A few weeks ago I went home for the weekend. I walked in to my house on Saturday morning to find my psuedo-brothers Ammon and Aerik entranced by the television. While I am used to seeing them focused on the living room color box, I noticed that they were watching with particular interest and glanced at with curiosity. I was immediately captivated by a young teenage girl wearing shoulder pads under a purple t-shirt. She was quickly joined by a teenage boy wearing a button up shirt with exagerated geometric shapes in a wide array of colors. There was something familiar about these characters, but I could not quite remember why.
Then I realized that this glorious display of early nineties fashion was an episode of the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I cannot recall the last time I saw this epic show, and was in a state of shock that they were playing it with the other Saturday morning children's shows. I sat down to be transported to the time of my youth when I accepted the ridiculous special effects and giant monster costumes as realistic and empowering. Then I saw it flash across the bottom of the screen.
"You are watching a NEW episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers."
What? If this episode was new, then Dolly Parton has never had plastic surgery. I did not understand how they could legally market a show that was almost twenty years old as new. Then I saw it.
"Slip" popped on to the perfectly good scene as though the viewers were too stupid to realize that the character was slipping. But still smart enough to read it. They had taken this show of my youth and applied a technique reminiscent of Batman in the 50s and 60s. Apparently this was just enough to trick the children into thinking they were recieving a new product without any legal repurcussions.
I began to think of how often our culture remixs perfectly good products to create something new. I think it is because we have gotten too lazy to be original in most cases. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it is disgustingly lame and destroys the integrity of the original product. From songs, to artwork, to medicine, our culture has decided that it is easier to change one verse, or the medium or one chemical and introduce it to the world as new and exciting and orignal. Our laziness has destroyed the beauty of the original products, and it has tainted my love of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers forever. Corporate bastards.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Something else too think about: i was recently told by a co-worker that the P.R. battle scenes are clips from an old Japanese show, and the cheesy Americans are added here in the states to make the show A: in English. 2: marketable to the toy-buying youth. Capitalism i guess; Kind of a super rip off. Bureaucrats! And to think we're polite to these people (ATHF)
ReplyDeleteUnoriginal all around, I guess. I've never seen Power Rangers, but comic books do the same thing. They replace records with iPods, bell bottoms with hipster jeans, references to disco with references to "Britney Smears," and call it new. What's the deal?
ReplyDelete