Polemics and Pastiche

After getting out of the new Tarintino movie the other day I realized that I am tired. I'm tired of the mix tape generation. I think in a way Tarintino was one of the fore-bearers of where we find ourselves. When Pulp Fiction dropped it was unbelievable. It was like a greatest hits of cinema. More than enough has been written on the film and I doubt I can add anything new, moving on.

With the new flick it is all style and no substance. It's just scenes, ideas, and references to other things that don't add up to much. In a way I think it's an example of how adrift things are right now. Songs, films, and books are all built around previous ideas. Everything is ______ meets ______ with __________. Most of the time the third blank is zombies or pirates, I don't know why this is. What happened to us? Every artistic movement is built upon the backs of the one before it but lately everything feels like a cover song.

In improv this has really begun to do us all in. Far too often I see people use a pop culture reference without even commenting on it. Someone will name check something from the eighties and leave it at that. More often than not they get a laugh of recognition and nothing else. Family Guy is a good example of this kind of thing. They will recreate a piece of pop culture and that's it. They never take a stand on something or try to deconstruct it, they just let it lay there. For every Girl Talk where juxtaposition is used as an tool there is some shitty comic just yelling the theme from Golden Girls.

I have been challenging myself to remove all pop culture references from my performances. I want to create not imitate. I wish more people would try this as well. Sorry this is such a shit post.