Category: Theories

WAYNE WORLDS COLLIDE

A)n outline to an essay I started, originally titled “WAYNE WORLDS COLLIDE… The Hipster Economy of Cool and its effects on/interplay with American neo-capitalism (post Regan) as demonstrated in feature film Wayne’s World and its sequel.”

B)y mattz brog

[begun july 1st, 2011, 9:19 PM , abandoned july 2nd, 2011, 1:43 AM]

 

 I once thought I had mono for an entire year. It turned out I was just really bored.

-Wayne Campbell

 

THESIS

In the beginning,

Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar represent the archetypes of the first “early adopters” of new millennium trends which now define the socio-political landscape.

 

FRAME

In the early 21st century aka now-ish, a certain upheaval is occurring and modern society’s value system is being flipped on its head.  Some graybeard intellectuals have taken this as a big surprise — but that’s because they are old and everything is moving too fast and cheeseburgers used to be a quarter and the country is run by godless socialists and also by kids much, much cooler than you.  Yeah this has been coming, has been around, kind of played out now, and just discovering that fact yourself does not mean it wasn’t there a billion years ago, aka 1994, plastered throughout surewhynot Wayne’s World.

 

STUFF

A) The repeated demonstration of obscure triviatic knowledge, political ennui, and pop-culture-wherewithal as hierarchy-establishing forces

1. Wayne’s impressive grasp of the Cantonese language, complete with regional dialect accent, is the clincher which wins over Cassandra after their meet-cute.
2. Their lack of ‘trying’ leads them to success, and that sort of anti-ethos now grips a wide demographic in a target market (18-whatever, with $); however they demonstrate sincere effort when it comes to certain core anarcho-socialist values.
3. Asdlkf
4. This is only going to make sense if they’ve seen the movies and remember them [format?] research outlines
5. no one is going to read 2k words in one sitting anymore maybe not ever again

 

We fear change.

-Garth Algar

B) Eschewing Money

1. Wayne’s World, the show within the movie, debuts on public access. It achieves fame on public access from word of mouth. Even after a stint on cable (thanks to the nefarious Rob Lowe), they go back to public access and still find success. This is a brutal uppercut to the established modes of transmission and creative politics at large, maybe.
2. In one particularly eerie bit of social commentary, Cassandra laments the birth of CDs as the dominant format — “I’ll have to buy everything all over again,” she moans. Wayne, meanwhile, pops in another 8 track and gains points in our book not for the camp-style of his possessions, but for the passion and ahead-of-the-curve understanding he displays —  The song has the quality, not the format, especially when everyone in the car sings along.
3. Their mocking of corporate sponsors (ex: Wayne calls noah’s arcade founder a “sphincter boy” clandestinely during his first prime time TV slot) is really a demonstration of free speech in a post-FCC era. Wayne goes on to write — not say — of his sponsor, “He blows goats…I have proof” and “This man has no penis” — and those tweet-sized comments get him fired from his own show. This is less of an allusion to McCarthysm and more of a forecast of a coming era of censorship-via-funding (and thusly lack of funding). There’s maybe a parable here about publically owned companies here that borders on sedition or um something about tweets starting revolutions all over the world I don’t know, revise, delete?
4. Their rejection of mega sponsorships in-the-story, while cheekily mocking huge corporate players such as Reebok, Nike, Doritos, Pepsi, Abunchofothers who paid for the privilege, exposing the how-whore-can-you-go mentality driving their ad departments. Confronted with this stark, stark, head-slapping lack of morals, Garth counters with Buddah-esque poise, wearing Reeboks from head to toe, opining: “It’s like, they don’t even care…”

 

