vox--2020-05-15--Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of the greatest TV shows ever made. Now it’s on Netflix.

Avatar : The Last Airbender has returned to Netflix .
The Friday release marks the first time in several years that the beloved animated series has been available on a major streaming platform in the U.S .
The release is undoubtedly meant to build anticipation for Netflix ’ s planned live-action adaptation of the show , but no matter how you feel about that news , Airbender ’ s return is a win-win for Netflix and viewers alike .
That ’ s true whether you ’ re an Airbender fan who ’ s feeling nostalgic , or someone who ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but never had the chance to before — or if , like me , you ’ ve never stopped missing Airbender since it aired .
2020 marks the 15th anniversary of the premiere of Airbender , which ran for three seasons on Nickelodeon from 2005–2008 .
An action-adventure set in a high fantasy world , Airbender had a huge influence on the many acclaimed , serialized animated series that followed .
But while longtime fans recognize the show ’ s excellence , M. Night Shyamalan ’ s notorious travesty of a film adaptation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ push into the mainstream .
That ’ s a huge shame , because Airbender deserves to be more widely recognized by the broader public as one of the best shows ever made .
In my experience , most viewers don ’ t merely like Airbender ; they love it , the kind of love that usually gets reserved for shows with much broader critical and cultural clout .
There ’ s a multitude of reasons for that level of devotion .
The animation is flawless and beautiful .
The story — a goofy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ powerful spiritual mage on the planet joins his friends on a quest to save the world — first surprises you , then charms you , and ultimately sweeps you up and deposits you in an entirely different headspace than where you began .
Now that Airbender is on Netflix once more , it ’ s primed for an overdue , well-earned cultural resurgence .
Here are four things to know about the show if you ’ re watching it for the first time , or just want to understand what makes the series @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unprecedented for its complexity and scope Airbender ’ s premise is frankly kind of oddball : a 12-year-old who ’ s also a monk who ’ s also a reincarnated superhero needs to singlehandedly save the world from encroaching conquest by an aggressive military nation .
That description might seem like a lot more than a show airing on the popular kids network Nickelodeon , of all places , can handle .
But Airbender got what few animated series of its time had ever gotten : a planned three-season story arc , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ development to evolve over time .
Airbender ’ s main conceit involves the use of Earth ’ s four traditional elements : Water , Earth , Fire , and Air .
Within the show ’ s universe , different societies cultivate their natural ability to manipulate , or “ bend , ” one of the elements , an ability known as elemental bending : airbending , waterbending , firebending , earthbending , etc .
When you waterbend , for example , you can use any water nearby as a tool or a weapon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ person with the ability to bend all four elements , allowing him to unite the world and serve as a leader and protector of the human race .
Every few centuries , the Avatar is reincarnated into one of the bender societies in turn .
At the time the events of Airbender begin , the aggressive Fire Nation has begun invading surrounding nations , and the people need the Avatar more than ever — but he hasn ’ t been seen in nearly 100 years .
When a pair of siblings accidentally awaken @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s been reincarnated into the body of Aang , a 12-year-old airbender who still needs to learn the other three elements before he can reveal himself to the world as the Avatar .
To do this , Aang has to travel around the world in order to meet and learn from other bending masters .
Thus , much of Airbender involves Aang and his companions — the powerful waterbender , Katara , and her clever brother , Sokka — traveling to new places and becoming familiar with the intricate world in which the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and feels epic , in the sense that the viewer is constantly reminded of the vastness and richness of its universe , from the walls of the city of Ba Sing Se to the spires of a fabulous library in the desert .
While Aang and his friends are working to acquire the knowledge and education they need to defeat the Fire Nation , the Fire Nation ’ s disgraced Prince Zuko is pursuing them .
A hotheaded emo teen who ’ s initially determined to win glory and respect by capturing the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one of the most gradual , satisfying redemption arcs in TV history .
This is in large part due to his Uncle Iroh , who tries to patiently deprogram him from his martial firebending ways by modeling peace and harmony with the communities they meet in their pursuit of the Avatar .
It ’ s a deeply moving , steady journey from enemy to ally that anchors the show as it explores themes of community-building , atonement , and hard-won pacifism — all of which are core to the series ’ wonderful whole @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and deep with lore .
And it ’ s also so cute .
Aang himself is adorable , a hyper-enthusiastic kid who just wants to go penguin sledding and fly around on his gigantic pet flying bison .
Who wouldn ’ t ?
The world teems with a hodgepodge of invented hybrid creatures like turtleducks , badgermoles , and catgators .
Even better is the supporting cast , a rotating plethora of colorful side characters that make every episode memorable and fun .
Even the villains are delightful — which , of course @ @ @ @ @ @ @ villains .
The series always mixes serious themes alongside the humor , constantly tugging at heartstrings and always giving its main cast poignant narrative arcs and plenty of profoundly touching moments .
Have we mentioned that Uncle Iroh is a treasure ?
Airbender was widely praised for its careful integration of cultural , historical , martial arts , and fantasy elements from across the globe Airbender is perhaps best known for its respectful , intricate handling of its multicultural worldbuilding and themes , most of which draw from Asian cultures .
Since it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ debated whether the show can constitute a Western “ anime , ” because its stylized art and fantasy themes drew heavily upon Japanese-style character designs and fantasy tropes common within anime .
Its main concept of the reincarnated Avatar and the harmonization of the four elements draw heavily upon Buddhism and Taoism , and its settings were mainly based on real-world Asian cultures .
That was a big deal in 2005 , when most attempts to represent non-European cultures on TV were still mired in Orientalism .
But Airbender very carefully and respectfully @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Aang ’ s lost society of fellow Airbender monks was based upon Tibetan Buddhist monks .
Waterbenders were inspired by Arctic Inuit tribes .
The Earth nation was primarily based on China , and the aggressive Fire nation drew mainly from Imperial Japan .
The show also gave each bending style its own unique visual twist , basing each practice on a different form of martial art .
The fluid style of waterbending grew out of Yang-style tai chi ; the stolid earthbending style was derived from Hung Gar kung fu , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ style came from Northern Shaolin kung fu .
Airbending , with its distinctive circular movements , derives from baguazhang .
Additionally , the show teems with countless cultural and aesthetic flourishes from a broad range of sources , from the Taj Mahal to the Mississippi Delta .
It also references actual Asian historical figures who have analogues among the show ’ s cast , as well as a litany of architectural and artistic influences .
The whole effect is to make the universe of Airbender feel extremely real , vast , and diverse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ resonate all the more with its audience .
Airbender ’ s cultural influence was slow to spread , but its impact was huge At the time it aired , mainstream critics were a little slow to embrace the show : It lost its one Emmy nomination , in 2007 , to the tenth season of South Park .
Still , its final season won a Peabody for “ adding thoughtful substance to a genre best known for its style.
” That observation proved prophetic , because Airbender went on to dramatically alter the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The series is widely believed to have started a “ golden age ” of serial animated TV which , while aimed at children , dealt with complex , nuanced themes that also gave the shows wide appeal among adults .
It ’ s hard to imagine lore-heavy cartoons Adventure Time or Steven Universe , which began in 2010 and 2013 , respectively , existing without Airbender proving that there was a US audience for sophisticated narrative animated series .
Airbender ’ s follow-up , 2013 ’ s The Legend of Korra , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the future through the eyes of a new avatar , also garnered a cult following , as did later series by members of Airbender ’ s creative team , like Voltron : Legendary Defender and the current Netflix series The Dragon Prince .
Airbender is seminal , too , not just for its impact on TV animation , but because of its status as a show with an openly progressive worldview .
Its themes anticipated an era of progressive change .
As much as any show can be said to have a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ consistent worldview built on a fundamental critique of colonialism and violent conquest .
It largely anticipated the rise of progressive politics throughout the Aughts and into the 2010s , reflecting the subsequent rise of activist protest , emphasis on diversity and respectful multiculturalism .
Its sequel Korra pushed many of those themes even further , adding intersectional feminism and critiques of capitalism and structural privilege to the list — all while hinting at a lesbian romance for its main character .
