Heathers: Painful Satire

Heathers directed by Michael Lehmann satirizes at great length the social issues and systems within High Schools as well as teen suicide and homicide.  As controversial issues that affect society to perhaps a larger degree today, such as how to approach teen violence and suicide and how to react to it, there is not a universal reaction or response.  Heathers approaches the topic of teen violence with unapologetic satire and jokes a-blazing.

            As the audience watches as a joke goes too far and the main characters Veronica Sawyer (played by Winona Ryder) and Jason Dean (played by Christian Slater) begin to kill other students who they deem to be awful people.  Veronica and Jason begin to kill not only to rid the school of bullies, but also to advance themselves higher socially.  They begin to take their anger and channel it in to violence in order to accomplish a higher order, which is to make the school a better place.  The issue with this is as soon as the main “Heather” is killed another takes her place and is just as ruthless as a bully, as soon as one of the other “cookie-cutter” Heathers is gone, than another steps up.  One criticism this movie takes in general is its lack of sensitivity to the killing and the deaths of the dead teenagers along Veronica’s and Jason’s path.

            Heathers addresses this very sensitive issue of teen violence with zero sensitivity, with over-the-top humor as the butt of the joke often falls on the victim.  While, this disturbs many people (and I quite frankly don’t blame them) this presents the audience with the perspective of the murderers and the psychopathic and joking manner of the crime.  This also provides the audience with the sarcasm and flaws of potential coping mechanisms of different people as we see the different adult reactions and ideas they have to console the students.  Heathers interestingly enough post-modernly references the outcast and angry character of Jason Dean to actor James Dean.  The Rebel without a Cause actor who often played confused and angry teenagers, provides the audience with a foundation and immediate reference point in relation by Jason Dean in Heathers.  Leading the audience to not demonize him as he immediately pulls a gun out in a cafeteria and shoots blanks at a bunch of jocks.  This connection has taken a legendary and fondly remembered actor and twisted the character in order to make the evolution of outcast child to become complete, causing the audience to not only relate to the character, but also to each viewer’s own personal experiences to the film.

            One reason many react very negatively to the film, is because the events in the movie hit too close to home.  A disturbing aspect of Heathers is that nearly any event in the film could be grounded in realistic terms today.  Willa Paskin in her article Nostalgia Fact-Check: How Does Heathers Hold Up? makes the point that  “The notes that the girls use as instruments of torture could just as easily be text messages; Veronica’s diary sure seems like a blog; Heather Chandler’s suicide note makes the rounds just like an e-mail; and all that bullying.”  Where anyone who had any form of the movie affect them in their actual personal life could react very poorly to the jokes and satire humor of Heathers and take the joke to heart, but the jokes seem to be merely a method of coping.   

            As most contemporary High School students have teen violence shoved down his/her throats, Heathers does not take a direct route in forcing a message down our throats, but rather makes jokes at the expense of the deaths of the victims.  Watching this movie with a contemporary audience many would be baffled and also likely to be upset to a degree; I think there is significant reason for this.  As teen deaths have affected many people today, reactions vary.  For some death needs to have a coping people, where others find it comforting to deflect, whether it be catharsis in some other activity or making a joke to ease the tension in order to achieve a level of comfort.  While the latter of the two may offend others, I think it is just a way to cope with issues.

            As the issue of violence surrounding schools has not deteriorated much since Heathers release, the film provides viewers with an interesting perspective and focus, which may upset with its unrelentless attacks on the issue and how it’s handled.

Wall Street: Doctor Faustas Meets Stock Exchange

            Oliver Stone’s Wall Street takes the audience through the intricacies of crooked Wall Street trading as we observe unethical action after unethical action.  At the core of the film the audience truly begins to understand the twisted ideology of those who take great pleasure in ruining other’s hard work.  Gordon Gekko’s of the world control typically engage in little risk of his or her own personal fortunes and relies on others to receive a large profit.  Of course what is Wall Street but greed mixed with post-modernity.

            In an inconceivable world of fixed exchanges and controlled information, and in order to attain and garner more potential wealth individuals such as Gordon Gekko (played by Michael Douglas) go to extreme versions in order maintain extravagance.  Ethics are surely out the window as spying and insider trading occurs frequently, and as Gekko says in his iconic speech “The new law of evolution in corporate American seems to be survival of the un-fittest…Greed, for lack of a better word is good.” meaning, that in order to survive in big business one must use others as a stepping stone in order to attain true greatness.  In Jack Boozer’s article The Commodification of Perception he says that “Gekko wants neither the responsibility of ownership nor the burden of management.” One of the most interesting ideas of the film is how risky and lucrative the business transactions are for the high-profile Wall Street traders. 

