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| Popular radio makes me think a lot about contradictions. On the one hand, I'd like to believe that the majority of Americans have a basic minimum amount of taste in regards to mainstream entertainment forms. This isn't to say that we all enjoy the same kinds of things. Some people may enjoy Country and nothing else, for example, while other people may only like Jazz and think Country is terrible. Clearly we vary a great deal in the specific styles of entertainment and art that we enjoy. However, there are most likely a few basic, fundamental things that we, as the human species, find particularly enjoyable in the media we experience. Things like a melody, or an interesting beat, maybe. I feel like this tendency is fulfilled most of the time. While I wouldn't call most of the recent top 10 radio hits excellent songs, I can see how some people might like them, and I find myself enjoying them a bit myself. But then there are just terrible, fucking incredibly bad songs that make it to the top of the charts, and I just don't understand how the majority of people, my fellow humans and Americans, could make such a different judgment.
When thinking about apparent contradictions, there are a few strategies we could take. A common route is to show how a criticism does not actually lead to a contradiction. Another route would be to introduce a new premise that resolves the contradiction. This premise, I've found in this case, is to consider that most people are just dumb and have terrible taste, by any sense of the word. This is harsh, but how the fuck else could 'Soulja Boy - Crank That' become the #1 song in the country? The song is the worst piece of shit I've heard in recent memory. When it comes on the radio while I'm driving, I recoil instinctively, like a hobo has just pissed in my ear. The song has no melody, the beat is 5 fucking calypso drum notes played by a drunk. But rap songs don't need melodies, they're about lyrics. I'm not even going to say anything about the lyrics; they're terrible. Anyway, I don't know what the point of this is. I just really hate that song and I don't understand why everyone else doesn't as well. Maybe I'm crazy.
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| I know that a lot of people really liked Spider-Man 3, and I was originally very sure that I would be one of them. I saw the first screening in Philly (they played it in 5 theatres simultaneously, with the line stretching around a few blocks) and, while I found it very entertaining in a purely visceral sense, I couldn't help but be disappointed in how much better Sam Raimi could've made it. Obviously, my opinion on movies is worthless, but as someone who was once the proud owner of Spider-Man, Venom, and Carnage action figures, as well as the complete Daily Bugle action playset, I think I deserve a chance to drop my two cents on this one (no major spoilers here; I learned my lesson in 8th grade when my friend ruined the ending of The Sixth Sense for me during lunch).
What was good about the movie:
1) Action scenes with Peter Parker - I always enjoy seeing Spider-Man bust out his powers while in civilian clothes. He seems more like a regular guy with amazing abilities, rather than some kind of ambiguous, costumed figure.
2) Sandman's special effects - While I always thought he was a rather lame villain choice, his creation scene in the movie is probably the most visually ingeneous moment in the entire series.
3) Gwen Stacy - She was hot, which only reminds us how mediocre Dunst is as MJ.
4) new Green Goblin - The hoverboard, ninja mask, and glowing katana are a nice X-treme improvement over that horrible Willem Dafoe Halloween costume, nearly rescuing the movie's Harry Osborne from being a complete fucktard.
That was actually shorter than I thought.
What sucked about the movie:
1) the black suit - I hate how it looked exactly like Spider-Man's regular suit, but black, and that he could take it on and off like a leotard. The whole symbiote taking over his mind thing is not so cool when it just looks like a piece of spandex for most of the movie. Leading me to...
2) THAT 70S SHOW GUY AS VENOM: Seriously, who the fuck greenlighted this? Some nerd who identifies with Topher Grace's sarcastic comedic stylings and wanted him in the movie? Eddie Brock is supposed to be a big, dumb asshole who hates Peter Parker, not Seth from the OC with bleached hair, making witty remarks from underneath the symbiote suit. Also, my friend reminded me, they didn't even gives us that whole "We are Venom!" shtick that he does. I loved that. Most unforgivable, however, was the fact that he was only featured for about 1/3 of the movie or less. A character as well-loved and interesting as Venom surely deserves better than two or three lousy-ass scenes. This, of course, would have been much more feasible if it weren't for...
3) fucking Sandman - Who has heard of Sandman? Seriously. He wasn't even in the animated cartoon. The amazing narrative contortions they had to go through just to cram Sandman's character into this movie should have been some indication that they were overreaching. Two villains is more than enough for any one movie, and Green Goblin does seem like the more natural choice.
4) Tobey Maguire being evil - The whole part of the movie where he's supposed to be realizing the influence of the symbiote is just absurd. When Parker puts on the suit, he basically transforms into an emo Spider-Man, literally combing his hair down into his face and strutting around in tight-ass dark jeans. Perhaps Maguire just can't pull off 'tough guy,' although he certainly could've tried a lot harder than this.
When I first saw the reactions on Rotten Tomatoes, I dismissed them as the usual gripes of critics who must wring witty essays out of what should be a pure popcorn experience. A solid movie overall, but a very disappointing way to end the trilogy.
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| I really enjoy watching anti-drug commercials. Maybe it's the inherent cheese-factor of public service announcements, or the catchy slogans they try to spread, or the absurd level of exaggeration they like to use, but I find them interesting and, more often than not, strangely funny. I think what's most entertaining is observing how the the Office of National Drug Control Policy constantly tries to make their campaign resonate with contemporary youth culture; in other words, how the Man tries to keep up with the jive talk we young whippersnappers use. It's not just about vocabulary, though; I'm talking about complete stylistic direction.
