A couple weeks ago I was interviewed via skype by video mash-up artist ikat381 for the remixing website Total Recut. We discussed my Buffy vs Edward remix, the importance and influence of fannish vidding and the greater cultural value of remix video. I’m cross posting the full interview below – here is a link to the original post on Total Recut.

Total Recut: What did you want to accomplish with Buffy vs Edward?

Jonathan McIntosh: I wanted to create a remix dealing with the subtleties of gender and romance in mainstream media, not an easy task in mash-up form. I had seen the Twilight movie and I read the first couple of books and I was horrified by the fact that the Twilight series takes all the progress in gender roles and reverts it back at least 200 years. My goal was to show Edward Cullen’s controlling and overprotective behaviour for what it is, and to do that in a sort of funny way, and to have that done by a strong female character from a different series. I thought one of the best ways to do that would be to have Buffy the Vampire Slayer meet him. Juxtaposing these two characters highlights how backwards the Twilight series is in terms of gender, really how anti-feminist it is. That was the goal: to make it funny but also highlight the patriarchal nature and stalkeriness of Edward.

TR: Why use remix to make your point about Twilight? Why not shoot your own parody?

JM: If you were writing a paper on the Twilight film, you would quote what Edward said from the movie. Same with remix – I want to quote what he’s actually saying. I want you to be able to see him say it and have all of the filmic and narrative elements present. So the lighting is there, the tone that he uses, the camera angle, all from the actual shots in the movie. It’s more powerful, more poetic, it’s more believable, it’s funnier, and it has a higher impact, because it’s the actual actor in the actual scenes.

Also, for good or bad reasons, high production values tend to equal legitimacy in our mainstream media culture. People will respond to something that they know. And what they know, because they see it everyday on TV or in the movies, is high production values – a certain style, certain lighting, etc. So using the actual clips lends legitimacy to the critique, I think. It’s an easier way to relate to an audience that’s already familiar with the source material.

TR: In what way did vidding and the vidding community influence this remix?

JM: I am in no way an expert on vidding, but for those who might not be aware, it’s an artform that’s been around since the mid-seventies. It’s deeply connected to fan cultures and fan fiction, just extended into video form. There’s a rich history of mostly women remixing (or “vidding”) pop culture narratives. And sometimes these vids, as they’re called, are making an argument, or doing a character study, or doing in-depth looks at various relationships, etc. It’s like using video to create literary criticism of TV and movies.

The sympathetic nature and fannish quality of vidding is one of the things that I think makes it work so well. Initially it took a while before I understood how powerful, important, and sometimes subversive it was as a remixing genre.

Lots of vids will celebrate shows, relationships, subtexts or storylines – especially ones that break standard or stereotypical gender roles or narratives. While many other vids have an argument to make, and some of them will subtly (or no so subtly) criticize various aspects of a beloved TV show: characters, story lines, or the lack of queer characters, or the lack of strong female characters, etc. The idea is that you can enjoy something from the mass media but still criticize certain aspects of it to varying degrees. That’s a subtle understanding that seems to me a little bit lacking in many of the more political videos from my own remix genre.

A lot of political remix work can be really fantastic but it’s sort of based on ridicule. So it’s ridiculing the TV show, or it’s ridiculing the source. Sometimes, certain situations call for just flat out ridicule – I agree with that and I think it can be very important. But other times, conversations require a sort of subtle, respectful, and still pointed analysis, especially if you want to talk about race, class, gender, or sexuality. This is where, I think, vidding often succeeds in ways that political remix video sometimes does not.

I don’t know if I would have been able to envision making something that’s a 6-minute narrative about gender roles, as in Buffy Vs Edward, if I had not been influenced by the vidding community. As a political remixer, I was fortunate to be schooled by vidders like Laura Shapiro, and also by Francesca Coppa, who is a founding member of the Organization for Transformative Works. By listening to them and watching a large body of vidding work, I learned about how to make more complex and subtle analyses of mass media in remix form. I’m certainly very sympathetic to Buffy and the whole Buffy universe (it’s my all time favourite TV show), and that comes through in my remix. So the audience is not supposed to go “Oh, see how TV is stupid?” They’re supposed to go “Oh, see how Buffy was awesome!” I kinda pit the Buffy TV show against the Twilight movie to deal with gender in a more complex way than I had done previously. So I would say that vidding was essential to me being even able to imagine doing something like this, even though I would not call Buffy vs. Edward a “vid”.

