Unclear and Present Danger - Men in Black

Episode Date: December 20, 2024

On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Men in Black, the 1997 sci-fi action comedy directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and starring Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith, Linda Fiorentino, Vincent D’Onofrio and Rip Torn.Men in Black was written by Ed Soloman and shot by the late Donald Peterman — whose credits include Flashdance, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Point Break — with a score by Danny Elfman.In Men in Black, Smith plays James Darrell Edwards III, a New York City police officer who finds himself in chase through the city with a unnaturally fast and agile criminal, who later commits suicide. He soon learns that this criminal was an alien from another planet, and that New York is host to a secret government agency tasked with tracking alien lifeforms on Earth. He is recruited into the Men in Black by Agent K, and is deemed Agent J.Agents K and J are soon on the hunt for a Bug, an extra-terrestial cockroach who seeks “the galaxy,” a precious energy source that has been left on Earth. As the Bug, donning the skin of a human farmer, rampages through New York, K and J try to mitigate the damage and protect the galaxy, and the Earth itself, from the Bug.The tagline for Men in Black was “Protecting the Earth from the Sum of the Universe.”You can find Men in Black to stream on demand on Amazon Prime or for rent or purchase on Amazon and Apple TV.Be sure to sign up for our Patreon, where we watch the films of the Cold War and try to unpack them as political and historical documents! For $5 a month, you get two bonus episodes every month as well as access to the entire back catalog — we’re almost two years deep at this point. Sign up at patreon.com/unclearpod. The latest episode of our Patreon podcast is on Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver.Connor Lynch produced this episode. Artwork by Rachel Eck.

We work for a highly funded yet unofficial government agency. We'll take it from here. Who the hell are you? INS, Division 6. There is no Division 6. Our mission... ...is to monitor extraterrestrial activity on Earth. You're only here because you're the best of the best.

And we're looking for one of you. Hey! What's up? I want you some coffee. You want some coffee? No, thank you. I'm fine. There you guys be long, alright? Alright, I'm in. From now on, you will have no identifying marks of any kind.

We're no longer part of the system. We are the men in black. You know what the difference is between you and me? I make this look good. Columbia Pictures and Amblin Entertainment present. I knew it. This is an alien, and you guys are from some government agency trying to keep it under wraps. No. Tommy Lee Jones.

I'm gonna count the three. He'll do it, Jeeves. One. I'm telling you, that man does not look stable. Two. He's always crazy. Why don't you get a massage or take a cream? Three.

Do you have any idea how much that stings? Will Smith. What the hell are you? Your world's gonna end. In a new film from the director of the Adams family and Get Shorty. Men in black, protecting the earth from the scum of the universe. You know how to use these things? No idea whatsoever.

Welcome to Unclear and Present Danger, a podcast about the political and military thrillers of the 1990s and what they say about the politics of that decade. I'm Jamel Bowie. I'm a columnist for the New York Times opinion section. My name is John Gans. I write the Substack Newsletter on Popular Front, and I'm the author of the book, When the Clock Broke, Conman Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s. Which seems to be on every best of list I've seen. Well, not the New Yorkers. I, yeah, no, this is just sort of a bit that I'm doing. I'm not seriously aggrieved that the New Yorker magazine, for whatever reason, decided that my book wasn't good enough for them. But the, yeah, it's on a bunch of year end list, which is, which is terrific.

and I'm super thrilled about and it makes a pretty good holiday gift if you listen to this before before Christmas, Hanukkah, whatever it is that you guys do. You know, it's a dad book in a certain way, but I think it's a dad book that can be enjoyed by people of all ages. Dad is both a literal role, but also a state of mind. Yeah, exactly. You can be any person and have a dad vibes in this book. This book is for you. Yeah. And everybody from time to time enjoys a dad book, I think. Um, so yeah, uh, thanks. It's, it's, uh, it's, it's out of there. It's on the lists and it'll make a nice gift. I don't have a book. Uh, not yet, Jamel. I don't have a book yet. I don't have a book yet. Um, yeah, one day, one day I'll have a book and then I'll,

I'll tell you people to buy it. Yeah, you can take, I think you could probably take book leave. I think I do the times just provide book leave. But I'm the kind of person that that would actually drive me into it. I'd probably just continue doing my job and also read a book at the same time. And cause myself unnecessary stress. But that's what I did if you call writing a substack newsletter, a job. I mean, I would call it your job. You know, you do it every week.

It is my job, yeah. Some people might not consider it a real job, but I do it every week. This podcast is neither of ours jobs, but we enjoy doing it. And so this week we are talking about men in black, M-I-B, the 1997 action comedy film directed by Barry Sondonfeld, and starring Tommy Lee Jones, who's at the top. He's top build for this one, Tommy Lee Jones. Of course, Will Smith is his co-star and comes out of this movie, a megastar, also starring Linda Fiorentino, who is. so good in this, and I think, I think she's great. Vincent DiNofrio and Rip Torn.

And it's funny, you know, I've seen this movie a lot. And these really are the stars. I mean, Tony Shaloob shows up. You know, Chavon Fallon Hogan has a small role as Eggers' wife. But at that, by, there's like not, this is like a, there aren't that many stars in this movie. A lot of great actors, but not a lot of stars. and I think it's interesting. David Cross shows up for a minute.

Yeah, Rip Torn. Yeah. But Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith really are. They are the guys who are carrying this. Don't Tommy Lee Jones and Rip Torn have some real life relationship? weren't they like roommates or something like that? I think. Tommy Lee Jones's roommates with Al Gore, I think, at one point in his life.

But I think you're right about Rip Torn. Rip Torn and Tommy Lee Jones. In any case, Men in Black is, Based off of a lot, a couple things, one of them being the longstanding kind of conspiracy that there is a government agency that covers up aliens. More directly, there is a Men in Black comic book from the early 90s that this is a kind of adaptation of that kind of book is called Be Men in Black. It's created written by Lowell Cunningham.

And it really is kind of plugged in to the aliens who are out there, government conspiracies vibe, I think, of the 1990s. The script credit goes to Ed Solomon, who I think, I believe did most of the script work on this movie. And he is best known for writing the screenplays to Bill and Ted's excellent adventure. And then later, now you see me, the magician movie that is actually very popular, and I've never, I've never once seen in my entire life.

