Jimmie Higgins
10th July 2013, 11:56
Has anyone else seen this movie? Just wanted to see what people thought of it because I don't know what to make of it.
I enjoyed it on a level because I enjoy unhinged and messy movies and this one is a nice example of 60s absurd satire and 60s culture and politics. It would be cool if the last season of Mad Men re-made this movie essentially and in a plot-twist replaced their cast of Ad men with young black militants in the first episode of the final season. Seeing the "respectable" business world of squares upturned is enjoyable and social "inversion" has always been one of my favorite things to watch in movies from the children's insurrection in Zero for Conduct, to the Marx Brothers ignighting chaos in stodgy bourgois settings, to zombies and Gremlin's running amuck in suburbia.
Black militant politics in the movie is interesting. Though it falls into some things that are exaggerations or more plays on white people's fears of black power, it doen't do it in a right-wing "reverse racism" sort of criticism though the new black managers treat low-wage white workers badly and errect a glass celing for white professionals (I think this is more just satire of existing anti-black racism, than some kind of right-wing comment about being "color blind" and that black people would be "racist" against whites if they got a chance). Black people being outspoken was "shocking" to the mainstream (and still is in some contexts) and so I think it was just part of the satire to show black people being brazenly assertive against whites in ways that whites have treated blacks without even questioning it. But anyway, it's interesting that "black power" is shown as being so diverse and undefined... the people who support Putney read-into him what they expect from "black power" which includes everything from being a "responcible" businessman who can show that black people are capable of running things, to people who want him to use his position for political reasons, to people who want to see him use his influence to make propaganda or to fund revolutionaries. If the movie came out a little later, it might have been seen as a comment on the cooption of black militancy and how black capitalism and black urban political power ends up having to act just like the old "white power structure". But I'm pretty sure this movie pre-dates any wider-spread critiques of these things... it probably would have only been maybe the BPP who were criticizing liberal middle class versions of "black power". This movie also doesn't show black radicalism to really be any sort of alternative either, it depicts the BPP and other radicals as just trying to get money for their causes and sectarian (not that there wasn't that sort of thing going on, but it's really the only view given of black revolutionaries). The charater of "The Arab" who seems like sort of a cultural nationalist in the movie seems to stand in for the voice of "the street" - he criticizes Putney for running things the same as the old bosses except with "soul-style". In addition to a maybe accidental critique of black business power, the movie also seems a little ahead of its time in predicting that counter-culture values can easily be used to repackage capitalism (or advertising) and might even be more sucessful in getting people's attention because of the "shock-value".
The film has the sort of typical pre-PC counter-culture "shock" stuff that's often overtly sexist and racist by today's standards. Underground comix take that further, but the scene with the "Chineese" man named Sony who calls himself "chink" and "jap" is pretty terrible (but is it consious... is it sort of a hippy-era hipster racism?). The sexism is un-ironic IMO, although there seems to be some kind of attempt to make a "sex-sells" sort of comment about advertising - which isn't very deep anyway.
Also on the hippie-hipster-racism aspect, I just read that the Director, Robert Downy (Jr.) Sr., dubed in his own voice for Putney's... esentially making the role a kind of black-face, which means that at least two generations of Robert Downies have used black-face in a sort of wink-wink, I-know-racism-is-wrong-and-I'm-down-with-black-folks way.
Anyway - a lot of the humor of the movie is pretty dated, both in ways which make it seem more crude than "shocking satire" and also in just different comic sensibilities that have developed since the 1960s. But the movie also has the best succinct parody of all modern advertising:
nLF1Erk1_rQ
That's what I think when I hear most sales pitches.
I enjoyed it on a level because I enjoy unhinged and messy movies and this one is a nice example of 60s absurd satire and 60s culture and politics. It would be cool if the last season of Mad Men re-made this movie essentially and in a plot-twist replaced their cast of Ad men with young black militants in the first episode of the final season. Seeing the "respectable" business world of squares upturned is enjoyable and social "inversion" has always been one of my favorite things to watch in movies from the children's insurrection in Zero for Conduct, to the Marx Brothers ignighting chaos in stodgy bourgois settings, to zombies and Gremlin's running amuck in suburbia.
Black militant politics in the movie is interesting. Though it falls into some things that are exaggerations or more plays on white people's fears of black power, it doen't do it in a right-wing "reverse racism" sort of criticism though the new black managers treat low-wage white workers badly and errect a glass celing for white professionals (I think this is more just satire of existing anti-black racism, than some kind of right-wing comment about being "color blind" and that black people would be "racist" against whites if they got a chance). Black people being outspoken was "shocking" to the mainstream (and still is in some contexts) and so I think it was just part of the satire to show black people being brazenly assertive against whites in ways that whites have treated blacks without even questioning it. But anyway, it's interesting that "black power" is shown as being so diverse and undefined... the people who support Putney read-into him what they expect from "black power" which includes everything from being a "responcible" businessman who can show that black people are capable of running things, to people who want him to use his position for political reasons, to people who want to see him use his influence to make propaganda or to fund revolutionaries. If the movie came out a little later, it might have been seen as a comment on the cooption of black militancy and how black capitalism and black urban political power ends up having to act just like the old "white power structure". But I'm pretty sure this movie pre-dates any wider-spread critiques of these things... it probably would have only been maybe the BPP who were criticizing liberal middle class versions of "black power". This movie also doesn't show black radicalism to really be any sort of alternative either, it depicts the BPP and other radicals as just trying to get money for their causes and sectarian (not that there wasn't that sort of thing going on, but it's really the only view given of black revolutionaries). The charater of "The Arab" who seems like sort of a cultural nationalist in the movie seems to stand in for the voice of "the street" - he criticizes Putney for running things the same as the old bosses except with "soul-style". In addition to a maybe accidental critique of black business power, the movie also seems a little ahead of its time in predicting that counter-culture values can easily be used to repackage capitalism (or advertising) and might even be more sucessful in getting people's attention because of the "shock-value".
The film has the sort of typical pre-PC counter-culture "shock" stuff that's often overtly sexist and racist by today's standards. Underground comix take that further, but the scene with the "Chineese" man named Sony who calls himself "chink" and "jap" is pretty terrible (but is it consious... is it sort of a hippy-era hipster racism?). The sexism is un-ironic IMO, although there seems to be some kind of attempt to make a "sex-sells" sort of comment about advertising - which isn't very deep anyway.
Also on the hippie-hipster-racism aspect, I just read that the Director, Robert Downy (Jr.) Sr., dubed in his own voice for Putney's... esentially making the role a kind of black-face, which means that at least two generations of Robert Downies have used black-face in a sort of wink-wink, I-know-racism-is-wrong-and-I'm-down-with-black-folks way.
Anyway - a lot of the humor of the movie is pretty dated, both in ways which make it seem more crude than "shocking satire" and also in just different comic sensibilities that have developed since the 1960s. But the movie also has the best succinct parody of all modern advertising:
nLF1Erk1_rQ
That's what I think when I hear most sales pitches.