Episode 92: Transcript
Episode: 92: How to imagine the next political uprising
Transcription by Keffy
Charlie Jane: [00:00:00] Welcome to Our Opinions Are Correct, a podcast about science fiction, science, and this confusing, weird simulation that we call life. I'm Charlie Jane Anders, the author of Never Say You Can't Survive, a brand new writing advice manual, and also the young adult space fantasy Victories Greater Than Death.
Annalee: [00:00:23] And I'm Annalee Newitz. I'm the author of a new book about discoveries in archaeology called Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age.
Charlie Jane: [00:00:32]Today, we're going to be talking about activism. Speculative fiction has a lot to say about activism, and many of our favorite authors and creators right now are making intensely political stories about the nature of resistance.
[00:00:45] In today's show, we're going to be talking about one classic TV show that deals with activism in a really interesting way. And then later in the episode, we'll be talking to Claire Light, aka Jadie Jang, about the role of activism in her brand new novel, Monkey Around.
[00:01:03] And also for our Patreon supporters. We'll be talking about Tuca and Bertie in our audio extra next week. Speaking of which, did you know that our patrons get audio extras after every episode? Yeah! Plus essays, reviews and access to our Discord channel. It's all amazing. And it can all be yours for just a few bucks a month. This podcast that you're listening to right now is entirely supported by you, the listener, so anything you give us goes right back into helping us to keep our opinions entirely correct.
[00:01:38] So we're gonna take a little break, and then we'll be back with Blake’s 7.
[00:01:41] OOAC theme music plays: Drums with a bass drop and more science fictional bells and percussion.
Charlie Jane: [00:02:09] So, I'm a longtime fan of Blake’s 7, and it just finally came to streaming in the United States, for the first time ever, on the streaming service, BritBox. Basically, this is the first time that the show has been available to watch legally in the United States, since it was on PBS in the ‘80s, and maybe early ‘90s. There also were these Canadian VHS tapes that you could kind of get as bootleg imports if you knew a guy, but basically, it's been impossible to find for a long, long time. So right now is the first time that many people are going to have a chance to watch this incredibly influential, game changing space opera that ran from 1978 to 1981 in the UK.
Annalee: [00:02:55] It's so amazing. I think one of the very first conversations that you and I ever had was about Blake’s 7, and I'd never heard of it because as you said, it had never come to the States. It just wasn't that well known outside of the UK. And I believe I've been watching it illegally.
Charlie Jane: [00:03:12] I mean, you know.
Annalee: [00:03:13] And I'm excited that now I can pay to watch it legally because it really is a terrific gem. There's just nothing like it. So why don't you start by just giving us the thumbnail of what it's about. Tell us the world of Blake and his seven.
Charlie Jane: [00:03:31] First of all, I just want to say how incredibly grateful and blessed I feel that you did not run away screaming when I tried to talk to you about Blake’s 7 early on in our acquaintanceship.
Annalee: [00:03:38] Wow, hashtag blessed, hashtag Blake’s 7. Two hashtags that have never appeared next to each other ever.
Charlie Jane: [00:03:45] I just, you know, a lot of people this is a sign of our amazing bond that we're still—
Annalee: [00:03:49] It’s a sign of quality that I you know, in your taste. I think.
Charlie Jane: [00:03:56] Yeah, so.
Annalee: [00:03:55] And it is true that you you did force me to watch the pilot, which involves a lot of intense brainwashing scenes. So thanks for that.
Charlie Jane: [00:04:04] I mean, you know. That’s good. So okay, Blake’s 7.
[00:04:09] Blake’s 7 theme plays.
Charlie Jane: [00:04:17] This TV show that was the brainchild of Terry Nation, who's probably still best known as the inventor of the Daleks.
Annalee: [00:04:25] Hell yeah.
Charlie Jane: [00:04:25] Doctor Who’s most famous villains and so he wanted to create another, his own science fiction show. Blake’s 7 is about a dystopian future, where the galaxy is ruled by a kind of an evil, corrupt Federation, that among other things, drugs and mind controls its subjects and it's constantly trying to take over more independent planets. And basically it is a dark Orwellian mirror version of the Federation from Star Trek if the Federation was just completely evil and corrupt and exploitative.
[00:04:59] So the main character of this show is a guy named Roj Blake. He's a revolutionary who has previously tried to fight against the Federation but they caught him. They killed his family. He's been brainwashed and they’ve tried to turn him into just an obedient citizen, but then the brainwashing fails. So they convict him on trumped up charges and send him on a prison ship on route to a prison planet. But Blake turns things around. He teams up with some of his fellow prisoners from the prison ship. And they launched a new campaign to fight back against the Federation onboard this amazing stolen alien starship called the Liberator.
Annalee: [00:05:42] So I love that premise because immediately I'm sucked in as someone who is always invested in revolutionaries and insurrections. And, I'm curious about why such an anti-authoritarian show was so influential and popular. This is the 1980s in England. So this is the Thatcher era, right?
