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Tag: Ikechukwu Ufomadu

  • Fantasmas Takes Aim at the Ever Less Gradual Stamping Out of People Who Can’t (Or Won’t) “Prove Themselves” Digitally

    Fantasmas Takes Aim at the Ever Less Gradual Stamping Out of People Who Can’t (Or Won’t) “Prove Themselves” Digitally

    In the opening scene of Fantasmas’ first episode, “Cookies and Spaghetti,” Julio (Julio Torres) is having a nightmare about filling out an online application that asks, among other things, what his occupation is. In response, he simply fills in his name: Julio. (It’s a whole thing later on in the episode that his job is, quite simply, “being Julio.”) The screen automatically reacts to that in red capital letters that chide, “INVALID OCCUPATION.” When Julio then tries to fill out his address as “my water tower,” the screen also spits back, “ADDRESS NOT FOUND.” When he tries to submit the form, it immediately tells him, “REJECTED.” All the while, he’s been dressed in a Pierrot-meets-jester sort of ensemble topped with what amounts to a dunce hat. Every time he fills one of the questions out, he then tries to open a window that ends up not existing behind one of the curtains he pulls back. The symbolism is instantly obvious: Julio (and those like him) is being literally boxed out of society because they can’t quite fit into any specific, “prepopulated” box.

    That symbolism continues in Julio’s waking life, when he goes to Crayola to offer his consulting services. Accordingly, he tells the three suits in front of them they need to make a crayon that is clear. One of the suits responds, “But clear isn’t a color.” Julio counters, “If it isn’t a color, then what do you call this?… The space between us.” The same suit replies, “If a crayon is a clear wax and it leaves no discernible color behind, what’s the use?” Another suit chimes in, “It cannot be done! Why are you doing this? Why do you need this?” “It’s already done.” Julio then looks to his glass of water for backup to say, “Look at this glass of water over here. It’s defiantly clear. Some things aren’t one of the normal colors or play by the rules of the rainbow.” When the meeting is over and one of the suits walks him out, he tells Julio, “If we were to move forward with clear Crayola, what would we call it?” Julio responds, “Call it Fantasmas. It means ‘ghosts.’” Even that renders the executive confused as he then asks why it would be plural instead of singular. Julio has no answer that would satisfy such a “logical” mind. Thus, he pretends to go along with “Fantasma” as the title card for the show comes up and an “S” is then added to the end of the word after a momentary pause.

    And it is a pointed title, for a large core of the show speaks to how many people in this world are forced to become “ghosts” when they either can’t or simply refuse to bend to what society demands of them. This includes, at the top of the list, having a sizable paper trail that proves both your existence and your longstanding ability to pay for things. In the U.S., the one certainly can’t exist without the other. Something that Torres has grappled with not just when he was dealing with visa-oriented paperwork after graduating from college, but also as a result of his newfound success. For, even now, Torres resents the idea that you have to have a credit card in order to build the credit that helps prove your existence. As he told Indiewire, “I do not have a credit card, and have always had trouble [renting an apartment] because of it. That’s the impetus for the whole [storyline]. Although I made the money to have the kind of apartment that I was applying for, I was rejected, even though I was willing to basically pay a year’s rent upfront. They were like, ‘No, we went with an applicant who had,’ and I quote, ‘overqualified guarantors.’ Wink, they have really rich parents.” The automatic assumption, especially in New York, that those without a credit history or a lot of money can “just” get help from their parents is also addressed in Fantasmas.

    This moment arises when, Edwin (Bernardo Velasco), a food deliverer who can’t bring Julio’s order to him in a timely fashion because every form of transportation requires proof of existence (obvious shade at the updated version of the MTA’s MetroCard, OMNY, a “tap-and-go” system that requires a debit or credit card), ends up talking to Gina (Greta Titelman), another recurring character in the series. Having recently been dumped by her sugar daddy, Gina sits on a bench sobbing. Edwin, almost as desperate as she is, decides to ask her, of all people, to explain to him what proof of existence is, and how to get it.

