My childhood movies, and the things I now see in them 20 years later: Hackers (1995) (CW: Long, Spoilers) 

Oh shit, y'all. Strap the fuck in.

Disregard that. Stoned Kelsey over exaggerates often. Here are some more of her thoned stoughts:

-- Dade Murphy is a worthless, but attractive twink.
-- I paid attention to Kate Libby for way different reasons than I was supposed to.
-- Nikon and Cereal are the only (joking, not serious) acceptable OTP. Don't @ me

-- Good bio-family respects chosen family.
--The kids I watched this movie with in high school tried so hard to recreate the tribal vibe of the Hackers.
-- This movie shaped a lot of my heuristics for what is considered "friend shaped"

--"Voodoo People" is the song chosen for when hackers are being Hackers: using their knowledge and skills to manipulate the world around them like the trickster gods of old we have turned computer people into.
-- I wish the FBI comedic relief wasn't Black.
-- I remember the _/idea/_ of cyber clubs like Cyberdelia far more than the reality, except for in IRC RP chatrooms, where the theme was an actual cyberclub.
--It was a nice bit of payoff that Joey got to finish his hack and copy the whole garbage file. Shows growth during the character arc.

--When I was young, I thought dismissing Cereal to "fix the phones" was the removal of a silly comedic relief distraction from a life-and death situation. Then I remembered that /Cereal/ was the source of the "Technicolor Rainbow" library The sent him to fix the phones, cause he was the best one for the job. Even better than Phreak, who has been shows tricking the phone company repeatedly.

-- The smartest and dumbest coded characters are both Black. Nikon is shown figuring out code without the mystical fractals, he has a photographic memory, He plays chess against Jewish people in the park. He also has his own place, and can walk through Ellingson Mineral unmolested by security. Agent Gil is loud, obnoxious, is shown to be very in over his head and not understanding relevant terminology, gets embarrassed in public, and in private, multiple times, and stands in opposition to, and in fact, gets "killed" by the protagonists.

-- I wish Hackers was my introduction to Halcyon+On+On instead of Mortal Kombat

-- The ending scene feels so tacked on and forced. Probably forced to be there to satisfy a meddling executive.

-- Kate's pranks on Gill use the power of Gills position against him. Dade's pranks are cringy, shaming, and personal. And it is only by copying Kate's tactics and coding a virtual 187 on the motherfucking secret service agent, is awarded a pity tie. Attempting to show dominance, he demands molding Kate to his ideals in exchange for his submission. Kate, sick of his shit by now, decides to push right back and enforce her boundaries by transgressing on his, something Dade has been doing the whole movie. Dade gets trapped in a web of his own normative presentations, unable to back down with out looking "weak" but also unsure if his capabilities would be enough to allow him to prevail and thus preserve his Dadeness, untouched by feminine power.

-- Yelling "Trashing" and "Hack the Planet" while being shoved into an arrestmobile is a great show of using shared ideology combined with an understanding of similar thought processes enough to communicate securely while being monitored. Very, very good encryption.

-- Razer and Blade are adorable together and its sad seeing talented showmen forced to live at the whim of media production companies who are only wanting to cash in on the image and prestige of authenticity and local reputation in pursuit of profit.

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My childhood movies, and the things I now see in them 20 years later: Hackers (1995) (CW: Long, Spoilers) 

@kelseyhusky thank you for this!

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