My cultural month
No, this isn’t turning into what Seth Godin terms a ‘cat blog’.
Music | Black Magic by Little Mix
Change Your Life, the band’s previous effort, was irritating in itself for the never-ending vocal embellishment, and by its association with House Rules, one of the many dime-a-dozen grating ‘Aussie Battler’ reality TV shows. Black Magic is much catchier.
While unrequited love as a theme is always going to be relevant, Black Magic’s supernatural subject matter feels a bit late ‘90s. Apparently The Craft is getting a remake, so I’m wondering if female teenage witchcraft is going to have a moment again. Imagine this: Rookie Mag’s brand of teenage girl adoration drives the trend, The Craft inspires a nod to goth fashion and girls are walking around in groups chanting “lick the star”...
TV | Black Mirror
Sad to say it but I binge-watched the last few episodes of Black Mirror, Jon Hamm Christmas special included, and now it’s all gone. I’m not easily hooked by TV, but I really did like Black Mirror - both in concept and execution. So what struck a nerve?
Ever-smarter technology is such a hot topic right now, at least from where I’m standing with one foot in adland. We’re all abuzz bringing virtual reality to the masses and speculating about how the Internet of Things will change the rules of play. We’re even getting in on the act and inventing stuff ourselves, like M&C Saatchi’s Tricky Jigsaw lab, responsible for Clever Buoy (Optus) and The Heartbeat Car (Lexus).
At the same time, it seems to be dawning on us that smart phones, with social media and internet at our fingertips 24/7 may not be such a fantastic thing...I’ve read at least three articles this past week (count ‘em: 1 (Sunday Mail - U on Sunday), 2 (Spectator), 3 (Guardian) advocating for self-imposed technology limits for sanity’s sake.
It’s this “codependent and contradictory relationship” with technology on which Black Mirror fixates. Dystopia’s always been a money-spinner for Hollywood, but this British effort (by Zeppotron) has a stronger impact, I feel, because the realities of its episodes feel like plausible futures from where we’re currently sitting. As this great review from the New York Times puts it, “It looks like a future we might actually inhabit, making the show a lot more effective as a critique of the tech industry’s trajectory.”
Film | Goodbye Lenin!
I also enjoyed myself immensely watching Goodbye Lenin! In German and starring Daniel Brühl, it’s the tale of a guy who creates an elaborate ruse to maintain the illusion that nothing’s changed in the German Democratic Republic for the sake of his ardently communist mother who fell into a coma and missed the fall of the Berlin Wall, and for whom the shock of seemingly overnight capitalism in East Berlin would surely bring on another heart attack. In a nutshell.
The entertainment value here is in the creative lengths to which Daniel Brühl goes to sustain the deception - they’re interesting and realistic; the little details you might not have thought of until in the situation yourself, God forbid. Moving too, are the story and performances, but I suspect a large wodge of our interest revolves around the peek we get into this no-longer existing place: East Germany. It’s a world I could only envisage blurrily, from a visit to Berlin’s DDR Museum and an amusing ‘Trabi safari’ some years ago.
I guess it’s akin to the fascination we still hold for North Korea and the photos of daily life there that are circulated from time to time. We’re captivated by the idea of a place untouched by time and outside influences, no? Oppressive reality aside, it’s mysterious and quaint - from a cultural point of view. Goodbye Lenin! is a similar time capsule, but one we can open with the benefit of hindsight and sense of relief that we’re past that.