Charlie Jane: [00:06:07] I know.
Annalee: [00:06:08] So, why did it become so influential?
Charlie Jane: [00:06:11] I think it is kind of this counter narrative to a lot of space opera, especially space opera of the time, which was so rah rah. If you watch it opposite, either the original Star Trek or Star Trek: The Next Generation, which are very, like gentle and friendly, we're doing our best, we're doing the right thing. Our giant space armada is actually a force for good in the universe. And a lot of space opera is kind of a way of thinking about imperialism and settler colonialism in a kind of benign, gentle way that kind of glosses over some of the ugly parts of it, or the ugly core of it, I would say. And I feel like Blake’s 7 just unflinchingly looks at what probably a galactic empire or Federation would really be like, which is just like most empires throughout history, horrible unless you're one of the chosen few.
[00:07:10] And also, Blake’s 7 was hugely influential for a bunch of reasons. It was very heavily serialized, especially the second season is extremely serialized, when most TV shows were just episode of the week, like standalone episodes. Even TNG later on mostly was standalone episodes with the occasional blip. And it's the first to really take this kind of arc-based serious storytelling very seriously. Like, in the second season, Blake is searching for this central computer that controls the Federation that he thinks he can destroy to bring the Federation to its knees and he goes on this quest that has twists and turns, but it's very consistently about this thing.
[00:07:51] It's also just a lot darker and more complex than pretty much any media science fiction from the era. And it's willing to kill off major characters in startling, dramatic ways and explores very complicated questions about the ethics of revolution. It doesn't just go, “Yay, we're fighting the bad guys. It's great!” It kind of asks what the cost of revolution is, and the right way to go about revolution.
[00:08:18] And another reason why the show remains iconic and influential is this one character Avon, who is… he's a computer hacker. He's kind of a dark, cynical, bitter. A little bit of a, he's just kind of a rogue. And he becomes Blake's right hand man, and he's always spouting these incredibly quotable lines, about how he's only out for himself, and we're all just alone, and nobody can ever trust anybody. And he's spawned a million imitations, including, I would argue, characters like Tyrion Lannister.
[00:08:54] And the very palpable sexual tension between Blake and Avon has spawned so much homoerotic fanfiction or slashfic and has become one of the greats homoerotic tense relationships of sci fi.
Annalee: [00:09:12] It's one of the first ships to set sail from the good continent, sci fi.
Charlie Jane: [00:09:17] You know, Kirk and Spock were like the OG kind of two dudes who clearly want to bone. And then I think Blake and Avon, they just smolder at each other.
Annalee: [00:09:28]They really do. We were watching an episode last night, actually. And there's this great scene where they're about to go after that central control computer. And Blake is trying to get everybody on board with him and Avon is sort of sitting off in the corner smoldering in his weird latex outfit. And Blake sits down next to him on the sofa to have a special conversation. The first thing that Blake does is he bites his finger in this really like sexy way. And Avon kind of twitches his lips and I'm just like what? What is even happening here?
[00:10:02] So I think that it's super interesting that this is a story that seems really like a commentary on the Federation in Star Trek, like you said. It’s kind of a reaction against that. But instead of taking the easy way out and just sort of like doing the Firefly thing of inverting it and saying like, oh, well, this time the Federation is bad and the good guys are the revolutionaries. Instead, even the revolutionaries, Blake and his team, have all these moral gray areas. And so, I mean, to go back to something that you said a little bit earlier, I'm curious, like, what does the show say about the ethics of revolution? How does it deal with that question?
Charlie Jane: [00:10:42] Yeah, I mean, I think it's really significant that Blake is mostly not working with other career revolutionaries in the show. He's working with convicted criminals, many of whom are just kind of out for themselves, the way Avon very vocally is. Part of what's lovely about the show is that he does kind of win them over. And pretty much everybody except for Avon, pretty quickly becomes a committed revolutionary. And we glimpse these other revolutionary groups that are out, there that are kind of like all these people who are Occupy Federation or Occupy, you know, some random planet. But mostly, it's about Blake and his crew trying to navigate this on their own.
[00:11:17] One of the main arcs of the first couple of seasons is that Blake slowly compromises his principles in the name of revolution. And I just recently re-watched the second episode of the series, “Space Fall,”and spoilers. And, by the way, there will be minor spoilers in this episode, I should have said up front. We're not going to give away like huge things that happen. But in “Space Fall,” there's a moment where Blake basically has a choice between sacrificing some of the people who've chosen to follow him, or winning this standoff that he has with these guards. And he chooses to surrender his advantage to save his people, because he's like, I'm not gonna throw anybody's life away for my cause.
[00:12:00] And by season two, he is very much willing to throw people's lives away for his cause. Early in season two, again, minor spoilers, he tries to make an alliance with these drug lords whose drug is basically one of those science fictional drugs that is so addictive and so lethal that anybody who takes it is just condemned to death. And Blake is like, I will work with these people if I have to, because that's how I'm going to get an advantage against the Federation.
