Hi! I saw a post about you talking about the understanding of gender as socially constructed from a communist point of view. I would be interested to see yours and also if you have some reading recommendations 😊

Oh god I have to actually articulate something clear myself? And thus open myself up to legitimate and informed criticism? I'll do my best.

One of the main point of disagreement I have with other people who agree that gender is a social construct is whether it's "transhistorical," as in whether this construct (and that of patriarchy) is essentially the same across different periods of history. Some radical feminists and those deriving their ideas from them will often say that it is (although others are not social constructionists at all), but you find it in other tendencies as well. I don't think it's really the case. You can look at various past societies and see that they are made up of men and women (or at least that they use words for themselves that we translate to "men and women,") with the men having a position of power over the women. They're very comparable, but ultimately the actual details of how those systems of gender operate are very different from the modern one found in global capitalism, in a way that I think disqualifies them from being essentially the same. An obvious example would be all the memes you might have seen about how ancient Greek men would have sex with each other, as well as their conventions on the roles of penetrating vs being penetrated. These are things that don't fit into our modern conceptions of gender at all (and also one of the reasons some historians will say "today we would consider him gay" rather than "he was gay," for instance.) This also ties into the concept that the historical origin of patriarchy doesn't serve as its current foundation. A while ago I wrote something about that here.

Another point of disagreement is whether gender is something personal, an identity you can play around with and do whatever you want with, or a social role that isn't defined by you alone. The former is an attractive position both in that it's just more fun, but also because in defending trans people from attacks by conservatives, the argument that has become popular in liberal and some leftist discourse is that trans people are the gender they say they are. That argument is in my opinion putting the cart before the horse somewhat. A trans woman is not a woman simply because she says she is, but rather because she occupies the social position of womanhood. Identity is a product of that, not the cause, in my opinion. It follows that gender is not really something we can just play around with for fun, at least depending on how you define "gender." In an individual context we can identify however we want, using both conventional and unconventional terms. There's nothing wrong with this, and it would be absurd to say that this personal identification is illusory or meaningless, as some do. But in the context of analysing gender on a larger social scale, which we need to as communists and feminists, gender is just not a personal thing. We can't opt in or out or do whatever we feel like, it's a coercive system of categorisation.

However, it's important to note that this doesn't mean that the categories of "man" and "woman" are simply all that there is. It's here that Joe Biden's "at least three" answer to the question of how many genders there are is ironically kind of true. Because I think of you study how different people are treated by patriarchy, it eventually becomes clear that there's some kind of third category. What the best way of conceptualising this third thing is, I'm not really sure. Is it "outside" the two official genders? Is it "below" woman on some kind of hierarchy? Is there just one big spectrum? I don't think there's really a good way to visualise this, partially due to the nature of social constructs like this. It's not something one guy wrote down at one point, it's something all of us are continuously creating together, an amorphous blob of collective beliefs and practices, although obviously some have greater power than others. I have a soft spot for Monique Wittig's insight into this. She argues that lesbians are not women, because by rejecting men altogether they fail to perform the most important part of the role of "woman" that patriarchy has constructed. I think there's more to it than she gets into, but if lesbians are not women they are something else, and that something else is what I'm talking about. This "other" is also something that's a great motivator for performing your assigned role as best you can. Like I said it's difficult to visualise exactly how these roles relate to each other, but there's clearly some kind of hierarchy, and you're more or less constantly threatened with being "demoted" by failing to perform your role properly and thus falling into the "other." The desperation to stay afloat is what subconsciously motivates a lot of transphobia, both directed at the self and at others.

One last point I'll get into because this post is very long now is the notion of "authenticity" when it comes to gender. Here I think Judith Butler is very insightful. Like Wittig I don't think they get into it fully, and in Butler's case I think a lot of their other theory is not quite right or at least often misused, but nonetheless they are correct on this one point. That point being that gender is an imitation with no original. Everybody is pretending. In that sense it's correct to say that trans people are just pretending, but only because so are cis people. In the same way, there isn't really a difference between "authentic" trans people, and people who are supposedly just pretending for attention or even out of some "sexual perversion." One of the things that made me think of the original post was seeing someone I follow (if you see this, hi, nothing against you) talking about the concept of only transitioning "to fuck lesbians," and it struck me as funny that really, you could just as well say that my reason for becoming a lesbian, that is, adopting that identity explicitly, was because I wanted to fuck lesbians.

