Cinema Junkie Episode 244
Tackling Tactical Frivolity, Part Two, Joy as Rebellion
TRT 59:51
NOTE: This is an automated transcription and may contain inaccuracies.
CLIP Breaking news at Minneapolis St. Paul airport where multiple faith leaders have been arrested… there’s well over 10,000 people now…statewide strike action is being planned in Minnesota… chanting…
BETH ACCOMANDO We are living in turbulent political times with almost daily reports of protest. But with the constant barrage news, IG reels and TikTok videos, people can start to tune out and not hear the protesters’ message.
L.M. BOGAD
Protest is a form of art. Let's treat it as such. If you don't realize you're performing as an activist out in the streets, it might be a bad performance.
BETH ACCOMANDO That’s where tactical frivolity can come into play…
CLIP We are live over downtown Minneapolis where yes that is a protester in a Viking costume in what appears to be a porcelain bathtub, 15 ICE agents are on his heels…
BETH ACCOMANDO OK that did not really happen, it was an AI generated video on a parody account and it uses absurdity to point out the absurdity of what protestors are facing. It’s like an SNL skit. And it brings up a question: Does comedy have a role in protest? Can laughter be a tool in political debate even when events turn tragic…
CLIP A 37-year-old woman was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on Wednesday. Here's how it unfolded… More than half a dozen federal agents were seen on cell phone video Tuesday surrounding this 5-year-old boy...Videos of the shooting of Alex Pretti have contradicted the government's account of what happened.
BETH ACCOMANDO But humor has been used in response to the most horrific circumstances… Frederick Douglass used satire and irony as an activist’s tool to fight slavery… In 1943, a Belgian resistance organization published a fake issue of the newspaper Le Soir filled with a biting satire about the Nazi occupation prompting the Gestapo to arrest some of the publishers but ridiculing German propaganda helped fuel resistance… During the Prague Spring Czechs removed street signs and painted over building numbers so invading forces did not know where they were going…. And George Orwell proclaimed, "Every joke is a tiny revolution."
Cinema Junkie Theme bump 1 (drums)
BETH ACCOMANDO Welcome back to listener supported KPBS Cinema Junkie, I'm Beth Accomando.
Cinema Junkie Theme bump 1 (Horns)
BETH ACCOMANDO Comedy can have power or why would President Trump try to get the likes of Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyer and Jimmy Kimmel off the air. Remember, court jesters were meant to entertain but also to address uncomfortable truths. Sometimes laughter comes with a painful wince. It can also fall on deaf ears or offend.The ancient Greeks, Romans and Egyptians wrote satires that made them targets of political retribution, and political cartoonists have been thrown in jail for making fun of kings. Right now, we are witnessing the protest frog brigade in Portland, parade balloons of baby Trump in diapers, and viral videos of ICE slipping on ice in Minnesota… Do those things make us stop our doom scrolling and laugh? Does the laughter make us pay attention for one brief moment? Will we share it and talk about it? We are going off topic to don an inflatable costume and discuss tactical frivolity as a protest tool and then see how it has played out in movies.
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Music theme bump out.
BETH ACCOMANDO I need to take one quick break and then I will be back with to discuss tactical frivolity in real life and in film.
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BETH ACCOMANDO Welcome back to Cinema Junkie. I’m Beth Accomando. I confess. Current events can be exhausting. The Constitution is in crisis, history is being removed or rewritten, ICE is detaining children, there are still conflicts in the Ukraine, Israel and Palestine… So much is happening but what can you do? How can you make a difference? It can be so overwhelming that you end up paralyzed and do nothing.But those in power often rely on people feeling powerless or can hope to incite a violent reaction in order to ramp up its own response. But what if you defuse the violent energy of the oppressor with humor? What if you decide joy is an act of rebellion. And what if someone came to you and said put on this inflatable T-rex costume and let’s dance in front of the federal detention center? L.M. Bogad is the author of "Tactical Performance: Theory and Practice of Serious Play.” He is also a performance artist/activist, Professor at UC Davis, Director of the Center for Tactical Performance, and co-founder of the Clown Army. So to begin, let’s have him define tactical frivolity.
L.M. BOGAD
Tactical frivolity. I first heard that term in the late '90s when activists in the social movements, protesting things like the WTO, the World Trade Organization in Seattle in '99, demonstrations like that, that were also very theatrical and involved whimsical costumes, Always with a point, though, in the WTO protest, people were concerned about the environment and turtles going extinct. So people showed up as turtles and as polar bears, dealing with climate change and the extinction of species. So it was tactically frivolous. But again, don't forget the tactical part so that it is about what it's about. It's about a refutation of the authority's version of events, refuting their story in a playful way and telling our story in a playful while being just disarmingly charming. Because how mad can you be at a frog in Portland, or from this earlier example, a generation ago, how mad can you really be? If you're yelling at a dancing turtle in Seattle, you're the one who looks ridiculous.They already look ridiculous, and they don't care. It's deliberately looking ridiculous. But people who take it so seriously that they're angry, well, let them yell. So tactical frivolity is a lot of things, and it's been going on a long time. And It is the use of a thoughtful version of being ridiculous. I refer to this as radical ridicule, not just because it sounds like a nice phrase, it's fun to say, but that there's a radical element to it, and not in some bad way, but like, Hey, we're getting to the root of the problem here with this ridicule. The ridicule includes the vulnerability and the openness to make ourselves look ridiculous. It's like, Come on, don't take yourself too seriously, dictator, because we're willing to look like clowns and butterflies lies and whatever. What's up with you? Why don't you lighten up a little bit? But also that more people may be attracted to what you're doing because you're having fun. So it does a lot of things, tactical frivolity, showing up like the famous frogs and stuffed animals and people, the funny characters right now. In Portland, great example of tactical frivolity. It does a number of things, like I mentioned. It's disarming. It makes people who are angry, maybe a little less angry, or at least less able to act violently on that anger. I like to say it's politically more expensive to club a clown than to club a regular person. Because if you get that on video, which inevitably these days you will, people go, what is up with this authoritarian state? Like attacking these butterfly people? I don't even know what the issue is, perhaps, but I know that's wrong. So it is a thing that raises the cost of repression, and it tells your story in an inviting and playful way rather than a dogmatic, We have no sense of humor. We like to chant the same slogan over and over again. Like the formats of protests that are cliché, it avoids the cliché trap. By the way, this is one tactic. Sometimes it's utterly inappropriate. It's just one tool in the toolbox. You don't always use a wrench. If it's a job for the wrench, use that. Sometimes you have to be very serious. But on the other hand, tactical frivolity, I like to think of it as serious play because you're taking the problem seriously enough to work harder and be funny. Because it's harder to be funny about something serious. You got to actually sit around and brainstorm and try things out and then do it. Tactical frivolity can also be like a people's costume ball where everyone's invited. And you get to think of your own thing like, Yeah, show up as a frog. But if you show up as a polar bear, everyone's like, That's great. That was a great idea. So everyone's coming and being appreciated for being creative. So conventional demonstrations sometimes are exactly what you need, but sometimes they're a little cliché, and they're more easily ignored because cliché in any art form is easily ignored. And everyone, if you get to feel like you're involved and you're bringing something fun to the tactical frivolity, and people are like, I love your butterfly wings. I didn't think of that. You feel like, Oh, I'm going to come next time and I'm going to bring three more friends. Because it wasn't this obligation to go out in the streets and protest. It was actually enjoyable. And that's part of what you want to go to. Give people a little vision of what you're for, not just what you're against. We're for a world in which people are having fun out in public spaces together. It's diverse. Everyone can express themselves. That's what we're for. We're also against, clearly, what's going on here and we're protesting. Let's not forget. But to just be like, No, no, no. It makes it hard to build a movement on that. I like to think of tactical frivolity as an element of charismatic action, action that attracts more people.