[00:12:29] Later on, he's trying to get this computer system, he's trying to capture this control computer, and people point out to him, you know, this computer doesn't just control the Federation's space military. It also controls environmental systems and other things like that on hundreds of planets. If you destroy this computer, there will be mass starvation. And Blake is like, it's a sacrifice we have to make. And he is increasingly willing to risk the lives of his crew in worse and worse ways in more and more doomed ways that eventually do bite him in the ass. Because he's like, the revolution requires sacrifices. And this is definitely very sobering for any of those of us who want to fight against oppression, because it is very much like, be careful that you don't become, I don't want to say as bad as the people you're fighting, because the people he's fighting are incredibly bad, but that you don't become your own kind of special monster in the name of this fight.
[00:13:25] At the same time, Blake’s 7 keeps finding little ways to show how to a bunch of ordinary people living in within the Federation, they see the Federation is this benign, civilizing force. There are certainly huge pockets of life within the Federation that are very comfortable and very kind of friendly. And there are people who refuse to believe that the Federation could ever be bad, who are you know, living in the heart of it. And not unlike people who are living in the United States today, they just, it's very easy to not be aware of the bad things that are being done in your name, by your government.
[00:14:03] And part of Blake's problem is that his solution to this is always violence, it's always destruction. And he does become this kind of legendary freedom fighter that a lot of people look up to, but at the same time, he's never able to counteract this benevolent image that the Federation has with its own citizens.
Annalee: [00:14:22] Yeah, I mean, there's so much nuance in the show. And I feel like, again, not to give away a spoiler, but I feel like the Federation is often kind of two steps ahead of Blake in terms of managing its image. And there's a lot of episodes which we sort of feel like Blake is about to really make some strides and then it kind of, I mean, I want to say it goes in the direction of like, Black Mirror-ish feelings. And it also reminds me a little bit sometimes of The Prisoner where it's like, you feel like they're right about to get to the thing and then it's like actually, we totally fooled you and in fact, you thought you were going after this target but it's something that we set up to mess with you.
[00:15:07] And so there's like a strand of nihilism in the show, or… so do you feel like it's a show that that is a little bit like Black Mirror in that it kind of wallows in nastiness, or do you think that there's something else there?
Charlie Jane: [00:15:21] I think that it's a show that, like you said, is very nuanced. It rejects easy kind of nihilism as much as it rejects the kind of rah rah, the heroes always win, everything's always great. It rejects both of those things. It's one of those shows that, I think part of why people keep coming back to it is that it has more questions than answers. It doesn't ever give you an easy answer to any of these questions. But you know, at the same time, like I said, you have this crew of criminals who are mostly like, they've seen the worst that the universe has to offer. They're all incredibly cynical, and bitter and kind of broken. But Blake inspires them. And we see that over and over again. And we talk endlessly on this show and in our lives, I feel like about, quote, unquote, “chosen family,” I feel like this show is one of the OG chosen family stories. It's very much about how these outcasts and rebels and losers become a family and how they band together and even when Blake isn't there, they're still kind of upholding his banner, and they're still trying to kind of make a difference. And you really care about these characters, and what happens to them, even when they're making horrible mistakes and being terrible people, because they're fundamentally kind of lovable, and they clearly care about each other.
[00:16:41] And, to return to the character of Avon, who, I think he starts out as a side character. And this is kind of not really a spoiler. But as with many things of this nature, like just how Spock becomes kind of in many ways, the main character of Star Trek, Avon becomes the main character of Blake’s 7, and he clearly takes over the show at certain points. And in every episode, he gives these beautiful speeches about how he's only out for himself, you can never really count on other people. We're all alone. Trusting other people is a mistake. And then the show demonstrates over and over again, that Avon is wrong, and that he kind of knows fundamentally deep down that he's wrong. And there's this wonderful moment in the episode “Horizon” from season two, where Avon really tries to convince himself that he can go it alone.
Blake’s 7 Clip: [00:17:29] I do not need Blake. I do not need any of the others.
Is that a question?
I do not need anybody at all.
Is that a question? I must ask you to be more specific.
Shut up.
Charlie Jane: [00:17:42] And what's great about that scene is that Blake has always been very careful not to leave Avon alone on the ship, because he suspects that if Avon is alone on the Liberator, their starship, Avon will just take the ship and leave everybody else to die. Because that's who Avon is, or that's who Avon keeps saying he is. And here's Avon being like, very methodically, but also clearly struggling with this, saying, “Okay, well, if I'm the person I say I am, I have to leave my friends to die now.” And he almost does, and it's a spoiler as to why he doesn't.
[00:18:15] But in the end, by the final season, it's very clear that Avon has survived by depending on other people. And the layers of his character keep getting peeled away. And we realize that his quote, unquote, “loner” facade was always kind of partially a lie. The most important line in the entire run of the show is when Blake finally says to Avon, “I have always trusted you from the beginning.” And by the final season, it's Avon, who is trying to build alliances to fight against the Federation. He has recognized that he can't do it alone and that the crew, his crew can't do it alone. And they need to team up with as many other people as possible to form a united front against their common enemy and to fight oppression.
