Month: March 2020

It is said that the only constant in this world, the only characteristic of existence that can be counted on to continue without fail, is change. Seeing that change has and will always exist, and considering that it is one of the most important mechanisms by which we humans function, it would make sense that change should be a widely accepted, and even embraced, concept. But, as we all know, nothing could be further from the truth. Humans are, simply put, deathly afraid of change. It is our nature to want the world to stay “as we know it to be.” This idea is embodied in the way older generations view their replacements. Every generation has a negative stereotype of some kind to bestow upon the one that follows. This “kids today” mentality has existed for centuries, and it will continue to exist into the far future. So it is not unreasonable to pass many negative views of subsequent generations off as their predecessors being afraid of the change and “deviance from the norm” that they perceive as something bad. However, there are certainly times when the change being observed is indeed something truly alarming, and a development that is not simply a normal, healthy progression into the modern era. Here is where the problem lies: how can we discern whether a fear of new developments is due to the stubbornness of a generation refusing to move on or to a legitimate epidemic? In her 2017 article, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?”, author Jean M. Twenge explores an issue that applies perfectly: the impact smartphones and social media have had on the new generation that uses them.
In this article, Twenge strongly asserts that the overall impact phones and social media have had on the new generation of teens who use them, whom she refers to as the iGen, has been overwhelmingly detrimental. In light of the fact that Twenge is separated by several generations from the new iGen, readers might be inclined to pass her off as just another critic of new times, clouded by a nostalgic view of what the world used to be like. However, Twenge’s article makes it very difficult to view her in this context. Rather than attempt to persuade readers why the “older times” were better and how the new digital age has taken away the simpler joys of the past, Twenge offers data and analyses that illustrate a great increase in negative behaviors and characteristics in today’s teens and their correlation with the use of screens. Some of the changes in behavior in iGen teens that Twenge notes in her research findings are a decrease in dating and sexual activity, a decrease in time spent with friends, and a decrease in the average amount of sleep. Though no direct correlations were made between these behaviors and phone and social media use, it is quite reasonable to deduce that the use of screens is connected to these behaviors at least indirectly, as screen time has been the greatest change that distinguishes the iGen from other eras. Now, perhaps these behavioral changes are not too troubling. After all, they’re not utterly detrimental to the well-being of teens; rather, they merely make the iGen seem less interesting than previous generations. However, Twenge’s article quickly delves into further statistical changes observed in the iGen, the likes of which are quite concerning. Twenge cites changes that are directly correlated with increased phone and social media use, such as increased feelings of loneliness, increased depression rates, and increased suicide rates. These developments are hard to move past, and though it cannot be definitively proven that great amounts of screen use cause these trends, the numbers all point to this conclusion, as all of these rates soared after the release of the iPhone in 2007 and have remained high since. Additionally, there are several threads of reason that justify this conclusion: the aura of competitiveness and flattering self-portrayals by which social media is characterized decreases teens’ self worth, makes them feel left out, and opens up opportunities for cyber-bullying, all of which can lead to feelings of loneliness and depression.
Though I do agree strongly with many of Twenge’s takes on the impact of the digital age on teens of the iGen, there are a few key aspects I believe she missed in her analyses. I believe that the impact of screens on adults should have been studied and included in the article. We are often inclined to limit our view of the phone epidemic to children and teens in today’s society because they are the more vigorous users of these mediums. However, adults are certainly impacted by this changing culture as well. Phones and social media are now a means by which the world functions; work, communication, problem-solving, free time… all these aspects of society center around screens in some way, and to believe that these devices are limited to kids is to be blind to reality. Though teens are certainly more emotionally vulnerable than adults, and thus are likely more heavily impacted by the dreads that phones impose on frequent users, I believe it is certain that adults experience negative consequences as well. Also, I think Twenge overlooked many of the positive impacts that the digital age has instilled as commonplaces in our society. To name a few examples, navigation is easier than it ever has been with a GPS at our constant disposal in a convenient app, work-related tasks can be completed almost anywhere at anytime, and friends and relatives can be communicated to and “seen” through FaceTime or Skype in an instant. So, instead of a new development that is hurting a new generation, as Twenge asserts that phones and social media are, I believe that our screens are developments that are improving the world and opening up entirely new realms of possibility by the day, while also generating negative emotional and behavioral consequences among all of its users. Now that the effects of phones and social media on our society have been thoroughly discussed and considered, there is one important question left. Considering all the good and all the bad that our screens bring to the table, are they worth having, or would we be better off without them?

