The cosplay fanfic approach of the new Star Wars movie will strike normal people as weird and off-putting, though in a way that's hard to explain. A gut revulsion suggests a role for disgust, rather than a conscious list of reasons why it looks bad.
I still couldn't put my finger on what is (mildly) disgusting about it, so I looked for another example of the cosplay fanfic approach to pop culture.
Here is the music video for "Fancy" by Iggy Azalea, the song of the summer for last year, with over half a billion views on YouTube. Its set design, locations, clothing, hair, and plot vignettes are ripped from the 1995 movie Clueless, probably the last coming-of-age teen movie with likeable characters. Yet everything about the words, intonation, facial expressions, body language, and general attitude of the girls in the music video is the polar opposite of the characters in the movie.
In Clueless, the protagonist Cher is a well-meaning ditz who occasionally bumbles in her nurturing attempts at playing matchmaker. (The movie is based on Emma by Jane Austen.) She tries to make over the new student Tai, a free-spirited, socially awkward naif who becomes more savvy and popular, acts too big for her breeches, but ultimately reconciles and acts humbly around her friends. They show a basic concern with doing right by others in order to fit in. They want to be liked and accepted into a group, not to be worshiped by fans and feared by haters, both groups being socially distant from the diva at the center of attention.
See the trailer here, although it focuses more on dishing out one-liners than establishing character traits.
Fast-forward to Iggy Azalea and Charli XCX aping Cher and Tai in the "Fancy" video. Both are hyper self-aware pose-strikers, unlike the ditzy and spacey characters from Clueless. Their attitudes are smug, bratty, and decadent rather than uncertain, seeking to please, and wholesome. They're self-aggrandizing and condescending rather than other-regarding. They aspire to being distant divas and icons, rather than friends accepted into a clique. And they give off an overly sexualized persona, whereas the appeal of the original characters was not simply to gawk at their ass and thighs.
The contrast for anyone who remembers the movie is so harsh (way harsh, Tai) that it creates an uncanny valley reaction, where something lies between two opposites and leaves the viewer disturbed. Most CGI human beings provoke such a response -- neither human enough, nor robotic enough, but more like a freak of nature.
It gets worse. Seeing actors play totally against what we associate with their clothing, environment, and overall zeitgeist leaves us asking, "What happened to the real people who wore those clothes? Went through those vignettes? Lived in that place?" It feels like the impostors are not just try-hard wannabes, but body-snatchers who have killed what is familiar and replaced it with something alien. It's like that scene in Silence of the Lambs where the he-she serial killer is donning a wig and twirling around in his lady-flesh-suit.
Iggy Azalea has killed Cher from Clueless and is wearing her skin.
Earlier examples of LARP-ing in popular culture at least tried to remain as consonant as possible with the original -- Grease, Back to the Future, Forrest Gump. Now the point is simply to body-snatch the sympathetic original characters and assimilate them into the loathsome present, like some kind of pop-cultural Borg. It is appropriation not out of affection and nostalgia, but simply to claim more and more territory of the good old days for idiotic, imperial trends.
I know -- BFD if it's some throwaway music video. But remember that this is what's going to unfold during the entirety of the new Star Wars movie. And it will only grow from there: the decision of the Star Wars brand sets a binding precedent.
Earlier remakes and reboots tried to distinguish themselves from the original by using a different visual style, exploring other parts of the narrative and character development, and so on. Always boringly, but they were different. Now the rehash movies are going to move into cosplay mode -- "It looks just like real thing!" (don't ask how it tastes, though). Expect pop culture to get even more off-putting in the near future.
I also find a lot of mid century performers to be off putting. How well can people entertain when they just aren't interested in people? But at least they didn't go to the embarrassing extremes that post mid 90's performers often do.
ReplyDeleteThe two "artists" you refer to aren't even American which only further causes a sense of discontinuity with past American culture. Back in the 70's and into the 90's people who affected a foreign vibe (singing with a British accent or whatever) were ridiculed. Many American actors turned down the role of James Bond (including, of all people, Clint Eastwood) because they felt it was distasteful to not have a Brit play the role.
