ESSAY ONE
Has mass media lost its way? Is there legitimate love for media in all its platforms nowadays? Or has it become a victim of existing for the sole purpose of monetisation and piggybacking off of what came before? In my opinion, there is many ways in which platforms of media, such as television, film and music have become not much more than a mixture of reboots, remakes and unoriginality.
“Films, radio and magazines make up a system which is uniform as a whole and every part. Even the aesthetic activities of political qualities are one in their enthusiastic obedience to the rhythm of the iron system. […] Movies and Radio need no longer pretend to be art. The truth that they are just business is made into an ideology in order to justify the rubbish they deliberately produce” (The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception, Adorno, 1944). This quote by Adorno holds some true weight when commenting on the mass media of films and television today, when our culture is plagued by remakes and reboots of older, original ideas. Growing up as artists and creative individuals, we gain inspiration from the media around us, however there seems to have become a lack of inspiring new ideas, and more of a “I’m going to remake this when I step into the creative world on my own”. There have been far too many examples of this happening nowadays in my opinion. For example “Ghostbusters (2016)”, “Ben Hur(2016)” and other such films which are complete remakes of classic films which were made with love, attention and originality.
Political correctness is something which is swaying our own popular culture in tv and movies nowadays, going back to “Ghostbusters(2016)” which is a remake of a classic movie of the 1980s, which stars 4 males, the 2016 version bases itself around four females, which is fine, however it has been made purely for the sake of political correctness and the need to have a “strong female cast” however instead of creating an original movie with new, creative and strong female character’s, they decided to remake the EXACT same movie, but make the character’s female. “Culture is a terrain on which there takes place a continual struggle over meaning(s)” (Cultural Theory and Popular culture, John Storey, 2006). I think this relates to the point of making no actual attempt of making originality, just relaying a politically correct message to the audience, with four female comedian actresses. Overall though, having watched the film, it feels lazy, the script offers no original jokes, the flow is awful and there are clear attempts at trying to make the fans of the original movie like it, but to no success. And this comes to the point of looking for meaning in popular culture, there shouldn’t need to be politically correct meanings to films to make good cinema, movies should exist to entertain, and entertain through legitimate means of enjoyment which have been made by passionate artists with clear goals and intentions, instead of monetisation.
“Efforts are made to remain value-neutral. The study of culture is not restricted to the Arts” (Cultural Theory: An Introduction, Philip Smith, Blackwell Publishing 2009). This quote on popular culture, by Philip Smith can be reflected on what we view popular culture in Films, TV and Music today, it reflects the values and political views of what comes about at the time, which often leads to remakes with a more ethnically diverse cast, or which changes the political view of the film. In recent years, a remake of the 1982 classic musical “Annie” was remade replacing a lot of the characters who were originally depicted as white, with black actors and actresses. There was nothing wrong with this however, it allowed the public to see what a remade movie could be with the right love and attention for the source material. The change in the colour of the character’s skin was controversial at first, but it merely made the cast more diverse, proving that they were the right people for that specific movie, even if it was different to the original. Which displays a different point to what I have been making so far, that even though cinema and other areas of the mass media may be driven by political correctness and remakes/reboots, they can sometimes be refreshing. The difference between the two main examples I have used so far “Ghostbusters (2016)” and “Annie” is that one was made with artistic respect, so even though it was mainly driven by political correctness, it was an enjoyable movie. Whereas the other was made purely for the sake of political correctness with no respect for the source material at all, making it a mess of a movie, and unnecessary in popular culture.
Of course, there is new ways in which society produces art nowadays, there is not just cinema and TV to share an artist’s creation nowadays, with platform’s such as YouTube in place, there is many opportunities to share a work which has been made with an artist’s care and originality. “YouTube is filled with thousands of animators, film-makers, and some incredible work” (Skwigly.co.uk, Nathan Wilkes, 2013). The fact that Skwigly, a website purely for animation, has commented on the work of YouTube creators speaks for itself. I think with the introduction of the internet as a place to share popular culture and mass media, there has been positives and negatives. Most Important of the positives is that originality can spring and inspire others, therefore up and coming artists and creators don’t have to conform to the struggle of making it in large Hollywood productions which are filled with nothing but monetisation and re-hashing the same product. Any platform in which originality can spring is worthwhile for creators, and says a lot about where mass media is headed, especially in this digital age. It offers new opportunity, and does not cost a thing, and therefore artists can come out with whatever they want in a manner which is both original and creative.
