I’d like to point out that 2049 was released in 2017 (writing and production obviously preceding) and the e girl trend of today was really only beginning. With TikTok and OF only existing for less than a year. Of course these aren’t exclusive to that trend, but very much pushed that persona into majority’s attention. It’s extremely easy now to connect Joi with these traits, but I think it should be noted that 2017/pre covid really was a very different time in this regard. (Reposting from a reply)
I feel like she was based more on something like Siri or Alexa but taken further and meant to be a more personal version of those types of programs. She definitely does feel a lot like an egirl type now though.
eGirls have been a staple of chronically online culture long before 2017. They kind of rose to prominence with the advent of live streaming sites like RUclips and Twitch. It took Covid+Onlyfans to push them mainstream, because not only could lonely dudes no longer go on IRL dates, they also couldn't solicit escorts nor visit strip clubs. All of the sudden simping for egirls becomes normalized.
probably the main big miss of the video. JOI isn't about e-girls at all, in so much as she's a meditation on alienation as a whole. the idea of "virtual wives" is an old one, and one that's been becoming more of an issue as time goes on. she's likely more inspired by trends of japanese virtual relationship services like hostess clubs and maid cafes and yes, even those stories of virtual or robot wives/sex objects. blade runner, much like a lot of cyberpunk media, is heavily inspired by japanese culture after all. JOI is a manifestation of K's isolation and the artificiality of his existence. he's a replicant slave, who hunts his own kind, and is treated like shit. but when he thinks he may be someone special, the "chosen one" who's secretly actually a human(or at least part human(as meaningless of a concept as that is considering replicants are literally just lab grown people and that's the point)) with an important father and a destiny to rise up against their oppressors, he becomes lost in that lie. the lie that he's "special". the truth is that he _isn't_ special. nothing about him is. his memories literally aren't his, his girlfriend is fake, he really is just another lab grown fake person and this story was never about him. the resolution is that he CREATES his own fate. it also retroactively justifies the feelings he and JOI felt, since even though she wasn't "real" in that she didn't have a body and was created to be his girlfriend, it's clear throughout the movie that there's more to her than meets the eye, and that she's "HIS" JOI. his love is his and it was real. and his life is his to do as he pleases. he doesn't have to be THE main character to be someone that matters. he can make a difference by deciding to stop following the system that enslaves him and his people and so many others. that's why his victory over wallace's "best": Luv, was so significant. he was supposed to be dispensable and yet was the one that saved the day and killed her. rescuing deckard and salvaging the revolution. both incels and the OP seem to misunderstand 2049: K is cool because he decided that wallowing in despair was pointless, and, even though he was in pain, both physically and emotionally, he pushed through it. he BECAME a hero, he wasn't MEANT to be a hero. the world may not give you what you want, but you can still be someone worth a damn if you decide to be of use to the greater good. and JOI isn't a cautionary tale, so much as she's a metaphor for K's mental state. when he sees the giant JOI call him what "his" JOI called him--their supposed personal nickname--you can see him broken and conflicted about it. but in the end he decides that the love they shared, no matter how artificial, was good enough for him. and that if it was good enough, then maybe he was too.
Wow. Someone actually got the point of JOI in 2049. They hit you over the head with it ("Everything you want to hear, see") but everyone seems to still fall for it.
I thought your video was gonna be a "incel bad" type where you just kind of condemn them while saying nothing else, but damn I was wrong. Not only did you bring this topic up while giving great insight, you still addressed the problem without completely laying into these people (you correctly identify how their behavior is bad, but don't just write them off as evil. Showing the problems that create incels, and how both their behavior and society's behavior create a feedback loop). Also gave a few new movies to add to the watch list. Keep going strong man, I'm sure you'll fly high.
I was expecting the exact same thing based on that thumbnail, and almost dismissed it, but his analysis of Good Time was so well thought out and executed I gave it a chance, and I wasn't disappointed.
I was roughly halfway through the video when I saw your subscriber count. From the quality of the video, I would have easily expected a subscribership in the tens of thousands, if not more. Keep at it my dude, you have a legitimate talent for videomaking and I am sure you'll go places in the future.
A lot of people pretend that they like good film criticism, but few will actually seek it out and watch it unless it's wrapped in a lot of unnecessary distractions from the actual critique.
you remind me of Moon, you'll try attach any meaning to anything to appear intelligent.. somehow you made Bladerunner about incels hahaha@@FrenchNewWave
*This is a quality essay.* The only problem i had was in the way you read it out. It doesn't flow naturally for the listener (re: more natural cadence, variation of tone) and is too fast for the audience to properly absorb (i slowed it down by 30% and it worked so much better). Anyways, Just some constructive criticism, still giving you a like/sub.👍
I've definitely undermined how film has evolved over the years, this brings a lot into perspective especially the point you made about Fight Club. Beautifully researched and well done man, keep up the great work.
Thank you. One of the most well martialled, eloquent and thought provoking examinations of a genre I’ve seen. While exploring the heritage of Film Noir in a truly unique manner, you managed to interrogate some of that cultural baggage in a genuinely challenging and interesting way. Really enjoyed that.
Nicely done. I have one note: The Europeans -- many of them Jews who fled Europe -- were largely propelling film noir during and after WWII. Not only Wilder but also Siodmak, Lang, Preminger, to name a few..
I'm so happy, I discovered your channel. Sometimes I tend to grow very weary and pessimistic about the platforms we use and their algorithms that often feed us the same popular, mainstream content. After watching this video, I was confused, as to why your channel is still so small.. I wish you the best and hope, that you get traction, so you can get the things you wish for out of this creative endeavor. I especially liked the part from 12:30 on, because I think you have a sensitive, reflective view on the issue and I hope that more people start to talk about male loneliness in a less emotionally loaded way, reflective and empathetic in regard to both perspectives. Thank you for this video!