At the time Airbender was airing , the show was most frequently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its status as a coming-of-age pre-teen fantasy with a specific trajectory and often whimsical magical world-building .
But while many of Harry Potter ’ s themes have come to feel increasingly outdated or hollow over time , Airbender ’ s have held up surprisingly well .
One of the most game-changing things in all of entertainment that Airbender anticipated was its fandom ’ s response to the live-action adaptation ’ s infamous whitewashing of the show ’ s diverse cast .
Paramount ’ s casting for the film erased all four of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of casting white actors in the lead roles and dark-skinned actors for the villains from the warlike Fire Nation .
When word of these casting choices reached fans in 2008 , they revolted , spending the next two years until the film ’ s 2010 debut boycotting the production until the controversy overshadowed the film itself .
The controversy also inspired a new term : “ Racebending , ” or the act of undermining a character ’ s original ethnicity in order to cast them as someone from a different race .
Though @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , used as a form of social protest against an all-white cast of characters , it was initially coined as a response to one of the most tone-deaf casting processes in recent memory — and that , too , presaged a decade of rising protest and activism to change Hollywood ’ s lack of diversity .
Lest you think Airbender ’ s only cultural contribution has been in the arena of social justice , however , fear not — it ’ s also given us a run of great memes , mostly based @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Most of them are mainly known only to Airbender fans — so you ’ d better start watching if you want to understand why “ That ’ s rough , buddy ” or “ MY CABBAGES !
” are the height of modern comedy .
Water tribe represent .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

Avatar: The Last Airbender has returned to Netflix. The Friday release marks the first time in several years that the beloved animated series has been available on a major streaming platform in the U.S. The release is undoubtedly meant to build anticipation for Netflix’s planned live-action adaptation of the show, but no matter how you feel about that news, Airbender’s return is a win-win for Netflix and viewers alike. That’s true whether you’re an Airbender fan who’s feeling nostalgic, or someone who’s been meaning to check it out but never had the chance to before — or if, like me, you’ve never stopped missing Airbender since it aired.
2020 marks the 15th anniversary of the premiere of Airbender, which ran for three seasons on Nickelodeon from 2005–2008. An action-adventure set in a high fantasy world, Airbender had a huge influence on the many acclaimed, serialized animated series that followed. But while longtime fans recognize the show’s excellence, M. Night Shyamalan’s notorious travesty of a film adaptation in 2010 thwarted Airbender’s big push into the mainstream.
That’s a huge shame, because Airbender deserves to be more widely recognized by the broader public as one of the best shows ever made. In my experience, most viewers don’t merely like Airbender; they love it, the kind of love that usually gets reserved for shows with much broader critical and cultural clout. There’s a multitude of reasons for that level of devotion. The animation is flawless and beautiful. The story — a goofy kid who’s also the most powerful spiritual mage on the planet joins his friends on a quest to save the world — first surprises you, then charms you, and ultimately sweeps you up and deposits you in an entirely different headspace than where you began.
Now that Airbender is on Netflix once more, it’s primed for an overdue, well-earned cultural resurgence. Here are four things to know about the show if you’re watching it for the first time, or just want to understand what makes the series great.
Airbender’s storyline was unprecedented for its complexity and scope
Airbender’s premise is frankly kind of oddball: a 12-year-old who’s also a monk who’s also a reincarnated superhero needs to singlehandedly save the world from encroaching conquest by an aggressive military nation. That description might seem like a lot more than a show airing on the popular kids network Nickelodeon, of all places, can handle. But Airbender got what few animated series of its time had ever gotten: a planned three-season story arc, which allowed its complex themes and fantastic character development to evolve over time.
Airbender’s main conceit involves the use of Earth’s four traditional elements: Water, Earth, Fire, and Air. Within the show’s universe, different societies cultivate their natural ability to manipulate, or “bend,” one of the elements, an ability known as elemental bending: airbending, waterbending, firebending, earthbending, etc. When you waterbend, for example, you can use any water nearby as a tool or a weapon. The titular Avatar is the only person with the ability to bend all four elements, allowing him to unite the world and serve as a leader and protector of the human race.
Every few centuries, the Avatar is reincarnated into one of the bender societies in turn. At the time the events of Airbender begin, the aggressive Fire Nation has begun invading surrounding nations, and the people need the Avatar more than ever — but he hasn’t been seen in nearly 100 years.
When a pair of siblings accidentally awaken him, they find that he’s been reincarnated into the body of Aang, a 12-year-old airbender who still needs to learn the other three elements before he can reveal himself to the world as the Avatar. To do this, Aang has to travel around the world in order to meet and learn from other bending masters. Thus, much of Airbender involves Aang and his companions — the powerful waterbender, Katara, and her clever brother, Sokka — traveling to new places and becoming familiar with the intricate world in which the series is set.
Thus Airbender looks and feels epic, in the sense that the viewer is constantly reminded of the vastness and richness of its universe, from the walls of the city of Ba Sing Se to the spires of a fabulous library in the desert.
While Aang and his friends are working to acquire the knowledge and education they need to defeat the Fire Nation, the Fire Nation’s disgraced Prince Zuko is pursuing them. A hotheaded emo teen who’s initially determined to win glory and respect by capturing the Avatar for his kingdom, Zuko receives one of the most gradual, satisfying redemption arcs in TV history. This is in large part due to his Uncle Iroh, who tries to patiently deprogram him from his martial firebending ways by modeling peace and harmony with the communities they meet in their pursuit of the Avatar. It’s a deeply moving, steady journey from enemy to ally that anchors the show as it explores themes of community-building, atonement, and hard-won pacifism — all of which are core to the series’ wonderful whole.
It’s hilarious, inventive, and a constant delight — and a total tearjerker
Airbender’s universe is stunning and deep with lore. And it’s also so cute. Aang himself is adorable, a hyper-enthusiastic kid who just wants to go penguin sledding and fly around on his gigantic pet flying bison. Who wouldn’t? The world teems with a hodgepodge of invented hybrid creatures like turtleducks, badgermoles, and catgators. Even better is the supporting cast, a rotating plethora of colorful side characters that make every episode memorable and fun. Even the villains are delightful — which, of course, only makes them more effective as villains.
The series always mixes serious themes alongside the humor, constantly tugging at heartstrings and always giving its main cast poignant narrative arcs and plenty of profoundly touching moments. Have we mentioned that Uncle Iroh is a treasure?
Airbender was widely praised for its careful integration of cultural, historical, martial arts, and fantasy elements from across the globe
Airbender is perhaps best known for its respectful, intricate handling of its multicultural worldbuilding and themes, most of which draw from Asian cultures. Since it first aired, fans and critics have debated whether the show can constitute a Western “anime,” because its stylized art and fantasy themes drew heavily upon Japanese-style character designs and fantasy tropes common within anime. Its main concept of the reincarnated Avatar and the harmonization of the four elements draw heavily upon Buddhism and Taoism, and its settings were mainly based on real-world Asian cultures. That was a big deal in 2005, when most attempts to represent non-European cultures on TV were still mired in Orientalism. But Airbender very carefully and respectfully built its bender societies around specific cultures.
Aang’s lost society of fellow Airbender monks was based upon Tibetan Buddhist monks. Waterbenders were inspired by Arctic Inuit tribes. The Earth nation was primarily based on China, and the aggressive Fire nation drew mainly from Imperial Japan. The show also gave each bending style its own unique visual twist, basing each practice on a different form of martial art. The fluid style of waterbending grew out of Yang-style tai chi; the stolid earthbending style was derived from Hung Gar kung fu, while the more agile and athletic firebending style came from Northern Shaolin kung fu. Airbending, with its distinctive circular movements, derives from baguazhang.
Additionally, the show teems with countless cultural and aesthetic flourishes from a broad range of sources, from the Taj Mahal to the Mississippi Delta. It also references actual Asian historical figures who have analogues among the show’s cast, as well as a litany of architectural and artistic influences. The whole effect is to make the universe of Airbender feel extremely real, vast, and diverse — which makes its themes of co-existence resonate all the more with its audience.
