Whilst unlikely to beat out any film with ‘chainsaw’, ‘massacre’ or ‘slumber party’ in the title, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes (1948) is nevertheless classic Horror cinema made manifest.
A defining moment in the ‘A Star Is Born’ film type, The Red Shoes is perhaps most curious for its relationship towards style and excess. Herein, the British penchant for cinematic realism finds itself uncharacteristically, violently endowed with crazed, expressionistic passion - exemplified best in its fifteen-minute-long depiction of the titular ballet performance. It is a sequence that delights in shadow-play, montage and throwing reality itself into question. But it is in that inner turmoil between styles that the film is most engaging; where its characters maintain that recognisably restrained affect, so coveted by contemporary David Lean, the macabre world they are thrust into takes those internal conflicts of the soul and forces them to emerge in malevolent spectacle. Victoria Page’s dual longing for love of a man and the love of ballet, a conflict between a life of normalcy and one of expression, is this internal style conflict writ large. She dies in want of an unattainable solution.
The dark fairy tale was born from a post-war Britain, one whose national optimism belied a time of austerity, toil and drudgery. On the horizon, Britons could see the promise of self-actualisation. But it would not yet be theirs to take. That the film’s conflict emerges so violently, its consequences so fatal, speaks to that prime function of the great horror pictures - to bring out and confront us with that which we deny in ourselves.
In David Lynch's 1997 film, Lost Highway, curious characters give way to expressionist horror as an abstract, mystery unfolds. Described as a 'psychogenic fugue', the film works from a blueprint, or bible, that Lynch has since often referred back to; one where he is concerned as much with rejection as he is with statement: a rejection of the realist cultural tendencies that declared immersion as the ultimate ambition of cinema.
Prognosticating postmodern anxieties, Siegfried Kracauer’s realism emphasised the stern hand of an auteur in deciding upon a singular reality. This monolithic vision would grant purpose, artistic or political, to narratives untarnished by ambiguity, eccentricity and fantasy. Where the neorealists and kitchen sink realists would take up this mantle and reject relativism, Lost Highway is a film that rejects clear patterns of meaning, or singular interpretations. As such, Lynch, as auteur, instead prioritises the total devolution of meaning, inviting not strict purpose but subjective abstraction. It is an almost entirely relativist film. In the realist sense, it is worthless.
Yet, I can't help but find connective tissue between these disparate schools of cinema. Particularly regarding the technological element which affects them. Again, immersion is the operative word. To have been immersed in Kracauer’s time was an altered state. Within such a state, we can be taken on empathetic journeys in much the same way as reading a novel. To be immersed today is our default. Digital media culture has us so ingrained with fiction and story that the lines between our own dimensions of reality are constantly blurred.
In a telling Lost Highway scene, Bill Pullman's character, Fred Madison, refutes video recordings. It echoes the "what if phone but too much" sentiment, where our cyborg-esque relationship with modern technology is considered to have a dehumanising effect, serving as a barrier between our perspectives and reality. The complaint that no one has authentically experienced an event, often a concert or live performance of some kind, because it has been filtered through a phone screen first.
However, it comes with an important distinction: Fred despises not the inaccuracy of filmed life, but rather its innate truthfulness. He cites a preference to remember things as they took place, not to see them perfectly re-represented. At its core, this suggests an authenticity that relies on subjectivity itself- that objective truth is in fact alien and inauthentic, contrary to the human experience.
Fred will go on to be haunted by these inauthentic authentic video recordings for the film's duration- whilst, simultaneously, the audience are faced with nonlinear, abstract imagery that breaks them out of the stupor of filmic illusion; Fred and audience alike clamour for closure and the restoration of the repressed, but the wild, surrealist subjectivity of Lost Highway runs free.
In this sense, it is the anti-realist nature of the film that emulates, for the audience, that dreadful impact of realist, authentic film on the subject, Fred. That is all to say that I think when we look back on film movements and the ambitions of cinema, they then demand a certain contextual relativism, in place of aesthetic absolutism. We study shifting technologies and peoples as much as the content within, and, as meaning has shifted, it is the very rejection of immersion which lends surrealism its affecting power in an age of digital ubiquity.
Spinning out of X-Men: Second Coming, 2010's Generation Hope took to focus the first new generation of mutants since the Scarlet Witch, and editorial decree, informed the X-Men of their obsolescence. The line of X-Men titles had been reeled back from its heady heights of 90s popularity, and in-text the mutant population had been severely diminished. This book, and its cast of new characters, set out to define what a modern mutancy could look like. Instead, its post-postmodern superheroes were never permitted the freedom to explore or evolve their unique standing.
Generation Hope #1 By Kieron Gillen and Salvador Espin
The Marvel superhero has been a site of postmodern self-referentiality since its inception, pushing the boundaries of genre and coating itself in a costume, not of spandex, but of ironicism. It's fitting, then, that Generation Hope's attempt to rekindle that same creative spirit went even further into the depths of this self-referentiality. Mutation in the X-Men franchise is the most undiluted, pure realisation of the superhero genre icon of the Power. No complex origin story, no radioactive spiders or enchanted hammers, if you're a mutant you have mutant powers. Rather than delve into the infinite creative potential of this, Generation Hope focused in. choosing instead to pilfer mutations from genre history and develop them towards more traumatic conclusions.