TR: Can you talk about any of the technical challenges of Buffy vs Edward?

JM: I found that it was really hard to find convincing ways to have characters interact from totally different sources. One tool that was really helpful was fan transcripts: people take TV shows that they love, or movies, and they transcribe them and put them online. With Google’s advanced search I was able to find fan scripts for all the episodes of Buffy. I’d search for certain phrases or words, and I’d go through them quickly and say “Oh, well I know that Buffy now says this kind of thing in episode 44 so I’ll go look at the episode and see if it works.” And sometimes the transcripts even have notes on location or time of day, so I know if there’s a certain environment, and if Buffy’s saying something there, then maybe I can use it. Luckily Buffy was 140 episodes or thereabouts, so I had a lot to draw from. But Twilight was 2 hours. I almost used every single frame of Edward.

TR: What political purpose do you think video remixing serves in general?

JM: Remixing is a form of critical media literacy that I think is becoming increasingly important to our culture. Just by viewing a remix, you are consciously or subconsciously noticing all the different sources – a movie, a song, a news clip, an actor – and in your head you’re kinda deconstructing them, because there’s all these different parts that have been pulled apart, re-framed, re-contextualized and put back together.

On the flip side, when someone is making a remix, even a simple one, they are literally deconstructing mass media and then creatively reconstructing it. So they’re engaging with mass media messages to make something new in a way that is analytical and creative. Lessig calls this the “read-write culture.” Corporate media traditionally operates as “read-only.” But now with remix, culture can be more “read-write” and more participatory (provided you have technology, the time and the money to participate). So I think that just the remix form itself has a lot of value.

In terms of the content of online video remix, it could be anything. It depends on the people who are making it. Remixes can challenge the sort of oppressive, sound-byte driven messages of mass-media, or they can just repeat mainstream messages back in remix form.

Obviously I hope for people to be subversive and critical in their remix work and to challenge mass media messages and myths, especially in terms of the more oppressive aspects of corporate culture. The extra value comes when we remix the source material and also remix the message. If you’re just regurgitating what the media tells you, including all the stereotypes, racism, sexism, hatred, and so on, then I find much less value in that, because it’s not remixing the message, it’s just remixing the material.

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I usually try to stay away from forces of darkness, but last week I killed a famous vampire – and let me tell you, it was fun! Actually, I didn’t stake him myself — I used new media tools to allow one of the strongest female television characters of our generation to do it. OK, let me back up a minute. Last week, at the Open Video Conference at NYU Law School, I debuted my feminist mash-up video, Buffy v. Edward. It’s an example of transformative storytelling which reinterprets the movie Twilight by re-cutting and combining it with the TV series Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Five months in the making, Buffy vs Edward is essentially an answer to the question “What Would Buffy Do?” My re-imagined story was specifically constructed as a response to Edward, and what his behavior represents in our larger social context for both men and women. More than just a showdown between The Slayer and the Sparkly Vampire, it’s also a humorous visualization of the metaphorical battle between two opposing visions of gender roles in the 21ist century.

The response online has been swift, enthusiastic and overwhelming. Apparently I touched a nerve. Seems a lot of people thought it was about time the Slayer did something about Edward Cullen from the Twilight series (who, in case you are not familiar, is a vampire that glitters like diamonds in the sunlight to attract prey — sorta like a stalky My Little Pony with fangs). In the 11 days since I posted the remix online it has been viewed more than 950,000 times (and growing by the day), and has been translated by volunteers into 16 languages, including Slovenian, Tagalog and Bahasa Indonesian via the website dotSUB.com.

