Do Genres Make Us Lazy?

It has been well discussed here how the audience to a genre film approaches it with a set of expectations. As Thomas Sobchack explains it, “the plot is fixed, the characters defined, the ending satisfyingly predictable.” I have questioned the spectator’s reasons for choosing a genre film over another that does not fit a particular model. And while I will certainly not complain about the genre film’s status, that does not prevent me from questioning its ethics.

Film is most certainly a form of entertainment. It is also a thought-provoking and socially relevant mode of communication. Thus choosing to watch a genre film can be seen as a choice that one makes with the assumption that it has the highest possibility of yielding a positive result. This is precisely why they are made. So producing a genre film could potentially be seen as a plight of laziness on behalf of the filmmakers. Potentially, not always. That is not my concern at the present time. Rather, I approach the topic from the audience standpoint.

“It is that which we expect in a genre film and that which we get,” states Sobchack. So in decidedly picking a genre film we lend no creativity to our conjectures of the final product. Does this mean we are lazy in our decision? My aim here is not the world at large but rather our current American society that is already plagued with clear and unapologetic displays of laziness. It only makes sense, for the modern general public, that such laziness would manifest itself in the forms of media it chooses to ingest.

The claim could be made that it is the industry’s fault for continuing to make formulaic pictures. It is strictly a chicken and egg debate at this point. However, it is only going to change when the studios feel that money can be gained by making something original. Here comes the problem. We are not a society that is particularly fond of immediate change and it is usually much easier to take what is convenient. So it seems that my initial question could be reversed. Does laziness make genres?

Stating it like such makes it sound a little absurd. There are numerous factors not being taken into account and today’s society is nowhere near a mirror image of society during the birth of film and film genre. Regardless, the film genre remains an important mode of discourse for affirming our ideological stances and broadcasting them to the masses. Thus we continually demand that which we want to see and that which with we agree. I am not suggesting that genres are the only way in which the ideology is perpetuated, but it is the most cinematically available.

So we can return to the original question, this time ignoring any other factor and focusing entirely on choosing between a genre film and any other film. Sure, there is a degree of laziness in picking something that will do versus something that could be more challenging. Thus the genre film and film genre are more than industrially relevant products but are clearly socially relevant, as reflected in their existence.

Just a Thought...

I’m not going to pretend to write anything that hasn’t already been thoroughly discussed in relation to Frank Capra’s beloved 1946 film. However, that doesn’t prevent me from discussing my dismay with the film’s classic status and perennial favoritism. In light of recent educational advancements in my film studies I have come to realize the ever-present ideology embodied by some of our country’s favorite films. Like no other media, film manages to encapsulate the values and expectations of our society and wrap them up in a manageable and sought after commodity. In effect, it has become an efficient and self-serving mode of entertainment and education. This is especially evident in the climactic scenes of It's a Wonderful Life. Jimmy Stewart and his family have their prayers answered and life restored when the town pulls together to smother their table in cash monies with blatant defiance, or ignorance, of the Rosebud Syndrome.

Undoubtedly, money has become our way of life both inside and outside of silver screen narratives. It would be naïve and perhaps irresponsible to think that one could survive without it. This 1946 movie, likely product of its time, makes no effort to suggest anything but this notion. Money makes us happy. We cannot survive without. If there is one thing that will elicit final satisfaction with one’s personal state of affairs then it is most certainly the acquisition of adequate funds. My dissatisfaction comes with the film’s solidified holiday residence. Every year the film finds its place on movie screens, reruns, in Christmas movie references, and is yearly tradition for classic film fans. Yet for me, only one other film buff who in no way considers my own opinion any more valid or worth listening, it sends the wrong message at the most vulnerable time of the year. If money equals happiness then by all means let this be the Christmas movie to end all Christmas movies. However, currency is far from evenly distributed about our country and is by no means indication of the spread of happiness.

While I don't by any stretch of the imagination consider this film to be in a class of its own in terms of ideological malfeasance, I do consider it to be one of the most blatant and relevant. It would be interesting to consider an ending that didn’t so triumphantly satisfy the audience, but who would want to see It’s a Horrible Life?

The Impact of No Impact

It is not now, nor has it ever been, our intention to ignore the presence and social/cinematic relevance of the documentary on this here Internet website. That being so, we wish to apologize for the lengthy duration of which the important film mode has been absent. In all seriousness, we pride ourselves in watching many a movie, be they shorts, independents, foreign, and of course the generic Hollywood garbage. So, without further adu, we can now officially claim documentary as part of our analytical ouvre, if you will. And you can expect more where that came from.