Oya was equal parts Iceman and the Human Torch, taking heat with an ice hand and returning it with a pyrokinetic one. A character based on the two ends of an extreme binary. Velocidad, meanwhile, was functionally a speedster, not unlike Quicksilver or the Flash, differing in that he increases the time around him. The faster he would go, the faster he would age. Transonic's active ability of flight was amplified with shapeshifting characteristics, as her outward appearance invoked the naked blue of Mystique and the blue lips of Apocalypse. Primal spoke to the savage types, the Beasts, the Hulks and the Wolverines, and was particularly concerned with the genre trapping these characters repeatedly find themselves within. The honour of man brought into conflict with the beast within, only this time the beast would win out over the man. Kenji Uedo, codenamed Zero, was perhaps the team's most inventive creation- that is, if you had never seen the film Akira (1988). A unique enough immigration, the character itself nevertheless remained entirely a visual retread of the film's Tetsuo. And then there was the titular Hope, herself a riff on the staple X-Book power manipulators, such as Rogue, Synch and Mimic. Not to mention evoking other cosmically-touched redheads.
Generation Hope #5 By Kieron Gillen and Jaime McKelvie
Where the powers are developed from the base of what went before, they enter into a zone of criticism. Not just of tired, archetypal power-sets and genre imagery, but of character tropes as well. Exemplifying this, a certain aspect of Hope's power set that often goes unremarked upon is her inclination to inspire loyalty and camaraderie between strangers. Rather than a result of charismatic personality, this is inexorably linked with her superhuman abilities; she can awaken and stabilise both the condition of mutancy and the psyches of mutants themselves.
Those following the current X-Men line should note a connection between this unexplored hypnotic element to her powers and the surprisingly close coalition of mutants at the core of Krakoa's state infrastructure, the Five. It also shines a different light on Nightcrawler's Second Coming sacrifice.
But, in the context of Generation Hope, this works more to address practical concerns. It is of little surprise to any follower of comic books when a new team of superheroes debuts, spending the first 6 issues of their series assembling the team and finding themselves cancelled at issue 10. Generation Hope itself would be cancelled at issue 17, albeit with writer Kieron Gillen leaving after 12. With the cast hypnotically under Hope's control, Gillen was able to bypass a lot of the standard storytelling pitfalls in order to deliver his story more efficiently.
Still, however unintentional this may be, the hypnotic aspect nevertheless serves as criticism of the structure and standard of the superhero team more widely; the suggestion being that, if it's happening with Hope's team, who is to say that it is not happening to every cast of superheroes? So often does a superhero team consist not of people who would understandably collaborate for a set goal, or even work against each other as a compelling cast, but of people simply grouped together as alternate sub-franchise mascots. The Avengers come to mind.
That Gillen is never given the opportunity to delve into these concepts further is the series at its most meta. Much like the tragic Velocidad, the story moved faster, burned brighter and ended sooner, with its cast relegated to obscurity almost immediately after cancellation. Touted as the "most important X-Book in years," Generation Hope has, in fact, managed to become little more than a footnote.
Times of great crisis oft call for similarly great compromise.
Admittedly, as a perennial shut-in, my pandemic compromises have come easier than most. Even as I have dabbled in those hallowed artefacts of the terminally uncool, anime, fan fiction, Dungeons and Dragons and their ilk, there has always remained one avenue that remained beyond the pale: the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, or MMORPG. I vowed to never venture into EverQuest, or be wowed by World Of Warcraft and or to even know enough about MMOs that I could come up with a third example.
That is not to say that I had a distaste for that particular form of gaming. Rather the opposite: I've had a deep fascination for the concept long before ever diving in myself. I've devoured the ancillary materials of MMO culture: Documentaries, such asSecond Skin (2008) and Life 2.0 (2010), an episode of South Park that utilised in-game WOW footage to tell its story and followed closely the emergence of Isekai anime; a genre which frequently sees its main characters drawn into a virtual game-world.
But a monthly subscription fee, not to mention the level of total immersion, was so alien to how I traditionally approached gaming as a medium. Frequenting mostly older titles, my gaming history has been defined mostly by cheaply-procured, second-hand, single-player story experiences to be consumed not unlike a DVD: played through once and relegated to the shelf, never to be parted with for the sake of a replay that will never come.
Yet still coming down from the Final Fantasy VII Remake high, and with truly nothing better to do, I finally tried out Final Fantasy XIV during (the first) lockdown. Several months later, the plethora of fascinating stories and experiences I've engaged within the Final Fantasy XIV makes it feel that much less like a singular experience and more like an interactive streaming service. With catgirls. The library of which, after half a year, I still feel like I haven't made much of a dent in.
So many of these quest-lines are sweeping and ambitious, detailing their own casts of characters and wondrous locations, yet I was recently floored by something comparatively much more mundane. A feature easily overlooked and in no way unique to this particular game.