[00:19:01] Obviously, something very shocking happens in the final episode to kind of upend that. But Avon does a 180 over the course of the series. And I think that's part of the message of the show is you can't do this alone. We're not alone. We have to band together.
Annalee: [00:19:14] I love that so much. I love Avon’s character. I mean, not just because he's a smokin hot hacker boy, but also I really buy his character arc. And actually, as you were talking about his shift in perspective, I kept thinking about a cheesy show that we love, Andromeda from 2000, which has a very, I think, Avon-influenced character—
Charlie Jane: [00:19:37] Oh yeah. I bet.
Annalee: [00:19:37] Tyr. And Tyr is the ultimate libertarian, and every time they're gonna—
Charlie Jane: [00:19:46] He’s a Nietzschean.
Annalee: [00:19:46] Right, he's a Nietzschean, exactly. And, he’s always—
Charlie Jane: [00:19:49] Where are the Hegelians in that universe?
Annalee: [00:19:50] I mean, the Hegelians are on another ship, okay. They're like they're on the Good Ship Dialectics. So, but Kevin Sorbo who's like the captain of the ship is always having to like convince Tyr to do shit in the same way that Blake is always convincing Avon because he has to show, well this is in your self interest to do this selfless thing right?
[00:20:14] And so I feel like both of these shows have incorporated the libertarian geek perspective into the show, almost saying like, listen libertarian geeks, we know you're out there, we know you're watching the show. We need to show you why it's better to be like Ted Lasso than it is to be like a lone wolf.
[00:20:37] So now that I've gratuitously brought up Ted Lasso for no reason, why do you think that this show is now coming to the US? Is there a new relevancy? I guess, I don't want you to impute some kind of intentionality to whoever bought the rights to it to bring it to the US. But do you think that now that it's available in the US, there's something that in our year of 2021, we can be getting out of this show?
Charlie Jane: [00:21:02] Yeah. I mean, first of all, if I had to speculate, I would say that possibly the show is now coming to the US, because all the attempts to reboot it have probably kind of gone on the back burner. And there were a lot of rights struggles, because people were trying to reboot it. And it's a very difficult—
Annalee: [00:21:15] Oh, that’s interesting.
Charlie Jane: [00:21:15] It would be so difficult to reinvent this show now for so many reasons that I could get into. But I think the show does have a new relevancy because we're all in the middle of all these struggles, for social justice against huge implacable forces that seem unstoppable. That seem like these giant monoliths of late stage capitalism and white supremacy, and everything, and patriarchy. And it can be frustrating. It can be exhausting. It’s easy to get burned out trying to make a dent in any of these oppressive structures. And I think what Blake’s 7 ultimately says is that you have to celebrate the small victories, which, over the course of the show, Blake and his crew do achieve a lot of small victories and in the context of the show, often a quote unquote, “small victory” is that they liberated a planet.
[00:22:07] It's like, oh, well, we saved one planet from the Federation, you know, we still have destroyed the Federation, that's not good enough, but we did liberate this planet of millions of people or possibly billions of people.
Annalee: [00:22:18] Yeah, I was going to say, a planet is pretty big, Charlie Jane.
Charlie Jane: [00:22:21] I mean, you know. And so that's the thing. The surface message of Blake’s 7, is a little bit of pessimism about social change. It is this sense of like, you may not see the Federation brought down in your lifetime. And again, we're not going to give spoilers for the overall what happens in the show. But, the show does kind of keep reminding us over and over again, that the Federation is huge, and massive and mighty, and that we're not going to bring it down in our lifetime. We’re not going to see it destroyed.
[00:22:51] But at the same time, the heart of the show, the beating heart of this show is about finding your people and sticking together and cherishing the little victories, like I said. And there are constantly these little moments where we're reminded that, as Blake gives little speeches in every episode, we can't give up, we have to keep fighting. And that as long as we're fighting, there is hope. And that the bond that we form with each other as we fight for justice is an invaluable thing.
[00:23:24] And Blake does become this legendary figure across the galaxy that people would die for, and that people unfortunately do die for. And he becomes a symbol. He becomes a much bigger symbol than he was originally when he was part of this resistance movement on Earth.
[00:23:42] And so, I feel like the final message of the show also, which I think is something we all need to think about, is that as you're fighting against ultimate, horrible, oppressive nastiness, you do need to hold on to run principles and not try to make the kind of shortcuts that Blake tries to make along the way. Because in the end, those things will just, you know, they'll be self destructive and counterproductive.
Annalee: [00:24:06] Yeah, I love that about the show, that it is an unflinching look at how even when you're trying to do the right thing, there are still ethical pitfalls, and that you don't get to just automatically become the good guy because you're against the bad guys.