C) A de-emphasis on looks

1. rob lowe (sodomized at the end of the first movie)
2. kim basinger (manipulative, criminally-plotting, eventually jilted by Garth who dismisses her as “mental” despite his own questionable thought processes)
3. garth’s ‘foxy lady’ fantasies come true, he sexually conquers Kim Basinger, and he achieves self satisfaction despite shunning contemporary hair fashion vis a vis effort and mega-corporate products (as well as those that test on animals)
4. wayne’s cup runneth over *schwing* despite the mullet and generic clothes. While dodging the maniacal love and dedication of his redhead ex girlfriend, Wayne bags the ethnically-gifted Cassandra on his first try. His prodigy-like grasp of the Cantonese language (itself a veiled metaphor some of the more unteachable aspects of music as a field of knowledge) succeeds, while Rob Lowe’s maybe-better-er understanding of the language’s nuances fails because it’s simply too polished. Wayne trumps these and other obstacles again and again, all with a minimal education and the full-time responsibility of entertaining a wide fanbase with a public access TV show that is basically a skype session with lower Chicago.
5. In both films (more self-referentially in the second) we are left to assume that in this fictional world the embodiment of a person’s character is greater than his social status or outward appearance.

D) the progressive stance towards race and diversity

1. Cassandra’s Cantonese father (a traditionalist and assumed neo-communist) at first battles Wayne with swords and kung fu but ultimately gives him respect, and his daughter’s hand, all due to Wayne’s ability to empathize with his future father in law’s culture… and ultimately imitate it… ultimatelyultimatelyultimately Wayne’s proto speak transcends lingual boundaries and finds ways to interact with a diverse character set on each individual sub-cultures own terms. He does this without pandering but also without offending, because at the end of any interaction there remains Wayne’s guffaw-ing grin and bird-chirping stare. He’s harmless. That’s the cover which Wayne, Garth, and their legion of seditious insurgents use to outwit corporations and consumers alike.
2. The native American spirit guide in Waynes World 2 (WW2) pays homage to not just a spiritual/openreligion theme, but to certain unacknowledged demons of America’s aggressive industrial revolution past.
3. Russel and crew member engage in heterosexual bonding to such an extent that it becomes a total rejection of hyper-masculinity by making it a balls question.  You afraid to admit you love your friends, dude?  Sha, right.  The bolditude of that dare was part of a new era of the male-liberation movement, a safe place where otherwise super-gay activities and several terrible sitcoms could finally jailbreak their gender roles and fly under the banner of Russel’s immortal quote “platonic love can exist between two grown men.”
4. Fix formatting here don’t know why its doing this.

E) The de-emphasis of mainstream media — foreshadowing the decline of the Record Label, the death of the Television industry, the birth of the Internet as institutional taste-maker, and the democratization of fame

1. Cassandra shuns music video (allusion to death of MTV?) for her band Crucial Taunt (continuing the irony principle with such a name) in order to play Waynestock
2. The plan for Waynestock is to get 2 people to tell 2 people… forecasting not only the coming music festival corporate cashgrab bonanza sponsored by Heineken and their world famous $12 beer, but also the social media powerhouses which would follow 15 years after the movie was released.
3. Their decision to use radio to promote waynestock, putting their own commercial-speak on a bandwidth usually reserved for music, on a medium reserved for ads.  Hostile takeover of dinosaur institutions.
4. Wayne’s shameless use of a Morrison impersonator (via dream, via actor) to promote his non-existant event. Following the ghost of Jim Morrison’s advice “if you book them, they will come,” one could see a forecast of Kickstartr, as well as a firm summation of the coming era’s “sell it now and create it later” attitude which birthed 2 stock bubbles (dot com and mortgage) and nearly crashed the human economy + value system as we know it.

F) Domestic terrorism performed with stunning irreverence

1. Prior history of run-ins with law, outspoken disregard for justice system

Benjamin: Do you have a lawyer?

Wayne Campbell: Yes. Ahm, no. We’re between lawyers right now. You see, our first lawyer screwed our affairs so bad.

Garth Algar: That’s right. I walked right to that office – that’s what I did – and I reached across that desk and I grabbed him by his big fat head and I said “Listen, man. I’m not going to jail for *you* or for anybody.”

