Forum - View topicANNCast - FRANXXly my Darling, I Don't Give A Damn
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NeverConvex
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Ah, yeah, I was just kidding; I'm not sure if I feel like it's a good or bad property of a show, but there are certainly shows that take their time to wrap up their ideas. Anyway, I don't remember FLCL well enough to claim whether that's true of it or not. I just thought it was funny that you picked 6 episodes as your example threshold and then picked one of the few shows I distinctly remember as being exactly 6 episodes long. |
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#838774
Posts: 158 |
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This reminds me of Battlestar Gallactica. In that series, polytheism is the norm and believing in one god is considered strange. They tackle the issue by putting viewers on the other side that they aren't comfortable with.
Anyway, I think Franxx is trying to send a message but isn't really committing enough to make it meaningful. In the end, it's probably gonna wind up being an OK series because it already has some episodes that are just a pointless waste of time. Definitely a one-watch series, good if you're bored and itching for teen drama. |
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TexZero
Posts: 559 |
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I don't use twitter, nor was i a part of the #bitchigo movement. It's also pretty evident that you are talking out your backside by labeling everyone with a counterpoint part of the problem when my gripe was about the staff being so turned off from legitimate discourse as to name a podcast "I don't give a damn". This showcases that they are no longer invested not only in the themes of the show but open and honest discourse no matter how many times you stick solely to the show and leave the ad-hoc attacks on people affiliations out of it. To make this short and sweet, you cannot change the minds of people who do not want to change. |
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Tirol Choco
Posts: 73 |
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That's nice but how does the themes of gender politics, babymaking and fatshaming conveyed in the first episode?
....which is exactly what is stated in the first episode hence why it book ends it by repeating itself verbatim so sitting though those 20 episodes are entirely pointless unless you like characters referencing books you read in highschool.
If I came off as a dick Im sorry but thats honestly how I feel. |
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NeverConvex
Posts: 1615 |
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With some minor digressions, this is largely what it was. The podcast seemed to be elaborating on a viewpoint we'd already gotten snippets of from James' review, i.e. the p.o.v. that FranXX is right-wing propaganda, and in particular that it is strongly anti-leftist, anti-caricature-of-gender-theorists, and anti-LGBTQ. I think it was still worthwhile to listen to, though. Although I still disagree quite strongly with the perspective Zac and his husband took, I thought it was interesting to hear them describe the particular lens through which they were viewing the events of the show. I did think it came off pretty patronizing a few times, but I imagine they're pretty annoyed at the treatment ANN staff have gotten on social media, so maybe some of that's bleeding through. I'd probably take a somewhat irritated tone if folks were regularly harassing on social media me over opinions on a cartoon show as well. Last edited by NeverConvex on Fri May 25, 2018 9:22 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Tirol Choco
Posts: 73 |
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You mean like what you just did by insinuating that the ANN staff "don't get this show" like you do? Also if they dismiss the show entirely then they would stop watching it all they've been doing is dismantling what the shows saying and pointing out that its a crock of archaic shit that's too cowardly to put its views out.
Irony |
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Kikimani
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No. They have been very specific in what they think the show is about, very specifically addressing its apparent positions on gender and sexual diversity. You have presented "the left" as a monolith in your argument in order to position their views as unpersuasive because you've found a pro-lefty thread here and there. That's not how anything works. Near the beginning of the podcast, they stated that the shows antifascist trappings didn't protect it from their reading. Your take on the show is that is in both an incoherent muddled story that still manages to be strongly and obviously "pro-left", which is fine. It's not a position that engages much with what the podcast is about at all though.
They didn't "suggest" it, they baldly stated it, repeatedly. Like they do all the time. |
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NeverConvex
Posts: 1615 |
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It's not really a pro-lefty thread here or there, though. The theme of non-discrimination against the Other is one of the single most prominent themes in the show; we see it in the show's treatment of 02 nearly every episode in which she's present, and again every time they fight the Klax's, coupled with the 'reveal' that the Klax's an't so bad after all, and that actually by the way genociding them is the bad thing. As another example, the theme of strong women in leadership roles is also quite regular throughout the show.
