arcane

The practice of including recent art in historical exhibitions, an increasingly common art museum schtick, means to make supposedly arcane subjects relevant and timely by suggesting that living artists still engage those themes.

Yet for authentic fascists to understand why people shy away from close relationships with them — romantic and otherwise — they need look no further than “Arcane” Season 2.

The gender divide in our real world is underplayed in the “Arcane” universe, but relationships between individuals are contaminated by a similarly vicious strain of the x-word itself, xenophobia — in the “Arcane” universe, between residents of the symbiotic communities of Piltover and Zaun.

Into this all-too-real context Netflix plunks the second season of “Arcane,” the vividly colorful and fast-moving adult animated steampunk adventure series based on Riot’s “League of Legends” video games.

By the end of the first season, however, the potential parallels between the world of “Arcane” and the one of Trump became increasingly clear.