I've never heard of that. What is that? What kind of a movie is that? No, now you see me as a comedy. It's like about a group of magicians. It's like star studded. It's Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Gruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Common, DeFranco, Michael Kane, Morgan Freeman. Yeah, I've never seen it, but it's like some sort of like magician theme, like, you know, the magicians pull off bank heist.

I don't know. It sounds very dumb, but this is not a podcast with nice. excuse me, but it sounds very stupid. It grossed $350 million. How is it that I've never heard of this before in my life? All right. It's kind of like Avatar in that way. You know, Avatar movie that there's no, I mean, I'm sure there are, there are some sort of like Avatar Superfans.

But like there's, there's no one who's like, yeah, I have an Avatar tattoo, right? Like this doesn't have that level of like cultural penetration. And yet, yet those movies make like a billion dollars. Like everyone sees this. I mean, I have seen both avatars and enjoyed the second one quite a bit. Men in Black was also very successful when it was released, a budget of $90 million, box office of nearly $600 million. Kind of infamously, the studio Columbia Pictures says that, or Sony Pictures, Columbia Production Company, Sony released it, says that this movie has never gone into the black through creative Hollywood.

accounting to avoid paying residuals to the writers. Oh my gosh. That's terrible. Yeah, it's really awful. Okay. In Men in Black, Tommy Lee Jones plays Agent K, a member of the Men in Black an organization founded in the 60s after humanity made its first contact with extraterrestrials. The Be Men in Black are responsible for kind of maintaining the Earth.

as essentially a safe haven, a asylum for alien refugees who live here in secret. They might be monitored their presence, make sure that ordinary people are not aware of them going as far as erasing memories to maintain secrecy, and keeping a watch out for dangerous aliens who may find their way onto the planet. Will Smith plays Agent Jay, an NYPD officer who, after chasing down a criminal who is unbeknownst to him, an alien, is recruited into the MIB, and on his first day on the job, it turns out that a valuable artifact, a galaxy, literal mini-sized galaxy, has gone missing on the earth in the alien race responsible for it, wants it back, or they'll destroy the planet.

Also, hunting for this galaxy is a creature just known as a bug from a race of, it seems, intergalactic cockroaches, which is out to get the galaxy, which is a source of energy. And I think that the idea is that the bugs will just like spread across the galaxy and also destroy everything. As Agent Kate and Agent J tried to find the galaxy and pursue the bug, they run into a wide cast of characters and other people who have essentially fallen into this little adventure. There's not that much more to the plot, which I think is actually to this movie's great credit. And we'll talk about all that later.

Men in Black, the tagline for Men in Black was protecting the earth from the scum of the universe, which is a great tagline. Men in Black was, or can be found, can be streamed, I believe on Paramount Plus, maybe. But it can be rented on Amazon and iTunes. and you should, if you watch movies, you should buy a copy. It's a nice little picture to have on hand. Bennebuck was released on July 2nd, 1997. So let's check out the New York Times for that day. All right. We're in the, we're in the middle of the 90s, not a whole hell of a lot going on. A new leader outlines his vision for Hong Kong. For the first time in Hong Kong's history, a Hong Kong or Tong Chiwa. Step before his people as their leader a day explained,

in their own dialect of Cantonese how the onset of Chinese rule and its stewardship of the territory would change their lives. And what may be the first test of China's pledge that Hong Kong will be allowed its own distinct form of government, the police allowed a demonstration by a group, the Hong Kong alliance, that China had branded subversive. About 2,500 protesters marched, some carrying red signs saying build a democratic China and put an end to the dictatorship in China. Well, as you probably know, I think it was in New Year's of 1997 that Hong Kong went from British rule, which it had been, I think, for about 100 years, if not more, to Chinese rule. And the deal was that Hong Kong would retain a democratic form of government and, you know,

the rights that you would expect from a Western democracy. Of course, we've seen in recent years that this is not the case, trying to roll back basically all these institutions. It's a bit sad. I was really strangely, not exactly, I wouldn't go so far as to say I was a weeb for Hong Kong in the 90s when I was a kid, but I was really fascinated with Hong Kong. I think from watching Hong Kong martial arts movies and gangster movies, which were very big back then,

there was a very, there was a lot of fascination with East Asia in that time. I mean, there still is, but with Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. South Korea hadn't exactly exploded as the cultural powerhouse it is now. So I was really interested in Hong Kong and remembered it following even as a pretty young, kid being interested in its transfer from British to Chinese power. I mean, I thought it was very kind of exotic and interesting that it was this East Asian city state that was under British control. But, you know, I didn't really understand things like colonialism and imperialism back then. So anyway, it's just, it's just interesting to reflect on the changes. I mean, and also I think

that that reversion to Chinese rule was a little. another feeling of end of history moment where imperialism or colonialism was ending, but perhaps it would have some positive, it would remain its distinct entity, and it would have some positive impact maybe on China would democratize because of the incorporation of Hong Kong. Of course, none of these things happened. But there was a hopeful sense at those times, as this article shows. voters in Mexico vending outrage at ruling party big losses seem likely political landscape changing after seven decades of PRs authoritarian control yes so I'm just going to skip a little here since the 1920s Mexico has been governed by a single party

the institutional revolutionary party which unified the country and created a stable political system after a violent revolution but in recent years Mexicans have grown increasingly frustrated with the arbitrary and corrupt rule and recurring economic crises under the party. Well, that is very interesting. Yeah, after the Mexican Revolution, basically, which took a long time to sort itself out, this party controlled Mexican politics. It's kind of a one-party state with a highly flawed democracy

that I think is a hybrid regime at best. Eventually, this single-party rule ends. What comes out of Mexico is mixed. There was a kind of neoliberal period of reforms, and now Mexico's kind of going back towards some left-wing populism type stuff. I'm not a great expert on Mexican politics, but this is what I've been able to follow. Can I say that I think that when American, U.S. Americans are trying to think about, like, potential futures for the American political system. I think the trajectories look less like Hungary and more like Mexico

under the PRI. That's that to me seems like much more in keeping with both sort of like actual trends in the country, you know, assuming, you know, the Trump stuff is really institutionalized over the long term. The ability of the Republican Party to win, you know, popular majority is like the use of the various rules and counter-majoritarian mechanisms of the American system to solidify power. All of that, I think, leaves a situation that looks more like Mexico in the 20th century in terms of sort of like a long, like a dominant single party state than it does, you know, like a personalist autocracy, which, you know, people will observe that Israel is becoming a true Middle Eastern country in a lot of ways, right?