On the whole, the reaction to the video has been tremendously positive — even in such outlets as Perez Hilton’s blog, on Entertainment Weekly’s Pop Watch. Jezebel.com, a popular blog on celebrity, sex and fashion for women, headlined their post: “Buffy Shuts Down Edward Cullen In The Best Clip Ever.” And just yesterday, the top of the front page of the Los Angeles Times’ online entertainment section links to their TV blog’s post about the mashup (they interviewed me and sought responses from viewers):

With that kind of prominent placement, I wouldn’t be surprised if more than a million people see the video by the end of the week (maybe even by tomorrow). The remix has been posted on hundreds of websites and blogs, and is still circulating through Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. It has sparked a wide-ranging and timely online conversation about how obsessive and predatory male behavior passes for romance in too much of our pop culture. Some of my favorite debates about the mashup have appeared on Pandagon.net, Smartbitchestrashybooks.com, Pixiepalace.com, and there are also long discussions on many Twilight fan blogs, such as Hisgoldeneye.com. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find that the exchange on YouTube – where I often dread reading obnoxious comments on videos about gender – has also been exciting and constructive. Statements such as the following, from commenter LillSenorita, have been common:

“Yes! That is a hundred times more likely reaction from any girl! Seen from this view, it really takes the “SPARKLING*ROMANTIC*AWW” from stalking.”

Perhaps most exciting is that young girls, who have so few positive role models in media, are finding that the mashup speaks to them, too. Twilight fan Dawi Zarni, age 10, told me:

“It’s really good, I liked the girl power it showed. I’ve watched it like 10 times and showed it to my friends. It’s the best thing I have ever seen on the internet!”

Since publishing the video, everyone from fellow YouTubers to Los Angeles Times reporters have been asking me why I decided to created this remix. It all started six months ago when my partner, Anita (also a media literacy advocate) and I watched the enormously popular movie Twilight, based on the book of the same name by Stephenie Meyer. Coincidentally, we had recently finished re-watching the final season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, our favorite television show ever. As huge Buffy fans we couldn’t help but compare the two stories. We were troubled by how the main characters in Twilight seemed to embody antiquated, sexist gender stereotypes. Teenage protagonist Bella Swan is written as passive, co-dependant and perpetually the damsel in distress. Edward Cullen, her love interest, is written as over-protective, domineering and possessive.

Over the course of the film Edward is in turns patronizing, condescending and just downright creepy. He spies on Bella, he stalks her (for “her own good”), he sneaks into her room to watch her sleep (without her consent) and even confesses to a deep, overpowering desire to kill her. We marveled at how the film attempted to present this behavior as sweet and deeply romantic – and how the larger pop culture discussion continued that framing for millions of young Twilight fans. At several points during the film Anita and I found ourselves asking each other: “What Would Buffy Do?”

Each answer we came up with conjured increasingly hilarious and satisfying mental pictures of a very different narrative. Imagine if Edward Cullen met The Slayer at Sunnydale High: what kind of story would unfold if their responses were consistent with their personas, and with the value systems of the movie and TV show they represent? (Even as I type this I can imagine Buffy rolling her eyes at my idea of transplanting Edward into her universe, scolding me with this line from episode 96: “Please don’t be suggesting what I’d have to kill you for suggesting!”)

In sharp contrast to Bella’s story, Buffy’s narrative is one in which gender equity is sexy – and powerful, complex and independent women are the norm. So successful is this normalization of female strength on the show that in the few alternative reality episodes that find Buffy magically weakened, we see her lack of power as utterly absurd. Imagine Buffy being helpless, ridiculous! The very thought is played for laughs. Throughout Buffy’s seven seasons, males that display the type of behavior Edward does are ridiculed or portrayed as dangerous (or both). Buffy is not without its own controversies (especially around race and LGBT issues), but the writers did often succeed in actively and brilliantly subverting expected sexist Hollywood themes.

At first I wasn’t sure if it was possible to take footage from the movie and television show and splice them together in a convincing way. I had made remixes of popular culture before but never tried to re-construct an alternative narrative. But I knew I had to try when I realized that the stalking scene in Twilight was extremely similar to a scene in episode 13 of Buffy.

