The Past Is Raw Material

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

Last column I wrote about my love for Star Trek: Lower Decks, considering it a capstone to Star Trek. I felt there was no where for Star Trek to go after this, as it was both parody, home, and extrapolation – somewhat like a more serious Venture Brothers. The announcement of yet another Trek series set at an the (in)famous Starfleet Academy didn’t interest me unless, as I joked, it was more in the vein of college comedies like Animal House.

That statement led to some friends and I to an actual serious discussion about how yet another Star Trek show (which, again, I should note I’m usually tired of) might work out. We started asking what it would be like to see more focus different species and cultures in the Academy, really digging into the meandering if interesting Trek lore. In short, we did what Star Trek: Lower Decks had done, just in a different part of the setting.

Also, it will surprise absolutely no one who knows me that it made me further analyze the state of media.

I looked at our brainstorming and at Lower Decks, both taking established ideas and digging deep into them. Both involved mining current material I would consider stale and often overdone, and finding new takes. Both in a way treated something beloved – and rightfully so even if I have felt it’s overdone – and using it as raw material.

As much as I love original media and want to see new things, perhaps there is some virtue in treating creative works that might be stale, stagnant, or that have lost attention and reusing them. Treat them not as something to be devoted to, nor sit on a shelf, nor make endless sequels about – with all the rampant continuity modification. Treat it as something to be recycled.

I’ve written before about the shockingly good He-Man CGI reboot at Netflix which did exactly this to fantastic effect. We’ve seen the same thing with She-Ra– which perhaps suggests that many a toyetic cartoon is worthy of recycling. Something can be beloved and reused.

(Now I don’t expect an actual Star Trek total reboot, Paramount more seems to be trying to rewrite it incrementally. But I digress).

I think this “recycling” works because by taking something you love, analyzing it, and breaking it down you find what’s really good about it. Once you find that core, you can then build it back up again into something amazing – and perhaps better than the original, or at least more relevant.

Perhaps such thoughts are less relevant in the current media environment, of cinematic universes and suddenly-canceled brilliance. It’s also less relevant in an age of political and climate chaos. But perhaps if we can find the heart of something forgotten or overdone, maybe we’ll find something out about ourselves as well.

Steven Savage

Stupid or Clever? A Ramble on Parody and Perspective with Popstar

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

It’s such a fine line between stupid, and clever.

  • David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap

Spinal Tap is one of the greatest movies ever made.  It defined the mockumentary genre, absolutely capturing the sense of a cultural space – ridiculous metal bands in the 80s.  It was well-acted, sensitive, and also the music may have been silly but pretty good.  In fact, it was so well done that when the “band” toured, a friend who was a fan ran into people at a concert who didn’t get the joke.

Want to argue with me?  Shut up.  Look. I just like Spinal Tap.

Being such a fan of the film, I checked out a similar movie Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, as a friend said it was in much the same vein.  Popstar was also a mockumentary, but was released in 2016, targeting more modern pop music (with bits of boybands, the Beastie Boys, and rap thrown in).  The movie focuses on one Conner Friel (Andy Samberg) who rose to fame as part of a trio called “The Style Boys,” but being the most charismatic of the group, he ended up solo, leaving one friend traumatized and the other as his DJ.  Connor’s meteoric rise becomes a crashing-to-earth potential extinction event through various bad choices, exacerbated by more bad choices.

The film was a bomb, but I found it quite entertaining, disturbingly spot-on, and the musical performances are pretty good.  However, there were parts of it that seemed, well, stupid – over the top, vulgar, or dumb.  As I watched it my reaction was yes, it was funny, but Spinal Tap it was not.

However, as I watched, I realized that this was a film of a different time.  Spinal Tap was funny to sixteen-year old me as I knew that era of music, the stories of drummer disasters, monsters of metal who just kept going, and strange careers.  Watching Popstar i started thinking that maybe I didn’t “get it.”

Stupid or clever?  A fine line indeed as Mr. St. Hubbins would note.  So I tried to view it as best I could through a modern lens – and I’m the kind of person who hears of Maroon Five and wonders what happened to the first four.

Once I did that, my perspective changed – and with it I got a better understanding of media.