Like, it's becoming, has more in common with its neighbor states politically than with its client state. And I think kind of in a similar way, the United States might be becoming more Latin American in terms of its political system. Yeah, I think that that's, that's, there's definitely a lot to that. And I mean, you know, I think one thing I would say is Trump's, personal charisma is a huge part of this, so I don't know what happens when he

dies. Like, like, I don't know if the Republican, I think what the Republican Party envisioned something like what you're saying, but, you know, I just think it's so caught up with his cult of personality around them that if he dies, it could really fall apart.

Maybe I'm wrong, but, you know, and there are obviously parts of the country where Republicans are always going to be popular. So, anyway, um, uh, anything else look, uh, good here you want to jump into the movie um the only other thing here that might be interesting oh so two things one to me one you know politically the political one is um health care bills don't meet goals budget aids say and this is just about the the health care bills

that would that are introduced uh this year to expand health insurance to children i've mentioned in this book before, which is the recent book on the Clinton administration that's started by Judith Stein, finished by Nelson, Lichtenstein. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Great book. One interesting thing I learned in that book, because one of the things I always had trouble trying to understand is why it was that medic, like, after the retrenchment of welfare and the retrenchment of, like, much of the New Deal state, like, Medicaid is the thing that really kind of survives and even, like, kind of begins to expand coming out the 90s. And the way to explain to the book is basically the Democratic Party still wants to do something, A, with

health reform. And B, you still have all these Southern Democratic governors for whom Medicaid is actually sort of a really important program. It provides a lot of health insurance to low-income residents of their states. Clinton, having been one of them. And so Clinton's own experience with Medicaid as governor of Arkansas makes him very friendly to the program and a combination of sort of like a desire to do something on health care and Medicaid being this program that Clinton values, personally values a great deal, ends up helping, pushing the Democratic Party to kind of shore it up and begin this process of strengthening it, which kind of I think at this point has reached it, I wouldn't take to apex, but got got reached, crested with the Affordable Care Act.

which in its original form basically mandated a large-scale Medicaid expansion in its sort of like post-Supreme Court form, the Medicaid expansion is still there. It's just now optional. Most states have expanded Medicaid, not all. But I continue to think, you know, when you think about how would you expand public health insurance further, it's clear that, like, Medicaid is the program for which it's probably a lot more viable to continue doing coverage expansions. And it's interesting to me, I mean, this is like a good example of how the actual person in the place does kind of matter. It mattered that the president was like a Southern Democrat familiar with Medicaid.

No, that book does a really interesting job of putting Clinton's priorities in the context of what he dealt with as government in Arkansas. That was something I thought was really well done in that. The other thing I wanted to mention just that Robert Mitchum died on the day or the day before this was published. the great Robert Mitcham, he was 79. My favorite performance of his is in, why did I just fucking forget the movie?

Night of the Hunter, there I go. Charles Loudon's only film he directed. But Mitchum plays the villain and Net of the Hunter. Just a brilliant haunting movie. Looks like nothing you'll ever see. and Radio Rahim's knuckles, knuckle rings in, do the right thing when this is love and hate is an homage to Robert Mitchum's character in that of The Hunter, who has love and hate tattooed on both sets on his knuckles.

Fun little reference Spike Lee throws in there. Anyway, men in black. John, I assume you saw this when you were a kid. I saw this on my birthday, well, the day before, my birthday because that's when it came out as a family so it was like my birthday party my parents took me

and I don't know if my sisters were there I don't remember yeah and I watched it and I've seen it you know I was like what 12 years old when this came out it was basically the perfect age to watch this movie right and I watched I've seen this movie since

I've watched it you know on TV I would say it's still super enjoyable. This movie is just kind of like a fun, well-made, you know, Hollywood movie of the kind that we often complain. They don't know how to make anymore. But it's charm, I think, is maybe when I have kids, I will enjoy introducing them to this movie, but for me, I'm not quite as charmed by it as a, you know, as a, you know, used to be, but I still enjoyed it.

And the other problem is, is now, I think here's, I've destroyed my mind through my research on paleo-conservatives because I watch every movie now, like I'm Sam Francis. I watch it through this paranoid, you know, right-wing viewpoint. And when I was watching this movie, I was like, ah, the movie of, uh, managerial liberalism. But like, I was just like, I was, I was struck by the, okay, let's say, I'm just going to go ahead and say the biggest political thing you could take away, this movie is that this movie is in a certain way of film about immigration, right?

Yes. The movie begins with this scene of, of, you know, them, of people, of migrants trying to get over the border who are from Mexico and the men in black intervene and they're looking for a real alien. and it shows them as pretty dismissive of the kind of cracker cops who are trying to keep the Mexicans out and, you know, making Mexican immigration to the U.S. seem like not a big deal and harmless, which is definitely opinion I had as a kid and still more or less hold. And, yeah, so it had a liberal attitude towards,

towards immigration, it has a cosmopolitan, or I don't even know, literally the cosmos as its sort of horizon of different cultures that could, you know, be integrated into the United States and Earth. It showed the federal, not even the federal government. It's interesting as a conspiracy. This movie is like, there's a subgenre, which is mostly done in comedies, which is like a benign or benevolent conspiracy, right? So the types of, like, the men and black conspiracy theory in UFO lore is this sinister

government initiative to cover up aliens. And this movie kind of presents it as, well, actually, you know, it is for people's best interest, both the aliens and the people of Earth. The aliens are, you know, bringing, you know, they're helping. They're often celebrities. They're often, you know, talented people. They're bringing something to Earth. We're bringing something to them.