Airbender’s cultural influence was slow to spread, but its impact was huge
At the time it aired, mainstream critics were a little slow to embrace the show: It lost its one Emmy nomination, in 2007, to the tenth season of South Park. Still, its final season won a Peabody for “adding thoughtful substance to a genre best known for its style.”
That observation proved prophetic, because Airbender went on to dramatically alter the landscape of children’s animated television. The series is widely believed to have started a “golden age” of serial animated TV which, while aimed at children, dealt with complex, nuanced themes that also gave the shows wide appeal among adults.
It’s hard to imagine lore-heavy cartoons Adventure Time or Steven Universe, which began in 2010 and 2013, respectively, existing without Airbender proving that there was a US audience for sophisticated narrative animated series. Airbender’s follow-up, 2012’s The Legend of Korra, which explores the Airbender universe many years in the future through the eyes of a new avatar, also garnered a cult following, as did later series by members of Airbender’s creative team, like Voltron: Legendary Defender and the current Netflix series The Dragon Prince.
Airbender is seminal, too, not just for its impact on TV animation, but because of its status as a show with an openly progressive worldview. Its themes anticipated an era of progressive change.
As much as any show can be said to have a worldview, Airbender had a clear, consistent worldview built on a fundamental critique of colonialism and violent conquest. It largely anticipated the rise of progressive politics throughout the Aughts and into the 2010s, reflecting the subsequent rise of activist protest, emphasis on diversity and respectful multiculturalism. Its sequel Korra pushed many of those themes even further, adding intersectional feminism and critiques of capitalism and structural privilege to the list — all while hinting at a lesbian romance for its main character.
At the time Airbender was airing, the show was most frequently compared to Harry Potter, because of its status as a coming-of-age pre-teen fantasy with a specific trajectory and often whimsical magical world-building. But while many of Harry Potter’s themes have come to feel increasingly outdated or hollow over time, Airbender’s have held up surprisingly well.
One of the most game-changing things in all of entertainment that Airbender anticipated was its fandom’s response to the live-action adaptation’s infamous whitewashing of the show’s diverse cast. Paramount’s casting for the film erased all four of the distinctive cultures in the show in favor of casting white actors in the lead roles and dark-skinned actors for the villains from the warlike Fire Nation. When word of these casting choices reached fans in 2008, they revolted, spending the next two years until the film’s 2010 debut boycotting the production until the controversy overshadowed the film itself.
The controversy also inspired a new term: “Racebending,” or the act of undermining a character’s original ethnicity in order to cast them as someone from a different race. Though the concept often gets spun positively today, used as a form of social protest against an all-white cast of characters, it was initially coined as a response to one of the most tone-deaf casting processes in recent memory — and that, too, presaged a decade of rising protest and activism to change Hollywood’s lack of diversity.
Lest you think Airbender’s only cultural contribution has been in the arena of social justice, however, fear not — it’s also given us a run of great memes, mostly based on many of its funnier moments. Most of them are mainly known only to Airbender fans — so you’d better start watching if you want to understand why “That’s rough, buddy” or “MY CABBAGES!” are the height of modern comedy. Water tribe represent.


vox--2020-05-15--The Trump administration is using the pandemic as an excuse to target immigrants  and asylum seekers

A basic tenet of immunology is that we are all safer if we are all safe .
That should be a basic tenet for politics as well .
And yet , our empathy too often runs up against border walls and dies out .
Migrants are decidedly not to blame for the pandemic .
To blame are international travel , the interconnectedness of global capital , grossly ill-equipped national health systems , and leisure tourism .
As the United States continues its immigration detention and deportation programs , we can now add anti-immigration policies to that list .
Foisting culpability @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asylum seekers remains a common cliché , one that has a long and vile history .
Covid-19 has been a boon to the anti-immigrant agenda that President Trump — along with other nativist leaders — has been aching to implement since he took office : wielding extraordinary executive powers to temporarily shutter the refugee resettlement program , lock down the US-Mexico border , suspend asylum processing , and push children fleeing danger back into Mexico .
Invoking what he has allegedly called his “ magical authority , ” Trump ’ s latest move @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , was a 60-day suspension of visa issuances , with some broad exceptions for health care workers , investors , plus spouses or young children of citizens or green card holders .
It ’ s not hard to imagine the administration making excuses , even after we begin to recover , for extending or even expanding the lockdowns and turning a temporary state of exception into a lasting status quo .
The administration is already moving to extend the suspension indefinitely .
Such authority is “ magical ” — or effectual at solving @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as much as smoke and mirrors are able to delude and distract .
But while the government is willing to suspend immigration laws meant to protect or welcome people arriving to the country , it is not willing to suspend ones that keep people dangerously locked up in detention centers , where , as the coronavirus begins to creep in , it is almost certain to devastate .
These detention centers are bad enough without the virus ; in recent years , detainees have suffered outbreaks of measles and received dangerously substandard medical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the sites of mass suicide attempts , ongoing waves of hunger strikes , rampant sexual assault from guards , and a host of other abuses including generally unhealthy , inhumane , and sometimes torturous conditions .
Nor has the government suspended its expensive wall-building or , most dangerous of all , deportation policies .
Deporting people from the United States , the global epicenter of the coronavirus crisis , is another gust of wind to a raging wildfire .
Hundreds of people deported to Guatemala and Haiti have tested positive for the virus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ returned migrants are even facing discrimination , accused of bringing the virus with them .
Baseless reproach , nativist scapegoating , and racist restrictions are nothing new when it comes to the intersection of immigration and disease .
Amid a series of cholera outbreaks in the 19th century , Americans pointed the finger at Irish immigrants , even referring to the virus as the “ Irish disease.
” In the 1880s , Chinese immigrants were accused of bringing smallpox and the plague , among other diseases , to California — an accusation that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Exclusion Act , one of the early and trend-setting pieces of racist and anti-immigrant legislation .
A decade later , the US suspended immigration for two weeks after “ German authorities had blamed Russian Jews en route to America for a severe cholera outbreak in Hamburg , ” as Tara Zahra writes in The Great Departure .
It was the same year that Ellis Island was opened , not as a munificent welcome ramp to the United States — as it is sometimes memorialized — but as a bustling medical inspection center that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The misconception that migrants brought communicable diseases to the United States came up again in the 1930s in the Southwest , where Border Patrol agents subjected Mexican migrants who crossed the border to “ gasoline baths , ” spraying them with DDT and other noxious chemicals , including Zyklon B , the same poison the Nazis later used as their preferred killing agent during the Holocaust .
As David Dorado Romo writes in Ringside Seat to a Revolution , “ The fumigation was carried out in an area of the building that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ‘ the gas chambers.
’ ” As recently as 1979 , journalist Daniel Denvir points out in his recent book All-American Nativism , the Los Angeles Times wrote that “ hundreds of thousands of Third World immigrants entering California and the rest of the United States are bringing with them a panoply of communicable diseases that could , according to health experts , move the country back toward nineteenth-century standards of public health.
” Despite the lack of evidence , anti-immigrant diehards continue to latch onto that fear ; arch-conservative talk radio host @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a 2016 book called Diseases Without Borders , foisting blame on Obama ’ s “ open borders policy ” for America being “ invaded by deadly viruses.
” The Trump administration is using these same false flags and racist fears to deport and expel more migrants , more quickly .
The New York Times reported recently that White House senior adviser and anti-immigration zealot Stephen Miller has repeatedly tried to use health concerns as an excuse to lock down the border and bar immigrants .
According to an unnamed official , invoking public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wish list ’ of about 50 ideas to curtail immigration ” that Miller had written years before Covid-19 .
He has been digging for any evidence of a connection between immigration and disease , eagerly primed for a crisis to hit to unleash the new policies .
The fact that immigration has nothing to do with the pandemic hasn ’ t stymied him .
Antiquated , unscientific , and anti-immigrant invective has been repurposed not only against Mexicans and Central Americans , but especially against Muslims as Europe ’ s influx of refugees @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leader Viktor Orbán , a nativist homophobe who is one of Europe ’ s most outspoken anti-immigrant soapboxers , has led the charge on conflating the pandemic with illegal immigration : “ We are fighting a two-front war , one front is called migration , and the other one belongs to the coronavirus , there is a logical connection between the two , as both spread with movement.