Anyway, reading recommendations, right.

For Monique Wittig's argument, The Straight Mind and Other Essays is where you wanna look. For Judith Butler, I believe they wrote about that in Imitation and Gender Insubordination. Other than that, maybe Julia Serano's Whipping Girl and Silvia Federici's Caliban and the Witch?

These aren't things you should just absorb and move on, no work is like that, so I recommend reading with others and critically discussing it together.

Personal Post: Imposter Syndrome, Reading Traditional Books, and thoughts about my own writing

{Just rambles regarding books, fanfiction and some of my thoughts therein.}

It’s been a terribly long time since I read any published books--aside from those written by fellow fanfiction authors. It has reached the point that I find them entirely too cringey. The plots are tame, the characters stiff, the language rote. I especially have a hard time caring if there is a supposed ‘romance’ involved. Forget about het romances, they’re so formulaic that they leave me cold. It isn’t that I have no interest in the portrayal of a relationship between a woman and man, it’s that by and large they might as well have been churned off of a factory production line. 

Part of my objection is to the tired old tropes and gender roles which authors (and readers) don’t seem to realize they’re not only falling prey to, but encouraging with their work. The world doesn’t have to be turned on its head to be interesting, but you shouldn’t know from the first few scenes between characters how it will play out--and further more, not care.

I did read a rather good psychological mystery a few days ago, however. I think perhaps it was successful in part because it was so different from the usual run of stories that people publish, but also because there wasn’t a romance shoe-horned into the storyline. The narrator wasn’t particularly sympathetic, but nor were they entirely unredeemed. I don’t want to give too much away, but it explored the themes of bullying, memory, redemption and revenge, with an enjoyable twist that I didn’t see coming--I was successfully led astray by red herrings, which isn’t always the case when I’m reading mysteries. The book, should anyone be interested, was Girl Gone Mad by Avery Bishop.

{I keep on rambling after the break ;)}

I also read another which was such a stinker I deleted it from my Kindle history and couldn’t tell you the title or author. This beauty had a somewhat interesting premise of a woman who wakes from a six month coma with full amnesia and throughout the book has to struggle with not remembering anything and depending on her husband, children and neighbors for the details of her life. Frustratingly, she finds parts of her personality and tastes have changed--at least as far as they all tell her. She begins to doubt that she is who they say--an issue further compounded when certain facets of her life pre-coma are revealed. Then when the ending arrives, there is a twist and a reveal which could have been pretty neat, only it arrived at the end of such a rote story, with such clunky storytelling and unimaginative language that I kind of didn’t care. It was clear, I might add, that the female protagonist was written by a man. Although blessedly he didn’t go into raptures over her perky breasts, long hair, or other physical attributes [insert vomiting]

My reading resulted in a two-fold feeling. One, traditionally published books are by and large crap. A few months ago I tried reading a book from a famous author whom I used to be quite a fan of. It was part of a series with which I used to be enamored. I settled in, expecting a very enjoyable read. After slogging through three chapters I gave it up. The writing was generic, the characters shallow and the ‘bad guy’ was so sketchily written as to be bewildering, not mysterious. 

That book left me frustrated and annoyed. But it also revealed something to me which I had somewhat accepted and understood prior to that, but not entirely absorbed. Just because a book is traditionally published doesn’t mean it’s any good. Just because an author is well known--or even on the best seller list--doesn’t mean they can write. There are more places to find interesting, funny, heartbreaking, sexy, fun, amazingly written, daring and wonderful stories than at a bookstore or through Kindle. 

The second part of my two-fold feeling was that while, as a writer, I may have much room to grow, I still have valuable skills to offer. My four years of writing fanfiction have honed my talent, refined my style, and influenced my voice, perspective and ability. A good beta, or editor, is invaluable. While I used to write solo and not show it to anyone, simply edit and post, I’ve come to understand the inherent value of feedback. It can be a tricky road, as you might find yourself influenced too much by a reader into trying to suit their tastes rather than your own, but a good beta (eternal thanks to @paialovespie & @hoomhum)--that is to say, a great beta, will not only see the nuts and bolts which might need tightening, but will offer insights which blow your story from ordinary to inspired. The same goes for a ‘personal cheerleader’ (the highest of praise to @mottlemoth) or someone who reminds you at your dark times that you are capable of far more than you can conceive of in that moment. Forget nasty comments online, most of us are our own worst enemies--after all, we know our weakest spots and can zero in on them mercilessly.