They have a place to live. I don't know why they want to live on Earth. But they – so it shows like there's just a benign, beneficent, benevolent conspiracy theory, government agency, deep state, essentially, that is in charge of managing – alien immigration and is trying to make sure that no one finds out about it and keep the world safe. I think that basically like this attitude, this is not, this is the least populist movie. Well, I don't know. Let me revise that. It does also show that this organization is meritocratic and open and is racially integrated. And it's also open to like initiative

and smart people who are not necessarily so buttoned up. It's kind of a creative place to work, too. Very 1990s, right? You know, and it's also neoliberal. I'm sorry to keep using that term because it's turned from a government agency into a private initiative that's funded on patents, right? So it's like a private agency that's doing, that's to make sure this cosmopolitan version of liberalism exists. So that's my political read on the movie, and it's charming. And I have a nostalgia for it. I think, especially now, in a world where immigration is so, you know, is such a huge political issue and it's such a negatively polarized one. And, you know, I have my own, obviously my own critiques of, you know, state worship and thinking experts and government agencies are,

you know, always doing the right thing that deserves a critical eye. But I will say I do miss from time to time the kind of humorous attitude you could have in the 1990s towards those sort of things that men and black kind of maybe was a symbol of or expressed, which was that, yeah, you know, the people in charge are smart and with it and are going to take care of things. I don't think you can make this movie today for a lot of different reasons, but definitely the idea of a benevolent conspiracy within the government would not strike many people as being plausible. I don't know. So those are my initial thoughts. Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, interesting that you say you couldn't make this movie today for a lot of reasons because I agree. I mean,

on the ideological level, a movie that is just forthrightly, like, takes for granted the notion that the United States is a place that ought to be welcoming to people who want to come here to better their lives. And the striking thing about that opening sequence is that Agent K, when he speaks to the actual migrants, he's like, oh, you're coming here to work, you come here to, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And they're like, yeah. And he's like, yeah, go ahead.

Go. I don't give a shit. Right. And it's only the alien who doesn't understand Spanish that he's like, okay, I got to talk to you. Like, you know, you're dangerous. right you you you he asked him when did you get out right like he so he's a dangerous person alien who doesn't you who ought not be there but there's sort of a like the the notion of oh

you need to be legal you whatever it just just doesn't matter it's taken for granted i mean that's that's that's uh uh i believe was Solomon um uh the writer said that he said the be wanted to set the movie in New York specifically because A, no one would, he's like, no one would think twice about sitting a weird person on the street. Yeah. But also it just like, it kind of reiterates the theme, right?

Sort of like this is the great melting pot. Cosmopolitan place, yeah. And that to me, I mean, that to me feels extremely 1990s, sort of like this celebration of the United States as this cosmopolitan melting pot pot. It's interesting to me, right? like speaking to taking for granted American hegemony, that's sort of like there's no apparent thought

that the hub of alien existence on the earth could be any other country, any other place. It's obviously the United States, obviously New York. That obviously is who has contact with extraterrestrial beings. But the other reason this movie couldn't be made today, and this is just maybe to get into actual the movie as a movie, is that if you tried to make this movie today, if you got like a screenwriter trained

in sort of the last 20 years of Blockbuster to make this movie today, it'd be two and a half hours long, right? It'd be two and a half hours long. You'd get a lot of like backstory about, you know, you'd get flashbacks to Jay's childhood. You get lots of flashbacks to Agent K

when he was younger. There'd be lots of lore that they're like, kind of just throwing at you in exposition. And every time I watch this movie, what I am struck by, like genuinely struck by. And I actually kind of like counted it out this time because I kind of watched this broken up on the like between on the treadmill and like doing dishes on the treadmill again. By minute 30 of this movie, you have basically learned everything you could possibly need to know about what's going to come next, right? Like everything about what the MIB is and its purpose. You learn that in like five minutes.

Like the movie just straight up is like, here's what this is. You're in five minutes. You learn what's going to be. And it's funny how the script, which is incredibly well written, things established in the first few minutes loop back at the end. So the fact that the first word of dialogue in the film is bugs is very funny to me. That the agent K's partner, you know, when he begins to, when he begins to like long for the stars. That's sort of the sign that you're done, you're retiring. That comes back,

of course, at the end. It sets up sort of what's going to happen with K at the end. But, but, you know, through Will Smith's character who is in this funny way, he is our viewpoint character. He is our fish out of water. It's funny to think of Will Smith as being that because he's so charismatic and so big on screen, but like he serves that role. And through just his introduction, Like both his chase is with the alien, his introduction to K, his introduction to MIB, all of that tells you, you learn you just about what you need to know. And it's like in terms of the screen time on screen, 30 minutes marks the point at which agent, which Will Smith's character does decide to join the MIB. And it's like it's then really the plot begins in earnest. Yeah.

But just the extent of which this movie moves does not try to do big exposition dumps when it's not necessary. Shows as much as possible without telling. It's constantly elude, you know, the script drops things, you know, establishes things, picks them back up, brings them to a conclusion. Like one of the one of the little kind of subplots of the film that I've always enjoyed is just Linda Fiorentino's character. Fierrantino at this point in the 90s is like a huge star. The last seduction had been a couple years earlier. She's sort of known for playing these femme fatals. In this movie, she's not a femme fatale.

I mean, she's obviously incredibly attractive in the movie, but she's not a femme fatale. She plays sort of like a weird morbid coroner. A little bit of a goth. Yeah, a little bit of goth. Really into death and dead people. But the movie kind of suggests from the time she's introduced that, A, she's constantly being neuralized by the MIB

because she's constantly kind of coming across the dead bodies of aliens. But also she's smart enough to figure it out each time. So it's not like they're neuralizing her because within short order she's like, oh yeah, I know what you guys are. And then they have to erase her memory. And I think it's like a fun little plot

that resolves itself in the movie with her becoming an agent herself. but the sense of which this is so streamlined I was reading about the production they did a lot of I mean this is a movie that kind of was made in the edit they shot a lot they realized in the edit that their their final act wasn't quite working the way they wanted it to and so they kind of just they changed the alien dialogue they cut a lot of stuff and like constructed something that was much more um much more streamlined and in keeping with the rest of the film. It's a movie that kind of never overstays its welcome and introduces you to this

vast world without making it feel like you are reading a Wikipedia article. It's really effective and it's effective in a way that just like I don't think exists anymore. If this came out today, people would lose their minds over how well written it is. Yeah. It is. It really it is it is it's got a snappy script it's it's it's nicely well it's nicely written movie i think like the thing is um this movie is kind of i mean it's funny to use this terminology but it's it's it's kind of elegant like it's just not there's no fat on it it's and it's yeah they stripped it down to its bare essentials the writing is snappy and entertaining They build the world just as much as they need to to make it feel rich and convincing, but then don't go farther.