    She shrugs, “You just go to the app, and you put in your social and your credit score—” Edwin tells her, “I don’t have that.” “Don’t have what?” “Any of that.” Gina then brightens, “Well, can you use your parents? You know, I had to use my parents’ address after Charles dumped me.” Edwin is confused about the suggestion, wondering, “What do my parents have to do with it?” After all, unlike many white folks, it doesn’t come as an automatic given that one can turn to their parents for financial support. Thus, Gina proves herself to be the very sort of cliché that gives white women a bad name. Even so, she explains the same thing to Edwin that Julio’s been told by his manager, of sorts, Vanesja (Martine)—who is technically just supposed be a performance artist performing as his manager. Which is: sometimes, “exceptions” are made if someone is, like, “a thing” a.k.a. famous enough. Here, too, Torres makes a commentary on how fame has become the sole pursuit of many people growing up (and even after they’re theoretically “grown”), without having an actual focus in mind. In other words, they don’t care what they’re famous for, they just want to be famous (even if it’s “famous for being famous”). After all, it makes you an “exception” to every rule.

    In real life, though, Torres hasn’t found that to be entirely true, also telling Indiewire of his post-fame apartment-renting experience, “It’s not about getting the money that you’re asking for, it’s about the kind of person that you’re renting to. You’re measuring people by not only how much money they have, but how long they’ve had that money for and how equipped they are to win this race. The idea that everyone’s born with a clean slate is false. And so, I was very interested in exploring that [in Fantasmas].”

    The show version of Julio’s ongoing struggles with finding an apartment (the one he’s currently in is slated to become a “General Mills Café and Residencies”) harken back to Lily Allen singing, “It’s just the bureaucrats who won’t give me a mortgage/It’s very funny ’cause I got your fuckin’ money/And I’m never gonna get it just ’cause of my bad credit/Oh well, I guess I mustn’t grumble/I suppose it’s just the way the cookie crumbles.” This said on 2006’s “Everything’s Just Wonderful.” A phrase Julio has a harder and harder time telling himself as the walls start to more than just figuratively close in. Still, he remains defiant about not capitulating to getting his proof of existence card. No matter how “easy” it’s supposed to be. As he tells his usual cab driver, Chester (Tomas Matos), who also doesn’t have one, “I don’t have it because I don’t want it.” It’s become a matter of principle now, a way to say “fuck you” to a system that has never made it easy for him—or anyone like him—to get by.

    Even when he tries to eradicate himself as an actual body (in one of many acts of desperation related to not being able to find an apartment without proof of existence), Vicky (Sydnee Washington), the employee at New Solutions Incorporated, inquires with genuine shock, “How do you have an apartment? I mean, how do you take out a loan? They’re gonna be asking for it as soon as you’re on the subway.” Julio automatically tunes out these questions—so accustomed to dissociating in scenarios where he’s bombarded with stressful queries related to “getting real” and living a normie lifestyle—and focuses in on a commercial that’s playing on the TV in the background (it’s here that Denise the Toilet Dresser [Aidy Bryant] gets her moment to shine).

    The pressure that even casual strangers put on Julio to “get with it” and surrender to proof of existence (and everything that such a surrender actually entails) goes back to the aforementioned recurring dream. In it, Julio would have to leave the room (you know, the one with no windows in it) in order to get fresh air. The problem is, outside, it’s freezing cold, which is why everyone passing by is wearing an “unremarkable black puffer coat.” Julio can see that if he, too, wants to join the others in freshness, he would have to wear one of the same puffer coats. And there just so happens to be one within his grasp that literally has his name on it. All he has to do is walk out, take the jacket and put it on.

    But to put it on would mean becoming one of them. One of those “proof of existence” people. He sums up the dream by saying, “The only way I would be able to leave [the room] is by compromising somehow.” And this is the dilemma that every artistic person (or, also in Torres’ case, every U.S. immigrant) is faced with sooner or later. Often cropping up repeatedly if they never succeed in finding a way to dodge it. To become an “exception.”

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Pee-Wee’s Playhouse + The Science of Sleep + The Mighty Boosh + Problemista + Kafka = Fantasmas

    Pee-Wee’s Playhouse + The Science of Sleep + The Mighty Boosh + Problemista + Kafka = Fantasmas

    Many people still like to tout that we’re in the Golden Age of television, forgetting perhaps that, for much of the 2000s, a new wave of innovation not seen since the 1980s was happening with said medium. Obviously, the most creative and absurd television show to come out of the Decade of Excess was Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. In fact, it’s a wonder that the show was ever greenlit and then allowed to continue for even more than a season, so “offbeat” and “weird” was it. And yet, children (and adults) immediately gravitated to the content, which was so different for the era of “normie Reaganism.” In commenting on the appeal of the show to Time in 2006, Paul Reubens stated, “At the time there weren’t many live-action people on [kids’] television. It was a time of Transformers and merchandise-driven shows that I didn’t think were creative. I believe kids liked the Playhouse because it was very fast-paced and colorful. And more than anything, it never talked down to them. I always felt like kids were real smart and should be dealt with that way.”