Azalea claims she didn't fit into Australia. An Australian infatuated with black culture who transplants to America. I'm sure the globalists are proud.
How many non American actors were in those pre 2000 movies that you listed? I really don't care about nationality when it comes to listening to music. But movie casts with a mix of nationalities (esp. if the actors are affecting a foreign accent) tend to unsettle me. We were designed to be among our own kind. That goes for race as well. Black actors got a lot more roles beginning in about the mid 80's and it really got ridiculous in the 90's. In the tentpole era the dastardly racists of the East pushed the studios to tone down the black casting.
One reason the NBA and M.L. Baseball have alienated Americans is because there are so many damn foreigners from every corner of the globe. In the mid century the big 4 sports leagues were made up almost entirely of Americans with a decent amount of Canadians (esp. in hockey, duh) and a few Latin Americans in baseball.
ReplyDeleteWho cares about players who grew up on different continents and/or grew up speaking a non-English language? Many Latin baseball players have virtually no marketing value and vastly diminished fan appeal because they can barely speak English. Even if they are big stars they remain aloof. The MN Twins fired their head coach and the media said that the Twins were concerned about getting a coach who could "relate" to Latin players and also would find bilingual assistant coaches who translate for the Latins and give them a sense of belonging as they travel/live in Anglo heavy areas..
Thanks for helping me put the finger on what was bothering me about the Star Trek/Star Wars reboots. I remember thinking the Abrams ST reboot was competent, but I was also asking myself "Why has this movie been made? (Other than as a cynical ploy to create a cash cow franchise using an established brand name?)"
ReplyDeleteThe original Star Wars and Star Trek were very much products of their times. You can see that in the later Star Trek series especially-- ST:TNG tried out the "Future as Progressive Utopia" thing from the Sixites for awhile, but no one was buying it. Eventually it had to find it's own footing, painting the Federation as a darker and more morally ambiguous place until we got all the way to Deep Space Nine and Sisko helping arrange political assassinations. As America became less starry-eyed about the future, our shows became more gritty as a result.
Our shows also become more infested with Social Justice. People now look at the original Star Trek series and cringe at the short skirts and Kirk seducing green women and say "Well it was fair for its day!" In the latest Star Trek movie, feminists howl blue murder because a main female character is seen wearing her (rather modest) underwear. Remember that episode of the original Star Trek when a recreation of Abraham Lincoln looked at Uhura and called her a "Charming Negress?" She responded by calmly saying that she was taught not to fear words. Imagine if that scene were to happen on a Starship Enterprise with modern 2015 sensibilities? Uhura would call Lincoln some kind of "racist cracker motherfucker" and threaten to launch her shoe up his ass. Kirk would draw Lincoln aside and tell him that such language is "problematic" and that he would have to go to a special seminar where he would be taught how not to be racist. The entire galaxy would be tweeting about how The Great Emancipator was actually a racist shitlord and media people would be trying to expunge him from pop culture faster than they expunged Bill Cosby. Incredible, how the characters way back in the 1960's version of the show were more wise and enlightened than most people are today...
So anyway, getting back on track, the original version of Star Wars was a loving tribute to the high adventure serials of the past, marrying a timeless story with cutting edge special effects and the American New Wave freedom to depict traditional genre settings with gritty, lived in, real-world esthetics and characters. (Hence we have Han shooting first, and The Millenium Falcon looking like an aged, meteor-pinged spaceship that's seen better days. We also have a story with timeless themes like redemption, friendship and determination).
What could a 2015 version of Star Wars possibly be other than a fanwanking, post-modern, look-how-clever-and-self-aware-we-are confection served up to the original fans? (As well as to gormless teenagers who, like the gormless teenagers in the late Nineties who saw the Prequel series, think this is going to be THEIR version of the story with THEIR own cast of beloved characters?) I suspect, as you do, that it will look the same as the original Star Wars, but I also expect a lot of shakycam, a lot of Joss Whedon-esque snark and Buffyspeak, and a plot that favors "being overcomplicated and hard to follow but showing off a lot of neat vistas, battle scenes and special effect setpieces", over "being a good story that touches audiences and stands the test of time." Thanks, but I'll probably give it a miss.