Even without a beta, I believe in myself as a writer enough these days (most days) to hope that one day, with hard work, skill, great editing, and some luck, I too could be published. Not a NYT best seller, perhaps, but then, I’m not entirely certain I’d like that. I don’t say this out of any sort of pretentiousness, but because, in essence, these days, I want to write the kind of things that appeal to a more niche audience. I’d like to point with pride at my small book, nestled there on a bookshelf, or available with one click of a button, as something that helps give a voice to a community which has, and still continues to be, marginalized, ignored, fetishized and pandered to, in equal measure. Perhaps it would be for the best if what I wrote wasn’t palatable to the greater reading public.

Of course, those days when I’m full of zest and confidence don’t always last. Like any creator, I fall prey to Imposter Syndrome. Lord, I can’t believe that a time used to exist when I didn’t know what that was! I knew the feeling (oh, how I did), but had no clue that a term existed to encapsulate it. The concept that I wasn’t alone in having days (weeks, months, years) of being cast into doubt that I had anything worth saying--a voice worth listening to--isn’t a new one, but to find out that I’m not alone was unutterably comforting. 

Since, like so many people, I’ve been suffering from a lack of ambition and ability to focus during this global pandemic, I haven’t written much at all, that inner voice rang loud and clear. I’m a fraud, a fake. Any ability I had was used up, clearly as shallow as a mud puddle if a little adversity was enough to dry it out. The struggle to get myself past that was, and is, one that swings from good to bad almost day by day. I had to finally give myself permission to be sad, scared, worried, tired, uninspired. Eventually I decided it was enough that I could find comfort and solace in other’s writing. And oh, how I have! Even though days and days would pass when I couldn’t even muster the interest to read, other times I would consume fanfiction fervently, feverishly. 

And there was so much out there! Adventure, sex, romance, comedy, crack, fluff, hurt/comfort. It seems funny that I can rail against the ‘formulaic’ writing of published books and then turn to ‘tags’ and ‘tropes’ for comfort. But I think the difference lies in the heart that is written into those fanfiction stories. Most of us, while being somewhat influenced by friends, mutuals and fans into writing for a hungry public, are, by and large, writing for ourselves. The old tried and true ‘write what you know’ advice seemed empty and meaningless to me for years. If we only ever write what we know, then how do sci-fi, fantasy, adventure, etc., get written? My brain went to the obvious and ignored the heart of the matter--it isn’t so much what you ‘know’ as writing what you need. What makes you passionate. Even if you’ve never been on a space ship, or been part of a polyamorous, platonic communal family group, if you write it with that yearning and spirit in your heart, it will reach out to someone else.

Fanfiction, at it’s core, is self-comfort.

In my estimation, looking at traditionally published books, it seems that what most of them lack is that heart. The writers aren’t writing because they need the story, or because they are compelled to tell it. It isn’t that they had a hell of a good time writing it, or that they made themselves laugh while doing so. They had a publishing deal to fulfil, a publisher to make happy, a reading public who had certain expectations. There’s nothing wrong with that of course, but if it’s your only motivation...then the writing suffers the neglect and a percerptive reader will note the difference. 

By and large, the fandom, the ship, even the trope, aren’t what captivates me most. I’m a pretty eclectic reader. I enjoy a good story more than I do the fact that it is a particular pairing. The draw is how well it is written, any chances the author took, the indulgence into style, formatting, etc. that they allowed themselves. So why should published books be any different? I’ve heard (non-fandom) people dismiss fanfiction as niche. Perhaps it is. But it is also broad, vast, uncharted territory where we’re all having a lot of fun and enjoying the hell out of ourselves.

Maybe those published authors need to spend a little time with us. 