BETH ACCOMANDO
Well, and also when there's this sense of repression and cruelty that's going on, the mere act of being joyful can feel rebellious. Is that also part of it?
L.M. BOGAD
Absolutely. Resistance is fertile is the counterphrase to the idea that resistance is futile. To have this fertile situation where it's like, actually, this is playful and generative. I was afraid to go out, but for the last couple of nights, I've seen that people are doing all these funny things and they're having a good time, and it seems to be going okay. Now, maybe I'll go. It's like lowering that threshold and saying, maybe it's not so scary, maybe it's okay. You do need the first few brave people to start, though. We always give them kudos, give them respect. That's really important. But once they start doing it, it's more inviting, and it is absolutely a way to get over that fear. By the way, for other activists who are like, so that's for the newcomers. Let's make this fun. So we'll get new people, new energy, expand the movement. And then this fun carnivalesque protest action. It's also for people who've been doing it for years or decades, we're getting burned out. And it's like, my stomach hurts, my head hurts. It's actually having a physical effect. I need to be a lifelong activist. And then it's like, oh, wait a minute. This is fine. I'm still protesting, but now I feel good, not bad. And I was a little afraid. I'm less afraid. Sometimes there's a, it's not actual armor, but there's a conceptual armor to going to a protest in a character with a fun costume, too. It's not actually rubber bulletproof, usually, but maybe we need to work on that part of it. But I was part of a group a long time ago that made that festively decorated gas masks. We could go to the protest with gas masks that weren't just scary paramilitary things, but they actually blocked the tear gas, and they were fun theater masks. It's this combination. I think that stands in as a practical thing to do. And the metaphor for let's do things that are practical and cultural and fun and inviting and playful and disarming. Think about what it looks like and think about how what you're doing tells your story and doesn't support the other people's story or actively undermines their story. And the more dishonest their story is, the more fun and easy it is to undermine. So when a certain authoritarian says, Portland is overrun, it's on fire, and the anarchists are all coming to get you. Then you go to Portland and you're like, It's a nice Bohemian town, and people are drinking coffee, and you know what I mean? And going to listen to music, you're like, Okay, that's weird. This is another reality. Okay, but now we have to do something that shows the general audience of America that this is nonsense. They're doing things as you've probably seen. They're leading aerobic classes outside of the ICE center. More to the point because of the content, they're leading Latin dance classes. It's like, You guys seem to have a problem with this culture, but actually, let's do this dance, and you'll see how fun this is. That's whimsical, but also on point. I think that's part of it, too.
BETH ACCOMANDO
Now, your book is called tactical performance. Is tactical frivolity a subcategory of tactical performance?
L.M. BOGAD
Totally, I would say so. The reason it's a subset is it's super important. But like I said, you got to have lots of different tools. You got to use every emotion in the emotional palate, like a painter uses every color in the color wheel, the color palate. Don't not use awe or reverence or mourning or grief. We need to use all of them. It depends on the context. Text. It's fun to talk about the funny ones. But there's also my book, Technical Performance, which the subtitle is The Theory and Practice of Serious Play. So again, playfulness can be funny, but it doesn't have to be funny. I do think it should have some element of surprise. And I don't mean hiding behind a tree and jumping out and going, boo, but just not being cliché. So you can do something that's very sad and makes people feel the feelings of, Oh, my God, this is so sad. This should never happen. But What's going to make that stick for people is if it's not a cliché, if it's a beautiful altar that you've set up in front of the state capital on the steps, and it's an altar to the victims of a certain situation, and it's made really beautifully, and there's music playing, and there's performance around there, if you see what I mean, where they won't forget because they didn't expect it, and it got them at just the right angle. You want to get around people's, I've seen that before, I'm not looking, response. So to me, that's why tactical frivole is one of a bunch of techniques or approaches.
BETH ACCOMANDO
Now, in your book, you mentioned the freedom fighters who came to the lunch counters and sat and were verbally abused and physically abused. And this went out on all the networks and created this sense of there was a need for change. Now, I grew up during that time. I was born in 1960. So back then, we only had three news outlets, and everybody was working coming from the same fundamental information. People may have still questioned that ABC or CBS was more liberal or whatever. Walter Cronkite thought this. But nowadays, the information is coming from so many places. Do these images and these tactical performances have as much effectiveness when the media base is so much more broad and diffuse, and people can choose whatever they want to believe?