” Likewise , former Polish prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski began claiming , in 2015 , that the Muslim migrants arriving to Europe were carrying diseases @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he declared that migrants bring “ large scale crime and disease ” into the country ) .
Both Polish xenophobes and Donald Trump , however , are wrong .
Migrants have been shown to be generally healthier than native populations , at least before they are marginalized and blocked from accessing standard medical care .
As Sonia Shah , author of Pandemic and the forthcoming The Next Great Migration , told me , “ The reflexive solution to contagion — border closures , isolation , immobility — is in fact antithetical to biological @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policy is actually the more pressing health danger — from regulations scaring away immigrants from accessing health care to disease-incubating detention centers .
I reported from the migrant camps hastily raised in Tijuana in the fall of 2018 : They were overcrowded and unsanitary — migrants had no bathrooms , no access to water , were hounded by Mexican officials , and were turned away or sprayed with tear gas by US border guards .
Currently , there are around 2,500 people forced into a makeshift refugee camp in Matamoros , just across @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Mexican border city “ has only 10 ventilators and 40 hospital beds for intensive care , ” Foreign Policy reports .
As poet Carolyn Forché recently told me , “ The contagion of lack of empathy is going to be more harmful to us in the long run than anything else , because it will have no bounds.
” Even as we remain on lockdown or in quarantine , we can not let the Trump administration take advantage of a crisis , levy scurrilous and racist claims against some of the world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deport and deny migrants and refugees .
Doing so will not inoculate us from the virus , but , in fact , infect us with something even worse .
John Washington is a translator and writer covering immigration and border politics , as well as criminal justice and literature .
His first book , The Dispossessed : A Story of Asylum at the US-Mexico Border and Beyond , is out in May 2020 from Verso Books .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a contribution to Vox today .

A basic tenet of immunology is that we are all safer if we are all safe. That should be a basic tenet for politics as well. And yet, our empathy too often runs up against border walls and dies out.
Migrants are decidedly not to blame for the pandemic. To blame are international travel, the interconnectedness of global capital, grossly ill-equipped national health systems, and leisure tourism. As the United States continues its immigration detention and deportation programs, we can now add anti-immigration policies to that list.
Foisting culpability for disease and contagion on migrants and asylum seekers remains a common cliché, one that has a long and vile history. Covid-19 has been a boon to the anti-immigrant agenda that President Trump — along with other nativist leaders — has been aching to implement since he took office: wielding extraordinary executive powers to temporarily shutter the refugee resettlement program, lock down the US-Mexico border, suspend asylum processing, and push children fleeing danger back into Mexico. Invoking what he has allegedly called his “magical authority,” Trump’s latest move, after threatening to stop all immigration, was a 60-day suspension of visa issuances, with some broad exceptions for health care workers, investors, plus spouses or young children of citizens or green card holders.
It’s not hard to imagine the administration making excuses, even after we begin to recover, for extending or even expanding the lockdowns and turning a temporary state of exception into a lasting status quo. The administration is already moving to extend the suspension indefinitely. Such authority is “magical”— or effectual at solving our current health or economic crises — as much as smoke and mirrors are able to delude and distract.
But while the government is willing to suspend immigration laws meant to protect or welcome people arriving to the country, it is not willing to suspend ones that keep people dangerously locked up in detention centers, where, as the coronavirus begins to creep in, it is almost certain to devastate. These detention centers are bad enough without the virus; in recent years, detainees have suffered outbreaks of measles and received dangerously substandard medical care, while the centers have been the sites of mass suicide attempts, ongoing waves of hunger strikes, rampant sexual assault from guards, and a host of other abuses including generally unhealthy, inhumane, and sometimes torturous conditions.
Nor has the government suspended its expensive wall-building or, most dangerous of all, deportation policies. Deporting people from the United States, the global epicenter of the coronavirus crisis, is another gust of wind to a raging wildfire. Hundreds of people deported to Guatemala and Haiti have tested positive for the virus. In Guatemala, some of the returned migrants are even facing discrimination, accused of bringing the virus with them.
Baseless reproach, nativist scapegoating, and racist restrictions are nothing new when it comes to the intersection of immigration and disease. Amid a series of cholera outbreaks in the 19th century, Americans pointed the finger at Irish immigrants, even referring to the virus as the “Irish disease.” In the 1880s, Chinese immigrants were accused of bringing smallpox and the plague, among other diseases, to California — an accusation that bolstered the movement behind the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, one of the early and trend-setting pieces of racist and anti-immigrant legislation.
A decade later, the US suspended immigration for two weeks after “German authorities had blamed Russian Jews en route to America for a severe cholera outbreak in Hamburg,” as Tara Zahra writes in The Great Departure. It was the same year that Ellis Island was opened, not as a munificent welcome ramp to the United States — as it is sometimes memorialized — but as a bustling medical inspection center that eventually turned into a squalid detention center.
The misconception that migrants brought communicable diseases to the United States came up again in the 1930s in the Southwest, where Border Patrol agents subjected Mexican migrants who crossed the border to “gasoline baths,” spraying them with DDT and other noxious chemicals, including Zyklon B, the same poison the Nazis later used as their preferred killing agent during the Holocaust. As David Dorado Romo writes in Ringside Seat to a Revolution, “The fumigation was carried out in an area of the building that American officials called, ominously enough, ‘the gas chambers.’”
As recently as 1979, journalist Daniel Denvir points out in his recent book All-American Nativism, the Los Angeles Times wrote that “hundreds of thousands of Third World immigrants entering California and the rest of the United States are bringing with them a panoply of communicable diseases that could, according to health experts, move the country back toward nineteenth-century standards of public health.” Despite the lack of evidence, anti-immigrant diehards continue to latch onto that fear; arch-conservative talk radio host Michael Savage, for example, wrote a 2016 book called Diseases Without Borders, foisting blame on Obama’s “open borders policy” for America being “invaded by deadly viruses.”
The Trump administration is using these same false flags and racist fears to deport and expel more migrants, more quickly. The New York Times reported recently that White House senior adviser and anti-immigration zealot Stephen Miller has repeatedly tried to use health concerns as an excuse to lock down the border and bar immigrants. According to an unnamed official, invoking public health “had been on a ‘wish list’ of about 50 ideas to curtail immigration” that Miller had written years before Covid-19. He has been digging for any evidence of a connection between immigration and disease, eagerly primed for a crisis to hit to unleash the new policies. The fact that immigration has nothing to do with the pandemic hasn’t stymied him.
Antiquated, unscientific, and anti-immigrant invective has been repurposed not only against Mexicans and Central Americans, but especially against Muslims as Europe’s influx of refugees has grown. Hungary’s populist leader Viktor Orbán, a nativist homophobe who is one of Europe’s most outspoken anti-immigrant soapboxers, has led the charge on conflating the pandemic with illegal immigration: “We are fighting a two-front war, one front is called migration, and the other one belongs to the coronavirus, there is a logical connection between the two, as both spread with movement.”
Likewise, former Polish prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski began claiming, in 2015, that the Muslim migrants arriving to Europe were carrying diseases (a sentiment echoed by Trump when he declared that migrants bring “large scale crime and disease” into the country). Both Polish xenophobes and Donald Trump, however, are wrong. Migrants have been shown to be generally healthier than native populations, at least before they are marginalized and blocked from accessing standard medical care. As Sonia Shah, author of Pandemic and the forthcoming The Next Great Migration, told me, “The reflexive solution to contagion — border closures, isolation, immobility — is in fact antithetical to biological resilience on a changing planet.”
Anti-immigration policy is actually the more pressing health danger — from regulations scaring away immigrants from accessing health care to disease-incubating detention centers. I reported from the migrant camps hastily raised in Tijuana in the fall of 2018: They were overcrowded and unsanitary — migrants had no bathrooms, no access to water, were hounded by Mexican officials, and were turned away or sprayed with tear gas by US border guards. Currently, there are around 2,500 people forced into a makeshift refugee camp in Matamoros, just across the river from Brownsville, Texas. The Mexican border city “has only 10 ventilators and 40 hospital beds for intensive care,” Foreign Policy reports.
