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Diversity Higher: A Review of PLEASURE MACHINE

How would you define “woke”? And I mean that in the most current, trendy, modern way you could possibly think of, the most urban of the Urban Dictionary entries that you could imagine. Today “woke” is easily one of the biggest bees of the buzzword hive, shackled between “propaganda” and “virtue signaling” in the clickbait headline roulette. It’s a word that’s seldom ever positive, strictly ironic, and meant to illicit eye rolls from people who think “gingercide” is an actual threat.

In layman’s terms, its original meaning is simply the concept of self-awareness, to know about the cultural shortcomings of any given space–to be “awake” to the world around you, but most importantly the problems that trouble minorities in a political and pop cultural sense.

Wokeness is anti-discrimination; it’s anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-homophobia, and yet the definition has been aggressively reworked to be seen as something bad on principle as it may challenge someone’s limited perspective of the world and force them to consider what privileges they might have.

And as much as I’d love to kick these people while they’re down, it’s really been the broader conversation around “wokeness” in the hands of corporate America that has gotten my attention as of late. We are often so fixated on the clickbait discharge reacting to Black mermaids and women in Star Wars that we never really get around to the root of those decisions.

That’s the core inspiration behind PLEASURE MACHINE, a podcast I got recommended on a Reddit forum a few summers ago and I’m just now revisiting it again.

Our protagonist, H, is an empathetic indie sound artist who primarily does therapeutic, empowering sessions with troubled Black, queer people like themself. Though they struggle financially and often don’t make time for their own birthday, H is fiercely loyal to their style of work and may as well be allergic to the word “sellout”. H may be a self-taught psychological guru with a flair for holistic healing, but even they know they can’t help their cherished, anxiety-ridden niece Jo and it’s a genuine need for her well-being that prompts them to pay for some therapy.

But when they’re offered a chance to work with the socially conscious, fabulously wealthy, supposedly woke cooperation Liberate, they’re faced with the conundrum of abandoning their closely held morals and finding the kind of financial comfort they desperately need at the cost of their integrity.

At only nine episodes that rarely ever breech fifteen minutes in length, PLEASURE MACHINE is a short listen and yet poses perceptive questions about artistic freedom at the cost of artistic marketability and mental stability, the strangulation by corporation interference, the relationships between race, gender, class, and sex and how in modern society these identities are used more as a tagline than highlighting a genuine interest in the well-being of minorities. This alone was what really piqued my interest in PLEASURE MACHINE, and its presentation had me quickly inhaling episodes.

PLEASURE MACHINE’S weirdness–which is exactly what endeared me to the show on top of its interesting premise–is in its ambiance and its lofi backtrack meshed with occasional audio glitches, as soothing as it is unnerving. Paired with its seamless transitions from scene to scene, it’s one of the smoothest sounding audio dramas I’ve heard in awhile. A phrase I’ve recently become familiar with is “afrosurrealism”, a relatively niche and new style of fiction you’ll find in the likes of Chilidish Gambino’s Atlanta, literally any of Jordan Peele’s films, Sorry to Bother You, and minor aspects of Dear White People and Insecure that takes the Twin Peaks style of weirdness and pushes it through the filter of the African-American perspective.

And although PLEASURE MACHINE never really goes fully surreal, the deep dive into H’s identity crisis gives it the kind of psychological edge that makes it a contender for this genre. It has such a solid grip on the personal woes of Black creators occupying white dominant spaces that I just can’t help but feel my own worries being emulated through it. And even if surrealism was never PLEASURE MACHINE’S intention, it has such a way of portraying its ideas that feels deeply personal and even so, eerie and dreamlike.

This podcast truly has the finger on the pulse of freelancers and independent workers who don’t want to be shackled by nine-to-fives and yet are always somehow backtracking into the clutches of predatory corporate monopolies. H as a protagonist encapsulates the anxieties indie artists of color struggle with when trying to come up in the world. Writing team Diane Exavier, Phaedra Michelle Scott, and May Treuhaft-Ali have the visceral understanding of this topic that is undeniably personal in ways I haven’t heard in a long time.