L.M. BOGAD
Yeah, no, totally. I think it's harder. I think we have to adjust to that and adapt to it. So you develop a project and you're thinking about the action logic and the social dramaturgy of it. You're like, Okay, we want to do something that both reaches people through their own amateur social media. We want to do something where it's in a place where hundreds of people will just record it on their phones and upload it into these algorithms, into these social media forms. And admittedly, they'll be channeled in a certain way because of algorithms. So we don't want to be over-optimistic, but there's that. And then we also want to do something that gets earned media, that is so interesting that the big media will cover it. And again, you're right, everything's so polarized and splintered. Yeah, if it gets on CNN, that's great, but it's not ABC back in 1965, right? It's totally different, but it's still better than nothing. And then you want to do something where it has a life of its own, and it just keeps lingering. You do actions that... You're not going to get everyone, by the way. You absolutely have to be a little humble. Hey, we're one group in a whole cultural, social movement. Let's do actions that will do something. Any individual action isn't going to do it all, and you have to have persistence and just be part of a movement. I really try to advocate for what's the irresistible image here? What I mean by the irresistible image is an image we can create with our tactical performance that is so strange, so compelling in some way that even our ideological opponents will reproduce that image. They'll then comment on it that it's bad, and they'll mock it or they'll be negative towards it. But that's okay because the idea of the irresistible image is it tells our story. Just if you look at it, it tells our story. And people may or may not agree with it, but it's been told. And then add whatever caption you want. As long as you show our image, at least people know what we're about, and then they can decide. I think you're going to reproduce this one because all your competitors are because it's such a strange and compelling image. By the way, easier said than done, but I've seen it happen. Sometimes by accident. We're not that clever. But sometimes it happens and you're like, Right, that actually hit the mark, and now everyone's talking about it. Ideally, it's something that undermines the authoritarian version of events. I think the dancing frogs and everything, all of that is an What happened?
BETH ACCOMANDO
Well, I think also when they pepper-sprayed the frog, people who approved of that shared it as like, Oh, yeah, got it. But the image itself is saying, This is ridiculous. I think that was one of the images that did carry.
L.M. BOGAD
I agree with that, Beth, and I think that's a good point that, again, you cannot convince everyone. There's 30 to 40 % right now, I think, of the public that it would be very hard to on any issue for ideological reasons, et cetera. But that's okay. What about the rest? That leaves a lot of people to talk to. And most people looking at that image would be like, That's absurd. Again, it's politically more expensive to club a clown. I think It's politically more expensive to deliberately pepper spray a frog. Most people aren't going to appreciate that. And that's okay. You can't get everybody. But if we were to get 60% of everyone, that would go pretty well. So I think that's That is part of it, raising the cost of repression and making it seem more fun to be part of the resistance. Again, specifically exposing the dishonesty of the dominant narrative. Oh, my God, Portland is this dangerous place, and you see all this fun stuff happening, totally nonviolent. The only violence you're seeing is from certain people in very scary uniforms.
BETH ACCOMANDO
What you've been involved with and what we've been talking about has been in-person protest, live events. How does tactical frivolity translate into film or into satire or into stand-up comedy and things like that? Is there a place for it? Are there things in those realms that also reflect tactical frivolity?
L.M. BOGAD
I would say yes. Of course, as you've already pointed out, Beth, it is different. The film is something people work on for years or even a decade or more to make this finally crafted every second counts project, a good film. It's amazing. And tactical performance tends to be more rough and ready. We don't really know what's going to happen. We rehearse for all different responses because that's part of the training and the discipline is we don't know. We know what we're going to do. We don't know what they're going to do. And a film is, of course, in wonderful ways different. So it is a different format. However, you see some of these principles playing out in the narrative of some of these movies, where where authoritarians do not like to be mocked. I think some of the more effective authoritarians were able to show a little bit of sense of humor and flexibility so they didn't overreact and make themselves ridiculous responding. That's actually a little bit more clever. But most authoritarians aren't that. They don't have to be clever. They have all this violent power, right? So they just overreact and crush any mockery because it is going to undermine their unquestioned authority. So when you see in some movies the authorities being mocked in that way, yeah. It doesn't always have to be completely silly. If we think about Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator.
CLIP
Strange. These strike leaders, they're all brunettes. Not a blonde amongst them. Brunettes are troublemakers. They're worse than the Jews. Then wipe them out. It's too small. Not so fast. We get rid of the Jews first, then concentrate on the brunettes. We shall never have peace until we have a pure Arab race. How wonderful. Thurmania, a nation of blue-eye blondes. Why not a blonde Europe, a blonde Asia, a blonde America? A blonde of the world. And a brunet dictator. Dictator of the world. It's your destiny. We'll kill off the Jews, wipe out the brunets. Then we'll come forth our dream, a pure Arian race. Beautiful blonde Arian. They will love you. They will adore you. They will worship you as a God. No, no, you mustn't say it. You make me afraid of myself.
L.M. BOGAD
And the great dictator is playing this almost balletic dance with the inflatable globe because he just wants to rule the whole world. That's haunting. Yeah, it's fabulously performed. It's wonderfully choreographed. It's not zany clown humor. It's like, Oh, okay, right. So you can hit any different mark. Idiocracy, sadly, that film Idiocracy Sadly, that film, Indieocracy, becomes more and more accurate as the years go by. It used to be this satire based on exaggeration of what's going on, and it's starting to feel more and more like a documentary.
CLIP
So who are you? I'm the Secretary of Energy. Everyone who won a contest got to be a cabinet member. I'm the Secretary of State. I'm brought to you by Carlos Jr. Why do you keep saying that? Because they pay me every time I do. It's a really good way to make money. You're so smart. Why don't you know that? Secretary of Defense. And the fun bags over there is the attorney general. Hi. And that's the Secretary of Education. He's stupid. But he's President Camacho's stepbrother still does a pretty good job.
L.M. BOGAD
Satire can seem so irreverent and disrespectful, and it is, and that's the point. But I think there's also something wonderfully, sincere about satire in a strange way in that the satirist is showing that they care about how bad things are, and they clearly have values that are being ruined or disrespect. They're upset. That's why you write a satire. It's not to make all the money. You're doing it because you're upset and you actually are idealistic. You just don't want to admit it. So you satirize what's bad.
CLIP
Now, I understand everyone shit's emotional right now, but listen up.
L.M. BOGAD
I got a three-point plan to fix everything. Number one, we got this guy not sure. Number two, he's got a higher IQ than any man alive. Number three, he's going to fix everything. I give you my word as president. He'll fix the problems with all the dead crops. He's going to make them grow again.
CLIP
President Camacho stood before the world and promised everyone that Joe would solve all their problems.
L.M. BOGAD
He would not only end the dust bowl and heal the economy, but he would cure acne and car sickness as well. Part of tactical frivolity, of course, is is, locking the lies or the outrageous behavior of those in power. You will see that in movies that are politically motivated in this funny way. You exaggerate the flaws and you mock the abuses of power. I feel like duck soup is so anarchic. Duck soup in the Marx Brothers, it goes back quite a ways. If you're saying, Well, what are their actual policy positions? Let's ask Harpo. Oh, wait, he's not talking. So they're not telling you blatantly what they support, but they are mocking a lot of the arrogance of power and bureaucracy and officiousness and aggression.
