Aromantic, Asexual Representation? Project Hail Mary

Transcript

Courtney: Hello everyone and welcome back. My name is Courtney. I’m here with my spouse Royce. Together we are The Ace Couple, and today we are talking about a fabulous movie with questionable aroace rep, but nevertheless has themes that are deeply important to our communities specifically. And that movie is Project Hail Mary. Now, I will admit, I may be becoming somewhat of a movie hater. When I was invited by a friend to go see Project Hail Mary in theaters, I was willing to do it mostly because I wanted to hang out with that friend, even though movies aren’t, y’know, a place to socialize directly during, but the initial pitch was this movie is called Project Hail Mary and it’s set in space. And I don’t even dislike space, but I, I didn’t— I didn’t want to watch this movie. I was willing to. I think I just hate most movies, or most movies are not worth the time to me.

Royce: Yeah, I think it’s been a long descent. I also have never really been a part of the theater-going culture. That was kind of a rare occurrence for my family, and oftentimes I prefer to just watch things at home anyway. Like, yeah, the, the big screen can be okay, and at least the, like, sound quality and lighting is pretty good, but there’s also the chance of other people talking, of screens flashing, of other distractions. There’s a hassle of leaving your house and the cost, and on most occasions I would rather just watch things at home anyway. And when you’re talking about watching things at home, I think there are other mediums that tend to disappoint less. I feel like there have been a lot of movies that we have tried to watch and we’ve been like, eh, that was okay, I guess.

Courtney: Yeah, well, I was also told that it’s a long movie, that it’s almost three hours long, uh, so I was like, okay, so if I don’t like it, it’s a big time investment. And the thing is, when a movie is good and hits for me, it really hits. I can love —some movies. I just feel like for every movie that I love, I have watched 10 mediocre ones. So I say this all to really drive home the fact that any critique I have of this being or not being aroace representation is coming from a place of I adore this movie. I love this movie so much. that I have watched it twice now, and there are very few movies I will watch more than once, let alone in the span of a month.

Courtney: So for all of you that are enormous fans of this movie, I am truly right there with you. It is precious. I quote it all the time. I am thinking about how deeply meaningful the themes of this movie are constantly. I will also preface this for anybody who has read the book, I have not. So we’ll get into the discussion of adaptations and things that may have been lost between it, only from the perspective of someone who has watched the movie. I would like to read the book at some point, ’cause I am much more of a reader than I am a watcher, as a general rule. But I just don’t have the time right now, so I’m not gonna get to it anytime soon.

Courtney: The general premise of the movie is that scientists on Earth have identified that something is eating the sun. Obviously, we need the sun to live, so this is alarming. And so a variety of international organizations, scientists, researchers, engineers, astronauts, militaries get together to try to figure out how to handle this existential threat, and in doing so, they are getting creative trying to pull in anyone and everyone who might help.

Courtney: And that is where Ryland Grace comes in, who is currently a school teacher. We show him in his class in front of students teaching science, but he had a former career in academia. He has a PhD. He wrote his research paper on something that really piqued the curiosity of this— international team. So they come and scoop him up from the school, bring him in to help them research whatever this thing is that’s eating the sun. With a little time and all of these resources, he does manage to learn a few new things. But the threat has already escalated to the point where if something doesn’t get done, if they don’t move, The sun is going to die, the Earth is going to die, everything on the Earth will go extinct, so Project Hail Mary is their last shot in the dark to see if they can figure something out that will save everyone.

Royce: And I believe this process is happening fast enough that they’re looking at a few decades before the dimming of the sun causes an— uh, enough of a temperature change to cause catastrophic problems on the Earth. It’s a pretty rapid timeline considering space.

Courtney: Well, their plan is to actually send a spaceship further than has ever carried humans before to try to finish up this research. And so the amount of time it’s going to take just to travel to get to this spot is immense. So, they need to act now. I believe the three they’re planning on spending in— sending into space are an astronaut, an engineer, and a scientist?

Royce: That sounds right, I don’t know for sure.

Courtney: And the implication is, we can get you out to space this far, we have a way for you to communicate back to us to send us your findings, but this is a one-way trip, we cannot get you back home, so anybody who is on board this ship is expecting that they will die.

