A couple weeks ago, Red Letter Media dropped a bomb on Youtube: Plinkett's review of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. For those of you not in the know, Plinkett is a fictitious facetious centenarian serial killer sociopath who also reviews movies. He skewers films with structural analysis buffered by short skits of him doing or saying over-the-top awful things. Sometimes it's entertaining, sometimes it's simply gross.
The reason any of this is important is that four years ago, Plinkett released a series of videos ripping the prequel trilogy to shreds. These videos were funny and insightful enough to be catapulted into mainstream consciousness. The highest trafficked video now sits at almost seven and a half million views. Everybody in the nerd community was talking about these things. The videos did their part to shape the landscape of online film criticism for better or for worse.
Part of their appeal was the methodical way Plinkett dissected the prequels. He took his time and delivered hours of criticism about what exactly went wrong. For that reason I think Star Wars fans found the analysis cathartic in a way. Released seven years after Revenge of the Sith, folks were finally ready to view the prequel abominations with a clear head and a sense of humor.
So Plinkett has selected this moment to share his views on The Force Awakens--sufficient time for the post-release hype to settle down, but not yet distracted by Rogue One. After all, it's not like he could have waited until the trilogy was finished for his analysis. They're going to be making these movies until you die.
In much the same way that the original Star Wars trilogy was a breath of fresh air that invigorated and reshaped the industry and The Force Awakens was a pandering and ultimately unsatisfying remix of that formula, Plinkett's new video feels like a hollow imitation of his culturally resonant videos from four years ago. You can take a peek at it here, though I will caution that it is long and not terribly fruitful.
The video is crippled by baffling structural choices. Although it purports to be a Force Awakens review, precious little of its runtime is dedicated to The Force Awakens, and even that is hardly substantive. Most of the video insists on revisiting the prequels, ostensibly to explore how the cultural discussion on them has shifted in recent years. It ends up feeling redundant. Plinkett continually brings up the importance of his original videos apropos of nothing, a narcissistic move that is arguably in character, but isn't really germane to the discussion at hand.
But the worst of it comes an hour and twenty-six minutes in, when Plinkett tackles diversity.
1. Diversity and the White Male Default
"In a weird way, I think Star Wars has always been immune to the whole race and gender thing."
Plinkett's argument is simple: Diversity is fine and good and all, but in this case clearly the product of soulless corporate think tanks rather than creatives. When you get right down to it, he argues, this is just Disney covering their asses against outrage, because kids would watch a Star Wars movie no matter what races or genders were in it--they don't give a shit.
This couldn't be more wrong. As J.M. Mutore ably argues in this article about the Plinkett video, this assertion is symptomatic of the White Male Default perspective. Of course white men don't think diversity is a big deal--they've been represented in almost every piece of media they've consumed throughout their entire lives! It's shocking for Red Letter Media to totally whiff on this, as they've been thoughtful critics in the past. But here they out themselves as just another tick in the long legacy of white men who get nasty when their cultural supremacy is challenged.
This all sounds like an eerily similar echo to Tim Burton's comments from a few weeks ago. When questioned about the overwhelming whiteness of his movies, he had this to say:
Nowadays, people are talking about it more, [but] things either call for things, or they don't. I remember back when I was a child watching The Brady Bunch and they started to get politically correct, like, OK, let's have an Asian child and a black--I used to get more offended by that than just--I grew up watching blaxploitation movies, right? And I said, that's great. I didn't go like, OK, there should be more white people in these movies.Tim Burton is allowed to populate his movies with only white people, but these comments betray the exact same form of White Male Default tone deafness as Plinkett's. Of course little Burton didn't feel like there should be more white folks in blaxploitation films--because he was represented everywhere else. White men feel threatened by diversity, like it's twisting their arm. The trouble, frankly, is that they are overrepresented, such that they become so ensconced in their own point of view that they cannot comprehend anyone else's. How hard is it to see how important diversity is to folks who don't normally see people like them up on the big screen? You just need to pay a modicum of attention.
Here's my favorite image to come out of the Ghostbusters debacle (a protracted campaign of terror waged by men against the women and male feminists who would dare allow diversity into one of their cherished cultural hegemonies):
Look at that picture and try to tell me kids don't give a shit.
2. The Cult of Star Wars
"Star Wars, nothing but Star Wars..."
The most interesting and perhaps only redeemable aspect of Plinkett's recent video is its brief exploration of the religious fervor that has built up around the Star Wars brand. That fervor formerly reached fever pitch in the summer of 1999, just before Lucas dropped the turd sandwich that was The Phantom Menace on the unsuspecting populace. Star Wars fans lost faith in their lord and savior George Lucas. They cast him from heaven; he had become Lucifer the Betrayer. But if Lucas was no longer the God of Star Wars, who was?
