With severance season 2 around the corner it’s time for me to share the time I accidentally watched 4 minutes of an episode on mute and thought it was a brilliant way to show the sensory deprivation experienced by the innies
this isn't a statement that should need qualifiers to clarify intent because its true. yeah someone could use this true thing to be a dick, to bend it to mean a certain thing, especially when the person hasn't unlearned any of the oppositional sexism or transphobia theyve been taught.
but it doesn't inherently imply any of that. and it is a pretty basic feminist observation. this should be transfeminism 101. its insane that this is as controversial as it is. the fact that it isnt transfeminism 101 should tell you something about how much feminism has been held back by its own transphobia & anti-transmasculinity.
if you disagree with this statement i better not ever hear you talking about medical misogyny & the lack of research on "female bodies" or ESPECIALLY reproductive autonomy, abortion, forced pregnancy, etc. etc. because there is NO WAY! to discuss misogyny that targets the body without talking about trans men and nonbinary people and intersex people and, yes trans women, who can also overlap with all of the previous groups!
either you are a transphobe and don't care if we live or we die or you do and you should be making an effort to include us. and that means getting more comfortable with ambiguity and nuance around trans people and their relationships to patriarchy and gender oppression. and that includes trans men and masculinity/manhood in general!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! there is no way around this
transfeminism should be about complicating the feminist framework that was built by & for cis perisex women. it shouldn't be about flattening trans and intersex experiences to fit into that framework. like what are we doing here can we be so for real.
As a Greek, in response to the current controversy about Matt Damon being cast as Odysseus, I'd just like to share that one of the moments that changed my brain chemistry as a kid was reading a novelized version of the Odyssey and coming across the following description of Odysseus when Circe sees him for the first time and thinks he's hot: "his hair curled like a clematis and his eyes were very brown".
So may I present my own casting choice for Odysseus:
The cops very clearly planted evidence on him because they had to make an arrest because all eyes were on them and whoever actually did the deed was making them look stupid.
Why would the real killer hero have kept the weapon on his person and traveled two states over while carrying it and a manifesto in his bag, conveniently turning the crime into a federal matter? The same guy whose bag they found in a park, filled with monopoly money? Why did the police turn off their bodycams, take Luigi's stuff, drive a block away, turn their bodycams back on, go back into the restaurant, and then arrest him?
From the moment of his arrest, even left-of-center media has been presuming his guilt without examining anything (e.g. calling him "the killer" instead of "alleged" or "accused") and then when I say he didn't do it, the nearest person chimes in with some quip that tells me they think he did do it but should go free anyway. Don't get me wrong, I would have the same attitude if he had done it. But he didn't. It makes me feel like the only sane person in the world, even among my staunchly leftist friends.
My gratitude in the form of an animation, in honor of the people on Twitter who managed to raise over $10,000 in a fundraiser for the medical needs of LGBTQ+ people
been turning the decision to have this season take place on the 4th of july of all days around in my head. the pitt is not a show that does anything incidentally; it is exacting in its precision. if they wanted summer-specific storylines they could have chosen any other day, but they picked the 4th in particular—and it becomes the lens through which everything else is filtered.
because what is it, exactly, that 4th of july represents as a holiday—what’s really being celebrated?
it’s a celebration of america at its most idealized: freedom, opportunity, the belief that this is a place where you can make something of yourself—where you are given the chance to build and to belong. and that belief matters; it’s one people have taken seriously enough to stake their lives—and their families’ futures—on.
america the brave. america the beautiful. america the free. america the great.
the pitt takes that promise—this myth of america—and holds it up to the light, and refuses to let you look away from all the truths it reveals.
the 4th celebrates the unalienable right to liberty; orlando diaz represents what it costs. brought in following an injury at his construction job, he is ultimately diagnosed with diabetic ketoacidosis. diaz is a working man who provides for his family, who has done everything ‘right.’ it’s revealed that he lost his job during the pandemic, and with it, his insurance; without coverage, he began rationing his insulin—which is what ultimately landed him in the ER this day.