As poet Carolyn Forché recently told me, “The contagion of lack of empathy is going to be more harmful to us in the long run than anything else, because it will have no bounds.” Even as we remain on lockdown or in quarantine, we cannot let the Trump administration take advantage of a crisis, levy scurrilous and racist claims against some of the world’s most marginalized populations, and deport and deny migrants and refugees. Doing so will not inoculate us from the virus, but, in fact, infect us with something even worse.
John Washington is a translator and writer covering immigration and border politics, as well as criminal justice and literature. His first book, The Dispossessed: A Story of Asylum at the US-Mexico Border and Beyond, is out in May 2020 from Verso Books.


vox--2020-05-15--Space Jam is kind of visionary

Space Jam is kind of visionary

I didn ’ t grow up in a moviegoing family .
So the July 21 , 1996 , release of Space Jam , when I was 13 years old , passed me largely unheeded .
Then for a while , in the morass of pop culture backlog , I somehow crossed Space Jam and Spaceballs in my head .
Eventually I untangled them , and eventually I saw Spaceballs .
But until recently I ’ d never seen Michael Jordan play basketball with ... the Looney Tunes ?
Still , even in the pop culture ( and sports ) desert @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I knew who Michael Jordan was .
Everyone knew who Michael Jordan was .
He was omnipotent and omnipresent , hawking sneakers , McDonald ’ s , cars , breakfast cereal , soda — all on top of ruling the basketball court .
His domination of the sport made it seem natural that he was everywhere .
I didn ’ t watch much NBA basketball , but I had watched the 1992 Dream Team .
I knew that guy .
I recently got curious about Space Jam again because , like seemingly everyone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Last Dance .
The 10-part ESPN documentary series ( the final two episodes air this Sunday night ) is more entertaining than I was expecting .
I hadn ’ t fully realized the pure pleasure it would be to watch hours of Jordan dunking , interspersed with various figures I only hazily remember telling different versions of what went on behind the scenes of the ’ 90s pro basketball scene .
Plus , there ’ s Jordan himself , talking about his career , his memories , his thought process , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the sole rights to a great deal of the footage of the Chicago Bulls during their 1997- ’ 98 season , which is one of two main narrative threads running through The Last Dance ( the other centers on Jordan ’ s career ) .
One of Jordan ’ s stipulations for participating in the project ( directed by Jason Hehir ) was that he ’ d always have the last word , so the series naturally reflects his point of view .
There ’ s little focus on the topics that a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s personal life , his family , his love life , what he likes to eat for lunch , and other stuff fans often want to know about .
The Last Dance ( much , it seems , like Jordan himself ) is only interested in Jordan ’ s personal , off-court life insofar as it relates to the game .
There ’ s plenty about his father ’ s death ( James Jordan was murdered in 1993 ) , about Jordan ’ s gambling and the media circus around it , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nothing too dishy , nothing that really feels like it pulls back the curtain .
Which is why the Space Jam stuff ( or really , the lack thereof ) stands out .
The Last Dance reaches the filming of Space Jam in its eighth episode ; production on the film started the summer after Jordan returned to the NBA late in the 1994- ’ 95 basketball season ( following , in rapid succession , his father ’ s sudden death , his surprise retirement a couple of months later , and an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The Last Dance details how part of Jordan ’ s contract with Warner Bros. stipulated that the studio would provide him with a gym to practice in so he could seamlessly re-enter basketball in the fall .
After filming every day , Jordan would play pickup games with an endless stream of players who “ stopped by , ” from his Space Jam co-stars ( Patrick Ewing , Charles Barkley , Alonzo Mourning , Larry Johnson ) to guys who just wanted to play , ranging from Dennis Rodman , Grant Hill @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ Neal , Magic Johnson , and Reggie Miller — and a lot more .
But Space Jam itself is mostly glossed over , a footnote to the topic at hand : basketball .
In The Last Dance , the entire Space Jam period of Jordan ’ s life mainly functions to demonstrate , once again , how dedicated he was to the sport .
There ’ s relatively less chatter about Space Jam itself .
So I decided to finally watch it .
I hadn ’ t registered just how big of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ grossed more than $ 230 million worldwide ) , or that its six-time-platinum soundtrack was what launched R. Kelly ’ s “ I Believe I Can Fly , ” or that it has generated as much as an estimated $ 6 billion — that is six billion American dollars — by spinning off merch and video games and comics .
And I really didn ’ t expect what I saw when I sat down to watch the movie with my husband , who was very excited to revisit one of his early-teen favorites @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t seen it , has about as much plot as a Looney Tunes cartoon .
The basic setup is that a villain named Mr. Swackhammer ( voiced by Danny DeVito ) owns a flailing intergalactic amusement park called “ Moron Mountain ” ( not the only apparent dig at Disney in this movie ) .
Swackhammer decides that the only way he can boost enthusiasm for his godawful attraction is to kidnap the Looney Tunes from Earth and sentence them to a lifetime of “ swavery ” ( as Elmer Fudd later @ @ @ @ @ @ @ park .
So he sends his minions , doofy little beings called Nerdlucks , to do his bidding .
When the Nerdlucks arrive on Earth to kidnap the Looney Tunes , the Looney Tunes are having none of it .
But they decide to settle the matter of ...
I guess whether or not the Tunes will become “ swaves ” ... by playing basketball .
This is Bugs Bunny ’ s idea , because the Looney Tunes tower over Nerdlucks ( Bugs gets second billing to Michael Jordan in this movie ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ win , they ’ ll get to stay on Earth .
Unfortunately for the Looney Tunes , the Nerdlucks have the ability to suck up skills of real basketball players , which they do by visiting an NBA game and sapping the talent of five players — Charles Barkley , Shawn Bradley , Patrick Ewing , Larry Johnson , and Muggsy Bogues .
Thus they transform themselves from Nerdlucks into “ Monstars ” : big hulking players who could squish the Looney Tunes under their feet .
Sensing trouble , Bugs decides to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Michael Jordan .
Jordan has been playing minor league baseball ( as , indeed , he had been not too long before the movie ’ s release ) , but he agrees to help out the Tunes .
And he does .
In the end , everyone lives happily ever after , except maybe Mr. Swackhammer who , let ’ s face it , was a miserable cretin to begin with .
Space Jam is , in its own way , visionary One purpose of Space Jam , perhaps ironically given Swackhammer ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flagging Looney Tunes ’ profile for a new generation .
And it worked , to an extent : Merch and ad campaigns featuring the Looney Tunes , often in tandem with Jordan , were prevalent throughout the late 1990s and made a lot of money .
But the much bigger and far more obvious purpose of Space Jam was to fill out the Michael Jordan mythology .
Though his status as the greatest basketball player to ever grace the court was never really in question , his image was a bit bruised by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a brush with scandal in suggestions that he had a gambling addiction .
His shocking 1993 retirement from pro basketball after his father ’ s death , followed by a decent but not extraordinary performance playing minor league baseball , followed by a much-heralded but not stellar return to the Chicago Bulls late in the 1994- ’ 95 season , had spurred whispers that he might be past his prime .
But with Space Jam , Jordan managed to create an alternate history of what happened .
As both the story told in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ very existence shows , Jordan is a master image-crafter .
His baseball career is repeatedly proclaimed to be his fulfillment of his father ’ s wishes for him ; his return to basketball is more or less an act of charity , helping his friends out .
And The Last Dance helps illuminate the role that Space Jam played in Jordan ’ s real-life arc — helping smooth over a rough few years .
“ You ’ re wondering what your hero was up to from 1993 to 1995 ?
” the movie @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an actual hero.
” Space Jam is humanizing , especially because Jordan is charming , extremely handsome , and a perfectly adequate actor .
( Oddly , you don ’ t get to see him play a lot of actual basketball , though the fact that he ’ s playing against cartoon characters probably has something to do with that . )
Shot the summer after Jordan ’ s somewhat disappointing return in 1995 , the movie came out in 1996 , after the Bulls had won their fourth NBA title and set @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a regular season .