In both sequences a female protagonist walks alone at night and is followed by shadowy figure(s), while dramatic music amps up the suspense. The similarities end there. Both scenes have radically different outcomes and narrative lessons. In Bella’s case, she is confronted by a group of aggressive, drunken frat boys, and actually starts to defend herself – until she’s interrupted from the act of self-protection when the writers have Edward swoop in and save her in the nick of time. Turns out Edward has also been stalking her (supposedly in case she might need his help). In contrast, Buffy stops in the dark ally and, annoyed, confronts her pursuer – who turns out to be her own vampire love interest, Angel—and who, you guessed it, is following her in case she might need his help. Buffy’s having none of it, delivering her brilliantly pointed line (which I use in the remix): “You know, being stalked isn’t really a big turn on for girls.” She tells Angel she doesn’t trust him and that she can take care of herself, leaving him standing rejected and alone in the ally. To the show’s credit, it’s not ultimately a message of tough female individualism; Buffy does learn that working together with her friends and allies (many of them also strong female characters, alongside resourceful and supportive men) she can overcome any challenge, including saving the world—a lot.

As an aspiring feminist guy, I wanted to speak out about issues of sexism and gender oppression in media but I wanted to do so carefully and intentionally. That’s why I chose to focus my critique on Edward’s patriarchal behavior in Twilight rather than on Bella’s actions. I didn’t feel it was my place to lecture her on desire (even in remix form), especially since her character is already disempowered by the original screenplay to the point of absurdity. So I built each scene around Edward, and then looked for appropriate responses from Buffy. Sorting through seven seasons worth of witty dialog and dramatic footage from Buffy was a lot of fun, and telling the tale through her and her friends’ perspective allows us to understand the messages underlying the mythology of the film and the TV show in a new way – and to enjoy the process. I should note that I am not the first to make this critique of the Twilight series, nor did I invent the process of re-imagining pop culture stories. I was inspired by women who have been creating fan fiction as self-conscious creative communities since before I was born. I was heavily influenced by fannish vidding as well as by feminist critiques of popular culture, especially those of bell hooks, whose writings have helped opened my eyes on issues of race, gender and love.

Although my remix is not a “vid” – a fannish music video made by pairing clips from a TV show or film with a song that creates an argument or illustrates a theme – it was inspired by vidders such as Francesca Coppa and Laura Shapiro, who have both taught me much about the art form. I was also inspired by political remix videos such as Jackie Reem Salloum’s amazing “Planet of the Arabs,” which she describes as “A trailer-esque montage spectacle of Hollywood’s relentless vilification and dehumanization of Arabs and Muslims.” At their best, mash-up videos can serve as a form of critical media literacy, exposing myths and messages embedded in media typically masked by glossy Hollywood productions.

In the end the only reasonable response was to have Buffy stake Edward – not because she didn’t find him sexy, not because he was too sensitive or too eager to share his feelings – but simply because he was possessive, manipulative, and stalkery. Lastly, interspersed among the avalanche of positive feedback are a small handful of responses from people dismayed at the death of the beloved Edward Cullen. Often these notes express concern that my mash-up is a condemnation of the fans of Twilight or of the actor Robert Pattinson, who plays Edward. I would like to say that the video is not intended as a stab at the fans. Rather, it’s an argument against the specific way in which romance and gender roles are constructed in the Twilight series. Ultimately, Buffy’s triumph over Edward is only one small part of much larger story: the story of our collective journey towards a world of gender equity and empowerment.

[UPDATE: You can now watch and compare the original stalking scenes from both Buffy and Twilight for yourself on CriticalCommons.org]

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Over the past two years we saw a flood of remix videos on the topic of the 2008 US presidential elections. Some were creative, entertaining or down right hilarious but ultimately, for me, many ended up feeling a bit like amateur commercials eerily similar to the candidate’s own nationwide television-advertising campaigns. I had hoped this torrent of politically inspired mash-up activity would yield more videos critical of the election process, of the presidency as an institution or of the candidates’ strikingly similar policies on key issues. I had for the most part been avoiding participating in this remix frenzy but as November 4th drew closer I was still disappointed with most of the remixed messages created thus far. So I decided to throw my own remixed perspective into the ring.