Where the FFXIV's second expansion, Heavensward, weaves a complex story of war, dogmatism and colonialism (with dragons!) that ranks alongside some of the franchise's best storytelling, the totally optional, follow up side quests see the player-base tasked with the reconstruction of the post-war world. The once hostile city-state of Ishgard has had a change of heart, and now seeks to do right by its displaced, to refugees and the downtrodden.
Serving as a collective, collaborative mini-game to encourage the game's crafters to compete for prizes and glory, countless players go from supply pile to work station to building site in a frenzied rush to complete construction work within the time limit. The Ishgardian post-war optimism is palatable throughout, as the crowds are staggering and a soaring musical score accompanies the mass building projects. Not only is it the strength of a narrative forbidding economic concerns to inhibit essential investment that is affecting, but the clear enthusiasm also. The player-base could so easily spend its time running dungeons, seeking treasures and hunting monsters, yet would gladly choose instead to build an orphanage.
Naturally, that is a manipulative framing. There is plenty of in-game incentive for the player to do this. Importantly though, this was a moment that transcended any of its constituent elements. This mass building project resonated deeply, reminding me of that hallowed 1945 spirit, where from the desolation of the blitz emerged enough political will to rewrite the fabric of the UK, greatly expanding its welfare state and establishing the NHS. But just as much did it emphasise the chasm between the economic status of then with the post-Thatcher now. I would find myself wondering, do our own politicians require cute pets, cool outfits and themed furniture to incentivise real world rebuilding?
Where the dominant stories of pandemic politicising will rightfully be the apathetic, sluggish responses of a disconnected political class patronising and aggravating their constituents, the pandemic has also seen movement against that aforementioned status quo. Particularly in the urgent housing of the homeless.
Whilst it would be wrong to characterise this as a universal effect of post-Covid optimism, my university city of Coventry saw almost all of its rough sleepers housed. Long since having moved away from Coventry, I found this out via newsreel and the sight of the city centre, once so indistinguishable from the human pain and misery of homelessness, now totally clear was staggering. It was that rare occasion where a news item rendered me so totally speechless, so moved by the simple, mundane image of doorways with no one lying in them.
Both that very real, material experience, and the ephemeral virtual one, found its power in a radical simplicity, offering a break with the dominant common-senses and pragmatisms that dictate that things simply cannot get better. What's particularly interesting in the case of FFXIV, however, is that it is not only this fantasy of remedying real world problems realised. For years now, the game-as-service has been plagued with its own housing crisis, a crisis borne out of not so alien backgrounds: where the few rich players buy up more housing than they need, or can even feasibly use themselves, leaving the many without; demand has far exceeded the supply.
This has had a real human cost, as securing housing in the game has transformed into as much of a real world trial as an in-game one. If the idea of harm seems an extreme one, I would recommend we cast our minds back to the aforementioned documentaries, Second Skin and Life 2.0, and the very real mental and physical damage that can come from these immersive experiences.
In building a new housing district for Ishgard, you are engaged directly with seemingly solving this crisis- even as the underlying problems go unaddressed. Players engage in an almost interpassive experience, where at the point of interactivity, the construction of a new housing district, encourages docile, passivity in a player base that is being actively harmed by the ongoing housing crisis. On the level of narrative response, this plays out as well: the player's resolution of one housing crisis allows for closure and complacency in the face of the other.
Soon, the housing district will be complete. Players will move in, and perhaps the story will contrive itself so as to provide some new location to rebuild. But it was this particular moment that stood out amongst hundreds of hours of gameplay.
New Mutants, in the immediate collective response to its release, has been plagued by one thing above all. Not the oft associated delays, but instead with the question of adaptation. Adaptation is a difficult topic to discuss. Personally, I find that adaptation is a futile lens through which to analyse a film. More often than not, we should look to the meaning of the film as its own text and take it on its own merits. However, especially in the superhero genre, adaptation is also a site which creates meaning. This is not only a film that has caused controversy with its adaptation of the source material, but also one whose meaning lies in this very adaptation.
Trailer for New Mutants.
First, to address the elephant in the room, the films adaptation of race is galling. Discussions surrounding whitewashing in this film are fair, accurate and necessary: Two characters, Dr. Cecilia Reyes and Roberto DaCosta, who are both traditionally depicted as black characters in the source material were portrayed by two decisively non-black actors: Alice Braga and Henry Zaga, respectively. The director, Josh Boone, attempted to address these questions of whitewashing, and chose to opt for the strange strategy of doubling-down on his colorblind casting approach. Boone has since deleted his Instagram account in response to the backlash.
In my view, what makes this whitewashing so necessary to acknowledge and engage with is not merely the erasure of black identities, but that it informs the wider lens from which the film was produced. When we look to Boone's comments, where he suggests that a non-black actor could better deliver a portrayal of a privileged upbringing, we can see that it is in fact little to no different to what presidential candidate Joe Biden has also said. I do not bring Biden up without reason- that their comments are similar matters because it informs us on the film's ideology. It is the post-racial view of the liberal who believes, with so much time removed from the Civil Rights Movement and the election of President Obama, that racial conflict and injustice is a thing of the past. Importantly, the director's post-racial lens seems to have influenced not only casting decisions, but the depiction of mutancy itself.