By the time the movie hit theaters , Jordan was back , baby .
Watching Space Jam from the distance of nearly 24 years , I was struck by how much it depends on its audience ( or at least the adults in its audience ) to come into the theater with some idea of what ’ s been happening in the offscreen Michael Jordan storyline — for at least the last three years , and probably much longer .
Space Jam can elide whole chunks of backstory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ phenomenon .
You don ’ t have to tell us what happened to Michael Jordan ’ s dad , because we know .
You don ’ t have to include explanatory text at the end saying that Jordan returned to basketball , having fulfilled his father ’ s wishes , because we know .
We ’ ve just recently been watching it on TV .
It seems , in some ways , as if Space Jam set the template for what was to come : Massive cinematic expanded universes that span TV and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ loyalty to generate revenue .
( Hello , MCU . )
It feels exactly like a movie that you put out in the summer to span the gap between two seasons of TV , intending to continue the story and set you up for the next season premiere ( like the 1998 film The X-Files : Fight the Future ) .
You didn ’ t have to see Space Jam to be ready for the 1996- ’ 97 NBA season , but let ’ s face it — you probably did .
That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( and I don ’ t really mean that pejoratively ) based on existing entertainment properties — the Looney Tunes , the NBA , Michael Jordan himself — also feels almost visionary .
The movie is self-aware about this .
Its characters crack jokes constantly about endorsements ; at one point , Daffy Duck literally kisses a Warner Bros. logo on his own butt .
Jordan ’ s publicist ( played by Seinfeld ’ s Wayne Knight ) tells him it ’ s time to leave a hotel by citing a litany of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ C ’ mon , Michael !
It ’ s game time !
Get your Hanes on , lace up your Nikes , grab your Wheaties and your Gatorade , and we ’ ll pick up a Big Mac on the way to the ballpark.
” The amount of self-referential humor and brand promotion in the film is in keeping with all of its stars , animated and not , and was only extended by its massive merchandising success .
Having tie-in merch for every big movie was already a regular facet of life @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jam didn ’ t invent that art , of course .
But it might have perfected it — and it tied it to franchises people already knew and loved .
Today , the summer movie season — when it isn ’ t upended by a pandemic — is basically one long list of franchise sequels , spin-offs , and movies based on properties owned by the conglomerates that own the big movie studios : Trolls dolls , Legos , Smurfs , Transformers , Playmobil , enormous back catalogs of pop music .
Sometimes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ featured in older TV shows .
It can be very hard to figure out which medium is the OG .
( The existence of an upcoming Space Jam sequel starring LeBron James makes this even more explicit . )
So Space Jam feels familiar ( as well as surprisingly technologically advanced for 1996 ) , and super fun and entertaining , and also just a tiny bit sad as a peek into both our past and our present .
( And that doesn ’ t even factor in my worries about a world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — one that may be accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic and Hollywood ’ s struggles to cope . )
I understand why everything , from the toys we play with as kids to the real-life people who play sports for our entertainment , is endlessly commodified .
That ’ s where the money is .
I understand the game .
But one thing The Last Dance demonstrates is the toll that the constant need to present everything as a brand — including yourself — can take a toll on someone ’ s well-being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ brand owes them something .
Space Jam tells the same story .
If it has a lesson to teach , it might be that we should all beware of Swackhammers , wherever they lurk .
Space Jam is available to digitally rent or purchase on iTunes , Amazon , YouTube , Google Play , or Vudu . )
The final two episodes of The Last Dance air on ESPN on Sunday , May 17 ; the entire series is available to watch on ESPN ’ s website .
Every day at Vox , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

I didn’t grow up in a moviegoing family. So the July 21, 1996, release of Space Jam, when I was 13 years old, passed me largely unheeded. Then for a while, in the morass of pop culture backlog, I somehow crossed Space Jam and Spaceballs in my head. Eventually I untangled them, and eventually I saw Spaceballs. But until recently I’d never seen Michael Jordan play basketball with ... the Looney Tunes?
Still, even in the pop culture (and sports) desert I mostly inhabited in the 1990s, I knew who Michael Jordan was. Everyone knew who Michael Jordan was. He was omnipotent and omnipresent, hawking sneakers, McDonald’s, cars, breakfast cereal, soda — all on top of ruling the basketball court. His domination of the sport made it seem natural that he was everywhere. I didn’t watch much NBA basketball, but I had watched the 1992 Dream Team. I knew that guy.
I recently got curious about Space Jam again because, like seemingly everyone else, I’ve been watching The Last Dance. The 10-part ESPN documentary series (the final two episodes air this Sunday night) is more entertaining than I was expecting. I hadn’t fully realized the pure pleasure it would be to watch hours of Jordan dunking, interspersed with various figures I only hazily remember telling different versions of what went on behind the scenes of the ’90s pro basketball scene. Plus, there’s Jordan himself, talking about his career, his memories, his thought process, and his drive to succeed.
Jordan owned the sole rights to a great deal of the footage of the Chicago Bulls during their 1997-’98 season, which is one of two main narrative threads running through The Last Dance (the other centers on Jordan’s career). One of Jordan’s stipulations for participating in the project (directed by Jason Hehir) was that he’d always have the last word, so the series naturally reflects his point of view.
There’s little focus on the topics that a documentary might otherwise explore — Jordan’s personal life, his family, his love life, what he likes to eat for lunch, and other stuff fans often want to know about. The Last Dance (much, it seems, like Jordan himself) is only interested in Jordan’s personal, off-court life insofar as it relates to the game. There’s plenty about his father’s death (James Jordan was murdered in 1993), about Jordan’s gambling and the media circus around it, and about inter-player quarrels and spats, but nothing too dishy, nothing that really feels like it pulls back the curtain.
Which is why the Space Jam stuff (or really, the lack thereof) stands out. The Last Dance reaches the filming of Space Jam in its eighth episode; production on the film started the summer after Jordan returned to the NBA late in the 1994-’95 basketball season (following, in rapid succession, his father’s sudden death, his surprise retirement a couple of months later, and an ensuing stint in minor league baseball).
The Last Dance details how part of Jordan’s contract with Warner Bros. stipulated that the studio would provide him with a gym to practice in so he could seamlessly re-enter basketball in the fall. After filming every day, Jordan would play pickup games with an endless stream of players who “stopped by,” from his Space Jam co-stars (Patrick Ewing, Charles Barkley, Alonzo Mourning, Larry Johnson) to guys who just wanted to play, ranging from Dennis Rodman, Grant Hill, and Juwan Howard to Shaquille O’Neal, Magic Johnson, and Reggie Miller — and a lot more.
But Space Jam itself is mostly glossed over, a footnote to the topic at hand: basketball. In The Last Dance, the entire Space Jam period of Jordan’s life mainly functions to demonstrate, once again, how dedicated he was to the sport. There’s relatively less chatter about Space Jam itself.
So I decided to finally watch it.
Space Jam is a possibly unparalleled franchise mashup
I hadn’t registered just how big of a hit Space Jam was (it grossed more than $230 million worldwide), or that its six-time-platinum soundtrack was what launched R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly,” or that it has generated as much as an estimated $6 billion — that is six billion American dollars — by spinning off merch and video games and comics.
And I really didn’t expect what I saw when I sat down to watch the movie with my husband, who was very excited to revisit one of his early-teen favorites. Space Jam, if you haven’t seen it, has about as much plot as a Looney Tunes cartoon. The basic setup is that a villain named Mr. Swackhammer (voiced by Danny DeVito) owns a flailing intergalactic amusement park called “Moron Mountain” (not the only apparent dig at Disney in this movie). Swackhammer decides that the only way he can boost enthusiasm for his godawful attraction is to kidnap the Looney Tunes from Earth and sentence them to a lifetime of “swavery” (as Elmer Fudd later puts it) as entertainers in his park. So he sends his minions, doofy little beings called Nerdlucks, to do his bidding.
When the Nerdlucks arrive on Earth to kidnap the Looney Tunes, the Looney Tunes are having none of it. But they decide to settle the matter of ... I guess whether or not the Tunes will become “swaves” ... by playing basketball. This is Bugs Bunny’s idea, because the Looney Tunes tower over Nerdlucks (Bugs gets second billing to Michael Jordan in this movie); if Bugs and his fellow Tunes win, they’ll get to stay on Earth.