I'm a young film maker fresh out of film school and currently in the early pre-production phase of my next ambitious short film inspired by Blade Runner, the character of Joi, Neon Noir and Cyberpunk. While researching I came across this very well-made video essay and the relations between men and women, societal decay, loneliness, mental illness, technology and sexuality are more relevant topics in our current cultural and societal climate than ever before, and when you said "...that eventually, a new film will show this issue from a more objective carefully crafted perspective, thereby taking the power out of those in our culture who alienate us and further sow division.", it spoke to me. The topic of this film is a therapeutic way of mine into dealing with a variety of emotions and traumas I have, so it's in my best interest to make it worthwile. Well done, I will use this video as an inspiration when I decide to make my next video essay!
Is it not as bit strange how we blame incels for they react to the follies of modern society instead of criticisng the society that elicited those reactions? As long as those problems are ignored there will always be new incels and a market for that kind of cinema.
While society needs fixing, some of those reactions still need to be blamed. Shitty behaviour isn't excused just because you can understand why someone does it.
Wow, such an amazing and analytical video that I'd come back to over time. YT algo has done it's thing, as a fellow noir aficionado this was such a treat to go through! Subbed from India, cheers.
I think, Bladerunner was always about how the barrier between "artificial" and "real" people maybe just does not exist. Especially the book. I mean the police chief in 2042 literally says that they need to keep the illusion of the barrier to oppress the replicants.
@@DavidRYates-tk2tq The great mistake of Tyrell, the guy who created the androids, was to give them emotions and a mind capable of understanding liberal European concepts like freedom, sense of self, etc. If they didn't have those human traits, it would have been alright to extract to extract their surplus labour. He could have created perfect slaves, with no moral quandary.
Just found your channel, love your frenetic pace moves the energy up to Enjoyment levels, and your calm, silky delivery takes everything as serious as it needs to be without wasting our time on needless over-articulation. Subscribed, bell on, looking forward to more. Also, that channel logo is 🔥
crazy how he drags egirls as a contrast to ks relationship with joi or that her name is a porn genre apparently, although incels exist, seemingly all lonely men get slandered for their actions like some sort of collective punishment.
yeh the word incel means nothing, he did it for clicks, lots of people using it on videos now, in our Feminised misandristic gynocentric societies.. funny thing is we rarelyy hear from these so-called 'incels'
This is a phenomenal video. Well written, articulated and produced. I will be sharing with my friends and fellow film buffs. What I most appreciate about your elaboration on the genre is the deep, actual, understanding of the information era youth (especially young men) and the reaction to the themes of film noir. In films school I had an intense visceral reaction to these films and it’s incredibly important to not be caught up in the thematic issues they often address. While understanding still that young men do deal with these issues, the problems are often systemic and universal. You did an amazing job presenting that case while protecting the integrity of the genre.
Blade Runner 2049 has nothing to do with a societal obsession with e-girls. What the fuck?? Blade Runner 2049 does the same thing the first one did; it explores what it means to have a soul, to have an internality. The character of Joy is an examination of what it's like when we have a connection with what we think has a soul. When the "real girl" says to her that "there's not as much as she thinks inside", this is an expression of this examination. Then you have Joy's demise which is given weight by the fact that we know K has real feelings for her and that we think Joy has them for him. Then we are met with the scene where he is looking at the holographic ad for her, when she calls him a "good Joe" showing that when she suggested a name for him, she didn't pick Joe out of some connection to him. It was something already programmed there. This revelation, now coupled with previous moments like when she said she wanted K to read to her and he said she hates that book, she immediately says she didn't want to read anyways. This isn't in a passive aggressive manner like a real person might say it, no she says it very nonchalant as if she never wanted to anyways. More than that though, the manner in which she switched was as if she never wants anything. Everything she was and said and did, was what K wanted to hear and see and feel, as confirmed by the ad, "Everything you want to see. Everything you want to hear." Again the movie is about the soul, what makes us human, and the character of Joy is an examination of what it looks like, might look like, feels like, when we delude ourselves into seeing a soul or pretending to see a soul to make us feel better - where one doesn't exist. You can draw a connection externally to the whole e-girls thing but I can promise you Dennis wasn't thinking about e-girl culture when he made this film. It has nothing to do with e-girls. You can even draw a connection to the capitalist perspective of her being a product that is exploitative of people's loneliness, but again, this film is an examination of the soul, what it means to be human, what it means to have an internal world. I don't mean to be rude but that is really one of the dumbest things I've ever heard.
Moreover, the movie talks about the purpose of life under a Heideggerian point of view: you are not a hero or the chosen one, your life and your existence is meaningless and devoid of purpose. So it's up to you to give a sense or a particular meaning to your own life, the human being with his own choices can turn himself into something great. Life is meaningless and empty, so you decide for yourself what the meaning of your life is going to be. As it is quoted in the movie:"there is nothing more human than dying for the right cause"
I can add more to this. The big quote at the beginning "you have not seen a miracle". K could have maybe had relationships with the other to women but would they be healthy? His superior officer, is first is superior officer that can get very unprofessional. Second she showed that she would use him. When she fired him she let him go with a the squad car; as it has a tracking divice. Later Love kills her to have access to it getting her the location. One of the sex workers seem to better but she also put a bug on him. Sure they saved him but it may be out of utility. Joi did do one thing she the others did not. She gone against her superiors wishes to not Judas goats K even if it will bring her destruction. She was a product of the company and there may have been a programming she had to override to do this. K seeing the new version of her may see she was a lie. Or she was a product that evolved to something more. Helping him reflect that he can do the same. He my not excape all of his programing but he can work some of it to fight and die for what he sees as miracles. He may chosen to fight for Decker and his daughter as he has more empathy for them. Decker being a fellow blade runner, and his daughter shared a memory. It funny his memory is fake yet it inspired something real.