PLEASURE MACHINE speaks to people like me specifically– people who struggle to get their voice out there and worry constantly that their race and sexuality can be a disadvantage one day, then nothing but a calling card for supposedly liberal, supposedly far-thinking, supposedly progressive artistic spaces the next; people held hostage by others that can’t decide if they want to exploit or embrace their identities. I’ve listened to, read, and watched a lot of content that has given an intimate look into the lives of others, but this show touches a wildly tender part of my own psyche, which I will myself to suppress for the sake of my own sanity.

PLEASURE MACHINE absolutely understands the language that permeates the indie art sphere, the one that questions if we ourselves are stuck in a cycle of contradictions: yes I am a woke, queer, feminist, African American aware of the reparations I am due…but I also need money from the kind of people I’m supposed to hate to do any of that stuff for in the first place. I yearn for my #BLACKGIRLMAGIC to be a fully-independent success story and not orchestrated by a white guy who was just looking to fill out a bingo card.

I am very lucky to exist in a space where I can work with people like me, operated by people like me, provide my own commentary on artistic creations like PLEASURE MACHINE, but there are many stuck in an unforgiving roulette that sees them as a diversity hire pure and simple. Some people are able to see their self-worth and break out of that shell, others are reduced to the single Black girl pushed to the front of an all-white sorority group photo.

If anything, I’d love more content like PLEASURE MACHINE that takes that tentative dip into afrosurrealism and perhaps maybe goes more unusual. I’d endorse a full-fledged anthology that goes the route of other creators of color stuck in the grind of authenticity versus marketability. It’s a topic that is rarely discussed and could pioneer both a valuable message and compelling storytelling.

PLEASURE MACHINE is a fine piece of fiction, but you go in already knowing that H is too ahead of the curve and self-aware enough to not learn to go with their instinct and cut things off before the demands of their new job gets too ugly. It made the eventual turn of events a bit predictable, and though the steps taken to come to that realization are well executed, it risks being anticlimactic.

You know from the start that H isn’t a sellout and they very much prove they aren’t. The threshold of their morals is only prodded slightly and perhaps it’s just the masochist in me, but I’d love to see just how bad and just how depraved selling your soul to white capitalism can look. Yes, we already know Liberate is bad in that stigmatized, corporate pipeline kind of way, but I felt the roots of their actions could go so much deeper, and perhaps so much weirder.

Maybe H got their happy ending, but who's to say other people a little less wise and self-respecting get the Black Mirror “Fifteen Million Merits” treatment or slip into the Sunken Place or date a Kardashian and are completely oblivious to being taken advantage of in the first place?

After all, PLEASURE MACHINE already has the makings of a precautionary tale and H’s place as protagonist helps prove that even the wisest of us can still fall victim to this sort of corporate sweet talk. But I also feel a story exactly like this but told from the perspective of someone so much more naive would have made for some higher stakes and perhaps a more satisfying climax. H already knows the façade that helps a place like Liberate stay in motion which guarantees they can squeeze out of the cracks before they lose their dignity.

But to see this exact situation through the eyes of someone who would more easily get wrapped up in the manipulation or simply not realize they’re a pawn until it’s too late could make for an even stronger character study and bigger fall from grace.

I don’t know what other projects theater company Colt Coeur might have in mind this year or the year after that, but they made one of my favorite pieces of podcast fiction in 2021 and they undeniably have the acting, sound editing, and writing skills to make something even more spectacular.

PLEASURE MACHINE’s story may not be as deep a dive as I wanted, but I simply can’t deny that its message is just as relevant as ever. In this rise of aggressive “go woke, go broke” nonsense being touted by the ignorant but vocal masses or the news anchors they watch, auto generated images intended to replace the creative merit of actual artists, and the trivial, fleeting nature of inclusion being put in the hands of people who couldn’t frankly care less, PLEASURE MACHINE has a thorough understanding of just how bizarre the world of art has become in recent years.

You don’t just sit and listen to PLEASURE MACHINE; it operates its cranes in such a way that it actively devours its audience. Smoothly edited, gorgeously written, and narrated by such a silky voiced protagonist that you almost immediately melt the second H’s actor Starr Busby speaks, PLEASURE MACHINE says a lot in so little time – and yet, I felt there was just so much more to unravel.

It’s a story that could only truly flourish in this modern setting and I think literally every indie, freelancer, self-employed writer/producer/artist should indulge in the pleasure of listening to this show for themselves.

if you want to support my writing, cake radio has a ko-fi and patreon in need of funds to keep this bakery open. thank you for reading and stay sweet.

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