Topic: Psychological Horror vs. Visual Horror

Cheap Scares

            Horror films are everywhere these days. It seems as though every time we turn on the TV or drive down a highway we see an advertisement for the next “Saw” film or “Exorcism” remake. Studios continue to crank out cheap sequels, prequels, and sagas of the same concepts that have paid studio executive salaries for years, so why do we keep going to see them? These executives need to keep thinking of new ways to sell the same product to the same consumer, which isn’t always an easy thing to do, unless the consumers are American film audiences. Some of the ways studios have gained audience attendance include upping the ante by making films gorier, jumpier, and (yes) even cheaper than ever before. They will stop at nothing to get seats filled, just as they did during the sexploitation days. Is the new era of film ‘horrorploitation’?

            Horror movies are certainly not what they used to be. Films like “The Shining” and “The Exorcist,” are perfect examples of the two categories of classic horror films, gore and suspense. “The Shining” is one of my all time favorite movies and is a prime example of how a psychological horror movie should be made. It’s well acted, shot, and consists of a unique concept. Watching “Danny” ride his tricycle down those hotel halls and waiting for him to turn that one corner is terrifically terrifying every time. “The Exorcist” contains similar elements, but also with a bit of gore added in. Regan’s face, body, and vomit all delightfully make you cringe. But when did the change from these great films to what we have now occur?

            One of the newest and most profitable franchises of horror is the “Saw” movies. These films essentially tap into the human fear psyche by creating the most disgusting, revolting, and graphic ways for characters to die. When a film proves that it can make a large return, the studio usually does two things immediately, order another one and increase the budget. They have done both of these with the “Saw” films, yet somehow they don’t seem to get any better, just more and more repulsive. I don’t need to see someone reach into a bin of dirty needles or cut open another person’s stomach to feel scared, in fact in my opinion, it isn’t scary at all, it’s cheap. But that’s the buzz word for this blog, “cheap.”

            Studios know that audiences like to be scared at whatever cost, pun intended. Executives have found newer, less expensive, and faster ways of making crappy horror movies that turn the same (or more) profit than traditional good horror movies. Perhaps the best example of this new formula is the 2007 release of “Paranormal Activity”, with a staggering budget of $15,000 dollars. Over the course of its release in theatres and DVD, it has made a world wide gross of nearly $197,000,000 (thenumbers.com), making it the most profitable movie of all time (filmjunk.com). Audiences meet the new “Saw.” In 2010, Paramount released (you guessed it) a sequel, which also did quite well. I guess we should be somewhat thankful for these bargain basement thrillers, if you can call them that, because they help fund better movies that wouldn’t otherwise get made. But the real underlying question is, are we stupid to keep falling for these mediocre tricks?

            As I said earlier, a studio will do anything to obtain a profit and trick us into giving them our money in exchange for almost nothing, if we let them…and we do. We keep allowing ourselves to fall for the same ploys and “jump at the screen” tricks year after year. Once something has been done, we should know by now, that it isn’t ever going to be done as well ever again, case in point, “Paranormal Activity.” “The Blair Witch Project” uses the exact same elements of first person digital video shooting, coupled with little to no budget, and unknown actors to accomplish a “documentary” feeling. In my opinion, “Blair” is a much better movie than “Paranormal” and it had something going for it… it was innovative.

            In conclusion, studios will try any cheap tactic to get someone to sit their ass down in a movie theatre seat, whether it’s spilling someone’s guts all over the floor or tricking the audience into thinking something is real because its shot on high definition film and looks like a student film. I’m not sure when the transition from classic horror to contemporary cheap gore happened, but it most certainly did and right under all of our noses. But you have to give them credit because they make us fall for it, again and again.

            

Topic: Stereotypes of Sexuality in Film

Stereotypical Sexuality

            I know that I touched on this subject in my last blog but it’s something that I really find interesting. Why do we have to play into the clichés of sexuality (either homo or hetero) in movies? In most American film, gay characters are portrayed as flamboyant and sometimes even obnoxious. Now, I’m not saying that this stereotype doesn’t come from truth (because when it boils down to it, all stereotypes do), but why does that have to be the only representation of this group of people on screen? We seen filmmakers begin to lean away from this sterotype in recent years, but it’s still very much present in our everyday entertainment. Here are a few examples, The Birdcage, Party Monster, Headiwg and The Angry Inch, and TV shows like Will & Grace. We as a society need to move beyond this dated perception of a specific group of people. Can you imagine if we still had black people speaking in southern accents and only appearing as housekeepers? The way we portray gay people in film today isn’t much different.

            Over the past few years, we have moved into a better era of how sexuality is represented in entertainment with films like, Brokeback Mountain, The Talented Mr. Ripley, My Own Private Idaho and A Single Man. As I stated in my previous blog, The Academy is to thank for recognizing these types of films and promoting non-stereotypically gay performances. That isn’t to say they haven’t honored performances that were stereotypically flamboyant such as Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Capote and Sean Penn for Milk. Although, these performances are representations of specific real people, not fictional made up characters. I think it’s fantastic that more and more filmmakers and actors are choosing to portray characters as real people and not cartoons.