𝐃𝐈𝐄 𝐏𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐎𝐏𝐇𝐈𝐄 𝐈𝐒𝐓 𝐈𝐇𝐑𝐄 𝐙𝐄𝐈𝐓 𝐈𝐍 𝐆𝐄𝐃𝐀𝐍𝐊𝐄𝐍 𝐄𝐑𝐅𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐓 .    ( 𝐆. 𝐖. 𝐅. 𝐇𝐄𝐆𝐄𝐋 )

THEMES APPEARING :    authenticity, Angst and Entwurf. choice. instrumental rationality. sexuality. in short: miranda priestly as a product of modernity and its failures. 

okay so.  here’s another long overdue character study that aims to enunciate the impact of the malaise of modernity, and especially the failure of existentialism as a meaningful philosophy on miranda’s life and how these things shape who she is. she is not an existentialist (moreso a structuralist when it comes to fashion studies), but the emergence of existentialism shapes indirectly her life.

a fair warning before i get to the actual meta itself: it will feature discussion of martin heid/egger’s philosophical work because it is seminal to understanding existentialism and any contemporary continental philosophy.  heidegger was an antisemite. there are no excuses for this anymore, he’s not just the philosopher who made the wrong decisions before and during world war two - the schwarzen hefte are disgusting. it does contaminate his philosophy. still, one can not simply throw away his philosophical work, because he is one of the few na/zi’s that has an ideology / philosophy that does apply to the modern world - it is generalizable outside of the era. it’s not utter garbage. as much as i’d like continental philosophy to be uncontaminated by hei/degger it is simply impossible to avoid him. so. this by way of being clear upfront. if anyone wants to discuss this, my dms are open. 

actual meta under the cut because it’s too fucking long

𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐃𝐔𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍.

in the end, authenticity can’t, shouldn’t, go all the way with self-determining freedom. it undercuts itself. yet the temptation is understandably there. and where the tradition of authenticity falls for any other reason into anthropocentrism, the alliance easily recommends itself, becomes almost irresistible. that’s because anthropocentrism, by abolishing all horizons of, threatens us with a loss of meaning and hence a trivialization of our predicament. at one moment, we understand our situation as one of high tragedy, alone in a silent universe, without intrinsic meaning, condemned to create value. but at a later moment, the same doctrine, by its own inherent bent, yields a flattened word, in which there aren’t very meaningful choices because there aren’t any crucial issues.

Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 68.

all of this   [ i.e. the ontological turn from art as imitation to creativity, paralleling that of the turn towards the subject & schiller’s conception of art as higher than morality when it comes to wholeness ]   contributes to the close links between authenticity against art. and this helps explain some of the developments of the notion of authenticity in the last two centuries; in particular, the development of forms in which the demands of authenticity have been pitched against those of morality. authenticity involves originality, it demands a revolt against convention. it is easy to see how standard morality itself can come to be seen as inseparable from stifling convention. morality as normally understood obviously involves crushing much that is elemental and instinctive in us, many of our deepest and most powerful desires. so there develops a branch of the search for authenticity that pits it against the moral.

Ibid., 65. 

𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐓𝐘, 𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐒𝐓 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐖𝐔𝐑𝐅. the principal feature of our modern culture is authenticity and a culture related to authenticity, something existentialist philosophers - and existential phenomenologists like heid/egger have emphasized. this existential comes with a burden however - to be authentic is to live your life, not imitating, but creating. not in the traces of someone else. but as something that is innate to ourselves. it does come with a burden, as the demand of the Entwurf, the grand plan of one’s life is a demanding one.

often, it results in existential angst, a suffocating feeling of having to live an authentic life. angst here is the fear for the nothing, for the irrelevance of our existence, which is always a Sein-zum-Tode/Being-towards-Death. in our realization of our authentic life, the easy choice is to follow the mores prescribed by das Man, the impersonal, plural, ‘they’ that is the driving force behind our societal mores. in the quotes above, the failure of this philosophy is brilliantly demonstrated by Charles Taylor, for in the end, there is a temptation of meaninglessness and morality can be abrogated - it turns violent in the name of authenticity.

this violence does not always have to be bad: it can be a violence of smashing, for example, the gender binary, the patriarchy, or the oppressive structures of religion. but this violence can also go awry, in various forms: an example would be fascism’s nostalgia for the ‘authentic’ past. however, this violence is a spectrum: there is not one mode of being violent and they all differ greatly from each other despite having their origins in the same idea.

miranda’s life is exemplary of the failure of the culture of authenticity exalted by existentialism. it’s not all bad: the only reason she is capable of being editor - in - chief of a magazine like runway is because of the ontological turn of art as imitation to art as creation. authenticity (despite all the fakeness)  is one of its crucial selling points - and she is brilliant at this. yet, as Taylor has pointed out, authenticity demands a revolution.

miranda, as a character, is symbolical for the breaking free of the modern woman from the traditional expectations of housewives. but this breaking free - while not a bad thing in itself, it didn’t occur without some sort of ‘violence’ (as should be clear by now. violence, for me, is subject to broad interpretation), as in that she can’t afford to be ‘nice’,  as is traditionally expected of her.