In New Mutants, mutancy is alternatively the condition or gift of superhuman powers. An offshoot of the X-Men franchise, where mutants are a deviant minority who are taught to use their powers at superhero school, the New Mutants shifts the locale from that school to a mental institution instead; focusing primarily on Dani Moonstar, a Native American mutant whose powers bring nightmares to life. Horror genre antics ensue. With regard to adaptation, as it is an adaptation of the New Mutants comic book series, it's worth looking at the film's own perspective on this. When we do so, I think we see that this the loosest of adaptations, one that prioritizes re-imagination and re-invention to create its meaning. Re-imagination, that is, of not just of the New Mutants characters and story, but of the X-Men franchise on the whole. If there is a compelling idea in this movie, it draws itself from this.
One such re-imagining is when we see the comic book Sam Guthrie, whose powers famously made him nigh invulnerable when blastin', inverted in the film- becoming a character who instead knows only hurt. An emotional hurt, sustained from childhood, but repeated, self-inflicted physical pain also. That invulnerability is stripped away as part of the character's journey from page to screen.
Left: Sam Guthrie in New Mutants (1983) Right: Sam Guthrie in New Mutants (2020).
It is indicative of the re-imaginings on the whole. Where Sam is re-imagined as self-destructive, Roberto is re-imagined as an insecure boy fronting as a jock and Rahne Sinclair is re-imagined as a lesbian, facing conflict between her sexuality and fundamentalist Christian beliefs. One rumor that set social media and fan communities aflame was the notion of Storm being originally cast in this film as a jailer role. Whilst that never manifested, the design ethos is clear: gone are the trappings and moralism of traditional superhero fictions. These are not X-Men, mutants hated and feared by humans, but rather teenagers who hate and fear themselves.
The most significant of these imaginings, however, is both the thematic core of the film and something deeply alienating to the fan audience. Rather than take place in the iconic school for mutants most associated with the franchise, this film relocates its cast of characters to a mental institution. A jarring change, for sure, but one vital to the film's meaning. By moving the traditional X-Men coming-of-age story out of a school and into a mental institution, what we actually have is merely the exchange of disciplinary institutions. This change serves to highlight not the differences between the story of the New Mutants and the X-Men characters, but rather the similarities. They are repressed, traumatized individuals, sequestered away from the public, supposedly for their own good. The student is treated to the same institution as the patient or the prisoner; in this film, Dr. Reyes keeps her subjects all under constant, panoptic surveillance. It is a re-imagining of the school setting, a haunted hospital, an asylum and a prison all at once. That the film chooses to reveal that Reyes does not, in fact, work for the X-Men, perhaps helps the film go down easier with hardcore fans, but weakens the text as a whole.
Nevertheless, the school/hospital exists as a site of the return of the repressed, where deviant sexuality and identities inform the condition of mutancy. So far I have neglected to discuss the film's constant delays and unfortunate production cycle. Too easy would it be to fall into the trap of maligning the 'New' in the ever-delayed New Mutants. A witty critique, to appease the readers who look to a film review for a good pun and a reaffirmation of their own opinion. To do so would miss the mark of meaning: the title 'New Mutants' is a reference to two things. The first, Marvel's original name for the X-Men franchise 'The Merry Mutants', and herein we can make whatever joke we like about them not being so new anymore, but the second is all the more compelling and informative. 'New Mutants' was how literary critic Leslie Fielder, in 1965, referred to the new generation of Americans engaging in counter-cultural practice. He lambasted and feared the turn of the new generation from the values of the old, feared the perversion of conservative social norms and could not abide what he referred to as the 'irrationalists'.
The title New Mutants carries with it this weight, twisting it on its head, but retaining that particular association with a thematic generational conflict that has its roots in even the earliest of X-Men comics. Realized in this movie, the rebel youth have to break away from the authority of an older generation who can offer them nothing, but abandonment and abuse. Boone's mutancy no longer possesses a racial or genetic element, present in both source material and the film franchise at large. That this mutancy develops at puberty is highlighted, as is the sexual relationships between the youths. It is not to say that there is an inherent danger to sexuality, be it divergent or normative, but rather professes to explore the dangerous effects that surplus repression can have.
For the men, it is the manifestation of their failure to perform the masculine function. Whilst Roberto embodies a direct, physical emasculation, his powers causing him to become "Too hot" in sexual situations, leaving him unable to adequately perform, Sam's character imperils the social function: not only committing patricide, but collapsing his very source of labor and income also. He has killed his father, but cannot replace him. In both of these cases, the masculine role in the nuclear family model threatens to fall apart. The feminine role in that structure threatens to fall away also, as depicted in Dani and Rahne's relationship with subversive sexuality. It is a lot more pronounced and the relationship that forms between them is depicted quite clearly.
