RUN

In the ongoing debate over Whether We Should Do It, Nike have generally held a pretty consistent position. To put it mildly, they are in disagreement with Frankie's view.

 Frankie assume that we want to Do It. Nike tell us that we Don't want to Do It, but hold out the hope that we may be able to Just impulse-buy our way out of that lethargy. With help, of course, from Nike.

But then sometimes Nike Say somewhat different things about doing it.

Sure, we have that special, disempowering form of women's empowerment, where women still get targeted and objectified like in any slasher film, but are then empowered to not die by the products they purchase! But i also see what Nike did there, with the turning of the slasher film pastiche on its michael-meyers-visaged head. and there's something worth salvaging from it: running away is awesome.

Chainsaw Man has all the Power signifiers. he's a burly, masked, fully clothed dude. he has a deep throaty growl, a chainsaw, and the element of surprise.

Fleeing Woman has all of the powerlessness signifiers. she's a slight, partially disrobed, unarmed lady with a high-pitched scream and no obvious means of defense. in a normal slasher movie, FW would grab a kitchen knife, lock herself in a closet or bathroom, and/or run outside into the protective arms of Big Strong Man, who will then take up his patriarchal protective responsibility.

FW doesn't do any of this, she just takes off. Nike wants to associate itself with her ability to run, which is bullshit for reasons i'll get into another time. but all the things that make FW look like the inevitable victim of CM in the typical misogynistic slasher narrative are quite the opposite if her goal isn't to defeat the bad guy and defend the territory of The Home. minimal clothes make movement easier and body temperature self-regulating. no mask makes breathing easier. and it's much easier to run when you're not carrying a growling chainsaw.

and as she heads off into the night, FW isn't looking for BS Man who will fight for her. nor a closet to lock herself in. she's just running.

Running from a conflict is supposed to be bad. "cut and run" is now used in political posturing to mean, roughly "i support the war and don't care that my figure of speech implies that our ship of state will shortly be dashed to splinters by the oncoming storm." The imperative to hold the line insists on the failure of giving up property or territory or an affected posture of Power, which are all made more or less synonymous. Holding your ground, or your stuff, or your burly bravado, all require the ontological certainty that anything so defended will be safe, or more generally, that you can define a space, and keep out the things you don't want.

Any trans person who's ever used a public bathroom can attest to the safety of such defended spaces.
so can, hopefully, anyone who's paying marginally close attention to the current debates over immigration.
or anyone who's ever been present uninvited on a college campus, or in a corporate building.
or any queer person or other mutant who's been ensconced in the normative safety of The Home.
or ask Francine. or Mrs. Torrence.

the call always comes from inside the house.
or more to the point, the zombies always get in, and if the cavalry shows up, then you're stuck with the cavalry.

Holding the line never just requires grit and guns. it requires a chain of command, and uniforms, and the brig. and the first to be frog-marched to the brig are always the people who we've been holding the line down on top of. their bodies make our line waver treacherously, and this Will Not Do.

but the good news is, the line can't be held. you can't stay pure, and you can't stay clean, and you can't stay safe, and you can't keep from getting hurt, and that door won't hold forever. but you can run away. you can't carry much with you when you do. and that's a good thing. so relax.

what we can do is keep moving. resist the logic that says we have to stay put, have to clean up, have to defend what we have, where we are, because someone else wants it and somewhere else will be worse.

we can keep running longer than anything else with feet. ain't nothing can keep up with us once we get moving. not the creep with the chainsaw, not your husband with the axe, not the zombie, and not the man with the gun

quick. the world we thought we knew is burning. drop everything and run.