(This article was first published in The Hitchhiker's Guide to British and American Dramas)
In the field of adult animation, Netflix has released two films in recent years: "Love, Death and Robots", which is "unpopular and strange", and "BoJack Horseman", which catches up with the tide of "mourning culture" and uses poisonous chicken soup to feed a number of Weibo accounts. ".
Of course, the adult world is not only about pornography, drug addiction, poisonous chicken soup, mourning, but also - philosophy.
If last year's Netflix's best animation was "Love Dead," this year's Netflix's best animation is "Midnight Gospel."
This Netflix adult animation is both a " drug-addicting animation " and a " philosophical animation " that explores more possibilities for animation. To be able to shoot this kind of animation, either it is really unique to religion and philosophy, or it is flying leaves flying high... I tend to believe the latter. I tried to finish it when my mind was clear and my brain was full, but within a few minutes I realized that I seemed to need a bottle of wine.
Midnight Gospel was co-produced by Adventure Time and Beyond the Garden Walls producer Pendleton Ward and stand-up comedian Duncan Trussel over seven years.
Needless to say, "Adventure Time", friends who like American animation will not be unfamiliar with its brain hole and magic, if you are on the radio, you will definitely love it.
"Beyond the Garden Wall" has a dark fairy tale flavor, eerie, mysterious and obscure, and many metaphors are hidden in it.
This probably explains why "Midnight Gospel" presents a wonderful mix of temperament : it has a wild and open-minded imagination, an obscure philosophical connotation, and an endless, full of question marks. lengthy conversation...
1
A hallucinogenic journey to life
The protagonist Clancy, the host of a podcast called "Midnight Gospel", lives on a planet called "Ribbon", which is like a colorful version of "Avatar" Pandora.
Every day, Clancy will use a multiverse simulator to choose a " simulation " for herself, lobster man, muscle man, rainbow beauty, pig, light bulb, rooster...
Clancy then picks a " simulated planet " and chooses a local resident as a guest on the podcast, and the two explore serious (no nonsense) topics as they travel together on adventures. The dialogue between the two in each episode is the content of the "Midnight Gospel" podcast.
In the first episode, Clancy came to an Earth in a parallel universe. By the way, there are many parallel time and space earths in the animation, showing the various tricks of human beings to die and send themselves into all kinds of strange apocalypse.
This Earth is going through a zombie apocalypse. However, the residents of Earth obviously have more concerns. They held up signs and stood at the gate of the government demanding "liberation of marijuana".
Clancy's randomly chosen companion turns out to be the President of the United States. In the face of zombies, the president is also very calm. The only thing he worries about is " legalization of marijuana ."
Presumably facing the end of the world, the president and the famous singer Sting have the same thoughts (don't take it seriously) in the Netflix documentary "Sweeping the Road: Psychedelic Facts": "Drugs won't save the world, but they will be a good start. ”
In addition to the cannabis topic of the first episode, hallucinogens such as dimethyltryptamine (dmt) are also mentioned later. It is worth noting that "Midnight Gospel" also chose to launch Netflix on "World Cannabis Day" on April 20 , and the protagonist Clancy's birthday was also April 20. These are certainly no coincidences, but together they set the psychedelic tone for the animation .
Today's April 20 is no longer just about the existence of the liberalization and legalization of marijuana. "420" has become a symbol of "rebellion against mainstream culture" , which has derived more political and cultural demands. Its spiritual core is the same as that after World War II. The " Beat Generation " is in the same line.
We can even see the shadow of the " hippie " in the protagonist Clancy, and it is not inconsistent to throw him in Jack Kerouac's "On the Road": half-naked, only wrapped in a bib, brightly colored body, Exaggerated costumes and hats, "travel" in each episode, love listening to music, exploring Zen and Eastern philosophy...
Every journey of meditation, philosophical thinking, and meditation is actually a “psychedelic journey” of “living to death” :
Clancy embarks on an adventure in the cycle of life and death in eight different time and space dimensions, and each adventure ends with Clancy and the interviewees dying in various ways , such as being eaten by zombies in the first episode and being crushed on the assembly line in the second episode. Meat puree. In the face of life and death, they are always detached and calm, just expressing everything they want to express themselves . After experiencing "life" again and again, he returned to the "ribbon" planet and was reborn.
Although the adventure is wild and bizarre , the core of the story is introspective, pointing to Clancy's search for self-existence. Since escaping from her native environment, Clancy has been deprived of her memory of herself and her roots, and has become a homeless wanderer in the absurd world .
Therefore, no matter which time, space, or planet he is in, Clancy is always outside of every world, and every adventure seems to be repeated useless efforts, but it is also in this cycle of life and death that he can continue to seek confirmation of his own existence.
And the last episode elevates the emotion and thought of the animation.
From Clancy's escape from the original environment, to experiencing the reincarnation of life and experiencing everything that her mother has experienced, she reached reconciliation with her mother and herself, gradually walked out of confusion and nothingness, felt the reality of existence, and finally found life. 's reliance .
2
mindfuck gate of perception
It can be said that Midnight Gospel is a deconstruction experiment at the textual level .
Whenever they are at the juncture of life and death, Clancy and the interviewees still talk frantically without any hindrance, from drugs to Buddhism, from meditation to phenomenology, from matter/consciousness to existentialism, from spirit to meditation, From death to reincarnation ...
