News Yesterday 1:16 PM

Kristi Noem Is the Queen of Panem

Welcome to the Reality Hunger Games

A few days after the public learned the US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem had, in the works, a reality show that featured immigrants competing for US citizenship, the show’s producer Rob Worsoff asserted that it would not be like the Hunger Games. It would instead be a “celebration of America in the most positive possible way.” The show, called The American, would involve immigrants digging up “clams in Maine or rafting down the Arkansas River in Colorado.” These are, one gathers, fun, wholesome things to do; whereas the contestants in the Hunger Games were thrown into a life-and-death struggle. The games on the reality show can, in Worsoff’s view, be characterized as utopian; the ones in the popular movie series, and the novels on which they are based, dystopian. 

What can we say about this? I want to first point to an insight found in a philosophical work that influenced The Matrix, Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation.

Baudrillard writes: “Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe the rest is real, whereas all of Los Angeles and the America that surrounds it are no longer real.” Described in this passage is a powerful and even bewildering form of concealment. The truth hides the truth as not the truth: we are always in Disneyland. We never enter or leave it.

Though the target of Baudrilliad’s critique is the actual status of American reality (he believed we all lived in a simulation or The Matrix), I prefer to see it in structural terms. Meaning, there is nothing one does in Disneyland that is essentially (or structurally) different from what one does outside of it. You cannot draw a line between Mickey Mouse and Chuck E. Cheese. Visiting the Magic Kingdom costs money; buying goods at Walmart also costs money. And so on.

Disneyland is not even the kind of space that the 20th century Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin imagined existed in European medieval carnivals. There’s no inversion or subversion here. The fool becoming a king; and the king becoming a fool (the paradigm of Baktin’s carnival)? Not all. Disneyland compliments and even reinforces the prevailing social order. Secretary Kristi Noem doesn’t become a fool in Disneyland. She remains a queen. 

So, why do people pay for something that is already available to them outside of the theme park? Because it hides the fact that you are already in it. And what is the use or function of this obvious concealment? The answer is the point at which Baudrillard’s ”real” becomes visible and political: Because it tells you that buying a Barbie doll at a Walmart or losing access to food stamps is real; but hugging Minnie Mouse is a fantasy. And if you accept this distinction, it naturalizes the forms of exploitation that, if carefully examined, have as much reality in them as the walking brooms in the “Sorcerer's Apprentice.”

And this is what makes The American even doubly strange. For years, we watched The Running Man, The Hunger Games, Squid Game from a comfortable distance. They appeared to be fantastic, and we appeared to be in reality. This distinction, of course, served the same ideological function as Disneyland. The games on our movie/computer/phone screens concealed the fantastic fact at the heart of our everyday world: It is, actually, all a game.

This is what makes The American so innovative. It will abandon the concealment part and tell us, yes, you have been nowhere else but in Panem. Our society has reached a point when the illusion is no longer needed. It may even be a bad distraction. A part of the reason for this development finds its explanation in what Seattle writer and filmmaker David Shields calls “reality hunger.” What MAGA wants most from life, as Jan 6 revealed, is a real experience. But an experience of this kind, such as the Black Lives Matter protests, requires demolishing a considerable part of the present structure of our society. So, instead of breaking the spell of the unreal,  we have the unreal leap from the screen and into the everyday unreal: ICE kidnapping international students from the street, Venezuelans being flown to a post-apocalyptic maximum prison in El Salvador, law abiding laborers being detained indefinitely at the ICE’s detention centers. This is The American.

