The new season of Love, Death, and Robots (LDR) has just released to the disappointment of many. I somewhat agree that this season isn’t up to par with the quality exhibited in the first few seasons, but there are moments to be enjoyed. The animation of “Can’t Stop,” featuring the Red Hot Chili Peppers performing the hit song, was incredible despite being, essentially, a glorified music video. “Spider Rose,” was interesting and seems like it took place in the same universe of episodes past.
The Hunger Games-esque episode, “The Screaming of the Tyrannosaur,” was poetic, a bit on the nose, and a bit paradoxical (perhaps intentionally tongue in cheek) with Mr.Beast’s awful voice-acting leading the way, but the parallelism between the lead contestant and a pack of wolves was well done, though it was likely done better in the story it was based on, written by Stant Litore. LDR has this uncanny ability to create animation that is almost too real, always making for an interesting watch.
But the most impactful of the bunch is “400 Boys.” Gang leaders, named slickers in this world, fight for territory in Fun City as it seems to take place in a postmodern world. The opening scene sees 4 characters huddled around a table attempting to load a gun with a sort of telekinesis, before ultimately failing. They are almost immediately thrown into action as the building they are hiding within splits in two, suspected to be by the newest gang in town, who are larger than life as they tear apart buildings and throw bridges at the moon.
They split for supplies and to check the city for a pulse, they can’t feel anything until slicker HiLo, a former nemesis of slicker Slash as noted by the long scar at the corner of his mouth, falls into their laps and tells the legacy of the newest boys in town — the 400 Boys. Realizing they may be in more trouble than they realized, they called upon the Galrogs, a clan of women on roller skates, with “guidance” from the Old Mother who foretells the end of the world. This causes all the slickers of Fun City to unite and fight the 400 Boys, who take the form of giant babies.
After HiLo prods the 400 Boys from their hovel, the fight ensues. Slickers from all ‘hoods combine to take down the massive babies with different styles of fighting, but not without loss. The 400 Boys eventually go down for good.
A lot of detractors of this episode just found it silly that giant babies were attacking people seemingly at random in a post-apocolyptic world with little context. Though, all the context one might need is in the world around us, a fatal mistake a lot of viewers make when analyzing media. The literal context is a short story, but Love, Death, and Robots marries the two.
In this animation, “400 Boys” creates canon of the black experience through animation, despite its origin — a story of the same name by white author, Marc Laidlaw — not housing any explicit reference to skin color (though one descriptor does mention an afro). For that very reason, a lot of those criticisms come from people who quite literally can’t or won’t “get” what the episode is about.
Through the lens of a black person, particularly in America, this seemingly absurd story carries a little more weight. That connection, that in this universe, manifest as a supernatural beam of light or chains of lightning (literally a classic black superpower), are life and death for these characters. It isn’t explicitly stated in the episode, but according to the short story, these characters can feel each other telekinetically, almost as naturally as they feel the sun on their skin or their pulse in their arms.
Comparatively, black culture uses innate signifiers to identify with each other — we know when we’re in the presence of our people. Here, the danger mechanism works similarly. Threats make themselves apparent by their inability to assimilate. This is part of the reason HiLo (who isn’t necessarily black) and Slash put their beef to rest, for the devastation they have both inflicted and received are cousins, if not brothers, borne from the same root cause. Their common enemy refused to assimilate, and, in fact, sought to do the opposite.
The staunch difference between the characters and the giant babies was intentional, in both presentation of age and skin color, alluding to a primordial struggle that is looming yet infantile at its core. These babies are massive, literally several times taller than skyscrapers, and white. The distinction is subtle, yet clear. They stick out on the gloomy sky just beyond their heads, the reddish hue of the scene encapsulating them all as they fight. Their biggest weapon is their size, which as the story is told, is innate, but their age hints at their emotional status — immature, even with the power they’ve inherited.
They often resort to crying, their shrieks are sharp, screeching, and destructive, which is undoubtedly a reference to white tears. Their power renders their combatants defenseless at times, but their very purpose seems inevident — they are only produced to harm and invoke terror, as a battle cry even, as they wage war against the characters of Fun City. The last shedding of an actual tear comes in the final seconds, before this particular baby’s execution and succeeded by a powerful line by Slash: “God or Boy…you’re dead, Slicker.” But there is a parallelism between the power of tears in this story.
Take the image of Crybaby, a brolic, slightly lighter-skinned character in comparison to the thin, sharp bodies around him.
He clearly suffers from PTSD therefore rendering him practically useless for a large majority of the story. Chaos unfolds around him, he ducks and dives behind cover to cry and brings up the rear of the pack, to process the destruction placed before him. He is paralyzed by trauma. The framing of this character, particularly his role as a foil to the more stoic characters, emphasizes the role of suppressed emotionality within the black community.
