#Goncharov the cultural phenomenon right? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

punk-bot · 1 year

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Goncharov, Star Wars, Stonewall, and Disco, and the 1970s: an epiphany.

ETA: This is a discussion of Goncharov as a meme and how it relates to Queer culture, therefore I am not tagging it with the “unreality” tag. Goncharov is not a real film, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t important; for reasons I will now explain.

I may be going crazy, but I think I am on to something regarding the true meaning of the whole Goncharov phenomenon, and it's kind of related to Vaporwave and the image that people who didn't grow up in the 1980s or early 1990s (or who have hazy memories of it from their earliest childhood) have enshrined it in the "aesthetic" of vaporwave. But while the themes of Vaporwave are tied to capitalism and consumerism, the "aesthetic" of the 1970s has very different associations.

The whole 70s-to-80s transitional vibe is a favorite topic of mine: right before the Muskrat bought twitter, I tweeted a whole thread about how Panos Cosmatos channels that whole vibe better than nearly any director I've ever seen. (Yes, even Quentin Tarantino - fight me.)

People are watching the new Star Wars media, which are all based around the Original Trilogy and therefore have sort of the same 70s "aesthetic look" of the time in which those movies were made. George Lucas was incorporating and repurposing as much regular stuff that existed in the 1970s that he could, and it contributed to his "used, lived in future" vibe that I think people really glommed onto when they saw the films.

For example: Aunt Beru's outfit from the first film looks like something the actress could have worn on the street in 1977 without anyone giving her a second glance.

People all over the film (but particularly in the scenes on Tatooine) were wearing regular clothes and then making them over or putting accessories over them to make them look futuristic and alien; "Star Wars Bounding" before that was really even a thing. Their regular 1970s street clothes.

This is related to Goncharov because: people are watching Andor and The Mandalorian, and they're starting to ask "what happened to the 1970s aesthetic? Why don't we bring that back?"

Even more than the 60s and the 80s were at various points, the 70s have for a long time been a punchline for bad taste, but there's something more sinister to it beyond merely sneering at the outdated fashion of a previous decade. And it hit me while I was watching this video about the rise of Disco and how Disco's origins were connected with the Stonewall Riots.

The joke about the Goncharov film hoax is how it's a "forgotten film" and about "analyzing the themes of Goncharov." About themes of homoeroticism, about two men (one of them a Discotheque owner on the run from a repressive regime) and two women who are in love, all of whom are unable to consummate that love, because of toxic masculinity and cultural expectations. About clocks being a frequent and repeating symbol - about the characters’ time running out. And the film basically disappearing from public knowledge and being forgotten for decades because these themes were "ahead of their time." (All of this originating from a post about a pair of knockoff boots.)

Because this is a metaphor for the LGBTIQ experience in the 1970s if ever there was one. About a time when an intersection of Queer-BIPOC culture proudly asserted itself for a single shining moment in time - then was eventually subject to both a bigoted, racist backlash and a horrific epidemic so damaging and deadly that we're still analyzing the human cost and the effect it had on society as a whole. Queer culture exploded onto the scene in the 1970s - and then its time suddenly ran out. Or was cut short.

Goncharov - or rather, the spirit and the moment in time that it represents - wasn't "forgotten." It was buried. First under a racist, homophobic/transphobic backlash, then by the malignancy of Reaganism and the AIDS virus that Reagan and his policies enabled to spread and kill thousands. Under the sneering condescension and bigotry of the people who want this spirit to stay buried.

But this spirit is unkillable. Tumblr just gave this spirit a name: Goncharov.

This same spirit is in Andor, to a point - because Queer culture is being actively repressed by the usual bigots and fascists, and Star Wars in general has a running theme of resisting oppression, and it is firmly anchored to its 1970s roots despite taking place "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away." Spoiler warning for the Andor season finale: but it was impossible for me to see the scenes of rebellion and not flash back on this recent tweet from Dan Savage in the wake of the Club Q shooting:

("Out of the bars, into the streets!")

One of the things I think about all the time is what would have been if the right wing bigoted backlash had been turned back, and how things might be different if Reaganism and the AIDS crisis had never happened. What our culture might have become. How much further ahead we might be than we are now.

We're still facing that same toxic right wing backlash right now, but it's our duty to resist and survive however we can, hoping that this time we might turn the tide.

Stonewall lives. Disco lives. Goncharov lives. Long live the Rebellion.

#Goncharov #Star Wars #Andor #Queer Culture #Disco #lgbtiq+ rights #Goncharov Lives #Discussion of Goncharov as a meme

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mashounen1945 · 1 year

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I'm looking at the whole Tumblr culture phenomenon of Goncharov right now, including the news of Archive of Our Own having more Goncharov fanfics than (James Cameron's) Avatar fanfics. And my reaction to this is...

Okay, it doesn't surprise me a lot, as this is not unusual at all for the literal hive mind that is the Tumblr user base with their LSD-induced imagination. But there's a second reason for my lack of surprise: we Argentineans have sort of already done this once, not long ago.

There's a comedian here, Alejandro Dolina, mostly known for his radio show La Venganza Será Terrible ["Revenge Will Be Terrible" in English] (I seriously recommend that show for anyone who knows Spanish, I try to tune in and listen to it whenever I have the next morning off) and his compilation of short stories Crónicas del Ángel Gris ["Grey Angel Chronicles" in English] (my dad's got a copy of that book). In 2011, he and a few others made for the state-owned educational channel "Encuentro" a 13-episode TV series, Recordando el Show de Alejandro Molina ["Remembering the Alejandro Molina Show" in English]. Here are all the episodes with Spanish subtitles:

Of course, the creation and production of Recordando el Show de Alejandro Molina was something way less accidental than the birth of the Goncharov meme (@vergess provided an actual explanation here: https://vergess.tumblr.com/post/701464604524642305/i-forgot-most-people-wouldnt-understand-it-on), but the premise is strikingly similar. The series's creators themselves describe it as "a mockumentary about a TV show that never existed", and in that respect, it's exactly what it says on the tin: it supposedly recovers fragments of that "Alejandro Molina Show" even more false than the documentary dedicated to remembering it, collects testimonies from those who allegedly knew the fictional character Alejandro Molina personally, and manages to present everything convincingly enough to make you doubt at least for a few seconds about the non-existence of that show. Radio listeners of La Venganza Será Terrible will most likely find similarities between the usual content of that radio show and the fake recovered fragments shown in this mockumentary; Argentinean (and Uruguayan) viewers, as well as those from any other country who know something about past and present Argentinean celebrities, will notice the jokes hidden in the names of this series's characters and the identities of the real-life actors playing them.

Anyway... Go watch it. If you had fun reading and posting about Goncharov here, you'll have fun with this series too.

#goncharov #tumblr culture #hellsite #tumblr stuff #argentina #alejandro dolina #la venganza sera terrible #la venganza será terrible

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