#im formulating and scheming as we speak

[pearlparty]

Hi!!! I’m a huge fan of your work and have been dying to think of a request for you and I finally have one. I was wondering if you could write an angst fic about the reader feeling like Austin is embarrassed of her bc he hides his face in their paparazzi fics. I would love to see you create this story and make something beautiful out of it <3<3

omg babe I am so incredibly sorry that I literally didn’t register this as a message until just now. I never get messages like this so I totally missed it. I will happily write this for you, dear anon, and hope that you see it—I love this message and it warms my heart to (albeit belatedly) see this. You’re a darling and I hope you know how much this means months later.

(But I’ll get straight on it for ya. Also idk how angsty you want me to go, so I’m going to feel it out and see if hurt/comfort or hurt/no comfort is the vibes, but it could absolutely go either way tbfh I like to hurt my own feelings sometimes)

[the1975attheirverybest]

The Taylor-Matty discussion just reminded me how fucking insane parasocial relationships are. Like if you think about it, the concept is mad. And yet we all do it. Like in the grand scheme of things, it’s inevitable that we’re gonna talk about celebrity relationships, but I feel like overall our opinion doesn’t matter…? And I’ve seen this from MANY different celeb couples and it kind of makes me reevaluate myself I guess. Like I’ll find myself formulating an opinion and getting fired up, which I have a right to have and do by itself, but then I’ll realize… that I don’t know these people…? Lmao I don’t know. It’s all very surreal to me. I think THATS the reason I’ve been able to kind of tune out all the “drama” out if that makes any sense.

Also I will say for the most part, the fans of 1975 just want him to be happy which is great. I don’t know about Swifties tho since I’m not really on that side of social media

-🥳

Yeah, it’s true. We don’t know them nor do we know the situation in full. Idk, I mean, I go back and forth on the whole parasocial thing. Like I obviously don’t know Matty in the way that his friends and family know him. But parts of his personality, his world view, his sense of self are in the music so I think it’s reasonable to speak of the kind of person he is and wonder if this is a new situation for him/ if he is the sort of person who would behave this way.

IM GLAD YOU DONT KNOW ABOUT SWIFTIES STAY THAT WAY ITS FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!

[marvelousstardust-blog]

If you was crime id be lawless, caress your mentals. I know you got independant credentials, but hold the caucus, my election is official, my direction super missile, i know u used to superficial, past life horace, i want to know all your synonyms, memorize your thesaurus, its in them eyes from which you pour this, magnetic attraction,

Energetic majestic, lay you on 10 million tons of rose petals, you so hot you could make 10 billion tea kettles whistle, milk your mind like thistle.all up in the wind but not gone forever, these thoughts all on you like genius on clever, leave it to beaver i think i got the fever, i need a psych nurse, ta help me rehearse my next verse, leave behind the past cuz its empty like no coins in a purse,

Circumstances can be a curse or a blessing, philosophy lesson the stressing, like sins in confession, my weapon is cosmic, consciousness is god sick, coincidentally benevolent, elevate my relevance, educate malevolent,

Once more I pour my heart into a mold to be cast into a Shakespearean tragedy,  stakes and spears in the form of emotions stabbing me,  circumstances garbed in fate grabbing me, dragging me down into the darkness so thick photon's can't penetrate, it becomes the lungs oxygen,  what used to be toxic becomes a friend, perhaps the only,  my raps are lonely, without your lips, mines only just a pair, it's seems unfair the lost tracings of fingertips over hips and bare derrière it's hard to bare absence of Carmel Carnal incense driftly loitering in our air perhaps it holds a message if only we could translate we could cypher how nature orchestrate it's divine scheme of affairs, I know what the law of rhythm brings the higher the pendulum swings, if you don't feel this then dream on to a place  where you are lost in your heart and head ,

headed somewhere ,the dreaded nowhere, beyond the fabric of space time n facetime my pantomime to taste my rhymes climatic climb without physical form, my brain herds words like cattle, keep it wet like seatle, when them hips rattle. Our lips battle.