ESSAY TWO
Minions: An Analysis
In 2010, Illumination entertainment released “Despicable me” which offered a fun, family adventure starring Steve Carell as “Gru”, a criminal mastermind attempting to pull off the ultimate crime. This movie introduced the cutsie little sidekicks “Minions”, little yellow blobs in dungarees and goggles who speak their own language, pulling practical jokes on each other. The Minions existed in the original movie to offer some comedy relief, however they quickly became a favourite of the masses and were featured much more prominently in the 2013 sequel “Despicable me 2”.
The general feel of the two movies was fun, family, with well written character’s shown growing throughout the movie. However, in 2015, Illumination Entertainment released “Minions”, putting the sidekick character in their own movie. The movie is supposed to give the character’s a backstory, and expand on the world that was created in the two “Despicable me” movie’s, which it does, but the movie falls short in many ways. The story of the movie explains that the minions follow the biggest villain there is at the current time and name them their master. When they go years without a new master, three set off to find a new villain to become their master, with the film being a prequel to the “Despicable me” movie’s, obviously, everyone knows who they eventually end up with. There are many flaws with this movie, and it was clearly made to cash in on the popularity of the movie, rather than being a movie with a good story which builds upon the character’s and to expand the story of the created world.
The movie is supposed to be a family comedy, so the target audience is children. This becomes very obvious very quickly as the humour of the movie revolves around animated slapstick, fart jokes and the character’s obsession with bananas. Although humour is something subjective, it falls short, it shows through in this movie that there is a reason why in the original “Despicable me” they were used in such moderation, because as their own characters, the humour becomes repetitive and dry. There is only so many times which you can say the word “banana” in a cute voice and still have it be funny on the 2nd hour of a feature animated movie. It is displayed throughout the entire movie just how different this movie is to “Despicable me” as there is not as much attention to detail and character emotions are clearly not thought about as much.
Nowadays 3d animated movies tend to dominate, and the animation in this movie is incredible for what it is. It is always very clean and smooth, and is pleasant to look at throughout. The designs that were used are somewhat different and less exaggerated than those used in “Despicable me” which gives the film less of a feel. The designs lack the charm and humour of the designs of the 2010 and 2013 films, which takes away from the films overall feel. It feels forced, which we know because the movie was made to cash in on the success of the first three movies.
“The truth that they are just business is made into an ideology in order to justify the rubbish they deliberately produce” (The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception, Adorno, 1944). I believe this quote by Adorno perfectly sums up the making of this movie. This movie proves that there is no need to make a good film nowadays, filmmaking in this sense has become a standard business which reflects on mindless masses to produce monetised garbage over and over regardless of whether it is an actual good movie or not. People flock to these kind of movies, which lets down the animation industry as a whole because there is legitimate creators with original, creative and often humorous ideas and cannot put them into practice because of lack of funding from large studios. The same large studios that funded Illumination Entertainment, which is capable of making decent, well written animated features, however choose to cash in on their success’ rather than making more original ideas, like they did with “Despicable me” and its sequel. There is a severe lack of character in the movie, there is no empathetic connection with any of the character’s like there were in the original movies. Purely a forced humour which comes from the same joke a few times every ten minutes, which quickly becomes unfunny out of its source.
The question becomes, why are these character’s not funny on their own? And the answer is clear, that they have no available back and forth with the character’s which cause the other movies to hold up, characters with a legitimate empathetic connection with the audience at this point because we have seen them grow and develop. However, these characters existed to be sidekicks, and sidekicks alone, so trying to take them out of this role, where they are used sparingly for humorous effect, does not work when you try and force them into the spotlight without any real development or emotion. And that is what these characters, the minions, lack. Emotion. Because we cannot understand all of what they are saying, and they are usually obsessing over 1 thing, trying to force another joke, there is no time to empathise with them, which causes our minds to wander and lose interest in what is going on on-screen.
This was an unnecessary sequel to well made, well thought out movies.
Essay Three
“Films, radio and magazines make up a system which is uniform as a whole and every part. Even the aesthetic activities of political qualities are one in their enthusiastic obedience to the rhythm of the iron system. […] Movies and Radio need no longer pretend to be art. The truth that they are just business is made into an ideology in order to justify the rubbish they deliberately produce” (The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception, Adorno, 1944. This is the quote from which I have been working on, to try and show my own interpretation of what this means.
