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"illustrate his thesis: that the collective unconscious’s anxiety—of the end of capitalism, the end of the world—has emerged in sublimated form as spaceships." Hovering "Big Dumb Objects": "They [Big dumb objects] function as science fiction’s equivalent to a MacGuffin, plot devices which serve to awe the viewer with mystery and intrigue yet bear little to no narrative explanation. The objects we face are visually so striking that they quash further inquiries into their exact raison d’être." The big dumb object, be it tumor or bubble, manifest fear as a physical object so it can be overcome, defeated by the plot. It is an effigy, a device to allow our dream-selves to create a monster that we can see defeated, turned over in hand, felt, and thought.
The big dumb object is painting.