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

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.

Category: montage
Topic Tags: advertising, commercial, gender, identity correction, television, 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.

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

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.

Category: tv commercial
Topic Tags: capitalism, corporations, government, iraq, marines, military, terrorism, violence, war

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.

Here is the original vid post on dreamwidth where you can get a hi-res version.

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

For more on these issues and “Dollhouse” check out this post on The Angry Black Woman “The problem with Dollhouse is not that I don’t understand subtlety” and this one on Feminist SF “Working in the Dollhouse” as well as Gianduja Kiss’s insightful posts on the topic.

In closing we would like to echo a recent tweet on the  Feminist Frequency blog about “Dollhouse” that links to Joss Whedon’s inspiring 2006 Equality Now speech and reads:

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

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

In this vid, Luminosity & Sisabet use footage from the TV horror show “Supernatural” and Hole’s song “Violet” to construct a powerful critique of the victimization and eroticization of violence towards female television characters. It was awarded “Best Video of 2007″ by NY Magazine. It’s no surprise, since their collaboration has yielded a meticulously edited vid critical of one of their most beloved shows.

The show’s original storyline follows two heroic brothers as they rid the world of paranormal events. Week after week, a “chick of the week” is slain by the brothers or supernatural forces. Luminosity & Sisabet ingeniously remove the two main male characters and focus their storyline on these killed-off and often nameless female characters in an effort to show how women are violated and eroticized to further the plot, but are rarely part of it. We think this is an important distinction; women’s mere presence in a story does not equate or signify a meaningful existence for them beyond the roles of monster and victim.

Luminosity and Sisabet decided to construct their vid using content solely from the show “Supernatural”, but they could have easily used footage from other series like “CSI”, “Law and Order”, or “Heroes” because the story lines are often similar: the death or suffering of a female character within the first 3 minutes drives the male main characters to set out on their hunt.

In remix, it’s the visual arrangement of clips and the artist’s intent that makes the video’s message either liberating or oppressive. In addition, a basic understanding of the original show being used is often important for the viewer to understand the context. In “Women’s Work”, understanding “Supernatural”, while not being a weekly fan, allowed us to interpret the vid as critical of the depiction of women as eroticized victims, rather than assembled to glorify the violence against women. Knowing Luminosity and Sisabet’s intention and the basic concept behind their source footage helped us make this distinction. Because the remix, and in this case, vidding, forms can be used to glorify oppressive ideas, it’s important to understand these aspects.

Luminosity’s other meticulously crafted vids can be found on blip.tv.

For a more in-depth analysis of this vid, scroll to the second half of this post on the blog Ambling Along the Aqueduct.

Category: vidding
Topic Tags: gender, hollywood, sexism, vidding, violence

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