spot for Marfa (hi Katherine!). The other two members, Ashley Monroe, and Angaleena Presley, I do not know but suddenly I am thinking I need to investigate them.
(Semi-relatedly, had to go to the grocery store this morning, bought myself a Diet Coke as a treat (forgive me Father) and they have the names back and I love when they put names on Coke bottles and this one says TAYLOR).
I am rambling about lady country but, you know, lady country is like 90% of good country these days. Sorry, Sturgill, you aren’t country anymore after that (awesome) ZZ Top album.
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A reader update on issue #488, which was last Thursday’s issue. Apparently Buttondown, my email provider, just got around to sending that issue out yesterday. I have sent an email to their (really very good) support team inquiring about this, will keep you informed. Of course, if you are a Slack member, you would have gotten this issue in the Slack in the morning, so, you know, that’s a nice Slack perk.
Buttondown’s not perfect but, like, not fascist either so that is a plus.
Okay. This one’s heavy, trigger warning for… well… everything.
Do you think anyone at Disney thought about it when they spent a billion dollars on an intellectual property with a holocaust at its center? Do you think they thought, in 2012, when genocides still existed, “hey we are a kid’s entertainment property focused on magic and escape and fantasy maybe this whole armed revolution and planetary genocide thing is not for us.”
I mean, I can kind of understand, you know? Like for anyone Gen X and younger, Star Wars has just always been there, and we all just witnessed a fictionalized genocide in our youth, no biggie, and it was now part of our life. Plus films were fucked up in the 70’s, lotta horrible shit going on.
And, you know, they kinda managed okay with the merchandising too. There wasn’t a whole lot of Grand Moff Tarkin merch, except for the action figures, and I don’t think anyone disagrees that your playset can have a villain in it. Vader doesn’t actually kill anyone onscreen in Episode IV, I mean presumably he hit one or two rebel pilots in the last battle, but he lets that choking guy go, Obi Wan offs himself, and Vader is conveniently absent when Tarkin commits the genocide. So I guess, even before his redemption in Episode VI, some Vader merch was acceptable, but also Lucasfilm was an indie, no shareholders, and not explicitly making kids fantasy. Yet. Rebels era, sure, but by then Vader had the immunity of his ultimate redemption.
A thing that struck me last night, though, is that you would think Disney would have had a few qualms about this, treated the subject with sensitivity, maybe softened the whole genocide bit after their purchase.
But nah. By my count, since the Disney acquisition, there have been four more genocides in Star Wars, and we are talking just on screen here. Don’t get me started on the novels, there are others, but I haven’t kept up since the golden Wendig/Grey golden era. But on screen we have:
Chandrilla, destroyed actively, affirmatively by Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens, thus making Ren’s ultimate redemption in Episode IX a bit harder to swallow maybe its just me but I have a hard time forgiving a planet killer. But I guess Jesus would, so. But, man. Not sure we need his face on kid’s toothpaste or anything. Stephen Miller toothpaste, what?
Jakku, destroyed by Orson Krennic in Rogue One, an impending event after the events of Andor, the planet was mentioned in episode VII I think. But Krennic has never been dolled up for the kids. Seems like Disney knew that was a bridge too far.
Scarif, destroyed in Rogue One. I mean, are we supposed to believe that beautiful tropical planet didn’t have an indigenous population? It had a resort at least! I actually think there my have been a throwaway line in the film about removing them but my rewatch won’t be happening for a few more days until I am done with Andor.
A certain planet destroyed this season in Andor no spoilers and god isn’t it depressing that “hey they destroy a planet” isn’t really much of a spoiler anymore, kinda my point here.
I feel like I am forgetting one, too. Not using Wookiepeedia here or anything, just doing this from memory.
Five genocides. Ignoring the book ones like Kashyykk, or the planets that have just been completely subjugated and strip-mined like Lothal or Jakku? I think? In the books? With that whole emperor reborn BS? Don’t quote me on that one.
Five genocides.
From Disney.
Are there any other genocides in Disney properties? I mean, I guess there are sort-of implied ones, or genocide-adjacent in, like, Pocahauntus and maybe Mulan you know at least one side in that conflict did some mass murdering. But not depicted. Not specific plot points.
And Star Wars has five now. Just sitting there.
