the contradictions of mass cool
Also, “Disclosure Day” was the worst thing I’ve ever seen...
Earlier this week I filled in as the stylist assistant on a photoshoot and quickly learned A) how inept I am at steaming things under pressure (in fact, I think I actually panic-steamed some creases into the clothes); B) how physically strong one needs to be to succeed in fashion (my fingers, hands and arms were literally sore the next day from juggling hanger-fuls of various garments and constantly rearranging them on the racks); and C) the nurse-esque lady scrolling on her phone and sitting next to the watches is not simply a part of the crew for you to chat up — she is a security guard sent to make absolute sure you do not misplace any of the watches. Living, listening, learning, working on my grip strength.
Between the Kyliefication of the Meta Glasses, Timmy’s Kalshi ad, A24 teaming up with Google DeepMind, and this week’s Cannes Lions convening all the most monetizable personalities with their CMO patrons (though Matt Belloni has some choice words if you’re getting FOMO for that), there’s quite an overwhelm of reminders of culture’s requisite kowtowing to the true corporate powers that be — tech companies, mighty mighty ad spend. After all, one simply can’t achieve any semblance of mass success (much less mass cool) without the bag, at least not in this economy. It’s why the highest compliment you can hand out today is “wow, great marketing,” or why we automatically situate all content within its essential commercial function of brand-building — i.e., to gaze upon an arresting image, to conclude immediately it would make a great ad. Commerce as culture! Long live commerce! (To wit: You won’t believe who I hear is styling Zuckerberg these days. Though perhaps you already know deep within your heart.)
I watched Disclosure Day last week, and it was……..quite possibly one of the worst things I’ve ever seen in a theater? (Mary was right to walk out.) If you don’t believe me and decide you simply must go witness Papa Spiel’s latest, I urge you to bring a little notebook with you and to write down all of the questions you have throughout the movie.
There will be a lot of questions at the start, which is normal; I actually quite liked the in media res style of drop-in because I was excited to see how the movie would then inevitably unfurl its mysteries. They are going to tell us what’s going on, right? Right?? (At one point, Eve Hewes’s character literally warns Josh O’Connor that he’s going to have to explain everything in the next scene. And he still doesn’t really…) By the time you’re still writing down questions 2/3 of the way through the film and realize that Colman Domingo and Colin Firth are still speaking in vague euphemisms, you start to really empathize with Wyatt Russell as the disgruntled normal husband who is as flummoxed as you by Emily Blunt’s midwestern accent ping-ponging endlessly between “mildly southern” to “Minnesotan-vibed.”
I would say “spoilers ahead” except I promise you the following revelations won’t even make sense when experienced in the full context of the movie: So the aliens gave a girl empathy and a boy the power of math? Okay lol. (And that math power does crop circles around you?) So some secret company is just storing a bunch of MP4s dating back to the ‘70s using “world class cybersecurity” but the primary technology at play appears to be a bunch of glassy USB drives? Okay. And the traumatic memory that plagues one of the principal characters (but is not the trauma that provokes a random panic attack earlier, no that’s just an entirely different detail for unrelated lore reasons, don’t worry!) is so horrifically repressed that she can only relive it in the setting of her reconstructed childhood bedroom; however upon revisiting it, this memory appears to not be that big of a deal, and is possibly awesome actually?
How does the special mind-control telepathy stick work, and why can you also use it to turn invisible? Hard to say. Why does it also happen to change your irises to blue from brown? Why did it disintegrate randomly, conveniently? What was Eve Hewson doing for the back ⅓ of the movie except waiting around so she could hand the magic stick back to Josh? Also extremely hard to say. Why did Colman’s character meaningfully warn Colin’s extremely boring villain character against using the stick “too much,” only to have Colin end up pretty much fine? We will never find out. Do you think Emily Blunt’s character decided to name it “Disclosure Day” on whim when she was on camera, or was that part of a larger conversation with the group? What was up with all that vocal fry from the other broadcaster? And how does the world actually react to The News That Is Disclosed once they start watching the live broadcast? IDK, but aren’t all the shots of people staring at their phones around the world united by spectacle just super cool and totally novel to the modern eye??
The ultimate sin of Disclosure Day, I feel, is that whatever energy could have gone into like just five more minutes of world-building was wasted on an admittedly great but ultimately random action scene halfway through that is then immediately despoiled by a character having a panic attack and then being told to touch some piano strings (#touchinggrass?) in order to calm down. We get it, I guess: Art saves us despite the inexplicable? Don’t worry about the rest, kitten.
Quotes to note:
“Families have to make at least $100,000 to afford basic necessities, according to a separate report. And families need to be bringing in at least $334,000 to comfortably afford child care for one toddler, according to the city comptroller’s office.” OH! Well no wonder Mamdani has the mandate of heaven
“The pastels that were ubiquitous a decade ago aimed to reassure an earlier generation that they could use their limited spending power to optimize their lives. Hyper goo does the opposite, reflecting back to Gen Z the distortion of the world in which they are coming of age.” Ok not sure corporate memphis deserves to be read for filth like that but I guess that is what that was all about
“You’re just paying a twenty dollar a month Claude Pro subscription instead of hiring a designer. Is this the modernist world we wanted?” Many such questions!
“The duck lolled in its own gorgeous juices beneath a crown of sliced ginger, meat sliding languidly from the bones.” Fuchsia Dunlop I am forever seated for you and wish you a lifetime of gorgeous juices-lolling meals.
Disclosure day was terrible. I think the most confusing part of the plot (spoilers I guess) was simply the idea that aliens having been around for like 75 years and not having done anything bad would be a big enough revelation that it would stop literally every single person in their tracks and take priority over the WW3 news story that preceded it?? Like I don't think I would care THAT much? And the religion bit--the idea that monotheism would be destroyed as a concept if aliens exist is...stupid.