Unfortunately for the Looney Tunes, the Nerdlucks have the ability to suck up skills of real basketball players, which they do by visiting an NBA game and sapping the talent of five players — Charles Barkley, Shawn Bradley, Patrick Ewing, Larry Johnson, and Muggsy Bogues. Thus they transform themselves from Nerdlucks into “Monstars”: big hulking players who could squish the Looney Tunes under their feet.
Sensing trouble, Bugs decides to call in help in the form of Michael Jordan. Jordan has been playing minor league baseball (as, indeed, he had been not too long before the movie’s release), but he agrees to help out the Tunes. And he does. In the end, everyone lives happily ever after, except maybe Mr. Swackhammer who, let’s face it, was a miserable cretin to begin with.
Space Jam is, in its own way, visionary
One purpose of Space Jam, perhaps ironically given Swackhammer’s aim, was to raise the flagging Looney Tunes’ profile for a new generation. And it worked, to an extent: Merch and ad campaigns featuring the Looney Tunes, often in tandem with Jordan, were prevalent throughout the late 1990s and made a lot of money.
But the much bigger and far more obvious purpose of Space Jam was to fill out the Michael Jordan mythology. Though his status as the greatest basketball player to ever grace the court was never really in question, his image was a bit bruised by the mid-1990s. He’d had a brush with scandal in suggestions that he had a gambling addiction. His shocking 1993 retirement from pro basketball after his father’s death, followed by a decent but not extraordinary performance playing minor league baseball, followed by a much-heralded but not stellar return to the Chicago Bulls late in the 1994-’95 season, had spurred whispers that he might be past his prime.
But with Space Jam, Jordan managed to create an alternate history of what happened. As both the story told in The Last Dance and the series’ very existence shows, Jordan is a master image-crafter. His baseball career is repeatedly proclaimed to be his fulfillment of his father’s wishes for him; his return to basketball is more or less an act of charity, helping his friends out. And The Last Dance helps illuminate the role that Space Jam played in Jordan’s real-life arc — helping smooth over a rough few years. “You’re wondering what your hero was up to from 1993 to 1995?” the movie asked. “Oh, just being an actual hero.”
Space Jam is humanizing, especially because Jordan is charming, extremely handsome, and a perfectly adequate actor. (Oddly, you don’t get to see him play a lot of actual basketball, though the fact that he’s playing against cartoon characters probably has something to do with that.) Shot the summer after Jordan’s somewhat disappointing return in 1995, the movie came out in 1996, after the Bulls had won their fourth NBA title and set the league record for the most wins in a regular season. By the time the movie hit theaters, Jordan was back, baby.
Watching Space Jam from the distance of nearly 24 years, I was struck by how much it depends on its audience (or at least the adults in its audience) to come into the theater with some idea of what’s been happening in the offscreen Michael Jordan storyline — for at least the last three years, and probably much longer. Space Jam can elide whole chunks of backstory precisely because its star was such a phenomenon. You don’t have to tell us what happened to Michael Jordan’s dad, because we know. You don’t have to include explanatory text at the end saying that Jordan returned to basketball, having fulfilled his father’s wishes, because we know. We’ve just recently been watching it on TV.
It seems, in some ways, as if Space Jam set the template for what was to come: Massive cinematic expanded universes that span TV and film, leaning on franchise fans’ loyalty to generate revenue. (Hello, MCU.) It feels exactly like a movie that you put out in the summer to span the gap between two seasons of TV, intending to continue the story and set you up for the next season premiere (like the 1998 film The X-Files: Fight the Future). You didn’t have to see Space Jam to be ready for the 1996-’97 NBA season, but let’s face it — you probably did.
That Space Jam is a bald commercial grab (and I don’t really mean that pejoratively) based on existing entertainment properties — the Looney Tunes, the NBA, Michael Jordan himself — also feels almost visionary. The movie is self-aware about this. Its characters crack jokes constantly about endorsements; at one point, Daffy Duck literally kisses a Warner Bros. logo on his own butt.
Jordan’s publicist (played by Seinfeld’s Wayne Knight) tells him it’s time to leave a hotel by citing a litany of Jordan’s famous endorsements: “C’mon, Michael! It’s game time! Get your Hanes on, lace up your Nikes, grab your Wheaties and your Gatorade, and we’ll pick up a Big Mac on the way to the Ballpark.” The amount of self-referential humor and brand promotion in the film is in keeping with all of its stars, animated and not, and was only extended by its massive merchandising success. Having tie-in merch for every big movie was already a regular facet of life for kids in the 1990s. Space Jam didn’t invent that art, of course. But it might have perfected it — and it tied it to franchises people already knew and loved.
Today, the summer movie season — when it isn’t upended by a pandemic — is basically one long list of franchise sequels, spin-offs, and movies based on properties owned by the conglomerates that own the big movie studios: Trolls dolls, Legos, Smurfs, Transformers, Playmobil, enormous back catalogs of pop music. Sometimes those properties were themselves spawned by or featured in older TV shows. It can be very hard to figure out which medium is the OG. (The existence of an upcoming Space Jam sequel starring LeBron James makes this even more explicit.)
So Space Jam feels familiar (as well as surprisingly technologically advanced for 1996), and super fun and entertaining, and also just a tiny bit sad as a peek into both our past and our present. (And that doesn’t even factor in my worries about a world where animated actors may become the norm — one that may be accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic and Hollywood’s struggles to cope.) I understand why everything, from the toys we play with as kids to the real-life people who play sports for our entertainment, is endlessly commodified. That’s where the money is. I understand the game.
But one thing The Last Dance demonstrates is the toll that the constant need to present everything as a brand — including yourself — can take on someone’s well-being, and make fans feel like the brand owes them something. Space Jam tells the same story. If it has a lesson to teach, it might be that we should all beware of Swackhammers, wherever they lurk.
Space Jam is available to digitally rent or purchase on iTunes, Amazon, YouTube, Google Play, or Vudu.) The final two episodes of The Last Dance air on ESPN on Sunday, May 17; the entire series is available to watch on ESPN’s website.


vox--2020-05-15--How the classics kids try to cover up a murder in The Secret History

Welcome to week two of the Vox Book Club ’ s May coverage of The Secret History by Donna Tartt .
This week , we ’ re covering chapters 6 and 7 , when the vulgar mundane world at last begins to intrude on our crew of merry murderers .
I ’ ve read the whole book , but I won ’ t discuss any spoilers in this post .
Feel free to discuss spoilers in the comments , but please make sure to mark them clearly .
There ’ s a lot going on in these two chapters .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the face of an FBI investigation !
We finally meet Bunny ’ s family and see his funeral !
Richard continues to assure us he is in love with Camilla while being plainly more interested in Francis !
Let ’ s get into it .
These two chapters are all about everyday vulgarity Hampden has been an Oxonian dreamland for Richard for most of this book , all sports jackets and civilized cups of tea and intense conversations about the nature of beauty in tiny private classrooms .
But post-murder , college as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ early ’ 90s comes crashing rudely into his worldview .
Richard goes to a house party .
He takes a hit off a bong .
He hooks up with a girl , and not even a girl who exclusively hangs out with the guys and wears suits like Camilla , but just a regular girl .
So mundane !
So vulgar !
So out of keeping with the world he ’ s been showing us up until this point .
But everything now is less enchanted , less rarified than it was when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ react to the cops like characters from the movies , not characters from a novel .
They have to bring a TV into Henry ’ s monk-like apartment .
They start to get interested in trashy sci-fi TV movies because those are more bearable than spending time with the Corcorans .
And the Corcorans are from another world entirely ; the Corcorans with their Kennedy-esque affectations and their modernist house and their kids who call each other “ butthole.
” They ’ re so antithetical to the classics kid aesthetic that Henry spends @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a sick headache , as though he ’ s allergic to them .
