Jurassic World, we knew we were all going to watch this movie. At least as a 90s kid, I did. But this is not a review of that movie but something, read it you'll know what I mean.
Many people don't believe in the categorisation of Art Cinema and Popular Cinema. Sure the line blurs some times but consider this analogy - There is a difference between Art and advertisement, sure sometimes an ad might reach a sublime level and become an art in itself - but most of the times it was made with an intent to sell.
Consider the Print Ads below, they manage to convey so much in such a little space, that they become art.
Fiat Brazilian ad for Drunk Driving[/caption]
And so when I watch a popular film I get in to the theatre with the intention of being entertained and not to judge it for cinematic brilliance. But it just took this movie for us realise what a great job all those movies were doing till now.
Actually it is not easy to pull off a Popular movie, by definition it is for the masses and by that standard you should manage to please people across strata, if not, you should at least manage not to offend them.
Yes this movie may be breaking all the records in the scope of selling tickets but it got so many things wrong that it may be the first case where so many negatives became a positive.
Director Colin Trevorrow's filmography and their themes
Considering that director Colin Trevorrow co-wrote the movie, he clearly had a say in the shaping of the characters. So is there a common thread in the movies he writes, and how women are portrayed in them? The first movie he made Home Base, well I couldn't get hold of the movie, but the theme seems to be that of a jilted, embittered lover who gets his revenge on his girlfriend by having an affair with his girlfriend's mother.
Women Should Date and Play Family
Claire Dearing is the protagonist of the movie and is the park's operation manager. They completely and un-repentantly went with the stereotype on this one, the dumb bimbo one. But not before they burdened her with the guilt of not being close to her family.
So Claire's sister sends away her sons, Zach and Gray, to visit this aunt. One has to assume that she did not bother to find out if Claire would be free to entertain them on this visit. So what if you need to guilt-trip your sister to sort out your troubled marriage?It is very clear that Claire is more busy than ever because of the additional attraction to the park, the genetically modified dinosaur. When there is a serious emergency at hand Claire is preoccupied about well being of her nephews, who seem strangely self absorbed to care.
If you decide to defend this by saying that Jurassic Park's Dr. Alan Grant was a character who didn't like kids. And that Dr. Grant was also made to endear kids in the end, but the treatment of gentle, playful nudging is different than the constant taunting that Claire receives.
And this female-shaming cannot be attributed to sibling rivalry alone, others who converse with Claire also berate her for the same reasons, including none other than Claire's love interest, Owen Grady. If you can call him that, because Claire seems to be avoiding dating him. Can you blame her, this velociraptor-tamer, who calls himself the 'Alpha' of the group, would creep any woman. If you had any doubt they were not playing by the stereotypes it becomes clear at this point.
Consider any popular film, the men always outnumber the women. (The movies that rushed at the cue of "popular cinema" goes something like this Inception, The Big Lebowski, Inglorious Basterds, or Star Wars). And these are the good ones, there are the those others like Reservoir Dogs, Goodfellas, The Godfather, where hardly any women feature, it is clearly a man's world, but even then somehow they managed to not offend.
One of the screenplay writers is a female, Amanda Silver, so was she in agreement of casting the protagonist in such a regressive manner?
All Foreigners are Selfish Idiots
This movie does not even pretend like it wants to be politically correct. It casts a whole lot of people from various races and countries. They are all prominently featured throughout the movie but they all turn out to be dumb or selfish or both. Or they simply just have no say in any matter.
And because we hate women and foreigners, we do this to people who are both.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iDWOvSVWfA]
And some other thoughts that passed probably in many minds...
I loved Jurassic Park, I still do. And when the first installment of the movie came in the early 1990s, I was a child, but wouldn't it have been great if it were a 3D? At least the second movie, The Lost World could have been some what interesting. But now that the movie has been made after so long why is it not 7D or something, like Back to the Future predicted it would be?
No, it is not farfetched, it is totally a thing. Check this out.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqwUImgQxOw]
But this movie is the highest grosser of the year. What does that say about us? That we love dinosaurs so much that we weren't paying any attention to the story. So make it 7D soon, ok?
No comments:
Post a Comment