Now that I'm enlightened to globalist/Jew propaganda, it becomes obvious that the show was a vehicle for liberal crap from day one. That being said, there were limits to what the public would accept before the mid 90's so the Trek stuff made from the 60's-early 90's can be entertaining. At least the 60's show had 3 strong white male leads. And the Reagan era original crew sequels were not at all preachy or pretentious though the whale stuff in the '86 movie was pushing it.
ReplyDeleteBy TNG we were clearly heading in a more PC direction as they tried to put equal emphasis on males, whites, aliens, women, non-whites, and robots.
"The two "artists" you refer to aren't even American which only further causes a sense of discontinuity with past American culture."
ReplyDeleteCharli XCX is only half-white, btw. Indian mother and Scottish father:
https://igcdn-photos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/t51.2885-15/927584_1390407154513157_788005093_a.jpg
Iggy Azalea looks like an albino Polynesian, as though Gauguin ran out of darker paint. Strong epicanthic fold, shallow nasal bridge, thick lips, overly smooth face that comes from no wrinkles and lots of baby fat into adulthood.
https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/456995177819676672/U3oviu0E_400x400.jpeg
Looking even stranger in her yearbook picture:
http://assets-s3.usmagazine.com/uploads/assets/articles/77478-iggy-azaleas-yearbook-photo-surfaces-pictures/1410792139_iggy-azalea-yearbook-photo-467.jpg
Hailing from down under, I wouldn't be surprised if she has a decent amount of Oceanian blood. That would account for her black mindset and behavior -- both being tropical horticulturalists, where women are independent and do all the productive work while the men beat each other up and raid for wives all day long.
Only distinctly European feature of hers (aside from light skin, but there are plenty of albino Australian Aborigines) is her wasp waist. Women from societies where they do lots of productive work tend to have straighter waist-to-hip ratios, and more hourglass figures where men do most productive work.
It would help if I checked the first paragraph of her Wikipedia bio, too:
ReplyDeleteAzalea has said that she has some Aboriginal (Indigenous Australian) ancestry: "My family came to Australia on the First Fleet. My family's been in that country for a long time, over 100 years. If your family's lived in Australia for a long time, everyone has a little bit of [Aborigine blood]. I know my family does because we have an eye condition that only Aboriginal people have."
The "everyone's part Abo" line is right up there with the "everyone is part American Indian" bullshit. Everyone has a Cherokee princess gr-gr-gr-grandmother until they go to 23andMe and find out the entirety of their ancestry is British German and a little French and they cluster somewhere between Amsterdam and Wessex, just like every other middle America white.
ReplyDeleteLook at her picture, moron. The Euro side of her family is Irish and Anglo, and those people don't have epicanthic folds, low nasal bridges, or African lips.
ReplyDeleteIf one of those Americans actually looked like they were half-Cherokee, I'd believe them. Iggy Azalea doesn't look like a generic Australian white.
agnostic,
ReplyDeleteHave you seen any of the "PostmodernJukebox" videos on YouTube? I recently came across them and found most of them vaguely off-putting, even a few are not so bad from a technical point of view. I think what you have said here applies to most of them, particularly that the performers' "attitudes are smug, bratty, and decadent."
I wasn't talking about Iggy Azalea specifically, just the assertion that if your family has been in America or Australia that you must somehow be part native.
ReplyDeleteHow do we recreate the mood of a mid 90's American movie?
ReplyDelete2 mid period Millennials (who were a toddler and a infant in 1995)+said girls being non American+decades after the West's last period of exuberant life (the 80's)=complete and utter failure to hit the mark.
Let's just ignore this crap and hope it fades away with little incident. I didn't watch the video. Boomers/early Gen X-ers were exciting enough that older people had to pay attention whether they liked it or not. Meanwhile, i suspect that much of Millennial culture will quickly slide into oblivion as it's so boring and empty.
I suspect that the whole 90's nostalgia thing is never going to be that big now or, well, ever. How many lasting and vivid characters, images, or sounds came from that decade? Especially after about 1993. There's also a sort of haze and grime to the period that's unpleasant for everyone and especially scary to later Milennials who want everything as safe and transparent as possible. You know, the kind of people who gave the last Harry Potter movie the highest grossing opening ever.