𝙲𝙷𝚁𝙸𝚂𝚃𝙸𝙰𝙽: 𝚜𝚑𝚎'𝚜 𝚊… 𝚜𝚑𝚎'𝚜 𝚊 𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝚜𝚊𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚝…  𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚗𝚘𝚝… 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚒𝚗 𝚊 𝚐𝚘𝚘𝚍 𝚠𝚊𝚢.

𝙰𝙽𝙳𝚈: 𝚘𝚔𝚊𝚢, 𝚜𝚑𝚎'𝚜 𝚝𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚒𝚏 𝚖𝚒𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚊 𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚊 𝚖𝚊𝚗… 𝚗𝚘 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚠𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚑𝚎𝚛, 𝚎𝚡𝚌𝚎𝚙𝚝 𝚑𝚘𝚠 𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚊𝚝 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚓𝚘𝚋.

however. it doesn’t stop there. which is what i will be discussing next. 

𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐋 𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘. das rechenende Denken is what hei/degger - but also the mar/xist frankfurter school of philosophy - labeled as the greatest ill of modernity. the devil wears prada is, in part a movie about instrumental rationality, which is the mode of thought that has emerged together with the advancement of science. it is a mode of reasoning that focuses on the most effective means to an end. 

𝙰𝙽𝙳𝚈: 𝚒… 𝚒 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍𝚗'𝚝 𝚍𝚘 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚍𝚒𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚗𝚒𝚐𝚎𝚕, 𝚖𝚒𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚊. 𝚒 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍𝚗'𝚝 𝚍𝚘 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝.

𝙼𝙸𝚁𝙰𝙽𝙳𝙰: 𝚖𝚖. 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚊𝚕𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚢 𝚍𝚒𝚍. 𝚝𝚘 𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚕𝚢.

these betrayals are part of the industry. they are part of instrumental reason - a mode of rationality that has little regard for morality or nigel’s feelings, but only for the outcome. the weberian iron cage dominates. the violence of authenticity in part tied to the iron cage of instrumental reason. one wonders how authentic that individualist conception of authenticity is. 

𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐈𝐂𝐄. another heavy emphasis is laid on choice: 

𝙰𝙽𝙳𝚈: 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝'𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚒… 𝚗𝚘, 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜… 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚍𝚒𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚝. 𝚒 𝚍𝚒𝚍𝚗'𝚝 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚊 𝚌𝚑𝚘𝚒𝚌𝚎.

𝙼𝙸𝚁𝙰𝙽𝙳𝙰: 𝚘𝚑, 𝚗𝚘, 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚌𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚎. 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚌𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚐𝚎𝚝 𝚊𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚍. 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚠𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎, 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚎 𝚌𝚑𝚘𝚒𝚌𝚎𝚜 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚌𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚊𝚛𝚢.

choice is fundamental in existential philosophy as it affirms human freedom. the Entwurf, the design can never be realized by someone else. one has to develop authentic life for themselves - Jemeinigkeit: authenticity is an authenticity that is personal, and that has to be realized in one’s own existence. however, for hei/degger the facticity of our human existence and the risk of Verfallen into an average existence or Durschnittlichkeit are omnipresent. They taint the Entwurf. for s/artre however, freedom is radicalized. existence precedes essence: who we are precedes what we are. our choices define our existence. and as we are doomed to human freedom, we have to make choices. andy tries to avoid these - representing the existentialist mauvaise foi, whereas miranda takes full responsibility for them. however, they become meaningless. 

𝙽𝙸𝙶𝙴𝙻:   𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎𝚜 𝚒 𝚌𝚊𝚗'𝚝 𝚋𝚎𝚕𝚒𝚎𝚟𝚎 𝚒 𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚔 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚌𝚛𝚊𝚙 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚍𝚊𝚢.

existentialism fails to recognize crucial issues because nothing is important anymore. the choice of having steak for lunch over pasta becomes as important as say, the choice to save someone from imminent death or not. a larger horizon is needed. which is conspicuously absent . authenticity becomes inauthentic easily enough .

