THEY SHOULD BE KISSING
make love not war propaganda!!!
I scrolled past the trailer for Alex Garland’s WARFARE about three times on Twitter before my attention finally snagged on a tweet that named the film’s stars. Noah Centineo, Will Poulter, Kit Connor… were my eyes deceiving me? That couldn’t possibly be correct. What was it that Allen Ginsberg said? I saw the greatest loverboys of my generation destroyed by prestige propaganda?
A movie about the War in Afghanistan? In the year of our lord 2024 (or I guess 2025, when the film is scheduled to be released)? Has everyone lost their damn minds?! First of all, between Christopher Nolan and Sam Mendes, the entire war film genre has already been wrapped up quite neatly with a bow. We really do not need to revisit one of America’s greatest sins, especially since we haven’t even gotten to the general consensus that it was a sin in the first place. Did Zero Dark Thirty teach us nothing?
But listen— men will be men. And for some inane reason, if men are going to shoot each other, they must first be dressed up in army fatigues for the movie to be “taken seriously” and “get awards nominations” so yeah, sure, war movies aren’t going anywhere.
But Noah Centineo? Will Poulter? Locas, what the hell are you doing here?! As my queen Bolu Babalola so concisely put it, they could all be in films where there’s kissing. In fact, they should be in films where they’re kissing each other! Noah, does Peter Kavinsky mean nothing to you? There are men who do war movies (grads fresh out of RADA, former boy band members) and men who stare longingly at beautiful women from across a crowded room, men who lovingly make pastries side by side with a friend they have crazy energy with, men who pull themselves up balconies by the sheer force of their desire (and arm muscles) to kiss their new crush.
All of them could have been making out in soft lighting in a summertime romantic comedy. Instead, they’re gonna be in a movie shooting brown people.
Jesus be a fence.
It’s been a minute since I talked to you, friends. Apologies! December really is showing her ass and I have fallen into the holiday trap hook, line, and sinker. No work is being done anywhere at all. I am merely counting down the days till my PTO kicks in and I don’t really plan on using my brain in any capacity until January! I’ve got maybe one more JUNK DRAWER post in me this year (it’ll most likely be a yearly round-up type of deal, but if it doesn’t come please don’t shoot me. i’m just a lil guy trying her best) but I plan to be back with a vengeance in the New Year.
I have, at the moment of writing this, 28 subscribers. Which sounds so silly to even mention when there are people with subscriber counts in the hundreds bickering about how they have zero visibility. But to be honest, the fact that anyone deigns to open my silly little newsletters is a miracle. Every click, every read, every comment is a little zing of energy straight to my heart. I write because I love it; there isn’t a version of myself in any world I can imagine who doesn’t. But I share my writing because I want to be in community with others, to have silly conversations and serious ones, and to maybe hopefully give words to a feeling that you might have had, a thought that might have flitted across your mind, or an idea you couldn’t quite form.
I write to be seen, which as we’ve established, is the first step to being known.
So thank you guys for giving a shit. And even if you don’t, thanks for being here.
On to bigger and better things.
xx,
april