Royce: Yeah, and I should note, for anyone who hasn’t seen this yet, a science fiction book movie like this would not be complete without the invention of a miraculous technology to make this possible. Um, they are using a new fuel source to get this far, and it’s— they’ve found out how to take the sun-devouring thing and turn it into a new propulsion system. So this is why they’re able to go much further than humanity has ever gone in still a very time-consuming process, but one that is actually feasible.

Courtney: So while discussing this plot, let’s start planting the seeds of the very important themes here and why this character and this movie— presumably the book that came before it as well— has resonated with so many aros, aces, and aroaces alike. This is such a high-stakes scenario with which to use as a microscope to look at a very real scenario that we hear and deal with and see in society all the time. That being, if you do not have the right kind of family, if you do not have a romantic, also implied to be sexual, partner, if you do not have kids, your status in society is very often seen to be lesser. You have less to live for. And before we even get to space, this is being beaten over not only our heads but Ryland Grace’s head.

Courtney: He is not originally planning on going into space. He’s very resistant to going. In fact, he outright refuses to go. But in the process of trying to convince him, they say that to him. They’re like “You are not married. You don’t have kids. You don’t even have—” I believe they say, “You don’t even have a dog.” So they’re looking at this single man and immediately saying, “You don’t have anything to live for, so of course you should go.” There’s also the fact that he has already started researching this thing and very few people have, but this is part of the pitch.

Courtney: And what I think is most effective in any bit of representation that we can get for aspecs is fictional media that gives an intriguing and high-stakes scenario with which to examine these real-life situations, these real bigotries, these real dismissals that we so often encounter. So when they try to make the pitch that, hey, you should sacrifice yourself because you don’t have anything to live for, but also you’re a scientist working on this, we think you can figure this out, or we hope you can, he still refuses. He does not want to go. He is afraid. He values his life. Um, we don’t get much into his social life, so we don’t necessarily have an implication that he has, like, a very rich circle of friends, but he does talk about how, you know, he really values his students. He is a teacher. And everyone’s like, mm, that’s not enough. So they actually hold him down, inject him with a needle to force him into a coma, put him on the spaceship, and blast him out into space.

Royce: And this is done after the original selected team dies in an accident. So the people organizing this are like, we’re running out of time, we need a B team, we were hoping you would say yes, but you never really had a choice.

Courtney: Yeah. And, uh, what I do find interesting is the fact that their whole pitch and logic is, “You don’t have anybody to live for,” but there’s also this juxtaposition of, “You also don’t have anybody to die for,” because the 2 other crew members that have willingly signed on to this do end up dying before he even wakes up from his coma, but they’re carrying photos of their families, their loved ones, and they even say to him while on Earth during the process of trying to convince him, like, you know, “It wasn’t a difficult decision for me because I’m doing it for them.”

Courtney: And I think that is just as important a point. The notion of you don’t have anyone to live for, but also you don’t have anyone to die for, because that was what had me in tears later, was the— what are you willing to die for? What are you willing to be brave about? ’Cause normally in most of our narratives, it is a romantic in— interest, or it is your kids, it’s your immediate nuclear family, usually, in most of these narratives we tend to see in movies.

Courtney: So do we actually have any indication that Ryland Grace is or could be aroace? Or even one or the other? No, we don’t. I think because the themes are what they are and because they are handled so well, it is very natural for aroaces to see ourselves in this experience and therefore to headcanon this character as aroace. That doesn’t mean this character and movie is in any way less important to us and our reading of this media.

Courtney: And I have already had debates with people about whether or not this counts in my, in my real life, the other people in the community that I talk to on a regular basis. We’ve already had this debate, so I know not everyone agrees with me. But I’m gonna go on record and say no, this character is not aroace. This piece of media has profoundly aroace themes. I think those are 2 separate things. And quite frankly, I don’t think that necessarily one or the other is better in terms for what it can do for culture and what it means to our communities.

