I love the contrasting colours and tones and textures in Arcane for Zaun’s Undercity and Piltover’s Topside.
Zaun is Cyberpunk. It’s all technicolour and neon.
(Cold colours and tones and textures)
Piltover is Steampunk. It’s all pastel and metallic.
(Warm colours and tones and textures)
It demonstrates visually very effectively the colossal stark and striking differences between the twin cities. The political ideologies and economical environments its people live in and by and the laws they all adhere to.
Topside is posh and prestigious but it all feels fake. No one says what they mean and means what they say and the population would sell each other out in a heartbeat.
Undercity is violent and dirty but there’s solidarity here and the people stand by each other as if they’re family because they know how hard it is to survive in the pits.
Undercity is constantly ravaged by terrorism, plague and addiction due to the poor financial climate and Topside have so much of everything they could ever want but they’re just throwing it away as if it means nothing. It’s a really honest depiction of segregation.
And don’t think I missed the fact that most Zaunites are minorities like Black/POC, queer or disabled. That must be intentional because it’s something I realized quickly because even though our protagonist Zaunites that are human are white (Jinx and Silco’s grey coloured skin tones notwithstanding) most of the ones you see really struggling are not. And the rest of them aren’t human.
And then on Topside, you do see some Black/POC, queer and disabled characters but they’re not native to Piltover. They’re either a Zaunite too who got a lucky break or they’re from some other city in the Universe.
It REALLY stands out what they were trying to do here and yet this show is popular with both conservative watchers and liberal ones. That’s a really good thing because it means both sides of the coin are privy to the intentional division and corruption of political and economical warfare that’s so boldly painted in Arcane from what you see in the visuals alone, never mind plot.
And it’s really clever because there’s no labelling on it.
There’s no contextualization of what’s Right or Left, Blue or Red, Republican or Democrat. There sides but there’s no relation contextually to real life terms and definitions other than the subjective experiences and observations that are the symbolism for those things.
And why would there be? It’s supernatural/fantasy.
None of it is the reality. Yet it is resonant, is it not?
Well done animators! I picked this up quickly but I’m not the intended audience that really needs to see it because I already know and understand this shit well. But you can see that it is intentional that they did this.
They showed you the poverty and they showed you the wealth and they let you decide on which you want to root for. But if you’ve really took the show in visually and thematically, you naturally would root for both cities. You’d naturally want both to prosper and be at peace because you can clearly see that both have severe problems and are very unhappy with the civil unrest regardless of who has it better or who has it worst.
Bringing magic and the supernatural in general into the mix all the more just proves that this is a piece of TV art/entertainment that knows how to use metaphor and symbolism to great effect because it resonates well. Art will always resemble real life and real life will always resemble art because all we’re doing is just telling OUR stories but leaving out the lexicon of language that only ever distorts, distracts and deceives from experience.
It doesn’t matter what you call it or how you define it - you see it, you hear it and you feel it. You experience it.
Arcane is exceptional storytelling and representation because it resonates enough with us to make us move the obstacles that get in the way of being only human.
TV art/entertainment of the supernatural/fantasy kind always has a reach that no non-supernatual/fantasy art/entertainment ever can and it’s because we use it for escapism from our reality. We use it as our hideaway. Only to find that all it’s doing is recontextualizing it, subverting it or even outright parodying it. We’re not escaping reality. We’re just learning to tolerate what frustrates or even torments us because it’s more fun when it’s not us - not our world - not our people that has to face the drama. But at the end of the day, the only reason why we love it so much is because we self-insert it. We subconsciously look for characters, themes and narratives that relate to and resonate with us. That represent us as expressions of who and what we are - what and who we most care about, what we aspire to - what drives us as a human being on Earth right now.
The most successful TV art/entertainment does this intentionally but they do not let on as to why they do.
Your job as the observer is to find out the why as you watch it, report - and the cycle repeats all over again.
That is how art/entertainment is and always should be. If it isn’t, then give up on it. They’re not doing it for you.
But you’ll add to their sales week revenue regardless.
It is EXTREMELY RARE nowadays to get both great storytelling and great representation in one creative product or project. Don’t take Arcane for granted and do what you can to make sure it continues to provide and deliver the quality that it has done for 2 seasons because Netflix are fucking ruthless. They’re the type of network/streaming service company that believe if they don’t see insane immediate numbers - then they’ll axe it and pretend as if it never even existed in the first place. But Arcane is worth the effort. If both its creators and viewers are adamant enough, we will succeed at keeping it going for at least 1 more season. We need it.