CLIP
I'd be unworthy of the high trust that's been placed in me if I didn't do everything within my power to keep our beloved Ferdinand here at peace with the world. I'd be only too happy to meet Ambassador Trantino and offer him on behalf of my country, the right-hand of good fellowship. And I feel sure that he will accept this gesture in the spirit in which it is offered. But suppose he doesn't. A fine thing that'll be. I hold out my hand and he refuses to accept it. That'll add a lot to my prestige, won't it? Me, the head of a country snubbed by a foreign ambassador. Who does he think he is that he can come here and make a sap out of me in front of all my people? Think of it. I hold out my hand and that hyena refuses to accept it. Why, the cheap, floor-flushing swine? He'll never get away with it, I tell you. He'll never get away with it. So you refuse to shake hands with me, eh? This is the last straw. There's no turning back now. This means war..
L.M. BOGAD
They're just absolutely mocking it. I think there's so many examples. The Death of Stalin, for those who have seen it, it is a blistering satire of Stalinism, but by connection, all totalitarianism. I've got documents.
CLIP
I have documents on all of you. You, 13th of March, 1937, Zolotow trials, 42 dead, 173 exiled, your signature. That's enough. Well, you signed on the life of your own fucking brother. Oh, you think that was easy You bastard. How did your conscience accommodate that? Zynov, Zynov, poor blameless guy, Zynov, all of you. All of you. I have documents on all of you. I've seen what you've done. I know the truth. It's all written down. It's all written down on a face, on a very fucking long list.
L.M. BOGAD
You can choose to be comfortable and smug and say, Oh, that's just about Russian history. Well, it is, but it's not only about that. It's about anyone who behaves in that totalitarian manner. And they really are mocked. Stalin destroyed the status quo, and he rebuilt it.
CLIP
He was liberal. Radical. He was radical.
L.M. BOGAD
Aren't they? I mean, they're made to be horribly cruel and inhuman. So there's a lot of super grim humor in Death of Stalin, where people are killed, right? Do I think that's funny? I don't know. But they also just show them trying to make up official movements during a funeral.
CLIP
Just swap with me.I said no. We can make it look like it's part of the ceremony.
L.M. BOGAD
And they're trying to just say, Well, I guess I move over here and you do this. I don't know. We have to do something official-looking. So there's physical comedy and that absurdity in the middle of the film. What the fuck are you doing? And I thought with Death of Stalin, I don't know if this is really... This is not really a main point, but the fact that everyone just used their own British or American accents, they didn't bother with bad Russian accents. And I was like, Oh, that almost kept us from getting too immersed in it.
CLIP
I propose a halt to deportations, the release of some existing detainees under Article 31, and the suspension of all arrests that were officially sanctioned three days ago. That's like wiping your ass on Stalin's final list. No, no, no. This is demonstrably revision. Releasing people we arrested three days ago will make us look cretinous.
L.M. BOGAD
And I thought that was a great choice because, yeah, we're not going for emotional realism here. We want you to just keep being entertained by enjoying the mockery of these very bad, powerful people.
BETH ACCOMANDO
One of the scenes that always sticks with me in that film is, and where it's hilarious and horrific simultaneously, but it's where one of the, I forget the names of the actual political figures, but- Beria, the head of the secret service.
L.M. BOGAD
Yes.
BETH ACCOMANDO
And the pettiness, the petty vindictiveness of it was both hilarious and just horrific.
CLIP
Shoot her before him, but make sure he sees it. Or in this one, kill him, take him to his church, dump him in the pulpit, and I'll leave the rest up to you.
L.M. BOGAD
That is one of the scenes that also sticks in my mind, literally, for me as well. Yes, they're mocking that character, but they don't need you to ha ha laugh. There's some moments you go, That is awful. But I have to admit, it's good writing. You still feel like you're in good hands as an audience member because the acting is good, the comedy timing is good, the writing is good. And so You're like, Okay, I was willing to go there with you, but you're also giving me the horror. And that's important because the topic deserves that. And again, some folks feel that satire in protest or film trivializes the atroc. And it's like, well, if it's poorly made, it can trivialize. If it's not thought through and it's too glib or something, yeah, sometimes it's not taking it seriously enough. But often it's taking it very seriously by doing the hard work of figuring out how to make it funny while punching up, as they say. You're not mocking the victims, you're mocking the cruel abusers of power. And to keep the humor laser-focused in that way to make the point is something that a great satirist will do successfully.
BETH ACCOMANDO
This, of course, will lead me to Mel Brooks, because if you want to talk about the most ridiculous example of this, springtime for Hitler.
CLIP
Germany was having trouble. What a sad, sad story. Need a new leader to restore its former glory. Where, oh, where was he? Where could that man be? We looked around and then we found a man for you and me. And now it's springtime for Hitler and Germany.
BETH ACCOMANDO
He took a lot of flak for it, but his motivation and his point was, he says, If you mock Hitler, you make him small. I'm not making fun of anything that happened in the Holocaust to the Jews. I'm making fun of the person who perpetrated this.
L.M. BOGAD
That's right. That's a great point. Some people have done this, and I feel, missed the mark. They'll handle something like the Holocaust, and they're not as talented or they're not as thoughtful. I think it is possible to go in the wrong direction with that, even though your intentions were not bad. I think that can happen, but I don't think that's an example. The producers is not an example of that. Let's remember, it was about 20 years after the Holocaust. It was not now. It was much more raw and memorable. People who had survived the Holocaust were definitely still around in their family. It's more risky than we even realize now, if you put it in its time and context in the '60s. It's unbelievable that he did it. But I think it worked in the long run because it was actually respectful of the victims and relentlessly mocking the evildoers, the murderers. And I think when you think about the producers, there's this thing about he does it in a surprising way. You could have just somehow just directly mocked Hitler. Frankly, Chaplin did so well. There's nothing wrong with that. It's great. But he was like, No, I'm going to take you on a narrative where you don't realize where it's going. And the first few scenes, you're following a couple of guys who just aren't doing that well in life. There's this guy who's a failed theater producer. I have no idea this is going to be about Hitler yet. It's just about, first of all, it's zero Mostel, so you're in for a good He was outrageous and amazing. I'm going to follow Zéro Mostel, and he's a complete failure of an elder producer. He's doing unspeakable things to get money that we don't have to talk about right now. There's a lot going on with this character. Then there's this nebbish accountant. Who are these guys? Why am I meeting them? I don't know, but it's funny, so I'll keep watching.
