Forum - View topic

ANNCast - FRANXXly my Darling, I Don't Give A Damn

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.

"Don't discriminate against the other" is not a "left" theme unless "the other" is a group or individual occupying a social category the left recognizes as discriminated against and if they are discriminated against in ways similar to the ways the left would like them not to be. One could easily frame heterosexuals or white people as the beleaguered and alienated "Other" in need of less discrimination. "Don't be mean to the Klaxosaurs/the horned lady" is not, prima facie, a leftist political position.

Kikimani wrote:

Isn't this exactly what they said? DIdn't they just painstakingly explain that this is a very particular kind of conservatism aimed at a particular caricature of the left on this particular issue based on groundless propaganda? That the story development and world building was poor, that it was mealy-mouthed and kinda dancing around what it wanted to say, lacking coherency. That you don't have to interpret it their way just that they couldn't find much else to talk about because the series isn't that complex? I just heard them say that. A creator doesn't need to "explicitly frame" their work as political in order for anyone else to interpret it in that manner. Once an argument can be reasonably formulated from the material any viewer can do it.

Dude, thank you. Thank you.

鏡 wrote:

"Don't discriminate against the other" is not a "left" theme unless "the other" is a group or individual occupying a social category the left recognizes as discriminated against and if they are discriminated against in ways similar to the ways the left would like them not to be. One could easily frame heterosexuals or white people as the beleaguered and alienated "Other" in need of less discrimination. "Don't be mean to the Klaxosaurs/the horned lady" is not, prima facie, a leftist political position.

Sure, you could attempt to set up a traditionally empowered class of people as the 'Other' in a show, and that would subvert the usual usage of that idea and not be very left-leaning at all. But in FranXX the Other (especially 02) are very clearly discriminated against in precisely the ways rejected by traditional leftist politics: you should not marginalize a person just because they look different (have horns) or are of another race and feel differently from you (blue blood, red girl, Klaxosaurs).

EDIT: I agree with the rest of what you're saying, though, at least so far. FranXX does not have a very coherent thesis, and it seems unlikely it will have one by show's end. I think the arguments that spawns are entertaining, even if I agree that it is a sign that the show has failed in significant ways.

Decrying discrimination against people on the basis of their horns or their blood is not a leftist position. As a result, the diegetic conceptual framework underpinning that discrimination has nothing to do with the kinds of a discrimination a leftist might decry. "Don't discriminate against people on the basis of how they look" is also not really a leftist position so much as it is a generic moral dictum - that's why it's coherent with a conservative politic that might frame a white person as otherized on the basis of how they look.

You can change 'how they look' to 'what their race is' or 'what their origins are,' if you find those more obviously left-wing.

NeverConvex wrote:

You can change 'how they look' to 'what their race is' or 'what their origins are,' if you find those more obviously left-wing.

You sure could! And so could a white supremacist, and find the show speaking directly to their soul.

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.

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?

No, they really couldn't, because a white supremacist fundamentally rejects the premise of those moral pronouncements: they precisely reject the idea that you should not discriminate on the basis of what a persons race or origins are, and in practice they reject the idea that you should not discriminate on the basis of how someone looks (as a heuristic for gauging ethnicity).

I think this is a silly and obviously flawed attempt at semantically batting away textual evidence, so I'll leave this as my last comment on it.

There's a lot of "Other" in Japan other than just immigrants, and from what I've come to understand, the way that that particular faction of the LDP handles that is by: (a) being pro-"groups that foreigners would consider Japanese, but historically would have been marginalized"; (b) promoting foreign tourism and positive relations with China and pro-South Korea; and (c) using the term "foreign workers" instead of "immigrants" whenever possible, in order to ease people into a solution to Japan's problems that many Japanese people aren't going to end up liking.

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?

I think that if we're going to tie anything in Franxx to Japanese gender politics, it might be better to approach this from the position of Franxx depicting not "the horrors of a genderless world", but rather "the horrors of a world without the traditional Japanese family unit". If anything, that's what drives the opposition to gay marriage rights in Japan:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-election-lgbt-idUSKCN0ZM2L6

[
My take on this is that while I don't think that Darling in the Franxx is some kind of diatribe against what westerners would consider "the left", it does contain a lot of elements that I find disturbingly familiar to the things that the oldest and most crotchety of my Bible school teachers used to tell us about "the gays". Luckily, the majority of the people in my congregation weren't like that, but I think that if, like Jacob, you grew up constantly inundated with that kind of thing, then it really doesn't matter whether other people have other interpretations of the show's themes... what matters is that the show is doing something similar to things from your childhood that constantly tried to convince you that the person you were was wrong.

That's fine to take it away, i also feel that the zac and jacob have every right to stick to how they feel. I'm not arguing that what they said is in any means the wrong position, i don't believe there's a clear position to take as is the beauty of all stories your vantage point (upbrining and background) will influence how and what you take away from the narrative.

My point is merely that, they cannot be two-faced about wanting discourse but ultimately being so stubborn as to only approve their own vantage points of the show. Either they want healthy discourse or they want to preach on a podium.

Kikimani wrote:

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. Or...or...or. Does Franxx have "strong woman leadership" prevent it from having the issues presented in the podcast? No.

Yes, FranXX having strong leftist themes would prevent it from being reasonably read as a screed against leftist values;