What makes a great movie? This question seems to be so commonly known, yet so hard to pinpoint. A crowd of movie-goers exiting a theater is always ready to condemn a film as being a horrible waste of the ten dollars and two hours they just spent; however, this same crowd is also willing to acclaim their time in a dark, cold room full of strangers as an incredible journey, the likes of which they have never before conceived. But when asked for the specific reasons for their criticism, many draw a blank and offer crude cliches in an attempt to explain what they so loved or hated. Whether the key to making a good movie is writing great dialogue, camera work, an intricate plot, or simply keeping the eyes of the viewers “occupied”, few writers and directors throughout history, let alone in the modern era, have figured out how to consistently put masterpieces on the big screen. One of these few, who has now consistently crafted movie masterpieces for over twenty-five years, is none other than Quentin Tarantino. Whether you are a fan or not, you cannot deny his amazing ability to score the praise of critics and fans alike again and again, and his ability to stick to a general theme for over two decades while also exploring mountains of diversity has been matched by few. Starting out as a high school drop-out video store clerk with a simple idea for an Indie crime thriller, Tarantino was an immediate success (at least in his first stint in the public eye). His release of the film Reservoir Dogs in 1992 made people turn their heads, and, coupled with his Cannes Films Festival winner Pulp Fiction two years later, Tarantino had been solidified as one of the great modern directors. Characterized by whimsical and relatable dialogue, eccentric and loveable characters, out-of-order sequences, and, of course, over-the-top violence, “Tarantino” became a genre of film in itself, and the director would go on to explore topics ranging from crime-ridden 90’s Los Angeles to a frenzied Europe in the midst of the second World War.

This past summer, Quentin Tarantino came out with his ninth film, entitled Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. This newest edition to the director’s superb resume takes place in 1969 Los Angeles during the “Golden Age” of Hollywood cinema, and it follows the stories of fictional western television actor, Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), his stunt double, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), and real-life actress, Sheron Tate (Margot Robbie). This story was the most meaningful to Tarantino out of all his films, as he grew up in Los Angeles during this era, making the film a nostalgic window into his past. With this said, one would expect Once to be one of the director’s most thoughtful and beautifully written stories yet. However, many did not see the film as all it had been cracked up to be, and instead saw Tarantino’s newest work as heavily overshadowed by his past accomplishments. Though it was received well by critics, many audience members had a couple of problems with the film. Number one, it was too long. The movie runs for two hours and forty-one minutes, which was simply too long to be invested in one story, some viewers felt. Number two, there is no distinct plot. Once tended to jump around from situation to situation, neither running as a sequence of events leading up to a climax nor focusing on the conflicts experienced by one main character, and many audience members did not buy into this. Despite what many viewers of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood may think, I assert that this film was nothing short of another Tarantino masterpiece.

To address the problem of the length and the lack of a typical plot, I believe that people’s disapproval is due to their finding these aspects “missing” (that is, a uniform flow of events that leads the story toward a climax and resolution in a timely manner). However, concerning these aspects of the film, I believe that viewers are not simply looking for something that isn’t there; I believe they are looking for something that shouldn’t be there. It was not simply a mistake that Tarantino crafted a roundabout plot that did not land on any specific character or scenario, nor was it a result of the director simply trying to include too many aspects, leading to an accidental lack of focus. I believe that Tarantino’s goal was not really to “tell a story”, per say. Rather, I believe his intention was to “give us a taste” of the golden age of Hollywood cinema, an era like none other that was on the verge of extreme change. How did Tarantino intend to do this? He simply “showed us around.” Throughout the course of the film, we see clips of old Western and detective television shows, meetings of actors and directors in old-fashioned trailers and cigar-smoke filled bars, hippies wandering the busy streets hitching for rides, and much, much more. When considering this new light of “getting a glimpse” of Hollywood, Tarantino certainly does a wonderful job. The audience is made to feel completely immursed in this world, and though we have never witnessed anything like this before, we are made to fully believe that this is what Hollywood in 1969 was. The beauty of this movie does not lie in a wonderful, crazy story that features scene after scene of chess match ending in a shootout or sequences of engrossing and hilariously dark dialogue that ends with one person outsmarting the others. This is what most Tarantino films are like, and this is why I think many viewers were disappointed with the director’s newest edition. Though we as an audience don’t get what we might have intended from Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, we get something else that is truly fantastic and, in many ways, better than the typical brilliantly-crafted plot. We are allowed to see through a window into an entirely new yet old world, and this not only provides the audience with feelings of nostalgia and connectedness, but it evokes a pure feeling of captivation, and that, in the end, is what makes a great movie.