CLIP
How can a producer make more money with a flop than he could with a hit? Well, it's simply a matter of creative accounting. Let's assume, just for the moment, that you You are a dishonest man. Assume a way. It's very easy. You simply raise more money than you really need. What do you mean? Well, you did it yourself, only you did it on a very small scale. What did I do? You raised $2,000 more than you needed to produce your last play. So what? Why did it get me? I'm wearing a cardboard belt. Well, that's where you made your mistake. You didn't go all the way. You see, if you were really a bold criminal, you could have raised a million. But the play cost me only $60,000 to produce. And how long did it run? One night. Do you see? Do you see what I'm trying to tell you? You could have raised a million dollars, put on a $60,000 flop, and kept the rest. But what if the play was a hit? Well, then you'd go to jail. See, once the play is a hit, you have to pay off all the backers. And with so many backers, there could never be enough profits to go around.
L.M. BOGAD
And you get to Hitler after this whole long thing that's so complicated of them realizing, Oh, we're going to defraud theater investors. What? He just literally... And then it leads to this satire of Hitler. And I think what's brilliant about that is you do not see it coming. Of course, he's not just doing this to talk about a couple of fraudsters who get caught. But in the meantime, it's madcap and wacky. It is all that. So it works as a comedy, and it earns its moment. But you earn the moment, and that's an old term from theater. If you're going to be preachy, earn the moment. You got to entertain people. There's got to be good writing, acting, jokes, timing. Everything's good. And now you can preach at me in the last part, and I'll learn a lesson. Otherwise, boo, right? And talk about earning the moment. He makes this funny madcap comedy of this ridiculous idea. But then it turns into this hilarious and unbelievable satire of Hitler and anyone who supports fascism, anyone who supports nationalism, racism. Anyone who supports that is... You might be laughing at the movie, but you're being mocked, believe me. You have that character of the pathetic Nazi who loves Hitler, is this goofy character actor who was one of Mel Brooks’ great actors. Mars was his last name.
CLIP
Hitler was better looking than Churchill. He was a better dresser than Sœhrchen. He had more hair. He told plenty of jokes, and he could dance the band's almost certain. Exactly why-. That's exactly why we want to produce this play, to show the world the true Hitler, the Hitler you love, the Hitler you knew, the Hitler with a song in his heart.
L.M. BOGAD
And so he's there to also be a foil. Like, oh, anyone who takes Hitler seriously and thinks he's great, you're this moron, you're this idiot in the storyline who loves the musical because he doesn't get that it's ridiculous. And he only gets mad later when he realizes it's so terrible. So you have to have that character, too. And I remember when I first saw the movie, I was like, why do we have this dude in a German Nazi helmet? What is happening? And I was like, oh, because you have to have the guy to make fun of who believes in these terrible ideas and then make him an idiot. And then You have the musical, the audience is scandalized. But of course, then it's the 1960s and the hipsters are like, Oh, I love the cool irony of how you're locking Hitler, and it becomes a hit when it needed to be a flop. I mean, that's great. So I think that the producers is such a good example because it's like, what's your first idea? It might be cliché, start over. But first, have your first idea. We're going to mock Hitler, and it might be something obvious. So then what's your second or third idea? Oh, it's this. It's like a Rube Goldberg contraption that leads in an unexpected way to the marking of fascism, which is wonderful. Yay, we like that. I want to give an example of this Francisco Franco, the horrible murderous dictator who, after three years of the Spanish Civil War, with the help of Hitler and Mussolini, takes over Spain, 1939. One of the first things he does besides commit lots and lots of murder of people he doesn't like, is ban Carnival, this medieval cultural Catholic festival where everyone gets rowdy and wild and irreverent and satirical before lent. It's this wonderful thing since the Middle Ages or earlier, and Francisco Franco, while also solidifying his terrible dictatorship, abolishes Carnival because that's a time when people could have fun and be irreverent and mock authority and just be ridiculous. And he couldn't hack that. I think it's revealing that he had to ban it.
BETH ACCOMANDO
And where do you see these comedians? I don't even know if comedian is the right term, but John Oliver and John Stewart. I sometimes find that I go to them for news because at least they're honest about their opinions. But where do they fit into this notion of tactical frivolity?
L.M. BOGAD
Well, I think it's interesting because I don't know. It's not so frivolous I think what they're doing is so important because they're actually fact-checking. I mean, imagine this. It's up to the comedians now to be the trustworthy news people. My sense of it, having watched a lot of it, is a lot of their shows and loving it, they have their own perspective, of course, and they also have to shape things so that there's a punchline. So the way you shape the news coverage, it has to end. These are comedy shows. However, they are fact-checked, peer-reviewed, multiple sources reporting going on, and they can stand by the honesty and the accuracy and withstand a lawsuit. They're doing things so that the dictator, want to be dictator, soos them, and they're like, Go ahead because we'll win. When I talk about serious play, how serious can you get? They're covering very serious topics, doing serious coverage. But then you've got to shorten it, you got to make it funny. You got to do all of that. So it's hard work. And I would say the tactical frivolity side of that is when When you see Jon Stewart or one of the other comedians on the show, he'll cover the topic and he'll really make a pointed critique. He'll make it absolutely funny and also make fun of himself.
CLIP
How eerie is the Iraq parallel? Well, we got one guy making the same case for both wars. And yes, it's who you think. Saddam Hussein is a threat to my country. He's a threat to our way of life. He needs to go. Maduro is a existential threat to the people of the United States. It is time for Maduro to go. Now, Now, to be fair, some things have changed over the last 20 years. Back in the Iraq War, we used to play clips of Lindsay Graham and make jokes suggesting that he's secretly gay. But now we know that that was inappropriate.
L.M. BOGAD
So he'll make fun of the way he looks on camera or that he's aging or whatever. And we appreciate that because he's like, Look, I'm going to hit myself, too. I'm not self-righteous. I'm I'm not going to just go after this guy. I'm going to spend a fair amount of time making fun of myself and being vulnerable that way because, first of all, it's funny, it's charming, it's disarming, and it's saying, I'm in on it, too. I'm part of this, too. I'm going to do that. John Oliver constantly does that as well, just making fun of himself as well. And I think that's really important. There have been several attempts on the right to do comedy news shows, to counter them. Over the years, there's been a few. They never work out. I don't want to say it because those people aren't as talented. Maybe they're not, by the way. But there's also something about being authoritarian, where you can't mock yourself or your team ever. John Oliver will constantly mock people who are similar ideologically to him. Protests this week showed admirable restraint.
CLIP
In fact, just watch this guy respond to getting tear-gassed with an almost annoying degree of LA chill. You told me you got caught up in the tear gas as well. Describe what What happened to you? Oh, just tasted a little tear gas. Tasted like fascism. Has there ever been anyone more Los Angeles than that man? Snarky attitude, sunglasses at night, beanie and sweatshirt in June and a perfectly timed look to camera, all while looking like Travis Barker's Tether.