My darts pierce the heart, thread your emotions,

DisproPortions of poisonous pain potions got me drifting slow motion amoung the daily comotion ,somedays it feels like theres no options, wanting to snuff the spark in this,

Sink into the darkness among those who hiss, wont miss the superficial bliss, cold bold bag of bones, sold the throne, prone to roam alone homeless ronin atoning lone ranger trying to phone home but im homeless, cant stress stress enuff, stuff my think poems in my memories catacombs, trippen with gnostic gnomes,

Feelings sometimes feeling useless like a bald cat with a comb, a sip from loves cauldren can scald men, callen all children of the corn, forwarn the fallen and torn, although its taste we relish, we fell from wishful thinking, i could tell you but I'drather show you what your worth, i know universal forms, i know plato, mold my ideas like plato epoxy, my grammar got mad glitter and glamour, im thor with a hammer, ive seen beyond this obscene prison, envision my soul division in a prism, my wisdom formulate a new state of matter, i violate federal mandate, mindstate clatter, my mic swagger like mick jagger, order up a barrage at cloak and dagger, we both dream mitchells ice cream, like the way your eyes beam like lightning striking my pulse rhythm, i speak wisdom which is all my crytalized pain, au bon, make 4th dimensional chocolate diamonds fudgy fudgy, sit back and observe how i set the curve, for those i serve, im out for justice, im not much, but im just this much dutchness. So trust this is a tale for time to tell, n it will tell it well.

[sethnakht]

Im at work and just had a thought but no one talks Star wars so ill ask you :) when Vader says to Palps in rotl he says MY son is with them. Why do you think palpatine allowed this so to speak, instead of going into the the whole anakin is dead spiel? I always thiught it was odd

Good question! I think the number of interpretations here is probably endless – but will try and put down a few possibilities.

How one interprets the “my son” line depends perhaps most on how one interprets the conversation Vader has with Palpatine in ESB, where we see them speaking about Luke for the first time. This conversation exists in two versions: one produced when there was a definite interest in keeping the “I am your father” reveal a surprise until the end of the film, and the Ian McDiarmid one from the Special Edition, produced at a time when that cat was well out of its bag. I’ve put both versions here together, crossing out what was eliminated for the Special Edition and bolding the new formulations.

VADER: What is thy bidding, my Master?

EMPEROR: There is a great disturbance in the Force.

VADER: I have felt it.

EMPEROR: We have a new enemy, Luke Skywalker. The young rebel who destroyed the Death Star. I have no doubt this boy is the offspring of Anakin Skywalker.

VADER: Yes, my Master. How is that possible?

EMPEROR: Search your feelings, Lord Vader; you will know it to be true. He could destroy us.

VADER: He is just a boy. Obi-Wan can no longer help him.

EMPEROR: The Force is strong with him. The son of Skywalker must not become a Jedi.

VADER: If he could be turned he would become a powerful ally.

EMPEROR: Yes. Yes. He would be a great asset. Can it be done?

VADER: He will join us or die, Master.

In the original conversation, the conversation that most importantly was the one in place when RotJ was filmed, the Emperor names Luke. He has a name for the “new enemy”. He also notes that Luke is the “son of Skywalker”. It’s unclear whether he knows that Vader has been pursuing Luke all this time - in the original 1976 novelization, the Emperor was cloistered away from the world, essentially a puppet - or whether he is telling Vader here that he has caught onto his treacherous schemes. He could also just be saying that the disturbance he felt was so terrifying, it has made Luke’s capture or death imperative. As the Emperor insists Luke is a threat, Vader responds with mollifying, calm suggestions (“He is just a boy” line and “If he could be turned”). Vader’s reference to Obi-Wan could even suggest that they have spoken about Luke before. 

