Tag Archives: Consumer Culture

May 7, 2024 · 1:21 am

UNFROSTED Directed by Jerry Seinfeld movie review

Unfrosted. Directed by Jerry Seinfeld. Netflix.

Jerry Seinfeld’s new movie, Unfrosted, as Tony the Tiger would say, is great! It’s great for more reasons than you might think. First and foremost, it’s funny as it keeps to its theme, basically that of our love/hate relationship with American consumer culture (at its zenith in the early ’60s), and just runs with it with sincere passion and goofy humor. The whole thing rings true in a way that you can’t fake, managing to unlock that secret code that usually eludes Hollywood of creating a homage piece in the style of the thing being honored, in this case, the broad and frenetic ’60s comedy. It doesn’t feel at all like a contrived attempt but, in fact, the culmination of a lifelong love for a certain moment in time. Any fan of Jerry Seinfeld’s standup comedy knows that he loves, and loves to poke fun at, the simple pleasures in life, like the Pop-Tart.

This movie is all about Pop-Tarts and then some. It’s everything that you would expect from a comedy that is like a classic ’60s comedy: somewhat higher production value, family friendly, usually with a cavalcade of comic actors and unapologetically nonsensical. I don’t think I’m giving anything away (but spoiler alert nonetheless) when I say that this is the kind of movie that invests a lot of time and energy in establishing that the milk industry is having a very hard time with the emergence of a product that will replace cereal. Did Pop-Tarts ever really threaten to replace cereal? Don’t Pop-Tarts go great with milk? Toss any serious arguments aside and just bask in the playful satire, including spot on jabs at John F. Kennedy (Bill Burr) and remarkable send-ups of Walter Cronkite and Johnny Carson (both by Kyle Dunnigan).

Kyle Dunnigan, as Johnny Carson.

This whole movie is a hilarious send-up of ’60s culture from the race to the moon to the race to the consumer. Just add milk, and I’m sure this movie will deliver some good laughs. It’s certainly not meant to be taken too seriously, at least not in any obvious way. That said, it has its own special social commentary particularly focused upon American exceptionalism. A highly polished report could do no better. This gentle well thought-out and heart-felt comedy has plenty to say and with a stellar cast, including everyone from Hugh Grant to Amy Schumer to Jim Gaffigan to Melissa McCarthy. In fact, this movie has some great child actors, including Eleanor Sweeney who helps in the mad pursuit to invent the ultimate breakfast treat. If these young stars of tomorrow can not only appreciate the humor in this movie but help to make it shine, then there’s still hope for the rest of us.

Review: TRASHED by Derf Backderf

We think a lot about garbage here in Seattle. We’ve been ahead of the curve for many years. We separate our garbage from common garbage (non-food), compost (food), and recycling (very specific categories). I know that some Seattleites find utter joy in thoroughly washing their recyclables. And, lately, the City of Seattle has demanded more by showing no mercy and fining homeowners who dare to mix food in with their common everyday garbage!

To read TRASHED, the new graphic novel by Derf Backderf, this whole business of garbage is not so complicated. The real solution would be to use less! But I get ahead of myself. In this book, you see the very human element to garbage from the viewpoint of a bunch of young guys just starting out in life…as garbage collectors.

Derf Backderf has a style and tone to his storytelling that brings you right in. You might not necessarily want to be brought in to some of the content he’s involved with but, all the same, there you are. From his comic strip that examined Cleveland urban life to his previous recollections of Jeffrey Dahmer, Backderf presents the grim, the gritty, and the unvarnished truth. For his new graphic novel, he does something that may inspire other cartoonists to follow suit in their own way.

He revisits some experiences from his youth and brings these old characters up to present day with contemporary commentary. Backderf created comics based upon his year (1979-80) as a sanitation worker. In 2010, he took those old characters and, like ageless Archie comics characters, placed them in a present day setting for a webcomic. That project evolved into this current graphic novel.

Backderf gently nudges along the idea that we’re all such disgusting slobs. Maybe not all of the time but no one gets completely away. And there are plenty of oddball characters that Backderf observes on his rounds who shouldn’t get away with anything like the unscrupulous dog catcher that terrorizes all the neighborhood pets. And then there’s all the people leaving out inappropriate items like a stove and a car engine block. Seriously? Yes, people have no shame.

Knee-deep, and sometimes up to his eyeballs, in garbage, our main character prevails. He survives his year as a garbage collector. And, now, all these years later, we get the complete story in this funny, insightful, and beautifully rendered book.

TRASHED is a 256-page hardcover, published by Abrams ComicArts, available as of November 3, 2015. You can find it at Amazon right here.