Charlie Jane: [00:24:23] Yes, absolutely. I couldn't put it better myself. And so we're gonna take a short break. And when we come back, we're gonna be joined by the incredible, the heroic, Claire Light, aka Jadie Jang, author of the brand new novel, Monkey Around.
[00:24:38] OOAC theme music plays: Drums with a bass drop and more science fictional bells and percussion.
Charlie Jane: [00:24:44] If you're enjoying Our Opinions Are Correct, there’s another podcast we think you'll like, too.
Annalee: [00:24:49] It's called Cancel Me, Daddy. It's a show that takes a critical look at all the panic around cancel culture with thoughtful analysis and verbal shitposting
Charlie Jane: [00:24:57] Cancel Me, Daddy is hosted by two Incredible journalists, Katelyn Burns and Oliver-Ash Kleine, who are both hilarious and smart. I've been following Katelyn’s career for a long time now and she's just a fantastic writer and reporter. And Oliver-Ash has been helping to organize the Trans Journalists Association. I love them both. And I've been listening to their show and I've been just loving their irreverent, playful approach to a really intense and kind of upsetting topic.
Annalee: [00:25:25] They see the panic over cancel culture for what it is, a grift. Taking a closer look at these temper tantrums, dispelling myths, laughing at the most outrageous takes, and shedding light on whose voices are actually being left out of the conversation.
Charlie Jane: [00:25:39] You can catch a new episode every other Thursday. Make sure to subscribe to Cancel Me, Daddy right now, wherever you listen to podcasts, or you might get canceled.
[00:25:55] OOAC theme music plays: Drums with a bass drop and more science fictional bells and percussion.
Charlie Jane: [00:25:59] So now we're incredibly lucky to be joined by one of our friends and inspirations Claire Light, aka Jadie Jang. Thanks so much for joining us, Claire.
Claire: [00:26:07] Thanks so much for having me. I'm so glad to be here.
Charlie Jane: [00:26:11] Yeah, I mean, we've both been lucky enough to read a couple of different versions of Monkey Around over the years. And I love the final version. It's such a fun novel. And one of the things that jumps out at me is that it's not just an urban fantasy about shapeshifters and the politics of shapeshifters, but it kind of engages with larger politics as well. And your main character is actually an activist in a bunch of different ways. What made you want to have her be both a shapeshifter and a political revolutionary?
Claire: [00:26:43] Well, one of the things that I wanted to do here was to take urban fantasy, which is one of my favorite genre genres, you know, genres that are restricted by very strict trope sets. And I wanted to bring it into my world.
[00:27:03] One of the tropes that I dislike about urban fantasy, well, two of the tropes that I dislike about urban fantasy. One of them is that it's very white. And the other is that the central character in woman-centered urban fantasy tends to be a cop, a licensed detective, or some kind of supernatural enforcer. So—
Charlie Jane: [00:27:27] Right.
Claire: [00:27:27] Some kind of police, some kind of military, some kind of official sort of enforcer type figure.
Annalee: [00:27:36] A ghostbuster.
Claire: [00:27:36] A ghostbuster. An authority and an authoritarian figure, or a representation of some kind of authority.
Charlie Jane: [00:27:48] So true.
Claire: [00:27:48] And I come from the activist world. I come from the social justice world. And in the Bay Area the social justice continuum is extremely broad, you guys are part of it, as well. And so, you know it’s like a lot of mansions in this particular world. And I'm in the Asian American side of it. And I just really wanted to see that reflected in one of my favorite genres.
[00:28:15] But also, I wanted the flip side. I wanted people who read this genre to sort of be exposed to a completely different political framing of the world. Because when you're looking at the world through the framing of police, or authority, or enforcement, law enforcement, even if you're not intending to, the world falls into a particular line. And if you're looking at the world through the framing of people who are intentionally disrupting government, intentionally disrupting society for good causes, the tropes fall in line behind that as well.
Charlie Jane: [00:28:56] Right?
Annalee: [00:28:57] That's so interesting. I love that idea of having a novel where we're shapeshifting the genre itself, you know, we're kind of going in this other direction. And one of the other things about this novel is that it's actually a historical novel. It's a recent historical novel, and you chose to set it in 2011, during the Occupy protests. And I wonder why you chose that particular period. Why did you want that to be the political backdrop for this story about activism?
Claire: [00:29:27] Well, I wanted it to be very contemporary. I'm planning a series. I'm hoping this will turn into a series. And I wanted the series to be very contemporary and to be about activism today. And for me, I feel like all of the activist movements and we've, in the past decade, we've seen some incredible activist movements in the United States, Black Lives Matter, and No Dakota Access Pipeline and anti-Trump and #MeToo, and all of this stuff. And I feel like while all of those have deep, deep, deep historical roots that go back to the founding of our country and earlier. The roots of the particular type of activism that coalesced around these movements started with Occupy. The personnel started with Occupy. And if you look at all of these movements, a lot of the leadership in those movements had a toe in Occupy, or were awakened by Occupy in some way.
