An internet meme has been building around the blockbuster movie Avatar, starting with the countless reviews and critics pointing out the striking plot similarities to Disney’s 1998 animated feature Pocahontas. By now there are literally dozens of re-cut trailers online making the comparison but beyond just pointing out the parallels, these mashups also demonstrate how prevalent the racist “Mighty Whitey” trope really is in Hollywood.

First up is Randy Szuch’s version which takes the audio from the official Avatar trailer and replaces the visuals with footage from Disney’s Pocahontas, amazing it works perfectly.

Next we have Dan Oles’s take which does the opposite and uses the audio from the Pocahontas trailer juxtaposed with footage from Avatar.

Those are two of our favorites but you can also check out many similar trailer mashup on youtube (and another one) as well as a Disney song version and a side by side comparison. There is even a Dances with Wolves mashup. And let’s not forget the inspired revised summery of Pocahontas with the names and locations crossed out and replaced with those from Avatar by Matt Batemen posted shortly after James Cameron’s film was released.

UPDATE: Josh commented and brought to our attention a remix that combines the Avatar trailer and footage from the animated film Ferngully: The Last Rainforest. There are dozens more on youtube mashing these two films together.

If you know of other Avatar mashups please post them in the comments.

Category: movie trailer
Topic Tags: disney, environment, hollywood, race, violence

This remixed trailer re-envisions the 1990 romantic comedy film “Pretty Woman”. The original movie stars Richard Gere as a wealthy businessman and Julia Roberts as women who prostitutes herself on the streets of New York City. The original film was supposed to be a dark drama dealing with the difficult lives of sex workers but was rewritten into a Cinderella-type romantic comedy prior to production.

“Pretty Woman” reinforced and glamorized a myth that prostitution is a way to find a wealthy husband, a myth that conveniently conceals the harsh realities of sex work on the street. It also hinds the fact that woman often enter the sex trade as a way to economically support themselves when few other options are available.

Here, FunkyBeccaBecca re-edits the movie trailer re-imagining it in a more appropriate genre, horror. She adds a new soundtrack and with it re-frames Richard Gere’s character transforming him from “wealthy savor” to violent controlling predator.

Category: movie trailer
Topic Tags: gender, hollywood, sexism, sexuality

This mashup has become hugely popular on Youtube, viewed over a million times. The remixer re-imagines a trailer for the 1980’s blockbuster hit Top Gun creating a new narrative in which the very straight macho fighter jet pilots Maverick and Iceman have a romantic and sexual relationship. We consider this remix “queer-positive” because it subverts the fictional “all heterosexual” world of Top Gun by imposing queer relationships into the story.

By now we are all familiar with this remix phenomenon where creators take heterosexual TV and movie characters and than re-cut the footage to create queer relationships. These videos come in many forms but by far the most popular are the remixed Brokeback trailers, of which there are literally hundreds online. Although this remix is not really classified as a “vid”, in the vidding world this type of sexuality re-framing is called slash or femslash (which we will talk about in more detail in a later post).

We think these works are of political importance because they are critical of and expose how the mass media makes straight characters and relationships the standard social norm while queer relationships and lifestyles are often excluded, marginalization or demonized.

On this site we look critically at these remixes and place them in two camps, queer-positive and queer-negative. We define “queer-negative” remixes as those that encourage the viewer to laugh at the re-framed sexuality frequently by queering oddball, weird or quirky fictional characters (like the Brokeback to the Future mash-up). We don’t often post these because they are often tinged with homophobic humor. In contrast, we define “queer-positive” remixes as those that invite the viewer to identify with, sympathize with or celebrate the newly created queer relationship. Often these works remix the stereotypical and highly gendered roles of straight characters in mass media. Its a very fine line with a lot of gray area and not always clear but we at least use this as our lens for viewing these types of remixes.

So in short, queer-positive remixes attempt to subvert heteronormativity, while queer-negative ones mocks characters that aren’t portrayed as “normal.”

Category: movie trailer
Topic Tags: hollywood, masculinity, queer positive, queering culture, sexuality

Another Star Wars themed remix found on youtube, this one taking the audio of Obi Won Kenobi’s famous monologue in A New Hope: Episode 4 where he explains The Empire to a young Luke Skywalker and mixing it with footage of the Bush Administration and it’s War in Iraq. Here also is another slightly different version of this mash-up.

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Category: movie trailer
Topic Tags: bush, rights, star wars, terrorism, war

A TV movie trailer remix from video remixer Elisa Kreisinger created by mashing corporate media’s over sexualized depiction of women with the ad for the misogynistic horror flick Captivity.

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Category: movie trailer
Topic Tags: gender, sexism, television

Another brokeback style movie trailer remix that “queers” mainstream straight culture. In this video the creator takes a queer negative movie (the Harry Potter franchise has no real queer themes or characters at all) and uses remix to create a positive queer relationship and storyline. Even so there is a fine line, in this emerging genre, between negatively making fun of queer culture and positively celebrating it.

Note: Above the word queer is used as a positive verb meaning to reevaluate or reinterpret a work with an eye to sexual orientation and/or gender.

Category: movie trailer
Topic Tags: harry potter, queer positive, queering culture, sexuality

Whether intentional or unintentional Chocolate Cake City has created an example of a political remix that queers mainstream straight culture. However even though the video tries to pull out subtle queer undertones in the Back to the Future movies it would be far more radical if it were to “queer” the misogynistic Buff character and not the two already somewhat oddball characters of Doc Brown and Marty McFly.

Note: Above the word queer is used as a positive verb meaning to reevaluate or reinterpret a work with an eye to sexual orientation and/or gender.

Category: movie trailer, televison show
Topic Tags: hollywood, queer negative, queering culture