Thursday 2 August 2007

The Bohmian and Commercial Success

Was just talking to Christian and DP about transformers the other night. Dp was saying how the movie prayed on the current American (western) ideology. "To get the fast car, great looking chick and destroy the enemy.... yeah!!!" :)

Anyway I was reading this book by a philosopher Alain De Botton called Status Anxiety. It has this chapter on the Bohemian culture, a culture which tends to put feelings and art at the pinnacle of life. They also tend worship suicidal artists so it's not everyone's cup of tea, however I think this quote has some truth to it...

"According to the bourgeois ideology, a financial or critical failure in business or the arts must function as a significant indictment of one's character, given the ideology's accompanying assumption that society is essentially fair in distributing it's rewards.

But Bohemians have refused such punitive interpretation of outward failure by focusing on how often the world is governed by idiocy and prejudice. Given human nature, they reasoned that those who succeed in society will rarely be the wisest or the best, they will be those who can pander most effectively to the flawed values of their audiences. There may indeed - bohemians have suggested - be no more damning sign of a person's ethical and imaginative limitation that a capacity for commercial success."

Transformers anyone?

5 comments:

pabs said...

Guys we are talking about a movie that was based on a television show that itself was only made to SELL TOYS... to children. Honestly what did you guys expect this film to be?

Anonymous said...

dunno Silky, sounds too much like the petulant kids at the G5 summit - "If, if I had money...I wouldn't even want money man...money's bad m'kay".

Totally agree about pandering to a idiotic audience, but if you go too far the other way you're just making movies for yourself and the weird guy down the road. By their rational, any movie that makes money is a bad movie.

Screw them I say, we can do without their 7 tickets. I'm going to go make millions making a movie about an explosion that falls in love with a hot naked chick...and he has all sorts of fast cars!

pabs said...

Will the gamble pay off? 20th century Fox is betting.... it will.

DP said...

Starring Nicolage Cage as The Explosion.
And introducing... with Bob Zemekis's new technology... Nicolas Cage as the Hot Naked Chick.

Andrew Silke said...

Yep agreed Alex, (and you too Pabs) it's a pretty extreme lefty comment, probably somewhere in between is best.

And Nicolas Cage as the Hot Naked Chick?? WTF I'm having nightmares already.