A common theme of the Bladerunner franchise is products that are nearly human or becoming human; becoming sentient. Joi raises the question, at what point is this product conscious? At what point does a simulation of love become actual love? The factory fresh install of Joi doesn't have the same preferences as K's longtime companion sure, but what if that shows that "K's Joi" had grown to feel that way? At what point does this product become a person? There was no tactical reason for Joi to tell K she loved him right before she was deactivated. She had absolutely no reason to say it, except that she wanted him to hear it. Even if she is a program, at what point do her feelings become real? My read on Bladerunner is that Roy Batty ("Baty" in the book) went from being a combat model replicant to being a person, or possibly always was a person. It doesn't matter if a newly-minted rep from the same template didn't act the same way, in fact that may even be evidence that replicants actually ARE people, or at a minimum have the potential to become people. I don't see why Joi should be seen differently.
Okay but souls don't exist at all. Every living creature is just a bunch of base instincts generated by dna and hormones that can be massively altered when you tamper with specific parts of the living creature. Always seem like the people saying ais cannot be aware and conscious just use woo to prove their point.
Dude this video is everything I’ve been trying to understand for so long, I’ve always been obsessed with the zeitgeist around these films and you i summarized it perfectly. Thank you for your work!!!
Really interesting video! What do you think about the genre in relation to "Promising Young Woman"? I think it could be seen as a female version or anti-noir, meaning that our lead is very disillusioned from the beginning about the injustice against women but works alone in the shadows as a way to fight back. Instead of the threstening/alluring and sexual femme fatale there is this non-threatening/sexual, rarely found, nice guy that she is "tricked" by. If the male version is having the idea of individuality and male ego being crushed by the world around you, and in the end realizing you're trapped and can't do anything about it but just kind of accept it, we could understand the female version as being hopeless and trapped from the beginning, feeling there is litte chance of making a difference. Enter a homme horreur (all franch speakers please help with a good name😅) who's falsehood leads to her giving up the false idea of individual happiness, even sacrificing herself for a bigger, collective cause. In doing so she does affect the lives of people around her, her actions has created change and though a bittersweet ending it shows her cynical view wasn't fully true. In short, rather than the loss of individuality and dreaded powerlessness of "just being a small part of something bigger", she goes from being the only one who doesn't put themselves first but has a bleak view of possible change, has the hope of a fulfilling individualistic life further shattered then fully gives their individuality, who they are, in being a "small part of something bigger".
Hello! Can you please give me some examples of movies with these concepts? I am a big fan of Neo-noir, and I connect with the genre on a personal level. The fact that there could be a genre that portrays a reality where women also feel limited by a similar kind of oppression seems absolutely interesting. This would mean that both hopeless men and women could understand each other instead of antagonizing each other. Those men and women who supposedly have a purpose in life, who go from party to party and have sex depriving themselves of their intimacy and the normalization of detaching the connection of sexual interactions to human emotions are only a limited part of our society. Since not everybody is perfect enough to be conventionally happy in todays standards, which is what haunts our lonely people, we might have something that could unite the mentality of hopeless men and women against the oppression of society and the system as a whole.
EXCELLENT essay sir. Love all the specific examples you cutaway to, even for split seconds. I felt exactly the same way with all the social angst that's risen over the last few years that noir is just as potent, if not more so, since it's inception (love that cutaway to Mal when describing femme fatale lol). Keep up the good work.
Fantastic video. It captivated me from start to finish in a way few videos do. I assure you that if you keep on like this your channel is going to be huge
who took your subscribers man? the quality of presentation, script, audio, content was on par with much bigger channels. well i can give you at least one more sub. have a good day and continue what you're doing!
Really interesting and insightful video. Great job. One piece of small constructive criticism, would be to consider structuring the essay with chapters or defined sections. I think the content and analysis is terrific but it can present as a bit of a "ramble" or " I am reading a essay over some footage" vibe, as opposed to a proper video essay. But great stuff for a small channel!
Amazing video man ! Keep going !!! If I could suggest something from a non English native : Maybe slow down a bit the tempo when talking. But it’s detail, I think you will find your tempo while practicing and going. Happy new year !
"This is the first time I've written a comment on a RUclips video in a long time. Much love to you; this is a well-narrated and well-edited video. I'm glad I clicked on it and subscribed to your channel. Keep going; I'd love to see this channel blow up someday. Love from Egypt! LOL"
This. Joker was abused, no real friends, kicked around, stuck in a dead end job, had no support or understanding for his condition. I can't believe how many people reduced his story to "No gf" Imagine the same people passing through skid row thinking "Uh oh, these trafficked minors and homeless people in this row of tents on the sidewalk just need some girlfriends"
Excellent presentation. Also the observation that several modern films try to take on the mantle of "Noir" - they are just merely dark in texture. But not in substance or spirit.
I was expecting the narrative of an ideologue. But it was an actual solid analysis of cinema and society. Hope you keep that posture, youtube lacks quality content that taps in social problems with objective scrutiny.
Loved the analysis! In the future would you consider trying to speak a bit slower? There’s a lot of great information and nuance in both your script and visuals but it’s often too hard to catch it all without pausing or rewatching. As a fellow fast talker I totally understand the tendency to narrate how you talk (my mom always tells me to slow down) but for audio/visual content like this I think a lot of your audience would benefit from a slower read. Looking forward to watching more of your work!
Just joining the train in sharing this is an excellent video essay! Big praise for aiming to bring something constructive ane hopeful here, too. Excited to see what you keep putting out.
The film literally mocks the alienated mentality of lonely and disarticulated men who yearn for community. It's about how capitalism creates and reproduces the conditions for it's own destruction and of it's members.
Being alone and being lonely aren’t the same thing. Being alone is a choice and being lonely is when you want to be with someone but can’t hence the term incel. Just because a dude doesn’t want to spend money on some only fans broad doesn’t make him an incel. In fact back in the 90’s if you had to pay for sex, it made you look weak.
What do you mean? Does every girl have only fans? Are people who 'choose' to be alone really choosing or are they just resigning themselves to it because they are so beat down they don't even think they are capable of anything else? Aren't humans fundamentally driven to find friendship and love?
According to the comments, this video must be interesting. I'm going to be honest, your monotonous voice and clockwork like rythm might be hindering your channel from increasing in popularity.
