Sunday, October 18
Unintentionally Funny
The Perils of Nostalgia
In honor of the upcoming remake, I made one of my class groups report on the original Clash of the Titans. For anyone growing up in the early eighties, this movie is a touchstone of cinematic quality. It's got heroes, monsters, special effects, classy British actors...everything you could ask for, really.
My students, on the other hand, thought it was hilarious. When I told them it was meant to be a serious epic, they didn't believe me.
That's one major problem with this generation: they're basically unable to take anything non-ironically. No, really. I suppose we Gen-Xers and our apathy is to blame. We've tended towards sarcasm as our primary means of communication, and these kids have been absorbing it since birth. Now they can't produce or understand earnest speech acts.
Anyway, I tried to explain to them that, once upon a time, things weren't deliberately designed to be cheesy. They were also skeptical of this fact, probably because things now (e.g. the songs in 'Glee') are designed to be cheesy, the better to provoke ironic laughter.
And of course they were horrified when they realized that actor was Harry Hamlin, who's gotten disappointingly old in the last twenty-eight years. At least I got to laugh at them for that one -- wait and see, kids, wait and see.
As painful as it was to hear a movie from my youth mocked, I think I'll get the last laugh.
I can't wait to see the Clash of the Titans remake, written by the team responsible for Crazy/Beautiful. I'm curious to know why (according to my sources) these writers added a Praetorian Guard (Roman, fl. 1st-2nd c. AD) to help Perseus (Greek, ca. 5th c. BC). Or why Io gets involved. Or why Andromeda is now a prisoner. I'm confident the writers have good reasons for everything they've done and, even if they don't, I'm sure the special effects will make up for it.
These kids are amateurs.
