Cancel culture and wokeness aren't a problem. They never were.

A candid snapshot of the people who think "cancel culture" is the biggest problem facing society today

The Scary Movie 6 trailer has irritated me.

Ever since I saw a leaked print of it on YouTube last Friday, this trailer and its idea of "transgressive" humor have persistently frustrated me. Scary Movie 6's inaugural piece of marketing begins with a stupid joke where a stabbed person corrects an onlooker by infuratingly saying "my pronouns are they/them!" Later, the trailer concludes with a tagline declaring "there are no safe spaces" when it comes to this tired legacy sequel.

For starters, these jokes are incredibly tired. Stupid pronoun gags have been run into the ground for over ten years. Meanwhile, the 2017 film The Hitman's Bodyguard already had a poster featuring the tagline "Get Triggered" while that same year's Bright was released with a production company entitled "Trigger Warning Entertianment." The right-wing paranoia documentary No Safe Spaces was released in December 2018. In short: are we still doing lampoonings of mid-2010s left-leaning college terminology? At least move on to new terms like ACAB or something. 

Laziness is one thing. What really sent my frustration into overdrive was Scary Movie 6 leading man and writer Marlon Wayans yesterday declaring that this film intends to "[bring back comedy to the way it used to be...the only way to do that is to cancel the cancel culture." That's the most important mission as America drops bombs on Iranian citizens, Dallas, Texas engages in voter suppression, and Kansas strips trans people of their rights. The priorities of the bourgeoisie are cool. "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" in the modern world is "Pay not attention to how much power the wealthy weild, instead get mad at nebulous 'cancel culture' concepts and gay people!"

It's time for a Lisa Laman screed. It's time for this idiotic "cancel culture" boogeyman nonsense to die. Just because rich people with microphones and Netflix comedy specials keep saying "censorship is everywhere!" doesn't make it so.

"Wokeness" Never Took Over Culture

Human beings are shaped by narratives. We organize history, people's careers, artistic mediums, and so much more into easily digestible passages of time. "A narrative has begun cropping up. The Age of Enlightenment. The Industrial Revolution. Recently, there's been a growing perception that an "era of political correctness" has come to an end. This perception hinges on the idea that, circa. 2014 or 2015, college students and their trigger warnings/safe spaces/pronouns ushered in a new age of excessive sensitivity. The "powers that be" "suppressed" all speech, you just couldn't say anything anymore!

Donald Trump winning the popular vote in 2024 meant that "woke is dead." The r-word suddenly came back into general society. Pronouns in emails from federal employees have been banned. High-profile articles have hammered home being progressive is passe. Now comedy can return! Scary Movie 6 is possible!

In reality, none of this is true. Just keeping our gaze restricted to the film field for a moment (since Scary Movie 6 inspired this rant), but in this industry, systemic hostility towards marginalized identities hasn't budged. No matter how many pieces The New York Times writes lamenting how "out of control" woke college students are (as if these individuals under 25 can impact public policy), the reality is that long-standing challenges for trans and non-white people have endured in the last decade.

Heck, even the term "woke" or "diverse" were seen as "icky" by Hollywood brass. During 2015-2021, when Hollywood was supposedly "shoving diversity down people's throats", major studios kept doing everything possible to not use words or depict oppressed communities that could "offend" right-wingers. 

In 2017, Amy Pascal reassured an interviewer that Spider-Man: Homecoming wouldn't be "annoying" with its diverse cast. Former 20th Century Fox head Stacy Snider scrambled to make excuses for why more women weren't directing studio films. Netflix shelled out so much money to turn J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy into a movie, while feature films about Marsha P. Johnson, Angela Davis, or other non-white historical figures languished in development. In early 2022, Pixar artists alleged that Disney had constantly cut and censored queer material from this animation studio's films. Meanwhile, Nimona's creative team has alleged that, when the project was set up at Disney, Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn and other Mouse House brass were very hostile towards the film's queer material.

Meanwhile, as late as 2019, theatrical comedies like Little and Shaft were throwing in transphobic jokes for cheap laughs. South Park, the show now being vomit-inducingly heralded as some sort of "bastion" of transgressive comedy (they said Donald Trump was fat!!), was centering whole episodes on mocking trans athletes that same year. Joker director Todd Phillips, responsible for so many homophobic and transphobic jokes in his Hangover films, was whining about how "wokeness killed comedy" movies. In early 2019, conservative producer Dallas Sonnier (who now works on "films" and "TV shows" for The Daily Wire) dismissed any complaints of right-wing or fascist tendencies in his films, saying "people are too quick to be offended right now." We'll come back to that phrase later. 

I'm not seeing a lot of "cancel culture" ruining lives or keeping careers down or suddenly unleashing an avalanche of queer/PoC/disabled representation. I do see, however, a lot of rich people bitching about how it's less socially acceptable to say certain slurs now or how someone was critical of them on Twitter. I see streaming platforms like Netflix handing over millions to transphobic comedians like Dave Chappelle and Ricky Gervais while failing to foster trans voices. I see major publications like The Hollywood Reporter acting like people watching "secret" screenings of new Woody Allen movies is a "revolutionary" act. Jesus Christ, you're not Cassian Andor/a French 75 member because you want to watch new features from an alleged sexual predator. I see multiple major entertainment companies firing countless executives of color in the summer of 2023 and, in the case of WarnerDiscovery, summer 2022 (long before Trump retook office). 

Claiming "cancel culture" has been some "grave threat" to "free speech" or "the entertainment industry" isn't just incorrect. It's ludicrously out of touch with reality. The era where Tim Allen claimed conservative celebrities were being targeted like Jewish people during the Holocaust was instead an era tragically like any other. Specifically, the class-based status quo remained the same, and opportunities for marginalized voices were few and far between. To boot, institutional forces and people upholding those forces continued to demonize any ideology or communities that could challenge capitalism and white supremacy.

The American Entertainment Industry Isn't "Liberal". It Suppreses Disenfranchised Voices

Despite all the "liberal Hollywood" bashing, the American entertainment industry is largely a centrist, right-leaning entity. After all, it's a capitalist industry run by massive corporations. Openly conservative folks like Jerry Bruckheimer are among the most prolific figures in Hollywood. Thus, much of the American media skewers "political correctness" and ignores marginalized lives. Even before the mid-2010s, this was true with projects like 90s comedy PCU. After all, it's better to make progressive political figures or "overly sensitive" college kids antagonists rather than rich people destroying the world or racists that divide the working class.

This is an extension of far worse manifestations of Hollywood depicting marginalized groups as ominous boogeymen that must be either slaughtered or assimilated. White settlers committed a genocide against America's indigenous people. Yet the default norm for Western movies (both classic and modern) is to depict indigenous individuals as monsters that only white men settlers can properly vanquish. Women advocating for themselves or equality are depicted as shrews or nags that need to be domesticated. Countless action films, like the Death Wish sequels, only have room for non-white faces when they can be depicted as terrifying figures white male protaganists can slaughter. While Ronald Reagan was overseeing a genocide of gay people and normalizing cruel stereotypes about Black people, action films reassured viewers that the REAL threat to the world was poor Black and brown people.

Power structures are to be revered. Any populations or rhetoric threatening white supremacy and the bourgeoisie must be eliminated. This is a microcosm of America as a capitalist society and who that society prioritizes. These priorities are how we get HUAC and its dehumanization of communists. This is how we get Paramount+ housing TV shows lionizing Israel border officers while Palestinian cinema can't get major U.S. distribution. Barack Obama will tsk-tsk Ferguson protestors who damage property while approving drone strikes that killed women and children. Joe Biden will label all pro-Palestine protests as "anti-semetic" while turning a blind eye to genocide and refusing to get into the trenches of condemning transphobic legislation.

Protect the status quo. Suppress challengers to the white supremacist and capitalist power structures. These are American norms that inevitably infiltrate our movies and media. Because of that infiltration, tired jokes about "college students are so SENSITIVE" that were tired in Where's the Money nine years ago or mockeries of people existing outside of the gender binary are still being trotted out like they're fresh. 

It's also why "cancel culture" has become a go-to crutch and cloud to yell at for old comedians who hate that language is always evolving. Oh no, privileged people might suffer consequences for being assholes, what a terrible idea. That very concept is so terrifying that it's warped the brains of most comedians and media executives. They don't exist in a world where Louie C.K. quickly returned to making stand-up specials after allegations about him broke or David O. Russell got $80 million to make a new movie in 2022. They also don't exist in worlds with actual challenges (like how A.I. data centers are adversely impacting your hometown, legislation targeting your existence, etc.), so "cancel culture" occupies their every thought, every moment. Plus, it provides a "Goliath" that uber-wealthy comedians can pretend they're the "David" to. 