In the background of two scenes, we can see the youths watching episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Apparently the only entertainment afforded to the facilities patients. This inclusion echoes back to the comic book mutants relationship to television (then it was 'Cowboy vs Indian' Westerns distressing Dani, and Magnum P.I. enamoring Roberto). You can also feel the inspiration of Buffy throughout, but this is not only a nod to a preceding, influential text. It serves a narrative purpose, giving Rahne exposure to one of popular cultures most recognized and resonant lesbian relationships. Rahne's sexuality becomes entwined with the abuse she faced from the fundamentalist Reverend Craig, who dealt upon her lasting physical abuse and called the emergence of her mutancy-qua-deviant sexuality that of a witch. Her struggle is then one between the side of her that feels free and the side that feels shame. The re-emergence of Rahne's traumatic upbringing, as Dani's nightmare powers bring the ghost of Rahne's abuser back to brand her as a witch once more, doesn't actually factor into this, however. Rahne is just as happy to explore her newfound relationship with Dani. So whilst Dani's powers, throughout this film, perform a literal return of the repressed, it is only Dani and Illyana who face their returned fears head on, fighting to once more repress their nightmares. The rest of the patients are quite content to allow Dani to vanquish her own fears and perform their repression for them.
Dani and Rahne's relationship as seen in the film.
Where 2019's X-Men: Dark Phoenix is a not-so-subtle depiction of the dangers of surplus repression and the necessity of dealing with your trauma, New Mutants follows this legacy, albeit never in such a clear cut manner. Whilst it is the dominant theme throughout the film, the re-imagining of one character particularly dives into this question of repression and living with trauma. Many criticisms have been levied at a sequence of scenes having Illyana Rasputin, perhaps the closest this film has to a conventional action movie protagonist, espouse prejudice against the Native American lead. To many fans, transforming this character into what appears to be a racist bully is the far greater adaptational sin than the whitewashing of other characters. In my view, these criticisms come across as commentators either not fully engaging with the text or expecting these characters to adhere to some traditional superhero morality: something the film simply is not interested in. The comments that Illyana makes, being dismissive of Dani's Native American identity, bringing up crude, childish stereotypes and especially referring to Dani as 'Pocahontas', a preferred insult of not the most mature man in the world, are not simply to characterize her as a dominant, mean girl, but instead are part of this wider thematic exploration of repressed trauma.
Vital here is that Dani herself recognizes and calls out these insults and attempts at dominance for what they are. She specifically mentions that she heard them as a schoolgirl. It is a turning point in the film for Illyana, the deliverer of these petty, racial insults, who is then subsequently shown to be an eternal child; trapped in her traumatic past and incapable of moving forwards. Her coping methods are an abrasive personality and a puppet dragon named Lockheed, who doubles up as an imaginary friend. It is not to say that the cycle of abuse will inevitably turn us into racists, but illuminates instead the film's view of racism; that prejudice such as this is petty, childish, and a flaw in someone's individualized personality, rather than relating to any kind of structural oppression.
Recounting her story, Illyana talks about the abuse she suffered as a child, under what she refers to as the Smiling Men. She would later kill these men, 'one by one'. During the abuse, however, the child would recede into an imaginary world called Limbo- a 'special place' where the Smiling Men could not harm her. In concert with her mutant abilities, this place became real. No longer merely receding to Limbo, she would physically go there and can do so at will. Dani's power to return the repressed has a distinctly opposite effect to Illyana's own power. Where Illyana's 'special place' is made real, what Dani makes real are Illyana's nightmares; the abuse she created Limbo to escape from. As Dani receives a story-line about making peace with her repressed fears, Illyana too finds her source of power from repression itself. Both characters have engaged with their nightmares and resolved to once more push them out of view. The fight that ensues is then one against a child's horrific imaginings of her abusers. Disappearing into her Limbo world once more, Illyana will soon triumphantly emerge, empowered with sword in hand and an actual, realized dragon replacing her puppet. She slays these monstrous imaginings, going on to fight alongside Dani against the manifestation of her own repressed fear: the demon bear.
Their earlier clash, the scene that sparked such controversy, when seen in full and taken in the context of the film is in fact an important connection between the two. A relationship that may not adhere to conventional morality, but nevertheless is mutually beneficial. In true coming-of-age story fashion, their very exposure to new identities better equip them for the trials ahead. For that reason, I can't get behind the outrage at the mere depiction of bigotry. Certainly, it seems strange to watch a film that purports to have horror elements and influences, to only shirk away when the film dares to make you feel uncomfortable.
Importantly, there is a far more egregious instance of Dani's indigenous portrayal, that the proverb oft referred to in the film has more Christian roots than Native American, which demonstrates that Native American identity was poorly researched in the writing of the script. Manifesting on screen in a less than satisfactory way, the identity is nevertheless present and the portrayal of bigotry is not gratuitous, but informative. This is a sticking point, because I would argue that the depiction of Illyana's bigotry is simply not rooted in the same kind of racism that the casting of Reyes and Roberto was. I think it is crass to make such a comparison. If we are to be clear, I don't think this movie is blanket racist so much as it is specifically anti-black in its racism. There is a view, it seems, that the very presence of blackness will impede or supersede the story being told. Because, of course, there are no black stories to be told about trauma, repression or disciplinary institutions.
