Minutiae this may seem, but Super Mario Bros. 2 came out in 1988, putting enchanted kids that scrambled to play it on its release at older than 30 years. Undoubtedly, it was an adult and not a child that reported this error in the iconic brothers' careers. While the Mario Bros. are common knowledge and worth millions of dollars, the reputable New York Times didn't take them seriously enough to just lean over and ask the intern down the hall, or even do a basic two-second Google search in the age of information.
Pictured: Capt. Jack Sparrow, leading woman in Titanic.
This invisible issue is what this blog is talking about. These elements of entertainment and media mean so much to a vast population, enjoy international success and are heavyweights of the whopping 71% of the American economy devoted to consumer goods, and yet they aren't taken seriously enough for basic fact checking services.
They are elements of extreme cultural importance and worth, but very little afforded cultural value and legitimacy.
Posted by
Alexandra Salazar on Sunday, September 29, 2013
I'm going to assume that almost everyone reading this knows what a comment box is. There's one below every post here. Bastions of free speech: moderated comments allow anyone who cares even a vague amount to express their opinion to everybody who passes by. In the least calm and rational manner possible, in some cases.
It sort of looks like this. (Photo: Flickr user sokup)
The crux of every social media site includes comments, along with media sharing. Even sites dedicated to user-generated (rather than shared) content communities, like Deviantart, Fictonpress, Ravelry, and Etsy include comments as a focal part of their platform: allowing anyone to create written, art, or craft work and then receive feedback on it from a general audience.
As mentioned yesterday, audience feedback is a dialogue that has taken on a new form and sense of power from the presence of the internet. Fan approval or outrage can sway the sales and distribution of media, and either laud or revile the personalities that talk about it.
I'm talking about critics. The push-button-to-hate culture doesn't make it easy for them to handle what essentially is considered the general public's beloved baby.
Why did you downvote my baby?! (Gif: Spirited Away)
The fifth installment of the popular video game franchise Grand Theft Auto was recently released, after about five years of development. Fans were elated to get right back into the popular wide-open no-consequences sandbox game and start stealing cars and running over grandmas.
"There were so many comments this week saying that political discourse doesn't belong in game reviews, or that it's 'just a game' and 'we should just shut up and deal with it.' Really though, honestly, what kind of attitude is that? How does that make the gaming community look? If we ever want to see games being broadly accepted as an art form, or as anything but a slightly quirky pass-time, we have to include politics. we have to ask questions about gender, about the portrayal of characters, and about the limits of satire. Because satire isn't satire if it doesn't challenge the thing it copies; that is repetition."
As most readers can probably infer, the non-perfect score was awarded due to the limited roles of women portrayed in the game: as unsatisfied wives, hookers, straw-feminists made to mock actual strives towards gender equality, and other less-than-empowering roles. The messenger of this dissatisfaction was Carolyn Petit, a game journalist who also is a trans woman. This went over as well as one could expect in a largely unprogressive, male-dominated gamer culture.
Trying to fire Petit, and trying to silence Sarkeesian, are two unorganized, organic efforts to try and subdue a discourse that some consumers find threatening to their worldview. The studios that make these games, have nothing to do with this dialogue; consumers are yelling at other consumers, through the easy-reward-low-investment-low-accountability interface of a comment box.
Youtube is trying to clean up the veritable hive of scum and villainy that rests below every flash player on their site. Their approach involves algorithms that sort comments, burying the least valuable ones to humanity below ones that at least don't wear underwear on their heads. Theoretically, this is supposed to limit visibility of frustrating comments, so nobody reacts to them and their presence is not rewarded, discouraging their presence. Whether this is censorship is debatable. By trying to encourage people to link their google pages accounts to YouTube, Google has tried to reduce the shield of anonymity on offensive comment trolls, but with limited success.
The determination and free time of angry internet trolls are limitless, however, and one can only imagine how long it will take for someone to invent a web gadget that restores the comments to how they were before. Whether this is in defense of free and unrestricted speech, or over-entitlement to the right to call people fags behind an anonymous mask, only time and downvotes will tell.
Posted by
Alexandra Salazar on Saturday, September 28, 2013
If there's anything that permeates childhoods spanning the last 30 or so years, it's probably Star Wars. Whether you're a fan, or if it's 'that science fiction series' to you, you probably know the names of the characters. You probably know who Darth Vader is.
You also probably know that the three 'prequel' movies released between 1999 and 2005 weren't well-received.
You might even know that a third trilogy, a sequel series, is slated to begin release in 2015 with a release every 2 years.
The marketing and animation company Sincerely Truman has something to say about all of this.
Pictured: Some really good points about why the prequel series flopped.
As of this post, the main video site DearJJAbrams.com, has over 5300 supporters. However, this is more than a needy public voice demanding content from producers and directors. This raises questions. Is the public entitled to be pleased? Are the creative decisions of a content creator like a director or artist subject to be influenced by the wishes of fans? And is it a good idea to give fans what they want?
