Best Boy Beef

i never hear it mentioned as one of the "hot" accents, so i'm wondering

Bugonia (2025), dir. Yorgos Lanthimos

SPOILERS FOR BUGONIA.

LIKE THE END AND ALL THAT.

The Andromedans are bad. They're colonists. They fucked up Earth and blamed humanity for it, and when their own attempts to "fix" it failed they killed all humans but claimed moral superiority for being sad about it.

Because okay, taking Michelle at her word for the history of the world, they arrived at Earth and found a place that they loved and was in harmony but they accidentally introduced a virus that killed off the dinosaurs. Which is a basic bitch mistake that humanity knows about and tries to prevent even when it comes to going to planets that might maybe have microscopic life. But do the Andromedans learn from their mistake, realize that their actions have consequences that they can't predict, and leave it be? Or at least try to exist alongside the current inhabitants?

No, they colonize Earth and create an intelligent species based off themselves that they then reign over as gods. Which clearly humans didn't like, because they created a version of themselves that could fight back. Unfortunately, that version was more aggressive (or so she says, because to a people who want to be worshipped anything but docility and servility is aggression) and lead to a nuclear war, erasing all evidence of what came before as well as the version of humanity that worshipped the Andromedans.

And the Andromedans still don't recognize that they're causing problems they don't know how to prevent and leave Earth alone. No, they come back and experiment on innocent people. They don't do it in a way that avoids the suffering of their test subjects and of their loved ones, and they certainly don't get any kind of informed consent. When it causes someone to act out violently, does Michelle consider her place in the system her people caused, if not created? Of course not, he's just an aggressive ape to her.

Then finally the Andromedans kill every human alive. The people in charge and their victims, adults and children, the people doing harm and the people trying to stop it. Everyone is dead. The Andromedans--and the audience--can pretend it's for the good of the Earth, but the Andromedans show no interest in actually protecting the Earth, we're just bringing in our own bias that the Earth would be better off without us. We're all just pretending along with the Andromedans that a species wide genocide is somehow beneficial.

Even if we disregard the history she gives, Michelle, as our biggest representative of the Andromedans, is an awful person. She doesn't take steps to ensure that her employees have a work-life balance--she just tells them that they should. She doesn't have policies to protect her workers, they get injured and can't report it for fear of retribution. She lives in luxury on their backs. She is callous to the suffering of the people hurt by the experiment. Even if she is trying to fit into the role of a CEO, she has the ability to be better and she's chooses not to be.

Michelle claims that humanity made her that way, but that just means the Andromedans are not so different than us. They have the same potential for evil. She can claim that she became something she didn't want to be because of humanity's influence, but we don't see true regret for her actions. She never considers that if she could be better in different circumstances, so could humans. And we don't see the other Andromedans push back against her. Nobody argues for more time for people to change, or for a different path. If she's not a representation of them, they let her make choices for them.

So yeah, I liked Bugonia because I really dislike stories where aliens are just better than humans, like it's some kind of fantasy that humans are uniquely fucked up. Bugonia's aliens are an evil, conquering empire and we only get to see their point of view because they annihilate anyone who disagrees.

malevola 🔥

Garsantos commission done by the lovely @crowshaped 😍

"Stained Glass" Corset and Leg Pieces by CandyMakeUpArtist on Etsy

they don’t tell you that everyone you ever love(d) in your life will haunt you

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