𝐒𝐄𝐗𝐔𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘. with all this being out of the way, i want to briefly go over miranda’s sexual orientation vis à vis the fact she has been in the closet her whole life and will likely continue to remain so.  important to recognize, in the case of existentialism, is that there is no prior authentic essence to be uncovered. one does not first sit down and ponder on what is the most authentic mode of life for them, but one simply chooses. and because of the choice one makes as a free human, one is authentic. an existentialist culture of authenticity pushed to the extreme has as its consequence that sexual orientation too is also merely a choice. and paradoxically enough, because of this culture of authenticity, miranda’s choices for ‘this life’ involve choices that are inauthentic, that are part of hei/degger’s Verfallen. because of this, there’s that creeping existential Angst that permeates her life, her sense of not being whole, of not having realised the Entwurf fully.

K11: Humanoid Woman – Part II

According to Wikipedia, the Humanoid Woman cut of this movie removed what was considered to be ‘Soviet Propaganda’.  I find myself skeptical.  If you removed all the Soviet propaganda from this movie there’d be no movie left.

When I reviewed The Stone Flower, one of Aleksandr Ptushko’s non-MST3K movies, I remarked that it was very Soviet in its concern with class.  The Ptushko movies that did end up on the Satellite of Love had similar undertones, what with Sadko stripping the nobles of their wealth to redistribute it among the poor, and the leaderless paradise that is the society of Kalevala.  Per Aspera ad Astra doesn’t explore ideas of class and property the way Sadko or The Stone Flower did, but it’s very Soviet nonetheless.  It provides us with a rather fascinating and sometimes hilarious view into how people in the USSR saw westerners.

I seriously doubt any of the many American movies about communists as soul-less machines ever made it past the Iron Curtain, at least not before Glastnost, but Per Aspera ad Astra comes across as an answer to them nonetheless.  One of the major themes of the film is the importance of emotions, particularly compassion, which is presented as an integral part of the human (Soviet) psyche.  When Niya is first found, some sort of scientific council debates what to do with her.  Sergei offers to take her home with him.  Dr. Ivanova argues that she should be locked up, because she is dangerous, but Sergei finds this unacceptable.  As a sentient being she should not be kept in a cage, and as the last of her kind he fears she will die of loneliness.  His home is the perfect place to open her up, to allow her to recover her traumatic memories in a safe and supportive environment.

When we meet the multi-generational Lebedev family, they turn out to be a close and caring little community.  They’re a far cry from Beulah’s brainwashed minions or the music-less, humour-less followers of the Perfect Order.  These are warm, loving human beings – even the actual robot has a certain amount of personality to him, despite his refrigerator-like appearance. Furthermore, this compassion and warmth are gender-neutral.  It is Sergei who feels for Niya’s loneliness and takes her home with him, and his son Stepan who comes to love her like a sister and is sorry to leave her at the end.  The spaceship crew on Dessa run out and dance in the rain when they succeed in cleaning up a patch of the planet, laughing and singing like fools.  Emotion in this world is human, not male or female.

Contrast this with the portrayal of the Dessans, the movie’s capitalists.  Their world is barren and lifeless, and the people are slaves to corporate interests that care only about profit.  The destruction of their planet has rendered profit itself pretty much meaningless – what can you buy when there’s nothing there? Characters like Turanchox the gas mask tycoon pursue it anyway, considering money to be its own reward. Ordinary Dessans resent having to buy their very survival but feel powerless to do anything about it – and they don’t trust the humans to help because of the propaganda fed them by their corporate overlords.  Turanchox actively works against the survival of his planet, because he’d rather be rich and dead than broke and alive (amusingly enough, Turanchox is a rich ugly man who makes weird faces when he talks – the Donald Trump School of Movie Villainy is a truly global phenomenon!).

There’s a notable gender bias in the Dessan society, too – all the Dessans whose faces we see are male.  This is never commented upon but it does contrast with the prominence of women among the humans.  It also contrasts with Niya’s little family of clones.  Their creator made an equal number of males and females, whom Niya refers to as her brothers and sisters.  The purified world he imagined was an egalitarian one, too.