But the salient point here is that the Emperor calls Luke the “son of Skywalker” Why does the Emperor say “son of Skywalker” instead of “your son”? While Watsonian readings are certainly possible, I read this as a dramatic necessity. The film hinges on its twist ending. “Son of Skywalker” is vague and formal and foreboding and above all, it doesn’t give the game away mid-film. Can you imagine the impact of “I am your father” if the Emperor had already casually revealed Luke’s parentage to the audience in a random conference call?

For Watsonian readings, of course, the newer version is more relevant. Notably, this version doesn’t include Luke’s name. This leaves unclear how the Emperor came to zero in on “the young rebel” - whether he saw him in a vision, or has been observing Vader long enough to put two and two together, or something else. It also allows one to read him as pretending surprise (along the lines of: I thought your spawn was dead too, never knew of him before the Force showed him to me, don’t even know his name). Vader also pretends to have never heard of Luke Skywalker before. Otherwise, the dialogue remains unchanged, which could be attributed to laziness, a desire to keep the twist ending intact for those who see the film for a first time and have not yet watched the PT, or some sort of manipulative game in which the Emperor insists that Anakin and Vader must be regarded as two separate people, etc.

Something I think one has to consider in this context is how these films were made. A version of this conversation was already in the original draft of the film, when Vader and Anakin were still in fact distinct people (Anakin appears to Luke as a Force ghost). Basically, Vader reaches out into the Force while in his castle full of gargoyles and encounters Luke, creating a disturbance that the Emperor apparently also feels. Instead of the conversation we eventually got in the film, the Emperor appears “draped and hooded in cloth-of-gold, so that we cannot see his face” but so that we nonetheless understand him to be powerful. Vader bows before the image and has the following conversation:

Vader’s breathing reveals his “fear of the Emperor”. He also angrily knocks over a golden bowl, frightening the gargoyles. Most interestingly, “Skywalker” is a known factor to both of them. Vader also makes no attempt to change the Emperor’s mind; he isn't exactly given the opportunity. My point being that a lot of things were in flux when the films were made, and that the back and forth between them becomes less and less about external threats than mind games with each iteration.

As for RotJ – the fact that Vader refers to Luke as “my son”, placing emphasis on these words, is something that I think opens itself up for a great deal of interpretation, especially since Palpatine immediately questions him on whether his “feelings are clear” on the matter. But I don’t myself read that exchange as evidence that Palpatine insists on a sharp divide between Vader and Anakin, that he thinks them two different people. RotJ was of course filmed before the PT, so there are inconsistencies. But the PT doesn’t suggest this interpretation to me either. I’m not sure such petty external policing would fit with Palpatine’s self-presentation as someone beyond conventional distinctions ( “Good is a point of view, Anakin”, “Keep your mind clear of assumptions. The fear of losing power is a weakness of both the Jedi and the Sith”, etc. ) Certainly Palpatine insists on using the Sith name he has given Vader, and puts Vader in the suit, and in the newer comics, encourages him to identify with that trapping. Certainly Palpatine is manipulative and perverse. And certainly Vader has no interest in being referred to as Anakin. 

But Darth Vader exists because he was willing to sell his soul to save his wife (and possibly also his unborn child). Whether you consider the newer comics and novels (Lords of the Sith) canon or not, they are evidence for a reading where Palpatine exerts control over Vader not least by constantly goading him into confronting his past choices. Each time Palpatine does this - sending Vader to Mustafar, where he was not only defeated but also killed Padmé, to build his Sith lightsaber, giving him Padmé’s ship, ordering him to kidnap the babies of former Jedi, forcing Vader to admit he was a traitor - Vader reaffirms those choices, choosing the Dark, refusing alternatives. Palpatine also approves of Vader’s desires to “find” (resurrect?) Padmé on Mustafar, or at least he claims to do so on the grounds that Vader will learn much and become more powerful in the process. 