The first seeds for my SYTYCBP remix were planted this summer in Chicago during a pair of trips to facilitate a youth workshop focusing on critical media literacy using political remix video (PRV) as a tool. Mindy Faber and I spend two weeks co-teaching at the Fair Use Remix Institute and on a number of occasions had dinner with her family in front of the television watching the US presidential race heat up. Intermittently we would catch an episode of Colbert, Daily Show or the competition reality show So You Think You Can Dance on Fox. Since I watch TV in much the same way that a hacker might look at code so anytime I spend in front of the tube inevitably turns into a remix brainstorm session. We found it particularly humorous to imagine the political candidates (at this point McCain, Obama and Clinton) having to face tough questions and critiques similar to those from the surprisingly sincere and sometimes harsh panel of choreographer judges instead of the softball approach taken by the mainstream news. These nightly re-imaginings eventually became the roots of my most involved and complex détournement style remix project – a glimpse of an alternate reality where media personalities are not afraid to honestly and critically confront the powerful.

Over all I was attempting to construct a deeper, more subtle argument using the remix form. Something that is relatively rare in the PRV genre, which leads itself to quick, blunt and obvious points rather than nuanced messages. I was obviously concerned with showing how the US elections are treated much like reality television but more specifically I wanted to expose the mainstream corporate news media for not challenging candidates on major policy issues. In SYTYCBP I highlighted two major policy positions shared by both candidates. First their support for increased offshore oil drilling, new nuclear power plants and so called clean coal, which is anything but clean.  And second their shared determination to use military force to greatly expand the disastrous war and occupation in Afghanistan. I wanted to approach this critique with some subtlety, understanding that Obama and McCain are not exactly the same nor are many of their other social policies. For this reason I re-mixed the judges reactions to treat each candidate differently so they start by acknowledging the historical and hopeful significance of Obama but at the same time challenge him on his less than progressive positions. This meant that the remix had a bit of a slow build and ended up longer than I would have liked but I felt it was important.

In addition to the policy positions mentioned above, another motivation for this remix was the issue of gender and the absence of female voices. All three presidential debates were moderated by men and both the final party contenders were obviously male (as has been the case throughout the history of the American political system). With this in mind, I consciously re-created the judging process to make women’s voices deliver the sharpest, most insightful and humorous critiques of the candidates. This was partly a reflection of the original show’s content as the best lines are indeed consistently offered by Mia Michaels and Mary Murphy which was one of my reason for choosing So You Think You Can Dance and not another reality competition show like American Idol.

Followers of television shows, including those of the competition reality variety, naturally develop emotional relationships with the characters, judges or contestants. This was certainly true for me as I watched the 4th season of So You Think You Can Dance and rooted for my favorite dancers and choreographers. In fact I’m not sure I could have finished the tedious cataloging and remixing process if I have not become a fan of the show.  This fan based approach is new for me in my political video work though curtain not a novel or unique remixing idea.

Earlier this year while curating a showing of political remix works for the 24/7 DYI Video Summit at USC, two of the other curators Laura Shapiro and Francesca Coppa introduced me to another remix form called vidding. Though new to me this self-conscious community had been skillfully re-mixing, re-interpreting and re-framing mass media entertainment since the 70s starting with still slides shows and than tape-to-tape VCR editing. Vidding like PRV is an analytical process though not necessarily always an overtly political one. I was impressed by many aspects of this work, specifically the precise editing techniques, the careful attention to gender and sexuality, the sympathetic treatment of beloved pop culture television characters, the extensive knowledge and use of the source footage, and the subtle manipulation of narratives and subtext.

It was the sympathetic (fannish) quality with which these vidders played with their characters and narratives that caught my attention and partially inspired my SYTYCBP election remix. With that in mind I set about creating this latest remix consciously attempting to play with the celebrity judges and studio audience in a sympathetic fashion re-purposing their voices to carry subversive political messages. Their words are re-framed to reflect the fact that in study after study the American population is consistently to the left of both parties on most issues.

Previously my only attempt at creating a character that viewers could sympathize with was in my remixed TV ad for the US Army called “Go Army: Bad Guys“. (A video which, ironically, was recently flagged as “not suitable for minors” by an anonymous YouTube user). In it a young American boy articulates his excitement about the US military’s use of torture to his school guidance councilor. Expressing a desire to join the Army so that he might participate in these horrible acts when he grows up. The councilor is visually and understandably horrified and it was my intention that the audience would identify and sympathize with her reaction. This was a departure from my previous videos, which were almost universally critical of the characters and institutions in the source material.