If the first half of the film is telling a western audience that communists are not the emotionless drones we imagine them to be, then the second half is telling us what we look like to them: soul-less slaves to work and profit, incapable of even going out in the sun without permission from our evil overlords.  Which, uh… I kind of want to be insulted, but honestly, the last couple of years it’s been hard to argue with that.

Another way in which the movie seems to be an answer to western propaganda is in its use of the idea of mind control.  This is something a lot of highly-placed people the US worried about in the 60s and 70s, and tried to come up with ways to counter.  Evidently the Soviets had some concerns, too, because both sides in Per Aspera ad Astra attempt to use mind control – and intriguingly, both fail.  The control circuit in Niya’s brain allows various people to control her actions at various times, but never to a wholly successful conclusion.

After discovering the control circuit, Dr. Ivanova uses it to spy on Niya and to keep her from hurting Selena, who has said some unkind things to her.  Technically, this works: Niya is unable to harm the other woman.  However, Niya herself is so distraught by the experience of being taken over by an outside force that she attempts suicide.  Later, when the humans ship she has stowed away on comes near the Dessan vessel where Niya was found, an automatic device on board calls her back, and she teleports there only to nearly die of exposure to vacuum. Finally, on Dessa itself, Turanchox tries to use the device to force her to set off a bomb.  She is able to break free of his control and resist him.  The ultimate lesson of all this seems to be that mind control is not how you go about changing the world.  People will not change unless they want to change.

Other parts of Per Aspera ad Astra suggest that Soviets in the 70s and 80s saw westerners as victims in a very similar way to how we saw them – at least, there are striking correspondences between the presentation here of the Dessans and how, say, It Conquered the World saw Beulah’s victims.  The Dessans whose faces we do not see wear masks – gas masks when they’re outdoors, but creepy Michael-Myers-y face masks even when they’re inside.  This is useful to the plot, as it allows the bad guys to act without identifying themselves to witnesses, but it also speaks to a lack of individuality. Just as Beulah’s slaves lose all personality and the people of Planet Terra all agree on everything, the people of Dessa all look alike, all slaves to a bigger system with no concept of themselves as anything but cogs in it.

Also in both cases, the opposing point of view is considered a disease.  In Stranded in Space, Benedict explicitly talked about Stryker in those terms.  In Per Aspera ad Astra, Dr. Ivanova tells Niya that the Dessans are ill, that their minds are asleep.  The difference is that where Benedict believed that Stryker had to be locked up or killed (just as Peter Graves did for those in Beulah’s thrall), Ivanova insists that the Dessans can be cured.  She says that the Earthlings must wake them up, make them see the truth.  We have to cure them, not hate them.  This is probably the thing that most makes me think this film feels like an answer to American cold war movies.  You think we need to die, it seems to say, while we only want to help you.

Both Graves and the characters in Stranded in Space spoke of the idea of bloody revolution with fear and contempt.  Revolution is an important part of communist ideology and since the story presents the necessity of some kind of revolution on Dessa, one might expect Niya and the humans to lead one.  Yet the movie, through its characters, speaks up against it instead.  Niya talks at one point about saving the planet by force, taking only the healthiest of the children and letting the ill and the old die to make way for a new world, but one of her crew-mates chides her for it, telling her that nobody wants a world stained with blood.

There’s a lot of stuff here I agree with, albeit in a qualified way. Unregulated capitalism does give free reign to assholes and allow a lot of environmental destruction, but the USSR was not exactly a bastion of green economy, either, so there’s an unpleasant hypocrisy to the whole theme. Nor is anything I’ve discussed above remotely subtle.  There’s something about preachy and condescending movies that just pisses me off, even when I do agree with them.  I liked District 9 as a movie.  Avatar was very pretty.  Yet both of them just make me want to grind my teeth because they’re the film equivalent of those facebook memes that say “share if you’re a decent human, ignore if you’re a Nazi!”

It is possible to tell these stories in a way that isn’t patronizing.  Wall-E did it, and maybe Russian version of Per Aspera ad Astra did so, too – maybe the English translation just wasn’t very good.  I’m filing this one under the same ‘very interesting but not something I’d watch for its own sake’ heading as First Spaceship on Venus.