It's out of step with reality...but then again, isn't so much of American society built on such warped visions of the real world?

Comedy Movies Didn't Vanish Because of Cancel Culture

Let's wrap this up (and wind down my excessive ramblings) by returning to Marlon Wayans. Specifically, his quote about how "bringing comedy back." It's true, theatrical comedy movies have dwindled in quantity in the last eight years. That's not because of college students or non-binary people existing, surprise surprise. Per usual, it has to do with wealthy executives and Silicon Valley. In the mid-2010s, studios began eschewing mid-budget films of all genres and began focusing just on blockbusters. Once the COVID-19 pandemic closed down theaters, theatrical studios sent their comedies once set to hit theaters in 2020 (The Lovebirds, Coming 2 America, Happiest Season, My Spy, Bad Trip, Bill & Ted Face the Music, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, etc.) to streamers for some easy cash.

The perception was that the big-budget superhero movies, with all their spectacle, would be easier sells to people who hadn't returned to the theater in over a year. Grounded comedies, they TOTALLY belong on your iPad. Thus, even a gem like Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar was banished to premium-video-on-demand in February 2021. 

Once all North American theaters reopened in March 2021, studios opted to eschew "risky" theatrical comedies in favor of more "reliable" theatrical fare. Given that the surviving studios were releasing fewer films (and studios that previously released tons of comedies, like 20th Century Fox, were gone), there were fewer chances for comedy movies in theaters. Given that Paramount, Warner Bros., and other labels were all set to release tons of theatrical comedies in 2020, it's clear "cancel culture" didn't temporarily kill the theatrical comedy. Streaming executives dangling lots of money and the terrifying consolidation of the film industry made that possible.

Ah, but those forces are terrifying and immense. It's much easier to pin everything on trans people, immigrants, or "people being too sensitive these days," the go-to refrain of rich white people who're made they can't drop the N-word whenever they want. So the cancel culture myth persists. The most vulnerable people become scapegoats. A new study dropped this week, suggesting Black trans women are at the center of modern-day lynchings. There's also that group chat that just leaked of Miami Republicans gleefully trading anti-Semitic, racist, and disgusting verbiage. Elon Musk's happily dropping Nazi salutes in public...but the biggest threat is "they/them" pronouns.

Three years before she directed the anarchic comedy gem The People's Joker, writer/director/editor Vera Drew was interviewed by Them and asked about stand-up comics whining "about how comedy needs to be free to make fun of marginilized people or it's no longer 'challenging'." I'll let her words do the talking from here: 

"Well, for starters, I think that racism and transphobia are not challenging comedy at all. Especially when racism is so deeply ingrained in every institution imaginable. There’s nothing more mainstream than racism and transphobia. So relying on those as a crutch in your comedy is not edgy or interesting. 

I’ve definitely heard some pretty funny off-color jokes in my day, but generally speaking, it’s usually coming from a place of punching up and not punching down. I think that if you’re doing the kind of comedy that really calls people out or is mocking people or taking them down a peg, it shouldn’t be towards marginalized groups, because we’re already put down in the mainstream. 

It should be more about stripping power from corrupt people and the people who are taking advantage of those marginalized groups...I have yet to hear a cisgender comedian tell a joke about trans people that makes me laugh. They’re always so lazy and trite and just a bummer."

You're not transgressive or funny because you're transphobic or railing against cancel culture. It's not even that it's offensive...it's that you're just rehashing comedy beats that were tired in 2015. Congratulations, your punchlines could've been delivered in 1955, aren't you special. I've been hearing privileged people whine about "cancel culture," "Pronouns," "safe spaces," and all this shit for over a decade and I'm. So. Sick. Of. It. If you're so oppressed, with your multi-million dollar Netflix deals and constant elevation in the pop culture landscape, then why don't you shut the fuck up? Join the real world, where people of all genders, nationalities, ethnicities, and backgrounds are fighting against actual menaces to humanity, like white supremacy, fascism, and colonialism. Just for a few seconds, leave your fantasy world where some made-up 20-year-old college student will sniper you on sight if you don't know every Ethel Caine song by heart.

Also, instead of giving even more attention to tantrums about "cancel culture" and "wokeness" from Todd Phillips, Marlon Wayans, and other dinguses, why don't we appreciate the great comedy movies of the 2020s so far? The aforementioned People's Joker is a chaotic middle finger to corporate America, rife with hysterical visual imagination. Hundreds of Beavers is my favorite movie (of any genre) of 2024 for a reason. That movies a rib-tickling miracle, complete with an adorable frog puppet, ingenious homages to everything from silent comedies and video games, and so many unforgettable visual gags.

Last year's The Naked Gun was funny from start to finish, including in its end credits. They even did a great joke involving the R-word. See Deadpool & Wolverine, you can make that slur funny! Nirvanna: The Band - the Show - the Movie is my favorite movie of 2026 so far, I was cackling so hard throughout the whole movie. Never have jokes about the past-tense word for "skydive" been so funny. 

2023's Joy Ride a super giggle-inducing treat (Stephanie Hsu gets so much comedic mileage out of one annoyed "HMMM"), while Barbie was a miracle movie that channeled vintage Conan O'Brien Simpsons silliness to masterful effect. That same year gave the world Bottoms, which I quote incessantly (Ayo Edebiri's comic timing in that is insane). Do Not Expect Much From the End of the World had so many bleakly hilarious punchlines rooted in our late capitalist Hellscape, while Kneecap combined laughs with unforgettably catchy Irish rap tunes. Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, if you haven't seen it, go watch it now and then proceed to climb up a palm tree like a cat up a palm tree whose decided to go up a palm tree.

Conner O'Malley's Rap World, which went straight to YouTube, showed that great comedy movies can truly appear anywhere these days. That feature's eerily on-point portrait of late 2000s white boys living in suburbia is a riot. At the start of the decade, indie comedies Palm Springs and especially Saint Frances got the ball rolling by setting a high bar for the next nine years of comedic filmmaking. Last year, Friendship, The Naked Gun, and One of Them Days were tremendously funny exercises reminding the world that modern theatrical comedies don't have to look like CBS sitcoms (what a concept!). 

The folks behind Scary Movie, its fans, and right-wing folks will inevitably read about me rolling my eyes at Scary Movie's transphobic jokes and once again bellow their war cry of "EVERYONE IS TOO SENSITIVE THESE DAYS" before sipping out of a Liberal Tears mug. First of all, leftist here, not a liberal. Secondly, what's really galling about this Scary Movie trailer is its laziness, especially compared to the feature-length 2020s comedies that have been keeping this medium alive in the face of corporate consolidation and Silicon Valley entities. You're really just going to regurgitate "HA THEY/THEM" and "kids are too sensitive" jokes in a post-Hundreds of Beavers world? 

Equally insulting is the idea of Scary Movie being some crusader against the non-existent "cancel culture" boogeyman. Please don't piss on me and call it rain by acting like a new movie from the Fifty Shades of Black and A Haunted House director will either "save" comedy motion pictures or defeat an "enemy force" that doesn't actually exist. Come to reality, filmmakers and comedians. Leave behind the nonsensical idea that the greatest societal threat is young people on college campuses or social media. And maybe, just maybe, come up with some fresh jokes that are actually funny. I'm sure it's not too late to do some reshoots and get a person in a beaver costume into Scary Movie.

Two Years of Pain and Moving Forward and Pain and Moving Forward

An exchange from 1953's Tokyo Story

Three words changed everything. "Collider Contributing Update." That was the header of an email that, two years ago, upended my existence.

As of February 27, 2014, I'd been writing for Collider.com for roughly three years. My first article was about which "chunky bois" from the Godzilla canon should appear in post-Godzilla vs. Kong movies. Subsequently, my writing exploits evolved to include movie reviews, deeply personal essays (including my first published pieces about my transness after I publicly came out), and analysis of all kinds of movies, including Agnes Varda works and Kokomo City. I was proud to work here, especially as I secured the privilege of procuring more responsibilities for the site. Heck, as silly as it sounds, it's still astonishing to me that my name appeared on a movie Metacritic's page (specifically Io Capitano), thanks to me reviewing it for Collider.

All that ended with one email. Those three words in the headline revealed a note from an entity called "People Operations Team" that "I've spoken with your editors, and we have decided that it would be best to end our professional relationship." The reason? "Your writing does not match with Collider's current standards."

"Gutpunch" doesn't even begin to describe the agony this email instilled in me. The floor had vanished beneath me. I was now falling through the sky, screaming for aid that would never come. Anger, frustration, and mostly tears bubbled through my body, cascading out of my mouth in a miasma of emotional incoherency. I had just talked to my editors on Slack a few hours earlier. There had been no indication of my writing having problems. 

What was going on? 

How would I afford my apartment? 