In the 90s they used to tack on anti-drug messages to the end of cartoons, because I guess watching Power Rangers really makes you want to do crack or something, which seems plausible. I distinctly remember one PSA where the Ninja Turtles convinced an elementary (junior high maybe?) school student to turn down a fat, perfectly rolled J offered by a generically bad kid, who was, of course, wearing a leather jacket. Disregarding how absurd it would be for a kid to just roll up in school with a fatass J to offer to random kids whose balls haven't even dropped, at least it was up front about the message: "Not smoking pot doesn't make me a chicken, you're a turkey!" Right on, little man. Also, disregard the complete hypocrisy of Michelangelo telling us to just say no. Everyone knows Michelangelo is a party dude.
Toward the late 90s and early 00s, I noticed a trend toward more shock value, in the vein of a "scared straight" campaign I suppose. Stuff like that classic anti-pot commercial in Harold and Kumar ("I'm so high! Nothing can hurt me! NOOOOoooooo"). Later incarnations of it in recent years have gotten increasingly creative and indirect with the negative consequences they portray, moving away from running over little girls on bikes and shooting your stupid white friend in the mouth with your dad's rifle, and more toward suggesting that doing drugs makes you a conformist, or reduces your personal dignity, because marketing research has shown that kids don't like conformity, unless it is portrayed by attractive actors who dance well. There's the commercial with the kid who sticks his whole fist in his mouth, because if your friends can convince you to get high, I guess they can convince you to stick a fist in your mouth. Then there's the kid who gets chased by a guard dog because of peer pressure.
Here's where you start getting the feeling that the Office of Drug Control Policy is kind of grasping for straws. They've realized that the actual scientific evidence for the outrageous warnings they've been making for years simply doesn't exist, and have resorted to building a smear campaign of shame, constructing an "offensive brand image," if you will, of drugs that portrays users as easily manipulated and lacking individualism. I, for one, think this was a smart move on their part, because they really don't have the pure shock value they had access to before. However, in trying to be realistic with their portrayal of drugs, the message itself started to reveal its own meaninglessness.
One recent campaign features a teenage male talking about how his friends just sit around on the couch an smoke pot. You may remember this one, where he says something like, "My friends smoked pot, and they didn't die. They didn't get in a car crash or kill anyone. They didn't do anything. They just sat on this couch." Or the one where he's driving to a party and he brags that he'll be getting all the girls while his friends just sit and smoke. This seems like a good strategy, because it portrays drug use as "uncool," which, among the youth crowd, is akin to portraying something as "really gay" in the Bible Belt. However, at this point, what are they even warning us against anymore? Laziness? Antisocial behavior? Eating too much snack food? Do we still need entire media campaigns to scare kids away from being....lethargic? In trying to make their warnings realistic, the government has refined its own message into pointlessness.
Which leads me to the latest incarnation of the Above the Influence campaign (you can watch the ads on the site). You may have seen these new commercials, which fully integrate the latest trends in animation and MTV-style entertainment, i.e. completely random ads that make no real sense, and must therefore be "edgy" and sophisticated. They feature extremely crude animation, along with some hip alternative music I guess, and usually some guy talking about smoking pot, while others around him express disapproval. Here's a transcript of one of them, verbatim:
[Poorly drawn guy smokes a joint on the ground with his dog next to him]
Poorly drawn guy: "can't you just walk yourself"
Dog that actually kinds looks like it's smoking a cigarette: "you disappoint me"
[Dog walks onto a field and raises a flag with a dog on it]
Now, I THINK, the message here is supposed to be that, if you smoke pot, you are dumber than a dog. Let's ignore the fact that dogs eat their own shit, and would eat pretty much any food that was lethal to them if it were placed in a bowl. But this entire campaign is completely ridiculous. The strength of the "random" style of ads is that they confuse and intrigue you. Their radical and experimental appearance suggest notions of avant-garde art, which appeals to people who don't give a crap about art but vaguely want to enjoy obscure pop culture. Somehow I don't think that the government, which is trying to express a clear message of disapproval and recommendation to today's youth, should be trying to confuse and intrigue kids about drugs. What's really annoying is just that many of the claims they put into the mouth of drug users are simply missing the point. One ad character says, "I smoke pot to impress the ladies." Oh wow, I can see the misguidedness of this wayward youth, he should pursue more fruitful activities than smoking pot! Too bad no one is that fucking retarded. People do drugs to feel good, and in that sense, no ad will ever be able to decrease their intrinsic appeal, and especially not by making claims that are simply disconnected from reality.
One ad features a guy who lights up a joint, and then has his girlfriend leave him for an alien because the alien doesn't smoke. At this point, the message is utterly lost. The Office of Drug Control policy must either begin to waste valiantly dedicate millions of dollars for a campaign with a message that is actually relevant, or simply admit that their project is pointless, as their evolving struggle to reinvent the message has revealed.
Despite all of this, I also suspect that, in a way, the recent ad campaign is the most brilliant one yet, because the only people who would be stupid and weak-willed enough to be swayed by them are precisely the people who should not be smoking pot, since they are the ones who don't have the diligence and intelligence to balance it with the other responsibilities of life.
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