By
Jordan Owen
(c)2016
The I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream Let's Play is taking several hours to upload (as usual) so to get in my last commentary in to Patreon in the 11th hour, here it is in text form.
I wasn't going to comment further on Paul Feig's Ghostbusters tragedy, but there's one thing that needs to be pointed out and it's something I alluded to in a tweet earlier. I've spoken previously about the many perils and shortfalls of modern "common core" education but outstanding among them is the intellectual sham that is "media literacy."
"Media literacy has a long history and over the years a number of different terms have been used to capture the skills, competencies, knowledge and habits of mind that are required for full participation in media-saturated societies. In England, the term "media education" is used to define the process of teaching and learning about media.[1] It is about developing people's critical and creative abilities when it comes to mass media, popular culture and digital media. Media education is the process and media literacy is the outcome, but neither term should be confused with educational technology or with educational media. When people understand media and technology, they are able to access, analyze, evaluate, and create messages in a wide variety of media, genres, and forms."
Okay, fair enough. But when I hear people talk about "media literacy," it seems to come down to knowing when big-business corporate marketing machinations are manipulating you for fun and profit. I understand the importance of that- of knowing when you're being taken for a ride, but is it really that difficult of a concept? Christ when I was 8 years old I knew that the Ninja Turtles show was just
a vehicle for selling the action figures.
What irks me, though, is that all this media literacy doesn't seem to stop it's enlightened practitioners from being played like a greased violin. Somehow these enlightened post-consumers understand the cynical forces at work when it's their narrative fetish being trotted out for a mass market feeding frenzy.
The Paul Feig-helmed 2016 Ghostbusters remake is a perfect example of this. For months we've been hearing about the misogynist backlash and how it's become a "political act" to see the film. We've been told that it represents some great step forward- a female driven comedy about adult women in the modern world and that seeing it is opening up new avenues for women in cinema...
...except that's how the Paul Feig brand works. As
this article reminds us, Feig's been using this formula for years:
"People forget that the Ghostbusters brouhaha is just a pumped-up variation of the same publicity scam that attended the opening ofBridesmaids, 2011’s “feminist triumph,” a women-centered comedy also directed by Paul Feig and starring Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy in a large female ensemble.
According to the Bridemaids ballyhoo, if we didn’t all go see it as an act of feminist solidarity, no Hollywood movie would ever again feature several women in lead roles. Women would virtually disappear from our screens, and soon every American film would be a reprehensible sausage fest, nothing but remakes of The Lusty Men,The Lost Boys, Young Guns, The Expendables, and The Dirty Dozen."
Yeah that's right- Paul Feig has been working the phony outrage angle for years and chortling all the way to the bank. Somehow these media savvy oh-so-educated "media literacy" darlings actually think Feig is on their side and not just cynically manipulating them to make a buck. Sure- when GearBox pumps Duke Nukem Forever full of enough testosterone and porno chicks to make Andy Sidaris blush that's just the malicious forces of capitalism taking advantage of the unenlightened but when it's Paul Feig shoveling out one "feminist triumph" after another and demanding that his audience lap it up because that (as opposed to, say, nuking ISIS till they glow) will improve the standing of the women of the world. Yes- the number of honor killings and child brides plummets when Paul Feig has enough money to light cigars with burning twenties.
There's a new hashtag for fans of the new Ghostbusters to declare why they like it. Here's my favorite: #WeLoveNewGhostbustersBecause we get four, not one, FOUR relatable female leads showing a supportive friendship not often seen in movies
Oh of course- we NEVER get that kind of girl-on-girl friendship in movies. After all, I could only think of Sex & the City, Steel Magnolias, Waiting to Exhale, the Joy Luck Club, Fried Green Tomatoes, Little Women, Heathers, Jawbreaker, the House Bunny, Clueless, Dreamgirls, Bridesmaids, Friends With Money, The Runaways, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, the Babysitters Club, Bad Girls, Coyote Ugly, the Craft, Heathers, Mean Girls,4 Months 3 Weeks 2 Days, All IWanna Do, Beaches, the Magdeline Sisters, Ghost World...
And- with the exception of Bridesmaids- none of those movies (I don't think) were marketed on this phony outrage nonsense. It's almost as if we've known for years that movies about female friendship are popular, well received, and command a sizable market share and we arrived at this realization without banking on a bunch of politicized, outraged bullshit.
But no, keep telling yourself that little girls will grow up knowing they can be and do anything because they got to see movies starring fat women and their emaciated straight-man counterparts. I know that seeing Tommy Boy as a kid taught me that the sky's the limit.
If you're looking around the room and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you.
-Jordan
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