The excesses shown in Popstar were excesses that were distinctly modern – stupidity that was in most cases part of our lives.  Megastars who gain a great deal of fame very fast and do very stupid and immature things amplified by the news.  Oversharing on social media of every detail.  Dumb tie-ins using modern technology to do things no one wants but everyone tells you is cool.

A lot of the things I found stupid in the film were there in real life.  This was a fascinating realization, as well as more than a bit depressing.  Maybe the first four Maroons were in hiding from the dumb world we’d made.

In the end I came to the conclusion that of Popstar’s stupid elements, well over half were completely well-deserved.  Tell me you can’t believe a business called Party Wolves with stellar yelp reviews for providing cute wolves for events.  There’s a scene taking on Daft Punk/Deadmaus techno-costumes and bands that is hilarious as it is believable.  We really do amazingly self-destructive things on social media, especially when famous.

Clever or Stupid?  I had to come down on the side of clever.  It’s just that it was made in modern times where we have invented some incredible kinds of idiocy.

I did note where there was actual stupidity it was due to the film going from mockumentary to parodyMockumentaries should adhere to being as real as possible while also exploring the ridiculousness of their subject.  Parody has more of a free hand and allows – indeed may require – some excess to point out the ridiculousness of its subject.  I consider a mockumentary a sub-form of parody, a more disciplined and sensitive one, and to break out of the form is jarring – as this film does occasionally.

I wish the film had been handled with some more deftness, dare I say “more Spinal Tap like,” but perhaps that was too much of a challenge. The musical and managerial traumas in Spinal Tap were of a different time, one without social media, and embarrassing holographic reconstructions.  Perhaps our current times have so much stupidity that it’s harder to handle it cleverly – one needs their cleverness up to eleven as it were.

If there’s a point to all of my intentional rambling  it’s that mockumentaries require some careful handling, but also that audience understanding matters.  I had to take effort to put myself in the right mindset of Popstar, much as a young person might not “get” Spinal Tap with some thought.  Even if Popstar had been handled as well as Spinal Tap (and it is still pretty good) I would have had to make some effort.

Some things just are of their times.  Including me.  Besides, I’d probably throw my back out trying to do The Donkey Roll.

Steven Savage

Tired Of Thinking About Money

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

I love a challenge.  That fuels my personal budgeting, retirement planning, and part of my writing career.  Money is a pain to deal with, but when you gamify it, it becomes fun.  Finances can be like a game, and I savor the challenge of getting it right.

As of late, I became aware of how much I thought about money.  It was more than I was comfortable with.

Could I jump on a trend and write this book?  Could I monetize this idea?  Could this book be more profitable if it was a second edition?  When you have a monetizable hobby like mine – writing – it’s easy to fall into the “money mindset” all the time (and it’s easy anyway).

When I decided to take time to have “space” for creative work, experimentation not planned works, I found monetization sneaking into my calculations.  Could I do X not Y with this fun project and make money.

My reaction to this realization was “what the hell is wrong with me?”  Why was I seeing so much in term of money – and not even in the fun way of gamifying it.

The truth is our society emphasizes monetizing everything.  Hobbies are side hustles, a job is an endless treadmill of promotions, you can sell your memorabilia, etc.  Companies want you to use their service to turn your grindset mindset into their profit – use their services, their marketing, etc.  We’re drowning in the idea that everything has to be for the money.

Worse, for the money is an excuse for bad behavior.  If it’s for the money it’s treated as OK, no matter how awful a person you are – which is probably why many a Forbes “30 over 30” young entrepreneur ends up in court.  Money excuses all ills and all ill behavior.

Thanks to this realization,  I’ve been reclaiming my vision and joy of creativity without the view of monetizing everything.  There’s space in my plans to just mess around.  I feel more free, more creative, and more connected to people.  When you remove finance from every interaction, you discover real human interactions.

I recommend my fellow creatives take a step back as well.  Are you unconsciously monetizing everything?  Maybe it’s time you stop – before you stop being a creative and just become a profit optimizing machine.  Or, worse, end up on the Forbes 30 under 30 and then in the news.

(And if you’re over 30, don’t waste the time or wisdom you have monetizing everything.)

Steven Savage