Captain Remix

The great Bryan Alexander passed along this remix of Captain America: the Winter Soldier in the genre of a 1980s VHS trailer. It’s right on the mark in terms of tone, and suggests the revisiting of the Marvel super hero films is kind of a Disneyfied return to the over-the-top action films of the 1980s. I think this trailer helped me realize why I hate films like the The Avengers so much. There so safe and sanitary despite all attempts to be edgy. There a world away from Robocop, and when you remix one of these films with scenes from that gritty 80s action film you begin to realize the gentrification over the last twenty years was not limited to cities.

More to the point, a remix or mashup, at its best, should push you to think about just these things. How does the tone and aesthetic of another era help us understand our own, or vice versa. Bryan couldn’t have timed this any better given today marks the end of a two week foray into mashup and remix culture for the ds106 internauts. There’s an art to the remix and mashup, and so much of it has to do with understanding how much ideology is embedded in the media we are constantly bombarded with. But rather than simply railing against the “evil media,” remix/mashup culture can empower one to reframe that media to subvert the message. I think that’s why video mashups are still my favorite genre on the web—the suggest that subversion and reframing of dominant cultural tropes can and should be fun.

Thanks Bryan, big fan!

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One Response to Captain Remix

  1. Glad to help, Rev.
    I thought you (all) would appreciate the 80s goodness.

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