Videos like this one, as well as other similar criticisms, are a seemingly one-sided dialogue attempted between content consumers, and content creators. And they are not always unsuccessful: after an ending almost universally-regarded as terrible, public outcry convinced Bioware and EA's Mass Effect 3 developers to add DLC content to their game that modified the ending somewhat. Ethical debates about false advertising popped up; the game promised different endings based on player choices, and yet all of them shared nearly the same ending with some lighting colors changed. They didn't do this with pleasure, but to avert future disgrace with their primary consumer base. And even then, they didn't change much.
Outraged fans were called 'rebellious' by news media, and much-mocked even within game culture, to the point of other developers changing endings to mock the 'spoiled brat' public. Was the public over-entitled? Was the studio lazy, advertising false material and subsequently got called out for it? Do we spoil fans too much by listening to their demands, or are content creators spoiled too much: their final decisions protected from all criticism and consequence by artistic integrity?
This concept isn't new, despite it's shiny and new internet guise. Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes in The Final Problem in an attempt to end his series. After resisting public pressure for 8 years, he wrote The Hound of the Baskervilles to appease his raging 1901 fans, setting it before Holmes' 'death.' This didn't work. He wrote The Adventure of the Empty House and brought Holmes back to life after 2 more years of public displeasure. Today, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes are considered literary classics, and much-beloved. But what of the behavior of the very first fandom? Was it right? Even in the long-run?
It's impossible to say if J.J. Abrams will heed or ignore fans, but it is reported that the sequels are being developed with fans of the original Star Wars trilogy in mind. On one hand, this is a relief for people who felt the sequel trilogy 'ruined' their beloved Star Wars. On the other hand, this approach may exclude things fans never knew they may want, and at least some of the surprise about what to expect.
Regardless of the approach, the $307,263,857-domestic gross legacy prays for Episode VIII not to swing and miss.
Posted by
Alexandra Salazar on Thursday, September 26, 2013
I'm not sure you can toss a stone on the internet without hitting somebody mad at Robert Thicke right now. Whether it's people defending his song Blurred Lines (and it's top spot on R/B charts) or ripping it to shreds, the blogosphere is eating it up.
For anyone still in the lurch, Blurred Lines and it's music video is a catchy hit that proclaims that the line between yes and no in sexual situations is 'blurred.'
Pictured: music video pretty much everyone will agree is sexist.
This philosophy is famously unpopular with progressive consumers, leading to intense outcry in the wake of Blurred Lines' popularity. Accusations include that the song promotes rape and rape culture, that the video objectifies women, and overall the combined effect is simply just too creepy.
However, something interesting to come out of this are the multitudes of video 'parody' songs that satirize the message in Thicke's song.
Here's the Law Revue Girls turning the tables and flipping the video's gender roles, combined with a pro-feminist message:
Pictured: a very inopportune video preview but a fairly empowering video.
Here's YouTube artist Bart Baker, who specializes in these parody songs, turning nearly every #1 hit into a comedy. This video has over 8 million hits:
Pictured: Less empowering, but does raise some good points about the video.
The song's tune was even adapted to popular TV shows and other fandoms, riding on the song's popularity. Some fans show their love for Doctor Who and forget the unfortunate naked women business:
Pictured: Their enthusiasm is adorable but nobody here should quit their day job.
This trend didn't begin with Thicke, of course: previous hits like Gagnam Style, nearly everything Lady Gaga has ever produced, and beyond have had loving fun poked at them. The genre might even be traced back to Weird Al Yankovic, who supplemented his weird and wacky albums with much-beloved parody songs of popular releases. To have a Yankovic single is even considered a badge of honor by some artists.
Under Fair Use, anybody can make a parody video without risk of legal action.
However, I think something interesting happened with Blurred Lines and its spoofs that rarely has taken place with other jibed material. The parodies on whole aren't loving. Anything but: the overwhelming message of the satire directed at this song is hateful, and it can be argued rightly so. Despite Thicke's success in the charts, his reputation has been forever tarred by the dialogue these spoofs open up.
Other media that's been poorly received (despite monetary success) by the public has been given the same treatment, even more dramatic treatment. In the case of the much-detested Twilight series, a whole satirical movie was made in protest of the themes and uncomfortable plot devices it popularized:
Pictured: Dislike strong enough to fuel an actual movie release.
Satire as not only a means of criticism from certain formal sources (See: the Daily Show, MAD magazine), but as a publicly-available weapon against toxic or hostile messages is an essential part of our modern storytelling landscape. It's one thing to publish criticism, to write protesting articles, to leave poor reviews, but it's another entirely to speak back in culture's own language.
"Hey baby," slurred Blurred Lines, a Solo cup full of tequila sloshing in one fist, "What'chu doin'?"
"You're catchy, but piss off," the public replied, and slapped the hit single's wandering hand off its vast and disapproving thigh.