I’ve gone on so long already, I should stop rambling! Last thing - I do think Vader’s words in RotJ are extraordinary, of a different character from the EU examples above, not least because he’s speaking of the future rather than a dead past, claiming a future instead of remaining in his little loop. But the difference seems to me a subtle one, if that makes sense? He’s changed his drives, in Westworld-speak: the form and direction of his purpose has changed, giving new meaning to something Palpatine could once take for granted (Anakin = Vader) as a means of control. 

Thanks for the ask, dear friend!

[corruptedcaps]

A perfect plan

"Oh come on please! Please help me Jess it's a simple plan that won't hurt anyone!" Jacob whined to his smart but nerdy best friend Jess.

"You want to use the suit gun, which I'll remind you I invented, to turn Brianna my bitchy bully into a skin suit so that I can pretend to be her and date you so everyone will think your popular. Then after a week bring her back to normal as if nothing ever happened? it doesn't sound so simple Jacob. I'm not doing it." Jess said sternly. Jacob was disappointed with the answer but expected it.

"Well what if I told you half the plan was done already?" Jacob said with a mischievous smile.

"You didn't!?" Jess said hoping against hope he didn't do what she thought he did. Jacob slid his backpack of his shoulder and opened it just enough for Jess to see the folded skin of Brianna. Jess's eyes went wide and she pulled Jacob into the nearby out of order bathroom and locked it. Once inside Jacob took out the body suit and Jess gasped as her fears were realised.

"Jacob this is so wrong. We could get into a lot of trouble for this." Jess said worried.

"Come on Jess this will be easy. All the hard work is done. At least try it on and see if it will work." Jacob said pleading. Jess knew this was a bad idea but at this point it was really their only option.

"Ok but give me the gun back. I'm going to destroy it once we turn her back so this never happens again." Jess said. Jacob's face lit up as his plan started to gain steam.

"No problem it's all in the bag along with some clothes and makeup and shit." He said thrusting the bag into her hands and looking at her expectedly.

"Im not going to change with you in here you Perv, get out!" Jess said in frustration and Jacob left somewhat disappointed. Jess locked the door and let out a sigh. She turned the bag upside down and emptied the contents onto the floor. There was her gun with the mound of rubbery flesh and clothes more expensive then anything she owned. She sighed again and began removing her clothes.

Once all her clothes were off she looked at herself in the mirror sadly. She had little fat rolls around her stomach, stretch marks in all the wrong places and her body hair was patchy from her bad shave job. She grabbed the Brianna suit and began stepping into it.

Even as a hollowed out husk Brianna was still more beautiful then Jess ever would be. Putting on the suit was like putting on tight stockings to Jess. They hugged to her skin but there was no friction when putting it on. It actually felt kind of nice she thought as she lifted the head over her own and fully immersed herself into Brianna. She picked up the gun and changed the dial to 'seal' and shot herself. Instantly she felt a warm wave flow over her as her body and suit became one, for now. She turned to look at herself in the mirror.

"Oh wow I really look like her. Oh my god I even sound like her." Jess said hearing her voice speak in a bitchy tone. She twirled around examining every inch of her new form. Her perfect blonde hair, her perky round tits, her smooth shaven body, she couldn't help but smile.

"Wow I feel so beautiful for the first time ever. This must be how Brianna feels all the time. I have the confidence to walk naked down the street looking like this." She said giggling to herself. But something felt off. Something not quite right. Then it hit her, she had never actually seen Brianna smile the way she was smiling. Jess’ smile was warm and compassionate whereas when Brianna smiled it came from a place of superiority and power.

"If i'm going to be Brianna for a week convincingly I will have to get into character. I have to think how she thinks. I have pretend to be a mean scheming bitch who talks down to others and takes what she wants." She said trying to formulate a plan in her mind.