I like L A Confidential because it's both a genuine Noir, while not being a black & white movie. It still has all the elements of a classic noir, morally gray protagonists, corrupt power structures, a perfect femme fatal. And it also deals with the issue of helpless men attempting to change the world around them.
@@spiff1 Yeah, for every youtuber who passes few hundred subs mark, there immediately appear several dozen exact clones. Algorithm itself suggested me like 5 different SsethTzeentach copycats, I could tell instantly just by the way videos were titled alone
Grate video man, you certainly made a point with the everlasting of the genre. There would always be conflicting morals and loneliness in an ever changing society. However, I would have enjoyed your analysis even more if it were told with a slower pace and onscreen movie titles when a sequence is shown. That's only my opinion tho ;)
Wow. I disagree with that reading of JOI. I can see how you got there but it would require such a misunderstanding of the setting and themes of both the movies and the cyberpunk sub genre as a whole and ignoring JOI as a character to get there. Gonna have to rewatch the movie to see if I missed something, maybe. Either way, good video .
The whole notion of this narrative is disappointing because it all comes to the idea of "who are we men in the eyes of women?" but not about self introspecting to ask "who are we men without women?". As much as I appreciate the video's idea to project the observation of the societal patterns via cinematic interpretations, I also criticize the primary notion of having the perspective to see these movies through a filter called "women, validation, incel or any trendy word". Rather, as a man, watch the movie about asking yourself "who am I?". Something like in a raw philosophical sense!! It gives a different perspective. I am father, husband, brother, employee and a friend. Having all this responsbility and an equal cherished happy moments, I do face that haunting existential crisis. In my opinion, movies like Joker, Fight Club, Secret Life of Walter Mitty strike similar chords which movies like The Fountain, Tree of Life do. They are not the same but they push me into the same level of "self-introspection" leaving aside my societal roles or the shallow idea of what women think of me.
Is it really shallow though to care what others think of you when you literally just defined yourself by your relationships to other people? We are social creatures so to claim that who you are is independent of others as a whole is rather crazy considering how integrated you are into the collective from birth to death.
What an amazing and enlightening study! In my ignorance, I've often written off Noir as a symptom of false American centrism, I realize I was jus looking through the wrong lens. Many thanks for the knowledge!
I've experienced this on a personal scale: as a child, my drawings scared the adults. I drew the twisted, violent, contradictory world i was surrounded with. I was put in a mental facility, not allowed to draw, and when I was, everything was taken away, and used against me. As an adult, now I'm paid very well, to return to Closed facilities, and work with troubled youth and to use my art to help them , express, communicate, and work through difficult emotions and situations. I Never finished college, have no formal degree in art. The Noir staples are resonant with me.
00:40 "Italian cinema had been overseen by fascist regimes from the majority of the early TWENTY-FIRST century"? = You might want to edit that narration, after checking your calendar.
I don't mind the fact that I have my own suffering to deal with. But it bothers me that our current society is causing so many others to suffer. I feel like our species should be doing better than it is.
I’d like to point out that 2049 was released in 2017 (writing and production obviously preceding) and the e girl trend of today was really only beginning. With TikTok and OF only existing for less than a year. Of course these aren’t exclusive to that trend, but very much pushed that persona into majority’s attention. It’s extremely easy now to connect Joi with these traits, but I think it should be noted that 2017/pre covid really was a very different time in this regard. (Reposting from a reply)
I feel like she was based more on something like Siri or Alexa but taken further and meant to be a more personal version of those types of programs. She definitely does feel a lot like an egirl type now though.
eGirls have been a staple of chronically online culture long before 2017. They kind of rose to prominence with the advent of live streaming sites like RUclips and Twitch. It took Covid+Onlyfans to push them mainstream, because not only could lonely dudes no longer go on IRL dates, they also couldn't solicit escorts nor visit strip clubs. All of the sudden simping for egirls becomes normalized.
Twitter makes you hate anything related to OF lol
probably the main big miss of the video. JOI isn't about e-girls at all, in so much as she's a meditation on alienation as a whole. the idea of "virtual wives" is an old one, and one that's been becoming more of an issue as time goes on. she's likely more inspired by trends of japanese virtual relationship services like hostess clubs and maid cafes and yes, even those stories of virtual or robot wives/sex objects. blade runner, much like a lot of cyberpunk media, is heavily inspired by japanese culture after all.
JOI is a manifestation of K's isolation and the artificiality of his existence. he's a replicant slave, who hunts his own kind, and is treated like shit. but when he thinks he may be someone special, the "chosen one" who's secretly actually a human(or at least part human(as meaningless of a concept as that is considering replicants are literally just lab grown people and that's the point)) with an important father and a destiny to rise up against their oppressors, he becomes lost in that lie. the lie that he's "special". the truth is that he _isn't_ special. nothing about him is. his memories literally aren't his, his girlfriend is fake, he really is just another lab grown fake person and this story was never about him.
the resolution is that he CREATES his own fate. it also retroactively justifies the feelings he and JOI felt, since even though she wasn't "real" in that she didn't have a body and was created to be his girlfriend, it's clear throughout the movie that there's more to her than meets the eye, and that she's "HIS" JOI. his love is his and it was real. and his life is his to do as he pleases. he doesn't have to be THE main character to be someone that matters. he can make a difference by deciding to stop following the system that enslaves him and his people and so many others. that's why his victory over wallace's "best": Luv, was so significant. he was supposed to be dispensable and yet was the one that saved the day and killed her. rescuing deckard and salvaging the revolution.
both incels and the OP seem to misunderstand 2049: K is cool because he decided that wallowing in despair was pointless, and, even though he was in pain, both physically and emotionally, he pushed through it. he BECAME a hero, he wasn't MEANT to be a hero. the world may not give you what you want, but you can still be someone worth a damn if you decide to be of use to the greater good. and JOI isn't a cautionary tale, so much as she's a metaphor for K's mental state. when he sees the giant JOI call him what "his" JOI called him--their supposed personal nickname--you can see him broken and conflicted about it. but in the end he decides that the love they shared, no matter how artificial, was good enough for him. and that if it was good enough, then maybe he was too.