In what is presented as a revolutionary idea, one man in New York City attempts to live an entire year without making any environmental impact. The idea is as preposterous as his confidence that it can be done. So with what seems minimal motivation aside from the perfect gimmick for his next book, Colin Beaven sets out to phase into a zero impact calendar year. Now, it should be pointed out from the forefront that the possibility of completely eliminating one’s impact is nil. This is not to say we should not do as much as we can to be environmentally conscious, but that the idea of completely eliminating one’s presence is absurd. Anyway, Beaven questions himself from the outset as to whether the proposed experiment is even possible. And, of course, it is not possible to live a year without impact when halfway through you finally turn out the lights.

Beaven brings his family along for the adventure. His wife, a reality TV and clothing obsessed ideology consumer uses her one last splurge on a pair of $975 boots. It seems, not far into the experiment, that her sole occupation with agreeing to participate is to realize her fantasy of being a reality star, a role she seems to be rather comfortable in and natural at. Her cheating throughout the year consists of buying drinks and acquiring ice. I have little but praise for the family for consciously attempting to better those around them but acknowledge the naivety of their grandiose plans.

Regardless of intent, be they heightening books sales, warning the public, personal experimentation, etc., the Beaven’s notoriety will do little to influence those around them. The film calls attention to the vastly varied reactions to their condition. From the already environmentally conscious who see the couple as giving them a bad image to the website comments telling him to shove it, the public at the very least took notice. Yet far from sudden collective revelation, the society at large will sit idle, as they have always done, accustomed to big screen television, elevators, endless water, and their every demand at their fingertips. The film brings to attention, through Beaven’s realization, that the notion of living without impact is a direct assault on the way we expect to live. It is a direct assault on the lives of those that worry little about anyone but themselves.

Beaven himself seems not too distant from those that know nothing outside of city life. The idea that one could be connected to the earth was a foreign one. The realization the calendar year in fact comes from the natural cycles of the earth was pathetically surprising. He points out what seems to be a general aversion to life, a desire for the strict and formulaic, the rigid and structured way of doing things. He helps the audience realize, hopefully even the ignorant ones, that we have been bred and raised to need everything. Our economic system and way of life demands it. Our country requires it. Ironically, and unfortunately, our lives depend on it.

We cannot, even for a second, let ourselves think that this cannot be changed. Beaven points out midway through the film that community has seemed to dissolve. He notices the lack of accountability for those around us, a lifestyle that we have become accustomed to. The film, far from being a lesson in how to specifically help the environment, is instead a bold attention-caller to the need to see to those around you. This is precisely what Beaven does, at least in delivery. We could describe it as self-less, albeit not entirely so. Or rather, we could describe as educated, the opposite of ignorant, responsible. We could posit it to be the objective that every single person owes to every other person.

Now, we don’t need a morality lesson, and the film is not as preaching as my writing has identified it as. And Beaven is not too thorough in his zero impact attempts. Instead, the content the film encompasses and the weight of the issues it deals with is not to be overlooked. No Impact Man can be added to the lengthening list of films that everyone should see, not to entertain themselves, but to better their relationship with others.

Review: 2012

     There are many varying beliefs that the world will end catastrophically. The Mayans in particular believe that the end of the world starts with a cosmic alignment of the sun with the center of our Galaxy, which happens to be in December of the year 2012. The cosmic alignment will cause the sun to have wild solar flares which will emit neutrinos that will act like microwaves on the planet's inner core, heating up the center of the earth until the crust begins to melt and the tectonic plates shift and cause massive earthquakes and eventually tsunamis, wiping out the inhabitants of the world. The question is: how are we going to survive it?
    That is what Roland Emmerich's newest disaster movie 2012 bases its action on. Several families across the face of the earth must survive the ensuing earthquakes that split the earth and kill billions. Emmerich, a native German, has been making disaster movies for years. Independence Day (1996) was about aliens attempting to destroy the earth, Godzilla (1998) had a giant lizard destroy Manhattan, and The Day After Tomorrow (2004) saw the side effects of pollution cause massive global warming to the point of human destruction. Each movie bears its own set of cheesy families fighting for all of humanity.

The Tsunami pours over the mountains...

     According to Robin Wood and Christian Metz, these families are what the American public wants to see. John Cusack plays Jackson Curtis, a divorced writer still trying to save his family, both literally and in the sense of the ideological family. This ideological family is the two parents (of opposite sex) and two children, one son and one daughter. The family starts out broken, a divorce separates the parents and the children seem more privy to their new dad, Gordon (Thomas McCarthy) who dotes them with cell phones and attention. But, in the end, it is the ideological family that wins out, and the audience cheers when the mom and dad get back together again.

