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.
This remix by Anita Sarkeesian of FeministFrequency.com appropriates the sexist song “Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor” by Flight of the Conchords to critique the male domination, hyper masculinity and glorification of violence in popular video games. The video uses source material from 39 different games and was inspired by Sloane’s “Star Trek Dance Floor” vid which comments on the lack of women in the Star Trek movie re-boot released last year. (Incidentally, Sloane’s vid also holds the distinction of being the most viewed post on our blog.)
Once paired with the misogynist lyrics, the games’ imagery of guns, swords and chainsaws become phallic representations of patriarchal power in a virtual world where few women exist. Especially lacking are female characters who are not hypersexualized and/or simply replicating the intense violence of male game heroes. Anita’s remix uses the lyrics to highlight two games in particular (both with women of color protagonists) that help counter the genre’s male dominance: Portal, a first person action puzzle game which utilizes non-violent problem solving strategies, and Mirror’s Edge, a less-violent adventure game involving the navigation of a dystopian city maze. You can also see a list of all the games used in this remix on FeministFrequency.com
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.
Here it is, plain and simple: every violent moment from the 2010 Super Bowl commercial bonanza mashed together by Whirled. During the recent Super Bowl, amid the anti-choice controversy, CBS ran hundreds of ads, many of which we see after watching this remix, rely on physical violence to communication their message.
Now, compared to the guns, blood and guts we’ve become accustomed to in Hollywood movies, this may seem like light-hearted slapstick but this remix highlights the fact that violence has been so normalized in mass media to the point where we often don’t even notice it. After experiencing all the clips of hitting, punching and tackling put back-to-back it becomes clear that violence on TV is the preferred form of humor, communication, entertainment, plot device and conflict resolution.
UPDATE Feb/18/10: Today the Media Education Foundation (MEF) posted clips from their documentary entitled “The Mean World Syndrome” about media violence & the cultivation of fear. In this clip from the film Dr. George Gerbner explains how Hollywood writers are pressured into creating violent stories.
They have global marketing formulas that are imposed on the creative people in Hollywood and I’m in touch with them and they hate it, they say ‘don’t talk to me about censorship from Washington, I never heard about that, I get censorship everyday. I am told put in more action, cut out complicated solutions, apply this formula because it travels well in the global market.’ These are formulas that need no translation and essentially image driven and speak action in any language and of course the leading element of that formula is violence.
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.
This remix by freeyourpixels is a short yet eloquent critique of the US Marines “Red Stripe” online ad campaign. The remix uses still images and TV commercial clips for source materials and implements additive text and precise match-on-action editing techniques to unite them. The red stripe transitions the viewer from one clip to next and was created using After Effects. It’s a brilliant, yet simple, visual motif which echos the brutal imperialist history of the US Marines. The Scarlet Stripe, said to commemorate the bloodshed by US Marine officers during the 1846 Battle of Chapultepec in Mexico, is more often referred to as the Blood Stripe.
Please note this vid deals with issues of rape and consent. More specifically, it’s a playful yet critical look at the troubling presentation of these issues in the Fox television show “Dollhouse”. Because these topics are intense, we feel viewers should be aware of the content before viewing.
The vid is fittingly titled “It Depends on What You Pay” by vidder Gianduja Kiss who expertly combines clips from the first season of Joss Whedon’s new television show “Dollhouse” with music from the 1960′s off-Broadway musical “The Fantasticks”.
For those unfamiliar with the premise of the show, it’s set inside a secretive corporation called the Dollhouse. People are coerced into handing over their bodies to the Dollhouse which then rents out those bodies for profit. The “actives” or “dolls” have their minds wiped and are then re-programed with the personalities and skills desired by each new “client”.
Gianduja Kiss’s vid brilliantly exposes the fact that these “dolls” have no way to consent to any of their “engagements” – sexual or otherwise – an issue the show ignores. The vid names this disturbing lack of consent for what it is – rape. This calling out of the show’s narrative is an important step in countering the current rape culture and its place in our culture of violence.
Dear Joss, you should rewatch this video because I think you may have forgotten your principles, you might learn something from yourself. Love, Anita http://bit.ly/lBvP3
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!