               High profile traders such as Gordon Gekko allow themselves to attain great amounts of wealth at incredibly low risk.  Often to gain startup funds, many companies at one time or another sold junk bonds to individuals wherein a stock-broker would sell an uneducated individual bad stock in order to gain a large commission while the investor lost nearly all of his or her personal money.  Little changes at a higher level, in terms of justice.  As seen in the film, Gekko controlled both the supply and demand of the stocks as information was leaked and demand either rose or tanked.  Gekko, also being the majority shareholder in a company also controlled the supply after he leaked information, as he bought or in turn sold stocks to make a profit.  It’s at this point where the market seems to be prejudiced in terms of the Wall Street traders who make large amounts of money considering the little personal investment, (and in the film’s case criminal activity that had occurred) where justice has eluded contemporary real examples of felony in terms of wall street traders.  An interesting story ark is where the audience follows Bud Fox down, dare I say it ‘the fox hole.’

            Bud Fox (played by Charlie Sheen) is seemingly an everyman who only wishes to fulfill his ambition of being a major player in the stock trading industry and take not only himself, but his family out of poverty and personal debt.  Bud Fox similarly follows his ambition and follows the father-figure Gordon Gekko to ultimately betray his real father Carl Fox (also played by Charlie’s real-life father Martin Sheen).  Bud, similarly to Doctor Faustas follows his ambition and is carried away as he signs a deal with the devil.  This post-modern/post-structuralist relation to the two allows the audience to make immediate judgments of characters and their actions, also while we relate to Bud on a visceral level of wishing to attain some ambition.  Although, unlike most real-life cases Bud grows a conscience and turns Gekko in saving the day and many people their hard work.

            Wall Street becomes an observation of never-ending greed as people use one another as stepping stones while putting up little personal risk.  As Gordon says as his stock begins to plummet and looking as though many will lose their jobs “So what if we only make 10 million dollars.”  It becomes essential that the illusion of power becomes a crooked Wall Street trader’s greatest tool, where they can fool an individual in to the idea where they control the power and their own money, while all the time power is in a crooked Wall Street trader’s back pocket.

Hollywood Shuffle: Hour long In Living Color

            Robert Townsend’s Hollywood Shuffle takes racism in Hollywood and dissects the exploitation of African-Americans through the roles actors receive as well as how each role is a perpetuation of stereotyping African-Americans.  An interesting aspect of the film is how Townsend takes a specific case, as the audience follows Bobby Taylor a self-respecting, intelligent African-American man who is forced to play dumbed down and offensive stereotypes of African-Americans in movies.  Hollywood Shuffle forces the audience to not only observe racist tendencies in Hollywood and general culture, but the film also provides a bench-mark in Hollywood equality.

            Hollywood Shuffle allows the audience to observe a case-study in Hollywood racism in the form of Bobby Taylor.  As the audience becomes acquainted to an everyman whose only dreams are to make it big and play important roles in Hollywood, we also see the inflicted limitations he has: the only parts for African-Americans in Hollywood films are pimps, gang members or prostitutes.  One of the most important aspects of the film is to ground the absurdity of Hollywood perceived realism of African Americans, with Bobby’s normality allows the audience to see the racially charged and offensive stereotypes media provides American consumers with.  Bobby as a person seemed as normal to anyone I had ever met, from the way he dressed, to his interactions with his siblings, to his demeanor and his way of holding himself, it appears that pretty much any viewer of Hollywood Shuffle could relate to Bobby Taylor in one way or another.  The idea that Bobby is indeed an everyman who struggles against a bias system, allows any viewer from any background to juxtapose stereotypes seen in media compared to the normal individual in the story.

            The comedic episodic quality Hollywood Shuffle maintains allows the audience to compare the absurd roles in films such as the zombie pimps or the ridiculous jive talking street members to Bobby as an off-screen personality.  It is this primary juxtaposition that allows the audience to not only laugh at the absurdity of the unrealistic film roles but also provides the audience a base of normality, in order to base conceptions and actualities of a contemporary African-American man.  Another interesting aspect to Hollywood Shuffle is the idea that the film is a comedy, which is a universal genre.  The fact that this is a comedic film allows for an audience to not only see the absurdity in Hollywood stereotypes comedically but also provides a viewer a light-hearted window in to the heavy handed subject of Hollywood racism and bias. 