Savage Love Yesterday 9:35 AM

Jerked Around

The Problem Isn't Porn

I recently came home from a short meeting to find my husband in the bathroom with the door locked — locked to keep the kids out — meaning that he was secretly jerking off to porn while I was out. This has happened a few times before while I was home or out briefly and I’ve tried to explain how hurtful it feels to me. If he’s that interested in sex while I’m away briefly, I would rather he ask me to have sex, include me in watching porn, or even tell me his plan so it doesn’t feel like a secret. I have nothing against him watching porn and we sometimes do so together. It’s the idea of him doing it at home secretly when I’m out briefly that upsets me. It makes me feel like he is waiting for an opportunity alone and jumping on it as soon as he can, and that he prefers this to sex with me. And though he insists that watching porn doesn’t mean he isn’t also attracted to me, the secret nature of this makes me feel unattractive. He says that the secret nature is not part of the desire for him. Rather, jerking off is more akin to boredom/enjoyment, like deciding to “eat a bowl of ice cream.” He travels a good bit for work, and I’ve encouraged him to watch porn freely when he’s away. He insists that he’s satisfied with our sex life, including how frequently we have sex. He says that his interest in porn is just something fun that he — like most men — likes to do, and that it’s an entirely different category than our sex life. But there’s something about looking at women with perfect/fake bodies while I’m out briefly that feeds into my insecurities as a middle-aged woman and makes me extremely angry. Am I being unfair in asking him to stop jerking off to porn secretly when I could walk in on him easily? What else could we do to solve this problem?

Porn Over Reality Needles Offended Spouse

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Weather Weather on My Phone, Will I Be Trapped in My Home? It's likely to rain (and maybe thunder) for most of today, but the sun should come out again tomorrow.

ICE Detained Filipino Green Card Holder at Sea-Tac: Olympia resident Maximo Londonio, 42, is a lawful permanent resident who came to the US from the Philippines as a boy. Last Thursday, he had just returned home from a trip to the Philippines with his wife and daughter, where he was visiting family and celebrating his 20th wedding anniversary, when US Customs and Border Protection officers pulled him aside at Sea-Tac airport. He was detained and later sent to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma where he awaits a hearing. Organizers with Tanggol Migrante Network WA believe he’s being detained for stealing a car more than 20 years ago when he was 19. Londonio’s story is similar to that of Lewelyn Dixon. Officers detained Dixon, A green card holder and University of Washington lab technician from the Philippines, at Sea-Tac over a 25-year-old conviction for embezzlement. Dixon is still at the Northwest Detention Center.

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SIFF 2025 Mon 1:46 PM

Your Guide to SIFF Today

What’s Playing, and What’s Good

We’re four days into the 2025 Seattle International Film Festival. Hopefully, you spent the weekend hopping from screen to screen, but now it’s Monday, free time is harder to come by, and perhaps you’re looking for a little guidance. Well, you’re in luck. For our 2025 SIFF Issue, we watched over 100 festival films to tell you which ones are amazing and which ones you can miss.

Today, across five theaters from downtown to Shoreline, SIFF is showing twenty films (the full list is below), and we’re here to help you pick. There are four we think are great (The Balconettes, Heightened Scrutiny, BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions, She’s the He), all marked with a (), and two we think you absolutely shouldn’t miss (Blue Sun Palace, Khartoum), marked with a (★★). If you see a (?) next to a film, it means, sadly, we didn’t get access to a screener of it, so you’ll have to find out for yourself. Looking to grab a drink or some happy hour snacks before or after your movie? We have some recommendations for that, too, right here.

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Rain again: And again, and again. Anon, anon. It will be a wet week. At least it's brighter than the wet weeks of a few months ago.

Biden's Cancer: President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. Detection came after Biden presented urinary symptoms, and the cancer has spread to his bones. Prostate cancers' aggressiveness is rated on a 6 to 10 Gleason scale. Biden's cancer is a 9, according to his team. It's treatable, but not curable. Sorry your rest and retirement wasn't longer, Joe. No one should have to live their final years with the thought that Donald Trump might be the one managing their memorial. 

Boeing's "Get Out of Jail Free" Card: Boeing is facing criminal charges for killing 346 people when two Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes crashed six years ago. The aerospace company was supposed to go to trial for a fraud charge late next month, but now the US Justice Department seems like it may be offering Boeing a "non-prosecution agreement." The victims' families are understandably incensed by this. If the plea goes forward, then Boeing will receive another slap on the wrist (i.e. will need to pay another fine, pay more money to compensate the families, agree to make compliance agreements, yada yada yada). 