These dialogues are highly divergent , without language modification and thinking processing, but directly show the fragmented thinking process , and then arrange the fragments to be different from the philosophical discussion in the scope of daily discourse, sometimes it seems to have an unspoken meaning, sometimes And the helplessness of words .
Although most of these conversations are generalized and conceptually dissociated without much in-depth, you may still recognize every word but not a single one.
At first, I thought it was necessary to understand what they were talking about, but gradually realized that the separation of the characters' behavior from the intent expressed by the text was perhaps intentional . The main creator did not take the audience's acceptance as the first consideration, but nested self-expression in the form and filled it with seemingly unrelated animation plots to make the form complete to some extent.
On the one hand, difficult and obscure conversations always make my brain explode again and again.
On the other hand, colorful and psychedelic neon paintings , or holy and beautiful, or strange, or comical images, as well as large-scale depictions of sex and violence , always make me escape. Text, amplify the senses , to receive stimulation at the audio-visual level .
You can see the bloody production process, the naked and exaggerated or even deformed reproductive organs, the headshot of the "face-hugging bug", the intense fearful eyes, and the things and scenes that cannot be described by real-world logic. ...
Audiences who prefer images can not think about dialogue, avoid the interference of a lot of speculative content, just enjoy excellent paintings and performances, enjoy stories that open their minds, and simply immerse themselves in image narratives.
For me, I can clearly appreciate the separation of form and content, but if I don't delve into each concept, put aside the constraints of language on thinking, and use intuition to explore the cognitive boundaries of the brain, in the intoxicating experience of mindfuck Open a door of perception .
"Clear all delusions, the door of perception will be opened, and all things will appear as they are: as they are, endless."
- So I once suspected that the writers were writing to their heart's content while pouring vodka or flying leaves .
3
please listen to my podcast
"Midnight Gospel" is based on the producer Duncan's podcast "The Duncan Trussell Family Hour" , and his friends commented on him and his podcast: bridge between humor, politics, mystery, magic, and data. In a sense, these keywords also correspond to some of the characteristics of "Midnight Gospel".
In the animation, every time Clancy breaks into the "real world" of a planet's inhabitants with a new "virtual identity", Clancy is always out of this reality, and he has only one purpose: to draw materials for podcasts.
The content producer , Clancy, constantly transforms and detaches itself in the cycle of life and death, while constantly hollowing out, reproducing, and re-exporting herself, using the lives of herself and others as materials to support her audience . He is the anchor of the podcast Midnight Gospel and a true evangelist of the Gospel.
For example, in the second episode, while discussing death on the assembly line, while reviewing his life in a revolving light, self-reflection, and finally finding salvation from religion.
In the "gospel" again and again, the audience may have learned to gain knowledge, may have obtained the power of redemption, healing, and inspiration, or may just be bored. In any case, he couldn't know everything behind it. Come to think of it, isn't this relationship a little dark?
The official introduction to the Midnight Gospel podcast is interesting: "The Midnight Gospel Podcast is for listeners who don't listen to podcasts." The Midnight Gospel' Is the Podcast for People Who Don't Listen to Podcasts.
Although the podcast was ridiculed by "Rick & Morty" next door, we still believe that "Midnight Gospel" is the best English new TV animation in 2020.
Insert a surprise
We have an appointment with Chugejun (Cchuge subtitles group) to record a podcast with us! In a few days, I will chat with him about an episode of American TV animations, including "Rick and Morty", "Midnight Gospel", "Alien Refugees" and "Cyanide Happy Show", which has been translated for many years. Welcome to search and subscribe to the podcast " The Hitchhiker's Guide to British and American Dramas (KillingTV)" is waiting.
end
Now, with the support of technology and funds, directors can more easily try the form experiments they want to achieve. "Love Dead" can be regarded as a cyber experiment , but the independent stories of each episode of "Love Dead" are not difficult to understand, and they are in line with the inherent logic of traditional video narrative. The "Midnight Gospel" can be seen as a rebellion against tradition . It cuts off the organic connection between form (image text) and content, breaks through the barriers of media carriers such as animation and podcasts, and also triggers some thoughts on the relationship between content producers and audiences.
Although the subject matter and content audience of "Midnight Gospel" are very small, it is still recommended to audiences who have more expectations for "the possibility of animation". I hope that more innovative animations and American dramas like this will appear, not to mention saving the industry, but at least saving us from the drama shortage.
Come back and talk, bye!
Supplementary information
The historical origin of "420": In 1971, five high school students in California searched for clues to a long-lost hemp crop in a treasure map drawn by marijuana growers. In this "treasure hunt", they used the code name "4:20". So "420" later became the code name for "teenage marijuana smoking".
420” has further influenced political and legal decisions around the world. In 2003, the California Senate introduced "Bill 420" to regulate the use of medical marijuana, and the bill mentioned the place of 420 in cannabis culture. The 2010 bill legalizing marijuana in Guam, known as Bill 420, did not pass. In 2018, U.S. Senator and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) announced the Marijuana Freedom and Opportunity Act, but it did not pass. In 2019, Rep. Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat from Oregon, introduced the Regulated Marijuana Act, which aims to return marijuana regulation to the states.
Podcast : Search for "The Hitchhiker's Guide to British and American TV Dramas" in Small Universe, NetEase Cloud, Himalaya or other general-purpose clients
Official Account/Toutiao Account/Weibo: The Hitchhiker's Guide to British and American Dramas
View more about The Midnight Gospel reviews