L.M. BOGAD
John Stewart constantly will mock people on his team because he doesn't want to have a team. He'll be like, Look at what these people did. So he mocks everyone, including himself. And if you're an authoritarian, you got to just constantly mock the other people. You can't admit any weakness. You can't ever admit you're wrong or that anyone on your team is wrong. It makes for really boring comedy that doesn't really come across. I really think it's a limitation. I really do. And I think that's one of the core reasons why their shows have not been as successful, because they have very loyal viewers. They've got a big fan base, and these shows never work because you know what? Soviet comedy shows weren't that great either. They just couldn't step outside of a certain box, so it's not that funny. The thing that parallels tactical frivolity is that level of just having a sense of humor about yourself, too, and making yourself ridiculous, too.
BETH ACCOMANDO
Then one last thing I want to ask you about is irony these days. Sometimes I'll see some of these shows like John Oliver or John Stuart will have somebody saying something like, Yes, Portland is horrible. It's a hell a hellhole of violence and all this. There's a part of me that understands that it's irony and that it's funny, and they're going to cut to the frog. But they've put this on film in a way that someone else can take it and go like, See, even John Stewart agrees that Portland is a hellhole. Irony right now, what's the place of irony right now when people can take it as fact and not understand that there's this other element to it?
L.M. BOGAD
Yeah, no, that's great. And there are also just the people I call irony deficient. They just aren't going to get the irony no matter how obvious. I've done several recent street theater and tech and performance projects. And as always, and this is what I do in my trainings, too, I train people to go, when you realize that somebody is on your side and is getting upset and they just can't process your ridiculous costume, and your absurd, like Swiftian, Jonathan Swift, a modest proposal, irony, just break character and tell them. You don't need them to be upset. Just be friendly. This is not method acting. I worked with a group called the Yes Men recently, and we did a thing to raise awareness that ExxonMobil in New Mexico is trying to pass a law that they can put the poisoned, produced fracking water into the general water supply. So they don't know how to store it. They're just going to dump it in the water supply. So we went to a big event that ExxonMobil sponsored called the ExxonMobil Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. And we were representing a fossil fuel company, Extreme Energy. And we were giving out samples of this tasty beverage, produced water. And it was delicious. And it just has an A huge bouche of lead, a little notes of arsenic, an aftertaste of mercury. These are all things in the world. And most people got it and they thought it was funny. And then we told them the facts they need to know, please go against this law. Let's not have this law get passed. That was the purpose, not just to be funny. And some people who were environmentally very aware were just thought this our company was real, no matter how obvious we were. And I would just say, look, I'm not Robert De Niro doing a wonderful method acting thing. And I would just say, Listen, this is a prank. We're doing street theater. Oh, thank you. Okay. So I mentioned that because irony is risky. The benefit you get from being ironic is when people get the joke, they're doing a little work and they get satisfied. They get to feel bright for figuring it out. Then you're bonding because you're making the same joke. My favorite thing is when you do one of these and people joke back to you in character. Oh, my God, what a great idea. I love it. Oh, yeah. And they'll take a taste and go, The mercury is particularly delicious. And now we're doing activism. That's also we're doing shtick together. We're doing improv. We're having fun. It's more fun than just preaching at someone, and then they get bored and walk away. I I like it when we make the irony together. I throw it out there. You close the joke by showing you get it and come back. Wonderful. But if it fails or backfires or misfires, you got to clean up your mess. It's really important. I'm sorry, I got this I have a ridiculous hat. This costume is absurd. The whole idea is absurd. Come on. But it didn't work. I did something wrong or you didn't get... Let's just talk. Let's be unironic now. To get back to your point here, when you're doing something that's preserved forever on TV or in digital media, maybe it's good to have the visual cue along with your verbal cue. So you have something better than this, but the danger of Portland, and you just show some people drinking coffee really good, strong coffee in a cafe, or something adorable or something great, and it's there on the screen with you. So it's like they can either block that out, where they're obviously censoring something or go to a lot of effort to block delete that visual image, and then you can sue them. Or they include it, and it undermines the fact that they're trying to take you out of context, et cetera. You got to find countermeasures. One of the things I do in my tactical voice trainings is I train people to... We practice talking to the media. And it's like, what's the sound bite you want to say? And let's figure out the thing that you absolutely don't want to say because it's a mistake and it will be taken out of context. Let's try to say that in the training so we know what not to do. Let's make the mistake now when there's nothing at stake. So I think your question is good. I think there's ways to avoid that and to keep the irony, but to be aware of it. To be aware that, yes, nowadays, that can totally happen.
BETH ACCOMANDO
All right. Well, I want to thank you very much for your time and talking about tactical frivolity of all kinds.
L.M. BOGAD
Yes. Beth, it was a pleasure. Thanks for having me on the show. It's great.
BETH ACCOMANDO: I need to take one last break and then I will be back with Andrew Boyd and Marin Exler to talk more about Tactical Frivolity as well as Beautiful Trouble.
MIDROLL 2 [currently at 00;40;18;26]
BETH ACCOMANDO Welcome back to KPBS listener supporter Cinema Junkie I’m Beth Accomando. Andrew Boyd describe himself as a Longtime Creative Campaigner as well as co founder of the Beautiful Trouble, and editor of the book on Beautiful trouble. Marin Exler describes herself as the elder Gen Z social media support to a lot of Andrew's creative campaigns. And the creative director of the satirical group Trillionaires for Trump among others. To begin, I asked Andrew what his definition was for Tactical Frivolity.
ANDREW BOYD
I would just say tactical frivolity is the use of humor in a contested political space. We're in an increasingly authoritarian environment where a lot of the optics are deployment of power and threat in a way that cows people into submission or into ducking their heads. It's very strutted up, pumped up. There isn't maybe a lot of there, there, behind it. And so puncturing that bloated sense, that bloated strutting of authority is something that humor and ridicule can do. Tactical frivolity is a way both to disarm a situation on the streets where the forces of authoritarianism benefit from a response in kind. They're just wanting a violent response. They're wanting a response of us looking like a guerrilla army and going up against their rogue state army, their Trump's Gestapo. So that's what they want. That makes them work. That gives them power. That legitimizes what they want to do, the heavy fist that's coming down. And if we respond in an unexpected way, in a way that undermines that authority, that turns the whole situation into... Makes the idiocy and the absurdity and the illegality of that feel like an overreach and a rogue action and just ridiculous response to a...There isn't a reason for them to be there. And so we're going to make that very evident and clear by being in a frog costume or in the '60s, putting a flower in the barrel of the gun right past the baanet, and both disarming the situation and making them seem ridiculously macho and paranoid. And so, yeah, Humor can play a role in undermining authority in a very, very powerful way. We're seeing it in the streets, particularly, most iconically in Portland, with the frogs and everything else.