The New Mutants look to a future that will never come.
In this film, the New Mutants franchise has been re-imagined through the lens of post-racialism; where casting is colorblind, prejudice is a personal character flaw and indigenous belief systems are fictional sources to be adapted as if they were a comic book. The wider X-Men franchise has also been re-imagined to not only explore repression, but to highlight the roles that speciously beneficial disciplinary institutions, like schools and hospitals, play in said repression. But by never diving fully into its horror influences, it gives us a flaccid ending, wherein which the nightmares pull back, our characters neatly repress their fears once more and promptly walk off into a new day.
My last two blog posts have both tackled some heady subjects with regard to the anime series Angel Beats!. Perhaps the fact that I have elected to write a third lends some hint towards my fondness for the story, its characters and its fascinating setting. Still, after two quite heavy, theoretical posts I felt like I needed to do some clarification. Angel Beats! is currently streaming on Netflix and Crunchyroll, two of the most prominent streaming services if you're looking into anime, so it is not exactly an obscure series that I've plucked out because it is some perfectly crafted philosophical thesis disguised as a cartoon. It's funny. Really funny. Those last two posts probably make it seem like it isn't, that it's some morose depiction of Sartrean existentialism that you are required to do dense theoretical reading to fully appreciate, but that is absolutely not the case. Fundamentally, it is a cartoon with a YA demographic, and best enjoyed as such; no matter what the indulgences of a blogger might indicate.
I have to confess that my recent rewatch was plagued with fears, and I had often put off my return to this series because of them. Something that I watched so long ago, and so early in my exploration of the medium, would surely reveal itself to have been rife with crass humour, bland characters and would be nowhere near as pretty as I remembered it being. So is the case for most people, let alone someone with as notoriously poor taste as I have. Yet from that first episode I was immediately drawn back in with its frantic pacing and unique style. What brings me back to it, ten years later, is this excellency in production values. Its design and animation quality holds up, the English dub is surprisingly effective, but it is the music which is on another level entirely. Unsurprisingly, Jun Maeda, the writer for the series, is a composer first and foremost. Sequences depicting the convergence of score and animation are imbued with an artisans touch and consideration. But the soundtrack shines particularly with the 'fictional' band from the series, Girls Dead Monster, who actually, seriously rule.
A live-action performance of 'Crow Song' pushes the boundaries between fiction and reality.
Still, there was nevertheless one significant change between these viewings: me. I'm a much different consumer than I was the first time around (though I must confess that much of the same idiosyncratic taste persists). This is what motivated me to write these posts and immerse myself more into Angel Beats! as a text, and to treat it with a level of seriousness and sincerity that I just wasn't capable of all those years ago. Still, as a transmedia project, Angel Beats! proves a challenging set of texts to interrogate in this way: its story is told across multiple mediums, each providing additive information to its core setting and cast of characters, but developmental mishaps have plagued much of the production of this project.
One of the first things you'll notice is that the series itself feels rushed, often feeling like it's going to rupture under the constraints of its 13 episode run. It's commonly believed that at least twice as many episodes were originally planned. But, more than this, few of its ancillary works have actually managed to make it to the West intact. The past ten years since the initial release of Angel Beats! has been defined by fan labour: translations, fanworks, guides, DRM workarounds and pirate distribution have become the lifeblood of an ever-dwindling community. As with the most interesting fan cultures, questions of legality arise. It remains a fact that in the West you cannot read the Angel Beats! Heaven's Door prequel manga, beyond its first two volumes, by any legitimate means. Likewise, there remains an episode of the anime itself (released some time after the original series concluded), as well as an alternate ending, which find themselves not only without English dubbing, but without any Western release whatsoever.
Nor is there an English version of Angel Beats! 1st beat, the visual novel adaptation of the series. Whilst the translation from AlkaTranslations is a stellar piece of work, nigh indistinguishable from an official release, there remains a serious barrier of entry for all but the most passionate fans. Truly a shame, as the 'Iwasawa' route, whilst taking the series' inherent absurdity to new heights, drew from me an undeniably visceral, emotional reaction. In fairness, on that front even Japanese fans find themselves not much better off. The Angel Beats! visual novel project was envisioned to be a sprawling, comprehensive experience, retelling and reimagining the original series through six instalments, of which 1st beat was, unsurprisingly, the first. Since the release of that first instalment, there has been no word whatsoever on the rest of the story. No further releases, no acknowledgment of delay, not even an admission of cancellation. It just seems to have disappeared.