Beyond speaking truth to power one of the core objectives of PRV work is to help build popular support for positive change in social norms.  Hopefully the vidding practice of transforming beloved pop culture characters will become a strategy more often explored by political remixers to deliver alternative ideas and critiques.

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Below is a quick round-up of a few of the blog posts that discuss my “So You Think You Can Be President?” Remix:

Center for Social Media Blog
Henry Jenkins Blog
Youthradio.org Article
Washington Independent Blog
Its Getting Hot in Here Blog

Building a Critical Culture with Political Remix Video
by Jonathan McIntosh – June 6, 2008

In March of 2003, I found myself glued to the television watching in horror and disbelief as American bombs rained down on the people of Iraq. Like many people living in the United States, I was deeply disturbed by our mainstream media’s cheerleading for war and their childlike fascination with military weaponry. As each broadcast seemed more and more void of humanity or concern for Iraqi lives, I was compelled to grab my video camera, hook it up to the screen and begin recording the carnage. Especially unsettling for me was the surreal juxtaposition of happy-go-lucky TV commercials for major brands scattered in-between news reports of an ancient civilization being laid waste in real time before my eyes. It was that absurdity coupled with my sense of outrage at the sheer injustice being perpetrated, which informed my first Political Remix Video (PRV) works. [1]

I loaded the newly captured digital video into my computer and began to remix, still not sure what would emerge. The result was a collection of biting, yet humorous, re-cut and re-framed TV ads fusing commercials with news footage. Once completed, I made the decision to disseminate these newly transformed works free to the public via my website and later through popular online video sharing tools. I was particularly drawn to the online distributing method because of the populism inherent in the medium. Online video offered a direct conduit to and from the general population. I wanted my remixes to reach a larger and diverse audience, which would be impossible had I chosen galleries, festivals or other more traditional means of video art delivery.

What I was doing had historic roots; in fact I had been partially inspired by remix works from Emergency Broadcasts Network (EBN) created in the early 1990s. Arguably their most famous video We Will Rock You,[2] brilliantly re-spliced George Bush senior’s words making him appear to sing lyrics over a beat in a televised address about the 1991 invasion of Iraq. Individuals have been re-framing media and propaganda of powerful institutions and remixing it to create an alternative or opposing messages for decades. General Adolph Takes Over,[3] created for the allies in the 1940s, is an example of one of the first remixes for political purposes. Universal Newsreel took appropriated film of Nazi solders on parade and re-sliced it to a quirky British tune making Hitler and his army skip and dance like wind-up toys.

On cable television The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, frequently uses the technique of re-cutting and re-framing political speeches or news broadcasts as part of “fake news” segments. An increasing number of documentaries that focus on current issues are also using mash-up video collages of news footage and TV ads to illustrate points. Though these remixes are typically only small segments of larger works they have undoubtedly helped popularized the genre of PRV.

Political Remix Video is a process of Do It Yourself (DIY) cultural creation by transforming mass media fragments through re-cutting, recycling and re-framing messages. It is an increasingly popular and relevant form of remix that can at its best challenge dominant power systems, media and myths in our society, our culture and ourselves. It has the potential to help us imagine a better more just society and help illuminate corruption, hypocrisy and injustice in our world. These video works also have the ability to help nurture a critical talk-back culture of resistance and liberation.

The work’s content is not confined to government, leaders, and elections but also focuses on critical consciousness to engage issues of media, culture, economics, race, gender, sexuality and class. The source media and materials come primarily from pre-existing mass media fragments that are captured and re-cut to create new transformed or re-framed messages. Video is the primary element though works also include appropriated audio, music, photos, text or graphics as well. With the increased accessibility of recording, capturing, editing and distribution tools the genre has become obtainable (available) to many more individuals causing a torrent of PRVs to appear all over the net.

