CSotD: Okay, here’s The Thing
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When you're right, you're right, and, in today's The Buckets, Greg Cravens gets it right.
I vented pretty thoroughly on my Braveheart/Babe theory a year and a half ago, but it's still relevant if you like a good rant and don't mind that the video at the end has disappeared. (Here it is, for that matter.)
The gist of it is that cinéastes praise mud as a sign of authenticity, even when it makes no historical or even logical sense, and that, consequently, "Babe" might well have beaten out "Braveheart" for the Oscar if they hadn't made the mistake of washing the pig.
(Note that, at the time the awards were being voted on, we didn't realize that there were actually two pigs in the running.)
Of course, the filth smeared all over everyone was not really the factor that earned Best Film for a ludicrously ahistorical film with one-dimensional villainy and B-grade acting. It got the largest vote from the Academy because it employed the largest share of Academy members.
Hollywood loves spectacles for exactly the opposite reason Cravens suggests that producers love zombie movies: Lots of jobs, lots of glitz, lots of money lavished on all corners of the industry.
And the public likes spectacles as well: If you offer a four-year-old a choice between an ice cream cone he might actually be able to finish and a gigantic, whipped-cream, nuts, jimmy, cherry-topped sundae that he won't, and which will make him sick as well, he's gonna go for the belly-ache.
In 1952, Cecil B. DeMille's bloated, deceptively titled "The Greatest Show on Earth" not only beat out "Ivanhoe" — which I praised on that linked rant — but also "Moulin Rouge," "The Quiet Man" and, saving the best for gasp, "High Noon."
Here's a list of 1952 films, and there are some terrific films on it that didn't even get nominated but were clearly better than the one that took home "Best Picture."
However, Buckets is advancing a different argument, that zombie films are popular with producers because they are cheap to make and, in fact, the exact opposite of a spectacular.
The principle is well-established: My last non-professional job was waiting tables at a dinner theater, where the featured show was "I Do, I Do," which is a terrific musical requiring only two actors and a three-piece band. And if only people would have come to eat cheap, bad food and watch "Zoo Story" or "Waiting for Godot," they wouldn't have had to pay the damn musicians.
As I've said before, I'm tired of zombies, though a suggestion then that I watch "Shaun of the Dead" yielded some laughs, mostly because its humor relies on the fact that zombie movies are really stupid. No argument there.
Similarly, what I like about today's strip is not the zombie reference but the slagging of the genre, because not only are zombie films cheap to make, but, if you are a cartoonist really stuck for a gag, you can always draw people stumbling around saying "Braaains" and consider your work done. Gotta give Cravens cred for finding a good gag in a tired topic.
The only thing more side-splitting than your average zombie gag is a tousled-looking woman standing in the doorway of her home with the steering wheel of a car in her hand saying, well, anything really. "Braaaains" isn't a punchline. What punchline? We don't got no punchline. And so forth.
Which brings us to the end of the kidding around for a moment, because Cravens' Shaun-of-the-Dead-level take on the subject raises an interesting issue: Do people actually like this stuff, or is it just favored by cheap and/or lazy creative types?
People want to be in on The Thing, whatever The Thing is. And the more the media proclaim something to be The Thing, the more it becomes The Thing.
And it's not that tiramisu isn't downright tasty, or that zumba isn't a fun way to get some good exercise. But the excitement over these things is way out of proportion to their actual value and includes substantial excitement over being part of The Thing.
If you own a restaurant, you're smart to put tiramisu on the menu for as long as it's The Thing and then, when people stop ordering it, take it off, just like you did with crème brûlée a decade ago. And, if you own a gym, do the same with zumba or kickboxing or Pilates or whatever. (BTW, the next big exercise thing is a combination of kickboxing and Pilates, known as "Punchious Pilates." Thanks, I'm here all week.)
So, from the point of view of selling a strip, doing zombie jokes is a good business decision. You won't plow any fresh ground, but look at TV: What sitcom do you see "plowing new ground"? Right: The one that got cancelled.
The nominees for this year's National Cartoonist Society awards, only one of which is actually called a "Reuben," were announced recently, and, in one forum, someone asked why there were awards for newspaper illustration in a competition for cartoonists.
Zombie gags are a pretty good answer: They are where cartooning and illustration intersect on the Grand Venn Diagram of Art That Pays The Rent.
If you can pay the rent without the circles touching, more power to you. But the real challenge — since anyone with any mileage knows that that other goal is just silly — is how do you create cartoons that are popular without simply pandering to fads?
Well, his biopic may not have won the Oscar, but Henri Toulouse-Lautrec managed to do with his art what Vincent Van Gogh (whose life spawned some better flicks) could not, and he did it without becoming Peter Max in the process.
Do that. But funnier.
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