And yet, in spite of this, Angel Beats! has developed into a very rewarding transmedia universe. The work one has to put in is strenuous, but rewarded with real, meaningful content. Throwaway, one-dimensional characters, utilised either for single gags or to usher characters between locations in the main series are transformed into compelling storytellers in their own right. You may find that the character of Yusa, a glorified walkie-talkie in the original series, was, in fact, a misandrist serial murderer or that Chaa, no more than an underground factory worker originally, rages against an unjust afterlife which separates him from eternal paradise with his wife. I often found myself looking forward to scenes and stories concerning Fujimaki, a character whose presence in the series accounts for little more than a couple of lines, or the supporting members of the in-universe band, Girls Dead Monster, who couldn't even manage that. Surrounding these expanded character stories are also further explorations into the nuances and details of the setting: how long can characters exist in it, how long has it already existed for, what is the difference between a full character and an 'NPC', or, more pertinently, is there a meaningful distinction at all?
What I'm saying is, if there was ever a time for a grand 10th anniversary event then it is now. Announce a comprehensive physical media re-release, announce the completion and translation of the visual novel, the translation and release of its manga prequel. Hell, announce a whole series reboot. And maybe that's all a pipe dream and maybe no one in their right mind would sink so much money into a franchise that has mostly lay dormant for a decade. A franchise so messy and incomplete. Yet still Angel Beats! is one of those rare worlds of originality which can simultaneously feed the critical soul and provide a true escapist joy: Angel Beats! makes me wish I was dead.
Angel Beats!, the 2010 animated series, is, like many anime, set in a high school. Albeit, not a high school that is necessarily recognisable. The monotony is rarely on display, the teachers hold no power over their students and no one ever seems to do any studying. Instead this is a fantastical environment. Specifically it is a secondary fantasy world where the unfulfilled dead are given what appears to be a second-chance to resolve their regrets before moving onto their new lives. The question of course remains: what if you don't want to move on?
This encapsulates the struggle that the main characters face; the Afterlife Battlefront are a band of subversive malcontents who desire to fight against obliteration from Angel, the agent of corrections who would see them move onto the next world. That their rehabilitation would play out in a school setting is not coincidental. This secondary world is one wherein which survival (or, at least, persistence) is explicitly tied to subversive individuality and denials of conformity culture. The Battlefront, ostensibly students, mark themselves as different to the rest of the school. They rarely attend class, holding guerilla concerts and activities out of an impromptu base set up in what was formerly the Principal's office. They deem the students unlike them 'NPC's and, alongside taking on a distinct uniform, employ outlandish physical appearances; from adornments, such as tails and halberds, to hair of varying colour and styles. These eye-catching designs play off of the notion of Main Character Syndrome; a jovial attitude that is reflected in the characters themselves, who too are most often seen at play. Toying with the rules of this world, the day to day structure of the Afterlife High School seems to concern pushing the boundaries of the school, and Angel, as much as possible before returning to normality.
But, of course, high schools aren't fantasy playgrounds. Rather, they are prisons. It is a dramatic comparison, but one which gains veracity when the timespan of the Afterlife High School is taken into consideration. What may seem a fun romp on a cursory glance may actually amount to something more sinister. One of the series' recurring gags is that the main character often misinterprets the melodramatic language of the Battlefront and their conflict when the subject matter of conversation is something benign; for example, "Angel's Rampage" refers to the school's testing period and "Angel's Domain" refers to her dorm room. Through ancillary materials, such as the two special episodes released after the series' initial run and the prequel manga, Angel Beats! Heaven's Door, it is implied that many of the speciously teenage characters of the main cast have, in fact, inhabited this world for decades. They do not age, they do not grow older, but instead they persist endlessly in the bodies that they died in. In this circumstance, even the mundane would seem that much more disconcerting, that much more unsettling and that much more calamitous. With this ageless quality, it is as if the very institution of the Afterlife High School polices the bodies of its inhabitants. All the more important then, to rage against the purgatorial culture of conformity.
In perhaps the quote most wheeled out by Foucauldians, we see a similarity in the very structure of disciplinary institutions, specifically the similarity between the Afterlife High School and the model of the prison:
“Is it surprising that the cellular prison, with its regular chronologies, forced labour, its authorities of surveillance and registration, its experts in normality, who continue and multiply the functions of the judge, should have become the modern instrument of penality? Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?” (Foucault, 1995: 227-228)
The Afterlife Battlefront specifically defies these facets of the school-qua-prison: it flouts the regulated chronologies, as none dare attend class, lest they succumb to the dread appeal of a happy school life. Forced labour, or studying, is a similar route to obliteration. The transition of the school from a site of learning to a site of examination saw surveillance/registration disguised as education and, appropriately, the fifth episode of the series makes it clear that sincere engagement with testing is another surefire route to passing onto the next world. And it should also be stated that the Battlefront goes out of its way to incorporate neurodivergent characters, those perhaps processing trauma related to their death (T.K.), to the length of their imprisonment (Shiina) or perhaps not related to anything at all (Noda). In doing so, they are again resisting the normalising function of the prison.