    In the present, it has become more and more the case that even adults are talked down to and treated rather stupidly (which is perhaps part of the reason why the U.S. has gradually transitioned into a place that’s destined to fulfill the predictions laid out in Idiocracy). Not only that, but all the programming geared toward that demographic has either become so serious or, on the other end of the spectrum, mind-numbing “reality” TV. In the early 00s, just as the latter category of television was gaining popularity, the British duo known as The Mighty Boosh (Julian Barratt and Noel Fieliding) would come together to eventually bring audiences The Mighty Boosh, a surrealist comedy that aired from 2004 to 2007. Sandwiched in between those years was the release of Michel Gondry’s The Science of Sleep in 2006, an equally as surreal offering that seemed to indicate the population’s desire to retreat into fantasy at a time dominated by the brutal, embarrassing (for Americans, anyway) realities of war in a post-9/11 world. With Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, the same phenomenon was happening in the world, where a desire to retreat into the fantastical was preferable to further exposing oneself to the brainwashing propaganda instilled on both sides by the Cold War.

    Perhaps it can be said, then, that the arrival of Julio Torres’ Fantasmas also coincides with an overall desire to retreat into fantasy. Because, despite the “hope” of Kamala Harris taking things in a new direction for the U.S., the realities of 2024 remain particularly bleak. That doesn’t just include the ongoing Palestinian genocide, but so many other horrors that are less publicized, including the civil war and famine in Sudan, the violent oppression of women in Afghanistan, the violence and political instability in Venezuela, the total lawlessness of Haiti, the high rates of femicide in Mexico (indeed, Latin America overall has one of the highest rates of femicide in the world), the climate-related disasters that have led to something as impactful as the endlessly raging wildfires in Canada. The list truly does go on and on. And with so much brutality in the world, even in “ultra-modern,” “land of the free” America, one can’t blame Torres for often retreating into the comforts of his mind, where reality can be diluted and subdued. Especially since he lives in one of the shittiest places on Earth: New York. Of course, it’s no secret that New Yorkers get off on their misery, pride themselves on being able to “take it” where other more “lily-livered” types can’t. (Or simply have the good sense and self-respect to leave.)

    Perhaps knowing that the “real” New York isn’t all that romantic, Torres opts to create an “alternate version” of it in Fantasmas. And yes, as he freely admits, there are many correlations to his directorial debut, Problemista, in terms of both setting, tone and character. As he told Indiewire, “It feels like a sequel to [Problemista], with achieving the quote-unquote ‘Dream.’” But more than that, it’s the types of magical realism details in Problemista that parallel Fantasmas. Take, for example, how Alejandro (Torres) works at a place called FreezeCorp in Problemista, where clients pay to have themselves cryogenically frozen so that they might come to life in the future (again, Idiocracy comes to mind…or Austin Powers). In reality, as Isabella Rossellini narrates, “This company provides a form of euthanasia.” In the commercial, the FreezeCorp spokeswoman admits, “Our scientists are working around the clock to one day discover how to bring our patients back.”

    The FreezeCorp-esque entity in Fantasmas, called New Solutions Incorporated, instead pivots to the notion of uploading one’s consciousness and disposing of their corporeal self altogether. As Vicky (Sydnee Washington) assures Julio, “Our incorporeal service can free you of your daily bodily ailments and discomforts.” And, considering Julio is convinced he has skin cancer, he’s only too ready to get on board with what Grimes was already advocating for back in 2018 with “We Appreciate Power” when she said, “Come on, you’re not even alive/If you’re not backed up on a drive/And if you long to never die/Baby, plug in, upload your mind.” That’s just what Julio intends to do—the only problem is, like every other minor endeavor in this hyper-bureaucratic world, the company requires him to show “Proof of Existence” in order to participate. Irritated yet again by this demand, Julio asks incredulously, “I need to prove that I exist so I can stop existing?”