She closed her eyes and pictured herself, as Brianna, walking down the halls. She scowled at the losers who cowed in fear, she flirted with the boys. "I am a mean bitch, I am a mean bitch." She said over and over to herself. She opened her eyes and pretended she was in the locker room changing after cheerleader practice. She gazed vainly at herself in the mirror. She imagined she spotted Jess spying on on her and suddenly she was filled with hate and disgust

"Ugh what a gross loser. Why is she looking at me naked in the bathroom. Must be an ugly lesbian. Even if she's not I'll be sure to spread that rumour." She thought to herself as cruel smile passed her lips.

"What are you looking at loser?" She said pretending to be Brianna. She remembered all the mean things the real Brianna had said to her over the years and began to channel it. She stood with her hands on her hips and a look of contempt on her face. Now she was starting to look like the real Brianna... And feel like her too.

"You're just a fat loser who couldn't get a date if you were the last girl on earth. Are you going to cry? God you're pathetic. I see how you look at me and it makes me sick. You're jealous of my beautiful body, my perfect tits and bitchy attitude. You want it so bad just admit." Jess said fully channelling Brianna now. She felt mean and full of venom for the first time in her life and it felt good, it felt natural in her new skin. She began to put on the tight black dress that was on the floor.

"Mmmmm you could never pull off a tight slutty dress like this Jess, but I can. I can get any man I want, I'm the queen bitch of this school. And who are you? You're a nobody. Men beg me to date them while they cross the road to avoid you." She said with a snarl. Her mind was now completely thinking like Brianna and she was starting to forget she was ever Jess. There was a part of Jess still fighting for control but her Brianna persona was too strong and it felt too good.

"You should do us all a favour and disappear for good. No one needs you now that I'm here to take over. Now that I'm hot and a genius you can leave and never return. Mmmmm yesss that sounds so much better. The world needs a gorgeous spoilt bitch like me more than another loser like you. Bye bye Jess, forever." Brianna said blowing a kiss at her reflection and completely becoming what she once hated.

When she did it was as if any last remnant of her old personality sailed away on the kiss too. She felt like an alpha bitch and who lived for money, cock and power. But she still had her genius level intellect. She loved how it felt, to be a combination of beauty and brains, it was like she had been held back her entire life but was now set free. Suddenly she heard a knock on the door.

"Jess or I mean Brianna are you alright? It's been awhile." Jacob asked through the door. Immediately Brianna wanted to open the door and slap the loser in the face. The thoughts of having him grovel made her wet. However she came up with a better plan. She put on a fake smile and opened the door to allow Jacob a look at her new form.

"Jesus you look amazing, you look just like her. So should we start this now to get people talking." Jacob said and Brianna could see lust in his eyes for her. She had never had a man look at her that way but she knew he wouldn't be the last. Even though she now despised Jacob she still drew power from his lustful stares at her perfect body.

"No! Let's give it a day and then tomorrow you can have all this... and more." She said leaning in and whispering the last part in his ear sexily. Even though he hid it well Brianna knew that she had caused a little issue in his pants. He hurried off quickly so that tomorrow could start sooner but also to hide the mess he just made. Once he was out of sight she dropped her smile and went back into the bathroom. She picked up an expensive jacket that was in the bag and wrapped herself around it. She spotted the gun on the ground and walked over to it.

"Can't have this laying around if my plan is to work." She said as she stomped on it causing it to shatter to pieces. She put it all into the bag and went outside. She needed to get home, her new home, but wasn't going to walk. She decided to hang out near the football boys locker room and get one of her adorning fans to drive her back which she would reward them with a blowjob on the way of course. As she leaned against the wall waiting for the first strapping man to appear she mused at how genius her plan was.

She was going to report Jess as missing and fully implicate Jacob in her disappearance. He was the last person to be seen with her and once Brianna claimed that the creep was going to abduct her next then she was certain he would be throw away forever. Sure he'll rant and rave about a body suit gun and how Jess is Brianna but no one will believe such a crazy story, especially when the last remains of the gun will be in a garbage dump somewhere.

