Here's an idea-- "Kill La Kill" is a warning
about wearable technology.
Like milk in the sun, this episode will spoil.
So you have been warned-- spoilers ahead. "Kill La
Kill" is an anime series where the main character, Ryuko
Matoi, arrives at Honnoji Academy searching
for her father's murderer.
The Academy is effectively presided over
by the student council and their stoic leader, Lady Satsuki.
Student council members and club leaders
wear Goku uniforms, which are outfits made with life fibers--
extraterrestrial beings that feed on the wearer,
but in turn, alter their DNA, imparting intense power
and ability-- things like weird, strappy arms
and flying band practice.
Goku uniforms are ranked.
The highest common rank is the three-star uniform,
which is worn by the elite four of the student council,
and they're made with 30% life fiber.
All of this contributes to a very rigid class system
at the academy.
The students who wear normal, fiberless clothes
are the lowest class, while the one, two, and three-star Goku
uniform wearers out-rank their subordinates
in both dress and physical and mental ability.
Because remember, person plus life fiber equals ability.
Ryuko and Lady Satsuki, on the other hand,
wear Kamui-- suits which are made entirely from life fiber
and are essentially sentient clothing.
Now, if this is your introduction
to "Kill La Kill," at this point,
you probably have some questions.
And usually, question number one is something along the lines
of, OK, so I get that the clothing is sentient.
But is it, technically speaking, clothing?
Good point.
"Kill La Kill" has lots of fan service
and somewhat downright troubling scenes
at the start of the series.
And this is a really big topic of conversation.
Is this warrantless over-sexualization?
Is it a depiction of the weaponization of femininity?
Is it empowering or just disgusting?
These are incredibly important and super interesting questions
that we are just going to skip right over.
Links to people who have done them
great justice in the doobly do, though.
To discuss the other oft-confronted inspiration
for KLK's style-- fascism.
The power structure, Goku uniforms, and all the pageantry
surrounding the student council all
look like they were pulled from the fascism
for beginners handbook.
And just so we're on the same page here,
fascism is a political doctrine where the state
is given priority above all.
Fascists promise national glory while violently
oppressing those who dare question their authority.
Fascist states are often governed
by charismatic leaders, prioritize war
and military action, and encourage ultra-nationalism.
That ultra-nationalism is often expressed
as a kind of indulgence-- lots of celebration and ceremony,
symbolism, and iconography, things signifying prestige
and honor, even though, generally, fascists
are warmongering monsters and are widely
regarded as the worst people in history
for very, very good reasons.
Theorist Walter Benjamin even referred
to fascism as the aestheticization of politics
in his essay "The Work of Art in the Age
of Mechanical Reproduction."
He wrote that fascism sees its salvation
in giving these masses not their right, but instead,
a chance to express themselves.
The logical result of fascism, then,
is the introduction of aesthetics into political life.
Furthermore, all efforts to render politics aesthetic
culminate in one thing, Benjamin says-- war.
Which is essentially the starting premise of "Kill La
Kill--" masses of students stuck inside a rigid system
with plenty of ability to express themselves-- mostly
through club choice, it would seem--
but who are ultimately conscripted by the student
government into the literally violent maintenance
of the status quo.
Ryuko then shows up to cut the whole thing down,
literally and metaphorically.
And literally again, because she has a giant half a scissors.
The show's premise is likely at least partially
inspired by the fact that cut, kill, and wear
all sound similar in Japanese, as do fashion and fascism.
So this is like some Raymond Rousell-level
how I wrote a certain of my anime series.
It even opens with a classroom lesson on fascism,
literally-- just literally this time.
But all this talk about KLK and fascism and fashion
leaves out one thing, which Benjamin also touches upon
in the work of art.
He writes that the destructiveness of war
furnishes proof that society has not been mature enough
to incorporate technology as its organ,
that technology has not been sufficiently
developed to cope with the elemental forces of society.
The clothing, the life fibers, Goku uniforms, Kamui,
and all the power-granting garb in "Kill La Kill"
is not simply aesthetic or ornament or signifier.
It's also technology-- wearable technology.
I know, I know-- Goku uniforms are not a computer or sensor
or whatever.
But that's also a very narrow concept
of technology, which isn't just stuff that blinks.
It's the total set of applied knowledge
that we use to accomplish things.
Life fibers might be a living organism,
but they are used as a technology--
the result of applied knowledge that allow its users to behave
more effectively in the world.
And so assuming you're still on this long walk with me,
there is a question that I think KLK poses, which is is there
a risk that wearable technology could contribute
to some dystopian class nightmare,
like what happened at Honnoji Academy?
Or to put it in Benjamin's terms,
is society mature enough to incorporate technology
as its organ-- perhaps now a little bit more
literally than Benjamin intended-- without it turning
into some kind of disaster?
Well, let's just come out and say
that Google Glass is probably not
going to cause some kind of uber-dystopian techno-fascist
cyber future.
Probably.
But lots of wearable technology is conspicuous.
It works as its own advertisement,
because it is on your body, which
other people interact with.
So it's easy to see that conspicuousness
as a kind of willful demonstration of status.
And technology, like Glass, does allow
people to act more effectively in the world--
to know, see, do, and access more than the unequipped.
Which is awesome and easy to celebrate, and maybe we should.
But perhaps "Kill La Kill's" lesson
is that the crazily-increased agency we experience when
the space between ourselves and our technology
collapses to almost nothing is an effect of some much
larger system or set of intentions and agents
that doesn't or don't necessarily
hold the interests of its subjects
in the highest regard, which is an arrangement that we are not
strangers to by any means, but maybe
takes on a new level of importance
now that bodies-- literally and directly-- are involved.