[00:30:32] Although Occupy never satisfactorily concluded, it kind of petered out in a very bizarre and unsatisfying way, we're seeing where Occupy went every single year. We're seeing these movements that I really strongly feel started with Occupy.
[00:30:49] To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I made that argument strongly enough in the book, but I'm hoping if this turns into a series, that argument will be made in successive novels, where I'll be looking at successive movements and talking about how those related back to Occupy.
Charlie Jane: [00:31:04] Yeah, well, and one of the things that's so great about the book is it does kind of feel like it's this unique moment where something is beginning. And there's a movement, and there's these confrontations with the police that kind of feel like the start of something new. They're a new kind of energy around activism. And part of what I love about the book is the fantasy world building with all these different communities of shapeshifters, these intersecting communities and the way in which a lot of it is about managing the diversity of the Bay Area, kind of, supernatural community. And do you feel like that was an important thing to kind of explore alongside this kind of monolithic, activists versus the authorities situation?
Claire: [00:31:45] Absolutely. I don't think it's at all a coincidence that so many particular types of activist movements have had their roots in the Bay Area. The Bay Area is a very particular place. The Bay Area, Asian American community is a very particular place. The Bay Area queer community is a very particular place. The Bay Area, X, Y, Z, is a very particular place. The circumstances here, the geography here, the population here, the way we're all kind of crammed up together, the way we're all divided and brought together by the bay. All of these things contribute to the culture and subcultures that we have here.
[00:32:23] So very particular types of movements get their start in the Bay, as opposed to other types of movements to get their start elsewhere. And I wanted to show that. And the thing about Occupy is that Occupy started in Wall Street, but I'm not showing Occupy Wall Street, I'm showing Occupy Oakland, which was 100% its own beast. It definitely was inspired by, and drew from Occupy Wall Street, but it became its own thing.
[00:32:50] And I didn't go into it in a great deal of detail in Monkey Around, but I did hint at it. The fact that Occupy Oakland had a very large contingent of people of color involved, who were very vocal about the language of Occupy, about the leadership of Occupy Oakland, about the structure of Occupy Oakland, and how it needed to be processed in a different way. There was a lot of movement around renaming it not Occupy, which is a very colonialist kind of word, but rather calling it Decolonize Oakland instead of Occupy, and so forth. And there were a lot of discussions around this as well.
Annalee: [00:33:33] And there were a lot of discussions around policing to, to go back to what you were saying earlier about kind of getting away from police characters. Because I feel like Occupy Wall Street was about corporate America and Occupy Oakland or Decolonize Oakland was focused on a lot of police abolition stuff that later coalesced into a much more, around Black Lives Matter, coalesced into police abolitionism as such.
[00:33:59] I wanted to ask you about the shape shifting part of this book, because we've been talking a lot about the politics and I'm wondering, did you think about shape shifting specifically as a metaphor that's political? Was it more just that you think shapeshifters are badass? Tell us about why? Because you could have picked anything. Could have been vampires, could have been ghosts. Why shapeshifters?
Claire: [00:34:22] Well, three things. One, it’s one of the most common tropes with urban fantasy, there's a quarter of the urban fantasy world that's completely dedicated to were animals and we love our were animals so…
Annalee: [00:34:38] Hell yeah.
Claire: [00:34:39] So yeah.
Charlie Jane: [00:34:40] Hell yeah.
Annalee: [00:34:40] I'm imagining you putting together like a spreadsheet and being like, okay, what are the most common tropes?
Claire: [00:34:47] I just pick the tropes that I like the most. And I love were animals because you can pick it up or you can leave it. But animals have personalities and you can reflect personality traits in animals, or you can put an animal on a person and then make them act like that animal. So there's that aspect of it.
[00:35:09] And yes, I just think they're badass. I think the idea, like a lot of a lot of this is just my own wish fulfillment, and the idea of being able to turn into an animal and be able to do all the things that animal can do, I just love that.
[00:35:22] But yes, it's also definitely a metaphor for so many things. But particularly, since we're talking about, and Monkey Around looks primarily at people who are in recent immigrant communities. Asian American and Latino, Latinx communities who have to spend a lot of time code switching. And I just recently have been working on the audio book and on a translation and accent guide for the audiobook. And for everybody's accent, I'm like “code switches between X, Y, and Z.”
Charlie Jane: [00:36:02] Oh, wow.
Claire: [00:36:02] All of my main characters are constantly code switching and you'll see a little bit of that code switching in the book, as well. So the were animal thing, the shapeshifting thing, is definitely code switching. And the two main main supernatural Asian American characters in the book, Maya and Todd. Maya’s Chinese American and Todd's Japanese American. And Maya’s a Monkey King, a female Monkey King, and Todd is a kitsune, a fox spirit. These are creatures who can shape shift into any form. They're not constrained to their default animal form. And that's not a coincidence either, because I'm Asian American, and because I'm most conversant with the Asian American community. And because the Asian American community is a lot of different cultures and languages crammed up together. The type of shape shifting, the type of code switching that you have to do in Asian American activism is much broader than what you have to do in other communities where you have a more monolithic language base or a more monolithic cultural base.
