AC Radio Episode 9 – Hayao Miyazaki’s pigs vs fascists
Hayao Miyazaki's Porco Rosso (1992) is an anti-fascist fantasy about a pig bounty hunter, with Rowan Fortune and Twilight O’Hara discussing its relation to Miyazaki's shift from Marxism and the historical context of Japan, Italy, and Yugoslavia in the podcast.
24 Mar 2023
Hayao Miyazaki’s anime Porco Rosso (1992) is an anti-fascist fantasy film about a anthropomorphic pig bounty hunter living in the Adriatic Sea, catching air pirates. The title translates as Red Pig and delves into the titular’s past, as he flees the Italian fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. In this podcast Rowan Fortune (they/them) and Twilight O’Hara (they/them) discuss the film in relation to Miyazaki’s departure from marxism, drawing on other films from his oeuvre to situate this cinematic experience in the history of Japan, Italy, and Yugoslavia.
Rowan Fortune authored Writing Nowhere; edited the anthology of utopian short fiction Citizens of Nowhere; and contributed to the collaborative book System Crash. It writes on utopian imagination, revolutionary theory and trans* liberation.
Twilight O’Hara is a psychology student and revolutionary socialist in the United States. She is at work on a book reconstructing Marxism based on philosophical idealism.
Already the backsliding begins. ITV news is reporting that the Government has changed one point in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. They have accepted that academies will retain their ‘freedom’ to set their own pay scales for teachers. So the criteria in the School Teachers Pay and Conditions document will only apply to teachers in Local Authority schools. Why have the Government climbed down on this issue? It’s not as if this is a major financial problem for academies. But what will be the next change/climb down by the Government? Will academies be exempt from the National Curriculum? Will Local Authorities be able to build schools according to the needs of their communities or will all new schools, as at present, have to be academies?
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Already the backsliding begins. ITV news is reporting that the Government has changed one point in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. They have accepted that academies will retain their ‘freedom’ to set their own pay scales for teachers. So the criteria in the School Teachers Pay and Conditions document will only apply to teachers in Local Authority schools. Why have the Government climbed down on this issue? It’s not as if this is a major financial problem for academies. But what will be the next change/climb down by the Government? Will academies be exempt from the National Curriculum? Will Local Authorities be able to build schools according to the needs of their communities or will all new schools, as at present, have to be academies?