What does a film from 1927 have to do with gay space rocks? Fam, welcome to my TED Talk.
I’ve been pondering this since I saw the art deco influence on her mural…
(Art Deco was an art movement going on back in the late ‘20s and into the ‘30s characterized by patterns and lines that were often geometric, patterned and drew the eye. It’s really pretty, think Great Gatsby aesthetic.)
But now with the newest episode I am seeing some visual parallels, not just aesthetic choices, and I have to wonder if this has been purposefully alluding to this film in particular all along.
WD is reminding me (in many ways) of Brigitte Helm in that film!
The parallels are especially poignant when Homeworld’s history comes up, as we’ve seen characters discuss/ witness/ participate in this social pyramid. Gems are the labor force that keeps the Diamond Authority aloft. That is (supposedly) their only purpose/ identity. They have no “humanity”, just a place on the assembly line.
In Metropolis, the overarching theme is about the human race losing its humanity to machines. One of the most iconic scenes is when we watch the workers operating on The Machine– they move unnaturally, almost mechanical themselves. Later, we are shown how this glistening exterior has a wretched underbelly. In a vision, the members of the slave labor force who live at the very bottom are unwillingly consumed by The Machine and it is chaotic; workers march to their doom in organized units, like drones, indistinct from one another. The privileged will lose themselves too, falling for the luxury they are provided by their status, blindly praising The Machine, represented/ personified by Maria…
The way I see it, gems like Sapphires have received some semblance of favor/privilege from the Diamond Authority, and they uphold their place in society with the promise that they won’t be treated like slave labor workers, like Bizmuths and Pearls. Gems like Peridots, Amethysts, and Rubys are the uniform working class, a cog in the machine who only aim to get the job done. The Diamonds are able to rule over all this not just because of physical prowess, but because of social stuctures at play.
In the movie there is a scene where a pyramid is formed to visualize this structure, and Maria, the one on top, arrives on a large beastly statue… I believe that geoweapons like The Cluster and general gem technology could represent a means of separating the one on top from the ones below, and a way to keep everyone below in line.
Okay, analysis out of the way, I wanted to toss in one last thing for fun: I see Pink Diamond as being Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times (1936). He came later in history (so he’s a newer generation) and is prone to acting childish, dismantling literal assembly lines.
What does a film from 1927 have to do with gay space rocks? Fam, welcome to my TED Talk.
I’ve been pondering this since I saw the art deco influence on her mural…
(Art Deco was an art movement going on back in the late ‘20s and into the ‘30s characterized by patterns and lines that were often geometric, patterned and drew the eye. It’s really pretty, think Great Gatsby aesthetic.)
But now with the newest episode I am seeing some visual parallels, not just aesthetic choices, and I have to wonder if this has been purposefully alluding to this film in particular all along.
WD is reminding me (in many ways) of Brigitte Helm in that film!
The parallels are especially poignant when Homeworld’s history comes up, as we’ve seen characters discuss/ witness/ participate in this social pyramid. Gems are the labor force that keeps the Diamond Authority aloft. That is (supposedly) their only purpose/ identity. They have no “humanity”, just a place on the assembly line.
In Metropolis, the overarching theme is about the human race losing its humanity to machines. One of the most iconic scenes is when we watch the workers operating on The Machine– they move unnaturally, almost mechanical themselves. Later, we are shown how this glistening exterior has a wretched underbelly. In a vision, the members of the slave labor force who live at the very bottom are unwillingly consumed by The Machine and it is chaotic; workers march to their doom in organized units, like drones, indistinct from one another. The privileged will lose themselves too, falling for the luxury they are provided by their status, blindly praising The Machine, represented/ personified by Maria…
The way I see it, gems like Sapphires have received some semblance of favor/privilege from the Diamond Authority, and they uphold their place in society with the promise that they won’t be treated like slave labor workers, like Bizmuths and Pearls. Gems like Peridots, Amethysts, and Rubys are the uniform working class, a cog in the machine who only aim to get the job done. The Diamonds are able to rule over all this not just because of physical prowess, but because of social stuctures at play.
In the movie there is a scene where a pyramid is formed to visualize this structure, and Maria, the one on top, arrives on a large beastly statue… I believe that geoweapons like The Cluster and general gem technology could represent a means of separating the one on top from the ones below, and a way to keep everyone below in line.
Okay, analysis out of the way, I wanted to toss in one last thing for fun: I see Pink Diamond as being Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times (1936). He came later in history (so he’s a newer generation) and is prone to acting childish, dismantling literal assembly lines.
Black people with vaginas who are pregnant I urge you to find a black doula or a midwife to help with delivery. The medical community is extremely racist and contributes to mortality of black infants and those giving birth.
There is legit a medical bias that black people feel way less pain than other races, so our pain is taken way less seriously. We could be in a life or death situation and the yt doctors and nurses will brush off our pain.
It happened to Serena Williams also (look it up).
Medical bias against black and brown people is very much real.
And I would recommend reading the Medical Apartheid it delves deeper into the racist medical community that is still prevalent to today
“According to the CDC, black mothers in the U.S. die at three to four times the rate of white mothers, one of the widest of all racial disparities in women’s health. Put another way, a black woman is 22 percent more likely to die from heart disease than a white woman, 71 percent more likely to perish from cervical cancer, but 243 percent more likely to die from pregnancy- or childbirth-related causes. ”
Black people with vaginas who are pregnant I urge you to find a black doula or a midwife to help with delivery. The medical community is extremely racist and contributes to mortality of black infants and those giving birth.
There is legit a medical bias that black people feel way less pain than other races, so our pain is taken way less seriously. We could be in a life or death situation and the yt doctors and nurses will brush off our pain.
It happened to Serena Williams also (look it up).
Medical bias against black and brown people is very much real.
And I would recommend reading the Medical Apartheid it delves deeper into the racist medical community that is still prevalent to today
“According to the CDC, black mothers in the U.S. die at three to four times the rate of white mothers, one of the widest of all racial disparities in women’s health. Put another way, a black woman is 22 percent more likely to die from heart disease than a white woman, 71 percent more likely to perish from cervical cancer, but 243 percent more likely to die from pregnancy- or childbirth-related causes. ”
Celtyradfem 