Obody
Wow. Someone actually got the point of JOI in 2049. They hit you over the head with it ("Everything you want to hear, see") but everyone seems to still fall for it.
What does JOI stand for?
@@MondomeyerJews of Islam
joy or some fake fascimile of it to cover up your trauma or inability to deal with people.
in simpler terms, a waifu. @@Mondomeyer
It’s not that hard to understand what JOI stood for in that movie.
Everyone knows that lmao you just seem to fail to understand that a lot of people see her as a better alternative
I thought your video was gonna be a "incel bad" type where you just kind of condemn them while saying nothing else, but damn I was wrong. Not only did you bring this topic up while giving great insight, you still addressed the problem without completely laying into these people (you correctly identify how their behavior is bad, but don't just write them off as evil. Showing the problems that create incels, and how both their behavior and society's behavior create a feedback loop). Also gave a few new movies to add to the watch list.
Keep going strong man, I'm sure you'll fly high.
I was expecting the exact same thing based on that thumbnail, and almost dismissed it, but his analysis of Good Time was so well thought out and executed I gave it a chance, and I wasn't disappointed.
Anyone who uses the word unironically is dumb
they aint even incels, hes overusing the word, like toxic masculiity, or misogyny, that it means nothing now, just another slur on men..
@@spiff1when was the last time you got laid? 😂
No, he's really not. They're pretty damn apt
It’s only a matter of time before this channel blows. The effort and care you’re putting in really shines through
Wow thanks man I really appreciate that!
@@FrenchNewWave just be careful of plagiarism, it's frankly a serious problem on youtube.
"Up." It's only a time before this channel blows up.
Phrasing is your friend.
@@Shadowman4710 yh sure whatever
All channels eventually blow.
I was roughly halfway through the video when I saw your subscriber count. From the quality of the video, I would have easily expected a subscribership in the tens of thousands, if not more. Keep at it my dude, you have a legitimate talent for videomaking and I am sure you'll go places in the future.
Really appreciate it!
A lot of people pretend that they like good film criticism, but few will actually seek it out and watch it unless it's wrapped in a lot of unnecessary distractions from the actual critique.
Keep going bro. The algorithm lead me here. It's working don't give up
Haha thanks so much mate. Comments like these keep me going, nice to know someone's watching!
dont give up, ya Feminised simp@@FrenchNewWave
you remind me of Moon, you'll try attach any meaning to anything to appear intelligent.. somehow you made Bladerunner about incels hahaha@@FrenchNewWave
No Big Sponsor, no affiliation to large corporations... just a really passionate guy who puts in the work for what he loves... Excelsior my friend💯
Imagine giving a fuck if he's paid by "big corporations" just enjoy the video
He just couldn't even if he want to tho.
bruh, how do you expect a youruber to eat if not with spinsorships the fucj
*This is a quality essay.* The only problem i had was in the way you read it out. It doesn't flow naturally for the listener (re: more natural cadence, variation of tone) and is too fast for the audience to properly absorb (i slowed it down by 30% and it worked so much better). Anyways, Just some constructive criticism, still giving you a like/sub.👍
I've definitely undermined how film has evolved over the years, this brings a lot into perspective especially the point you made about Fight Club. Beautifully researched and well done man, keep up the great work.
Thank you. One of the most well martialled, eloquent and thought provoking examinations of a genre I’ve seen. While exploring the heritage of Film Noir in a truly unique manner, you managed to interrogate some of that cultural baggage in a genuinely challenging and interesting way. Really enjoyed that.
Nicely done. I have one note: The Europeans -- many of them Jews who fled Europe -- were largely propelling film noir during and after WWII. Not only Wilder but also Siodmak, Lang, Preminger, to name a few..
I'm so happy, I discovered your channel. Sometimes I tend to grow very weary and pessimistic about the platforms we use and their algorithms that often feed us the same popular, mainstream content. After watching this video, I was confused, as to why your channel is still so small..
I wish you the best and hope, that you get traction, so you can get the things you wish for out of this creative endeavor.
I especially liked the part from 12:30 on, because I think you have a sensitive, reflective view on the issue and I hope that more people start to talk about male loneliness in a less emotionally loaded way, reflective and empathetic in regard to both perspectives.
Thank you for this video!
I'm a young film maker fresh out of film school and currently in the early pre-production phase of my next ambitious short film inspired by Blade Runner, the character of Joi, Neon Noir and Cyberpunk.
While researching I came across this very well-made video essay and the relations between men and women, societal decay, loneliness, mental illness, technology and sexuality are more relevant topics in our current cultural and societal climate than ever before, and when you said "...that eventually, a new film will show this issue from a more objective carefully crafted perspective, thereby taking the power out of those in our culture who alienate us and further sow division.", it spoke to me. The topic of this film is a therapeutic way of mine into dealing with a variety of emotions and traumas I have, so it's in my best interest to make it worthwile.
Well done, I will use this video as an inspiration when I decide to make my next video essay!
I hesitated to watch when I saw the amount of views the video had.... Glad I stuck around, great video!
Is it not as bit strange how we blame incels for they react to the follies of modern society instead of criticisng the society that elicited those reactions? As long as those problems are ignored there will always be new incels and a market for that kind of cinema.
Feminist propaganda bro, demonise anything male, they cant even leave the losers alone
While society needs fixing, some of those reactions still need to be blamed. Shitty behaviour isn't excused just because you can understand why someone does it.
what actions bro.. this incel thing has been blown out of proportion by Feminists and all the simps that go along with it@@DerMoerpler
stop trying to blame society for your own violent misogyny lmao
Wow, such an amazing and analytical video that I'd come back to over time. YT algo has done it's thing, as a fellow noir aficionado this was such a treat to go through! Subbed from India, cheers.
