On Episode 28 of The Carousel Podcast, I host film YouTuber Kino Corner.
Mr. Corner is known for his series on “Literally Me” films—movies with sigma male protagonists whose refusal to play along with the absurd morality of a broken world resonates with young men. “That character is, like, literally me!”
We discuss the trend of populist “eat the rich” films. In my recent Substack, The Rise of the Populist Genre Film, I attempted to name this micro-genre Populist Death Match.
We examine three films from 2022, The Menu, Triangle of Sadness, and Glass Onion, all of which contain remarkably similar attempts to embody populist sensibilities. Two of those films contain a central cheeseburger metaphor, which Kino identifies while eating an In-N-Out burger.
These films join other recent hits like Squid Game, Hunger Games, and Black Mirror in depicting a rigged game where the common folk are pitted against each other in a fight for their lives. And where the elites, laughing from behind two-way mirrors, deserve to die.
Btw, Kino’s company Futo gives microgrants to young developers with open source projects. Check it out here. https://futo.org/grants/
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