2. Garth casually hacks into a satellite system and is able to route the signal from the broadcast into the television set in Sharp’s limo (paradigm shift of power as Garth, the unemployed, disgruntled citizen armed with a laptop in Aurora, Illinois, is able to hack through the United States government’s hardware/software and manipulate a corporate mogul’s private data feed for a separate agenda)

OK… First I’ll access the secret military spy satelite that is in geosynchronous orbit over the midwest. Then I’ll ID the limo by the vanity plate “MR. BIGGG” and get his approximate position. Then I’ll reposition the transmission dish on the remote truck to 17.32 degrees east, hit WESTAR 4 over the Atlantic, bounce the signal back into the aerosphere up to COMSAT 6, beam it back to SATCOM 2 transmitter number 137 and down on the dish on the back of Mr. Big’s limo… It’s almost too easy.

-Garth Algar

3. Wayne exhibits disturbing bouts of jealousy in regards to Cassandra, and, in the sequel, this ratchets up to him physically spying on her with elaborate technology and teams of masquerading agents in costume. Can draw lines to 21st century relationship boundaries, social-media-stalking, UK tabloid wiretap scandals, and the ideals of global-forced transparency via WikiLeaks.

 [Wayne opens a door to show a bunch of spies in training]

Garth Algar: What are you gonna do with these guys?

Wayne Campbell: Oh, nothing really. I just always wanted to open a door to room where people are being trained like in James Bond movies.

4. fix formatting dont know why its doing this still

MORE) More

1. Say something aboutmusic influence maybe.

2. 2nd movie gets self referential so can talk about the almost complete redo of The Graduate montage that takes up several minutes of screen time, or the Charleton Heston thing could tie to guns/NRA rabbithole but better to stick to the acting line scene which is pretty good gimmick but later boned out in Austin Powers so much that it’s hard to appreciate now

3. can also go into Garth’s paralytic reaction to being on the air alone as this is a feeling many young americans uhfeel today when staring into the maw of the infinite audience at their fingertips on twitter, facebook, blogs, etc, best not to think of this any longer.

Wayne Campbell: Well, that’s all the time we had for our movie. We hope you found it entertaining, whimsical and yet relevant, with an underlying revisionist conceit that bullied the films emotional attachments to the subject matter.

Garth Algar: I just hoped you didn’t think it sucked.

 

CONCLUSION 1

In maybe conclusion,

Wayne and Garth are dangerous puppets of some postmodern, bloodthirstily anarcho-socialist agenda, one whose greatest weapon is caring and more importantly a lack of caring. Therefore, And but so What positive we can draw is that the things Wayne cares about, he really cares about. And while those things are few — a best friend, a jamming babe, and some tunes — he defends them, commits to them — they’re all he needs.

Wayne Campbell: What the hell’s going on? I lost my show, I lost my best friend, I lost my girl. I’m being shit on, that’s all, shit on, and you know what really pisses me off-

[Camera pans away]

Wayne Campbell: Wait, where are you goin’? OK, things aren’t that great, but I’ll get ’em back, OK?

 

CONCLUSION 2

As rumors of a second sequel abound one wonders if the Economy of Cool can handle a WW3. Wayne and Garth aren’t cool because they ignore or criticize — they’re cool because they don’t care about being cool.  That sort of highschool-epiphany is the paradox which both validates the idea of another film and destabalizes their integrity  with each added installment in the franchise.

Just do you, man.

Ah yes, it’s a lot like “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. In many ways it’s superior but will never be as recognized as the original.

-Wayne Campbell

 

CONCLUSION 3

But believe this and try not to hurl: a reboot is coming, it will happen, it must happen, because anywhere there is a fan base, there is an equation to calculate how much money they have, a study to inquire how much said fans would part with, a projection as to what tie-in sponsorships and products can be jerked out with as little care as possible, and a bottom line budget to promote produce and corpse fuck the franchise by turning out another turd in the hopes of feeding a few hungry Rob Lowes and thereby weakening the value (marketed or intrinsic) held within the early movies, the original story.

“It’s like they don’t even care.”

[restarted 216 am may 30 2012 and ‘finished’ under duress 436am may 31 2012]