            One of my favorite films of all time, which I listed above, is The Talented Mr. Ripley. In this film, Matt Damon portrays a young man sent out to bring back a rich steel mill owners son (Jude Law) from Italy. Damon ends up falling in love with him and then murdering him because of his infatuation. Now, I understand this doesn’t make the gay male look great to an audience, but it’s Damon’s performance that I mean to mention. He decided to play the character as if he were any man, gay or straight. He’s charming, well-spoken, and even bashful. There is nothing discernibly gay about him, other than his love for Jude Law’s character, “Dickie.” Two other similar performances come from Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain. They play two average men who happen to fall in love. This movie is a great love story whether it is about two men, or a man and a woman. 

            I don’t mean to say that the above mentioned performances are any better or worse than other actors who choose to play a character very gay, such as in The Adventures of Pricilla Queen of the Desert because I don’t believe they are. But the ladder plays into a very strong stereotype about gay people; that gay men act like women and gay women act like men. In another one of my favorite films, My Own Private Idaho, River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves play young male prostitutes on the streets of the northwest. They both have sex with female and male clients and in the story only one of them is gay.

            As Freud taught us, sexuality is not as black and white as we all paint it to be and I think we have found neither are people’s mannerisms because of their sexual preference. If a script or a specific retelling of a person’s story call for a character to behave a certain manner than the character should be portrayed in that way, but if it’s left up to the actor and director, I would hope they more often than not everyone would make the decision to play a character in a non-stereotypical way. There can be hints of mannerisms and the like without reverting to a backward dated outlook on specific members of our society. 

Topic: New Queer Cinema

A New Dawn for Gay Cinema?

            In recent years we have seen more and more gay cinema, which is fantastic. It seems like we have finally entered a period (or are about to enter a period) of even more acceptance and less prejudice. There have been so many great ‘gay oriented’ movies in past years such as, “Brokeback Mountain”, “Milk” “Boy’s Don’t Cry”, “Capote”, “A Single Man”, and one of my favorites, “My Summer of Love.” “My Summer of Love” is one of my favorite movies of the new queer cinema movement of today. A friend of mine, Natalie Press, stars as a lonely lost girl in England being pushed by her brother to become Christian. She meets the alluring and sexy Emily Blunt by chance one day and Emily Blunt’s character leads her into a love affair that lasts over the course of one summer. What I love about this movie is that there is only one brief sex scene between the two characters. The love between these two people is shown through time spent together, doing such things as riding bikes through the country, sharing their most intimate secrets, and taking mushrooms and going to a disco class for old people. I love that the director, Pawel Pawlikowski, made the choice not to play into the sex appeal of lesbians for the benefit of certain members of the audience. He simply told a real love story that could have been about any two people. This is something that I really love about “Brokeback Mountain” as well; neither character was played as a flamboyant gay person. They were played as real people who happened to fall in love.

            The Academy should be praised for all they have done for the gay community. All the movies listed above were either nominated or critically acclaimed. When the academy nominates a movie the whole world notices it, and when it’s a movie like, “Milk” or “Brokeback Mountain” the world becomes more educated and perhaps open minded. Even if it just makes them more ‘ok’ with watching a gay oriented movie, something is being accomplished and I believe the gay community owes The Academy a very big thank you.

The expansion of the openly gay community into the entertainment world has brought new outlets to the public such as, “Logo.” Logo is a channel geared toward gay, bisexual, and transgender people. They have shows such as, “RuPaul’s Drag Race”, which is a contest show in which drag queens compete to be the best drag queen they can be. I think it’s great that a show like this can exist on television (even if it is on an obscure cable channel). I believe we may be on the verge of a new era, where you are less and less defined by your sexuality. It’s very sad to see how the studio system used to treat actors once they were openly gay, dropping people from contracts simply because of their sexuality. Although, I have heard that Warner Brothers covered up James Dean’s homosexuality by setting him up with dates and girlfriends. It seems like as long as you were not open about your sexuality in the past the studio would overlook it, but this doesn’t make it right. Even today, actors who are gay are not usually open about it, there are very few.

            As a side note I find it very interesting that we as a country are more paranoid and prejudice toward gay people than countries like France and Italy. Yet, we have been making great strides in our cinema world to expand the way we think and to get rid of our previous stereotypical visions of gay people. And as it stated the out text book, perhaps the reason for this prejudice is due to the fact that we started out as a very conservative and religious country, but I think many people (especially in major cities) have evolved beyond that now, thanks to films like the ones listed above and to The Academy for making the world notice them. 