As the boys filed past her, each taking a long look at the beauty before her, Brianna felt like she was at the mall picking out a new accessory. When she saw one she liked she dragged him out of the line.

"Hey babe want to do a hot girl a favour and drive me home?" She said in her sexiest purr.

"Oh wow Brianna I would but you know I'm dating Claire and she wouldn't like it if I did." He said turning her down but in his eyes she could see he didn't want to. She leaned in close to his ear while placing her hand on his crotch.

"What Claire doesn't know won't hurt her." She said into his ear and he could feel her soft breath on his skin driving him wild. She could tell he was all here now. She was going to have a good life being a bitch.

[the-film-bitch]

Hell or High Water (2016) ★★★★

Having delivered a genre-busting film with a strong sense of place in 2011’s Glaswegian near-dystopia Perfect Sense, Scottish director David Mackenzie explores less familiar territory in his latest offering, Hell or High Water, with the help of native Texan screenwriter Taylor Sheridan (Sicario). The second in Sheridan’s self-proclaimed ‘Western trilogy’ of screenplays, Hell is less easily pigeon-holed than Sicario, functioning as both an appraisal of modern masculinity and a buddy movie about brothers, both biological and professional. Ultimately, though, this is a nostalgia-tinged, state-of-the-nation film chronicling the post-recession forsaken lands of West Texas. As TV’s Westworld has recently explored, old worlds – especially the old West – contain adventure narratives no longer accessible in our hyper-technical present, and so it is with Hell’s dying Texas.

Hell’s youth have been abandoned by modernity, left to rot in the dust of their deserts following the economic onslaught of 2008, while its aging population are too resistant to change to care anyway. There is a very palpable sense of this rural abandonment in the cinematography: Giles Nuttgens’ lens crosses empty swathes of land to find the little towns that make up the film’s setting, and when it does, the scene is almost post-mortemal. The camerawork lays it on thick, magnifying the post-recession death throes of rural America, where signs of life are few: countless debt relief adverts and closing down signs strew the roadside, while the gargantuan skeletons of oil wells intrude in the background, heaving and seething in the summer heat. The juxtaposition is about as subtle as a Banksy, but these frames signal this Western’s unusual central themes: capitalism and its (im)morality.

Sheridan’s screenplay, as with Nuttgens’ work, is chiefly rooted in this sign-of-the-times style discourse. His characters lament the decay of their surroundings: big banks are rapidly assuming the role of American colonialism, one Texas Ranger (Gil Birmingham) argues, with military strategy being replaced by wily bureaucracy. Even lawyers, that most-hated of film professions, can’t stomach the unique evil of the bank’s ‘reverse mortgage’ scheme that threatens Hell’s protagonists: ‘It’s just so arrogant it makes my teeth hurt.’

If the law offers no protection from corporate greed, the law must be broken, or so brothers Tanner (Ben Foster) and Toby Howard (Chris Pine) reason. Days away from a foreclosure on the family ranch (which sits on prime oil ground), the poverty-stricken two formulate a plan to hit the very bank that is swindling them for the money required to pay off the ‘reverse mortgage’.

Hell sets itself apart from the recent crop of heist films here, in which the emphasis has usually been placed on the technical cunning of the robbers and their ruthless appetite for money, often rivalled only by their target itself (Inside Man is a classic here). The heists are much simpler affairs in Hell, requiring only the modest bank robber starter pack of a ski mask and a gun. Surveillance is a non-issue, and Texas’ plains are free and plentiful, accommodating anyone who needs to make a getaway fast. If anything, Hell makes you wonder why no one else has had the Howard brothers’ initiative yet.

Westerns are often valued for the escapist entertainment they provide – see Westworld for a meta-example of this point – but Hell is gritty realism to the core. Its socio-economic scene-setting aside, this is chiefly down to its fleshed-out characterisation, with excellent performances from all – a frenetically-charged Foster, and Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham as the Rangers on their tail – and a career best from Pine (as the brooding Howard brother) giving rich display to the bonds of brotherhood and the stifling way in which hegemonic Western masculinity censors affection between men.

