It has been about 9 months since I first posted my Buffy vs Edward: Twilight Remixed video online and in that time it has been seen nearly 3 million times, been voluntarily translated into 30 languages, sparked discussion threads on countless website and it’s even being used as a teaching tool in classrooms across the country. Not bad for a pro-feminist mashup about vampires and gender roles!

So I’m excited to announce that Buffy vs Edward has been nominated for a 2010 Webby Award in the Best Remix/Mashup category! Hailed as the “Internet’s highest honor” by the New York Times, The Webby Awards is kinda like the Oscars for the internets.

The remix was created over a 6 month period by methodically re-editing and re-combining clips from the Twilight movie with scenes from 36 different television episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Below is the original video description:

In this re-imagined narrative, Edward Cullen from the Twilight Series meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s an example of transformative storytelling serving as a pro-feminist visual critique of Edward’s character and generally creepy behavior. Seen through Buffy’s eyes, some of the more sexist gender roles and patriarchal Hollywood themes embedded in the Twilight saga are exposed – in hilarious ways. Ultimately this remix is about more than a decisive showdown between the slayer and the sparkly vampire. It also doubles as a metaphor for the ongoing battle between two opposing visions of gender roles in the 21ist century.

Category: short film
Topic Tags: feminism, gender, hollywood, masculinity, sexism, television, violence

Eugene Jarecki, a documentary filmmaker who’s work includes the 2005 documentary Why We Fight, created this remix after making the connection between the current big bank bailout that fostered record profits and the story in the classic Frank Capra film It’s a Wonderful Life. In the film, community banker George Bailey helps the people of Bedford Falls escape a predatory banker Mr. Potter. With support from top financial analysts and the Huffington Post, the idea grew into this project: Move Your Money.

If enough people who have money in one of the Big Six banks  (JP Morgan/Chase, Citibank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley) move it into smaller, more local, more traditional community banks, then collectively we, the people, will have taken a big step toward re-rigging the financial system so it becomes again the productive, stable engine for growth it’s meant to be. — Move Your Money Campaign

Category: short film
Topic Tags: activism, banks, bush, capitalism, corporations, economics, identity correction, obama

Desiree D’Alessandro examines the commodification of natural resources in this remix, addressing the imminent crisis of the worldwide water shortage. Her source footage, which includes tv commercials, new segments and documentary footage, has become a major point of contention with her university, the University of California Santa Barbara. (More on this below)

UCSB declared D’Alessandro’s endeavors in acquiring and utilizing copyrighted source materials for creating remixes an “offense” as it violates the university’s Terms of Services. In order ‘to protect itself and its students’, UCSB considers any sharing of copyrighted material (music, movies, software and books included) a DMCA violation, even if, as in this case, the result is a fair use. The university also added that

appeals leads to serious legal procedures (in the past four years, no one at UCSB has ever filed ‘counter-notice’, the procedure with which people can appeal with a fair-use claim.)

The trend of policing university networks for DMCA violations is worrisome, as it usually urges the school to locate and save all student information related to the case. Thankfully, the University of Wisconsin, MIT and Boston College have refused to turn over student information and be a middle-man for groups like the RIAA who continue to endorse such network management policies.

From this debacle has come new work: D’Alessandro created a short remix that mashes screen shots of UCSB’s DMCA internet ban and scenes from the movie Step Brothers. She says,

Regardless of this incident, I am certain the Political Remix Video genre is moving toward a direction of net-neutrality, open-source access, and the deterioration of copyright restrictions.

Category: short film
Topic Tags: activism, consumerism, environment, News

Remix artist Diran Lyons, who’s work we have featured on this site before, has just completed an ambitious remix project critical of President Obama’s foreign policy entitled “Jake Gyllenhaal Challenges the Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize”.

The piece is a remixed narrative that combines two Jake Gyllenhall films (Donnie Darko & Jarhead) with news footage of President Barack Obama. As the President wins the Nobel Peace Prize, Gyllenhaal’s character becomes disillusioned with Obama’s increasingly pro-war rhetoric, escalation of the war in Afghanistan and the failure to withdraw troops from Iraq.

After Diran uploaded this video to YouTube is was instantly removed with the following message:

We think this is a particularly hilarious use of the word “decided” considering YouTube runs a fully automated content ID matching system which does automatic takedowns seconds after a video is uploaded AND the remix is a fair use of any NBC content making it totally legal.

Diran went through YouTube’s online “dispute” process and after a few hours got his video back online. However NBC Universal may still decide to have it removed again via a DMCA takedown notice. We hope this remix stays put, as it is clearly a fair use of any NBC material, but as we all know, just because a video is a fair use does not mean it will stay on the internet. Take a look at Takedown Hall of Shame.

If something similar has happened to your remix video the Electronic Frontiers Foundation (EFF) has put together a fantastic Guide to YouTube Removals which will tell you everything you need to know about getting your video back online.

Category: short film
Topic Tags: hollywood, obama, peace, presidency, violence, war

In this remix posted by Matthew Belinkie on overthinkingit.com, we see what the Joker thinks of the US government’s economic bailout plan. The gangsters in the blockbuster Batman film The Dark Knight are re-casts as taxpayers watching President Bush’s September 2008 speech urging Americans to support the first $700 billion bailout for major financial corporations on Wall Street. The Joker than explain that the plan will not work and to call him if we want to get serious about the crisis. The video hints at the widespread public anger at the massive transfer of wealth from Main Street to Wall Street.

Category: short film
Topic Tags: economics, government

Here is another video from the Paul Harvey Oswald collective. The piece remixes both audio and video clips to create a visual list of activities that are advertised and labeled as “feminine“. The result is a comical critique of feminine consumer culture that reveals the ridiculous standards that women are held to.

Category: short film
Topic Tags: advertising, gender, sexism

I created this remix to highlight the commodification of race in the 2009 inauguration. The efforts to commemorate our first black President through the buying and selling of Obama products actually erased a history of radical struggle, turning black identity into another resource appropriated by the mainstream to produce capital.

Created solely from television footage collected on Inauguration Day 2009, this remix examines the illusion that racial equality can be bought, sold and “held on to”. While talk of inter-racial harmony permeated mainstream news networks, the reality of race relations remains an issue of white privilege, something that consumerism and commodification cannot solve. Through the commodification of blackness, whites are able to purchase race relations and the false image of solidarity rather than take into account and acknowledge their own white privilege.

See my previous remixes as well as essays and articles here.
You can watch the remix on Youtube here

Category: short film
Topic Tags: consumerism, elections, government, identity correction, obama, presidency, race, television