is that of German director Uwe Boll, who, over the years, has made some of the worst-reviewed movies, almost all of which are video game adaptations, such as In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (right). Unsurprisingly, his name has become an insult in the video game community. Boll's films comprise the majority of video game film adaptations, and this has been instrumental in creating the public image that the video game is an unintelligent, immature medium that is incapable of any real storytelling.While Boll is usually only referred to in asides and jokes, there has been a storm of activity due to a petition to permanently stop Uwe Boll's filmmaking career. The petition collects signatures as a sign of community-wide discontent with the director's filmmaking, and asks Boll to permanently retire his camera. Normally, petitions carry nearly no weight. Petitions for everything from political misnomers to cartoon DVD releases have floated through the internet, and have had a history of getting absolutely nothing done. However, the stakes are different on this one - in an interview, Uwe Boll personally stated if a million signatures landed on the "Stop Dr. Uwe Boll" petition, he would stop making movies. As soon as he made the declaration, sites for both video game and film aficionados all over the internet jumped at the news, posting it in an attempt to get as many signatures as possible. As of today, nearly 200,000 signatures grace the petition, which is almost a fifth of the requirement. However, Boll has shown early signs of not making good on his word, challenging the legitimacy of the petition. He claims that the petition is signed by a very small group of people, only twenty or thirty times per person. Of course, while that is possible, it would require twenty or thirty computers per person, as, according to slashfilm, the petition records the IP addresses of the voters. Any real debate over the petition is pointless, however: A filmmaker made a verbal, nonlegal agreement to stop his career when a virtual piece of paper had a million signatures on it. The entire deal has no legal backing, and is more a representation of a community hope to squash a terrible filmmaker. In other words, there's no guarantee that anything happen when the petition eventually reaches the one-million voter mark.
So, since there is no real reason to believe that this petition will go anywhere, is there a reason to continue it? Absolutely. In championing this cause, I have decided to look back at two blog posts written before the petition became such a championed cause. The first one, written by freelancer writer Dave White, a writer that seems to have made a name for himself discussing the worst that Hollywood has to offer. His article on MSNBC did not have a space for commentary, so I went to his website and commented on his blog post regarding the article. I responded to his favorable review of Uwe Boll's filmmaking, arguing that reading into his films for genius is a dead end. The second, by Dave McAvoy of film blog Whimsical F-Bomb, ("Film" being the four-letter word), questions the elitism of attempting to wipe a percieved bad taste from the film world. My responses are provided below.
Uwe Boll: Bad Filmmaker or Trash Visionary?
Response:
Mr. White, I have to say that I enjoyed reading your article on the liveliness of director Uwe Boll. In doing research for a blog post on Dr. Boll in the wake of the famous petition, I have to say that your article, as the only article respecting Boll's creativity, was a surprise. That said, I have to strongly disagree with your opinions on Mr. Boll's films.
Boll's films don't 'dismantle filmmaking,' even in his attempted lampooning. The ca
mp that is derived from this is little more than a sinking desperation and a willingness to smear the lines of taste in order to make a profit. If these movies had been as bland as "Are We There Yet," as you pointed out, then the movie would have made next to no money at all - something we saw with "In the Name of the King." Instead, his movies belay an attempt to be a video game version of Micheal Moore - throwing controversy at the audience in the hopes of achieving success. Without the video game footage (a move probably made to milk the video-games-as-art controversy) and decapitated zombie, would anyone have gone to see "House of the Dead?"I would argue that instead of a lovably off-the-wall screwball filmmaker, Boll represents a liability - in using the names of video games to sell his films, he has hurt the video game community. He has made fools of the German government by exploiting a loophole that allows him to write off his production costs. He may be no Spielberg, but he is certainly no Ed Wood, either.
Uwe Boll, Anti-Fan Activism, and the Tensions of Convergence Culture
Response:
I really appreciated your analysis of the psychological response to Uwe Boll. I have to admit that I have not read Hume and Kant, but your quotes very directly related to the topic at hand.
I do, however, take issue with your implication that this petition amounts to a "final solution," as you say, to what would be the Uwe Boll problem. Attacking something that one considers tasteless is not the same as attempting to eradicate anything under a certain standard of taste. This isn't a form of censorship; rather, it's an expression of outrage, in the same vein as Al Sharpton protesting misogynist stereotypes in rap music. The communities that have dedicated themselves to the promotion of this petition do so because of the very same capitalism that allows Boll films to exist. While Boll's films exist as part of a loophole in the idea of capitalism, their continued production is a sign of something that simply needs change, not something that should stand to be studied. It is an expression of fierce hatred, and one that, even if ignored by Boll himself, serves as a warning to potential investors and distributors. Attempting to make what amounts to a million negative reviews is not much different from any other protest - Boll's actions hurt the video game community, and as a community, they have chosen to create awareness and make a change. I don't think this is any more elitist than calling for micheal moore to make more truthful documentaries, or challenging the racism in the Resident Evil 5 trailer.