Fear is a response that demands an awareness of surroundings, an intricacy of perception, and a spike in our sense of “now.”. Under circumstances in which our brain is consciously aware that we are safe despite a perceived threat, fear can be quite exhilarating and entertaining, and it can allow us to retain vivid memories due to our heightened senses. Perhaps the best example of people submitting to fear in an engaging recreational manner lies in the timeless scary movie. Old and new, realistic and outrageous, horror films have thrived for decades and have been among the heaviest demands in the entertainment world. Though they often lack substance, following a cliche thread in lieu of a deep plot or underlying meaning, scary movies can also be some of the richest forms of art the entertainment industry has to offer. One of the best examples of a horror masterpiece is the 2016 film, The Witch. This movie takes its viewers on a journey like no other, and one that is excruciating to watch and impossible to look away from at the same time. Writer-director Robert Eggers pairs the inevitability of a horrific outcome with an aura of soul-shaking uncertainty to solidify The Witch as one of the most well-crafted and unsettling horror flicks of all time.
The Witch follows a 15th century immigrant family that is banished from its Puritan village and is forced to start a new life in the New England wilderness. To add to this misfortune, the family’s youngest member, infant son Samuel, “disappears” while playing peek-a-boo with the eldest sister, Thomasin. Though our main characters are left in the dark, the audience is made fully aware that this tragedy is the doing of a twisted woodland being; a grotesque figure is seen trudging through the forest cradling the baby, and the scene cuts to the creature rubbing what can only be assumed to be the infant’s flesh all over its body in some kind of hideous ritual. This shrewd construction of a harsh and unforgiving setting immediately followed by a hellishly disturbing sequence sets the stage for a theme that can be observed throughout the movie: the assurance of an ungodly, horrific outcome. A family is stuck in the middle of an unknown, untamed wilderness, and they are in the midst of a devilish creature (or creatures) that have a supernatural ability to intrude without being noticed in addition to a proclivity for grisly and inhuman practices. Our protagonists have nowhere to flee, no way to defend themselves, and, worst of all, they are completely unaware of the threat that lurks just beyond their crudely built shelter. The Witch articulates this progression toward an unfavorable ending in the recurrence of insurmountable obstacles in the family’s quest to live off the land. Their crops fail to yield a sufficient food supply, the father is injured while hunting, and the cows fail to produce milk. In addition to this sequence of bad luck, Eggers employs a progression of subtle supernatural encounters and the toll it takes on the family to ensure that the ending will not just be destructive, but it will be nightmarish as well. When the eldest son, Kaleb, fails to find his way back after a trek through the woods, he stumbles upon a smoking hut in the permeating darkness, where a deceptively beautiful “woman” lures him inside. After the boy returns naked and cursed, the family spirals into an abyss of accustation and despair as the evil around them continues to strike.
This theme of “no way out” is what sets The Witch apart from nearly every other horror film. Most scary movies begin on a somewhat positive, or at least hopeful note, and the possibility of a way out remains a tension-building theme throughout. Whether it’s killing a killer, getting the devil out of a little girl, or warding off an angry spirit, there always seems to be some type of a “solution” in horror flicks. The Witch offers none of this, instead crafting its fear and suspense by ensuring the audience of a grisly end and instilling in them a sense that they should not be seeing what they’re seeing. Though the audience knows things will end horrifically, it remains a mystery how things will end horrifically. The supernatural beings remain very much a mystery throughout the film, and though the audience knows they’re there, only glimpses are ever shown. The intent and nature of these “witches” remains enigmatic, and the source of the evil and misfortune that plagues the family is not revealed until the end. Utilizing this “ambiguity amidst certainty”, Eggers instills a sense of constant disturbance and hopelessness among his audience while also keeping them on the edge of their seat. The viewers are made to ask, “Will everyone in the family die, or will a worse, more eternal fate befall them?”
Robert Eggers’ The Witch is a horror film like no other. It does not succumb to the conventions of typical scary movies in that it does not build fear and tension in the possibility of an escape. Rather, this film does just the opposite, ensuring the audience of a gruesome ending from the get-go in both the hopelessness of its setting and in the progression of bad luck and supernatural forces that remain uncontested. This sense of certainty is paired ironically with an aura of mystery, as the audience is left in the dark concerning the nature of the evil in the woods and the kind of horrible fate that awaits their protagonists. Eggers’ skillful employment of these various elements makes for a film that shakes us to our very core and doesn’t let us rest for even a minute. In this portrayal of a tale that is troubling as it is intriguing, The Witch proves that storytelling is not so cut and dry, and rather, it often gains substance through a loss of conventionality.