            After the context of Hollywood Shuffle, and demonstrated in one particular sequence in the film where African American actors are taught how to be black by a white Hollywood executive, African American artists such as Kenan Ivory Wayans are taking the position of business executive and creative artist to provide contemporary audiences with entertainment.  Shows such as In Living Color, created by Kenan Ivory Wayans, provided America with not only the common denominator of laughter but also provided a skewering commentary on racism in America.

            Ironically, compared to the conclusion of Hollywood Shuffle where Bobby must sacrifice his dreams of making it big in Hollywood in order to maintain his dignity and not help Hollywood scorch society’s perception of African-Americans, Kenan Ivory Wayans (who co-wrote Hollywood Shuffle) in particular has launched the careers of many influential actors in Hollywood today.  Primarily from his sketch show In Living Color, Wayans has launched the careers of many actors such as Damon Wayans (My Wife and Kids), Shawn and Marlon Wayans (Scary Movie), Jim Carrey (Ace Ventura) and Jamie Foxx (Ray).  Also ironically, Jamie Foxx reached the critical acclaim Bobby dreams of by winning an Oscar and being a successful Hollywood actor.  It comes to show that films such as Hollywood Shuffle have become a contributing factor in providing America with a greater understanding across cultural boundaries and providing greater opportunity to African American artists in a Hollywood setting.

As Hollywood Shuffle uses comedy in order to portray the disconnect between the Hollywood representation of African Americans and the more realistic portrayal of African Americans as a society it provides us with a greater understanding of one another and to disenfranchise any potential racial stereotypes.  In Harriet Margolis’ article Stereotypes in "Hollywood Shuffle" and "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka" she says “For example, by foregrounding stereotypes qua stereotypes, Hollywood Shuffle leaves those of us who watch the film in its entirety in no doubt as to how Townsend intends us to read its images.” To laugh at disastrous absurdity and observe greater reality.

Platoon: Apocalypse Was

Oliver Stone's Platoon has provided an in-depth and personal incite in to American occupation in Vietnam.  The 1986 Best Picture winner takes the audience through a soldier’s time in Vietnam wherein not only does protagonist Chris Taylor undergo a psychological transformation but often many of the audience do as well.  Platoon as a film not only is a direct response to nationalist propaganda attempting to change opinion of American efforts in Vietnam, but also retains a post-modern quality to it linking it to other Vietnam War films.

            As many other Vietnam War films such as Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter are typically criticized as sacrificing realistic aspects of Vietnam in order to attain metaphorical and abstract allegory, Platoon does not share such criticism.  As the audience begins to follow Private Taylor in to the merciless and hell-inducing jungle we soon begin to make judgments of the rest of his company.  We find ourselves siding with the moral weed-smoking soldiers, led by Sergeant Elias, while we are opposed to the blood thirsty war hawks, led by Sergeant Barnes.  As most of our experiences through the war are shaped directly through what Taylor witnesses these initial characterizations seem quite defined around halfway through the movie as we begin to understand the horrors of the war. 

            As the platoon finds their way to a North Vietnam Army (NVA) camp, one of the soldiers in their platoon is abducted and brutally killed by the NVA’s and nailed to a tree in order to scare the soldiers.  As the platoon arrives at the camp the American soldiers take all of their aggression out on innocent villagers and this is where Oliver Stone makes some of his most interesting choices directorally.

            In this scene specifically I was shown in-depth how brutal war genuinely is as well as insight in to how a soldier feels during such atrocities.  To start, a mentally handicapped man did not understand the directions to move that Private Taylor had given, and in frustration and in vengeance Taylor begins to shoot at his feet.  As Taylor walks away crying, another soldier, Bunny, walks over and begins to beat the man in the head with the butt of his rifle killing him.  The interesting directorial choice was in not showing the man being killed, I don’t think it was because of a lack of special effects and making it look real, but gives deeper insight in to how war feels.  The montage of semi-quick paced shots were static in order to give the viewer a disturbing stillness to the scene, while also cutting to reaction shots  of the soldiers, many of which are in horror as splatters of blood hit their face.  This provides the viewer with the understanding that even to those who had seen some of the worst of combat, still found this act to be horrendous and shocking.  While some say a later rape as well as the violence feel romanticized, because of the lack of shocking and disturbing material (somewhat ironic), the scene where a villager’s wife is shot in the head is shown in its most brutal form. 