I think, Bladerunner was always about how the barrier between "artificial" and "real" people maybe just does not exist. Especially the book. I mean the police chief in 2042 literally says that they need to keep the illusion of the barrier to oppress the replicants.
And it's obviously specifically to continue exploiting them for their labor.
@@DavidRYates-tk2tq The great mistake of Tyrell, the guy who created the androids, was to give them emotions and a mind capable of understanding liberal European concepts like freedom, sense of self, etc. If they didn't have those human traits, it would have been alright to extract to extract their surplus labour. He could have created perfect slaves, with no moral quandary.
Just found your channel, love your frenetic pace moves the energy up to Enjoyment levels, and your calm, silky delivery takes everything as serious as it needs to be without wasting our time on needless over-articulation. Subscribed, bell on, looking forward to more.
Also, that channel logo is 🔥
Bro called blade runner incel culture bc of memes is crazy
But I understand he wrote from experience
crazy how he drags egirls as a contrast to ks relationship with joi or that her name is a porn genre apparently, although incels exist, seemingly all lonely men get slandered for their actions like some sort of collective punishment.
yeh the word incel means nothing, he did it for clicks, lots of people using it on videos now, in our Feminised misandristic gynocentric societies.. funny thing is we rarelyy hear from these so-called 'incels'
I'm just sure this video will blow up, your video got recommended to me by the algorithm. Keep up the solid work dude.
This is a phenomenal video. Well written, articulated and produced. I will be sharing with my friends and fellow film buffs. What I most appreciate about your elaboration on the genre is the deep, actual, understanding of the information era youth (especially young men) and the reaction to the themes of film noir.
In films school I had an intense visceral reaction to these films and it’s incredibly important to not be caught up in the thematic issues they often address. While understanding still that young men do deal with these issues, the problems are often systemic and universal.
You did an amazing job presenting that case while protecting the integrity of the genre.
Good sir, you've made my day. Thank you.
Blade Runner 2049 has nothing to do with a societal obsession with e-girls. What the fuck?? Blade Runner 2049 does the same thing the first one did; it explores what it means to have a soul, to have an internality. The character of Joy is an examination of what it's like when we have a connection with what we think has a soul. When the "real girl" says to her that "there's not as much as she thinks inside", this is an expression of this examination. Then you have Joy's demise which is given weight by the fact that we know K has real feelings for her and that we think Joy has them for him. Then we are met with the scene where he is looking at the holographic ad for her, when she calls him a "good Joe" showing that when she suggested a name for him, she didn't pick Joe out of some connection to him. It was something already programmed there. This revelation, now coupled with previous moments like when she said she wanted K to read to her and he said she hates that book, she immediately says she didn't want to read anyways. This isn't in a passive aggressive manner like a real person might say it, no she says it very nonchalant as if she never wanted to anyways. More than that though, the manner in which she switched was as if she never wants anything. Everything she was and said and did, was what K wanted to hear and see and feel, as confirmed by the ad, "Everything you want to see. Everything you want to hear." Again the movie is about the soul, what makes us human, and the character of Joy is an examination of what it looks like, might look like, feels like, when we delude ourselves into seeing a soul or pretending to see a soul to make us feel better - where one doesn't exist. You can draw a connection externally to the whole e-girls thing but I can promise you Dennis wasn't thinking about e-girl culture when he made this film. It has nothing to do with e-girls. You can even draw a connection to the capitalist perspective of her being a product that is exploitative of people's loneliness, but again, this film is an examination of the soul, what it means to be human, what it means to have an internal world. I don't mean to be rude but that is really one of the dumbest things I've ever heard.
Moreover, the movie talks about the purpose of life under a Heideggerian point of view: you are not a hero or the chosen one, your life and your existence is meaningless and devoid of purpose. So it's up to you to give a sense or a particular meaning to your own life, the human being with his own choices can turn himself into something great. Life is meaningless and empty, so you decide for yourself what the meaning of your life is going to be. As it is quoted in the movie:"there is nothing more human than dying for the right cause"
I can add more to this. The big quote at the beginning "you have not seen a miracle". K could have maybe had relationships with the other to women but would they be healthy? His superior officer, is first is superior officer that can get very unprofessional. Second she showed that she would use him. When she fired him she let him go with a the squad car; as it has a tracking divice. Later Love kills her to have access to it getting her the location. One of the sex workers seem to better but she also put a bug on him. Sure they saved him but it may be out of utility. Joi did do one thing she the others did not. She gone against her superiors wishes to not Judas goats K even if it will bring her destruction. She was a product of the company and there may have been a programming she had to override to do this. K seeing the new version of her may see she was a lie. Or she was a product that evolved to something more. Helping him reflect that he can do the same. He my not excape all of his programing but he can work some of it to fight and die for what he sees as miracles. He may chosen to fight for Decker and his daughter as he has more empathy for them. Decker being a fellow blade runner, and his daughter shared a memory. It funny his memory is fake yet it inspired something real.
A common theme of the Bladerunner franchise is products that are nearly human or becoming human; becoming sentient. Joi raises the question, at what point is this product conscious? At what point does a simulation of love become actual love? The factory fresh install of Joi doesn't have the same preferences as K's longtime companion sure, but what if that shows that "K's Joi" had grown to feel that way? At what point does this product become a person? There was no tactical reason for Joi to tell K she loved him right before she was deactivated. She had absolutely no reason to say it, except that she wanted him to hear it. Even if she is a program, at what point do her feelings become real?
My read on Bladerunner is that Roy Batty ("Baty" in the book) went from being a combat model replicant to being a person, or possibly always was a person. It doesn't matter if a newly-minted rep from the same template didn't act the same way, in fact that may even be evidence that replicants actually ARE people, or at a minimum have the potential to become people. I don't see why Joi should be seen differently.
Sane people like yourself shouldn’t be so rare
Okay but souls don't exist at all. Every living creature is just a bunch of base instincts generated by dna and hormones that can be massively altered when you tamper with specific parts of the living creature.