No, my position is that it is not coherently politicized in any particular canonically important direction. I agree with them that APE's gender-mushing motivations are, if anything, left-leaning, and that APE are obviously 'the bad guys'. But the position taken in the podcast was very clearly that FranXX is politicized and generically anti-left. The majority of the first 20 minutes of the podcast is literally them arguing that the characterization of the villains in FranXX is a piece of political propaganda on par with arguing that 'Christmas is under threat' and that 'diversity is bad', and these allusions are explicitly coupled to mentions of conservatism, the right, etc! That is an extremely broad political brush; it is not some kind of scalpel specifically claiming that FranXX has a single theme in its villains that they dislike. It is an insistence that the show is a work villainizing liberal values, and it is a thesis that is weak when the show is rife with positive statements on many other canonically liberal values. As an aside, I'm not sure the 'scalpel' approach is very compelling either. If you pick just APE's gender-sucks-eradicate-it motivations as the thing to claim as political (leaving aside whether this is 'left' or 'right'), it is suddenly much less clear why you should treat that as a statement about the real world. If you couple couple it with a few other themes/symbols that correlate naturally with the claimed political orientation of that theme, then you get closer to something that looks too much like real-world political concerns to ignore, but if you just pick a single isolated example it's rather hard to see why reading it as social commentary is well-motivated. Reading something as social commentary simply because you have the power to do so is not in itself a good argument. Last edited by NeverConvex on Fri May 25, 2018 9:42 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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TexZero
Posts: 559 |
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Show me where i said anything of the sort...I never said my position or any position was correct. I commended anyone who was still open to discourse but to try and talk sensibly about the show and it's merrits with the staff is foolhardy at this point in time because as they so bluntly put it, "I Don't Give a Damn". If you, I or anyone else in this thread came in with such a tone we'd be considered hipsters at best and trolls at worst. It doesn't leave the door open for civil communications or discourse because said side has already cemented their view and nothing anyone says or showcase will change it. |
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BodaciousSpacePirate
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And it's also the central political focus of the Heisei Kenkyukai, which is one of the major factions of the anti-gay, pro-traditional-family, center-right political party that governs Japan. (It's pro-diversity because many of the faction's voters are Burakumin, a rural demographic that was historically discriminated against by much of Japanese society - specifically Buddhists - due to occupational-related kegare stigma.) It is not at all a contradiction in Japan to be pro-diversity and anti-gay. Last edited by BodaciousSpacePirate on Fri May 25, 2018 9:48 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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CrowLia
 Posts: 5486 Location: Mexico |
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Do y'all tearing off your clothes at the title even realize that it's a pun from a famous line from Gone with the Wind
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankly,_my_dear,_I_don%27t_give_a_damn |
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NeverConvex
Posts: 1615 |
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That's an interesting point and might change my perspective. Is it just "pro-diversity" in the narrow sense of bridging the rural-urban divide, though? Where does it fall on xenophobia against literal aliens (immigrants), for example? It's a bit hard to get any more specific than that, unfortunately, since FranXX's key "Others" are the Klax's, 02, and the Klax princess, and what they appear to represent (the unrepressed, raw, emotional human spirit) isn't obviously identifiable with a particular Other. EDIT2: Thinking about it some more, my one major reservation here is that I don't really see anti-LGBTQ themes in FranXX; I think its handling of Ikuno was downright well done, for example, despite that Ichigo fucked up in understanding her, and I don't think Mitsuru's story arc ever had much to do LGBTQ issues, despite that it was ambiguous whether it would initially. As a result, as pertains to the Heisei Kenkyukai argument, I think the key issue is why they're anti-gay, and specifically: do they believe/suggest that the modern LGBTQ movement and/or gender studies activism are pushing for a genderless world? If so, I think this could be a pretty compelling read of FranXX, but if not then I think the textual evidence is weak. (EDIT: And, of course, FranXX also happily discriminates against certain folks, especially fat people ala Futoshi. Better to be a gelatinous ball of barely humanoid soon-to-be-killed than to be fat in the FranXX universe.) Last edited by NeverConvex on Fri May 25, 2018 10:33 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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TexZero
Posts: 559 |
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I'm aware of the pun, that does not however change the tone of the cast and the message they sent by starting off by pretty much stating by no uncertain terms that they don't want to watch the show and are only watching at this point to "keep up discourse" only to shut out any viewpoints that may actually help explain problem points in the shows logic that they attribute to sloppy writing or propaganda. It's pretty clear that if you listen to said cast their views and ultimately minds are made up especially when it comes to anything having to do with anything LGBT related and that's before you get into any other themes the show has like the difference between love and lust, maturation, and what it means to be human. |
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Kikimani
Posts: 23 |
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So you've got two threads. Okay? Is it really so difficult to conceive of shows that do well in certain respects and not so well in others? It happens absolutely all the time. A show can have "strong women in leadership" theme in a show that romanticizes oppressive government and includes racist caricatures, for example. Or it could be gender essentialist. It can be pro-racial diversity and anti-gender diversity. Or...or...or. Does Franxx having "strong woman leadership" prevent it from having the issues presented in the podcast? No. I leave the rest alone. If we could disagree without going out of our way to read certain other opinions in bad faith these threads could be a lot more interesting. I never last long because "a particular strain of Christian conservatism which creates a bogeyman that doesn't exist is a similar tactic to the one the show uses here" gets reduced to slogans and then dismissed. *shrugs* |
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NeverConvex
Posts: 1615 |
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Yes, FranXX having strong leftist themes would prevent it from being reasonably read as a screed against leftist values; to suggest otherwise is to refuse to honestly engage with the argument that was made in the first 20 minutes of the podcast, which very literally involved the podcasters pushing that FranXX is right-wing propaganda comparable to arguments that Christmas is under threat or that embracing religious/ethnic/sexual diversity implies removing traditional options. I think it's also inappropriate to describe this as "doing well in some respects but not so well in others," unless you think a show's quality should be judged by how well it serves as a piece of leftist propaganda, which is perfectly silly. That said, I think BodaciousSpacePirate's argument that we might read FranXX as political, right-leaning propaganda specifically in the mold of Heisei Kenkyukai is a lot more compelling than the kinds've broadsides the ANN folks have presented so far, and I'd love to hear more arguments in that vein. (Although I don't see anti-LGBTQ themes in FranXX, just anti-gender-destroying/anti-caricature-of-gender-theory themes, which are distantly related but not at all the same thing.) Last edited by NeverConvex on Fri May 25, 2018 10:09 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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