 

 

 

“People… need a time to laugh. It’s up to us to bonk ourselves on the head and slip on a banana peel so the average guy can say, ‘I may be bad, honey, but I’m not as much of an idiot as that guy on the screen.’” This quote by famous comedian, Chris Farley, though obviously meant as a simple joke, does have a deeper meaning that rings very true. Comedy is very linked to, and often dependent on, the expense of the characters or comics we watch. Chalk it up to the malignancy of human nature or the childish tendencies inside us all, but watching people struggle can be just plain funny. This essence of a comedy reliant on blunders is most clearly seen in movies and skits involving physical slapstick humor, but it also applies to broader comedy in a much more subtle way. I believe there are two keys to constructing good comedy that stem from people’s innate relishing at expense, and nearly every form of comedy has at least one, and usually both, of these ploys in place. The first is the outward portrayal of anger, and the second is the more subtle but just as omnipresent presentation of stupidity. Comedy is much more funny when the characters don’t know they’re in a comedy, and anger and stupidity are essential to this ignorance. Watching characters bumble through emotionally charged arguments and make stupid mistakes makes allows viewers to really relate to them while also taking joy in the nonsense that is unravelling before their eyes. One such show that has mastered these tactics to formulate a timeless storyline that has held for over a decade is It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. This sitcom follows five friends who own a bar is south Philly and their ridiculous day to day lives that involve destructive behavior, dead-end plans, and enough anger and stupidity for the entire city. Sunny has asserted itself as a timeless, masterful comedy that builds its ingenious humor around a thoughtful combination of absurdness and reality that serves to engage its audience and punish its characters in hilarious ways.
Sunny can be broadly summed up in its blending of wildly unrealistic scenarios with relatable perspectives and dialogue. Most every episode features a crazy and unexpected turn of events while sticking to a general script; the pattern the show follows is some type of scheme formulated by the gang (which refers to the five friends) with some alterior motive or motives in mind, the likes of which are usually immoral and illogical. The gang tends to act on impulse, sticking fervently to an idea for a day or so and then suddenly moving on to the next. The specifics of these strategies range from selling gasoline door to door to consulting a therapist to determine who should have to clean the dishes. In this way, the show takes everyday quarrels and conflicts, like problems with money or division of labor, and puts a spin on them in which drastic measures are taken to fulfill rather trivial pursuits. This strategy features relatable dialogue in which the characters are portrayed as very self-centered and irrational, much like people in the world really are. Many of the conversations in the show revolve around everyday topics that do not further the story and serve rather to construct the unique personalities of each character and frame a comedic group dynamic. In this way, the show’s audience is engaged by even the most simple scenes and events as they are made to see some of themselves in the struggles of the characters. Sunny then uses this engagement to take its viewers down a convoluted, senseless path as the characters bicker and hurt themselves and each other, and this is where the absurdity comes in. Nothing ever goes as planned in this show, and, more often than not, a horrendous and strange outcome is reached in place of a remotely predictable one. Things always get worse for the characters, and they usually succeed in aggravating whatever initial conflict they were dealing with even further. Episodes often end with the characters giving up or foolishly believing that things have been resolved, and the five friends will inevitably return to their bar to resume their stationary and shallow lives. These aspects of relatability and outrageousness combine to engage the audience with a satirical take on the flaws of all people while giving viewers the expense and randomness that is central to all comedy.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is a comedic work of art that is so simple and yet so convoluted. The show features simple and predictable characters that like to drink, yell, and have their way. The program also features shallow dialogue in which resolutions are rarely reached, making for an aura of relatability and makes the audience laugh even as nothing really happens. On the other hand, Sunny features events and outcomes that surpass even the wildest dreams of most sitcom writers, touching on encounters with serial killers, drug-induced hallucinations, and much more. Though this unpredictability, a plethora of anger, bad decisions, and uncertainty is afforded that few programs can match. It is this deft combination of stupidity that makes Sunny so smart.