I recently found a place to stream the "Simpsons" episode (s9e25) that included the "alternate" ending to Casablanca. While I think it's hilarious, it certainly went a long way to give away how the movie ended, and is a striking example of how pervasive this movie is in popular culture. Not only do they parody the ending, but the writers assume that it won't really be ruining it for anyone as everyone has already seen it.
The scene can be found by skipping to 12min40sec (12:40) in the video below:
9;25
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Casablanca: The Greatest Coke Commercial Ever
Before this essay gets moving I need to make a confession. This paper marks the first time I have ever seen the film Casablanca. If I were to make such a statement to any of my film professors I might be forever blacklisted by Hollywood. "Never seen Casablanca?!" they might say, "That's almost as bad as not seeing 'The Godfather'!" (I haven't). Casablanca is part of a subset of "classic" film that is so pervasive in popular culture that it never occurred to me to watch it without provocation. Well, with this paper looming in the distance, provoked I was. I sat down and experienced a mild wave of irony as I streamed a 67 year old film from my Netflix account through the internet, to my Xbox 360, and on to my HDTV. It was a terribly authentic way to experience the film for the first time.
Since my expectations for the film were based entirely off a basic understanding provided by "popular culture" I would like to take advantage of my previous inexperience and explore those expectations. My familiarity with Casablanca was primarily focused on famous quotes which were coopted by other types of media and repackaged as either a post-modern reference ("The Good German"), as parody (Various episodes of "The Simpsons"), or in product advertising.
I can't remember how many times I've heard "Here's lookin' at you Kid.", "Play it again Sam", or the "Hill of beans" speech from the end of the film. While it's nice to now know the context in which these quotes exist, I must admit that the proliferation of these quotes throughout common, everyday dialogue and advertising did a lot to strip them of their power in the film. Popular culture had not only given the ending away, but had been repeating that ending over and over again since before I could remember.
It was here that I realized that, not only was I unsurprised and possibly a little tired of hearing the various famous quotes, I was also relating them to a lifetime of product placement and advertising that took advantage of them. This connection unconsciously reduced the perceived value of the work from a "film classic" to a few steps removed from this:
But why should this be the case? As a film student I found the film enjoyable, and was easily taken in by the relative technical perfection of the production. The story was interesting and not entirely predictable, while the musical themes stayed with me days after first viewing the film. The "Mass Culture" section of "Cultural Studies" by Chris Barker explains this frustrating phenomenon as:
"A variant of the high-low cultural boundary that which decries commodity-based culture as inauthentic, manipulative and unsatisfying...The argument is that commodified capitalist 'mass culture' is:
inauthentic because not produced by 'the people'; manipulative because its primary purpose is to be purchased; (and) unsatisfying because it requires little work to consume and thus fails to enrich its customers."[p.49 Barker]
Though funded and sold as a commercial product for the studio's financial gain, Casablanca is generally considered a work of story-telling art, illustrated by winning 3 Academy awards and being nominated for 6 more. It's continuing status as a film classic flies in the face of my automatic, subconscious reaction of interest turned to mild apathy.
The key to this reaction lies in that of time and context. The culture in which I grew up in included Casablanca as a text for reference. A widely popular story that could be used as a loaded symbol, to be inserted wherever it was needed. Casablanca served as a shortcut for ideas ranging from "good", to "romance", to "real love", or as a representation of a "simpler time" when things weren't so "terrible". This concept can be seen in the Coke commercial above, where it is used as a template to bring two modern 20-somethings together, nevermind that the characters in the actual film separate at the end.
In many ways the particulars of the plot don't matter any more (at least in the advertisements case), as the symbol of Casablanca, not the actual film, is used to present a situation where the product, in this case Coke, allows for a serendipitous union of two attractive heterosexual people in a movie theatre. The message being that if you drink Coke you too can have an attractive mate, and love like in "the good 'ol days." This is not an authentic representation of the themes in Casablanca and is a cheapening force that erodes the production down to that of a simple symbol.
This conversion of Casablanca from film to sign is evident in this next commercial:
In it we are given a much more ambiguous presentation of the commercial's message. Instead we are supposed to take the feelings and themes in each film (including Casablanca) and paste them onto the Nike brand. This is not only a confusing commercial, but it frustratingly dilutes the (possibly) powerful message that each film contains for the purpose of building up a shoe brand.
When I began to plan this response paper my original concept was to watch the movie for the first time and talk about whether or not the film Casablanca was a "radical romance" (hint: it's not, but that's another argument). Instead I finished the film experience with a feeling of slight disappointment, and confusion as to why I felt that way. At first I thought it might be that I genuinely didn't care for the film, when it's popularly "classic" status should have guaranteed a great experience. I thought my mind was embroiled in an internal battle, one side convinced that I was supposed to like the film, and the other side mildly disappointed for it not living up to my expectations.