And I suppose this is how Tony Gilroy gets away with it, right? Just uses what’s sitting right in front of us to make the single greatest modern television show, which confronts head-on the dual horrors of our current life: genocide and fascism. Right under the nose of a Trump Brown-Nosing Boomer CEO.
And, yeah, sure. There are certain moments he has to delicately dance over, staying within the confines of what we all consider “normal” in Star Wars because of our fifty-year indoctrination. There are pivotal moments in the Ghorman resistance where they go from pursuing legislative means to resorting to violence that probably could have been explored a bit more thoroughly. You never actually see a moral debate about resorting to violence. But my god does he get close to the line. You see arguments on this exact topic. And, of course, when they finally cross the line, they can get away with it because that’s what Star Wars always was. A tale of genocide, fascism and the war to stop them.
Now, look. I will admit it. As mesmerizing, near-perfect Andor is, I’m not gonna lie. I am a broken man and I still check my phone during it, stupidly look at Bluesky or (father I have sinned) Instagram. Because when I get anxiety I turn to my phone and my god does this show give me so much anxiety.
But you can see the problem here because what the hell is Bluesky these days — and, my instagram at least — than a catalog of the horrors of modern life.
How many people, I wonder — the venn diagram has to be rather large — have sat there watching a (monumental, amazing) show about fascism and genocide while scrolling on their phone through images of real-world genocide and fascism happening right now.
What fucking hell is this?
What kind of world is this that this is allowed, that this is possible.
How is the human brain supposed to handle this?
Except we do, somehow. We somehow compartmentalize, even though we’re all watching Andor thinking explicitly about how relevant it is to real life.
Last night as we were watching the near-perfect Episode 9, I got a mild panic attack, heart started racing as it often does in shows like this. To cope, I started scrolling Instagram to calm down. But instead I saw a post from my wife about helping and doing something. And it reminded me that there was news I needed to convey to her about a very specific, yet for-now-unspecified type of help (because we live in this kind of work now) she and I have been giving to certain children in need.
And I told her about it because it is good news, albeit good news in a dark world.
And she started bawling, just like I did, earlier in the day when I was informed of these results.
Because how could you not?
In hindsight, giving her such a jarring reminder that everything she had just seen on that (monumental, amazing) supposed-fantasy show was happening right now in the world around us?
Well, of course it was going to produce that result in any kind-minded person.
(And my wife is so kind. Right now she is volunteer-reading kids books to Jane’s first grade class. At 8AM. My wife. At 8AM.)
Five genocides in a kids show.
I have overslept once before during Jane’s first grade year. The other time Jane just happily played by herself, and didn’t wake me up, so the whole thing spiraled. After that, we had a little talk and she understood that if it happens again she needs to wake me up ASAP. And this time?She did. Rock on.
And, reader, we were still the first car to the school. Did I do it in dirty underwear, with no clean teeth? Yes. Did she skip breakfast? Yes, but she gets second breakfast, my little hobbit, every morning at school anyway. But she did have her lunch, snack and water. PARENTING.
Got a covers playlist for you, it’s a good’un been working on it since January. Lotta awesome covers on here. I don’t even care if there are two Trampled by Turtles songs on here I’m just gonna leave it because I was so excited about posting this one today. Steve Perry covered “Faithfully” by Journey with Willie Nelson, came out yesterday and it rules. So does the Fiona cover, the Bruce Hornsby one, oh man Maggie Rogers and Sylvan Esso doing BSS? So good. Oh Maggie’s good lady country too isn’t she. Yeah I like her.
Apologies to my high school friend who just signed up for GMHHAY today. I swear they’re not usually this heavy. I almost waited a few days to ease you in. Sorry.
A post script: ten years ago this December, Emma and I went to the amazing Adam Curtis v Massive Attack shows at the Armory in New York. It was awesome. They covered Jesus and Mary Chain and Bauhaus and Suicide. Adam Curtis did his thing.
And at one point, the Adam Curtis videos do a whole montage of all the Hollywood films that blew up a building or half of New York. Dozens, over and over.
Then he showed 9/11 and, now, I can’t remember how much he affirmatively shoved it in our face or anything, but basically said in so many words:
Wonder where they got the idea.
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Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.