I think that this is a principle of artistic creativity that is really lost in contemporary culture in general is just the constraints of form to make something, you know, try to get things as done in the most elegant way possible. and not to add more and more and more and more onto something just because you can. There's a, I mean, this is like what I, a complaint I have is just like, there's a lot of talk today about, like, everything's content, you know, everything's discussed as content. But like we have very bad formal properties of the way we consume media where it was once, well, you know, okay, well, the TV is one thing, but it was once you went to the movie and then the form that you saw it was on a screen that was so and so large and that allowed the cinema to do certain things and the visuals to do certain things and now everyone's watching on phones

are a horrible formal and tablets a horrible formal way to constrain things you know everyone is just consuming videos one after the other it's this it's just there's so much there's so little organization there's so little formal organization of time anymore and so much kind of, you know, slop, really out there that the temptation to just do things by addition and not by subtraction or by making things, you know, formally come together is huge. And that's why all these movies are three hours long. They're not cut down properly.

And everything, as you were saying, has got all, has to have endless stories. backstories about, you know, oh, where did this person come from? What's their childhood? And it's the same goddamn story every single goddamn time. You know, it's, oh, well, they had a childhood trauma. Oh, really? That's so interesting. So the main character screwed up because something happened in their childhood. I mean, of course, everything happens. Something happens in everybody's childhood. You don't need to know about the childhoods of the characters in this movie. It's not that kind of a movie, you know? So I just don't, this, these or, this attempt to make origin stories is just like, I don't know if it's lazy writing or it's a cynical way to build on franchises and do

IP, like IP packing. But it's just frustrating to me. And I, yeah, you know, like, you just want to go to a movie and you're like, that's a, that's that movie, self-contained, doesn't have to be a universe doesn't have to I mean they did make sequels of this but but this is the best one yeah honestly Jamel there's something wrong with people to the point where if you I don't know maybe that's not the nicest way to put it if you put a movie that had no context of IP before behind it let's just say it's a period piece let's just say it's a spy movie or some genre movie I think people would be like confused by it like I think that they would have trouble just being like some people today would have trouble sitting down and being like, they'd be like,

what is this? And I was like, well, it's a movie. And they'd be like, well, what about? What is it about it? I was like, it's a fucking action movie. Like, like, I just think these conventions are starting to make less and less sense unless they've seen this sequel and that sequel and that sequel and this series, series, series. You know what I mean? Like a standalone movie in a genre, I think on the, on the, let's say the dumber end of cinema goers who once would have just been like, oh yeah, it's a spy movie. Like would struggle with it. Does that make sense or making this? No, that makes total sense.

It makes total sense to me. Yeah. I mean, to me, it's of a piece which sort of like this, an obsession with plot holes, where plot holes means nothing, something wasn't explained to the very, you know, the very, like the, yeah, use your fucking imagination. Right. Sorry. No, but I agree.

There's, this movie really does highlight the extent to which audiences have been trained these days to treat blockbusters especially as plot delivery devices that you can't absorb while being on your phone. Yeah. And this, for, you know, when this movie came out, it was treated as sort of a silly lark, but when you look back at it today, it's clear that this is a movie that actually, like, encourage you, pay attention to the screen, pay attention to the frame. The story is being told on the screen as much as it is anywhere else. You're learning about the characters, not from lore dumps, but from their actual actions. Like, one of the most remarked on scenes in this movie is when Will Smith's character and Jay is testing. They're taking

the initial test with these other, you know, military guys. And they're sitting in these uncomfortable chairs and they have to fill out a test with a pencil. And everyone's struggling to fill out the test because they have no surface. And Jay sees a table in a very funny moment, like they just let it play out, drags the table across the ground while it screeches and then sets up to do the test. And it's like, it's an illustration of his resourcefulness. It's like this is a guy who's not going to do things by the book. He's resourceful. He's creative. And you will miss that if you're on your phone, simply trying to listen for being told something. You actually have to look up and look at the screen, see how the other people react to him, all these sorts of things. And I think

that, you know, audiences are just not trained to do that anymore. They're trained to just listen for what they need to know. I mean, it's funny. I loved killers of the flower moon, but I do feel like the very, the last five minutes of that movie are our Scorsese reacting to the fact that audiences need to be just now told things directly. So him sort of like, him, the director literally going to the camera and saying, I'm not sure it's my place to tell this story. This story is in some sense too big for a movie. We must show respect to the people that this affected.

It's like, if, you know, if you can think of Christensen's career as him getting more and more explicit about his themes over time, right? Like going from Goodfellas, it being, I mean, I think being set out right that like being a mobster is terrible, but like people are not getting it to the Irishman where he's like, this is an existentially bleak lifestyle. Don't do it. Him directly everything can say to an audience, I think reflects the extent which audiences have just been trained out of looking at the screen, paying attention, figuring it out for themselves um to reverse course and go back to to you know theme what this this movie is about politically it is interesting so um i think you're right to see it as um reflective of kind of

a kind of trust in institutions that is long gone it's obviously a movie that takes for granted a cosmopolitan america and america that uh accepts accepts and embraces immigrants But it's interesting that this movie drops around the same time that the actual American state is investing heavily in border control and the expansion of border agencies. I believe 97 is the year when Congress does pass a law that just puts a lot of money into the agencies that will become ICE and a lot of money into. border control. And as you write about in your book, as is discussed quite a bit, this is the decade where kind of anti-immigrant politics is re-emerging as a force. In California, we have the proposition that basically denies public benefits to undocumented immigrants in the state. In fact, there's a big backlash against Mexican immigration in California

happening within, you know, while this movie is being filmed in 96. And so it's like it's, one way you could look at men in black is to say this reflects a consensus that is deteriorated. But I think it, I think this is, I think the kind of the, the pro-immigrant, you know, America's Contipolitan, I'm not sure that was ever really a consensus. It was always like, to me, like an aspiration. I think that people wanted to be true. But even in this, even in what appears to be the heyday of it, there is a mounting backlash against

the notion of the United States as a haven for other people, and especially other like non-white, non-English-speaking peoples. Yeah, no, that's absolutely right. I mean, in the 90s, the salience of immigration as a topic was, was certainly heating up. I mean, it was a huge part of Buchanan's several campaigns, which I talk about. And, yeah, it was an increasingly big part of the rights, lists of grievances. It was not so big in the 90, I mean, there's always a section of the American right that's not happy about immigration. But, you know, Reagan was fairly not open borders quite but was fairly pro-immigration you know he there was an amnesty under