The Curtis family's first plane flies through two falling buildings.

 

     Another, not so prominently featured part of the American Dominant Ideology theory is the male dominance in the film. Of course, the scientists who discover that the world will end in three years are all males, and they bring the information to male politicians who see to it that they are saved. Also, when John Cusack's family is in an airplane flying to China with a family from Russia, Gordon (who is forced to pilot the massive cargo plane on just two flying lessons) comes to the cargo hold to ask the two men to come look at the issues they will be facing. In essence, it is the men who will protect and save the women, and who willingly give their lives to save their families.
     Robin Wood's Ideological film theory claims that the American public believes in the Rosebud syndrome (as from Citizen Kane, 1941). The Russian family flying with the Curtis family are billionaires, having payed billions to be saved. But clearly, money cannot buy you happiness. The Russian family seems broken, money having bought the father's new girlfriend, who isn't the brightest. The sons are two brats ready to cut down their American family counterparts.

Yellowstone explodes.

     Lastly, the ideological theory calls for a resolution of current pressing issues. Our current pressing issue is the ticking timeclock the Mayan calandar layed out for us. Only three years away, December of 2012 is an oddly pressing issue for many people today, and they're all wondering what we're going to do to survive it. 2012 offers that wildly outrageous solution for us. The billionaire Russian family has recently paid billions of dollars to get tickets onto an ark. The bigtime male politician to whom the scientists brought the information of the end of the world, have used the money from the tickets to build seven enormous arks (like from Noah's Ark in the bible) to store the people when the tsunamis come and flood the planet. Thus, only the rich can survive... but, being human is to care for each other, so they open the gates to the arks to let in all those who are in the vicinity, including the workers who helped build the ships.
     The movie cost $200 million to make, most of that money going to the immense amounts of CG (I swear that 85% of the film was CG). Although the film has already earned that money back and then-some (although 75% of its gross so far has been from foreign box offices), it really has nothing to offer its audience outside the satisfaction of the dominant ideology. The Movie was shot on a Panasonic HD camera, probably since most of it was going to be going through the computer to be CGed up, making the whole movie seem a lot more fake to me. HD cameras just aren't good enough yet for me to enjoy watching a 2 hour and 40 minute movie recorded in it.

Escaping from the ensuing disaster... a sight seen more than once.

     The movie really lasted too long, and there were so many cheesy moments I wanted to gag. I found myself throwing my hands up in the air at every syntagma (plot point), angry either with the poor CG (or at least its overuse) or with the poor design of the story, or with a decision the characters made, or with some outrageous moment, or something else, OR SOME OTHER STUPID THING! Really, there is no need to see this movie, unless you want to know just how much CG one can actually fit into a "Live Action" film... It gets me real excited for Avatar!

Imminent Death.

Regardless of the fact that he states it himself in the voiceover narration not five minutes into the film, we know Lester Burnham will die. So the only reason we hang on is to find out who kills him. It is not, as could perhaps be expected from the sedated lifestyle he occupies, himself. It is not his cheating wife who discovers the release of firing a gun and drives home with it placed conveniently by her side. And it is not his daughter who, in the opening frames, looks into the camera and asks for his death. As a matter of fact, it is his closet-homosexual ex-military neighbor who believes Lester to be having an affair with his drug-dealing son. Lester’s death is imminent. But it is not, as is readily suggested, the moment when his brains splatter over his white kitchen walls.

Lester died an indefinite amount of time earlier. We meet him as he stumbles, in job, marriage, and life. But more importantly, we also meet him when our shared ideologies stumble. The perfect American Family with a projected image of prosperity, success, and happiness is an empty promise. The idea that one man can build his life, be master of his own success, and age into happiness is shattered. Lester had quite likely done so. And so what? Years later this very lifestyle of materialism and consumption and working to provide had its hold on him and would not let go. He tried to escape it by reverting to the mentality of his youth. He tried to challenge expectations by working down the occupational ladder from writer to burger-flipper. He also tried to satisfy himself by pursuing the attention of his daughter’s best “friend.”

American Beauty is an unnerving film even if its effect is not immediately noticeable. It is a film that has the ability, and in a way the responsibility, to challenge our accepted beliefs. So many films re-iterate the same ideals of success and the importance of image and the infatuation and inability to cope without commodities and possessions. We can only really grow if we know what we are growing from and without films that point this out to us how are we to know?