Crisis and Criteria

I spemt the years of 2002-2006 at Glasgow University, blissfully enjoying the Film and TV (and to a lesser extent, the English) course wondering as to how texts were chosen, and, what I thought, challenging the Western-based coverage (It turns up I was wrong about that, although I held constests with what may have been taken from my dissertation afterwards - nothingness I need to get over. Let's move on)

So.

One of the key areas I studied at university was 1980s cinema, and the whole concept (wait for it) of High Concept cinema. Those films that could be (as was the criteria) described in 30 words to the studio. For example - It's Tom Cruise but he's gotta be a pilot and has to be the best. Or Peter Weller got torn apart as a human and now as a robot he's going to enforce the law.

It was such an interesting period, with concepts such as Flashdance  and Short Circuit making the humanising concept between art/science and reality in such an interesting way.

However, looking at the release of Joker , I genuinely am unsure from the content of the film what we want young film students to take.

Joker  (2019, Warner Bros)

So, let's talk the basic financials. 

Joker uses, as in the above scene, the song "Rock and Roll pt 2" by Gary Glitter. The artist is a convicted paedophile, Now, I can only expect that the reaction expected by the film makers is one to make you go 'oooootttthhh' as you hear it. But when we talk about the unintentional effects of media, this causes massive problems.

I can only expect there's a number of young people seeing 'Joker' because it's tied in with the Batman mythos. And I get it. I saw Batman Forever when I was 9, knowing it was a 12 because my parents wanted to indulge me. 

Where can 'Rock and Roll Part 2' go wrong?

1) the film itself has to pay financials to a paedophile.

2) There's a lot of younger people, who, (anecdotally) have not heard the song, nor have known who it is. Do we want to encourage any type of streaming finance?

3) Bringing someone we had removed from the public consciousness back into it - did that song need to be in place, or was it just the 'naughtiest' entry because of the context. I am considering sticking Ziggy Stardust behind it - something that explicitly hints at the concept of a differing persona. 

Anyway, I'm about to go back to teach Higher Media, so let's be critical as sin.