Reagan he had all this rhetoric about America being a city on the hill you know where people were just looking for a better life the right resolutely turned more anti-immigration after the after the end of Reagan Reagan's era partly and some somewhat in reaction to the amnesty But yeah, it's a subject of political contestation in this period, and these movies that that lionize immigration or show it as a solvable problem through, you know, some kind of amazing technocratic apparatus are part of that way that that political contest is being expressed in the culture. Another example is cone heads, which is, I think, around the same time, which is based on the, um, The Saturday Night Live skit when it's got Dan Aykroyd and I forget who the who else is in it, which is not a great movie, but it has a similar attitude that, you know, like, which is about aliens coming, literal space aliens coming to Earth,

which is that, you know, America should be that the INS guys are uptight jerks and racist. And the aliens are just trying to find a nice new life here and actually have a lot to contribute. Um, yeah, so I think the contestation, the contestation is ongoing. I, and this movie definitely, like, wants to show in a way, you know, we talk about it's, it's positive, um, uh, depiction of, of immigration. But it also shows like immigration enforcement. It, it gives a little sop to the, to the right attitude of this. Because it shows immigration enforcement is like, well, basically like, if these aliens, bad guys come sort of, you just blow them away, you know? It's not, they just do these extra I mean, they're deporting people. They're also like shooting people with these massive guns. So the legal, like, the authority of this wing of the state has some sort of right wing fantasies attached to it, too, in that it's like, they're authorized to like basically just dispatch people with extreme prejudice if they cross the line.

line. So I think that this is kind of like the synthesis of the fantasy of the state for liberals and conservatives that could get behind the movie like this is like, well, you know, they do the right thing. They follow the rules. They're trying to make the country a better, more welcoming place, but they will kick ass and blow people up if they, if the lines are crossed. So I think that that's the other thing maybe or maybe this is just the contradiction in the way America thinks about immigration general. It has less to do with these two political divides is a combination of really authoritarian enforcement and then lip service or attitudes paid towards welcomingness and openness. I mean, the United States is not the easiest place to immigrate to under any conditions. And being stuck in the teeth of. the system of immigration, especially when you come on the wrong side of it, is not fun. So, yeah, I think that this movie, in a way, maybe is a reflection of those tensions about the way we think about immigration in America, which is both they're welcome here, but they're

other. And if they get out of line, like, they can face violence legitimately. But we do like them when they're being nice. here's the funny thing about the anti-immigrant sediment that's going on right now is that there's a and this is I think this is a perfect example about this movie in the split in an American way of thinking about this I think lots of people are polled who say there should be mass these portations and lots of people are polled who's saying there should be a path to citizenship

these are the same people saying these contradictory things because they seem both fair to Americans yeah, I know a great immigrant and he's my neighbor and I love him and I really want to see his family do well. On the other hand, I have weird bigoted attitudes towards random people I see. So I think that's just like the way Americans think about immigrants. It's a combination of very nasty, racist attitudes and then extremely generous and kind attitudes towards people that they think are either people that they know and like or they've had, they think are a credit to the country's economy in some way.

It's a version of what you see with the politics of the social insurance state and the social safety net. Broadly speaking, Americans do not like the idea of someone getting benefits they don't deserve. And they believe that there's a vast category of people who are receiving kind of like gold-plated benefits for sitting around on their butts. This is obviously coded, tied up with racial stereotypes, the racialization of receiving benefits, all these sorts of things. If you ask Americans, do you think the government should help people with X, Y, or Z?

They'll say, yes, absolutely. Why wouldn't I think that? That's what the government should be doing. But none of it should go, but this class of people who are taking everything from the rest of us, we should somehow deny it to them. and we'll be able to identify them, again, off of these sort of, like, characteristics that are highly racialized. And likewise with immigration, Americans are like, hey, do you think America should be welcoming of immigrants? Yes. Do you think there should be a path to citizenship for immigrants that are here?

Yes. Do you think there should be mass deportations? Yes. We should remove all of the evil criminal immigrants who are sitting here doing nothing. But my friends get to stay. Right, right, right. It's like the same dynamic. And, like, if you, when you tell people that the bad category that you imagine doesn't really exist, like, it just, it doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't, it's short circuits, right? Like, that's where the prejudice comes in. It's like, well, obviously, it must exist. There is, in the New York Times, we did a focus group, we had this exact thing. It's like, no, I don't think there should be mass deportations. Just got to round up all the crime. Oh, sorry, there should be mass deportations, but there needs to be a way to distinguish all the criminal.

from the good people from the you know from the hard workers and it's like when you say what are these people children i'm sorry yes i mean i am of the view i i can i'm of the view that we have had for a very long time a political culture that does talk to the public like their children yeah that doesn't say i mean it's funny it's funny the people people who support trump that who who aren't like chuds will be like, I like him because he's tough, he says what needs to be said, et cetera.

And that's because they kind of read his like open racism as sort of like these are tough truths. But in reality, Trump is very much of the, I'll tell you whatever you want to hear, variety of politician. You want to hear that I'm not going to restrict abortion? Yeah, I'll tell you that.

You want to hear that I'm going to give you good health care? I'll tell you that. You want to hear that I'm going to lower the price of court. I'll tell you that. Whatever you need to hear. to support me, I'll tell you, which is, in a sense, treating the public like they're very dull children versus what I think the public actually needs, which are politicians who are willing to say, hey, there are tradeoffs. You might like this one thing. You might not

like this other, but if you want to get that one thing, you have no choice to get to the other. And if you don't want, if you really, if you really don't want this thing, you can't have the stuff that you like. That's actually talking to people like a adult. That's giving them sort of like the tough things they need to hear. But the, you know, the funny thing is like, no one wants to hear that. No one wants to do that. Not since Jimmy Carter. Right, right.

