#going on and on and on

[overleftdown]

saltburn and lo real maravilloso

bare with me.

lo real maravilloso, in its direct translation, means "the marvelous real." in english language, this is more commonly said as "magical reality." magical reality is (arguably) a genre of fiction.

lo real maravilloso is a genre which defies definition. it is the inexplicable, the absurd, the ironic, the whimsical, the manifestation of dream and abstraction. lo real maravilloso is also the mundane. if this is confusing, that's entirely understandable. let me quote alberto rios; "first things first. nothing so important and nothing at all unimportant." this is the essence of magical realism. the absurd and unbelievable in a constant dance with the mundane, creating nothing so important and nothing at all unimportant.

to quote un señor muy viejo con unas alas enormes (a very old man with enormous wings) by gabriel garcía márquez, "his huge buzzard wings, dirty and half-plucked, were forever entangled in the mud. they looked at him so long and so closely that pelayo and elisenda very soon overcame their surprise and in the end found him familiar." in the story about un señor muy viejo con unas alas enormes, the absurd and unbelievable (a winged man crashing to the earth) becomes the mundane (the winged man is flightless, and those that found him are quickly annoyed by his pathetic presence). a winged man becomes nothing so important, and the drag of every-day life is nothing at all unimportant.

now, saltburn. i'm fascinated by emerald fennell's choice of using the aristocratic english as her metaphor for the untouchable. in a lot of ways, i'm grateful this is what she chose. while the ultimate inspiration for saltburn was less the materialistic class commentary that it came to be, the aristocracy becomes so many things throughout the movie. what i wanted to talk about is how the aristocracy, the cattons, are lo real maravilloso. the essay i quoted before by alberto rios is spectacular, because it delves into not just the ironic nature of magical realism, but the rhetoric, as well; what it means to think we understand something, how language deludes us into believing we know something, how our own reality is mistaken for reality itself. saltburn and the cattons live in their own reality, which to the outsider, is absurdity. when watching the film, what we find ourselves thinking throughout it is essential to understanding the rhetoric of the movie.

when we see the grandeur and wealth and think how impractical, how unreal, how hilarious. the humor that saltburn taps into is near-identical to the core of magical realistic irony. "to use classical terminology, tone so often derives from the delivery of the narrative as litotes—understatement—in the middle of hyperbole-- overstatement. If it is not humor, then it comes off as flatness of treatment, non-reactivity, deadpan almost, which is the great comedian’s trick..." (rios). think back to the casualty of the cattons' absurdity. the sincerity in which elspeth delivers the most appalling, unreal anecdotes and additions. magical realism places culture, sincerity, normativity uncomfortably close to what we could hardly fathom. a winged man falling from the sky, kept in the chicken coup because it is quickly understood that he is hideous. finding your winged son dead in the middle of an elaborate maze, sprawled out beneath a minotaur statue, and the knowledge that lunch is about to begin.

the longer we experience the world emerald has created, the more we understand the reality in which the cattons live, the more we find it familiar. the absurdity is forgotten, until it's once again realized, until it's once again forgotten. this is the act of interacting realities; ours, and then another, and then back to ours. what's so fun about exploring wealth is this clashing of reality. believing that it's so absurd to be so rich, then succumbing to the normativity of richness, then once again finding yourself laughing at the idea of it. "what do you mean it's almost lunch? how could you say that? your son is dead. and beyond that, he's dead in the middle of a maze. he's dead in the middle of your estate maze, with your estate statues and your 179 bedrooms, one of them being the king's." and when lunch begins, we're dragged back into foreign reality. we feel the grief that pollutes the air, pulls at each of the cattons. we understand that our reality is not reality, nor is their reality. we're submerged in the tone of the film, the tone of the writing. a well-written character is a character who has their own reality; not that they're right or wrong, but that they are.

there is also the clashing of culture. the aristocracy is more familiar to the english. the emotional repression visualized throughout the movie is more familiar to the english. the culture of british boarding school is more familiar to the english. the longer we experience, the longer we stare at the unreasonable, the more familiar it becomes. our reality is not reality. we stand amidst billions of others, who have millions of preconceived notions, derived from millions of alternate cultures, experienced through thousands of languages, interacting with another billion people. what this all boils down to is how little we understand.

