total war against the edgelords (media report #1)
Jul 14 2024
media report, video
In which we discuss The Birdcage, Smiling Friends, and Sonic Adventure - among other things.
I was writing a Goodreads review a few weeks ago when I realized that I was giving Jeff Bezos my coveted takes for free. I then remembered that I have a Youtube channel.
Chapters:
- 00:00 | Intro
- 00:40 | The Birdcage
- 02:25 | Piccolo Is Black
- 04:21 | Smiling Friends
- 08:05 | Sonic Adventure
- 10:33 | Outro
*Of course, I’m aware that DBZA is not “the text” of Dragon Ball Z, but I included this clip as an example because it clearly demonstrates that the racial subtext around Piccolo’s presence in Dragon Ball is so obvious that the most popular Dragon Ball fan project (one made by white people, no less) seems to have a better grasp of it than a book that is actively claiming to be about racial subtext in Japanese media, at least on some level. Also, it’s a really funny line.
Works Covered:
- The Birdcage (dir. Mike Nichols, 1996)
- Piccolo Is Black (auth. Jordan Calhoun, 2022)
- Smiling Friends (adult swim, 2020-Present)
- Sonic Adventure (Sonic Team, 1998) (Footage taken from the 2011 Steam Port with the Dreamcast Conversion mod).