After exploring those ideas (and reading more in Barker) I realized that it was less that I didn't like the film, and more that my expectations were shaped by 28+ years of context-less advertising and second-hand reviews. That the situations and dialogue, once considered timeless, were now partially co-opted by mass culture for the propagation of commercial enterprises. Once that connection was made I couldn't help but connect this great piece of storytelling to numerous advertising campaigns that I would prefer to forget. In many ways it makes me a bit sad, as I was looking forward to joining the collective of Casablanca fans and basking in it's warm glow. Instead I'm left to wonder which one of my favorite films my future children will connect to a Pepsi product and cringe.
Since my expectations for the film were based entirely off a basic understanding provided by "popular culture" I would like to take advantage of my previous inexperience and explore those expectations. My familiarity with Casablanca was primarily focused on famous quotes which were coopted by other types of media and repackaged as either a post-modern reference ("The Good German"), as parody (Various episodes of "The Simpsons"), or in product advertising.
I can't remember how many times I've heard "Here's lookin' at you Kid.", "Play it again Sam", or the "Hill of beans" speech from the end of the film. While it's nice to now know the context in which these quotes exist, I must admit that the proliferation of these quotes throughout common, everyday dialogue and advertising did a lot to strip them of their power in the film. Popular culture had not only given the ending away, but had been repeating that ending over and over again since before I could remember.
It was here that I realized that, not only was I unsurprised and possibly a little tired of hearing the various famous quotes, I was also relating them to a lifetime of product placement and advertising that took advantage of them. This connection unconsciously reduced the perceived value of the work from a "film classic" to a few steps removed from this:
But why should this be the case? As a film student I found the film enjoyable, and was easily taken in by the relative technical perfection of the production. The story was interesting and not entirely predictable, while the musical themes stayed with me days after first viewing the film. The "Mass Culture" section of "Cultural Studies" by Chris Barker explains this frustrating phenomenon as:
"A variant of the high-low cultural boundary that which decries commodity-based culture as inauthentic, manipulative and unsatisfying...The argument is that commodified capitalist 'mass culture' is:
inauthentic because not produced by 'the people'; manipulative because its primary purpose is to be purchased; (and) unsatisfying because it requires little work to consume and thus fails to enrich its customers."[p.49 Barker]
Though funded and sold as a commercial product for the studio's financial gain, Casablanca is generally considered a work of story-telling art, illustrated by winning 3 Academy awards and being nominated for 6 more. It's continuing status as a film classic flies in the face of my automatic, subconscious reaction of interest turned to mild apathy.
The key to this reaction lies in that of time and context. The culture in which I grew up in included Casablanca as a text for reference. A widely popular story that could be used as a loaded symbol, to be inserted wherever it was needed. Casablanca served as a shortcut for ideas ranging from "good", to "romance", to "real love", or as a representation of a "simpler time" when things weren't so "terrible". This concept can be seen in the Coke commercial above, where it is used as a template to bring two modern 20-somethings together, nevermind that the characters in the actual film separate at the end.
In many ways the particulars of the plot don't matter any more (at least in the advertisements case), as the symbol of Casablanca, not the actual film, is used to present a situation where the product, in this case Coke, allows for a serendipitous union of two attractive heterosexual people in a movie theatre. The message being that if you drink Coke you too can have an attractive mate, and love like in "the good 'ol days." This is not an authentic representation of the themes in Casablanca and is a cheapening force that erodes the production down to that of a simple symbol.
This conversion of Casablanca from film to sign is evident in this next commercial:
In it we are given a much more ambiguous presentation of the commercial's message. Instead we are supposed to take the feelings and themes in each film (including Casablanca) and paste them onto the Nike brand. This is not only a confusing commercial, but it frustratingly dilutes the (possibly) powerful message that each film contains for the purpose of building up a shoe brand.
When I began to plan this response paper my original concept was to watch the movie for the first time and talk about whether or not the film Casablanca was a "radical romance" (hint: it's not, but that's another argument). Instead I finished the film experience with a feeling of slight disappointment, and confusion as to why I felt that way. At first I thought it might be that I genuinely didn't care for the film, when it's popularly "classic" status should have guaranteed a great experience. I thought my mind was embroiled in an internal battle, one side convinced that I was supposed to like the film, and the other side mildly disappointed for it not living up to my expectations.
After exploring those ideas (and reading more in Barker) I realized that it was less that I didn't like the film, and more that my expectations were shaped by 28+ years of context-less advertising and second-hand reviews. That the situations and dialogue, once considered timeless, were now partially co-opted by mass culture for the propagation of commercial enterprises. Once that connection was made I couldn't help but connect this great piece of storytelling to numerous advertising campaigns that I would prefer to forget. In many ways it makes me a bit sad, as I was looking forward to joining the collective of Casablanca fans and basking in it's warm glow. Instead I'm left to wonder which one of my favorite films my future children will connect to a Pepsi product and cringe.
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