Courtney: Because, uh, to throw out one other example, we talked about the TV show: Kevin Can Fuck Himself. That piece of media did not have an ace character. It did not have an aro character. But did it have what I viewed to be one of the most fascinating and nuanced queerplatonic dynamics I’ve ever seen depicted on TV? Absolutely. And for the most part, I would rather a piece of media that has really nuanced themes that resonate with our community more so than just, say, having a character that is only aspec in name. Which I do know some people really like that, but I think it poses some narrative challenges if you just have a blanket piece of media where the characters could be any identity because it’s not necessarily important to the medium, and you just sort of say and label like, “Well, this character is ace.” I think it’s really difficult to convey that in a narrative way that is creative and interesting. So if I had to pick one or the other, I would say a narrative with uniquely aroace themes is more important. But, but, if they can both be combined, that’s even better.

Courtney: Is— someone like Ryland Grace is a prime candidate to actually commit and make this character ace-spec. Do it in a way that is obvious. Whether that is actually naming it, or if it is just giving us multiple touchpoints throughout the piece of media to hint in that direction in a way that is unmissable because it keeps coming back in slightly different iterations or more specific iterations. Because that can add depth and nuance to the themes that the media is already discussing while giving often overlooked communities who are— the main targets for the kind of social dismissal that the movie itself is critiquing, while giving us a character to look at to— finally say that we have a character with this identity in a major film? So my critique is not, and it’s never going to be, that the themes in this movie are not profoundly important to our community. It is going to be, this character was neither named to be aroace nor presented with enough touchstones to say that he is.

Royce: Do we get much of an insight into Grace’s life on Earth before the mission or relationship history at all? Or is there a little bit? Yeah. A little bit.

Courtney: It’s very little. And some people will point to this as evidence that he is aroace, and I will tell you why I disagree. While in space, after he gets to his destination, he does encounter another life form who comes to be known as Rocky. Rocky is also here to research from his home planet— their home planet? I don’t think Rocky has a gender in the way humans, hahaha, foresee them. Rocky is wonderful and brilliant and we love Rocky. And we love the relationship that Grace and Rocky end up developing while they are working on a solution together. And such a strong component of this movie after Ryland gets into space is how their relationship develops. Yes, they’re trying to come up with an answer to their problems, but that becomes secondary to figuring out how they can communicate.

Courtney: Once they’ve passed that hurdle, developing their relationship. Working and living in close quarters to one another and all of the— joys and challenges that come along with that. And while they’re talking at one point, specifically about the things they miss back at home, and what they miss most, Rocky says, “My partner.” And Grace is like, “Wait, what? You’ve got a partner?” And Rocky’s like, “Well, yes, do you?” And Grace says, “No.” He says, “I had one.” And because I know this is the argument, I will propose it here, although I disagree with it being— I, I don’t disagree with the point. The point is correct. I disagree with the fact that it is in any way helpful evidence that this character could actually be aroace. People will say, “The fact that he did have a partner doesn’t mean that he can’t be aroace.” Yes, yes, I know. I am so very aware of that. Even if he had a partner now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s not aroace. But I don’t think in media that a negative should prove a positive. It’s just not enough.

Courtney: If it were one of ample examples, sure, we can throw it on the pile. But he follows up that “no, I had one” with a very brief, fleeting reason for why he doesn’t anymore, that being, “She said I always had my head in the clouds.” So that’s not a lot to go on. We aren’t having flashbacks of their relationship. We aren’t learning any more about this relationship or this woman. But it sounds like she’s the one that ended things. Or had a main issue because he had his head in the clouds. And that usually means someone is, you know, not really living in the present. Maybe they’re daydreaming, they’re spacing off.

Royce: I assumed more of a fixation with work, particularly given that he is a scientist and an instructor, that more attention was being paid to that aspect of life than the relationship, which— could be. A lot of straight people do too.

Courtney: Well, that’s exactly the thing. If the writer of this script actually was trying to give us aroace representation, even if their intention wasn’t to say the word aromantic or to say the word asexual, there are ways where you can change “She thought I had my head in the clouds” to something that is— pointing further in the direction of a disconnect in their relationship that might be driven by orientation or fundamental difference in the way they experience things. I didn’t think of examples ahead of time. So these aren’t going to be the most eloquent examples. But let’s just say instead of she thought I had my head in the clouds, it’s she didn’t think there was enough passion in our relationship. Or “She didn’t think I loved her the way she loved me.” Something like that is going to reinforce what might fundamentally be a breaking point in a mixed orientation, allo-ace relationship.