And for the record, I'm not saying
that "Kill La Kill" is advocating any kind
of technological abstinence.
At the end of the series, the bad guys
are defeated only because of a symbiosis
between body-augmenting clothing and its wearer-- a balance,
as they put it, between wearing and being worn.
Of course, this raises all kinds of questions
about who has the agency in the relationship between humanity
and technology.
But as a common theme on Idea Channel,
I'm sure that you're prepared to mull that one over yourself
for a while.
I guess all I'm saying is that we should be careful,
because I don't want one of us to have to go to space
to disable the thing so that the social fabric uniting us
is no longer hijacked by some parasitic force working
in concert with a global megacorporation.
That's all I'm saying.
And if that doesn't make any sense, I wouldn't be surprised.
Not making sense is kind of our thing.
What do you guys think?
Is "Kill La Kill" some kind of warning
against wearable technology?
Let us know in the comments.
And if you want to join the Idea Channel club, please subscribe.
I don't know what our Goku uniforms would look like.
Maybe something like a Borgesian kind of library,
sort of like if Project Gutenberg
were infinite and clothes.
A noble spirit embiggens even the shortest
Idea Channel comment.
Let's see what media you guys love.
OK.
So first things first-- last week's episode
was clearly a little bit different
from what we normally do.
So to everybody who had very nice things to say about it,
thank you.
It really means a lot.
When we do something different, it sometimes
feels a little risky, and it's nice to be encouraged.
So thanks.
And two more short things of business
before get on to actual comments--
we were nominated for a Streamy, so that is super exciting.
And we are in great company with Our Second Life and Jerry
Seinfeld and Shay Carl.
And it's-- that's cool.
And we're going to start taking comments from the subreddit.
So if you want to leave comments in the subreddit,
you can do that, and I will read them,
and I'll may read or respond to maybe two a week.
We'll see.
We'll see how this works.
We're going to try this out.
Link in the dooby do.
Sketchbook Short Films writes a really awesome love letter
to Pokemon, which is just-- it's very good.
And it really makes me think-- Pokemon
is such a great candidate for this kind of media,
because right there is this idea of battling
against the world, of collecting.
And there are these Pokemon that stay
with you throughout your entire experience of the game.
And this-- yeah.
This was awesome.
Thank you for writing this and for sharing it.
dssssada writes about "Quantum Leap"
being the piece of media that shaped
their view of the world in a significant way,
and I can totally see this.
I watched a lot of "Quantum Leap."
And I think it's really easy, especially
when you're young, to see "Quantum Leap" as something
of-- like providing a moral compass.
Sam's whole thing is righting these little wrongs.
And so it has this very moral backbone to it,
and it provides you ways to navigate these situations when
you see them in your life, which-- yeah,
being young and impressionable, watching "Quantum Leap,"
you feel it.
srpilha writes a really great comment
about how the Pixies played an important role-- and not
just the band, but a specific cassette,
like a specific object containing their music.
And I think this is really interesting,
and maybe-- I don't know if this is uncommon.
Because I think about when I first
started listening to The Dismemberment Plan,
I placed a lot of value on their record
"Emergency and I," but not the specific disc,
even though it is a thing that is older than most
other objects I own and actually was,
itself, really influential.
But it's the music that I place the importance on
and not the thing, which is-- this
is something I'm going to have to think about.
This is a really great comment and a really great distinction
between object and media.
Thank you for writing us.
Mrs. Roxy Girl 333 talks about how her love of K pop
has led her not only to adjust and become involved in the K
pop fandom, but also Korean culture as a, maybe,
secondary affect of a love of this media, which I can only
see as a really awesome thing-- this growing
understanding of other cultures through their media
that you love.
So that's great.
To James Dickinson, thank you very much.
And it was no mistake that Jack Gilbert, who
is one of my favorite poets, was used in this episode about one
of my favorite TV shows.
For anybody who wants poetry to read, please,
Jack Gilbert's "The Great Fires" is one of the greatest
things ever written by man.
It's so good.
lunarbladestudios talks about how "Dragon Ball Z" has had
a positive effect on his life.
And I was actually just thinking yesterday
about how Goku might be one of the most fundamentally good
characters in all of media.
He's just a good person.
So yeah, I totally see it.
And lunarbladestudios, I'm glad you found DBZ.
To Sensor Glitch, me not put this comment on the show.
That's unpossible.
This week's episode was brought to you
by the hard work of these co-presidents of the Video
Editing Club.
We have a Facebook and IRC and a subreddit, which remember,
you can now leave comments on, and they may or may not
end up in the show.
I will be responding to maybe two from the subreddit
every week.
And the tweet of the week comes from melvillean,
who has made a Spotify playlist of as many of the records
he could find that were featured on our wall.
So that's exciting.
Plenty of listening.
So there's no record swap this week.
Everybody made really awesome suggestions last week,
some which I took, so there are records
on the way to replace the last two that need to be replaced.
So as repayment for there not being a record swap,
here is me getting a bunch of ice dumped on my head.
Guess what next week's video is about?
What could it be?
It's actually kind of pleasant.
So that was pretty cool is a sentence that I
feel like I'm required to say.
So I donated to the ALS foundation.
I'm also going to up my Patreon contributions
over the next couple of months.
And I'm not going to challenge anyone specific, just
anybody watching this-- if you have been thinking
about supporting something and you are waiting
for a reason or an excuse to do it, use this as your excuse.
Give $100 or whatever you can afford to a thing that makes
you happy and proud to support.