Yet, for all these similarities between purgatorial school and prison, there is no clear authority governing these subjects. As previously mentioned, the teachers hold only a perfunctory power- one easily dismissed by the rebel students. Angel herself holds no centralised authority, and it is precisely this lack of knowledge-power which allows her to become erroneously known as an Angel: she is, after all, merely the student body president and a prisoner like anyone else. Yet, by series end, the characters have all resolved to put an end to their struggle, to embrace the absurd, Sisyphean proposal of being reborn into an abstract, unknowable next life and thus commit themselves fully to their rehabilitation.
If the Afterlife High School is a prison, there is no prison guard: only the phantom of one, and yet that proves to be enough. Herein lies the nature of the Afterlife High School-qua-Prison. In Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault (1995) deploys the model of the panopticon to elucidate on the disciplinary society. In both the model and its real life counterpart, the layout is thus: that cells line a wall facing a central guard tower. Importantly, at any time the prisoners cannot see into the guard tower. They do not know if they are being watched and, therefore, find themselves under constant surveillance (whether they are actually being watched or not). In each cell, the collective prisoners have been turned into separate individualities, capable of threatening no collaboration, subterfuge or attempts at escape. The prisoners will not only behave themselves accordingly, but each will become a penal agent themselves: they will take it upon themselves to enforce the authority of the guard tower on the bodies of their fellow prisoners and their own.
A 'panoptic' style prison.
In so far as the true state of the afterlife is an unknown quantity, and that, if he exists at all, God is entirely absent, then the point of authority in Angel Beats! is always abstract and delocalised: the guard tower is always empty.
By series' end, the students no longer engage in avenues of resistance, no longer rage against their unjust fates or the cruelty of God. The students of the Afterlife Battlefront are all subversive malcontents: sympathetic, perhaps, for the unjust lives that they have lead, yet undesirable nevertheless. Their anti-theistic, nihilism ill befits a society of conformism and must be rectified in a location away from the public eye. Yet to simply correct these youths into idealised behaviours is not adequate: they would move on from their rehabilitation and, in the new world, break once more when faced again with the abject cruelty of life. So this is the true purpose of the Afterlife High School: to create docile subjects who, in the new world, will police and correct themselves. Having learned to suitably repress their morose tendencies, they will re-emerge into a new, inevitably unjust life, and face it with dutiful poise.
A happy ending, albeit one delivered on bittersweet terms, is evidence enough that this correction is successful, proving beneficial to the series' protagonists, or at least that is the myth propagated by the after-credits scene of the original series. With that being said, there was another, alternate ending that suggests something different:
Angel Beats! Another Epilogue
Whilst the original ending serves fans of the series' characters and the genre as a whole more favourably, featuring the tease of a romantic reunion and a promise that love can conquer even the boundaries of life and death, it is this alternate imagining that I find to be the far more compelling one. The difference between these post-series endings is vital: each one transforms the work into either a peddler of myth (particularly, the myth of rehabilitation) or into something more critical. For one, the former ending is far more considerate to 'God' as an abstract, higher power, whose movements in mysterious ways are fundamentally benevolent. The rehabilitation will not only decisively work, but it will lead to a new world where the struggles of old are gone and only hope remains; vindicating the process as a whole and offering comfort in the notion that we all grow out of our rebellious phase- and that that is for the best.
Yet it is the alternate ending which shows us the true apotheosis of the Angel Beats! school's mission, taking it to its full, logical conclusion: at the end of the story, the site of rehabilitation becomes again a centre of discipline and corrections as the main character of the preceding story takes on the antagonistic 'Angel' role. Attempting to rehabilitate his dissatisfied subjects, the main character becomes as much a prisoner as any of them: only now he is all the more aware of his disciplinary role. He is an arbiter of surveillance, a figure fearsome to his fellow students, yet one also in fear himself; who can only ever hope to be an arm of the abstract authority and never the authority itself. Here, the success of the school as a correctional facility is left ambiguous. But he is a truly institutionalised figure now, a character who persists in the world not because he has rejected the purpose of it, but because he believes in it thoroughly. Perhaps the willingness for fans of the series to invent and believe in a theory that the main character is, in fact, the root cause/grand designer of the afterlife is tribute to how this idea of surveillance and self-policing was effectively communicated through the series.
But, if there is one idea given more prominence, then it may well be that of divine punishment. The world itself, as fantasy, may seem fun, even desirable, but beneath that veneer it is callous and cruel. As established, this is a world of corrections, to transform the subversive, nihilist subject into an inoffensive consumer, functioning on the operative to merely 'Enjoy!', posing no risk to the grand narratives. Yet, rehabilitation, the disciplinary, is all too often only the sanitisation of the archaic punishment: the deviant must pay for their transgressions, yet we recoil from the idea of them being dealt physical pain, or even receiving their sentence in the public sphere. We erect these correctional facilities not to adequately care for and rehabilitate their inhabitants, but to absolve ourselves from any societal obligation to the condemned. That goes not only for prisons and prisoners, but for hospitals and the ill, for asylums and the insane, for factories and the workers and, of course, for schools and young people. That is why the story of Angel Beats! must take place in the afterlife; it is the one point most removed from all other gazes. So long as these miserable people are dead, we no longer have to witness their miserable lives.
Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline and Punish. New York: Random House.