My interpretation took on many forms during the process, however it tended to stick more around the idea of “films” as Adorno talks about, and the fact that they “no longer need pretend to be art”. My general theme along this, has been the production of mass media, and how it has developed into being one machine, which churns out endless, unoriginal garbage, with no creative passion or personality. I have also tried to explore the ideas of “politically correct progression” which motivates filmmakers nowadays, rather than focus on a well thought out script and set of characters. During the sketchbook, I intended to show this by using two sides, as two parallels. I have since forgotten why I did it this way, however I tried to maintain this consistency until the very end, with the last pages being also opposites of each other.
The first section of my book, includes images of classic movies, with their reviews, and general comments pasted over them, this was attempting to portray the true in classicism of the movies, and shows that the public appreciates the love and originality than was given during these movies. On the opposite side to this, if you open it the opposite way, it shows the remakes and also straight to VHS or straight to DVD sequels that were released purely as money grabbers, used to appeal to the lowest common denominator of mass public, who will buy anything as long as it has the license of something that has been popular before. One such example of this, is the “Lion King” sequels, they bear the Disney emblem, and use the same character’s, however they clearly have not been given the same love and attention that the original had, therefore it comes off as cheap, rushed and unoriginal.
“Efforts are made to remain value-neutral. The study of culture is not restricted to the Arts” (Cultural Theory: An Introduction, Philip Smith, Blackwell Publishing 2009). This relates to the section of my sketchbook, where I refer to “for the sake of progression”. During this section, I have Included images of original character’s from movies on the positive side, and on the negative, character’s who have been written poorly and have been included in remakes or reboots of movies where they took the place of an already established character to be “ethnically diverse” or “progressive”. In this, I refer to the movie “Ghostbusters (2016)”. In which the entire cast was cast as the opposite gender to that of the original movie, to try and portray “funny women characters”. When in actual fact, it would have been better to write completely new characters into that mythos so that there can exist well written, original female character, rather than their personalities being “female”.
I think my favourite section of the sketchbook, is the difference between passion of old films, and originality, and the laziness of newer films and the unoriginal designs that are rehashed over and over. In this section, I have included images of film making in the 1950s and 1960s, where I have shown the movie’s being filmed on location, with elaborate sets, which have been hand made. I believe this shows the authenticity that I was trying to drive home, as this is the most important section of my sketchbook, the fact that every detail has been considered, in terms of location and setting for a movie. On the negative side of the book however, I have shown modern film sets, in which there is limited props if any, and an entire green screen studio where everything has been filmed. I believe this juxtaposition is apparent and clear when comparing the two types of images.
The section which fits into this, is the section on creature design, which I definitely want to continue looking into. As I have shown, there is a very wide variety of creatures in their designs from classic old movies, which make use of practical effects to enhance storytelling, and this was costly and time consuming to do, therefore it took a passionate project to keep going with this type of effect. However on the negative side, I show a few different modern creatures from movies, that are computer generated and have similar designs even as much as just being a dull grey in colour, rather than being interesting and different from anything that has come before it. I believe this truly is a metaphor for the point I am trying to drive home about the lack of originality in modern day cinema, in the design and practice of modern films that include no passion or love for what they are doing, they only care about the income and profit they make.
The final mention, is to the image sequence that was created taking inspiration from the visual sketchbook. The choice was made to be completely original in this, and not simply rip pages from the sketchbook to create something abstract, but something that is somewhat more narrative driven in a sense. As my entire CoP theme has been about lack of originality, it seem fitting to put into practice the common phrase “practice what you preach”. Therefore, the storyboard is also split into two sections, the first representing the old style of movie making, in which a filmmaker is passionately creating his own original movie, that he presents with a tear because of how hard he has worked on it (implied of course as there is no writing on the storyboard). The second section, represents the newer, unoriginal side of my sketchbook, that represents modern film making. And thus the final 3 images, show a keyboard with specifically the “Ctrl” and “V” buttons highlighted, this being the command to “paste” on a microsoft computer. Then shown, is a large factory, with inside being a lot of sequels and remakes on conveyer belts being churned out in a dull, large factory. I took a somewhat socially/politically driven approach to this storyboard, which expresses my own views on the current state of cinema and it’s unoriginal dribble that it purposefully throws out as cash cows.