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News Fri 4:51 PM

Does a Neighborhood in Crisis Need a Crisis Center?

These Capitol Hill Businesses Don't Think So

Molly Moon Neitzel, owner of Molly Moon’s Homemade Ice Cream, was sitting next to fellow disgruntled neighbors in the second row at Seattle University’s Wycoff Auditorium. They were there for a community meeting with King County’s Department of Community and Human Services (DCHS), and were angry because the county had audaciously believed the Polyclinic building on Broadway could be made into a crisis center. Could they not see that their neighborhoods, Capitol Hill and First Hill, were in crisis?

Back in 2023, voters approved a $1.25 billion property-tax levy to create, fund, and run five 24/7 fully-staffed crisis centers, or places anyone, including the uninsured, could go for their mental health and substance disorder needs. The first opened in Kirkland last August. King County plans to open three more centers like it by 2030, and another center focused on youth.

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SIFF 2025 Fri 12:38 PM

The Screens We’ve Loved and Lost

Remembering the Beloved (and Haunted) Movie Theaters of Seattle’s Past

While we were putting together this issue of The Stranger, and contemplating all the ways in which we could cover the upcoming Seattle International Film Festival now that we’re back in print, we started to think back to the old days, when The Stranger would pilfer the SIFF offices for weeks on end, grabbing all the VHS tapes and DVDs we could get our greedy hands on.

I worked at The Stranger through many a SIFF season (my first stint at the paper was between 2000–2013) and I loved SIFF season. I loved how jumping from one SIFF show to the next was an annual springtime tradition. I loved taking a chance on a movie I knew nothing about, save for the 100 or so works in a snarky alt-weekly. I loved getting to eat popcorn every day for two weeks.

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So you got in the wrong lane at a light, but you need to turn left? Too bad. Everyone behind you is going straight because we’re in the lane that goes straight—you’re going to have to go around the block. You don’t stop in the lane that proceeds through the intersection in order to try to make your left turn as the light turns yellow. That’s what that left turn lane—the lane you missed—is for.

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Good Morning! We’re still in the drizzly phase. It’ll be damp until Sunday, in the mid-50s. It’s not hang-out-oustide weather, but you won’t totally hate waiting for the bus.

Wanna start with a headline that’ll make you want to smash things? Here’s one: “Kristi Noem Wants Migrants to Compete for Citizenship on New Reality Show.” This is a real headline in the Daily Beast, followed by a real story about how she’s working with the producer of Duck Dynasty to pitch a reality TV show called The American, where contestants would ride around the country, competing in regionally-specific contests like log rolling or rocket building (??). At the end, the winner gets sworn in on the steps of the Capitol, and the losers go home with some super-American prizes like airline miles, a Starbucks gift card, or a lifetime supply of gasoline. “Along the way, we will be reminded what it means to be American—through the eyes of the people who want it most,” the producer wrote in a 35-page pitch. The Department of Homeland Security is still vetting the proposal, but they HAVEN’T. SAID. NO.

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EverOut Fri 9:00 AM

The Best Bang for Your Buck Events in Seattle This Weekend: May 16–18, 2025

U District Street Fair, Gays Eating Garlic Bread in the Park, and More Cheap & Easy Events Under $15

Pinching pennies this month? We got you! There's still plenty to do this weekend on the cheap, from the U District Street Fair to Gays Eating Garlic Bread in the Park, and from the 17th of May in Ballard to Seattle Mineral Market. For more suggestions, check out our top event picks of the week.