BETH ACCOMANDO
How does tactical frivolity play out in social media, and how can it be effective or powerful?
MARIN EXLER
Yeah. So in the current attention economy, it's very difficult to get people to pay attention to information that they would need to take on to do something that creates transformation. And the easiest way to capture attention is through humor. And humor helps people stop and watch the video, watch the video all the way through, and then learn what are the action steps that they can take in order to to move the needle or move something forward. And so the frivolity, especially the satire, at least of the trillionaires for Trump, what we've seen is that first moment where people look at the video and they're like, What is this?
CLIP
Billionaires have gathered here today to promote our campaign platform. Raise the rent. Child care for the few.Slow and expensive busses. A city that only billionaires can afford.
MARIN EXLER
And then they watch and they realize, Oh, it's satire. Oh, they're making fun of these people. Oh, that's really funny. That's really smart.
CLIP
Tax the poor.
MARIN EXLER
Then we see way more engagement and actual consumer assuming the information that we want to dispel. I've created videos before that are very straightforward. This is what you should know. This is what you need to do. They don't go anywhere. And then we make one video and we're the billionaires against Mom Donnie, and we're running through the streets of New York, and that gets 3. 2 million views. And that highlights how ridiculous it is that billionaires are spending so much money to stop a mayoral candidate. So that's the role that humor and tactical frivolity really plays on social media.
BETH ACCOMANDO
And Andrew, you created this website, Beautiful Trouble. So explain what it offers to people.
ANDREW BOYD
Now, just to be very clear, it's a... Beautiful Trouble is a global team effort. Hundreds of artists and activists and strategists have corralled their wisdom over decades of social change experimentation and colded it into a treasure trove of wisdom, of best practices, of tactical possibilities in there. So I was just an initiator of that effort, of bringing that community together to curate this wisdom and offer it up to movements across the world. So it helps you understand the power dynamics, social change dynamics, and then offers you tactical guidance. And For example, there's a lot of what we call principles, design guidelines in the book. It's broken into very modular parts. It's all online in multiple languages at beautifultrouble. Org. Anyone can use it. For example, what we were talking about earlier with tactical frivolity, there's a principle, use humor to undermine authority. We talked about that, and we've seen that happening in the streets of Portland and elsewhere. Don't dress like a protester, which might seem counterintuitive, but if you dress like a protester, people will go, They put you the protester box, right? And then they put the cop in the cop box, and then they're not interested in what the content is, and the cop knows what to do with you. So it's like, don't dress like a protester. And then you confound the expectations, both of the people, the wider public you're trying to reach, and of the maybe people who are trying to police you on the streets. Kill them with kindness. Don't just go up balls to balls in the street. Send paper airplanes. The cops are blocking you from the target that you're trying to reach. Send paper airplanes over them or sing a song. There's so many ways to kill them with kindness. It catches people by surprise. It brings out the humanity of the situation as opposed to the us them-ness of the situation, our common humanity. Joy is a revolutionary force, is another principle. In the book. I'm sure your conversation with L. M. Bogad brought that to the floor. Here's one that's interesting. If protest is made illegal, make daily life a protest. You see that happening very much in a lot of the totalitarian regimes during the Soviet era and the other areas. But it's playing out in the streets of Portland. People are bringing their knitting out to the streets in front of the National Guard occupations and the ICE protests and just doing their knitting. It's like, We're just living our lives here. What are you doing here? Just another couple to give you an idea. The real action is our target's reaction. It's like you don't just do an action, you actually do an action with an understanding and is designed to elicit a particular reaction from your target that then becomes part of the larger action. If the police were to arrest the frog, that's a ridiculous photo op that you can capture. Those are some of the instigations, invitations that are in the book. It's a whole design manual for doing creative protests and creative social change.
BETH ACCOMANDO
One of the things I really liked at the website when I was there was the toolbox toolbox page where there's all these different types of protests. And what I appreciated was not only were you giving people these tools, but you were also evaluating like, Hey, this is what worked, but this is what didn't, or this is when it didn't work. That's right. And I think a lot of places aren't willing to be that critical. So just talk a little bit about that toolbox and what you wanted to put into those particular tools and how you wanted people to be able to use them.
ANDREW BOYD
Well, I think that's a great question and a great observation. It was generated from analysis from people's own many decades of experience doing this and asking that exact question that you mentioned, which is, what works about this and what doesn't? What worked about a particular campaign or a particular action, but also about what are the uses and abuses of a particular tactic? As you said, there's all these different approaches in there. We show How do you do a light projection? How do you do a banner hang? How do you do a blockade? How do you do a boycott? They're all there. And we went, what is the difference between a hard blockade, where you're actually stopping people from getting in and out of a building, and a soft one, which is more just looks like you're symbolically saying that the things that are happening in this building shouldn't be happening or something like that. So what tactic do you want to use for any given situation? And what is thinking about what's your strategy? And so therefore, your set tactics should build and support that strategy, and your strategy should know what its goals are. And there's a deeper thinking about how to design a successful action, how to design a successful campaign. So it's not just like, Hey, what feels good to do? But it's just like, Why is this? Who's the audience? Who's the target? What will make them change the way they're operating? What will get the results you want? Let's grab the the items comes from it that will help you achieve your goals. But at the core, there is a critical eye. And so we're not just trying to offer all these cool things you can do. We're also trying to encourage people who are deciding to take action, to step into their activist selves to cultivate a critical eye and a strategic sensibility. So it's not just do the fun thing, but understand, here are all these things that we can do, and Let's discuss the pros and cons. Let's discuss and hash out our different opinions on what would be the best next step. I'm glad you noticed that there's some critical thinking in there. It's not just fun and games, right? We want to win.
BETH ACCOMANDO
And Marin, as somebody who is much younger than me, what are you seeing about current protests now and younger protesters in terms of what seems to be engaging them or what seems to be connecting with them.