3 comments:
Thanks for the thoughtful response to my post. And I thought I was writing to no one!
One thing that I think I failed to get across is that I have an extremely ambivalent attitude toward this form of collective action. I love it on its face: it's so incredibly rare to see genuine political action taking place in the sphere of taste politics. I'm also very sympathetic to any allegations about his exploitation of economic loopholes to purvey crappy movies on the rest of the world. I find it offensive that so many people can be making so much money simply for producing something (in an industrial sense) that doesn't actually produce anything (in the more creative sense of producing something that can be of genuine use to somebody). It's a sign of the weird times we live in, and it's certainly something that needs to be stopped (just shocked the German government hasn't put an end to it; can't be helping them any). For that reason, I signed the petition....
On the other hand, I feel that too many wrongs have been committed in the name of "good taste." The concept has gone unchecked as one of the single worst purveyors of class, gender, and racial division for the past two hundred and fifty years (and that's if we use Pierre Bourdieu's conservative estimate that this began with Kant). It has been every bit as divisive as laws that create and sustain these unequal divisions. Just because we're defending the integrity of video games, does that make the concept of "good taste" any less problematic. The games Boll butchers appeal primarily to a demographic of college-age white males from the middle- to upper-class: aren't we essentially positioning ourselves as the defenders of this singular demographic when we are anti-Boll? Would a more productive form of collective action instead urge for other social subjects to be represented in some way? I'm not saying I know how to do that, but I just don't think this petition is doing it.
Ultimately, I'm just really ambivalent about the whole thing, even though I'm checking the petitions daily to see what will happen. Even if I am ambivalent, this is a very exciting time for fan activists!
Let me start by saying thank you for the cleansing of the palate link. It was my personal favorite. It really clarified things for me.
Are his movies successful in theaters? How does he keep getting funding for them if they are so terrible? You would think no celebrities would want to work with him, but I think that’s Leelee Sobieski pictured on the DVD cover.
I thought your post was very amusing, or at least that someone could be such a terrible filmmaker that people would care enough to start a petition to get them to stop. You picked a perfect picture of Boll, very creepy. I might say you should familiarize us with a couple of his other movies or provide a link to a list of them. The links that you do provide are good, and you have so many. I thought it was especially interesting that one of the links mentioned he could be making big budget flops on purpose (something about what you are allowed to write off in Germany). In your opinion is this one blogger you picked who writes favorably about Uwe Boll an anomaly? Is it only the video gaming community that has a vendetta against him, or is he generally recognized to be a fool?
It is great that you already got a response from Dave McAvoy that was so enthusiastic. I have to agree with you on your comment that you posted for him as well that the petition could not be considered a final solution. Michael Moore needs capitalized in the second to last line. It will be certainly something to see when the petition signatures reach one million and Uwe Boll has to come up with a response. That kind of action taken against you certainly would be disheartening for any filmmaker, even a hack. Anyway, interesting post and very well written.
Mr. McAvoy,
I absolutely agree with you when it comes to the dichotomy of the situation. It is genuinely impressive to see action meaning something in the world of 'taste'. I loved the way you outlined Boll's "production" as a lack of production. Interestingly, the German government has closed this loophole, though wikipedia has an interesting view on this - Boll's filmmaking may have been exactly what the loophole was intended for. But that's another story for another time.
I read an argument somewhere that asking Boll to stop filmmaking is like asking the same of Ed Wood. I personally find the cases different, but I'm not exactly sure how I feel about that argument. Would you really see Uwe Boll as cleansing the palate? I am not so sure. But, look at the history of these attempted purges of bad taste. Most of the time, when some dominant culture tries to squash something, doesn't it just go underground, or form a counter-culture? this is what happened with much of drug culture, and hippie culture, and even comic book culture. I guess what I'm saying is, then, that attempts at regulation of taste are as natural to the cycle as counter-cultures. It's almost a darwinian inevitability, if that makes any sense.
Finally, I don't think I agree with your argument that attacking Boll is solidifying a singular form of thought from one socioeconomic group. There's a wonderful video game blog attached to MTV called MTV Multiplayer, that's currently doing a special on minorities in video games. it's amazing to see how much of an influence the video game world has on the black community. One person interviewed declared that the three essential ingredients to making a rap album were "a bag of weed, a bottle of hennesy, and a playstation with a copy of Madden." As much as we as a society would like to position gamers in the 'suburbia' category, the demographic is immensely wider than that.
But your argument is about something besides that, so let's assume that you were speaking of the entire video game demographic. Is speaking out against Boll propagating the beliefs of this demographic? Maybe. But is it unproductive? not any more than the actions of any other group that tries to refute something tasteless (the MPAA and, well, every political lobbyist in the country come to mind). I'd still have to argue that it is a necessary part of a capitalist society, and one that will have to be balanced by other competing forces, such as the pro-Bollers.
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