Now, literally. Jimmy Carter's saying, yeah, listen, we got to make some sacrifices and people are like, get this motherfucker out of the White House. Yeah. I mean, I think, and Reagan comes along and says, and says basically you can have whatever you want and everything's perfect, which is actually not a very conservative, but which. many people have pointed out is not a very conservative sentiment. You know, conservatives are generally pretty pessimistic about human scarcity and, I mean, scarcity and limitations on human

nature. But Reagan combined free market libertarian ideas and certain social conservative ideas with a highly optimistic view of the material possibilities of what could happen under American capitalism, which was just that it was infinitely productive and infinitely as we, if you let it rip. Everyone will get rich. Everything will keep getting better. It's just a matter of people applying themselves. Weirdly, not a very conservative idea. It's an optimistic idea. And that's, I think, actually made him extremely popular beyond ideological conservatives. Everyone liked his optimism because they were bummed out. And then someone, it's the same thing. He did, he did FDR for for conservatism, which was FDR, and he remembered FDR. He was old. He FDR was smiling. FDR was

cheerful. And it was brilliant. And it was actually good for the country because the country was depressed. It was in the depression. And FDR knew, I mean, he had a great temperament to begin with, but he knew his bearing would make people feel better. He knew he had to almost show confidence to help the country, and he couldn't be seen being worried or let down or angry. Like, he knew that he had this own duty to embody happiness. And Reagan did that. I mean, you know, you can tell where my politics are here. But Reagan did that in a way that I think was misleading for the American people and sold

them a bill of goods and was the Hollywood version of it. But he knew that same thing, which was he. learned that type of leadership in the 40s, at 30s and 40s, which was the president needs to project confidence and optimism about America. And Clinton did that to a certain degree too, had a certain kind of sunniness to him. And it was a little different. But yeah, and Obama did it in a different way. He had a very cool confidence. It wasn't quite as sunny, I mean, worry-free as

FDR or Reagan. But, you know, projected, absolutely projected an enormous amount of confidence. Trump, from my perspective, projects a very kind of wounded sort of confidence, arrogance,

but a lot of people don't see that. So what can I say? No, a lot of people see him as sort of like a sunny, happy warrior. Yeah. I mean, he does joke around a lot more. I mean, to me, he looks pissed off and grent and cron.

cranky a lot of the time but he does sometimes seem like he's in a deep he's having fun uh i'm gonna so you should probably wrap this up sure i'm about to go on my sort of like god of all people don't trump rant um it does it does every time i think about it i'm just sort of like man that that guy yeah i know it's which it feels both of course that guy i mean like come on look at this country but then also that guy well it's so perfect it you could wouldn't believe it. It's, it's, it's cartoonish because you're like, you're like, if someone came to me and was like, Donald Trump is going to be president, I'd be like, you're an idiot. Get the fuck out of here. Like, where are you coming up with? You sound like a child. You know? And then like, it happens.

And they're like, oh, no, you were right. Like, dumb people are right. Not just he's going to become president, but he's going to be the subject of a literal cult of personality. Yeah. Yeah, he's going to be. And I was like, yeah, I don't see that happening. But I guess, you know. No, I was wrong. Anyway. I guess we were wrong. We fucked up. Yeah.

I thought he could, both times, I thought he could win. But if you had told me in 2012, 14 goes to show, maybe I should. Men and Black. Yeah. The current time, a far cry from the America, the optimistic, sunny America of Men and Black. My final verdict on this movie It's great I don't know

I think every time I watch it I'm like this Is like maybe the great blockbuster of the 1990s Yeah it's definitely up there I don't know if it's a single best one But to me it's it's like it captures Yeah

The vibe of the 90s more than any other blockbuster Yeah And it has I mean Will Smith is sort of the singular Blockbuster star of the decade I mean the year before this is Independence today There's a movie the following year I believe that he's that is huge oh no it goes bad boys in 94 or 95 independence day in 96 and men in black

in 97 so it's sort of three consecutive summers um he has these huge hits uh wild wild west is the following year that's a bit it's it's a hit but it's a critical flop um and then uh his next is i think his last big kind of like blockbuster picture is michael man's ali um and then ali kind of marks the beginning of kind of like the Will Smith decline. But for that, for like, for like eight or nine years, it was just box office dominance by Will Smith. This movie gives you a glimpse into why he became such a big star. He is magnetic on screen. He's very funny. He's great. The movie doesn't work without Tommy Lee Jones. It's sort of like very funny, deadpan. matter of fact, they at the office staff act.

Yeah, if you, if somehow you're listening to this podcast and you've never seen men in black, you should, you should pop it in. Great movie. All right. That's our show. Please subscribe. We're available on iTunes, uh, Spotify and Google Podcasts. And wherever else podcasts are found.

If you subscribe, please leave a rating and a review. It does help people find the show and you can reach out to us on social media if you'd like to. You can also reach out to us over email at unclear and present feedback. at fast mail. F-A-S-T-M-A-L, fastmail.com. For this week and feedback, we have an email from Jonathan titled Trump as Obama's Dark Reflection and What's Next? This is in response to our Saint episode. Apologies in advance for the length. Your episode left me a lot to chew on. You talked about Trump's appeal and the ability of voters to project their policy

preferences onto him irrespective of what he says. He both landed on his lies and incoherent, which I think helps. But that projection of what a candidate will do or be, do or be reminded me a lot of what I remember people doing with Obama. My thoughts are because each Obama and Trump speak to things people want to be, good and powerful respectively, and each allowed voters to protect the candidate's own embodiment of those qualities onto themselves. The wealth part of Trump's appeal is well tread, but a lot of people also conflate being a loudmouth asshole with being powerful. That power means you can discard what social niceties you don't like, that you can lie about Haitian refugees eating neighborhood pets

or brag about sexual assault or sway around on stage or pantomime giving pleasure to a microphone and still be a legitimate candidate is because of some innate power. And people are attracted to that kind of power will find reasons to vote for a candidate like Trump. That's for moving forward. What I keep returning to is a quote from Jean-Luc Picard. It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That's not weakness. That is life.