Courtney: But instead we got, “I had a partner, but she thought I had my head in the clouds.” Alright. And because of the fact that more so than just about any orientation we can see depicted on a screen, ace-spec characters, even ones that are more overt and obvious than this, are by and large going to be rejected in fandom spaces. This is something we’ve seen a lot of time and time again. And we’ve also seen a lot of aspec characters who have no evidence of their orientation in the media at all. But then we have the word of God where the creator in a social media post that may or may not even be easy to find anymore said, “By the way, this character is...” And that does lead to a lot of friction because that means you have groups of people looking at the same piece of media with very different understandings of it. And I think, I think, if making this representation is something that is important to you, if it’s something you’re being intentional about, it should be obvious in the prime media we’re looking at.

Courtney: And that is why I’m specifically saying this is just for the movie alone, ‘cause I have not read the book. I have anecdotally heard that the fact that he might be aroace is a lot more obvious in the book than it is in the movie. If that is the case, because this was an argument I had with someone where they were telling me— actually, this is an argument I’ve had with two someones where they were telling me— we’re going from they singular to they plural, keep up— they were telling me, well, in the book it is more obvious. However, in the context of the conversation we were having, the argument is, is Ryland Grace in the movie aroace: if you need to pull in a different source of media to prove that this character is one thing in this piece of media, I’m already gonna say it’s bad. I’m already gonna say it’s bad.

Royce: To clarify, if you need to pull in a secondary source to prove something in the primary source, then it is not proven in the primary source itself.

Courtney: Yes, absolutely. And a, a muddier version of this that we’ve talked about is Alastor in Hazbin Hazbin Hotel, which is its own unique beast because of the online culture around it and the fandomness of it. And you can go listen to those episodes if you’re interested in that, but I have had to basically conceptualize the Hazbin Hotel fandom as its own medium just to— begin to understand the disconnect in the way someone just consuming the show is approaching this medium versus someone who has been in the fandom since before the show even released.

Courtney: So, this is a slightly different version of that because this is a direct adaptation, right? So it is a book that was turned into a movie. Obviously, some things are going to be changed for the sake of a new medium. Some things are going to be condensed because you can never put all of a book content in a single movie. This I know and understand. But someone please understand for me. Explain it. Explain it to me. If, having not read the book, if I do take your word for it that this character is so obviously aroace in this book, and then they make this movie and they took all of that out? Now I’m angry that they took all of that out.

Courtney: This is also a critique we’ve had with lots of other pieces of media. Jughead, for example, took out any ounce of his aceness in more recent iterations of this character. Because the Vampire Lestat recently started on AMC, and the first episode made me so upset. Because despite my critiques, I still liked the Interview with the Vampire series. You can also go listen to those episodes if you want to. But in the books, in Anne Rice’s books, the vampires don’t have sex. They don’t. They can’t. It is in the text. She said it herself.

Courtney: But so many people like to headcanon or write fanfiction or just personally fantasize about these vampires having sex. That they did make the vampires very sexual in the TV show. That does bother me because the social trend is to dilute anything that is subversive in the sense that a character does not have sex the way you might expect a character to, does not experience romantic relationships the way you might expect a character to. And very often that is done in the name of making something, quote, “more queer.” In The Vampire Chronicles, for example, now that they’re showing, you know, Louis and Lestat having sex on screen, everyone’s like, “Ah, finally! The Vampire Chronicles is more queer now! It’s even gayer!” It was so queer before, and it was so gay before, and the fact that it was still such a queer series without literally needing to incorporate the act of sex is actually a wonderful and beautiful thing. And in my eyes, they’re going the way of fanservice to actually make this relationship more legible to an allosexual— human viewer.

Courtney: So I don’t know if I will ever read this book and have enough new thoughts to make a new episode on this or not. It’s very possible I could read the book and still not agree that the text supports enough for me to say that this character is aroace. But I will absolutely go on record and say, if the book makes it more obvious than the movie, then I am mad that they made that change and I question— why they made that change. Because in this case, it wouldn’t be a situation of taking, you know, a non-sexual relationship and making it sexual, but it could still be broadening the, the experience to try to make it a little more relatable to anyone and everyone. Because let’s say he was an aroace character in the book, and they wanted to take that out because now this character can be relatable to people who maybe want a relationship but just don’t have one. You know, a, a hopeless romantic type who just doesn’t have a girlfriend, or, you know, the one that got away, he used to have a partner but doesn’t anymore. If you take out everything that makes him explicitly aroace, then that is removing an element of queerness from a character. So that critique out of the way, let’s talk about what the movie did very well in terms of themes that resonate very heavily with the aroace community.