[00:37:11] So yeah, that's, I mean, obviously, I didn't specifically choose Monkey King and kitsune for those reasons, but they lend themselves very much to that.
Charlie Jane: [00:37:19] Yeah, well, and as a lifelong obsessive fan of the Monkey King, I love what you do with that mythos. I love the character of Maya, in general. She's so impetuous and kind of rash in the way that so many great fantasy heroes are.
[00:37:34] I wanted to kind of come back to this idea of fantasy being kind of conservative. I feel like fantasy in general, like the roots of fantasy, are stories about, if we can have the true king, if the true king can take power, then all will be good in the realm. And the anointed king must rule and that’s, it's a thing across a lot of fantasy stories, even the Earth Sea books, like Ursula K. LeGuin have that. And so, do you feel like you're pushing against the tropes of fantasy by having a story that's about community building and about, reconciling all these different immigrant communities, and authority being kind of this thing that's not trusted?
Claire: [00:38:16] Yes. I mean, one of the things that is, and I'm going to take a slight detour here for a second. One of the things that's interesting about woman-centered urban fantasy, woman-centered paranormal detective stories, which this is firmly in the genre of, is that they deal with the power dynamics of young, single, professional women in the urban sphere. And they deal with that by making the central female character unique. Her powers are unique, but her powers are weaker, technically weaker, than those of… and there's always a love triangle, than those of the two alpha males. Well, there's usually an alpha male and a lone wolf male, and both of them are more powerful than she is, technically, but she has a unique set of powers that are useful to them in those ways.
[00:39:07] So the way that the conservatism is expressed in these novels is that the men who are courting her represent authority and order, and she is a kind of, she's a kind of adjunct that stands outside of authority in order but lends herself and her uniqueness to authority and order and comes at it from kind of an oblique angle. And that talks about the way that really intelligent, really competent professional women are used in the professional sphere and in the urban world.
[00:39:39] So I wanted to kind of pick that apart and I wanted to talk about collective action and I wanted to talk about what leadership looks like within collective action. It was kind of interesting because I had to push back really hard against the tropes because they don't lend themselves to this. Maya is stronger and more powerful than everyone else. And I deliberately wanted her to be that. I wanted her… the Monkey King is stronger and more powerful than everyone else, and I wanted her to be that. And I wanted her to be the woman who is not just unique, but is stronger and more powerful than anyone else that has to hold herself back so as not to be looked down upon, not to be pushed out and not to be also constantly overwhelming other people.
[00:40:28] But also she is an activist, and she has to rely on collective action. She has to rely on other people's talents, and she can't constantly be overwhelming other people with her power and authority. So we see her negotiating this in the book, holding herself back, and trying to be respectful of other people's powers and abilities, while at the same time knowing in herself that she equals or exceeds them.
[00:40:55] And then, when it comes down to it, I mean, not to give too much of a spoiler. When it comes down to it, she is not the person who has the ability set, the power set to ultimately solve the problem in the book, it ends up being a man who has the ability set to solve the problem. So she has to then find a way to assist him and work collectively with him to solve this problem. And I had to rewrite that ending so many times to get it so that it wasn't just the man solving the problem again.
Charlie Jane: [00:41:30] Right.
Claire: [00:41:32] Yeah.
Charlie Jane: [00:41:32] I remember that.
Annalee: [00:41:33] Yeah, I do, too. It is a delicate balance.
[00:41:37] One of the things that I was thinking of as you were talking about the structure of the genre is that, in fantasy, and in science fiction, there's kind of a well known sub genre that's like, military. That’s all about these sort of police officers and these groups that that wield authority, and kind of what it's like to be inside those groups. And I feel like there should be a genre that your book would fit into, that Monkey Around would fit into that's basically the genre, the sub genre of insurrection or of direct action.
[00:42:14] Is there something like that out there that you're that you see your book as being part of or do you feel like, that doesn't really exist? I mean, not that it needs to have a label. I'm not trying to say like, what we need is a new section at the bookstore, where I can go buy this. I'm just saying, is there a tradition within the genre that you think is kind of unacknowledged, but that you're still kind of part of?
Charlie Jane: [00:42:34] Like activist fantasy, kinda.
Claire: [00:42:36] Right.
Annalee: [00:42:37] Yeah, activist fantasy. I want a Direct Action fantasy.
Claire: [00:42:41] Direct action fantasy.
[00:42:40] Well, I mean, you know, as soon as you say that, my mind immediately goes to science fiction. And that's the thing, is that science fiction has a profound tradition of looking at colonialism, looking at rebellions, looking at collective action movements. And also looking at the aftermath of these things. I mean, even Star Trek, even in the ‘90s, we had Deep Space Nine, which was a post-colonial Star Trek.
Annalee: [00:43:12] Yeah.
