Back in 2008 Sirmixalott116 combined footage from Saved by the Bell with scenes from the film There Will Be Blood to create this re-cut trailer. The remix eerily forecasts the current ‘dirty energy’ vs. environmental ecology debate that is now raging in the United States (made more urgent by the BP Gulf catastrophe). When the students at Bayside High find out that the wealth of oil found under their campus has spilled out into their pond, they begin to challenge the power dynamic of their school and stage a protest to stop the oil development.
There Will Be Blood, a 2007 American film by Paul Thomas Anderson, was loosely based on the Upton Sinclair novel Oil! and follows a man on a ruthless quest for wealth during the oil boom. Saved by the Bell, on the other hand, was a 90′s high school sitcom that paved the way for teen shows dealing with social issues by introducing young target audiences to critical topics like drug use, drinking and driving, homelessness and environmental issues. But when remixed, the two delve into the institutional greed and environmental destruction no TV show or has yet dared to explore, despite the timeliness of the topic.
Rich Juzwiak is a blogger for VH1 and his own pop-culture blog which means he spends an enormous amount of (well compensated) time watching and dissecting television. A couple years ago Juzwiak noticed an odd trend in competition-based reality shows, so he collected and edited the clips together. Once repeated and placed back to back, the absurdity and anti-social nature of game reveals itself. Almost Never in any real-life social situation outside the hyper-constructed world of reality tv would someone say the words “I’m not here to make friends”. The remix is great commentary on modern forms of mass media entertainment and it also manages to quickly illustrate how competition can cultivate and encourages deeply anti-social individualist behavior.
Juzwiak’s work and the “frenemy” debate was also explored on an episode of This American Life. These remixes are examples of what have become known as video Supercuts, obsessive video montages constructed from popular tv shows or movies that repeat a certain theme. A classic example would be this montage compiled from every time anyone says the word “dude” in the film The Big Lebowski.
And also check out the 2009 edition that continues to track disturbing “I’m Not Here To Make Friends” trend.
Jezebel makes a remix! The popular feminist-leaning blog took over 25 movies to the chopping block to create a bloody montage of the female curse: menstruation. Because women are supposed to be pure and clean, periods have been portrayed as a horrific, embarrassing and disgusting 7 day experience used to publicly humiliate female characters, confuse male characters and instill fear in every prepubescent tween. See the remix below the fold…
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.
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.
Jonathan and I have had interesting and exciting experiences with political remix video over the last few months. While our stories differ, they represent the shifting dynamic between gatekeepers and creators.
I was recently featured on the front page of the Boston Globe in an article on activists using video as a voice (excerpt below). It focused on my Sex and the Remix series and how activists are using video to create instant political commentary and disseminate alternative messages to the main stream media.
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.
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.