Royce: Well, to catch up some of the plot, you’ve already mentioned that way out in space, Grace encounters an alien life form, Rocky. Their ships connect, they go through some experimentation through a safe barrier because the atmospheres of Rocky’s home planet and Earth are very different, and they form a means of communication. Through some time and some trial and error, we learned that Rocky is the only surviving member of their original crew, that they’ve been alone for quite some time on this ship. And at this point, are they entirely stranded, or— I believe they still have fuel. They have potentially enough fuel to get home, but they’re still struggling— struggling to solve the problem here and haven’t been able to come up with anything yet. And throughout, I guess, the mid portion of the film, Grace and Rocky get very close, sort of orbiting around a planet where this sun-eating life form has stalled out. And it’s through the process of them trying to solve this threat that is, uh, dooming both of their home planets that the two of them form a bond.

Courtney: And Rocky is maybe my favorite character in a movie I’ve seen in a very long time. Excitable little rock spider dude.

Royce: Yeah, a five-armed rock creature, I don’t know, roughly the size of a medium-sized dog, I would say, like couple feet high. Very quick non-stop communication style. I think I’ve heard that the book goes much, much deeper into their species’ physiology and the reasons why they are— that they are the way they are and things like that. I’ve heard one of the major differences between the books and the movies is the amount of, uh, like, deeper lore that goes below the surface of the main plot, which I am very curious about and hope to read someday.

Courtney: But both of them are alone in this. They are, uh, dare I say, alone in this together, because their entire crews have died. Uh, granted, Grace only had two other people. Rocky had a lot more, and they all died. It is a wait, here.

Royce: It is a much larger ship, and it stated that they all died from radiation exposure because their species didn’t know about it. They, they can’t see, first of all, and they live on a world, I think, with like a much, much thicker atmosphere or something like that. So they had a very different technological evolution than humanity had, did not know about radiation and were not as resistant to it as life on Earth is, and Rocky just happened to be positioned— their room was positioned in the one area on the ship that was more shielded.

Courtney: Because after we go through all the, like, precious little montages of them getting to know each other, working on this together, um, it’s also— I think it’s incredibly cool that Rocky is a puppet and not CGI. I think it is such a good look. I think it’s such amazing craftsmanship. I really, really appreciate all of the practical effects that went into this movie, and I think it’s going to be rather timeless looking compared to a lot of other science fiction movies. It was well done.

Royce: Um, I think that there are a lot of things that people can do nowadays to make puppeteering work look very realistic. But there’s another aspect to this, to having actual people on stage with an actor, where we, we’ve looked a few scenes up and found out that they were not written the way that they were written and that they were improvised in some manner. And that happened because you had other people on screen, on set recording with the other actors and not just, you know, a blank spot where a computer was going to fill in what was present.

Courtney: But also just with the more comfortable they get with communication, the more you get Rocky’s personality and the dialogue and the dynamics are everything I want out of a deep platonic relationship on screen. There are times when they are frustrated with one another, there are times where they are experiencing a really intimate bond. And even though at the start of it, it’s out of necessity, it’s to work together, it’s to solve this problem, it turns into something that is so much more and becomes this beautiful interpersonal connection.

Courtney: Things kind of come to a head when they are trying to collect materials outside of the ship, and a lot of things go wrong. Rocky, who had created like a little hamster ball for himself so he can come on to Grace’s ship. In a scene that I have like rewatched online so many times, just this one little scene of Rocky just being a menace coming on to Grace’s ship, being excited to see a human ship. You know, this is an alien to him. But also being so judgmental, like, “dirty, dirty, dirty! Why ship so messy? This room for garbage?” Oh. It’s so good. I love Rocky so much.

