The Old School Lunch

[This is one of those times that I actually regret completely erasing the old blog. No use griping now I guess.]

I am a fan of zombie movies. Actually, I am a fan of any movies/tv/fiction in which some sort of unbelievable situation emerges, destruction happens and people are, hopefully, motivated to work together to survive. Growing up, I was the biggest fan of the A*Team and as awful as that show is upon retrospect, it offered the same basic things that I still like now: when the shit hits the fan, you kinda drop what you’re doing and work together. Or as Jack warned, do it “or we’ll die alone.” What I like is that it can so easily be made into a stinging social criticism because honestly, I don’t think there’s any point in producing a piece of fiction unless it has a specific message about society however bleak or optimistic it may be. What I think is absolutely pointless is creating something just to create something with no sort of commentary on issues of the times. I am not of the party who believes that films are or at least should be timeless–somehow made to be socially relevant no matter when you watch. I don’t buy for a second that something, whether it be a film, book or TV show is good and authentic just because it shows what has happened in the world or already is happening. I know that’s vague but to give an example, the film B13 I thought was something that had a better message than 95% of things in theaters. Sure, they could’ve made some visually entertaining film about parkour and wrapped it up with a The Transporter storyline but they actually figured out that if you’re going to spend time and money making something, you can comment on the real-life situation of the poor, the working class, drugs, racism, segregation and crime in France. If you’re going to make something about parkour and don’t want the weight of talking about social issues, make a damn documentary.

In that way, I [spoiler alert about the film 28 Weeks Later] did not like the film 28 Weeks Later because despite its thrilling action, despite the visuals and the suspense, it didn’t say much of anything beyond “oh well, we’re fucked.” Zombie movies at a minimum can say, as George Romero has done throughout his career, that people don’t know how to work together even when lives are on the line. But unfortunately, 28 Weeks doesn’t really do this or make any other significant commentary beyond maybe suggesting that our governments, our military, the folks who are supposed to keep things in order when something like this happen don’t always have the right ideas. Sure there’s the critical message of the US military being all “kill anything that moves” when things go bad but I don’t think that resonates as much as the sheer hopelessness of the film.

But at the same time, purely as a zombie movie with loads of action, it’s a good 2 or so hours to have your heart racing. Don’t get me wrong, in some ways I liked it and it was worth the money (actually, my friend paid this time so his money) but I just can’t get beyond the fact that it didn’t go for something more in saying something. In 28 Days Later, they at least went the route of idolized macho male military attitude = hatred for women, sexual violence against women in conjunction with the whole “people can’t work together” but even that was a bit of a mess considering just how…frayed the ending is.

Land of the Dead (at least the updated version), meanwhile, has plenty to say in terms of racism, sexism, and general despotism when it comes to a few wielding power in control of many. I don’t know, i’ve talked a lot about this film before but I just want to emphasize that if you roll your eyes when I say “zombie movie” and you think they’re all for weirdos who roam Wal-Mart at 12 in the morning (something I also just did), watch a few Romero films because at the very least, the guy tries to interject heads being chopped off with commentary relevant to the times.

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But wait, before we got to the feature presentation I saw the worst fucking trailer i’ve ever seen. This absolute piece of shit just reaffirmed why I am interested in challenging media and especially representations of women in media. [warning: potential triggers of sexual violence] See for yourself, i’m not shitting you (especially the last sequence).

When I see this, I think “what the fuck is wrong with people?” Who makes this shit? Who signs on to work on making this shit? Who pays money to see this shit? Then I realize that #1 I haven’t made some startling discovery and #2 this garbage has been around for years. I still remember when I was a kid, walking the aisles of Hollywood video and seeing the horror section which for a huge part of the 80’s and 90’s meant that women and particularly young women in sexualized situations or representations were killed in the most gruesome ways by men. It wasn’t a genre of horror so much as it was “watch women in the shower, women undressing, women having sex, women naked (or with little clothes on) being killed by men.”

God. It just gets to a point where I realize that I can sit here and write about it until i’m blue in the face but at the end of the day, they’re still going to keep pumping this crap out.

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Anybody know if the Media Education Foundation is hiring?