Collider provided so much of my monthly income, how could I live without it?

Was my writing career over?

Had I done something fatally wrong?

Things only got more bizarre as I took an Uber ride that day and reached out to one of my editors via LinkedIn to just say "thank you for everything, it's been a pleasure working with you." In response, this editor was immediately confused. They had no clue I was fired, and apparently, none of the other editors I worked with on a day-to-day basis were informed of this either. It was all confusing chaos. To add another layer of bizarreness to this turducken of misery, the next day, the Collider People Operations Team entity emailed me again. Suddenly, they conjured up another new reason for my firing. "25% of your content has failed to achieve 500 sessions and your active session per article has been around the 5k mark which is below the site's average." 

This was a totally separate notion from my prose not meeting "Collider's current standards." I'd also never previously heard of problems related to my viewership count. The lack of any concrete reason for my firing, as well as the lack of communication with my editors, amplified my frustration over this scenario. What was going on here? I've still never received a concrete reason for my firing. It'll undoubtedly remain a mystery despite how much it concretely impacted my life. That impact included the site deleting over 600 of my articles, including profoundly personal essays I wrote about being trans. I got no revenue or "residuals" from them existing online. I just wanted them to endure on Collider's servers so that other trans and queer readers could find them in times of hardship. Perhaps they could find solidarity or temporary relief in my words. Alas, they were obliterated in one fell swoop. All that effort. All those words. Eliminated.

 

In the aftermath of this traumatic event, I was immensely grateful to have friends who reached out to Colldier via e-mail and social media posts to chastise my firing and request my rehiring. They didn't move the needle with Collider's parent company, Valnet, but the kindness in a time of sorrow was tremendously appreciated. Meanwhile, without Collider consuming my day-to-day life, I began reaching out to new places to pitch freelance pieces. From these endeavors came my exploits with AutoStraddle, Salon, Pajiba, Culturess, Dallas Observer, Xtra, and other outlets. At least in that regard, a door closing led to some windows opening. 

Still, in the last 14 months, I've encountered a discernible extra level of difficulty getting any freelance pitches accepted. Outlets centered around experiences from queer and/or marginalized gender perspectives, like Culturess and IntoMore, have been shut down in the last year. Major outlets have begun removing their film critics and art sections. Nobody is safe from layoffs. Everywhere I look on social media, there are talented freelance writers pining for stable work or even just a freelance gig. In some warped way, the Collider firing at least helped provide a "trial run" for navigating the journalism-based heartbreak of 2025 and 2026's earliest months. 

__________________________________________________________________________________

A few months after this Collider boondoggle, I was talking to my therapist about how I still sometimes felt like crying over what had happened, especially whenever I looked at my struggling bank account. Given my proclivity for self-criticism and minimizing my anguish. I off-handedly remarked that it was "silly" to feel this way about a writing job. My therapist responded back that it wasn't ridiculous and I was navigating very real trauma over this experience. Trauma. I hadn't thought about using that word for these circumstances before then. I just couldn't imagine they'd apply, much like how I long thought I couldn't possibly have depression. 

Two years later, I can firmly say that my therapist was (once more) right. I did experience trauma that day. The unresolved nature of this whole ordeal means I'll probably always have a kernel of that trauma somewhere in my system.  Lord knows I can't see a Collider piece shared on social media without getting flashbacks to how abruptly my stint there ended. Two years later, I can't say the pain has vanished nor that "everything has gotten better." Money woes persist. An RT-approved site I wrote film reviews for, Culturess, was shuttered last June. Sometimes, I dream about what it would've been like if I'd kept going at Collider and kept on writing for them (including penning that Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire review I'd been assigned days before my firing).

But to quote Past Lives, "this is my life now." That life has been fully disconnected from Collider for two years to this day. In the wake of that firing, I was greeted with immense kindness from others in the wake of this firing. Opportunities, like speaking at the 2024 NLGJA conference, opened up that wouldn't have been possible if Collider hadn't cut me loose. I met so many great people and writers (like Eva Raggio, Drew Burnett Gregory, Henry Giardina, Charlie Jane Anders, etc.) after leaving Collider's orbit. My life has grown in exciting ways that have allowed me to evolve and discover so many incredibly human beings. 

Still, torment continues on. That doesn't erase the kindness I've been graced with nor the good events that have occurred in the last two years. That reality just shows how complicated existence is as well as what a dire landscape journalists are caught in. If it were just me struggling in the last two years, that'd be one thing. What really makes my heart ache, though, is that my firing now feels like a microcosm of larger, more serious issues plaguing the journalism world in the 2020s. 

Film critics all over are feeling the burn and anguish of unstable employment. It's staggering and disheartening to see so little care being given to writers. It is because of people like Lisa Schwarzbaum, Nathan Rabin, Pauline Kael, Siddhant Adlakha, Roger Ebert, and so many more that I even thought of film criticism as a career option. Those guiding lights will be greatly diminished in numbers for the next generation of movie fans, who deserve to know that talking about cinema can go deeper than clickbait YouTube or TikTok videos. These souls deserve to live in a world where journalism isn't molded by David Ellison, Steve Bannon, and Bari Weiss.

That's not the world they're getting. Skydance securing a winning bid for all the Warner Bros. entities last night only reinforces how dystopian everything is. The company that's allegedly kept a blacklist of pro-Palestine artists will now own multiple news organizations and Warner Bros., the studio that just gave the world Sinners and One Battle After Another. Whoopee. Hooray for capitalism. Worst of all, in the last two years, journalism and artists have been constantly under attack, including ICE agents apprehending and attacking journalists. It's a vortex of awfulness that just keeps getting worse day in, day out. 

Much like Dan Olson wrapping up his video about direct-to-video Jarhead sequels, I don't really feel compelled to end this piece on an upbeat note. "Maybe things aren't so hot right now....maybe [these thoughts] don't need a chipper final note," to quote Olson. This current hellscape's immense gravity cannot and shouldn't be diminished. If I can provide any sense of hope for navigating all this misery, though, it's this:

Two years ago, I woke up to a day that would change everything in my life. My bank account and psychological state wouldn't be the same. Art I'd poured my soul into vanished in the blink of an eye. I knew something screwy had gone on here, that I didn't do anything wrong. Yet my mental proclivity towards self-criticism and hatred meant I was still beating myself up for "ruining everything." If anything made this unspeakable torment remotely manageable, it was other people. Collider editors. Online film friends. My therapist. Hugs from real-world comrades. These are what made me feel like I could face tomorrow and that there was a future beyond Collider. Three words from a corporate email can change everything. Tenderness from other human beings, though, can be even more impactful.

We have each other. That doesn't erase the agony or the fascism bearing down on us all. But we don't navigate all that alone. Even if you think you're alone, I promise you, you're not. Your life is meaningful, and so are the words you put down on paper. 

The pain persists. So do art and the communal bonds making life worth living. 

Recently, hundreds of Washington Post journalists were laid off. Want to help these journalists? Here's a GoFundMe you can donate to that will help laid-off workers cover basic needs.

Here's also a GoFundMe for laid-off Vox employees, as well as a GoFundMe for Tonya Abari, a journalist facing housing insecurity. There are countless other crowdfunding campaigns going on right now for imperiled journalists, so be sure to donate to any you encounter.

On a personal note, I've salvaged some of my deleted Collider pieces and wanted to share just a handful that I'm proud of. Considering how many of my pieces (including a Trenque Lauquan piece I was super proud of) have been lost to time, preserving these essays brings me so much relief. The pieces are:

A look at Across the Spider-Verse composer Daniel Pemberton's film scores

Aftersun and its depiction of childhood memories

Does Taylor Swift exist in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

Why documentaries should get nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars

Samuel Fuller, not Dave Chappelle, did transgressive cinema right

Nimona and its trans allegory

Monica and its "Numa Numa" scene

My breakdown of why Kokomo City is such a visually groundbreaking motion picture

Please, Keep Letting Directors Talk About Movie Theaters And Projection Formats

On April 10, 2025, Kodak uploaded to its YouTube channel a video entitled "Aspect Ratios with Sinners Director Ryan Coogler". In this video, writer/director Ryan Coogler took viewers through the various film formats audiences could experience Sinners in at their local theater. There were IMAX showings (including those amazing IMAX 70mm versions), 4DX, ScreenX, Dolby Cinema, and, the default for most theaters, traditional DCP (Digital Cinema Package) showings. Coogler exudes persistent enthusiasm, knowledge, and excitement through every second of the video. It's impossible to not get wrapped up in his passion for all the formats Sinners was projected in. 