Courtney: During this very dangerous escapade outside of the ship, Grace does end up getting hurt, and Rocky trying to save him needs to bust out of his little hamster ball, which hurts him because he is not supposed to be exposed to this atmosphere in this ship. Nearly dies in the process just trying to get Grace back into this induced coma to heal. And one very, uh, profound theme also that I don’t think gets talked about enough in the aroace themes kind of discussion surrounding this movie is coming to understand and respect each other’s needs even when they are different from your own. Because obviously we have such an extreme, obvious plot device for this where we have two completely different species who physiologically need different things.

Courtney: But one of the most touching scenes, I think, is the fact that it had been pre-established that Rocky’s species, when they sleep, they, like, have no alert response. They are literally like a rock. They do not move. They cannot really rouse themselves the same way humans or other, uh, animals on Earth might. And so they have a culture of watching each other sleep, and that is a survival tactic. And this is something that Grace originally finds very disturbing, because Rocky’s like, “I will watch you sleep.” And Grace is like, “No, that’s alright, you don’t need to do that.” And Rocky’s like, “No, very important, I will watch you sleep.” And so, there is what is earlier a very comedic scene of Grace, like, trying to sleep and being deeply uncomfortable that this little rock creature is, like, overhead, just watching down on him, and he’s very uncomfortable about it. It’s a funny scene.

Courtney: But then, when Grace finally comes out of this induced coma, he is more healed, uh, from this near catastrophe that had happened. He sees that Rocky is not doing well. Rocky has gotten back into one of these spaces that was built to have Rocky’s own atmosphere in it. But Rocky is very clearly struggling and seemingly needs to rest but is not letting themself sleep. ’Cause that spells death for their species if you sleep if someone is not watching you. And so, Grace coming out of this coma sees Rocky is still there and just like sits down next to this wall and says, “Don’t worry, bud. I’ll watch you sleep.” And that made me cry so much.

Courtney: Because what was previously a funny, like, cultural clash comedic moment, part of their learning and understanding each other, he’s gotten this level of understanding now. He knows this. He respects this. Even though he literally he literally knows, you know, in this spaceship there are no other life forms here. He knows this is something that is important to Rocky, even though this isn’t a need of his own. And I think that little line right there, which is then followed by a rudely drawn-out montage of Rocky just being asleep for so long, and Grace really not even knowing if he’s going to wake up. I think in a much deeper sense, not only for all relationships is that a theme that doesn’t always get the complexity that I think it deserves, but with an aroace reading of this movie, a lot of aroaces do experience intimacy in a different way than allo people do.

Courtney: And whether it be a romantic relationship or a relationship that may appear romantic on the surface but be in nature— queerplatonic, or if it’s just a fully platonic relationship, but that is the pinnacle of intimacy for an aroace person with someone who maybe is allo who has a more traditional view of a relationship hierarchy who does think that a romantic sexual relationship is on the top, like so much of society often does, there can still be a disconnect between those two people, even if they love them dearly. If one is sort of devaluing the relationship in a way because they just don’t deem it as important as a romantic relationship would be, that can still cause a lot of strife in that dynamic. So in any type of relationship, coming to a point where you understand the needs and experiences of the other, even if they are different from your own, and you respect it, and you accommodate it is so beautiful to me. And this was such an interesting genre fictional way to portray that, I think.

Courtney: And leads in perfectly to what follows when Rocky does ultimately wake up. Uh, Grace has been able to continue the research. And using tools that Rocky built, theories that Rocky had, um, he’s able to complete the research, come up with the solution. Rocky had previously been horrified to find out that this was a one-way trip for Grace, and Rocky wants nothing more than for both of them to be able to go home. So Rocky does, uh, sort of lend fuel to Grace to get back home. And says, you know, I’ll just get home slower. It’ll take me longer to get back to my home planet, but that’s worth it. So of course Grace takes that offer, uh, because he had previously thought he was going to die here. But on the way back home alone, Grace sees this, uh, they were calling it astrophage. I don’t know if we’ve said that word yet.

Royce: We haven’t. We’ve just called it the sun-eating thing.

Courtney: The sun eat— well, astro Phage. What was there more to say? Sun eater, star eater. The astrophage sort of, um, adapts to its enclosure and starts leaking.