ReplyDeletePeople sometimes say that the nostalgia cycle by default reverts to about 15-20 years back. But the 80's remain intriguing and fun well after we were supposed to drop the 80's and move on to the 90's. People are now wearing more patterns and more fitted clothes like the 80's. Are we going to see a revival of dumbass 90's fashion like sloppy bowl cuts, carpenter jeans, baggy khakis, T shirts with sleeves past the elbow, silly head gear like berets and summer knit hats etc.
Go watch a Friends episode from 1997. It's not cool or stylish; it's embarrassing. In keeping with the schizoid tone of the 90's, we went from way too wacky colors/patterns from 1989-1994 to grody earth tones and nihilist chic monochrome from about 1995-2001. Still, throughout the decade 2/5 sizes too big style was in.
Great catch, great theory.
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me of when TV and movies try to do period pieces with all of the contemporary politics of the makers is infused into the historical times. It usually makes the product look like shoddy preaching.
Note that this can be done well, or at least well enough to hide the obvious seams. The Blue and the Gray/The North and the South miniseries in the 1980s, which were about the Civil War, infused a lot of post-1960s lefty b.s into them, but managed to maneuver them into the story well enough to make it "work" (Kirstie Ally's black-ex-slave husband is the exception).
Mad Men, in its less-preachy moments (especially early in the series) did this as well. Later it became all about the Evil Gentile Males Not Getting With the Times. All the time.
One major faux paux series has been Boardwalk Empire. They literally shoehorn threesomes and lesbian-love stories (suppressed by evil white men) and black equality over evil, weak white racists into the first season. I was eager to watch the series, since I'm very interested in the rise of organized crime in the Prohibition era, but ended up cracking up laughing at the Glee-esque melodrama and after-school-special messaging mixed with swearing, blood, and nudity. It hasn't made a dent in the cultural landscape and one actor was so disgruntled with the series (Pitt) that they killed his character off earlier than planned just to be rid of his bitching about how they had him doing unbelievable things in order to further the SJW-narrative.
Hollywood these days seems to not really care about understanding historical periods or people in their own right and more interested in pushing a message via cosplay. It makes for very bad features, since the characters' motivations are so out of place with the situations that you don't buy anything that's going on.
"that much of Millennial culture will quickly slide into oblivion as it's so boring and empty."
ReplyDeleteMuch of the popular media from 1993-2015 or so will become unwatchable to future generations. But I'm not so sure the younger generation even has much of a culture to forget. The Millenials have been defined by the older generation, just as the Silent Generation was, and just as Gen X have been maligned as slackers for being shut out of career advancement.
Once the crime rate begins to rise, Millenials will have more an opportunity to create a real culture and define themselves.
"Much of the popular media from 1993-2015 or so will become unwatchable to future generations."
ReplyDeleteAs posturing/cos playing as a retro persona has risen and taste has declined, there actually are some people who watch movies from the 40's/50's.
I suspect that between the autism of cocooning, the cynical posturing of a high inequality era, and the vapid nature of post 1992 art, a lot of people are really dwelling in past eras for a variety of reasons. And liberal hipsters who lack any sense of sincere style and wholesome morality are going to non ironically explore the mid century (with it's camp, gossipy sleaze, and blatantly closeted actors) while sometimes also denigrating the big hair and guitar solo era of the later 60's-very early 90's.
I mean, the average person these days (to say nothing of later Gen X/Millennial hipster idiots) is going to have an easier time relating to Anthony Perkins than to Harrison Ford.
Thankfully, within the next 10-15 years will finally let the mid century and the 90's/early 21st century go back to the margins where it belongs.
Just watching that movie trailer for Clueless brings out all sort of emotions from this Gen Xer. You're right, the characters felt real and wholesome and we're trying to fit in, not do constant selfie poses to show how cool they were.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure it's nostalgia, but growing up during the 90s just felt more visceral and normal, unlike today's crazy world of social networking, selfies, smart phones, and lack of true friendships. God I miss those days.