Yesterday, Amazon MGM Studios uploaded a YouTube video tied to the impending March 2026 release Project Hail Mary entitled "Theater Tour With Phil Lord And Christopher Miller". Here, Hail Mary directors Lord and Miller stroll through various movie theater auditoriums and let viewers know how they can witness this Ryan Gosling sci-fi blockbuster on the big screen. It's not as good as Coogler's Kodak video (how could it be?), but it's still delightfully endearing and full of neat behind-the-scenes information. 

I'm not normally one to advocate for incessant copies, but allow me to make an exception here. Please let these kinds of videos become staples of movie marketing. Please let directors talk about the joy of movie theaters and projection formats.

For starters, there's something so refreshing about seeing online movie marketing that's actually about cinema and the theatrical experience. For the last decade, the Jimmy Fallon-ification of news/interview media has led to director having to work as trained clowns to get the word out about their movies. In 2022, Shazam! director David F. Sandberg remarked in a YouTube video that he didn't mind doing "fun" interviews involving movie trivia questions...but he did resent being asked to "put on this funny hat" and do some dance that's temporarily popular on TikTok. Such stunts don't work to the strengths of the filmmakers nor do they actually help get the word out on new theatrical films.

These videos, though, accomplish so much in a short burst of time. They let filmmakers revel in knowledge and material they're passionate about. They emphasize the big screen domiciles where movies work best. Plus, features like Sinners and Project Hail Mary are front-and-center at all times. Marketers aren't contorting a film that's been in the works for years to suddenly exploit a viral trend that popped up five days ago. Instead, these featurettes remind viewers of all the hard work and specific detail that goes into making theatrical films so special. It's a win-win on so many fronts.

It's also sublime that these featurettes have emphasized the working-class souls and community of artists required to make any motion picture possible. In the Sinners video, Coogler repeatedly emphasizes how "we" made specific bold visual ideas regarding the film's imagery. That's a lovely way of acknowledging how much individuals like cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw contributed to Sinners. Meanwhile, the Lord and Miller video introduces viewers to Irving Barrios, Print Services Post Production Manager for IMAX. Watching these clips doesn't just expand your knowledge about how many "perfs" are in an IMAX frame. They also let people appreciate the villages required to bring any feature to life.

The Lord and Miller featurette, meanwhile, has the specific joy of seeing these directors interact with everyday Cinemark and IMAX auditoriums. They aren't just experiencing Project Hail Mary sequences on isolated soundstages. They're out in the actual multiplexes where this Andy Weir novel adaptation will be play in a month's time. Two cinema architects playing around in the domains where their works thrive (including some brief horsing around with Project Hail Mary standee) is so wholesome. Plus, it's cool to see the endless variety in what movie theater auditoriums can look like. No two movies are the same. Two different places to experience motion pictures have a similar variety. 

My personal favorite thing about both of these featurettes, though, is their personal qualities. Rather than feeling like artificial sales pitches masquerading as paeans to cinema, there's an emotional specificity to the anecdotes shared by each director. Coogler's Kodak video, for instance, features the director openly talking about how important movie theaters were to him as a youngster. “The reason I fell in love with theaters is because …my parents was working class, you know, Oakland,” Coogler recalls. “It was the most affordable way for us to go out and have a good time, have an experience. I still believe in that, that communal experience.”

Meanwhile, Lord and Miller end their movie theater voyages with a trip to the New Beverly Cinema. This Los Angeles landmark is one both directors recall as their go-to theater in their younger years and a place where their knowledge of film expanded drastically. The enthusiastic joy they feel in this space is palpable, ditto the gratitude for how much the New Beverly bolstered their artistic horizons. In both of these featurettes, filmmakers wear their appreciation and enthusiasm for the theatrical experience on their sleeves. Those irony-free emotions are superb to experience.

In the modern world, particularly among the bourgeoisie, apathy is glorified. Celebrities like Reese Witherspoon, for instance, shrug off the idea of challenging horrors like generative A.I. and simply say "the change is here." Who cares about a better future not run by Gen A.I.? It's so much easier to shrug off complaints and embrace the status quo. Drape yourself in nihilistic memes and worldviews. Ignore communal spaces. Stay at home! Stream stand-up comedy specials and TV shows demonizing marginalized people! Make sure your Ring camera is on so you can spy on anybody who looks different from you! Succumb to the Silicon Valley-induced dystopia; it's so much easier than resisting.

Engaging in artistic spaces like movie theaters is a small way to challenge these norms. As Lord mentions at the end of his Project Hail Mary featurette, watching movies theatrically is a vivid reminder that "we all laugh at the same things, we all cry at the same things." More binds us than separates us. Outstanding works like Sinners and (to mention just one of its many masterful idiosyncrasies) its trailblazing approach to aspect ratios, meanwhile, can help plant positive seeds in one's head. If Coogler and company can challenge how movie aspect ratios operate...what else is possible? What other changes can we instill in this world? 

Above all else, these featurettes emphasize the humanity going into movies and all actual art. While companies like Meta and OpenAI scramble over themselves to erase working-class people, Coogler and Lord & Miller celebrate how humanity informs their artistic endeavors. Whether it's formative movie theater memories shaping their enthusiasm for the theatrical experience or emphasis on the communities of artists bringing motion pictures to life, these featurettes are a welcome balm in the Gen A.I. age. 

So please, Hollywood, keep on cranking these featurettes out. I want to especially see Steven Spielberg talk about movie theaters and projection minutiae when Disclosure Day's release approaches. Perhaps Boots Riley could talk about his formative theatrical experiences to get I Love Boosters on more people's radar? Next time Nia DaCosta or Karyn Kusama have a movie coming out, I want to hear all of their thoughts on theatrical cinema. You can never have enough of people talking about the glories of motion pictures and movie theaters. Just ask Ryan Coogler and Phil Lord & Chris Miller. 

A Touch of Wish Fulfilment

An image from Wanuri Kahiu's Rafiki

CW: discussions of sexual harassment, groping ahead

Few things hurt as much as something you like getting warped into toxicity. A favorite song forever intertwined with a damaging relationship. A beloved restaurant, the site of learning about your parents' divorce. Then there's me and my enjoyment of feeling hugged and touched by other people. I'm an affectionate person who enjoys snuggling, heads resting on shoulders, and all sorts of other physical contact. Ever since I was young, holding hands with a romantic partner in public has seemed like the height of romantic connection. It's a way of binding two individuals together while the other person demonstrates they don't mind being seen clutching hands with Lisa Laman for the whole world to see.

Unfortunately, since I've started transitioning and publicly presenting as myself, I've often only experienced touching in a way I don't consent to. Several cis-het male strangers have randomly groped my body or followed me on sidewalks, imploring me to let them touch my chest. Heck, there have even been gay guys who, for some reason, think being queer gives them permission to caress my knee or touch my shoulders. Spoiler alert: being gay does NOT do that, get away from me.

Creepy doesn't even begin to describe these encounters. These guys are the absolute worst and have often left me devastated. Since I haven't been in a romantic relationship or a series of dates since I came out, I also haven't had positive, consensual experiences with women/enby's to counteract these traumatic memories. My only experience with being perceived or touched as "attractive" or "sexual" is through the gaze of men I don't want to perceive me on any level. I just want to yell "GET OUT OF HERE, YOU CREEP!" to these bozos.

Now let's move on to something lighter...a fleeting moment this past Thursday where I got to feel the sensation of touch in a positive, soul-enriching fashion.

My romantic life isn't rife with successes (it's more often involved encounters with TERFs or ghosting), but I can't give up hope! Never give up hope! So this past Thursday, I returned to my local lesbian bar for a Sapphic Dating event hosted by a local queer community group. Located on the bar's first-level dance floor, this event was like a large-scale speed dating event. Attendees would, every few minutes, switch up and talk to somebody they don't know. Everyone was adorned with nametags that featured stickers indicating what kind of dynamic they were looking for. Yellow meant "friendship," while pink meant "flirting, date stuff."

As we all started moving around the dance floor, I immediately noticed her, a woman that we'll call Tonya here. She was tall, exuding tremendous confidence, wearing a dress shirt with the top buttons unfastened, and decked out in red hair. My heart did some pitter-pattering once I saw her, and I was determined to chat with her. For the first few rounds of this event, though, she was always on the other side of the dance floor. In the brief time when we all switched conversation companions, it was always impossible to make my way towards here. For a while there, I was certain I'd never get to talk to her.

Then! A miracle struck! The announcer of this event eventually declared that, for this next round, we had to sit down and chat with someone who had the same color hair (we also had those pink stickers on our nametags indicating we were looking to folks to date). Given that there were only three of us that fateful night (including me) with Ariel from The Little Mermaid hues atop our heads, Tonya and I finally had a chance to talk. Huzzah! We sat down at a small table and marveled at how few other people here had red hair. After asking me about my name, she playfully commended me for putting my nametag on my chest in between my breasts. That was unintentional, but that maneuver opened the door for her to make a potentially flirty comment about my tiddies. Good start.