Posted by
Alexandra Salazar on Wednesday, September 25, 2013
The 2011 run of Batwoman comes to an uncomfortable close. Citing editorial interference, creative leads W. Haden Blackman and J.H. Williams III have left the project; despite two on-panel proposals between Kate Kane (Batwoman) and Detective Maggie Sawyer, DC Comics refuses to not only feature the marriage on-page but also refuses to let it happen at all. Blackman and Williams included in their formal statement:
"...in recent months, DC has asked us to alter or completely discard many long-standing storylines in ways that we feel compromise the character and the series. We were told to ditch plans for Killer Croc’s origins; forced to drastically alter the original ending of our current arc, which would have defined Batwoman’s heroic future in bold new ways; and, most crushingly, prohibited from ever showing Kate and Maggie actually getting married. All of these editorial decisions came at the last minute, and always after a year or more of planning and plotting on our end."
While DC Comics never clarified that their decision was anti-gay marriage, the implications of their decision are stark clear to see, especially after trying to reap the benefits from multiple gay characters in their lineup, including a reboot of the original Green Lantern Alan Scott in the 'Earth 2' timeline. But that attempt wasn't universally well-received either, including by the gay community. Due to unnecessary tragedy, LGBTQA+ readers found it a familiar story of needless conflict: characters punished not just by social forces but also seemingly by the narrative for being gay. Did the same editorial guidance that was the heartbreak of Alan Scott and the force that causes LGBTQA+ individuals to get murdered in media with surprising frequency also dog the 2001 Batwoman?
Batwoman #17, Kate Kane proposes to Maggie Sawyer
Beyond being just a question of social inequality, these events suggest a picture of how much of our media, including traditionally 'nerdy,' cult, or niche works is produced. The intent of the creators is very often changed for the sake of the publisher's whims. Whenever we say that we like a movie, a book, a video game, or even a comic series run, we aren't only saying that we like and approve of the primary authors or creators of the material but also the label, publisher or other media entity that controls the content released. Why are these units not subject to scrutiny as problematic or progressive as individual creators are? It is widely theorized that the reason behind DC's reluctance to make any emphasis on a progressive marriage is partially due to Orson Scott Card working on a recent run of Superman. With a notorious big-name bigot on payroll for a critical project, can DC afford to stress his (narrow) tolerance?
Is Orson Scott Card, a writer that alienates such a broad audience, worth more than two progressive, competent staff writers with a release already underway and years in the making?
DC's decision is a call for a critical eye in comics and beyond. How much other media that consumers would (and already do) gleefully devote to has been held hostage by executive decisions like this?
Posted by
Alexandra Salazar on Tuesday, September 17, 2013
There are at least a million popular culture blogs.
There are at least a million nerd/media culture blogs.
This is one more.
But it's not a blog about gawking. It's a blog about the significance of the media that is given a second-class label in terms of cultural value, despite their thousands-million-billion-dollar franchises and enormous impact on our social climate.
For movies alone, the top grossing film franchises in history have been to date: Harry Potter, James Bond, and Star Wars. Not exactly Wuthering Heights. Harry Potter alone grossed over 7.6 billion dollars; and yet, its considered a 'young adult' movie, rather than an actual mover and shaker of society.
We don't get to choose what becomes literature. We like to pretend the most important or the best art, the fine art, is our literature. But tell that to Arthur Conan Doyle, to J. D. Salinger. What we consider to be less valuable in our modern day, is going to be studied in classrooms as groundbreaking literature in a few decades. In some places, it's already begun.
The media genres that make the most money, in western culture, are often those deemed to have the least cultural significance, at least to the culture that 'matters': dismissed as low art, tv-trash, mindless video games, fluff pop top-10 hits, 'kids' cartoons, YA-lit doorstops, and the constant vibrancy of social media's exchanges radiating buzz with its own half-life moment to moment.
Our modern mythology is for sale.
We like giving these thought when they serve our needs and point. We like to analyze the advertisements, and the consumerism, how in scare headlines they're killing our culture (along with Generation Y, and cell phones, but presumably not microwaves or the Polio vaccine) and that too is mass media: that conclusion is also for sale.
This blog is not for that. It's for taking the media you're afraid to admit you watch (and you do) to your co-workers seriously. This blog is for everybody who learned to read playing Pokemon. This is for everybody who couldn't keep up with the Kardashians and now can't stop hearing about them. This blog is for everybody who begs friends for a new book to read, and everybody who's shocked and appalled by DC Comics' recent terrible stance on suicide and objectification.
All of these are meaningful outcomes and issues entangled with our 'low-art' mass-media consumer culture. The point isn't to point fingers or say that what's happening is bad or good, but to take it apart and think about what it means.
“...Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of owned by the folk.” -Henry Jenkins
In ancient times, our popular stories didn't belong to anybody. They were part of our oral tradition and were passed around freely. Now, they're for sale.
The only thing that separates Heracles and Supermanis a few centuries and a brand-new for-sale distribution and content control model.
The social, corporate, and consumer-driven forces that propel the franchises, the top-40s hits, the TV series, the video games, the comic books, the web drama we love often lurk in the background. But these things are a part of our identity as anything else.