The Democratic Party is not perfect, but they did everything they could, including taking me truly impressed in and measure for placing the head of their party with a new candidate after the primaries are concluded. It didn't ultimately work, but they pulled out all the stops. For me, with what little influence and platform I have, Um, moving forward, I'm not going to criticize the Democratic Party as a party where the broader public can see or hear it. And I'm certainly not going to, uh, conflate pundits with the Democratic Party. Yeah, I disagree with the not criticizing Democratic Party. It's plenty of credit

criticized, but I see the point. Uh, to John's point about the old categories may be wrong. We may need some new ones. There's potentially some merit there. And I suggest for, we start first and foremost with working class. Harris took majorities among union houses. and households making less than 30K. That's not the whole of the working class, to be sure, but it's pretty representative of working people. Similarly, if what we mean when we say working class is white voters without college education and the Latino men, then we should use those categories.

It's a mouthful, but it's more precise. And to Jamel's point that there are no institutions that create democratic voters, of course there are colleges. It's a big dividing line among white voters. State-level Democrats need to be working on making their public universities it's cheap and accessible as possible, get UVA to spend down some of that endowment. And there's more, but he says, I'm going to wrap it up here. P.S., I'd love to correspond further with Jamel at some point about the culture of Hampton Roads.

I'm an Oscar Smith graduate just a few years older than he is. And even before hearing, he was from Virginia Beach. Something about him felt very familiar. Thank you for the email, Jonathan. I'll say, I really agree with the point about being specific. about one, what one means. You're already kind of seeing it in the post-election of criminations about, you know, Democrats need to connect more to, yeah, to voters, need to get rid of the groups. People need to say what they mean. Say who you're talking about.

If what you're talking about, actually I actually said this to Madaglaces online recently, if what you're talking about is groups representing black activists need to shut up, say that, say it, and we can have that argument. If what you're saying is, you know, one group or another needs to take a back seat, put it out there. If you're saying we, if you're specifically saying we need to win back, downwardly mobile white men say that. But like I myself have grown very frustrated with the reluctance, like they're both pose of I'm saying hard truth,

but then the reluctance to just sort of like say the hard truth, right? You know, just say, say what you mean. And if you really, it's hard-nosed as you say you are, you will not worry about, you know, being a little ostracized in your social circles. Which I think this is what the reluctance to be forthright is actually about. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, okay, I totally disagree with the, with the, with the, with the letter. I'm sorry. I cannot.

I think it's my figure. It's my place in society is to criticize institutions like this. I gave the Democrats the benefit of the doubt, unlike some people on the left, I really gave the Democrats, especially after 2020, and they're impressive showing in 2022. I gave the Democrats the benefit of the doubt. I wasn't highly critical of them. I thought the foreign policy decisions in Ukraine were required. I thought that the foreign policy in Gaza was horrible.

And I don't think that the Democratic, in the second half of this Biden's term, Democratic Party covered itself with a lot of honor. I am saying this publicly as part of my feeling like an honest person and an honest journalist. And I just have to say what I think about these things. I do believe there are, it is true that the, it is exaggerated, you know, the appeal of the Republicans to the working class and there are specifics in that. But the fact remains that this is a trend we've seen now over several elections, which is

more and more voters who don't make a lot of money and don't have educations, are leaving the Democrats, which was their traditional place, and going to the Republicans, I think there is a way to get those voters, communicate with those voters that does not involve some kind of crypto-racist dog whistling a la Madaglaseus maybe or something like that. I think that the party needs to become a little different. I think that this discourse around the groups is correct insofar as the Democrats are highly beholden to institutions which claim to be representative of minorities but are not. They are representative of a certain minority within the minority, but there's no

mechanism for those groups and NGOs and nonprofits and so on and so forth to actually have a mass constituency behind them, unlike, say, party apparatuses or civil society organizations did in the past or the civil rights movement did in the past, you know? So I'm a big believer in trying to return civil society and the mass movement to the party, and that means that some of the ways that the NGO nonprofit world articulates the issues of minority voters is not necessarily what those minority voters might want themselves or the language that they would come up to describe their own issues.

So I don't think you have to take for granted that the way, you know, the way that these politics are being mediated through DC think tanks and so and so forth is necessarily what the constituents actually want. What I would like to see Democrats do is to become more of a mass party again, less of a party of these um you know these these these highly funded uh think tanks special interest groups etc etc and see what people where people are at uh that may involve change the party in ways that i don't particularly like but i just think that democratic party needs to get in touch with the mass constituency a little bit more um they're not doing so terribly they're not so off the

money but get meet people where they're out a little bit that's that's my my complaint. And I can, I am almost annoyed at the suggestion. I mean, I am annoyed at the suggestion. And I, I hear that this, you're writing in, I know this person is very earnest. I understand the reasons why they're giving and I understand the rationale. But I am sorry, it is not reasonable to request that people, after this disastrous loss, here, here's what I'll say. I will say, I believe that it is a very, big blow to the kind of America that we'd all like to see that Donald Trump was elected again and that this party, this political party that was supposed to govern the United States

protect us from this potentially authoritarian threat and also, in a sense, govern the world with the United States as the most powerful country in the world, failed in all these respects. I think that's worthy of criticism. You cannot go and say Trump is the, is a signal threat to democracy and then fail in your political role as defending that democracy from that threat and then ask people to be nice to you. It's not fair. That's my attitude at this point. I think that is entirely fair and I don't disagree. We got to wrap things up because I got to go.

So we'll just do this real quick. Next movie is going to be contact with Jody Foster, directed by Roberts Zemeckis. A good movie. We can talk about kind of like End of History stuff and such. You can check that out on Apple TV, Amazon, and wherever else you can find movies. Be sure to sign up for the Patreon. We did an episode on Taxi Driver that should be up. By the time you're listening to this, so check that out the tax driver episode very relevant to recent events

So please please check that out Patreon to five dollars a month Patreon.com slash unclear pod for for John I'm Jamel Bowie and we will we'll see you next time with a new episode Thank you.