I actually can't stand any of these remakes. I guess I could never put my finger on it, but as you said, it's a huge cosplay for Millennials. I didn't care for the Star Trek / JJ Abram rehash (I only watched the first one, wasn't even remotely interested in watching the second one since the first one sucked).
I just looked at a list of upcoming remakes and cringed: WarGames, Poltergeist, Honey I Shrunk the Kids (what?), The Neverending Story, Police Academy, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, etc. None of these remakes will do justice to the originals, to the actual development of character, rather just showcasing some CGI, having some stupid jokes, and featuring pouty Millennials who act wooden.
"I'm sure it's nostalgia, but growing up during the 90s just felt more visceral and normal, unlike today's crazy world of social networking, selfies, smart phones, and lack of true friendships. God I miss those days."
ReplyDeleteNo, you're wrong, we're supposed to be romanticizing the 80s on this blog. The 90s were bad. BAD.
agnostic Strong epicanthic fold, shallow nasal bridge, thick lips, overly smooth face that comes from no wrinkles and lots of baby fat into adulthood.
ReplyDeleteOther evidence is her other highschool photos (http://www.idolator.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/11/iggy-azalea-yearbook.jpg, http://static.celebuzz.com/uploads/2014/09/11/iggy-azalea-high-school-yearbook-4.png), her mum (http://37.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m60dleLgGz1rxpfcvo1_500.jpg / http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/06/02/article-2645788-1E658A9700000578-359_634x429.jpg) and her dad, who looks like the kind of Irish MacIrish bogan you'd expect from the name Brendan James Kelly (http://www.epodcentral.com.au/brendanjameskelly/bk2a.jpg) and who'd name his kids after gemstones.
To me, just looks like a small eyed Irish who has some body dysmorphia or else is fame hungry so did some plastic surgery on herself - lip fillers and face smoothing botox, or something, maybe even cheek implants. Female rappers of the commercial sort seem more likely to do that kind of stuff to themselves, maybe, because of the weird shallow materialism that surrounds the genre, see Lil Kim for an example, or that Nicki Minanj creature.
"To me, just looks like a small eyed Irish who has some body dysmorphia or else is fame hungry so did some plastic surgery on herself - lip fillers and face smoothing botox, or something, maybe even cheek implants. Female rappers of the commercial sort seem more likely to do that kind of stuff to themselves, maybe, because of the weird shallow materialism that surrounds the genre, see Lil Kim for an example, or that Nicki Minanj creature."
ReplyDeleteIggy got butt implants, so I'm sure she's had other work done. You can see before-and-after pics of her ass, which clearly show that she got Kim-K butt implants.
Nicki Minaj also got implants pretty much all over her body (cheek, breast and butt). I don't think Iggy's gotten the breast implants yet, but it'll probably be coming soon.
She's basically some rap guys escort who's gotten a shot at fame.
" Female rappers of the commercial sort seem more likely to do that kind of stuff to themselves, maybe, because of the weird shallow materialism that surrounds the genre, see Lil Kim for an example, or that Nicki Minanj creature."
ReplyDeleteWomen from all strata have been doing more and more "work" as striving has risen since the 80's. You gotta compete. Women from the mid century would've been horrified by the things that are done in the name of "beauty".
It's convenient to scapegoat Hollyweird (they do bring it on themselves). But everything about a high striving/low outgoingness period is screwed up. Very few people are even entirely aware of what's driving the surge in sociopathic/deviant posturing, let alone making strides to avoid the nonsense.
"No, you're wrong, we're supposed to be romanticizing the 80s on this blog. The 90s were bad. BAD."
ReplyDeleteWe compliment the 80's but we don't sugarcoat the evident flaws of the period. Namely that it was when the current striving cycle took off as is obvious from a number of measures like:
- More people going to college
- The gap between rich and poor increasing
- Police and government becoming more hostile to the masses
- Growing levels of corruption at all levels (local/national government/business/academia and so on)
- The offshoring of lots of good jobs
- Rising numbers of immigrants
In spite of these problems, people still were generally sensible and good natured. It was the last decade before PC careened out of control. Hell, into the early 90's the NY Times published editorials skeptical of very high immigration levels, contrary to popular belief that the city has always been a hopeless Jew hive.