It's been a while now since the sapphic dating event ended. Now, karaoke had descended on this lesbian bar's first floor. Tonya and I began chatting about whether or not she would be signing up to do some singing. We began exploring potential harmonizing choices for Tonya by looking at her Spotify favorites, an endeavor revealing we shared a passion for Megan Thee Stallion, among other artists. At the end of this task, Tonya and another woman near us complimented me on my outfit and makeup. "Oh you two," I remarked, "Y'all are gonna give me a big head!"

Instantaneously, Tonya wrapped her right arm around my head and grabbed a tuft of my hair. Then, she stared right into my eyes and declared, "you deserve to have the biggest head there is." She let go after that and returned to figuring out a tune, but honestly, I wouldn't have minded if she kept clutching my hair for the entire evening. I was momentarily standing there agog, almost refusing to believe I'd just experienced that. A hot queer she/they individual had voluntarily reached out and touched me. Not only thatm but they'd done it in an explicitly flirty fashion.

When those creepy men had extended their palms to grope or harass my body, it left me feeling so small. Afterwards, I was always reeling over being perceived as an object by these harassing wretches. Here, though, the spontaneous act of touching was one shared between queer gals looking for some kind of romantic connection. There was an equal playing field, rather than some cis-male stranger grasping me as just a means to his vomit-inducing sexual pleasure ends. Plus, Tonya's incredibly kind comments pre-touch about my appearance and her rhetoric while she had me in her grasp (literally) were all about reinforcing my humanity, not draining it. 

As a cherry on top, hey, I'll admit, I was in Heaven being controlled and grabbed by a taller lady. Trying to stop on top of rent, job opportunities, and all sorts of capitalist demands have often pushed my own physical, romantic, and sexual interests to the margins. It was enthralling to have such a visceral reminder here of "oh hey, I like this, this is what gets my heart pitter-pattering and makes me feel alive." And it all happened so spontaneously! I never could've predicted that would've happened even five minutes before my hair was clutched, let alone at the start of the evening. My wishes for some event like this to occur had come true! Wow!

In hindsight, I wish I'd immediately remarked something flirty to Tonya about how much I liked her clutching my hair, but hey, I was living in the moment. If a lady ever does something akin to that again, I'll know to keep the interaction and flirty vibes going. Plus, what's the good in going "ah, I could've done X or Y" on something so wonderful? After so often having my self-critical mind and anxiety tell me, "nobody would ever find you attractive," I got a brief moment of someone touching me that suggested otherwise. Here was the polar opposite of when those men contorted my love for physical affection into trauma.

Ironically, the whole day before this dating event, I was super cynical about attending, especially given the problems I've encountered at this lesbian bar before (like my dysphoric experience with a cis-lady on New Year's Eve). I was convinced all I would get out of this evening was just more feelings of isolation and feeling like a trans anomaly in a land of cis-queer/sapphic ladies. Instead, I not only made several new pals and experienced multiple positive social experiences...a lady grabbed me by the hair and said I was pretty. Finally, those creepy men were not the only people in my memories who'd touched me or said I was "attractive" after I'd transitioned.

Maybe that's the thing that makes life bearable. When I wake up in the morning, I'm entering a day that could contain unspeakable trauma or unexpected financial hardship. I could also be entering a day where I encounter cool new gay people, uncover an obscure cinema gem, or get my hair grabbed by a hot, tall she/they dyke. Life is chaos. To quote a wise Remy the Rat, "the only thing predictable about life is its unpredictability." Furthermore, to quote a Taylor Swift lyric, "it's miserable and magical." Even the sliver of a chance of experiencing the "magical" parts of life (not to mention basking in the presence of the tremendous friends I'm privileged to know) propels me out of bed each day. The chance to carve out new memores combatting and overwhelming recollections of cis-men who groped me...that'll also force a person to abandon a cozy blanket and pillow. 

Life's "magical" moments can materialize in so many ways. As this past Thursday solidified, I sure do like it when it manifests as gay women grabbing my hair and complimenting my appearance.

We Need Those Muppets And Their Love For Jaggedly Imperfect Art

Any advertisement for generative A.I. products makes my skin crawl. How can you not feel that way about technology damaging the environment, low-income neighborhoods, and stealing from artists? However, there's also something so dystopian and empty about these ads. These commercials focus on people needing help figuring out the most mundane things ("how do you talk to your date's father?") or feature celebrities like Lil Wayne and Pete Davidson alone in their expansive homes just talking to their Alexa. 

This isn't an exciting glimpse of technology. These commercials just feel like sad visions of how money and influence can't buy you happiness or reliable companionship. One day, you too can have oodles of cash and end up talking to your appliances like your Moe Syzlack trading barbs with The Love-Matic Grandpa.

Way smarter people than me have already pointed this out ad nauseum, but these commercials also feature endless, eerie undercurrents that demonize vulnerability or imperfections. Do NOT show up to a social gathering without knowing everything about soccer. Do NOT examine books or the larger world around you. Just ask your Amazon-approved appliance. A.I. slop imagery, meanwhile, is all about coating everything in an eerie, sterile sheen placing everything these machines create in the Uncanny Valley. They're disgusting simulations of creativity, not actual artistic endeavors reflecting blood, sweat, tears, and a human being laying bare some innermost part of themselves.

As we navigate a Silicon Valley Hellscape where the rich run rampant without consequence and generative A.I. nightmares are abundant, we could use quality homegrown art now more than ever. What better time, then, for The Muppets to return to pop culture. The stars of this past week's new Muppet Show TV special have always epitomized the joys of handmade artistry and making art with other people.

From the very beginning, the Muppet characters, pioneered and created by Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Richard Hunt, and so many others, exuded delightful, rickety attributes. I'm personally fond of those 1950s Wilkin's Coffee Commercials, starring proto-Kermit character Wilkin's perpetually torturing Wontkins for not enjoying Wilkin's Coffee. You can practically see the paintbrush strokes populating the thrown-together backgrounds, while the Wilkin and Wontkins puppets are sparsely designed. However, those qualities are immensely charming, not a drawback. To boot, they allow more room for imaginative demises for Wontkins and deeply detailed (and hysterical) performances from Wilkins. 

These ads also established the violent chaos that the Muppets would be known for. These aren't just characters meant to sell Pizza Hut products in the 2000s. They're known for blowing up places with dynamite, kidnapping Jack Black, and accidentally setting rats instead of lamps on fire. You never know what bizarre mayhem will unfold with these beings. Wilkins and Wontkins perfectly established that with their dark comedy shenanigans (like placing a bomb in a house, kicking Wontkins out of a tree, or wiping blood off a sword) that I can't believe they got away with on 1950s television. 

Generative A.I. is all about regurgitating pre-existing art and giving people sickening, warped visions of what they've seen before. Right from the start in those Wilkin's Coffee ads and various Sam & Friends skits (the latter of which is where Kermit first properly premiered), though, The Muppets embraced enthralling unpredictability. Oh, and the innate humorousness of random explosions.

With The Muppet Show in the 70s, Kermit and his troupe of wackadoodle friends (Fozzie, Gonzo, Scooter, Miss Piggy, etc.) established another pivotal motif of Muppet media that spits right in the face of generative A.I.: artistic collaboration. The Wilkin's Coffee commercials were about two characters quarreling over a coffee brand. Budgetary constraints limited how many characters could be on-screen at once in Sam & Friends. The Muppet Show and feature films like The Muppet Movie, meanwhile, saw Kermit leading an ensemble of characters who were all working together (or, more often than not, crashing into one another) to make a show possible.

That creative crusade is built on a desire to create art with their own two hands (or flippers). Art that often doesn't go right. Fozzie's jokes rarely land like they're supposed to. Gonzo's stunts or trumpet playing never follow expectations. Poor Kermit never sees any of his best-laid plans come to fruition. Amazon, Meta, and other Silicon Valley companies would likely see these outcomes as impetuses to shill for generative A.I. products that could "solve" their struggles. 

The Muppets, meanwhile, see their jagged imperfections as delightful. Gonzo, Fozzie, The Electric Mayhem, Rowlf, they're always out there the next week or movie, ready to pursue their artistic passions once more. As Sunny Moraine put it on Blue Sky: "A small but very deep thing that bothers me about generative AI as a shortcut to practice and work and skill is the basic assumption that it’s impossible to take pleasure in a creative pursuit that you aren’t very good at and I assure you that is not the case." The Muppets thrive on that pleasure and create special art in the process.