            The scene where a villager’s wife is shot because he does not give Lieutenant Barnes discernable information regarding NVA locations, is shown in its utter and disturbing sincerity.  Unlike the previous atrocity, this scene is shown in one or two very long shots where we are allowed to see how distressing the event really is.  I believe Oliver Stone made this interesting choice because in this scene it seemed as though everyone had their attention drawn to this argument which resulted in this women’s death.  Everyone was drawn in through tension.  The earlier killing had been done in fragmentation because much else was going around the soldiers, as they were still shell-shocked they had distractions around them permitting them to partially look away, while the scene did not.  This scene and the killing of Lieutenant Elias and Lieutenant Barnes, as Devil and Christ figures proves not only do both sides of the moral spectrum not make it through to the war, but those not even directly involve not make it through.  This creates a moral ambiguity not only for the viewer, but also for Private Taylor who remains arguably, ethically intact while morally broken.    While this proved to be unique in its portrayal of Vietnam War violence, Platoon still pays homage to Vietnam films made prior.

            Earlier films such as Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter had played major roles in creating Platoon either through similar characters or pictorial depictions.  Similarities can certainly be seen in Platoon’s Lieutenant Barnes and Apocalypse Now’s Colonel Kurtz.  Both characters are the renegade authority who disregards all morality in order to achieve a goal.  Leading to the realization at the end of both films that: we as a country were fighting not only the Vietcong but also our own predispositions concerning morality.  Also similarly the characters of Private Taylor and Special Forces Willard, played non-coincidentally by Charlie Sheen and Martin Sheen, which provides the audience with another connection and whole other lineage concerning the aging of opinion of the Vietnam War.  Another connection that was made at the very end of Platoon is when Private Taylor wakes up and sees a deer, a connection to 1978’s The Deer Hunter.  The deer for both movies represents the loss of innocence.  This is made apparent after Taylor minutes later finds the injured Barnes and makes the decision to kill him in retribution to killing his friend Lieutenant Elias.

            As Platoon conjures up the atrocities of war and puts them in the faces of the audience, an honesty is shown wherein America as well as its people have lost all innocence and revealed that there is in fact duality between ultimate good and evil.  

Aliens: The Rise of Fierce Females

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James Cameron’s Aliens has hit a stride with popular culture and has influenced not only the future of the action genre, but also how an audience views a film.  The character of Ripley, how she is filmed and Sigourney Weaver as the casting decision plays a large role in the success of the film and Cameron’s new age portrayal of female “bad-assery.”  While Aliens also retains a postmodern quality to it, it also challenges the audience’s preconceived notions of women’s roles in action films.

James Cameron has been a main proponent in propelling women’s roles in action films from being the helpless damsel to a tough leading woman role, as seen in Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Aliens.  In Aliens Sigourney Weaver’s character, Ripley, is the protagonist of the film and in doing so changes the course of the film and allows for the director to exploit the audience’s ideas of film gender role.  Unlike Ripley, most female film characters are weak and in need of help where they are forced to call on a man’s expertise, no matter what the genre may be.  This damsel in distress archetype is challenged and effectively broken in this film as Ripley fends for herself against an alien that nobody else has seemed to conquer.  In conquering the alien, Ripley seems to morph sexually from the archetypal “weak-woman” to brutish man.   In her book Gender Trouble (1990), Judith Butler conceives that "Gender is the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being.”  Ripley certainly is a sure-fire example of this as she gets in the iconic yellow robot in order to fight the remaining female alien  (Image 2)

         

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Ripley is effectively represented as a woman in a man’s role, as this is represented in the robot suit as having a strong upper-body build.  This change is not only shown to the audience as an evolution of the character through story but also as Ridley literally embodies the masculine-beholding robot.  In a decade that pays homage to other films in tradition to post-modernism, many films proceeding Aliens do the same as the roles of women in film have undoubtedly been changed.

            In contemporary film, the main protagonist in action films of the last decade has seen more than a few female action heroes.  In films such as Kill Bill, The Hunger Games series, The Underworld series, and various other women have been deemed action heroes.  One postmodern relation I immediately made when I saw Kill Bill was The Bride’s jumpsuit (Image 3).  This was not only in reference to Bruce Lee’s suit in Game of Death but also it stuck out to me because of Ripley’s suit in Aliens.  In my opinion Bruce Lee’s character in Game of Death and also Sigourney Weaver’s in Aliens were combined in order to provide the female action hero, thus proving the lasting effect and female revolution in female film characters and the impact from Aliens Ripley.  

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            Aliens and mainly the character of Ripley helped change the landscape and break down barriers concerning contemporary gender roles in film.  Paving the way for a new generation of female action heroes to enter in to the throes of danger and action.