Always seem like the people saying ais cannot be aware and conscious just use woo to prove their point.
Dude this video is everything I’ve been trying to understand for so long, I’ve always been obsessed with the zeitgeist around these films and you i summarized it perfectly. Thank you for your work!!!
You saw this video and went "Woah that's deep"
@@N8R_Quizzie yes
@@ethanhernandez9889 nice
I put the video on 0.75 speed and it was the perfect speed for the narration. You wrote a great script, don't rush it.
Really interesting video! What do you think about the genre in relation to "Promising Young Woman"? I think it could be seen as a female version or anti-noir, meaning that our lead is very disillusioned from the beginning about the injustice against women but works alone in the shadows as a way to fight back. Instead of the threstening/alluring and sexual femme fatale there is this non-threatening/sexual, rarely found, nice guy that she is "tricked" by.
If the male version is having the idea of individuality and male ego being crushed by the world around you, and in the end realizing you're trapped and can't do anything about it but just kind of accept it, we could understand the female version as being hopeless and trapped from the beginning, feeling there is litte chance of making a difference. Enter a homme horreur (all franch speakers please help with a good name😅) who's falsehood leads to her giving up the false idea of individual happiness, even sacrificing herself for a bigger, collective cause. In doing so she does affect the lives of people around her, her actions has created change and though a bittersweet ending it shows her cynical view wasn't fully true.
In short, rather than the loss of individuality and dreaded powerlessness of "just being a small part of something bigger", she goes from being the only one who doesn't put themselves first but has a bleak view of possible change, has the hope of a fulfilling individualistic life further shattered then fully gives their individuality, who they are, in being a "small part of something bigger".
Hello! Can you please give me some examples of movies with these concepts?
I am a big fan of Neo-noir, and I connect with the genre on a personal level. The fact that there could be a genre that portrays a reality where women also feel limited by a similar kind of oppression seems absolutely interesting. This would mean that both hopeless men and women could understand each other instead of antagonizing each other. Those men and women who supposedly have a purpose in life, who go from party to party and have sex depriving themselves of their intimacy and the normalization of detaching the connection of sexual interactions to human emotions are only a limited part of our society. Since not everybody is perfect enough to be conventionally happy in todays standards, which is what haunts our lonely people, we might have something that could unite the mentality of hopeless men and women against the oppression of society and the system as a whole.
EXCELLENT essay sir. Love all the specific examples you cutaway to, even for split seconds. I felt exactly the same way with all the social angst that's risen over the last few years that noir is just as potent, if not more so, since it's inception (love that cutaway to Mal when describing femme fatale lol). Keep up the good work.
Fantastic video. It captivated me from start to finish in a way few videos do. I assure you that if you keep on like this your channel is going to be huge
incredible video, excited to see what other film-based content you put out!!
Great video man, I hope you blow up. You have very decent quality and interesting topics and narratives. Keep it up.
Brilliantly said 🖤🎞🎥
Thank you so much!
Wow, this was a great video, I just learned so much about film noir that I had never known before.
The content is great, but you speak too fast. I am having flashbacks of a professor going too fast
this is one of my favorite video essays well done
You’re onto something here my friend! Great work
I love that I finally have a label for the subgenre I love - "Stoner Noir"
Great video, never realized all these movies belonged to the same genre.
Hope your channel blows up
who took your subscribers man? the quality of presentation, script, audio, content was on par with much bigger channels. well i can give you at least one more sub. have a good day and continue what you're doing!
What a dense conclusion to an informative essay.
Good shit mate, very thorough.
hope your channels blows up soon ❤❤
Really interesting and insightful video. Great job. One piece of small constructive criticism, would be to consider structuring the essay with chapters or defined sections. I think the content and analysis is terrific but it can present as a bit of a "ramble" or " I am reading a essay over some footage" vibe, as opposed to a proper video essay. But great stuff for a small channel!
Amazing video man ! Keep going !!! If I could suggest something from a non English native : Maybe slow down a bit the tempo when talking. But it’s detail, I think you will find your tempo while practicing and going. Happy new year !
Great video, and grats on all the views. I was honestly surprised you only had 4 videos. Keep up the fantastic content
"This is the first time I've written a comment on a RUclips video in a long time. Much love to you; this is a well-narrated and well-edited video. I'm glad I clicked on it and subscribed to your channel. Keep going; I'd love to see this channel blow up someday. Love from Egypt! LOL"
Oooh... JOI as in J.O.I. I didn't realize that until now
Hell of an essay~ Inspiring stuff, friend.
I'm surprised this only has 4.5k views I feel like it should have at least 40k for the quality
Hey do you have a list of some of the movies you showed?
I think the Joker film was more about societal neglect of mentally ill people. The main character was not an incel.
This. Joker was abused, no real friends, kicked around, stuck in a dead end job, had no support or understanding for his condition. I can't believe how many people reduced his story to "No gf"
Imagine the same people passing through skid row thinking "Uh oh, these trafficked minors and homeless people in this row of tents on the sidewalk just need some girlfriends"
Excellent presentation. Also the observation that several modern films try to take on the mantle of "Noir" - they are just merely dark in texture. But not in substance or spirit.
Thank you for giving a more thorough and orderly explanation to what I was always referring to as "Sigma movies"
loved your "write up", your channel is gonna blow up soon. keep it pushing
amazing video, love the exploration of themes and messages.
Love it. First video of yours I've seen.
I appreciate that you mentioned kid detective. Very underrated movie of the genre
I was expecting the narrative of an ideologue. But it was an actual solid analysis of cinema and society. Hope you keep that posture, youtube lacks quality content that taps in social problems with objective scrutiny.
This is a great analysis! Movies have a way of reflecting the culture and times that they are made in.
The perfect video I needed. Sick dude thanks.
Great stuff. Slow down the narration
This video is amazing its a shame that small youtuber who put there heart into things are underrated and overlook
Loved the analysis! In the future would you consider trying to speak a bit slower? There’s a lot of great information and nuance in both your script and visuals but it’s often too hard to catch it all without pausing or rewatching. As a fellow fast talker I totally understand the tendency to narrate how you talk (my mom always tells me to slow down) but for audio/visual content like this I think a lot of your audience would benefit from a slower read.