Race in Cinema

Topic: Race in Cinema

Reverse Racism in Cinema

            It seems as though we haven’t come that far from the days of red/black/yellow face. These days there seems to be reverse racism present in cinema as well. I watched a film years ago called, “White Chicks” in which Shawn and Marlon Wayans (both African-American actors) portray two stupid white female twins. Their faces are painted white, they wear blonde wigs, and their tone is that of an intellectually challenged ‘Paris Hilton’ type. I don’t see how this is any different than someone putting black makeup on their face and I actually found it to be offensive and a double-standard. Robert Downey Jr. recently portrayed an actor wearing black face for the shooting of a movie called, “Tropic Thunder.” In which, he also adapted the stereotypical mannerisms and traits of a southern black man. It seems as though we haven’t come very far at all in terms of respecting racial identity on screen. I’m not saying there needs to be uproar every time someone dresses as a character outside of their own race, but we should think before we allow ourselves to become jaded to racial disrespect in our society. I understand that both of these movies were comedies and were not using black/white face in a serious or dramatic way as in “The Jazz Singer”, but it still parallels the inappropriateness of that era. If we are to move on from this disrespect in the past, we need to study and remember it and not replicate it, even in a funny way.

            The hard part about this issue for me is that I did enjoyed Tropic Thunder and Robert Downey Jr.’s performance in it. He is one of my favorite actors of all time. Ben Stiller, who wrote and directed “Tropic Thunder,” said to Downey, “If anyone can pull this role off, it’s you.” I agree that RDJ is probably one of the only actors today who could pull that role off and get away with it, though it still doesn’t make it right. Throughout the movie there are many racist remarks, making reference to things like fried chicken, “The Jefferson’s”, crawfish, and other African-American stereotypes.

            Another thing to think about is when people of the wrong nationality are cast to play a character with similar racial features, such as in “Memoirs of a Geisha”, in which Ziyi Zhang (an actress of Chinese decent) plays a Japanese Geisha. I actually knew Japanese people who were offended by this, especially because the film was about such an ancient tradition and a staple of Japanese culture. You would think that a director such as Rob Marshall, who directed “Memoirs”, would want the film to be as authentic as possible and without offending the people he was making the movie about. The reason for his choice in casting was most likely due to the fact he felt he couldn’t find an actress of Japanese decent to portray the lead Geisha. It’s a difficult predicament for a director, ‘Do I go with the girl who is the best actress or one that is the most historically and racially accurate?’

            In conclusion, we are still making strides to guard against racial disrespect in film, but more needs to be done. I’m not someone who is easily offended, but when I see two African-American men dressed up in ‘white face’ to make fun of white people, it upsets me. I would expect black people to feel the same way if someone did the reverse today. I believe the reason it was excusable in “Tropic Thunder” was because the film contained another actually black actor, who called Robert Downey Jr.’s character out on his stereotypical and semi-racist choice to wear ‘black face.’ We all need to look a little closer at what we choose to be subjected to in cinema and ask ourselves, ‘Is this as innocent as it seems?’

Liberal Inaction

Topic: White Directors

Liberal Inaction

            It is true that Hollywood has made great strides to ethnically diversify itself in every field. There are more directors, actors, writers, and studio employees of color than ever before. Yet, for such a liberal left wing community we are still not as advanced as we should be. The majority of directors in this industry are still white men between the ages of 30 and 60. We have been introduced to mainstream female directors over the past several decades but only recently have they been given the notoriety of their male counterparts. A good example of this notoriety is Kathryn Bigelow’s 2009 Best Director win for “The Hurt Locker.” Other recent female directors include Nancy Meyers (“Something’s Gotta Give”), Catherine Hardwicke (“Lords of Dogtown”) and Sofia Coppola (“Lost in Translation”). The film industry is a male dominated business that is making moves in the right direction of equal employment for women, but are we doing all we can to make sure directors of color are being given the opportunity they deserve? I have never worked with an African American director, perhaps this is a coincidence or maybe it’s not. I can name only two African-American directors off the top of my head Tyler Perry and Spike Lee. So, I suppose this poses the question, what is preventing studios from entrusting black directors to make films?

            First, let’s look at the studio system. If you walk into any major studio today, the majority of executives you run into will look very much like the white male directors I mentioned above and since these executives are the ones who make the decisions as to who will direct a movie, I think we found our answer. Studio executives are all mostly white and were raised in upper middle class households. When choosing a director, a studio executive is potentially putting his job on the line. If the director doesn’t turn out a product that is financially successful then the executive could loose his job. So, what type of person would you entrust up to 200 million dollars and your job with? Most likely, you would choose someone like you. I believe studio executives choose white directors consistently because they see themselves in these directors. Perhaps, they believe they can relate to and understand them more than a person of color. Whatever the reason for this imbalance of ethnicity in the directing field, it needs to be fixed.

            Let’s go back and focus on the two African-American directors I mentioned earlier, Tyler Perry and Spike Lee. The quality of these two directors work isn’t comparable. Spike Lee directs forward thinking, message driven movies that ask important questions. Tyler Perry makes movies that play into the stereotypical slapstick black comedy that portrays people of color as being simple-minded and ridiculous. It’s directors like Perry that make it more difficult for other African-American directors to make a name for themselves.

            The film industry has fixed the lack of ethnicity in front of the camera, but what about behind it? Something needs to be done to ensure that directors of all colors and genders get an equal opportunity to prove they can turn out a great product. There are African-American directors working everyday in the film industry, but the projects they are offered to work on are usually low-budget films or TV shows that target a very specific audience, other African-Americans. In conclusion, the film industry is modern, liberal, and left wing, yet we still don’t quite have equal rights for directors and many other jobs behind the camera.