Charlie Jane: [00:43:12] Yeah, for sure.
Claire: [00:43:15] And Ursula LeGuin’s entire oeuvre is basically about colonization.
Annalee: [00:43:20] And The Expanse.
Claire: [00:43:22] And The Expanse, and—
Annalee: [00:43:22] We were just talking about Blake’s 7.
Charlie Jane: [00:43:24] Yeah.
Claire: [00:43:25] Yes, yes. And you just wrote about Blake’s 7, which I'm looking forward to finally seeing. But that's a very, very science fiction thing. But that is specifically because it's about the future. And fantasy is about the present or the past. And in fact, if you look at the divide, the main divide in fantasy, which is high and low, or epic and contemporary, epic, high fantasy, epic fantasy, is about looking at the past and contemporary, low, or contemporary fantasy is about looking at the present, about bringing these elements of the past into the present.
[00:43:58] And, of course, the supernatural creatures that we talk about in urban fantasy, are all superstitions from the past. So when we bring them into the contemporary world, what we're doing is we're kind of abrogating our contract with the enlightenment and our whole idea that we're going to put away these childish superstitious things of the past.
Charlie Jane: [00:44:20] Oh, wow.
Claire: [00:44:20] And no longer think about things in an entirely enlightened rational manner.
Annalee: [00:44:27] Mm-hmm.
Charlie Jane: [00:44:28] So interesting.
Claire: [00:44:27] Which is also why white America has such a bizarre love-hate relationship with magical realism, because magical realism is about a past that has continued up into the present and is not a past that kind of went around the enlightenment and carried it’s superstitions forward. Or, you know, reworked them through Christianity or what have you. I'm not going to get into the whole thing, but I would say there are two strains of quote unquote “fantasy” that might deal with this and one is fabulism and one is magical realism.
Charlie Jane: [00:45:04] Right?
Annalee: [00:45:05] Super interesting.
Claire: [00:45:05] And that's because you know, fabulism is experimental and magical realism is non-Western, so.
Annalee: [00:45:14] I was just gonna say that my contract with rationality was a click through agreement and I didn’t really read it.
Charlie Jane: [00:45:20] Did not even read all the terms and conditions. No, it's true the social… that's how they get you.
[00:45:25] So one final question and then we will let you go. One of the things that really jumps out at me in this book is how it's about kind of the playfulness of activism as well as the kind of serious struggle and I feel like, classical activism often is just like, no, we can't have pop culture, we can't have goofiness, we have to be serious about it. And, in your book, Maya is also helping to run this coffee shop that's kind of a center of community building. She's working on this magazine for Asian Americans, that's also, and she's doing playful stuff. She's helping to put on shows and things. Why is it important to showcase playful, kind of fun activism alongside the kind of gritty, facing up to the police, kind of stuff?
Claire: [00:46:07] Well, I think it's important to showcase all the faces of activism and to make it clear that this is a way of life, that people who are activists, it is also a job, it's not just, Molotov cocktail throwing, wild eyed crazies who have dedicated their whole lives to saving a tree. It's people who made their career out of making the world a better place. And they work at nonprofits, and get paid for it. And they organize and volunteer in their free time. And they also go and hang out and have fun in art spaces. And they go to movies together, and they make movies together. And they party, and they party even when they're doing their work. And this is a fully rounded person. An activist is a fully rounded person. An activist community is a fully rounded community. They get married, they have children, they do all kinds of things, all kinds of crazy things that other people do.
Annalee: [00:47:12] They’re just like us.
Claire: [00:47:13] They’re just like us. Activists are just like us. And it's really important to humanize activists because we're not these special saints, and we're also not crazies. We're ordinary people in the ordinary world. And hey, guess what, you can join us anytime.
Annalee: [00:47:30] I’m in.
Charlie Jane: [00:47:30] That’s a wonderful note to end on. So before we let you go, Claire, where can people find you?
Claire: [00:47:35] I am at ClaireLight.org that C-L-A-I-R-E-L-I-G-H-T dot O-R-G. And I'm also on Twitter at @seelight. That’s S-E-E-L-I-G-H-T.
Charlie Jane: [00:47:51] Awesome. Thank you so much.
Annalee: [00:47:51] Yeah, thanks for being here.
Claire: [00:47:53] Thanks for having me.
[00:47:55] OOAC theme music plays: Drums with a bass drop and more science fictional bells and percussion.
Charlie Jane: [00:47:55] Thank you so much for listening. This has been Our Opinions Are Correct. And as we mentioned at the top of the show, we have a Patreon and it is extremely vitally essential and super appreciated that you support us and give us all of your whuffie and all of your non fungible tote bags and whatever else you feel like giving us to help us.
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[00:48:43] Thank you so much to our incredibly valiant and just brilliant producer Veronica Simonetti at Women's Audio Mission. Thanks so much to Chris Palmer for the music. And thanks, once again, to you for listening. We'll be back in another couple of weeks with another episode. Bye!
Annalee: [00:49:00] Bye!