Ever heard the saying, “I’ll give you something to cry about?” Crybaby Jaguar literally has everything to cry about, every reason to withdraw. His tears hold no objective, only sorrow. He has already lost those close to him, and continues to do so as the story unfolds. Realistically, he shows the only rational response to the turmoil around him. And still he is expected to suck it up, continue to wage war with his brothers. Notice, that despite his ineptitude, he is with the crew the entire way, again symbolic of this innate grief these black and brown bodies carry with them at all times.
This innate somberness is shown in other ways as well. The Galrogs, a tribe of Wakandan-like women who traverse exclusively by roller skates — which could be considered a reference to the popularity of roll bounce culture — adorn themselves in intricate blue paint on their faces and decorating their teeth. Both are tribal practices by nature, further entrenching this episode in its black roots. When they open their mouths, their teeth are adorned with etchings that seemingly glow, hinting at an unseen pain.
Furthermore, and this is one of my favorite aspects of the story, the idea of mythology is told through the Galrogs’ leader, the Old Mother, who doesn’t exactly deliver directions or orders, but rather wisdom through story telling. Keep in mind, these episodes are brief, so this section was only a few seconds long, but ultimately, it provides the basis or the canon of the story. Old Mother, a blind, bald woman who stares intently at a mirror, delivers the following testimony:
“It was the end of the world. There were wars in the south. Bonfires made out of cities. Bombs going off like fireworks. The world was broken. And beings from the outside oozed through the cracks. And now they want to smash.”
This feels both like a tribal retelling passed down through centuries and also, the epitome of the black experience. It isn’t hard to image the bonfires made of cities, particularly ones like Tulsa, and even the bombs, like the ones in Philadelphia circa 1985. The inclusion of a specific geographical generalization of “in the south” feels intentional, as black history is wrought in the North American south. Callbacks to the Civil Rights era dance along the fringes of my mind as I write this.
Additionally, and this is particularly prevalent where I live, the literal idea of oozing through the cracks and smashing not downward, but upward, uprooting the ground beneath them as they build up, feels like a metaphor for gentrification. “Beings from the outside,” is particularly important here as you can have the former without this qualifier.
It is worth noting that this monologue was abbreviated in a way and told a bit differently in the original story, which slightly changes its meaning when delivered the way it is here. Regardless, the intent is sinister as is. These beings, while not explicitly stated to have created the chaos, a convenient talisman, arise from it and multiply it. They want to smash, though, seemingly, with no particular good reason, other than being from “the outside.” But, such is the basis for imperialism as well, there’s no good reason for it.
I will round out this piece with the analysis of perhaps the most important words uttered in the 15 minute runtime of this episode:
“Nothing ever ends.”
This quote somehow served as a beacon for optimism, a signifier of their situation, and that of a looming threat. It is said by a Galrog woman as they realize they are in danger, by the Old Mother, and by Slash as he executes the final baby. “Nothing ever ends,” that is positive in relation to the world they live in — it won’t ever end. In the same vein, it feels defeatist. Will their plight ever end? Not if the proverb is to be believed. In Slash’s case, it feels menacing — this battle they won feels good in the moment, sure, but the end result? Is their struggle with these Boys never ending? The tinge of irony in this quote as he ends the baby’s life applies a scale to each use of the quote.
“Nothing ever ends” serves as proverb for the cyclical nature of black generational trauma. Pain, joy, faith, struggle, impact, life, nothing never ends for a people so interconnected by these themes for they are vital to the people themselves. Life is an abundance of abundance and nothing ever ends. No amount of hatred can permanently strip joy. And no amount of fight can stop death, but damn does it feel good to try. Love, Death, and Robots managed to recreate this story so well, as they usually do.
Black and cyberpunk never seem to match stylistically, with the former often having to carve out its own niche (afrofuturism), and the latter never featuring darker skin, implying a sinister fate for black and brown bodies in any postmodern future. This episode combines the two in a way that isn’t cheesy or forced, using communicative tools (their language, a slang that feels staunchly black, albeit of UK origins) and striking imagery to really embellish the importance of these black characters. When you combine the more subtle notions, like the tribal drums as they gear up for war, or even the idea that their opponent was few in number, it really ties together this grand mythology for the black canon in the modern world.
Sure, I could be overanalyzing this 15 minute animated episode that was made by a white Canadian that liked the Gorillaz, but that’s sort of the beautiful thing about modern media — you can apply meaning where you find it. Despite all the negative or non-positive things said about this episode, I loved it. I saw myself in half the characters and I feel like that never happens.