When it's not about stealing art, generative A.I. ads and technology emphasize a lonely status quo where people only need to talk to Alexa and ChatGPT tools for "information" and companionship. Meanwhile, throughout the most memorable Muppet productions, the very act of singing and dancing brings people together and uncovers unseen depths in one's soul. With each Muppet Christmas Carol musical number ("When Love is Gone", "It Feels Like Christmas", etc.), fresh layers of Michael Caine's Ebenezer Scrooge are unearthed. How does Scrooge eventually signify that he's bonded with the larger world? Why by singing "Thankful Heart" with everyone, of course. 19 years later, The Muppets featured a bevy of delightful Bret McKeznie-penned ditties that helped newcomer Muppet Walter (a lifelong outcast) discover just where he belonged. To boot, tunes like "Life's a Happy Song" get so much of their euphoric and toe-tapping spirit from being crooned by large groups of people. 

You could spend your days alone talking to an Alexa or wasting entire lakes to create the ugliest A.I. generated art known to man. Or you could take a cue from those lovable Muppets and embrace the wider, tangible world around. There's so much vibrant humanity to bear witness to. Who needs a hideous digital, Elon Musk-endorsed simulacrum of art and human interactions?

This all feeds into a profoundly important core of the Muppets: they need each other and their idiosyncratic personalities. Week in, week out, no matter how crazy they drive each other, they'll always reunite to put on a new show. Animal and his loudness needs the sage, ivory-tickling chops of Rowlf the Dog. Ladies man prawn Pepe needs the stiff and uptight Sam the Eagle. Pragmatic Rizzo needs devil-may-care stuntman Gonzo. What makes these characters and their passions different is also what binds them together.

Kermit himself emphasized this in The Muppet Movie's deeply moving finale, where he told the villainous Doc Hooper... 

"Well, I have a dream too, but it’s about singing and dancing and making people happy. It’s the kind of dream that gets better the more people you share it with. And I found a whole group of friends who have the same dream, and that makes us sort of like a family."

A life talking only to appliances and spewing out images plagiarizing pre-existing works sounds like an empty and hollow life. The Muppets, meanwhile, epitomize the joys of discovering people who aren't exactly like you, who look different from you, who have different dreams and ambitions, and creating art with them. Not the "best" art or art that Silicon Valley moguls deem "proper." Jagged, imperfect art that comes from your soul, that only a frog from a swamp, a whatever with a chicken, or someone like you, dear reader, could create. 

Those qualities were on full display in February 2026's incredibly endearing Muppet Show special. In the universe of this fictional program, these Muppets are once more bursting with enthusiasm for performing and each other. Doors falling down? An overcrowded schedule? Chickens unexpectedly losing feathers? No matter! The show goes on! Externally, though, it was also great to see little details like a discernible puppet rod on Kermit's arm when he's plucking away on a banjo. These elements subtly harken back to the days of Sam & Friends and those Wilkin's Commercials in reinforcing the homemade charm of the Muppets. 

Kermit and pals aren't CG beings striving to simulate reality. Their strings and reminders of their human performers are sometimes visible. Isn't it wonderful? While digital de-aging in The Flash or generative A.I. art makes me want to throw up, the techniques used to make Kermit play a banjo on a log in The Muppet Movie still captivate me. Human ingenuity always reigns supreme. Especially when it's servicing characters as hystericalas Rowlf the Dog and Uncle Deadly.

We need each other and our distinctive artistic perspectives, not generative A.I. monstrosities. Meanwhile, as video essayist Dan Olson pointed out, the modern surge of right-wing fascist politicians thrives on nihilism and contempt for other people. The Muppet's undaunted enthusiasm and embrace of communal joys are the perfect respite for those toxic norms. Let's keep making art and working together for a better tomorrow, no matter how many things go haywire in the process. "Keep believing, keep pretending," The Muppet Movie's character harmonizes in that feature's final scene. Cling to that mantra in these challenging times. And maybe also cling to a cup of Wilkin's Coffee. You never know when that psychoapth Wilkin's will show up to ask about your feelings vis-a-vis this brand...

20 Years Ago, Animated Family Movies Dominated Theaters. They Left Behind...A Complicated Legacy

Hollywood is a response industry. When one movie hits it big, every other studio wants to create its own equivalent to it. If Pretty Woman is massive, then a deluge of Pretty Woman clones litter theaters a few years later. Ditto The Avengers or Paranormal Activity. Animated family movies also inspire duplicates and clones, but because these films take so long to make (usually four or five years), it takes a while to see what ideas or themes are gripping this cinematic domain.

Five years after Shrek proved Disney didn't have a monopoly on lucrative animated movies, nearly every other major American movie studio* dropped their own CG-animated films. It took that long to get both these titles made and production pipelines established to create labels like Sony Pictures Animation. The result was 2006, a year in which a staggering number of CG animated family movies dominated theaters. Cars, Ice Age: The Meltdown, Happy Feet, Open Season, Barnyard, they all debuted here. 

To say it was a weird year is like saying Japan Air Lines Flight 123 experienced mild turbulence. Every movie theater across the globe was suddenly full of talking animals dropping pop culture references and lessons about families. God help us all.

Before Shrek, it really did look like Disney had a monopoly on profitable family-oriented American animation (save for the occasional box office smash based on a pre-existing TV Show like The Rugrats Movie or The Care Bears Movie). Part of this was due to Disney's suspicious counterprogramming manuevers (like scheduling Lion King and Little Mermaid re-releases against The Swan Princess and Anastasia's opening weekends, respectively), which drew attention away from competing animated films. Other times, titles like The Iron Giant didn't get the theatrical rollout they deserved, thus ensuring their box office failure. No wonder Disney seemed ot have an iron grip on this domain for so long.

Once DreamWorks SKG launched Shrek to a $267 million domestic cume (at the time, the second-biggest animated movie haul ever, only behind The Lion King), though, all bets were off. If a newbie studio like DreamWorks (albeit one led by former Disney Animation head honcho Jeffrey Katzenberg) could break through in this realm, surely more experienced studios like Sony/Columbia Pictures and Warner Bros. could produce some moneymakers. Further CG-animated hits like 2003's Finding Nemo only further inspired confidence that audiences had an unstoppable appetite for family-friendly comedies realized through computers.

Thus, 2006 was the year the CG-animated family movie floodgates were opened. For context, here's what the year's release schedule looked like:

January 16: Hoodwinked!
February 24: Doogal
March 31: Ice Age: The Meltdown
April 14: The Wild
May 19: Over the Hedge
June 9: Cars
July 21: Monster House
July 28: The Ant Bully
August 4: Barnyard
September 12: Everyone's Hero
September 26: Open Season
November 3: Flushed Away
November 17: Happy Feet

That's a lot of fart jokes and closing dance parties set to a classic pop tune.

2005 already demonstrated some clear holes in this strategy of "CG family movies = hit" with Robots and Chicken Little. Both titles did fine domestically, but they each grossed under $140 million domestically, making them among the lowest-grossing CG family titles up to that point. In other words, it was already clear that these titles didn't automatically become Shrek or Ice Age-sized smashes just by existing.

More pressingly, though, were the technological limitations of CG animation at the time. Though Hollywood was going all in on this technology, CG still had so many restrictions that prevented what or how many stories could be told in the medium. Humans, for example, were considered so tricky to get right that only The Incredibles had (successfully) navigated this realm. Antz director Tim Johnson explained on The Look Back Machine podcast that these limitations in what characters could be effectively realized in CG animation are what inspired initial CG films to focus on plastic toys and bugs. 2006's line-up of animal-centric films showed that CG animation hadn't evaded these growing pains.

Thus, from the get-go, there was already a samey quality to what kind of protaganists 2006's animated films would focus on. There was also the weird problem of costumes. Intricate outfits were a bear for CG animation to realize**, hence why so many early CG movies focused on fish and bugs that didn't need coats or shirts. Don't forget, Rick Mitchell from 2021's The Mitchells vs. the Machines was the most expensive and complicated character Sony Pictures Animation had ever procured up to that point, largely because of his ornately detailed wardrobe. 

This might sound like a weird tangent, but it spoke to another way the individual 2006 animated films couldn't exude personality. The ants in Ant Bully couldn't wear distinctive costumes. Barnyard and The Wild's critters eschewed outfits. This meant the chatterbox critters between these films blur redtogether. Because there were still limitations on what kind of costumes and characters could be realized in this medium, there were only so many plotlines these 2006 animated family movies could explore. Thus, most were buddy comedies involving mismatched characters going on a life-changing journey (like Toy Story and Shrek). Open Season, Flushed Away, The Wild, and Barnyard also all concerned sheltered animals thrown into the deep end of what the "real world" is like.