Royce: And yeah, the containers they use to transport the astrophage were made from some kind of alien material or alien construction that Rocky and their people were responsible for. And so the astrophage leaked out of the container on Grace’s ship, and they were able to detect it and contain it, but realize that the same thing is probably happening on Rocky’s ship, and that, that they would have no means of doing so because the entire ship was constructed of the same material. So they come to the conclusion that Rocky is probably at this point stranded in space with no fuel source.

Courtney: Yeah, so in that moment he has to decide, I, you know, I have enough fuel to get back to Earth or to get back to Rocky. I don’t have fuel to do both. And so he puts all of their findings in the original capsules that were to be sent back to Earth as planned, and he turns back around to go save Rocky.

Courtney: And that is such a beautiful full circle moment because he finally found someone worth dying for. And it was not a romantic partner. It was not his own children. It was not his, you know, immediate blood family. It was his best friend who— they are in this together. They have formed a bond. They have gotten so close. It’s his friend that he had started missing even before he learned this catastrophe. Even though he’s on the surface, you know, theoretically happy to get back to Earth, it’s more about, “Yay, I get to live instead of dying,” as opposed to, “Can’t wait to get back to Earth to all the people there.” There, there was an element of sadness in saying goodbye to Rocky because they had gotten so close. And so that turning around because before coming to space, he didn’t have a person or people that were worth dying for, but he has now.

Courtney: That is the sort of theme in media that I think is so powerful in deconstructing the amatonormativity of society, the kind that tells us that it is your monogamous romantic partner who is the one, the most important relationship in your life, the one that is worth living for, the one that is worth dying for. It shows us, aroace character or not, that deep, intimate, meaningful, important relationships can take many forms. They can look like different things.

Courtney: And in fact, the two of them are coming into this new unexpected relationship that has formed in different ways. Grace does not have a partner, Rocky does. The fact that Rocky has a partner does not mean that this relationship, this friendship, is any less important or any less meaningful. Because not only has Grace now found the one who is worth living and dying for, but this is a friendship that literally saved the stars. This relationship that they formed, their bond they saved both of their home planets, they saved their people. I can’t think of a scope in science fiction any greater than that.

Courtney: And to take something that is so often devalued in media, as a friendship, something that’s often sidelined for what is deemed as a more important relationship, and to use that as the predominant emotional story beats for such a grand high-stakes scope is, quite frankly, exactly what I want to see more of in my aroace representation. And then, after Grace goes to save Rocky, they get back to Rocky’s home planet, and all of the scientists make like, a little biodome for Grace. Like a little human atmosphere bubble for him to live in. With a nice little beach, and it doesn’t really specify exactly how long he has been here by this point, but the movie flashes forward to Rocky coming to visit Grace in his little biodome. And they go for a little walk on the beach, and they’re talking about the temperature of the water and whether or not the scientists can adjust that.

Courtney: And in another really beautiful parallel, one of the last lines of the movie parallels one of the earlier lines, because as we said, they ask him to sign on willingly, but he didn’t have a choice. They were going to make him get on the ship whether he agreed to it or not. When they make the proposal to him and tell him like, “You don’t have any immediate family, so you should just take one for the team and do this,” he asks if he can think about it. And they give him like, what, a few hours? Very short amount of time. They’re like, “We need our decision today.” So he is on a time crunch. He is given a few hours to decide what is worth dying for. And he ultimately says no, but doesn’t have a choice anyway.

Courtney: Rocky comes to him in his little human habitat at the end of the movie and says, you know, our scientists finally fixed up your ship, they found a way to get you home. And another thing I think that’s really cool about this at the end, they very heavily imply more fluency across their communication too, because while they’re in space, there’s sort of a robot voice translator in Grace’s computer that he has listening to Rocky and speaking in English back to him. But in the end, you just hear all of these sounds, which are not sounds that humans can make with our voices. Um, very musical creatures, these, uh, Eridians. I don’t think we’ve said that word yet either. These Eridians, when they’re on this home planet of Rocky’s, Grace is just listening to these sounds and knowing exactly what Rocky’s saying. We have subtitles now, so that just implies an added, I have spent more time with them, I have, I understand what they’re saying just by listening to them even though I can’t speak back to them in this way.