Looking forward to watching more of your work!
Just joining the train in sharing this is an excellent video essay! Big praise for aiming to bring something constructive ane hopeful here, too. Excited to see what you keep putting out.
Why do you think this is a good video essay? Is it because he's smart? Because that's only due to his British accent.
Glad i found this channel great content bro
You Got Fight Club wrong.
The film literally mocks the alienated mentality of lonely and disarticulated men who yearn for community. It's about how capitalism creates and reproduces the conditions for it's own destruction and of it's members.
he got most of it wrong
Ended in 1958 You mean with A Touch Of Evil? In 1960 it was The Killers in colour and on location blew away all the studio Noir lighting and shadows.
Being alone and being lonely aren’t the same thing. Being alone is a choice and being lonely is when you want to be with someone but can’t hence the term incel. Just because a dude doesn’t want to spend money on some only fans broad doesn’t make him an incel. In fact back in the 90’s if you had to pay for sex, it made you look weak.
What do you mean? Does every girl have only fans? Are people who 'choose' to be alone really choosing or are they just resigning themselves to it because they are so beat down they don't even think they are capable of anything else?
Aren't humans fundamentally driven to find friendship and love?
nowadays its the opposite because not paying for $ 3 X means youre paying for the approval of a F 3 Mail. the payment is usually your dignity
people have strange definitions of capitalism nowadays ......
According to the comments, this video must be interesting. I'm going to be honest, your monotonous voice and clockwork like rythm might be hindering your channel from increasing in popularity.
its cos he talks so much shite
Speed is too high for it to be enjoyable. But I guess it's done for zoomers who can't enjoy something "boring"
Talking at 100 mph fully monotone.
I like L A Confidential because it's both a genuine Noir, while not being a black & white movie. It still has all the elements of a classic noir, morally gray protagonists, corrupt power structures, a perfect femme fatal. And it also deals with the issue of helpless men attempting to change the world around them.
YT pseudointellectuals really need to stop adding "culture" to random-ass words all the fucking time
yep
yep, he reminds me of Moon, exact same voice and everything loool
@@spiff1 Yeah, for every youtuber who passes few hundred subs mark, there immediately appear several dozen exact clones. Algorithm itself suggested me like 5 different SsethTzeentach copycats, I could tell instantly just by the way videos were titled alone
Great vid!
Grate video man, you certainly made a point with the everlasting of the genre. There would always be conflicting morals and loneliness in an ever changing society.
However, I would have enjoyed your analysis even more if it were told with a slower pace and onscreen movie titles when a sequence is shown. That's only my opinion tho ;)
the neo noir comparison made me think, did dudes in the 40s watch Humphrey Bogart movies and go "YOOOOO HE'S LITERALLY ME"
great analysis bro, love the video
I think I would like this… but your narration is too fast and you need to pause now and again. Not trying to be a jerk.
What captures film noir really well is the Warhammer+ series The Interrogator it follows a mystery revenge tales. Also, Hitchcock was a legend.
Wow. I disagree with that reading of JOI. I can see how you got there but it would require such a misunderstanding of the setting and themes of both the movies and the cyberpunk sub genre as a whole and ignoring JOI as a character to get there. Gonna have to rewatch the movie to see if I missed something, maybe. Either way, good video .
I loved the video, I suggest a video about the film the long goodbye
The whole notion of this narrative is disappointing because it all comes to the idea of "who are we men in the eyes of women?" but not about self introspecting to ask "who are we men without women?". As much as I appreciate the video's idea to project the observation of the societal patterns via cinematic interpretations, I also criticize the primary notion of having the perspective to see these movies through a filter called "women, validation, incel or any trendy word". Rather, as a man, watch the movie about asking yourself "who am I?". Something like in a raw philosophical sense!! It gives a different perspective. I am father, husband, brother, employee and a friend. Having all this responsbility and an equal cherished happy moments, I do face that haunting existential crisis. In my opinion, movies like Joker, Fight Club, Secret Life of Walter Mitty strike similar chords which movies like The Fountain, Tree of Life do. They are not the same but they push me into the same level of "self-introspection" leaving aside my societal roles or the shallow idea of what women think of me.
Is it really shallow though to care what others think of you when you literally just defined yourself by your relationships to other people? We are social creatures so to claim that who you are is independent of others as a whole is rather crazy considering how integrated you are into the collective from birth to death.
Very good video essay
Did u re-brand your channel, Mr. Somebody-who-I-don't-remember?
Really great video!
Great video. U earned a sub.
Too complex a topic for a
It was actually the fascists who started Italian realism. They even had a manifesto.
The quality of this video is insane.
The point of fiction is not to understand yourself, it's to understand someone else.
you word your thoughts beautifully, keep up the good work!
Great video.
excellent insight
Fantastic video
your channel deserves more views
phenomenal video
What an amazing and enlightening study!
In my ignorance, I've often written off Noir as a symptom of false American centrism, I realize I was jus looking through the wrong lens.
Many thanks for the knowledge!
I've experienced this on a personal scale: as a child, my drawings scared the adults. I drew the twisted, violent, contradictory world i was surrounded with. I was put in a mental facility, not allowed to draw, and when I was, everything was taken away, and used against me. As an adult, now I'm paid very well, to return to Closed facilities, and work with troubled youth and to use my art to help them , express, communicate, and work through difficult emotions and situations. I Never finished college, have no formal degree in art. The Noir staples are resonant with me.
00:40 "Italian cinema had been overseen by fascist regimes from the majority of the early TWENTY-FIRST century"? = You might want to edit that narration, after checking your calendar.
I don't mind the fact that I have my own suffering to deal with. But it bothers me that our current society is causing so many others to suffer. I feel like our species should be doing better than it is.
very well made and interesting video 👏
Well done