content analysis

This weekend’s New York Times Magazine features a story about competitors in the Netflix Competition — an ongoing challenge to improve Netflix’s movie taste prediction system by 10% with a $1 million prize.  After a couple years, some people are really close; the top team has improved on the system by 9.44%.  Each step closer to 10% makes it harder to improve one’s algorithm.  

Here’s where it gets interesting: the remaining hurdles are more or less identifiable.  There are limited number of movies for which it is immensely difficult to predict someone’s reaction.  ”Napoleon Dynamite” is the big one the article identifies.  Apparently, “ND” alone accounts for approximately 15% of all the unexplained variation.  That’s huge!  Unbelieveable!  

In describing the top 25 most difficult to predict movies, NYT staffer Clive Thompson writes, “I noticed they were all similar in some way to “Napoleon Dynamite” — culturally or politically polarizing and hard to classify, including “I Heart Huckabees,” “Lost in Translation,” “Fahrenheit 9/11,” “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou,” “Kill Bill: Volume 1” and “Sideways.””

That’s true, isn’t it?  Those movies are culturally polarizing, but it’s more than that.  They are culturally polarizing and, yet, mainstream.  An even more polarizing movie like Von Trier’s “Dogville” is actually easy to predict because the type of people who see a movie like that tend to be of one mind.  But who didn’t see “Lost in Translation”?  What confuses me is that on a gut-level I know that those movies are culturally polarizing, but I can’t, for the life of me, explain why “The Life Aquatic” would be.  Why is that?

Okay, I guess I get it.  Wouldn’t it be nice to be rich and (relatively) young and live in New York and go to cool bars and restaurants and have a close circle of friends to chit-chat with?

But here’s my issue: Sex and the City was considered groundbreaking because it featured women who were independent and successful in the way that men are.  However, to me, it seems misogynistic that the show implicitly suggests that when women gain independence and parity with men, they use it to have casual sex and engage in rank commodity fetishism (see Carrie’s repeated declarations of love for overpriced shoes).  Seriously, are these best representatives of womankind we can find?  I think not and, yet, girls and women across the country idolize these insipid, callus, consumers.

Not convinced that Carrie and friends are as bad as all that?  Check out Roger Ebert’s review, which makes the SITC movie sound like a Farrelly Brothers flick.

In the past year, I have read three books and seen a movie that deal with overlapping themes of tribalism in England. Two of the books — Paul Theroux’s The Kingdom by the Sea and Bill Buford’s Among the Thugs — and the film, the near-perfect This is England, are set in 1980s England and address the severe issues of poverty, nationalism, racism during that time. The third book, Bill Bryson’s cheerful romp through the UK, Notes from a Small Island, depicts England in the mid-1990s, a period of increasing prosperity. At the heart of all four items was a struggle for the meaning of Englishness in a time of growing diversity and a shifting economy.

This is England begins in the early 80s. Unemployment is high, England is involved in a war in the Falkland Islands, and PM Margaret Thatcher is denying that society exists. A young boy, whose father recently died in the Falkland Islands, is picked on in school and joins a group of friendly, harmless punks. However, when an older punk is released from prison, he introduces the boys to a brand of racist, white nationalism. What is presented as standing up for England is thinly veiled racism against blacks, South Asian immigrants, and Jews. In a similar vein, Among the Thugs notes the recruiting of football hooligans to the white nationalist organization, the National Front. Theroux notes that much of the language of economic downturn is couched in racist language. He writes,

“It’s the blacks, see,” a respectable-looking man named Strawby told me. “We whites are the original inhabitants of this country, but they make all the laws in favor of the blacks. That’s why it’s all gone bad.” Mr. Strawby saw me making notes. He was not alarmed. He gave me a little lecture on racial characteristics and offered me tea.

All three sources tend to suggest that faced with the dual threats of massive unemployment and increasing immigrant populations, many white British people began to formulate a brand of reactionary white nationalism and tribalism. These feelings were acted out in several ways. Theroux notices grafittied swastikas on walls throughout the country. TIE depicts a National Front rally in which feelings of patriotism are quickly turned into anti-immigrant language. Buford describes how white people who feel little sense of a unique ethnic identity turn to country and football club to develop a identity. Some supporters of various football clubs — Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United — develop tribal identities and engage in often horrific violence toward other supporters*. In sum, England of the 80s and early 90s was a place of bigotry, violence, and incredible inequality.

By the mid-90s when Bryson toured England, things sound a bit better. With dramatic interventions by FIFA and FA, football violent was significantly reduced. New economic prosperity was developing with the high-tech and service industries replacing many of the manufacturing jobs that disappeared in the late 1970s and 1980s. Whereas Theroux complained about historical buildings being neglected and falling into disrepair, Bryson’s gripe is about how new (ugly) construction was quickly replacing historic buildings. In 1994, Tony Blair, then regarded as the “British JFK,” was elected as Prime Minister.

Today, the outlook in the British Isles continues to be fairly good. The pound sterling is worth over $2. Building on tourism, the “Celtic Tiger” economy of Ireland has been one of the great economic success stories in recent years. Similarly, England has moved three quarters of the labor force into the service industry and Britain, as a whole, has one of the lowest unemployment rates in Europe. While there are certainly major issues of inequality (especially for immigrant populations), they are nowhere near the levels of American stratification**.