It turns out all it takes to become a God is a large financial transaction. Lucas sold the rights for Star Wars to Disney for $4 billion (which he has used for charitable education philanthropy--in this case Lucifer is a really good guy).
With that, Disney manufactured a whole new era of religious fervor. And I don't persist in using the term "religious" lightly. Go ahead and take a look at this trailer reaction compilation.
There are millions of these videos all over Youtube of people weeping at the Force Awakens trailers. To so many people this reboot was like the second coming of Christ. Finally someone comes along who really gets what they love about Star Wars.
But Star Wars has become so entrenched in our culture that I'm not sure anyone really knows what they love about Star Wars anymore. Instead, it demands love because it is Star Wars. Let me take a brief detour to share a parable about the board game Monopoly.
Monopoly is a cultural fixture. We've all been exposed to it in some way or another. It's a classic fun family game. Except when you consider your experiences actually playing Monopoly--haven't they been incredibly frustrating? I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say that every Monopoly game they play ends in bitterness. It ruins friendships.
Fitting that Monopoly was actually created in 1903 by an anti-monopolist woman named Lizzie J. Magie Phillips as a way to demonstrate the unfairness of the unrestrained capitalist system. The game shows how monopolies stifle wealth creation, and it's supposed to be frustrating and unrewarding. Socialist-minded parents used to give it to their kids to teach them about the pitfalls of capitalism. But the game became popular, and capitalism latched onto it and reappropriated it to its own ends. Now you would be hard-pressed to think of a more capitalist enterprise than the buying and selling of Monopoly boards. There are hundreds of different variations that compel you to purchase them as collectible items. The proportion of Monopoly games to the amount that people actually play them is absurd. Take a moment to reflect. How often do you play Monopoly? And how many Monopoly sets do you own? For me, there are two Monopoly sets in my house, ten feet away from me right now. We never use them and we likely never will.
Now think about how many Star Wars objects are in your house. I'm talking DVDs, VHSs, toys, games, figurines, clothing, glassware, masks, bobbleheads, groceries, stickers, LEGO sets, video games, etc. etc. How many total? Five? Ten? Fifty? Can you even count?
Religious experience is a fundamental outlet of human experience. It's impossible to live without some form of religion, explicit or subliminal, and now that an increasing proportion of the younger generation identifies as atheist or agnostic, Star Wars has become a powerful neo-religion. Think about the way Star Wars fans evangelize, and how you're really not allowed to dislike Star Wars. Think about how those who don't like Star Wars are forced to explain why, whereas those who do like Star Wars never have to offer such an explanation. Star Wars devotion is a given, and it is exactly this attitude that profits Disney the most.
A great many religions feature the idea of a Golden Age, back when things were as they should be. Since the Golden Age the world has been corrupted, and our ultimate goal is to reattain those good times. Nostalgia is our contemporary term that best represents that hunger for a previous glorious age. The mantra of nostalgia is things were better when... But the truth is that everyone nostalgizes different eras for different reasons. Everyone, from twenty-year-olds to sixty-year-olds, believes the SNL from their youth was the funniest era of SNL.
I've never watched the show before, but I've been keeping up with the current season of South Park. This season has been a wealth of incisive and critical commentary on our immediate cultural moment. There's plenty to talk about, between its sympathetic dissection of the phenomenon of online trolling, its coverage of the presidential election, and the analysis of incipient gender norms as wielded by children. But the real gem for me, the one I cannot get out of my head, is the show's sly and steady introduction of the new tasty treat that everybody loves: memberberries.
These grotesque little fruits croon nostalgic memories to their consumers. "Member Jurassic Park?" they say, "Yeah, member Slimer?" Although their ultimate role has yet to be revealed, these memberberries seem to be used as a tool to placate the populace so that they're complacent about the status quo, particularly the upcoming election.
This terrifies me deep down, because it feels so accurate. Corporations and those in power are pumping nostalgia into our bloodstreams so that we'll accept the unacceptable. And perhaps the most chillingly insightful aspect of the memberberries is that a solid majority of their lines are Star Wars references. It seems like every other time these creatures speak, they're imploring us to 'member Chewbacca, Han Solo, the Millennium Falcon, droids, etc. Then this happens:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndI9vkgw_1Y
The harmless nostalgia slips so easily into conservative xenophobia. If you're not already drawing connections between memberberries and Trump's campaign of hate, the show goes ahead and makes it explicit by putting J. J. Abrams in a "Make Star Wars Great Again" hat.
There's a reason South Park has fixed its satirical cannons so specifically on Star Wars. Ever since the moment Disney purchased the rights to Star Wars four years ago, they have turned the franchise into a pandering, placating machine. The past five years has seen Star Wars transition full circle from disgraced fandom to the largest, most dominant intellectual property on the planet. It's because Disney has been feeding us a steady stream of memberberries for the past several years, and that way of thinking seeped into the DNA of The Force Awakens.