MARIN EXLER
Yeah. I mean, I think it's dependent place by place, right? I feel like the Portland frog thing, it really was like, That's so Portland. And it all started because, as Andrew mentioned, an ice agent pepper sprayed the frog's ventilation. And I think the chatter that I saw was like, Well, that ice agent tried to kill that person because that could have been really dangerous. That could have been really bad. And how ridiculous of them to come after someone that clearly is not an actual threat to them. I will say, I think that is part of the younger generation does talk a little bit about, all right, well, if it's not a real threat to authority, what are we doing? How do we really undermine it or change the authority? And I think that's partially why we saw 104,000 people come out to volunteer for Zoraun, because I think my generation is very done with being told to sit down and shut up and these are the people in charge, and this is how it works, and this is how politics works, and this is how you play the game. So it's like, Fine. Well, show up to the protest, but then we're going to go lobby for change after. We're going to canvas for people that we believe in. We're going to support progressive challengers. We're going to use people power to overwhelm the moneyed interests that are coming at us. But I will say I do think there is a big psychological question, I feel, among my generation of like, okay, if we just protest and we go home and nothing changes, what are we accomplishing? And wanting to be really smart and strategic about the way they engage.
ANDREW BOYD
Beth, can I make one note on the moment when the pepper spray was put into the frog's air vent? Part of the tactical frivolity was how he responded to that. Speaking of the action and the reaction, and he was like, I've tasted spice here. I'm Mexican. What do you expect? So he brushed it off. They didn't have anything on him. They couldn't get to him. He took it in stride with such style. And I think that was part of what Maren is referring to as part of what made this pop off because of his charm and coolness in the way he responded. And he just stayed. He's in a frog costume, but he stood his ground. There was a courage and persistence there. That was a very poetic and telling and compelling moment that helped everything go viral. So it's not just the idea, it's like how you roll. That was notable.
BETH ACCOMANDO
Now, I was born in 1960, and when I grew up, we had three networks that were reporting the news. In the '60s, we all, whatever political background you had, we were all seeing the same images of the civil rights movement. And so I feel like it was easier to galvanize people and effect change because we were all working from a very similar foundation of information and facts. Well, nowadays, there's so much out there. Everybody can just go to whatever site they want to support whatever ideas they have. So what is that challenge for people who want to protest to control their message and to try and get it out there? I mean, it just seems like there's so much out there. How can you win in that situation?
MARIN EXLER
I think everyone's trying to figure that out. I think what we're seeing is, honestly, people are paying attention to things that affect them the most, right? And I think we talk about the affordability It was a big topic in the 2024 election, and it continues to be. I think it's because regardless of what TV station you're watching or what social media influencers that you're getting information from, You're still experiencing day to day. My rent is going up. My salary is not keeping up with inflation. And so it is this very eternal, prevalent question of how do you get people to focus on one thing at a time to combine their power to then take action. And I think what we're seeing in a different way is more so what is being reported on is what is relevant and pressing to people every day. At least that's the hope, right? Is that policies and actions are shaped based off of what people actually need and what their concerns and voicing opinions are, rather than just being told, This is what you should care about. This is what we're going to talk about.
ANDREW BOYD
I haven't figured this out from a pragmatic way. It feels like it's one thing to be living in different universes of opinion, but then it's another thing to be living in a different factual universes. I think we all run up against this, and you're trying to have a conversation, you're trying to be logical about it, and then you're just like, Wait, what? And so that makes it very difficult. But I think just to build on Maren's point, sometimes you can connect with the larger audience across many of these silos when you connect with something very, very real. And we saw that with the Mandani campaign, as Maren is pointing out, with the... Almost the vast majority of New Yorkers are having one version or another of the affordability crisis. And Mandani's campaign was brilliant in cooking that down to three or four keep planks that were so simple and so concrete, right? Fast and free busses, freeze the rent, universal childcare. Boom. Okay, now I know what I'm getting from this guy. And of course, he's got incredible charisma and his team is incredibly creative and all that stuff. But at the base of it, he was running a It was all common sense. It was all common sense, and it connected with something that people were experiencing on the day to day. And it was done creatively and charismatically. So that package. And then in the context of an election, that was the biggest news story for six months in New York City. So you got that whole package, and that allowed you to speak to a larger audience across all of the potential, or not, but more across these silos than we're used to. You We don't have to argue a lot of factual things on the ground exactly, just like we're feeling it, and those three things will make it better. And we reinvented ourselves as billionaires against Mamdani. Our slogans were Maren, do you want to share how we flipped those three main program points around in a very funny way?
MARIN EXLER
Yes, we said, raise the rent, childcare for the few, and slow and expensive busses. And when we made our viral video, someone commented and said, wow, when you put it that way, it really does make it seem so ridiculous that people are opposing him, especially these billionaires. So We're like, Yep, nailed it.
ANDREW BOYD
Tactical frivolity for the win. And Beth, if you haven't watched that video that's now at 3. 2 million on Instagram and who knows what on TikTok, et cetera, we can send you that link, and You might want to play a little clip of that on your show if that fits. But it's very clever and compact. May I share a couple creative responses to the ICE stuff and to the authoritarian push on the street? I've plucked a few from a list that I and some colleagues are tracking. And these aren't necessarily humorous, but they're just creative. They're outside the box. They're showing coming up with all sorts of ways to resist. So one is grandmas against ICE. And these are busses full of women over the age of 70 who are coming into Chicago and other cities to follow no ice agents around as they do their raids and shout at them, You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You know better, young man. They've probably got an umbrella and who else? Whatever. And so that's like you're using the moral authority of that that is ascribed to the grandmother type of figure to morally chastise these folks who are for $50,000 bonuses are doing deep harm and trauma to fellow citizens. They should be chastised in this way. So that's just one creative approach that I really appreciated. Another are these billboards that have been put up in the border regions and in the occupied cities, informing troops of their right not to carry out illegal orders. So very straight, no humor there, but yet a creative way to undermine morale and maybe blunt the Trump's Gestapo. And then I don't know if you saw this video, but there's a beautiful, hilarious, fantastic video from Canada where they show how Canadians, the alternative to ICE agents, if you arrive, if immigrants arrive, visitors arrive in Canada and how they're met with NICE agents, not ICE.
CLIP
ANDREW BOYD
It's hilarious and it helps sometimes not just to criticize what's bad, but present how things could be in the alternative, which does sometimes gives you hope, but also is almost the strongest critique. Why couldn't it be this way?
BETH ACCOMANDO
That was Andrew Boyd and Marin Exler of Beautiful Trouble.
That wraps up another edition of KPBS listener supported Cinema Junkie. If you enjoy the podcast, then please share it with a friend because your recommendation is the best way to build an addicted audience. You can also help by leaving a review. Till our next film fix, I’m Beth Accomando your resident Cinema Junkie.