I use the term Do It Yourself rather than User Generated Content (UGC) because the latter is an industry term. I create videos, films, art, mash-ups or remixes to give creative voice to my ideas. I don’t make “content” to fill the distribution vehicles and profit engines of massive corporations. Content seems a lifeless term, an inhuman and mechanical description of people’s digital expression. That said, I still provide my remixes over (corporate) distribution networks, like YouTube, as they provide paths for large numbers of people to see, respond to, emulate and build on my work.

PRV should be one of the most legally protected forms of remix expression as it clearly falls under the doctrine of fair use in the United States copyright law. Works typically use unauthorized media fragments captured from corporate owned and copyrighted sources but because of the transformative nature of the work and the fact that remix in this genre employ parody, satire, and critical commentary they qualify as a fair use of the original material. The remix is a process of constructing a new artistic creation out of pieces of the original but never simply copying or pirating the whole original source. PRVs are usually created by individuals and not by institutions perhaps because of the perceived legal risk of using copyrighted material. Because of the highly critical and subversive nature of the messages in many PRVs, the works are more likely to draw the attention of the copyright holder and may be more vulnerable to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) via takedown notices.

Remixers capture audio/visual material largely from mainstream sources instead of creating their own original media. PRV artists also mimic many of the same visual and narrative devices of the dominant media such as sensationalism, humor, irony, emotional triggers and cynicism. This generates credibility for the work with the viewers because the source material is already familiar to the public and has a certain amount of built in cultural meaning. This video form is effective for remixers because the cultural meaning is derived specifically from the media representations of public figures, brands and logos. In The Black Lantern’s remix The Terminator,[4] he combines news reports with violent and bloody footage from Governor Schwarzenegger’s Hollywood action films. The video is created in protest of the execution of Stanley “Tookie” Williams who was put to death after the Governor denied his final request for clemency. It illuminates the hypocrisy of the official statements given to the media by Governor Schwarzenegger as justification for the lethal injection.

PRV works also utilize and embrace dominant media forms as the structure for their videos. Popular forms include: short news segments, TV ads, speech excerpts, movie trailers and music videos. Remixers are not critiquing the form mainstream media takes (as contemporary video art has done for decades) but rather borrowing and using it as a vehicle to deliver their own subversive messages. In George W’s Downhill Jam,[5] Aaron Valdez remixes a Nintendo wii commercial with footage of presidential speeches to create an advertisement for a fictitious video game that invites gamers to ‘play’ George W. Bush and all his grammatical creativity. Videos often utilize quick cuts and short sound bites to create a barrage of visual and auditory information almost identical to the form and structure of the original mass media source. Since the public is already familiar with and accustom to digesting these quick sound bite forms, the remixer’s alternative political message is wrapped in an accessible package for the audience to consume. This form of cultural critique is therefore rather unique in that works are not necessarily directed at academia, the art world, policy makers or even other political remixers but rather made readily available to the general public via online video sharing tools.

The disadvantage of this form and style is that it makes deeper, more complex social, political and cultural analyses difficult in the same way that such substantial analysis is made nearly impossible in the mass media. Sound bite culture tends to make ideas or concepts that fall outside the dominant logic seem outrageous because there is no time to give context, subtlety or history. This is a potential limitation for the genre as it stands, making it more difficult (though not impossible) to subtly remix on topics such as gender, class, sexuality, and race. Negative criticism of blatant bigotry, power, hierocracy or injustice is on the other hand relatively easy, hence videos remixing George W. Bush and the War in Iraq, are much more prevalent. Still a powerful potential exists for PRV to impact our cultures, our society, our media networks and our political systems.

I want to emphasize that I am writing from a “best-case scenario” point of view for this genre of remix video. I do however harbor serious concerns that the remix form can also be used to re-enforce dominant or oppressive norms including as a vehicle for propagating hate speech. There are certainly a large number of remixes floating around online that, while they have some political content, are not necessarily critical in nature. I refer to these types of works as re-combined political videos because they tend to regurgitate the status quo, parrot mainstream pundits and fortify pre-existing mass media driven myths and ideologies. The key difference in PRV works is that creators remix not only the source materials but also remix the original meaning of the source content. One of the most vital attributes of PRV works is the critical element. They push to reveal, expand or deepen the social conversation often adding substance to the public discourse.

