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.

QueerCarrie, Sex and the Remix Season 2

Two weeks later I received DMCA violations for my Queer Housewives of NYC remixes. The videos were reinstated on YouTube last week, without an acknowledgment of Fair Use.

Read more…

Category: About Remixing
Topic Tags: activism, fair use, gender, hollywood, queer positive, queering culture, sexuality

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

REMOVED 03/20/2010- NBC Universal has ordered youtube to remove these two fair-use remixes. You can read about the ongoing battle to get them back online on Elisa’s website and you can also watch the videos from there.

The Queer Housewives of New York City (Real Housewives Remix) series follows Bethenny, the only single housewife, through her conflicts with coming out.

Why Queer the Housewives? Those familiar with the Real Housewives of NYC know that there is very little male presence throughout the show. The women vocal about their successful  partnerships (ie Simon + Alex) are shunned and mocked  by the other housewives. What’s ironic is that the other women don’t even pretend to endorse the idea that their hetero relationships are all that fulfilling. Real Housewives of NYC had the unintentional effect of making compulsory heterosexuality actually appear compulsory, rendering the “Housewives” distinction  inaccurate.

Thinking about the significance of this I wondered what Real Housewives of NYC would look like if it related to a totally different audience. Instead of following white, owning class housewives in a feminism-lite, low-calorie liberation, what if the story line  stayed true to it’s lack of male presence and inaccuracy of the “housewife” distinction? I think this is a much more interesting storyline.

more of my remixes can be found here.

*thanks to Dr. Suzanne Leonard for her theory, “Do Men Matter: Real Housewives as a Post-Romance”

Category: televison show
Topic Tags: gender, hollywood, queer positive, queering culture, REMOVED, sexuality

Mary C. Matthews at VideoPancakes remixes the now infamous anti-gay marriage “gathering storm” ad by the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). She combines it with footage from the Discovery Channel show Storm Chasers to create a promo for a new fictitious reality show called “Gay Marriage Chasers”. Over the past month, the ridiculous homophobic NOM ad has been thoroughly lampooned and parodied by the Colbert Report, Funny or Die and dozens of others online. Matthews’ remix is unique in that it seamlessly splices together two pop-culture phenomena to create a hilarious critique of the fear mongering and over dramatic nature of the original.

Category: tv commercial
Topic Tags: religion, rights, sexuality, television

This classic vid was created in 1997 by the Media Cannibals collective who combined the song Detachable Penis by the band King Missile with clips from a late 70s British crime drama called The Professionals. Incredibly, the vid was created with tape to tape VCR technology making the precise edits to the lyrics all the more impressive.

We wanted to post the vid because we think it offers an insightful look at the media portal of masculinity using guns and other weapons as a hilarious metaphor for the penis. We read it to be critical of the violent and phallocentric concepts of masculinity that are driven by the media.

However, we want to note that this was not exactly the creator’s intention. The Media Cannibals did intend to make fun of phallocentric media culture but insist they were not trying to be critical of the violence and guns on TV per se.

While we may project our own points of view, critical or not, onto remixes and vids, it’s often important to understand the original intent for the piece. Because remix and vids are not an necessarily inherently critical form, we viewers can only rely on the visual display of content and the intent of the creators to decide whether or not they are political in nature.

The vid is also available in better quality for DL.

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Blip.tv video.

Category: vidding
Topic Tags: gender, sexuality, television, vidding, violence

Another in our series of vidding cross genre posts, this vid was made by Charmax in honor of International Day of Femslash. We have talked a bit about slash vidding in previous posts, and the term femslash specifically refers to female/female same-sex pairing of TV and movie characters that are placed into sexual or romantic relationships by vidders.

Using 48 different visual sources, this remix gives the viewer a full range of gendered media clichés meticulously organized and edited to successfully mock the notion of true gender identity. Using footage from TV’s stereotypical gestures of masculinity and femininity, Charmax parodies our concept of gender through the repetitive images of drag, cross-dressing and stylizations of butch/femme identities. Charmax packs an additional parody punch by using the song “I’m Your Man”, sung by a female performer, Patricia O’Callaghan.

It’s is a critical look at gender representations in mass media through a celebration of the rare moments when marginalized or alternative gender and sexuality make it into the pop-culture.

Be sure to check out Charmax’s blip.tv account and website for more vids.

Category: vidding
Topic Tags: gender, queering culture, sexuality, television, vidding

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face. Forever.”

The above George Orwell quote accompanies this vid by Lila Futuransky which deals with cinematic depictions of oppression and resistance. She weaves together appropriated footage from three sci-fi films set in a near future London; 28 Days Later, Children of Men and V for Vendetta. These are remixes over the song Rabbit in Your Headlights by the band Unkle. The result is a re-constructed vision of a fear-driven future and also a vision of the resistance.  She particularly challenges the ways in which gender, race and sexuality play out in those futures.

Lila has carefully re-contextualized many of the characters in these films including erasing the male V character (along with his torturing of Evey “for her own good”)  and removes the character of Theo as the white male savor of Kee in shots from Children of Men. The vid also pieces together an inspiring montage of resistance which inserts images of queer relationships in between the shots of street protests and sabotage. For much more detail on the concepts behind the creating of this vid check out lila’s web page for it.

Category: vidding
Topic Tags: activism, gender, government, hollywood, military, race, sexuality, vidding, war