Worst of all, Shrek hadn't opened up the doors for a wide array of new visual styles. When Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse redefined the limits of CG animation, titles like The Mitchells vs. the Machines and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem excitedly took kooky, 2D-informed aesthetics into their own territories. Similar distinctiveness didn't permeate Barnyard or Open Season, which opted for traditional character designs and backgrounds. Only Flushed Away (which emulated Aardman's stop-motion animation look in CG confines) offered something new visually. A "new" era of animated cinema was already inspiring imagery-based monotony.

Thus, 2006's year of animation went...well, it was messy. Cars, Ice Age: The Meltdown, and Happy Feet were massive box office winners, while Over the Hedge was a respectable performer. Nearly everyone else, though, failed to leave a mark financially. Some, like Doogal, The Wild, and Flushed Away, were embarrassing flops that suddenly made it clear CG animation was not a bulletproof way to avoid Titan A.E.-level calamities. 

Worse yet, the cynical impulses dripping behind these projects is more apparent than ever. Doogal, an Americanized dub of the British film The Magic Roundabout, stuffed as many celebrity voices into its plot as it could, including a moose that didn't originally talk (but now had Kevin Smith's voice). Open Season was so sweaty and desperate in its attempt to make the Shrek/Ice Age magic work again (at least its soundtrack produced some Paul Westerberg bangers like "Love You in the Fall"). Even Happy Feet and its slavish devotion to "realism" now feels eyeroll-worthy and a precursor to boondoggles like 2019's The Lion King (all due respect to the legend George Miller).

Early 2000s projects like Treasure Planet excitedly signified how 2D and CG animation could co-exist in harmony to realize previously impossible images and stories. 2002's Lilo & Stitch and its watercolor backgrounds, meanwhile, reinforced the enduring beauty of classical art techniques. 2006's CG animated family movie line-up, though, suggested individual personality was for chumps. Bold visual aesthetics? Why waste time on that when you can hire Jimmy Fallon as a voice-over actor. Potential for something new was snuffed out in favor of countless Shrek/Ice Age clones.

Ironically, despite all the new competition, Disney remained on top of the box office in 2006. Cars was the biggest animated movie of the year in North America, though Ice Age: The Meltdown handily took that crowd at the worldwide box office. Meanwhile, just one year later, in 2007, the animated family movies began drastically dwindling in numbers. They still existed, but they weren't arriving on a monthly basis anymore. 

Truthfully, there's never been a year like 2006 again in American cinema. As late as 2019, one could go two whole months in a calendar year without seeing a new animated family movie hit theaters. The idea of getting, say, three consecutive weeks of new PG animated titles would be unthinkable today. Unfortunately, having so many animated family features in one year didn't usher in a golden age for American animation nor allow a variety of unique creative visions to hit the big screen. Instead, corporate cynicism and the technological limitations of CG were the stars of the show. The year that Shrek wrought is interesting from a historical perspective, but save for giving the world Hoodwinked!'s goat song or Flushed Away's best gags, it's not really memorable artistically.

* = Universal Pictures was the one exception here, save for their 2D animated Curious George film. This label would stay out of the CG cinema wars until 2010, when it debuted Illumination's Despicable Me.

** = If you want to see how far CG animation came in realizing costumes in just 12 years, look at Monsters Inc. and Monsters University. In the former film, a handful of major characters (Mr. Waternoose, Ceilia) wore outfits, while Randall, Sully, Mike, George, and most other monsters walked around nude. In the latter feature, nearly all the new characters had complex outfits covering their bodies.

A Great Modern Film Score Is Hard To Find...But Not Impossible

Alfre Woodard from Clemency (2019)

I'm always singing something. Trapped in the house for a few days thanks to icy Texas weather, I've been reminded of all my little idiosyncrasies, including how often I'm humming or outright crooning melodies.  Whether it's "Love the One You're With" or "Come On Up to the House", I'm constantly engaging with my musical side. It's a testament to how much I love music (despite the fact that I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, to quote Tracy Byrd) that my mind is fixated on harmonies. Unsurprisingly, this means I'm also passionate about an area where cinema and music merge: film scores.

When I was a kid, the John Williams DreamWorks SKG logo theme music always transported me away to a world of cinematic wonders. I also endlessly rewatched Fantasia 2000 as a youngster, which further solidified my adoration for fusing orchestral compositions and vibrant cinematic imagery. Since then, I've constantly been enamored with scores, even as this realm frustrates me so much today. Modern American film scores are often frustratingly middling...but all hope is not lost. There are plenty of great scores out there, reaffirming that this creative domain is not a lost cause. Many high-profile examples of film scores are just a bit pitchy (as Randy Jackson would say).

Way way way smarter people than me have broken down the specifics of why post-2010 film scores have struggled to stand out. Every Frame a Painting did a 2016 video related to the Marvel Cinematic Universe's scores that delved into larger issues plaguing the modern score industry. Specifically, there's a heavy adherence to pre-existing "temp music" during editing that directors get too attached to. Composers then find themselves emulating those tracks rather than crafting something exciting and idiosyncratic for a film.

Meanwhile, there's the plague of Remote Control Productions composers dominating the industry. Remote Control is a film score company founded by Hans Zimmer in 1989. Artists connected to this location (many of them having worked under Zimmer) as well as the resources provided by Remote Control provide an enticing opportunity for studios. Zimmer can't be everywhere. However, if you want your big-budget film to sound like The Dark Knight, Dune, The Lion King, or any other blockbuster he composed, here you go. One of Zimmer's tightest comrades (Lorne Balfe, Benjamin Wallfisch, Tom Holkenborg, etc.) can conjure up a score for you here.

Just as Zimmer has made great film scores (his Dune tracks are outstanding), so too have both Remote Control Productions and his proteges created great film scores. Tom Holkenborg's name makes me groan whenever I see it in the opening credits of a film, but his Mad Max: Fury Road score remains masterful. However, the ubiquity of Temu Hans Zimmer composers has been a massive negative for the movie industry for decades now. Outlets like FilmTracks were complaining about the ubiquity of artists like Ramin Djawadi back in 2008. Today, someone like Balfe (one of the most egregious examples of this phenomenon) does a whopping seven films annually in years like 2024.  

No wonder American/British film scores today sound disappointingly samey. Problems like Remote Control Productions veterans and Zimmer's omnipresent influence have festered for so long and instilled an unexciting one-size-fits-all musical approach.

Ah, but let's get to the upbeat part of this musical landscape: the great modern film scores. The best thing you can do for orchestral cinema music is hire composers who aren't exclusively film veterans. The likes of Balfe, Djawadi, Tom Holkenborg, and Wallfisch are trained to emulate Zimmer. Meanwhile, Tamar-kali (whose provided such excellent scores for Dee Rees' various movies and Josephine Decker's Shirley, among others) is a veteran of the punk music world. She could bring a unique perspective to what film music "should" sound like that wasn't just centered on mimicking the Inception and Dark Knight Rises leitmotifs.

Daniel Pemberton, meanwhile, cut his teeth on homemade albums, commercials, video games, and various other low-budget media. Through these experiences (particularly the ramshackle tools used to assemble his first album, Bedroom), Pemberton mastered new levels of creativity, not to mention tremendous artistic versatility. Now, his works like the Spider-Verse compositions or Man from U.N.C.L.E. score sound like they're from wildly different worlds while deploying such creative instrumentation choices. Even after a 10+ years of doing film scores, Pemberton's default influences aren't just repeating what "normal" film scores sound like.

On and on the positive examples go. Past Lives, for example, had a tremendously moving and wistful score courtesy of Christopher Bear and Daniel Rossen, a pair of musicians from the rock band Grizzly Bear. Irish DJ David Holmes, meanwhile, is Steven Soderbergh's go-to composer. That means he's responsible for Black Bag's score, one of 2025's greatest musical creations. I could listen to that jazz-inspired score all day, what a tremendously creative reinterpretation of spy movie music. And, of course, we have to recognize Jonny Greenwood and Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross when talking about stupendous film composers who don't exclusively work in this domain.

These 90s rock legends just keep crafting scores that zag whenever you expect them to zig. Greenwood's Spencer score, for example, realized the hallowed halls of Royal Family palaces with ominous jazz-influenced tracks. Reznor & Ross, meanwhile, embraced pulse-pounding trap music for Challengers. Those transportive tracks perfectly sonically reflected the propulsive romantic attraction between that film's three leads. Who can forget their electronic and aching Social Network tracks, which deftly encapsulated the mindset of these tech-driven tormented men who stumbled into changing the world.

Kathryn Bostic's striking and haunting Clemency tracks, meanwhile, merge string-based traditional orchestral melodies with these ominous hums and rumbles. Tracks like "Nightmare 2" make your headphones quiver with their immense bass noises. They sound like visitors from a nightmare realm (fitting for tracks with names like "Nightmare 1"). This bold collision of opposing sounds is an ingenious distillation of a story concerning a human being (represented in the traditional orchestral harmonies) staring down the barrel of the inhumane process of a prison execution (represented in those hums and rumbles). Bostic is more than up for the task of delivering a score matching the tone and artistic mastery of writer/director Chinonye Chukwu's Clemency.