With respect to its women, though, Hell hasn’t much altered the formula of the old Westerns. Its female characters are still reduced to those who smile enough, signifying their ability to provide palliative sexual care – the young waitress who’ll give you her number – and thorny, ornery harridans – the razor-tongued old waitress who’ll have your head for ordering the wrong thing. It would be a crying shame if this flat characterisation was intended to cement Hell’s position as a “man’s movie” by making misogynistic gripes about women its point of common reference.

 On the surface, the core of the classic Western’s conflict between ‘Indians’ and ‘Cowboys’ looks to be subverted in Hell: white-hat Ranger Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) is brother-in-badge with part-Hispanic, part-Native American Ranger Parker (Gil Birmingham), whom Sheridan doesn’t ascribe with the racist tropes usually assigned to Native American characters. Blessedly, too, Hell doesn’t shy away from the brutality of pioneer-era America: Parker speaks with knowing disdain of the white settlers’ bloody appropriation of his ancestors’ land, while another Comanche man echoes this sentiment, lampooning the popular epithet ‘Lords of the plains!’ with the retort ‘Lords of nothing now’.

But like a reflective surface, there’s deceiving depth here. Hell’s status as a revisionist Western is limited. While Parker might not be racistly essentialised, Hell’s white characters (particularly Jeff Bridges’ and Ben Foster’s) feast on a mythologised version of Native American identity to feed their ego and tell their jokes, dehumanising all the Native Americans they meet.

Tanner is obsessed with bedtime ‘Indian’ legends, and doggedly employs Native American tropes to build his own self-aggrandising fantasy: ‘We’re like the Comanches, little brother. Lords of the plains... Raidin’ where we please, with the whole of Texas huntin’ our shadow.’ His fixation won’t extend to courtesy, though, and he taunts a Native American blackjack opponent with the racist refrain, ‘Don’t chase me, Chief.’; the delivery here suggesting the line is designed as snappy dialogue, rather than as an indicator of Tanner’s racism.

Far be it for decency and the bonds of police fraternity to get in the way of Ranger Hamilton’s penchant for racist humour, either. Sheridan’s screenplay attempts to expiate the sins of Bridges’ character – his constant, unfunny allusions to Parker’s Mexican-Comanche heritage – with heavy hints that the bigotry masks a deep, unspoken affection between the two. But, paradoxically, it is plain to see that Parker is hurt by Hamilton’s ‘jokes’ – so why does he keep making them, if the two are really friends? Sheridan’s writing lingers too fleetingly on Parker’s unease – and, crucially, his inability to seek redress for it, since Hamilton is his boss – making for a somewhat weak, half-hearted gesture from Hell at rebuking prejudice. The senior ranger’s outpouring of emotion at Parker’s later death is meant as a gesture to his fallen comrade’s humanity – the humanity Hamilton never lost the pleasure in disrespecting whilst he was alive – but it is an empty one. There is no remorse in his grief. There are hints at the difficulties men can face articulating friendship here – an attempt which would be noble, did it not compromise the indictment of Hamilton’s prejudice.

Hell or High Water struggles with saying something meaningful about its characters’ racism, and outright fails at saying anything true or interesting about women. It finds greater success as a living autopsy of the forgotten West, and as a love letter to the true grit of its people, making it a distinctly American film. Its intercourse with the gender turn and populist treatise on capitalism will find favour with viewers worldwide, though – and likely even with some women in its audience, many of whom are long-used to tuning out misogynistic subtexts to feel the brief bliss cinema provides.

Blending outstanding (male) characterisation with incisive, bottom-up political commentary, Hell or High Water is a personal best for director Mackenzie, screenwriter Sheridan and lead Pine.