he and his wife both work—together, they earn just enough to be disqualified from medicaid, and not nearly enough to afford treatment. he is urged to stay until his labs normalize; the hospital works to reduce costs, offers what it can, but it isn't enough. he is already drowning in medical debt, and he has another job to get to, so he leaves against medical advice.
diaz returns later in the season—unconscious, with a severe skull fracture, and brain swelling from an unwitnessed fall at his security job; it is heavily implied he tried to take his own life. diaz does not exist outside the american promise—he exists inside it, at the point where it breaks down. and that is what makes his story so pointed: on a day meant to celebrate liberty, he is forced into decisions shaped entirely by cost, revealing how that liberty is structured in practice.
america has also defined itself as a nation of immigrants—a place of sanctuary, a refuge for those who arrive with nary but a hope for a better life. it is a claim the pitt does not let go unexamined.
pranita is brought into the hospital by two ICE agents, her shoulder injured and her movement controlled. from the moment she enters the ED, she is not simply a patient but a body under supervision: monitored during examination, denied privacy, and repeatedly refused contact with her family despite her requests. even care comes with conditions—medical attention and surveillance occupying the same space.
in a similar vein, the augustin siblings show what remains after ICE has already passed through. their parents were deported after a routine immigration hearing, leaving an older sister to care for her younger brother while trying to balance school and work. what is left is a family broken into pieces—life reorganized around absence: a household where a child is forced into adult responsibilities without the space to grieve, and survival has become constant improvisation. the damage doesn't end at the point of enforcement; it extends into every day that follows. what does it mean for a country to celebrate its purported immigrant origins while actively criminalizing its immigrants in the same breath?
the pursuit of happiness is another promise woven into the declaration; in america, it has come to mean something very specific: the protestant work ethic, the american dream, the idea that hard work leads somewhere. that sacrifice, endurance, and consistency will eventually translate into stability, reward—a life that becomes livable. in its modern form, this becomes hustle culture: productivity as virtue, rest as laziness, work as something that should extend beyond the limits of the body itself. the grind never stops.
debbie cohen is what that promise looks like operationalized. an overworked waitress, seen and discharged—sent back to a job that has no room for her absence. rest itself becomes a kind of risk. she returns only when the damage has become irreversible: necrotizing fasciitis spreading from her foot to her leg. even then, the calculus that governs her life does not pause. before she has even been told the full truth of what is happening to her body, her boss calls; the implication is clear: come back or lose your job.
there is something almost too deliberate about the symmetry—the body consumed internally by infection while externally still being claimed by labor. the system cannot afford her humanity, only her output. debbie cohen is not an aberration within this logic. she is its endpoint—and still, the pitt has more to say.
in one of the final scenes, some of the hospital staff gather on the roof as fireworks begin over the city. chairs are pulled out and beers are opened—for many, it’s likely one of the first times they’ve been able to breathe fresh air, a moment of stillness after a day structured entirely by urgency.
earlier grief remains present without resolution—patients like louie, whose presence is folded into memory through something as simple as his love of fireworks. the roof does not function as escape from the system; it is simply another vantage point within it.
when perlah begins to cry and dana holds her, the gesture doesn’t resolve anything. it is recognition—of what was lost today, and of what will be waiting again tomorrow. for them, this day is not exceptional. it is just another shift.
but here is the celebration anyway! the fireworks, the music, america staging itself—watched by people who know, criminally well, exactly how much its systems fail the ones who need them most. all that noise, all that color, the spectacle of 'greatness' america is known for—and still, none of it loud enough to drown out the hollowness underneath.
a holiday about freedom placed directly above systems where freedom is conditional—on insurance, on documentation, on whether you can afford to be sick, on whether your body can afford to stop.
the pitt doesn't need to explicitly reject the holiday; it simply places the conditions of care alongside the language of celebration and leaves them there, unreconciled. what the season makes visible is not simply that america's promise is broken—but that it continues to be performed in full view of its own failures.
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