Trash – 6.26.09
I think this post requires bullet points. Things of note are as follows.
- Alex Magnetic was hosting for the first time in her life. She was very excited about this. I feel like it was her birthday.
- Brendon James is my new nightclub stylist.
- Since SXSW I feel like I see Dan Keyes every day. When he walked in they were playing Discotech. That has to be weird.
- I came up for a new slur for homosexuality: The Rainbow Blight™.
- I found out that about 50% of people I told that to don’t know what the word blight means. Rainbow Pestilence is not as catchy.
- This gallery is NSFW not just for the normal nipple flashes, but actual man penis. Beware!
- I got into a heated argument about the allegorical meanings of early zombie films. People left angry. I was right.
- I spent a lot of the night just hanging out in the back fucking around. You will note many scary up close shots of people.
- There was some burlesquing thanks to Coco La Pearl and Magdalena Fox.
- Coco gave me her business card. I had taken the photo on it. Hmm.
- I found out I have an unusually high tolerance for total weirdness.
- I will not get sick of hearing Billie Jean five times a night any time soon.
Click here to see all the pictures from Trash @ The Studio @ Webster Hall.
no one left angry. but i think some people need to be open to the fact that varying opinions exist in the world and no one is 100% right. zombie movies just shouldn’t be taken so seriously.
Night of the Living Dead:
Since the release, critics and film historians have seen Night of the Living Dead as a subversive film that critiques 1960s American society, international Cold War politics and domestic racism. Elliot Stein of The Village Voice saw the film as an ardent critique of American involvement in Vietnam, arguing that it “was not set in Transylvania, but Pennsylvania — this was Middle America at war, and the zombie carnage seemed a grotesque echo of the conflict then raging in Vietnam”.[58] Film historian Sumiko Higashi concurs, arguing that Night of the Living Dead was a horror film about the horrors of the Vietnam era. While she asserts that “there are no Vietnamese in Night of the Living Dead, […] they constitute an absent presence whose significance can be understood if narrative is construed”. She points to aspects of the Vietnam War paralleled in the film: grainy black-and-white newsreels, search-and-destroy operations, helicopters, and graphic carnage.[59]
While George Romero denies he hired Duane Jones simply because he was black, reviewer Mark Deming notes that “the grim fate of Duane Jones, the sole heroic figure and only African-American, had added resonance with the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X fresh in the minds of most Americans”.[60][61] Stein adds, “In this first-ever subversive horror movie, the resourceful black hero survives the zombies only to be killed by a redneck posse”.[58] The deaths of Ben, Barbra and the supporting cast offered audiences an uncomfortable, nihilistic glimpse unusual for the genre.[62]
The treatment of female characters attracted criticism from feminist scholars and critics. Women are portrayed as helpless and often excluded from the decision-making process by the male characters. Barbra suffers a psychological breakdown so severe after the loss of her brother that she is reduced to a semi-catatonic state for much of the film. Judy is portrayed in an extreme state of denial, leading to her own death and that of her boyfriend. Helen Cooper, while initially strong-willed, becomes immobilized and dies as a result.[63]
Other prevalent themes included “disillusionment with government and patriarchal nuclear family”[58] and “the flaws inherent in the media, local and federal government agencies, and the entire mechanism of civil defense”.[64] Film historian Linda Badley explains that the film was so horrifying because the monsters were not creatures from Outer Space or some exotic environment, “They’re us”.[65] Romero confessed that the film was designed to reflect the tensions of the time: “It was 1968, man. Everybody had a ‘message’. The anger and attitude and all that’s there is just because it was the Sixties. We lived at the farmhouse, so we were always into raps about the implication and the meaning, so some of that crept in”.[61]
Dawn of The Dead:
Time has not blunted the film’s sharp satirical edge. That jabs at consumer culture are obvious but entertaining, though many critics, especially in America, where the horror genre is held in lwo regard, seem to miss the message. “I think generally the European audiences get more of the stuff that underlies the action—but it doesn’t underlie the action,” observes Romero. “People say, ‘There’s a hidden message about consumerism in DAWN OF THE DEAD.’ I always say, ‘It ain’t exactly hidden!’ It’s pretty much right up in your face.”
Romero explains, “At their core, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and the two sequels I made are about revolution, but only in the broadest sense. A new society replacing the old and devouring it—in this case, literally. Sociopolitical criticism and satire is neither hidden nor masquerading as allegory. It’s right out front. We took big, obvious swipes at the media, at religion, at the misuse of family as an institution, and principally at tribalism, at man’s inability to consider perspectives other than his own. That theme is central to all three of my zombie films: mankind bringing about its own defeat.”