I Am Not Moving - An Occupy Wall Street Remix
Here YouTube filmmaker Corey Ogilvie combines news footage of Obama Administration officials praising the Arab Spring uprisings (in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt) with citizen-shot video of police in New York City brutally attacking Occupy Wall Street demonstrators. The juxtaposition provides an instant, powerful and striking indictment of the deep hypocrisy in the words of both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the President of the United States. Obama Administration officials might try taking their own advice once in a while.
The remix has already gone viral and has been re-uploaded to YouTube numerous times by others. At least one of these mirrored copies even has more views than the original. Some re-uploads are done with respect for Corey’s Creative Commons license, while others completely disregard the filmmakers wishes.
Popular culture has become our common language, and to become fluent in it is, like it or not, a key part of making sense of the larger world
Tijana Mamula “Homophobic Friends” supercut montage is back online via YouTube after being unfairly deleted by Vimeo - The fair use remix video edits together 45 minutes of homophobic and hetronormative jokes from the famous 1990s sitcom Friends.
Source: politicalremixvideo.com
A remix video making the argument that nothing, not even The Matrix, is totally original, Everything Is a Remix is back with a stunning shot-by-shot breakdown of the dozens of references and influences that shaped the Hollywood blockbuster.
Source: everythingisaremix.infohttp
Levi’s: Go Forth and Revolt?
Here is a remixed ad-jamming response to Levi’s recent Go Forth “revolution chic” advertizing campaign. The mashup adds a new layer of text to re-re-contextualize the commercial’s message turning it (back) into a rallying cry for youth revolt. I say “turning it back” because the Levi’s ad, called Levi’s Legacy shamelessly co-opts Charles Bukowski’s anti-establishment poem The Laughing Heart and re-purposes it to sell their brand.
Ironically Levi’s was recently forced to pull the ad in the UK after public outcry when thousands of disenfranchised youth (who are being crushed by social cuts and austerity measures) decided to “go forth” and riot, for real. Levi’s might want to reconsider their marking strategy on this side of the Atlantic too in light of the Occupy Wall Street inspired protests sweeping the nation.
Levi’s original commercial:
Any film is at the same time an expression of a writer, and its an offering to an audience to create their own film.
Primetime Terror - TV Dramas and the War on Terror
Remix maker Joe Sabia has teamed up with the Norman Lear Center and the ACLU to illustrate their “Prime Time Terror” study in fair use video mashup form. You might remember Joe from his Rent is Too Damn High + Up remix posted last year. This new remix dynamically highlights the study’s findings by borrowing clips from two dozen popular primetime TV episodes depicting the “war on terror” including NCIS, CSI, Law & Order and Fox’s 24. Its always exciting to see remix video employed for for educational purposes.
Also note Joe’s detailed sources media list in the YouTube description which make it easier for educators, academics and other remixers to track down the clips he used.
I found it particularly interesting to see how Hollywood writers will often build off of the expected racial stereotypes to throw in a plot twist where we find out that the terrorist bad guy is actually an American white guy in the end. I would note that many of these plot twists only work if the characters, and by extension the audience, is still surprised that the “terrorist suspect” does not fit the preconceived stereotype. In this way I think many of these shows are still relying on (if not reenforcing) widely held Western racial stereotype of what a terrorist is “supposed” to looks like.
Tudou.com Geoblocks the Red Army Sings Remixes
Looks like the Chinese video sharing site Tudou.com has followed the US entertainment industry lead and instituted its own geoblocking system. Currently for all the Red Army Sings remixes we blogged about last year we now get a message saying “对不起，你所在的地区不能观看这个视频” (Sorry, this video is not available for viewing in your country). We are looking for a way around this issues. Check back from more updates and in the meantime here is a version on YouTube featuring a song you might recognize.
Source: politicalremixvideo.com
Disney Princess Sucker Punch
What do you get when you mix Zack Snyder’s horribly, horribly, sexist movie Sucker Punch with the horribly sexist Disney princesses from a half dozen animated movies? Well, intentional or not, you get a riveting story of female liberation!
This amazing trailer mash-up by Breanne Brennan works on several levels. First it serves as a stunning indictment of Sucker Punch by demonstrating just how perfectly the action flick plot matched up with cliché Disney cartoons. On a more subversive level the remix appropriates audio from Snyder’s misogynist film and re-frames the narrative to give us a new story in which Disney princesses liberate themselves from their own sexist movie representations. Breanne’s creative re-editing and juxtapositions manage to actually create the empowering message Sucker Punch so utterly failed to deliver on any level.
For another remixed subversion of the Disney princess theme check out pinkwhig’s Disney/Mean Girls mashup on YouTube.
Versión en castellano del estupendo montaje realizado por Breanne Brennan mezclando el audio del tráiler de Sucker Punch con películas de Disney.
