"Half the planet's population had seen those films. They were a truly
planetary cinema, the harbinger of Free World domination. Toward the end of
the century the property had even adopted the native cinematic structure of
Third World chop-socky epics. It had abandoned merely Modernist plot
structure for a steady, rhythmic round of stunt violence, expensive sets,
and hot babes. Sadism, Snobbery, and Sex, a Free World formula that was the
twentieth century's catnip for the masses."
Zeitgeist by Bruce Sterling
Hmmmmm...
Profound!
I must reassess this motif I am experiencing in a post-Derrida
deconstructionalist reconstructive simulacrum. Is the post-industrial female
best represented by the repressed artist Artemisia or is it better to just
make a movie with a smattering of nekkidness and put some yellow sub-titles
below it?
Does any of that gobbly-guke make sense to you? If so then you are
(A) studying semiotic based literary studies.
(B) wasting your life.
(C) disturbed.
(D) [All the above statements are true.]
(E) [None of the statements from (A) to (E) inclusive are true.]
I am just down-right ornery. I rented a video [so I suppose this makes this
fabulous column a video review] called
ARTEMISIA
{Please note this is merely a PulpTM {we're going way corporate baby!} space
filling technique much in keeping with the PulpyTM tradition. [This is also
a self-referential space filling technique but I won't bore you with the
Foucaultian interpretation.]}
Being the thoughtful and kind sorta fella [that's right, I'm male and proud
of it] that I am, instead of picking the quality movies that I usually like
to watch [Dumb and Dumber and The Big Lebowski representing the best that
the celluloid genre has ever produced in pure machismo cinematic testicular
cinema]; I decided to rent a meaningful piece of art from the fine
transnational video store that promises always to have the video you want
NOW!
Surprisingly - NOT, said video store did not have much of an arty-foreign
section to it. As the above quotation makes my argument unnecessary, suffice
it to say that foreign videos are just an arty-farty collection of semiotic
Euro-trash that blindly points back to itself and says: "I speak a foreign
language instead of English. I am suave and have savvy. Look at me and see
the inner depth...but just in case this video is dull here is some
nekkidity. Of course the nekkidness does not interest us European males, as
we calmly walk the topless beaches of Montpellier. It is here purely for
politico-artististe reason d'Ítre."
Yeah right!
I've figured it out. The Euro Cine-Kings of Production have figured out the
best formula...don't make a movie only for 50% of the population. Make sure
there is something for everyone...nekkidness is political.
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