I appreciate the guest post, Ignacio Phillips
Futurama is not only an excellent animated show, it is a transcendent piece of fiction. When I watched the last of the four straight to video movies, The Beast with a Billion Backs, I was startled to find the many layers and metaphors used in making this wonderful art piece. It begins with an ode to Japanese tentacle pornography, with a giant beast that sucks on your back for sustenance, all while providing you with unearthly pleasures. Truly in this sense the back is a metaphor for the nether regions, and the beast deliberately hideous as a statement to all forms of patriarchal depictions of sex.
Society in general tends to place the beautiful with the beastly, as if the act of coitus itself were a violent beating, the meeting of predator and prey. I believe Futurama sets out to spoof this juxtaposition, and do so in a heartwarming tale of love and romance. They also perhaps wanted to tie a bow on this last movie, as the uncertainty of whether the cast would return for a new season hung over the drawing board like the sword of Damocles. Nevertheless, this distraction does not take away from the lesson of lust and evolution that we see present in every mating ritual shown on the show. This is why it is my favorite animated movie of all time, seen only on Comedy Central on Direc4U Iowa.
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