( Henry also leaves out bowls of milk for spirits and really wants to talk with the police psychic , so hey , maybe he is ! )
Bunny , we learn , was the best of the Corcorans , and it seems that what made Bunny the best of them was that his aesthetic came closer to fitting in with the classics kid aesthetic than the rest of the family ’ s is able to do .
Bunny was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a way the classics kids could find endearing — until they stopped finding it endearing , and they killed him .
The rest of the Corcorans , they seem to find just pathetic .
All of these aesthetic disruptions are part of what traditionally happens post-murder in a detective novel , especially if we ’ re going by W.H .
Auden ’ s essay “ The Guilty Vicarage , ” in which he lays out the classic detective novel structure .
( I am indebted to my brilliant friend Lisbeth Redfield of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that one . )
According to Auden , in a detective novel , innocent characters experience no disruption between their aesthetic interests as individuals and their ethical obligations to the world , and in the stasis in which they live before the murder , they believe their entire community is the same .
The murder , however , disrupts this unity , and it ’ s the detective ’ s job to recreate what Auden calls “ the state of grace in which the aesthetic and the ethical are as one.
” For @ @ @ @ @ @ @ detective novels so satisfying to read .
When the detective solves the murder , they return us as readers to a state of guiltless innocence in a world that is free from sin .
We talked a little last week about how Henry is an inverted Sherlock Holmes figure for this inverted murder mystery .
We also talked about how his murder is motivated more by aesthetics than by ethics .
Henry seems to kill Bunny mostly because Bunny offends him aesthetically .
So if our Sherlock is also our murderer , how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ blameless , sinless state ?
In this section , I ’ ve collected stray thoughts and questions I have about chapters 6 and 7 of The Secret History .
You can use them as a guide for your own conversation in our comments section , or in your own community .
Or start off with your own questions !
Please just mark your spoilers and be nice to each other .
• For your mood listening pleasure , our commenter Antonio Graniero has put together the definitive Secret History playlist .
Enjoy !
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bunny and Richard were the only classics kids who had discernible personalities , while Charles and Francis and Camilla sorted of floated amorphously in the background in a cloud of wealth and literary references .
Here in Book II , though , with the shock and clarity of guilt , they ’ re beginning to emerge as distinct individuals with distinct flaws .
Charles drinks , Francis picks up straight boys and fusses over the state of his car , and Camilla has dark secrets .
• Richard ’ s description of his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than his description of his hookup with poor Mona Beale .
Richard is secretly in love with Francis , no ?
• Julian , meanwhile , has almost disappeared from the narrative after appearing to be so central to everything at the beginning of Book I .
Where did he go ?
Why does he vanish so thoroughly ?
• Richard spends some time in these two chapters maintaining that he not only feels guilty about murdering Bunny but also misses him as a human being .
I believe him about the first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ • For some reason , Hampden as a name sounds incorrect in some fundamental way , as though it should be either Hampton or Hamden .
What is so linguistically baffling about it ?
• Francis considers Gucci vulgar but Henry thinks it ’ s “ rather grand.
” What the fuck is Henry ’ s taste ?
Sound off in the comments below , or wherever you ’ d like to talk , and meet us back here next week to discuss everything from chapter 8 through the epilogue .
And to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anything , sign up for our newsletter !
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Welcome to week two of the Vox Book Club’s May coverage of The Secret History by Donna Tartt. This week, we’re covering chapters 6 and 7, when the vulgar mundane world at last begins to intrude on our crew of merry murderers. I’ve read the whole book, but I won’t discuss any spoilers in this post. Feel free to discuss spoilers in the comments, but please make sure to mark them clearly.
There’s a lot going on in these two chapters. The gang commits to their coverup in the face of an FBI investigation! We finally meet Bunny’s family and see his funeral! Richard continues to assure us he is in love with Camilla while being plainly more interested in Francis! Let’s get into it.
Related Join the Vox Book Club
These two chapters are all about everyday vulgarity
Hampden has been an Oxonian dreamland for Richard for most of this book, all sports jackets and civilized cups of tea and intense conversations about the nature of beauty in tiny private classrooms. But post-murder, college as it was for most people in the early ’90s comes crashing rudely into his worldview.
Richard goes to a house party. He takes a hit off a bong. He hooks up with a girl, and not even a girl who exclusively hangs out with the guys and wears suits like Camilla, but just a regular girl. So mundane! So vulgar! So out of keeping with the world he’s been showing us up until this point.
But everything now is less enchanted, less rarified than it was when Bunny was alive. The classics kids react to the cops like characters from the movies, not characters from a novel. They have to bring a TV into Henry’s monk-like apartment. They start to get interested in trashy sci-fi TV movies because those are more bearable than spending time with the Corcorans.
And the Corcorans are from another world entirely; the Corcorans with their Kennedy-esque affectations and their modernist house and their kids who call each other “butthole.” They’re so antithetical to the classics kid aesthetic that Henry spends his whole visit to their home with a sick headache, as though he’s allergic to them. (Henry also leaves out bowls of milk for spirits and really wants to talk with the police psychic, so hey, maybe he is!)
Bunny, we learn, was the best of the Corcorans, and it seems that what made Bunny the best of them was that his aesthetic came closer to fitting in with the classics kid aesthetic than the rest of the family’s is able to do. Bunny was gauche and he was vulgar, but in a way the classics kids could find endearing — until they stopped finding it endearing, and they killed him. The rest of the Corcorans, they seem to find just pathetic.
All of these aesthetic disruptions are part of what traditionally happens post-murder in a detective novel, especially if we’re going by W.H. Auden’s essay “The Guilty Vicarage,” in which he lays out the classic detective novel structure. (I am indebted to my brilliant friend Lisbeth Redfield of Pen + Brush for pointing me toward that one.)
According to Auden, in a detective novel, innocent characters experience no disruption between their aesthetic interests as individuals and their ethical obligations to the world, and in the stasis in which they live before the murder, they believe their entire community is the same. The murder, however, disrupts this unity, and it’s the detective’s job to recreate what Auden calls “the state of grace in which the aesthetic and the ethical are as one.” For Auden, that resolution is what makes detective novels so satisfying to read. When the detective solves the murder, they return us as readers to a state of guiltless innocence in a world that is free from sin.
We talked a little last week about how Henry is an inverted Sherlock Holmes figure for this inverted murder mystery. We also talked about how his murder is motivated more by aesthetics than by ethics. Henry seems to kill Bunny mostly because Bunny offends him aesthetically. So if our Sherlock is also our murderer, how can we ever get back to that blameless, sinless state?
Let’s talk!
In this section, I’ve collected stray thoughts and questions I have about chapters 6 and 7 of The Secret History. You can use them as a guide for your own conversation in our comments section, or in your own community. Or start off with your own questions! Please just mark your spoilers and be nice to each other.
For your mood listening pleasure, our commenter Antonio Graniero has put together the definitive Secret History playlist. Enjoy! In Book I, Henry and Bunny and Richard were the only classics kids who had discernible personalities, while Charles and Francis and Camilla sorted of floated amorphously in the background in a cloud of wealth and literary references. Here in Book II, though, with the shock and clarity of guilt, they’re beginning to emerge as distinct individuals with distinct flaws. Charles drinks, Francis picks up straight boys and fusses over the state of his car, and Camilla has dark secrets. Richard’s description of his hookup with Francis is overwhelmingly more enthusiastic than his description of his hookup with poor Mona Beale. Richard is secretly in love with Francis, no? Julian, meanwhile, has almost disappeared from the narrative after appearing to be so central to everything at the beginning of Book I. Where did he go? Why does he vanish so thoroughly? Richard spends some time in these two chapters maintaining that he not only feels guilty about murdering Bunny but also misses him as a human being. I believe him about the first but not the second. You? For some reason, Hampden as a name sounds incorrect in some fundamental way, as though it should be either Hampton or Hamden. What is so linguistically baffling about it? Francis considers Gucci vulgar but Henry thinks it’s “rather grand.” What the fuck is Henry’s taste?
Sound off in the comments below, or wherever you’d like to talk, and meet us back here next week to discuss everything from chapter 8 through the epilogue. And to make sure you don’t miss anything, sign up for our newsletter!