I mean, honestly... why does Rey's ship have to be the Millennium Falcon? Design something new.
3. Rebootquels
"Chewie, we're home."
Star Wars isn't the only culprit here, just the most successful one. Let me give you a rundown of past and future pre/re/side/boot/quels to demonstrate just how much this mindset has gripped our culture.
Terminator: Genysys, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny, Alien: Covenant, Blade Runner 2049, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Total Recall, RoboCop, Ghostbusters, Ocean's Ocho, Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Jurassic World, Star Trek, Ben-Hur, Vacation, Jason Bourne, Finding Dory, Monsters University, The Jungle Book, Fantastic Four, Blair Witch, Evil Dead, Left Behind, The Lone Ranger, Power Rangers, and so on and so forth unto the ends of the earth.
As far as cinematic universes, here's the tally: the Marvel Cinematic Universe (including yet another Spider-Man reboot), the DC Cinematic Universe (including yet another solo Batman movie), X-Men Cinematic Universe, Valiant Comics Cinematic Universe, the Transformers Cinematic Universe, the Universal Monstersverse, a shared King Kong/Godzilla Cinematic Universe, a Fast and Furious Shared Universe, the Hasbro Cinematic Universe, and of course the burgeoning Star Wars Cinematic Universe.
You can also look forward to a remake of Memento, a Willy Wonka prequel, another Clue movie, another Jumanji movie, a movie based on Trolls dolls, and oh look! a goddamn Monopoly movie. Thus we have come full circle.
You'll notice that I have yet to mention the two critically successful rebootquels that we've encountered in recent years: Creed and Mad Max: Fury Road. The thing that these two films share on a fundamental level is the aggressive insertion, both textually and subtextually, of diversity into their franchise's formulas. Not only did this make the films feel fresh and inclusive, but it gave them something relevant to tangle with thematically. Something more resonant then hey member the Wasteland? member Apollo Creeeeeed?
It's exhausting. Everything has become referential, and fresh intellectual properties are being pushed to the periphery (though they are still very much present). We've been in this slurry for about a decade, since Batman Begins pioneered the dark gritty reboot in 2005, and Iron Man established the first cinematic universe a few years later in 2008. If the MCU invented this shared universe status quo, then certainly Star Wars has been the property to cement it in our culture. In a way, this is fitting. In 1975 Jaws invented the summer blockbuster model that has led us to this point, but again it was Star Wars in 1977 that cemented that model.
The difference is that in 1977 Star Wars was a scrappy underdog with heart. Now it's a mandatory culture machine.
Of course, corporations cannot make properties mandatory without our consent. But Disney knows so well what people like that fans come to identify personally with these properties. That is how Star Wars becomes someone's identity, and that is how they cannot accept any critical words leveled at a film like Star Wars: The Force Awakens--because they feel like they themselves are being criticized.
Disney, a company that is swiftly attaining a monopoly on pop culture, is a company that has again and again demonstrated that they do indeed know exactly what people like. And that's not in and of itself a bad thing! The current top four grossing films of 2016 (Captain America: Civil War, Zootopia, Finding Dory, The Jungle Book) are all Disney films for a reason. They know how to scratch that nostalgic itch.
This all feeds into why, despite Marvel's upcoming slate of films looking incredibly exciting, I have become increasingly conflicted about my love of superhero movies. Yes, absolutely, these films are entertaining, and Disney/Marvel have made a science of knowing what I am going to like. But there's something... hollow about the entire proceedings. Something plastic. Some small voice in the back of my head whispering, hey... member Spider-Man? Oo yeah, you love Spider-Man...
You know what? I do love Spider-Man. And the reason I love Spider-Man in the first place is because in the early 2000s, Sam Raimi made a pair of Spider-Man films. These movies weren't beholden to an overarching universe, a convoluted corporate plan, or the seething requirements of the fanbase. In fact, they were far too weird and idiosyncratic to be able to make it through the current Marvel think tank machinery. They are also, in my opinion, still the finest superhero films ever made. Those movies were allowed to be complete in a way that is unheard of in our current filmic-economic model.
Most importantly, rather than taking the audience's affection for the title character as a given, they did their best to create what was most special about him for a whole new generation of fans. Raimi cared, and that passion taught others to care.
4. Fandom and Privilege
"Is there more? I want more."
There's nothing wrong with fandom, just with privilege.
Now that studios have begun pandering directly to the fanbase, a sense of privilege has grown and put down roots. We're seeing the breakdown of the barrier between artist and audience, the synthesis of creativity with consumerism. With platforms like Twitter it has become even easier for the voices of the fandom to be heard.