PRV promotes a critical culture rather than one of acceptance, obedience and acquiescence, producing a healthy skepticism and a critical eye in regards to the mass media and powerful institutions. An excellent example is the movie trailer style remix Planet of the Arabs,[6] by Jacqueline Salloum, which combines clips from beloved Hollywood movies in order to expose the stereotyping, vilification and dehumanization of Arabs and Muslims often missed by western audiences. After seeing the video you will never be able to watch the Back to the Future films or Disney’s Aladdin without recognizing the racist elements.

Like many other forms of new online media, PRV can expand the limited political discourse in the mainstream media by providing an outlet for people to directly engage with current issues and voice marginalized ideas. It can promote a more open participatory discourse and culture turning people from passive consumers into active creators.

Through the ownership of news outlets and entertainment empires only a small handful of giant corporations serve as the makers and keepers of our collective culture. Using these monopolies they have gained effective control over the telling of our present, our past and over the possibilities available to us for our future. PRV can offer a way for people to define their own world, or rather to re-define the way their world is presented by mass media. In Theodore Lyons’ remix Jeremiah Wright Painting a Picture of US Aggression,[7] he challenges the mainstream media’s sound bite driven vilification of the pastor by using an extended clip of the now famous sermon and combines it with footage from both documentary films and Hollywood blockbusters. The remix supports and highlights the preacher’s stinging critique of US foreign policy universally marginalized by the corporate media.

In a similar way remixers employ the tactic of Identity Correction, a term borrowed from political pranksters The Yes Men.[8] Identity Correction works in PRVs by mimicking the advertisements of powerful institutions in order to change or “correct” their carefully constructed image. Through this correcting process the target’s identity is re-framed to illuminate the underside of the target company’s practices while often playing on the brand in a humorous ironic way. I’m fond of using this device in my own work as in my remix Go Army: Bad Guys,[9] where I re-frame a television recruitment advertisement for the US Army. I appropriate footage from various sources to create a new narrative, which highlights the use of torture by the US military and it’s destructive effect on (both the people being tortured) and also the collective consciousness of youth in America.

The act of political remix can offer and true sense of active participation and empowerment by giving people a vehicle to express their own reality and engage in the process of cultural creation. Beyond that these videos can also helps to sustain those involved in struggles for change on the grassroots level by making viewers laugh and reminding activists that they are not alone in their struggles. Humor can be an effective antidote for the depression and hopelessness that often comes when working for social transformation in long-term movements.

PRV can fuel and expand collective imaginations about what is possible helping us envision an alternative and more humane society. In Bush for Peace,[10] Jen Simmons and Sarah Christman articulate what an alternative presidency might look like. One in which a national leader is honestly interested in pursuing a real lasting just and peaceful world. While the work is critical of the American President it also creates and makes tangible a positive vision of a different United States.

I used to say that Political Remix Videos would not change the world. I held this point of view because social transformation begins with collective grassroots action in the physical world. An individual standing on a soapbox or in this case standing on one’s computer doesn’t create real political change. The word politics itself, by definition, refers to a collective process. More recently I have come to see Political Remix Videos as a small part of a much bigger picture. These remix works, taken together, can help foster the critical consciousness and talk-back culture necessary for political and social change to take root. They become small fragments of cultural transformation that live alongside grassroots struggles for freedom of expression, human rights and social justice. This union allows PRVs to become a part of a movement, really of a revolution in thought and practice.

Notes

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1 My Political Remix Video work can be seen on my web site.

2 The EBN remixes including We Will Rock You can be found on YouTube.

3 The 1942 remix General Adolph Takes Over can be viewed on the Internet Archive.
4 The Black Lantern’s remixes including The Terminator can be found in his web site.
5 Aaron Valdez’s remix George W’s Downhill Jam can be seen on YouTube.
6 Jacqueline Salloum’s work including Planet of the Arabs can be viewed on her web site:
7 Theodore Lyons’ remix Jeremiah Wright Painting a Picture of US Aggression is on his YouTube channel.

8 The Yes Men’s website showcases the group’s political pranks and videos. 

9. My TV ad remix Go Army: Bad Guys can also be found on my web site.

10 Jen Simmons and Sarah Christman have created a web site for their Bush for Peace remix.