photo by Melissa Wax
“This is Seattle, we’re the most progressive city on the planet,” states the mayor of Seattle in the second episode of the dystopian web series
While it’s a fictional story, the parallels between the Seattle of
Bazzooka and the Seattle we know today are striking in their similarities. A mayor who sees “no color or gender or sexual identity, only love” while also ignoring the needs of and injustices towards people of color. An evil tech corporation that’s trampling local businesses, especially those run by people of color. BIPOC youth standing up for themselves and enacting change through protesting. It’s a plotline that could’ve only been born out of the hellscape known as 2020 and yet stands on its own as a thoroughly entertaining, unpreachy mystery sci-fi series.
In the streaming series
Bazzooka, which premiered last night on YouTube, a Seattle police state imposes a curfew at 6pm, courtesy a mayor whoâs married to a local tech CEO (âthe zillionaire who invented hands-free, auto, online shoppingâ). So a contingent of Black-led punks is taking to the streets and resisting. But everything here is a cognate: The mayor, played by Andrea Hays (Heidi from
Twin Peaks), is not Jenny Durkan. The corporation is Tundra, not Amazon or Microsoft. And the yearâif we still want to annually demarcate this temporal slurryâis 2022.
There are a couple reasons for this alternate world, says Danny Denial, who wrote and directed the show (you may know Denial as the musician behind last yearâs album
Danny Denial has announced a new monthly web series titled
BAZZOOKA to launch at the end of the month. A follow-up to 2019’s independent film
Eva Walker, and
LÜCHI,
Cozell Wilson, and
Kylie Mooncakes for an apocalyptic tale of love, resistance, and the end of the world in the not-too-distant future.
Set in June 2022 in a war-torn Seattle, a punk band of black anarchists battle familiar evils like tech billionaires, government officials, and overfunded police to take back their city.
As with Kill Me To Death, which was loaded with local music features,
BAZZOOKA is a music-heavy and politically-charged series, featuring appearances and music by black artists in Seattle like Black Ends, Shaina Shepherd, DoNormaal, Ex-Florist (fka Guayaba) and Denial, himself.