And you know what? They have terrible ideas. Terrible, terrible ideas like "women don't belong in my Ghostbusters movies." The breakdown of that creator/audience barrier also allowed them to exert their willpower with acts like the terrorist melange of insults and death threats that the internet unleashed on Leslie Jones earlier this year, for the simple crime of being a black woman in a white man's sacred comedy franchise.
In my last five years of reading online film criticism and news, I've noticed an enormous uptick in one particular sentiment expressed in comments sections. The formula is something like this:
"Now I want a _______ movie starring _______."
"Now I need _______ to make a team-up movie with _________."
"I demand ________ make a _______ movie with a _______ twist."
That sentiment is distilled privilege, the idea that professional creatives ought to be beholden to the will of the consumer, because the consumer knows best. But the consumer doesn't know best. When production companies cave to these libidinal fanboys, they produce dreck like the above list of reboots and remakes. The fans then cast the films away, proclaiming that that wasn't what they meant, or blaming some tangible detail like "forced diversity."
The creative process has been reverse engineered by fan demands, and we're all suffering for it. However, like every cultural trend, there is a silver lining. Just as fans are demanding to be spoonfed nostalgia, a divergent subsector of fans have been demanding diversity. Hollywood may be liberal, but the moneymaking apparatus is painfully conservative, which is why the film industry is so retrograde when it comes to representation. It's crucial that the transparency of the internet is finally forcing them to recognize and act upon the diversification of its properties, and thus the diversification of its audience.
Plinkett sees the diversity of The Force Awakens as a symptom of Disney's pandering, a distraction from the coherent storytelling that he craves. Really he has it backwards. The diversity of The Force Awakens is Disney's great triumph, and the messy nostalgia-mongering is what distracts from that huge step forward. Hollywood's begrudging diversification is perhaps the best weapon we have against the industry's current retrogressive storytelling impulses. Indeed, once that diversity spreads from onscreen representation to behind the camera representation, a trend that is slowly but surely taking hold, we may have a revitalized medium on our hands.
Or we could continue to hire white men to tell white man stories that reference that time a white man made a good piece of art forty years ago.
5. The Mediocre White Man
"Lord, give me the confidence of a mediocre white man."
Where does the blame lie?
It's telling that in order to make the argument for creative stagnation in Hollywood, the only thing Plinkett could think to critique was diversity. That's called scapegoating, and it seems to be our prime political and critical tactic as of late. Let's look at the counterfactuals. If Paul Feig had directed another all-male Ghostbusters, do you really think it would have been better? What about if Finn had been white? Or if Rey was a dude? Good Lord no.
You can't even fully blame the crop of white men that Disney has hired to do their bidding. The new Star Wars trilogy will be helmed by J.J. Abrams, Rian Johnson, and Colin Trevorrow respectively. That's three white dudes (buffered by further white dudes directing the spinoff movies). But let's look at each of them in turn.
We all know how Abrams turned out. As usual he tried desperately to please the people, and made a shiny product without much substance.
I have great hope for Johnson, who as far as I'm concerned has already made two masterpieces with Brick and Looper. He's a thoughtful director with a strong resume.
The sticking point for me is Colin Trevorrow, a man who has made two films, one of which was the critically reviled and financially explosive Jurassic World. That was a film positively brimming with white people and grossly traditional gender norms. This is not the man you want to hire to make an exciting film, or a socially conscious film. This is exactly the kind of people-pleasing mediocre white man you hire when you want someone to smile and take orders.
Yet you can't even fully blame Trevorrow, who is only doing his best to do his job, albeit haphazardly. He's capitalizing on a system that promotes mediocre unexperienced white men before talented veteran minorities. So do you blame the enormous conglomerations like Disney that are spewing out our entertainment the most financially viable way they know how?
It sure is easy to blame the companies, but as stated above, they're only trying to please us. The people ultimately and indirectly inform what these corporations will create, for better or worse. You could see that as hopeful or you could see that as dire, but it all comes down to the same bottom line that we see all across entertainment, politics, current events, and so on.
The real enemy is privilege, discrimination, and the institutionalized imbalance of power. We can hold the mighty god Disney accountable for its wrongdoings and praise it for its rightdoings, but it is only the institution that facilitates our worship. It is ultimately beholden to our beliefs. All we can do is continue to fight the good fight, and not let the mediocre white men trod over the whole rest of the world. We all need to stop looking back and start looking forward.
So no, Plinkett, I don't buy that diversity is the issue with Star Wars, just as I don't buy that Mexicans are violent rapists, or that locker room talk is okay, or that memberberries are delicious and nutritious. I understand that you're watching the domain of your supremacy slowly erode before your eyes, just as I am, and that can be scary--but before you start telling everyone what minorities think or do, why don't you go ahead and have a conversation with some people who don't look or act like you first.
Let me play you out with a classic.
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