Think about some of the movies you have heard about or seen in theaters in the past couple of years.
Now try to name one that is not based on pre-existing properties, or a movie that has a heavy emphasis on being ‘retro.’ I imagine it would be pretty difficult.
Why is this? What is the thread that links all these themes together?
The thread is the reusing of previously existing concepts and ideas in order to draw in more of an audience and sell more tickets.
A great example of this is the reusing of IPs in mainstream movies. An IP is an ‘intellectual property,’ meaning a property that exists under copyright protection. An IP is owned and can only be used – unless given permission – by the person or company with the copyright to it.
Think about a movie like Barbie. You may assert that that specific version of Barbie the character is separate from any previous version, but the IP of Barbie is the same as the one in Barbie. The toy company that owns this IP, Mattel, has stated that they will continue to make movies based on their popular IPs. They have mistakenly assumed the success of the film was due to the past perceptions of the character Barbie, when really the true success of the film was from the talent of the artists involved – delivered to a wider audience with a conveniently commercial-friendly face.
Another example of how mainstream movies reuse old ideas is through what I call the style-grabbing method. This became popular with the meteoric rise of Stranger Things. Stranger Things is a show notorious for its use of faux-80s aesthetics to frame its supernatural narrative – demons and D&D – as it goes.
This sparked interest in older generations who lived through the 80s but also, surprisingly, in younger generations. This sense of borrowed nostalgia in the younger generations comes from the ‘retro’ trend, which continues to proceed in culture. This is the romanticization of a past in which you did not exist and did not see the hardships of – see Taylor Swift’s yearning for an 1830s ‘without all the racists.’
This trend of loving the past has led to many mainstream films aiming to recreate the feeling of a certain era. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but combined with the money-hungry desire to sell as many tickets as humanly possible, it becomes a little muddy.
Movies like Marlowe and The Bikeriders – both of which flopped commercially – used the style of another generation and famous names to promote their brand of escapism without any actual substance. But those are the flops, so how about one of the most talked about films of 2023?
There has been no shortage of discussion of Saltburn in artist’s spaces and how its preference of style over real substance makes it a drop in the never ending pool of pseudo-intellectual films. But something I find often neglected in that discussion is the decision to set the film in the early 2000s. The decision may be one that most viewers did not notice – aside from a few gnarly outfit choices – but I think it is the one that most flagrantly points out the issues with the film. What is the purpose of having the movie take place in this time period other than to provide more visual flair? There is none. This is the heart of the issue.
Modern mainstream movies using historical backdrops is nothing but a method of selling more tickets.
That is part of the reason people make movies, but this being the primary motive only makes over-produced, over-funded visual blips in the never ending horizon of other blips, all fighting for your attention. None of this is healthy for you or for art.
I would never decry the whole ‘retro’ genre though. A lot of incredible movies have been made as parodies of previous generation’s style and life. A great example of a film doing this right is Hundreds of Beavers.
Hundreds of Beavers is a movie that was released in 2022, though you would never know that just by looking at it. The film is a Chaplin-era silent comedy in black and white. The concept is quite simple but branches off in so many unexpected ways – and it is funny. It keeps faithful to its form but also brings new ideas to the table.
It is clear to see where the line of feeding into trends for profit and genuine artistic exploration is drawn here, though. It is often the same line between purely aesthetic choices and integral parts of a movie’s desired message. How do you know which is which? Whenever you sit down in the theatre for the latest media rave, ask yourself this: would the movie have ever been made without financial incentive?
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