Zhen is a Chinese name. However, besides that they’re immigrants, it’s never explicitly said where her parents are from. All references to China or Chinese culture in PC are really roundabout things like little allusions to the Great Wall in Z’s dreams.
The BTS stuff is interesting! I don’t think Abby is actually the person who should be our window into what BTS and South Korea are doing, and I actually feel like it’s one of the clunkiest parts of the story which could be omitted entirely without a problem. However, SK serves as a narrative foil here to what is going on with the USA-- both confronted with the Jubilite ideology, one has an elegant and polite societal revolution spearheaded by Namjoon and coworkers, while the other falls apart violently.
One of the more obvious real-life analogues that Z has is Jennifer Pan-- a young Canadian woman whose parents were Chinese-Vietnamese immigrants, and who plotted and ordered the assassination of her parents. This was linked to their strict parenting style. The father survived the attempted murder, while the mother did not.
The ending stuff on colonialism is tricky. Z’s parents’ immigration doesn’t seem to be exactly morally equivalent to her attempt to escape Nantucket for Fiji, although she tries to make that connection at some point. I appreciate the self-awareness about what she, as an American, is doing, though.
A passing thought: all the colonization is happening on island nations-- if we want to extend this, it could include North America as ‘Turtle Island’.
Psycholonials, PC, politically correct
The logo looks like a lifesaver.
Abby/Zhen-- A to Z
What disease did Z’s father have?
What did Z actually ever get called out for, originally?
I don’t entirely know how I feel about the analysis of simps. They’re equated heavily to soldiers and/or citizens of a nation-- bloodthirsty saps, yes, but largely ones who are innocent of schemes. They get used as pawns by the e-girl/nation-state to whom they have sworn fealty, and are destroyed in the process. (Reminds me of the personification of America as a woman in TPAB!)
Z’s unwillingness to use sex, or even kissing, as a weapon against Abby is touching. It’s still interesting, though, that this feels a bit like the Rose/Kanaya relationship, in that sex is bad and dirty, and lesbians tenderly holding hands and getting married is the purest form of love. It’s maybe implied that they got over it or got around that, particularly seeing as how there was a Zabblepie kiss at the end, but that development is completely offscreen, if it does ever happen.
Actually, both the main characters are desexed in different ways. Abby: Writing BTS RPF as a sexual outlet, unable to reveal that side of herself to anyone besides Z. Z: Sex is a weapon that can only be used on simps and not anyone she cares about. This is kind of odd of me to say, considering that both of them canonically are also extremely promiscuous. Still, for both of them it’s only an act that is used as a tool or method of self-harm, rather than something that’s actually desired.
So this is the Joker movie, kind of. The whole ‘clown violence → social movement that starts riots’ is very similar, and it feels like one of those dancing-down-the-stairs memes.
The Internet is evil. It’s kind of hard to pinpoint whether this is an actual ‘message’ of PC, or whether this is just Z’s neuroses or what.