I mention all of this for a reason. Last week, I was discussing Juliet Schor’s The Overspent American with a friend who studies global inequalities. My friend claimed that on most social, political, and economic measures, the U.S. is on the same trajectory as Europe, but lagging about 15 years behind. I am aware that several members of the pundit class have claimed that “the European social and political model” will ultimately prevail. This social and political model, I suppose would include an expanded social safety net, a more reasonable balance between life and work, a consumption model that emphasizes quality over quantity, etc. While I wish this would happen, I remain skeptical given America’s stubbornly individualist, free-market, materialist culture.

Nonetheless, spinning this idea around in my head, I was struck by the similarities between 1980s England and 2000s U.S. of A.: the reactionary anti-immigration attitudes, the economic difficulties (and disappearance of manufacturing), a war that the public doesn’t know how to react to, a right-wing administration trying to dismantle the social safety net, and so on. Of course, there are big differences (e.g., Iraq ≠ Falkland Islands). But the idea that in a relatively short amount of time, we could genuinely improve this country is encouraging. Naivete? You decide.

*Buford rejects the idea that the violence of football supporters is rooted in economics, noting that hooligans come from a variety of class backgrounds. He claims that rather than passionately being pulled into a crowd by dramatic circumstances, football fans rationally seek out the violent encounters for the adrenaline rush it provides. These claims would tend to be supported by recent rational choice, social movements literature (e.g., resource mobilization), which reject older LeBonian theories of crowd behavior.

**I don’t doubt that there are any number of problems I’ve neglected. I’m simply making to key contentions here: a) things have gotten a bit better, and b) economic disparities in the UK are not as bad as the US.

Be Kind, Rewind (2008)
Director: Michel Gondry

I’ve been told by several friends that this movie is a mess, that the ending is abrupt, that there is no core theme of the film. But after seeing BKR this weekend, I respectfully disagree. BKR takes on several important issues – of community, art, and authenticity – in a brilliant and sensitive manner. Unlike the many reviews available online, I will focus less on the plot of the movie and more on the social and artistic questions it raises. Don’t worry, I’ll avoid any major spoilers.

BKR is set in Passaic, NJ, a declining, semi-urban, multi-racial city. As many reviewers have observed, director Michel Gondry clearly learned a lesson about community from shooting Dave Chappelle’s Block Party (2005). The community depicted here is a vital one with strong social ties and many eyes on the street. Most of the residents are black, but a few middle aged or elderly white folks are still hanging in there (perhaps, holdovers from a better time for the neighborhood). One of the great successes of the film is how natural and realistic the interactions between community members are. Jack Black and Mos Def’s joyful give-and-take with neighborhood kids and slightly tense stand-offs with local teens in hooded sweatshirts are among the best scenes in the movie.

Many of the characteristics of black neighborhoods documented in ethnographies by Elijah Anderson and others can be seen here. For example, Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) and Mike (Mos Def) encourage the neighborhood youths to appreciate black heroes (particularly Fats Waller) and the local black history. In Code of the Street, Anderson discusses how black “old heads” serve to remind black youth of their history and encourage moral behavior. However, as Anderson notes, the authority of old heads is declining and this, too, can be seen in the movie. Mr. Fletcher seems to have lost some of the authority he once had and is conflicted about how to best serve the community. The Passaic City Council wants to demolish the historical building where Mr. Fletcher’s video store is located and replace it with an ugly and generic looking housing development. Though Mr. Fletcher is troubled by the arrival of a corporate video store into the neighborhood, he also tries to steal their core ideas (DVDs only, action/adventure and comedies only, uniforms, etc.) to keep his store alive.

Like many real black neighborhoods, the future of the one in the movie is threatened by an influx of corporate retailers and gentrifying housing developments. As the current residents are displaced, they will likely end up in housing projects elsewhere in the city. At one point, a City Planning official without a hint of irony says, “The projects can be really nice.” As Jerry (Jack Black) reminds Mike, there is no future here for the low income, primarily black residents. Despite these tough odds, BKR is a celebration of the community. When certain truths are revealed about Mr. Fletcher and the neighborhood’s undistinguished past, the entire community pitches in to preserve the local history and pride.

As comment on art, particularly film, Gondry presents complex portrait. After a magnetized Jerry, renders the store’s entire collection of videos blank, he and Mike set out to recreate the 80s and 90s movies. Ultimately creating a market for their recreated films, the duo creatively remakes dozens of big budget Hollywood movies on a non-existent budget. Among the remakes are Ghostbusters, Rush Hour II, Boyz n’ the Hood, Driving Miss Daisy, The Lion King, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Men in Black. Gondry’s (or Mike and Jerry’s, as the plot would have it) genuisy low budget remakes reveal his own love for these big budget, Hollywood popcorn flicks. Yet, at the same time, the recreations also reflect a deep and abiding passion for importance of the artist as an auteur. Gondry, a popular artist often working on the edge of the avant-garde, clearly believes that today’s jaded audiences seek an authenticity unavailable in sleek, homogenized movies. The creative, independent artist can produce something far more meaningful and beautiful to people.

I was reminded of David Grazian’s Blue Chicago: The Search for Authenticity in Urban Blues Clubs (2003). In that book, Grazian argues that the need of blues musicians to manufacture “authentic” performances ultimately affects the nature of the performance itself. While audiences in a largely standardized world seek out the authentic, that very search can end up homogenizing the authentic cultural products. Gondry’s movie depicts an artist creating work that is both original and authentic (even if most of Mike’s movies are remakes). However, I couldn’t help but think that, in reality, The New York Times cover the clever filmmaking team in short order. In a matter of days, Mike could be on a plane to L.A. and signing a deal to make big-budget films. The studios would seek to co-opt and resell that authentic work. And one of the few remaining bright lights would be yanked out of the already struggling community.

CA Rating: **** (out of 5 stars)