Essay 1 draft

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 4 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 4 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.