    It’s enough to drive him battier than riding in the car with Chester (Tomas Matos), a former Uber driver who has decided to create his own rideshare app called, what else, Chester. It is in his car that Julio first learns about the existence of a show called Melf, playing on the TV in the back of the cab. Needless to say, it’s a sendup of ALF (an acronym for Alien Life Form), the late 80s sitcom that centered on an alien that looks more like he fled from the Planet Sesame Street. Like Alf, Melf ends up landing on the doorstep of a suburban family, but Julio takes the original concept and turns it on its ear by creating a sordid romance between Melf and Jeff (Paul Dano), the character modeled after Willie Tanner (Max Wright). Instead of making it “wholesome” family content, Julio positions Melf and Jeff as secret lovers who hide their trysts until it finally becomes too obvious to Jeff’s wife, Nancy (Sunita Mani). Despite the pain he causes his family—and the international scandal it invokes—Jeff is happy he can finally be his authentic self, free to love the, er, being he really wants to. It is little digressions like these that also make Fantasmas reminiscent of the Pee-Wee’s Playhouse style. Granted, Torres has far more “k-hole” moments, if you will, than Pee-Wee ever did. From Dodo the Elf (Bowen Yang) to Denise (Aidy Bryant) the Toilet Dresser to Becca the Customer Service Rep for Assembly Plan Insurance. It is the latter character who also ties into a scene from Problemista when Alejandro calls a banking representative after seeing that he has a negative amount in his account.

    Not understanding how he got so overdrawn, she chirpily tells him, “Every time you overdraft, the bank must impose a penalty of thirty-five dollars.” In disbelief, Julio snaps back, “So, what? Like an eight-dollar sandwich becomes a forty-five-dollar sandwich?” “Forty-three dollars,” she corrects matter-of-factly, adding, “That’s the policy, Mr. Martinez.” Julio continues to rebuff, “But that makes absolutely no sense. I distinctly recall making a cash deposit.” “And that deposit was flagged as potentially fraudulent, so it’s on hold now. For your protection.” “Right, but then that hold made me overdraw… Why would you let this happen? Why not just let my card get declined?” Unfazed, the representative says, “That’s not the way things work.” “But that is the way things should work. Otherwise, the bank is just benefitting from my misfortune. From the misfortune of people who can’t afford to make any mistakes. From people who have no margin of error.” “It’s policy. It is what it is.” Julio then launches into an even more emotional plea, concluding, “I know that there’s still a person in there, and I know that she can hear me.” For a moment, it seems like she might actually come around, only to end up shooting him in the face as she declares, “I stand with Bank of America.”

    This bank representative is so clearly the precursor for Becca in Fantasmas, who gets an ostensible orgasm over other people’s suffering as she delivers the voiceover, “God, I love insurance. And banks, and credit cards, and the military. Law and order. I pity those who do not stand behind us.” Torres’ contempt for people who are simply “following orders” (you know, like the Nazis) is a hallmark of his work. Along with his total inability, as someone with an abstract artist’s mind, to fathom how anyone could live with themselves at such a job (acting as a gatekeeper who gets off on their own small form of power). Apart from the reason of “needing money to survive”—by fucking up other people’s survival.

    In this sense, too, Torres touches on the idea that the employees of color so often working in these roles are only hurting their own kind in service of the white CEOs and other assorted power mongers at the top. The system in place, thus, continues to thrive through division and pitting people (usually the “unmonied”) against each other.

    Another noticeable similarity between Julio in Fantasmas and Alejandro is that the latter has a similar form of hypochondria, at one point texting his mother a picture of his tongue with the caption (in Spanish), “Do you see those dots? Is that something bad?” For Julio, the obsession becomes all about the birthmark that looks like a mole just underneath his ear. Rather than focusing on the crushing pressure and simultaneous banality of dealing with his ever-mounting bureaucratic affairs, Julio would rather obsess over finding the oyster-shaped earring that was the exact same shape as his birthmark so that he can place it against said birthmark in front of a doctor to prove that it’s grown, therefore needs to be biopsied.

    There to occasionally try to make him see reason is his “manager.” Or rather a performance artist playing his manager, but who has been doing it for so long that she’s really just his manager now. Alas, not even Vanesja (played by real-life performance artist Martine) or Julio’s “assistant,” a robot named Bibo (Joe Rumrill), can distract him from his quest to be distracted. And in the world of Fantasmas, there are many shiny people and objects to be distracted by—as there should be in any narrative worth its weight in magical realism.

    Genna Rivieccio

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