Let's also not forget Jerskin Fendrix, the go-to composer for Yorgos Lanthimos starting with his 2023 film Poor Things. This Greek musician was making incredibly unorthodox melodies for years before he and Lanthimos first hooked up. Once he started composing Emma Stone star vehicles, Fendrix, happily, didn't throw away his strangest tendencies. Instead, his Poor Things compositions are spectacular madness. The soundtrack's opening track "Bella," for instance, deploys the plucking of heavy harp strings that sound at once dreamlike and a little unsettling, a fitting encapsulation of the larger film. 

The sparseness of this track, meanwhile, fits how Bella Baxter's mind is so open and new once she's first resurrected. Subsequent compositions are heavy on screeching instrumentation and big, bold musical declarations. Emotions and visual impulses are mighty pronounced in Poor Things, and Fendrix's score is all too happy to match that maximalist atmosphere. Fendrix's go-for-broke singular musical vision for the Poor Things score is a triumph, not to mention full of noises and harmonies you won't find in any other movie.

We could be here all day talking about great modern film scores that I love (hi Ludwig Göransson and his deeply specific approaches to sonic landscapes). However, what's clear to me is that great modern film scores are risk-takers. They aren't beholden to temp music or repeating what sounded memorable in a movie from two years ago. Whether you're making orchestral compositions for Clemency or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, it's crucial to deliver scores that thrive on the unexpected. Give audiences sounds and harmonies they never thought they'd hear in a tennis movie or a film focused on 1930s Mississippi vampires.

That creativity can be especially potent when hailing from a composer who isn't exclusively experienced in film scores. I'm tired of seeing only Balfe, Holkenborg, Wallfisch, and Djawadi's names in the opening credits of movies. Reach out to unexpected and eclectic musicians (or criminally under-utilized composers like Tamar-kali and Bostic) from all walks of life. Give them the flexibility and room to deliver film scores that upend expectations. Cinema as a whole will prosper from not just seeing Zimmer and his proteges as the be-all end-all of film music. Plus, it'll give me some new melodies to hum while I'm walking around my apartment. Hurry up, though, I think everyone around me is getting sick of hearing me croon "Love The One You're With"!

The Past, The Uncertain Present, And Familiar Country Tunes: A Date Night Odyssey

A fusion of the past and present from Aftersun 

As usual, I was early. I'm always showing up to places before I'm supposed to. I always get so nervous about missing out on anything exciting that I want to make sure I'm early rather than late. In this case, I'd arrived at 6:54 PM at a Mexican restaurant, six minutes before my first date with a cool queer lady. It was time for some waiting, especially since my date was stuck in traffic. Some complimentary chips entered my mouth. I scrolled on my phone for a minute or two before whipping out a library book. Then, as I was absorbing literature, a familiar sound entered my ears. It was the song playing on the eatery's speaker system, a tune I remember from my earliest years.

"The South moves north, the North moves south
A star is born, a star burns out
The only thing that stays the same is
Everything changes, everything changes"

It's Tracy Lawrence's 1996 song "Time Marches On." This restaurant, which normally only played toe-tapping Spanish-language songs, was, for some reason, in a 90s/2000s country music mood tonight. That just happened to be the era of country music I listened to endlessly from 2004 to 2014. Brooks & Dunn, Tim McGraw, Garth Brooks, Martina McBride, I knew all their works by heart. Back in middle school, I'd scramble to the library computers every Monday to check Wikipedia and see what country tunes had dominated that week's Hot Country Songs chart. These songs, though I hadn't listened to many of them in eons, were once crucial to my existence. 

How ironic. I was about to meet someone new. Carve out fresh memories. Yet before all that, I was taking an unexpected trip down memory lane. The past, present, and future had collided.

It would take my date until 7:30-ish to arrive, leaving me plenty of time to absorb the ghosts of Lisa's radio dial past. "She's Everything" by Brad Paisley quickly came on after "Time Marches On" and reminded me of how Paisley used to be my entire life. The first album I ever bought was his 2011 creation This Is Country Music, for goodness' sake. In that restaurant, I could practically feel the chipped, well-worn texture of the green iPod nano I used to listen to Paisley songs like "She's Everything" on. 

When uncertainty left me uncontrollably stressed at school (which was nearly every day), I could pop in these tracks and get cozy familiarity. For three minutes, someone like Brad Paisley practically saved my life, as ridiculous as that sentence sounds now. Who knows where that iPod nano is now, but its texture and the songs it contained stuck with me. After "She's Everything," sillier country tunes like "Bubba Shot The Jukebox" filled the restaurant, a reminder that not everything from your childhood is weighty. Nostalgia and personal significance cannot lend all artistic creations immense depth. Sometimes, songs you remember are just silly artistic creations that almost certainly solely existed because someone wanted to croon a tune with "Bubba" in the title.

Listening to these country songs that used to be daily staples of my existence, I was struck by the tremendous gulf between my past and present selves. Lisa Laman circa. 2009 hated her autism and would've given anything to not be disabled. She was so endlessly frustrated and didn't have terms like depression, ADHD, and transness to help her navigate the turmoil. All I could conceive of at the time was that I was constantly sad and lonely. Within the often aching vocals of country songs like "Alyssa Lies" and "When I Get Where I'm Going" were pieces of art that reflected that pain. Like Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts comics, these country tunes made me feel like I wasn't alone in my anguish.

Among the tunes was Montgomery Gentry's "Something To Be Proud Of," a song that, in hindsight, introduced me to the idea that life could still be fulfilling if it didn't live up to either your dreams or other people's accomplishments. As toxic as 2000s country could be (oh hai Toby Keith song that endorsed lynchings, fuck off), I remain grateful for tunes like these that sparked weighty ideas in my head. 

I distinctly remember, at the age of 11, begging my parents to switch the car's radio dial if I heard the opening chords of songs like Brooks & Dunn's "Believe." These tunes about death or other grim matters were just too much to handle on an ordinary day, I didn't want to be put into a funk without any advanced warning. Those songs solidified to me that art could be imposing...and that's a good thing. Life is full of torment, especially when you're navigating the public education system. Even if tracks like "Believe" or "Live Like You Were Dying" scared me because they made me feel sad, they also solidified to me how art could tackle more than just upbeat happy endings or party vibes. 

Today, anxiety still grips me. Imposter syndrome is a daily friend. Just an hour ago, I had to wipe away tears over my insecurity regarding my romantic life, fears that I haven't accomplished enough in life, dysphoria over whether or not I can ever "belong" as a lesbian woman. Art remains a useful tool to navigate and translate that labyrinth of mental health issues. The difference now, though, is I don't just have to crouch in my room listening to the local country music stations to feel less alone. 

I now have glorious friends who remind me why life is worth living. All kinds of art (every strain of cinema imaginable, books, paintings, other genres of music) can now stir my soul. Best of all, I've actually accomplished and survived things (moving out, traveling on my own repeatedly, speaking publicly, etc.) that give me hope I can do the next big thing life throws at me. Heck, here I was, going on a first date on a Tuesday night. 13-year-old Lisa Laman, who could only find fleeting solace in Cross Canadian Ragweed's 2008 ditty "17," could never have imagined that.

I don't know how helpful it would be to tell my younger self all this. "In the future, you'll still be stressed and anxious, but you'll have more tools to navigate it" may not sound like a rallying pep talk on par with "today, we celebrate...OUR INDEPENDENCE DAY!" Then again, having more tools to lean on and knowing that some "impossible" things (like living on my own) were coming...maybe that'd be enough. Maybe that could bring comfort to the younger version of me who often felt like only Taylor Swift's "Tim McGraw" or "Fifteen" truly understood her.

Those were the thoughts swirling in my head as I sat in that restaurant. The past suddenly filled around me like a body of water I submerged in. All the while, I was wearing a pink dress, green eyeshadow, and fuzzy pink fingerless gloves that I could've never imagined wearing out in public even eight years ago, let alone in 2009. It was interesting to suddenly contend with yesteryear once more. But it also made me grateful to be here. To still be alive. To exist in the now.

A little after 7:30, she sat down across from. She was gorgeous, there was absolutely no other word for it. Radiant necklaces jangled on her neck and dots of glitter shimmered on her shoulders. We proceeded to spend the next 90 minutes chatting away, which included me asking her about her favorite kinds of music. She then responded that she liked all genres...except for country. I had to emit a cackle. Boy, had we come to the wrong restaurant, at least on this night! Hey, at least I know now...for the future.