Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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Notes -
My wife had me watch a random episode of Bridgerton, and I think I hated it more than anything I'd ever watched in my life.
For starters, the entire episode was premised on how this fetal alcohol syndrome looking short fat lady was so desirable and attractive to all these young handsome rich gentlemen. I couldn't verify she has fetal alcohol syndrome... but I did verify the actress is Irish. And oh god, the sausage finger. The short, stubby, Wall-E style sausage fingers. On an actual human being.
The episode kicked off with about 30 scenes in 30 minutes of about a 3 or 4 lines each. It was horrific. I felt like I was watching a TikTok doomscroll, and when I said this, my wife pointed out the title of the episode was literally "Tick Tock". I remember when I was watching Better Call Saul I was so impressed with how much they let a scene breath. An episode might only really have 4 or 5 scenes, but my god how they built up, and each one communicated an important insight into a character, even if it didn't move the plot forward in a concrete way. This was the antithesis of that, and it wounded me on a deep, spiritual level.
Then it got to the sex scene, where the aforementioned Ms Piggy got plowed, and it was horrific. I cannot believe they put that nude body to film, those bloated shapeless tits splayed out on those portly stomach rolls. I felt like I was watching beastiality. Especially with the attempts to beautify and romanticize it. The Black Mirror episode where an MP literally had sex with a pig was less disgusting.
All in all my wife had a wonderful time watching me suffer through her trashy romance show. She started the next episode while I shook it off, went upstairs to shower, and then sat down to finish Crime and Punishment. Which I did, and it was fantastic.
Well, no. Nuclear war is horrific. ALS and prion diseases are horrific. Whatever is being experienced by any remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza is horrific. But this... - what should we call it? how should we describe this body? is it a portent of disease and disability, an abdication of potential, or is it a body into which is inscribed a steadfast refusal to press oneself into a form that would be more conducive to capitalist-utilitarian labor? - this body cannot be horrific unless the image of such a body occupies a particularly peculiar position in your libidinal economy.
Nonetheless if it does occupy such a position for you, then that is still in a certain sense commendable, as a form of taking responsibility for one's own horrorscape. The root of any experience that could be properly called "aesthetic" is the determination to find what is most uncanny in what is most familiar. If you did indeed experience the uncanny in such an otherwise innocuous stimulus, then the film, as well as your particular receptive experience of it, was a success.
pre Wall-e nirvana
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