FRIDAY

LIVE MUSIC

Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory Live on KEXP
On her new album, Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory, the New Jersey singer-songwriter maintains her cerebral arena rock sound (à la Bruce Springsteen) while embracing a haunting, goth vibe reminiscent of Siouxsie Sioux & The Banshees. Just imagine Siouxsie Sioux & The E Street Band—that's what this album sounds like to me. KEXP sets permit up to 70 attendees to watch the musicians from the "live room viewing gallery," and the experience comes complete with a behind-the-scenes glimpse of DJing and video production processes. AUDREY VANN
(KEXP Stage, Downtown)

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EverOut May 15 2:13 PM

Ticket Alert: Kali Uchis, Lorde, and More Seattle Events Going On Sale This Week

Plus, The Who and More Event Updates for May 15

Text your group chat and make a plan to grab tickets to these newly announced shows before they sell out! “Telepatía” songstress Kali Uchis starts her tour in the Pacific Northwest this August. What was that? Lorde will bring ultrasounds to Climate Pledge Arena. Plus, English rockers The Who will say goodbye on their Song is Over farewell tour. Read on for details and some news you can use.

ON SALE FRIDAY, MAY 16

MUSIC

Allan Rayman
Madame Lou’s (Tues Oct 14)

Anamanaguchi – The Buckwild Tour
The Crocodile (Thurs Sept 4)

Beach Fossils
The Crocodile (Thurs Sept 18)

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SIFF 2025 May 15 12:31 PM

SIFF 2025 Shorts Programs

More than 120 Short Films Show in 14 Feature-Length Packages

SIFF has divvied up more than 120 shorts into 14 feature-length packages, and there are a lot of little cinematic treasures scattered throughout. All programs will be available for streaming May 26–June 1. 

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SIFF 2025 May 15 12:15 PM

Let's Play SIFF Bingo!

Keep Your Eyes Peeled During SIFF Movies to See if You Can Get a BINGO!

The Seattle International Film Festival is always full of weird, wonderful, and weirdly wonderful sights. Keep your eyes peeled for the details described below and see if you can get a BINGO! 

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SIFF 2025 May 15 11:37 AM

Spirited Away

Some of Seattle’s Best Happy Hours are Just Minutes from SIFF Theaters

Nobody can blame Seattle restaurants for dialing back the deals lately; wholesale food and booze costs have surged since the pandemic, and there’s no end in sight. But the fact remains that we need a good happy hour more than ever—especially after watching a Swiss stop-motion feature about death, or a film about a woman who wants to be a chair (real films showing at SIFF!). I’ve scouted out the best happy hours near all the SIFF theaters, so you can feed your soul (and belly) with cheap snax and drinx to recover from your post-film existential crisis. Every bar or restaurant listed here is no more than a quick 10-minute walk from the theaters in question, and usually way closer. 

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Weather: Alright, so here’s the deal, today’s weather is basically Seattle saying, “Oh, you wanted sunshine?  How about some rain and 58 degrees instead?” For the next 7 days we’ll be trapped inside the backdrop of a sad indie film, where the main character just got dumped and the soundtrack is just endless, soul-crushing drizzle. So yeah, it’s Thursday! 

All the President’s Billionaires: Donald Trump kicked off his latest cash grab in Riyadh, where US arms deals flourish and corrupt presidents go to announce they’re done pretending to care about democracy or the rule of law. (And specifically, that he would be dropping sanctions against Syria.) The crowd of Saudi royals and American tech CEOs gave him a standing ovation. Trump’s declaration of a new world order landed perfectly in a place where protest gets you prison time. And he’s just getting started. Next stops: Qatar and the UAE. Why? One White House trip planner put it plainly: “All three have a shit ton of money. It’s really that simple.” Trump says he’s forging diplomatic ties but what he’s actually doing is chasing cash. A $400 million luxury jet from Qatar? Gift? Bribe? Semantics. 

Dealmaker in Grift: Trump landed in Doha just in time to announce a $96 billion “deal of the century” with Qatar for up to 210 Boeing jets, while lining up a palace in the sky as a parting gift for his presidential library. Qatar’s prime minister claims it’s just a “government-to-government transaction,” but even some Trump allies are calling it what it is: influence peddling at 30,000 feet. The White House, meanwhile, is hyping him as “dealmaker in chief,” while Boeing, still limping from safety scandals, strikes, and tanking orders, saw its stock tick up a half percent.

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