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Filed under Comics, Derf Backderf, Graphic Novel Reviews, graphic novels

Tagged as Books, comics, Consumer Culture, Derf Backderf, Entertainment, Garbage, graphic novels, Media, Pop Culture, Publishing

November 17, 2014 · 10:22 pm

SEA/PDX: Field Notes From SAM’s ‘Pop Departures’

Seattle Art Museum is a veritable Popland for its show, POP DEPARTURES, OCT 9 2014 – JAN 11 2015. For more details, visit our friends at SAM right here.

What follows are field notes from the current show. Consider it a review, a guide, a friendly tour. When it comes to reviewing a show like SAM’s exploration of Pop Art, it’s a brave new world. Today, a handful of local art critics no longer command public opinion as much as make a noble contribution. No sooner have they done that, in a poetic, or quirky, or straightforward fashion, than a babble of reactions shoot out from below in the comment section. And that’s exactly what Andy Warhol would have wholeheartedly approved of!

As much as can be said for Pop Art shedding a light on a dead end, Pop Art is full of life. It’s our world, made up of mass media galore and celebrity worship. Let’s do something about it. Since it’s not going away, engage it. Make art. The babble in the comment section can rage on and on and on. Some of us learned how to love the bomb, so to speak. That is the overriding sensibility to be found here. There’s social commentary, critique, and satire, of course. But, ultimately, when Warhol suggested that everyone would get their fifteen minutes of fame, it wasn’t a barb but a realization.

SAM provides a refreshing look at Pop Art byway of where it came from and how it continues to reverberate to this very day. You may even see such familiar figures as Warhol and Lichtenstein in a new light. What this exhibit does so well is demonstrate how, as time progressed, and consumer culture became more complex, so did contemporary art. Layer upon layer, extended the bright and bold message of consumerism. As the landscape of pop culture evolved, and devolved, art responded and collaborated.

Art and its subject end up doing a dance together. And the most subversive work will find its way into the mainstream. Consider the cacophonous video on display by Ryan Trecartin. You may find that you got the joke and want to walk out as soon as you walked in. But stay a while. Wait a minute, something about these vacuous characters spouting gibberish and thinking themselves profound is very familiar. Compare this to the mainstream co-opting (or is it stealing?) by Saturday Night Live with their popular ongoing skit, “The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party.”

As we view the Warhols and Lichtensteins, we don’t need to see them as only a part of art history. They continue to breathe life. They continue to provide a road map (sorry, no GPS) for making sense of the landscape.

“Pop Departures” is on view from October 9, 2014 thru January 11, 2015. Visit our friends at SAM right here.

Review: ‘Wide Awake in Slumberland’ by Katherine Roeder

Winsor McCay with Gertie the Dinosaur

What will today look like one hundred years from now? In the world of comics, we have no choice but to include DC Comics’ upcoming “Teen Titans #1” in a time capsule, filed under “sexism.” Many of us today see through a glass darkly. But not all of us. One hundred years ago, Windsor McCay was at the top of his game as America’s preeminent cartoonist. Attempting to see what McCay’s world was like one hundred years ago could provide some interesting perspective.

There were certainly other big name cartoonists and plenty of newspapers but there was only one Winsor McCay. He could dazzle his audience. He was part of the zeitgeist. Much like Chaplin, he did what he did with far more distinction than his competitors. In a new book that attempts to place McCay in context, we get some insights about Little Nemo, Gertie the Dinosaur, and Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, and how they reflected the American dream. And, among the findings, we confront a problematic character named, Impie.

Continue reading →

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Filed under animation, Comic Strips, Comics, Winsor McCay

Tagged as Animation, Books, Comic Strips, comics, Consumer Culture, Consumers, Education, Entertainment, History, Media, New York City, Newspapers, Pop Culture, Publishing, Race, Racism, Satire, Social Commentary, social satire, Winsor McCay

January 12, 2013 · 12:15 am

Taking The Starbucks Challenge

There’s someone who is about to try to pull a Morgan Spurlock. Instead of only eating at McDonald’s, like in Spurlock’s “Super-Size Me,” this blogger is planning on only eating at Starbucks. She has set up this challenge for herself which she says is about getting more in touch with being a consumer in Western society.

So what’s left for all the rest of us bloggers? I could pledge to only eat food I buy at a supermarket. That might work since I do that quite a lot. But I also enjoy variety and I like to explore. So, I end up at various restaurants and diners and the like. I’d have to think about it.

Still, I sort of like the challenge. The blogger’s name is Beautiful Existence. Yes, that’s her real name, I just checked on her blog. And this is her blog. It will be fun to follow her exploits.