Courtney: So, very, very cool decision, I think, to show how their communication is progressing even further still. So when Rocky tells Grace he can go home, Grace asks, “Can I think about it?” And instead— instead of saying, “Yeah, decide quick,” Rocky perks up, gets happy, and says, “Yes. Think about it a long time.” Not so subtly implying, “I don’t want you to leave. Take all the time you need.” “I want more time with you.” So to me, that is Grace deciding what’s worth living for. And in this case, it is Rocky. And in the final scene, we even show him becoming a schoolteacher once again to all of these little baby Rockys. All of these little Eridians who are so excited. And I can see why. Those kids literally have an alien for a teacher. How fucking cool is that? It’s amazing. And he looks so happy and excited to be back in a classroom teaching. And he just looks genuinely joyful.

Courtney: And so at the end of the day, even though I do not think there is enough in the script of the movie of Project Hail Mary to say, “Yes, Ryland Grace is an aroace character,” What you have to understand is that the aroace community is starved for on-screen representation of intimate platonic relationships that are valued just as heavily, if not more heavily, than romantic ones. So it is no wonder that this movie has resonated so deeply with our community. Because it is truly beautiful.

Courtney: And, you know, I, I will say this too. Little silly side note. Ryland Grace is played by Ryan Gosling, who also played Ken in the Barbie movie. Which, if you haven’t, go back and listen to the Barbie movie on asexual representation, because there was an entire conversation about that as well. But the implication being here, if Barbie is asexual, Ken likely is too. So this kinda does mean now that this one actor has played 2 subtly hinted at ace characters that even if they weren’t said to be on the screen, there’s some vibes here. Very, very much queer coding. So I would almost like to propose, because there is a concept of an honorary gay, there are straight celebrities that are so important to gay culture that— or such strong allies or have played like iconic queer characters that they have been largely deemed to be honorary gays. Should we induct Ryan Gosling as our first honorary ace?

Royce: Well, you’ve said in the past when looking for examples of representation, you tend to default to a rule of three.

Courtney: Mm-hmm.

Royce: For proof. So I think we need another movie.

Courtney: We need another Ryan Gosling movie and then we will do it. We’ll, we’ll create the honorary ace awards and Ryan Gosling will be the first recipient of it. Don’t let me down, Ryan Gosling. We need a third movie. And if you can make it even more explicit in the representation, that would mean all the more to us. But, uh, keep doing what you’re doing. You’re on the right track. What are the chances Ryan Gosling is Canadian? I’m gonna Google this.

Royce: Yes.

Courtney: Yes, he is? No way. Are you kidding me?

Royce: Why?

Courtney: Because that gives me the perfect segue to today’s featured marketplace vendor. I genuinely had no idea. That was, uh, that was a shot in the dark. Uh, but that does bring us to today’s featured marketplace vendor, Extra Lime, where you can find hand-knitted plushies made with upcycled yarn. Unfortunately, much like Ryan Gosling, Extra Lime is Canadian, which means that when I put an item in my cart to check out I unfortunately realized that they only ship to Canada, and I was in fact not able to purchase this beautiful reusable produce bag, a small drawstring bag pouch for produce. I had so dreamed of hanging this in our kitchen for our garden spoils this summer, and yet alas, I cannot for I— I’m in the USA, and we have a terrible dictator of a president who is making it so much harder for people not in the US to ship to the US. Imagine that.

Courtney: So if you out there listening, like Ryan Gosling, are a Canadian, I highly encourage you to check out Extra Lime. It is an ace-owned shop. The links are going to be in the show notes on our website as well as the description box if you are listening on YouTube. In addition to this produce bag, there is a lot of just beautiful knitted foods. We’ve got some mushrooms, we’ve got some bell peppers, corn, a green onion, which looks really, really good. And there’s also a lot of pumpkins. You know, before I realized I couldn’t actually buy anything here, I had to refrain from putting a pumpkin in my cart because I have actually already purchased three knitted pumpkins from an— another marketplace vendor. I am a sucker for knitted pumpkins. Uh, so if you are too, and also Canadian, uh, these pumpkins are a beautiful, beautiful choice. But we love disabled ace-owned shops, and we love fiber arts. So please do, if you’re able to, check out Extra Lime. Where limes are stuffed. And as always, thank you all so much for being here, and we will talk to you all next time.