Friday, January 12, 2007
Remember when they said that everything would change?
I'm watching the South Park movie, which was made in 1999. At one point, some guy falls off a tall New York skyscraper. That now seems way in poor taste. (Yes, I know the whole movie is in poor taste, but that one scene seems in way worse taste than it was originally intended to be.)
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2 comments:
Why is it in poorer taste now than in 1999? Because of 9-11?
People have been falling or jumping from skyscrapers for years. I would think their family members or others who are bothered by making a joke of that would have been equally offended, then and now.
The very first impression I got upon seeing that scene was that it was a direct allusion to the iconic picture of people jumping off the WTC. (I know it wasn't, but that was the first association my brain made.) But there was just no reason for them to be alluding to that. Generally when an iconic image is inserted into this kind of cartoon, it has some purpose, or it's a clever visual play on words, or we're supposed to just laugh at the randomness. But this scene had none of those factors. It didn't even come across as a failed attempt at a joke or allusion, it was just totally random, and thus seemed inappropriate to my post-2001 brain.
It would be like if you were watching some pre-2001 cartoon, and an airplane randomly flew into a building in the background, just as a random easter-egg visual that had nothing to do with the plot. Before 2001, you might laugh at the idea that the airplane pilot is a bad driver, or you might laugh at the randomness, or you might just say "Huh, that was random." But after 2001, you'd be wondering why on earth they just randomly inserted such an iconic and loaded image at that particular point.
I guess it seemed in poor taste becacuse it wasn't doing anything or attempting to do anything at all. It came across as an extremely casual use of an iconic image that's fresh in people's minds, even though it wasn't actually intended as such.
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