how does oliver interact with this foreign reality? how does farleigh? how are felix and venetia interacting with each other, as well as this life that so little experience? how do we understand it? how do we react to it? how do we react to the sex throughout the movie, which exist in its own absurdly real world? at what point in watching saltburn did you forget how stupid it was? at what point did you forget that having a maze in your backyard is ridiculous? having gargoyles? having footmen? having 200-person parties in your own house? at what point did you lose yourself in this foreign reality, and when did you remember that it's all ridiculous? have you remembered? have you realized that the sex was absurd? have you realized that felix catton is absurd? have you realized that oliver is blind to the absurdity as well? hm. hmmm.

[queerstudiesnatural]

greta thunberg, liam cunningham, rima hassan, and everyone else on that ship, thank you, and i hope you succeed. i really hope you succeed. you know what you are risking, and i wish for you to come back safely, having done what you set out to do.

[the-forest-library]

kill the imposter syndrome in your head because not only is there someone out there doing it worse than you, they’re also using chat gpt to do it

[voltaspistol]

[mallalada]

the voice of the devil

[beaft]

googling shit like "why do i feel bad after hanging out with my friends" and all of the answers are either "you need better friends" (i don't; my friends are wonderful) or "your social battery is drained, you need to rest and regain your energy levels" (i don't; i've got tons of energy, it's just manifesting as over-the-top neurotic mania). why is this even happening. it's like some stupid toll i have to pay as a punishment for enjoying myself too much

[podcastwizard]

sorry boss can't come in today i was on my way to work and then a gentle spring breeze kissed my cheek and reminded me it is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in this broken world

[penumbraphantasm]

ordering a pup cup for my chikorita in lumiose

[beemovieerotica]

MANIFESTING

[aropride]

(so mad i can’t see straight) Yeah i just don’t think chat gpt is a good classroom tool

[dr-paint]

Go piss girl

[footlongdingledong]

i dont care if mondays rife,tuesday qednesday full of strife, thursday fuck my baka life, its friday im in sucks

[cryptotheism]

X

[zeezeepearl]

ok im going to #seriouspost for a second here. I don't think Harry Potter is a manifesto. I think it was a flawed passion project that millennials latched onto because of the fantasy of sticking it to their mean teachers and arbitrarily categorizing themselves (hogwarts houses; it's the thinking millennial's astrology). I think the fact that the series got popular when and how it did was very much a product of its time.

I don't think Harry Potter is the biggest symbol of JKR's bigotry. I think the most flagrant sign of that was how she responded to critics. I watched her become radicalized in real time. I watched how she doubled down on her racism when she was called out for the ways she promoted her tragically mid fantastic beasts movies. I watched her chase marginalized teenagers with a double digit follower count off of twitter for daring to criticize her thought process, and no one with any kind of power standing against her because she was the one who was paying them. This isn't to say Harry Potter is without flaws. This is to say she really didn't give a shit about that. Getting rich and powerful is a hell of a drug, and she had enough sycophants that she had no reason to care about what her critics were saying.

She was convinced that she was a martyr; a voice for the unheard; a leader for the ages, so of course her detractors were the bad guys. And I think we should take this to heart. We should see this as an example of how easy it is to get radicalized; if you think of yourself as a paragon of virtue, you are going to think that whatever you see as good and right is an objective fact. Most people don't know this, but the majority of terfs start out as trans allies. You are not immune to propaganda! You are not immune to falling into dangerous ideologies!!!

This is why the most important thing you can do as an activist is to listen. Do NOT think you're above being wrong; do NOT develop a god complex; do NOT form an identity out of being right all the time. Involve yourselves in the groups you claim to speak for. Listen to trans women; share resources that help trans women; familiarize yourself with the diversity of experiences that trans people have and the struggles they face.

No, none of you are as bad as JKR because you don't have her money or her power. You will likely never have the capacity for harm she does. But check yourselves. Do not affirm yourselves into thinking you always have the moral high ground. Watch yourselves; humble yourselves; check yourselves for signs of cult behavior and internalized prejudice. You are always learning. You will always be learning. Do not allow yourselves to get a power trip from brushing off marginalized voices.

[mattsmemes]