Culturejam: Hijacking Commercial Culture
文化干擾，Canada 2001 /加拿大電影節 光點台北
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I heard some stories about culture jamming before, but i’ve never got the essence of those pranks untill i saw this documentary. The vandalists called themself reality hacker. Just like one of the hacker ethics reveals, they do it for fun, (except some sreious purposes like anti-commercial). They say, “if you are too serious, you lose,” and “if there’s no fun, there is no need to do it.”
They reminds us that we are able to change the world by using simple, money-saving ways. Carly Stasko use stikers to twist advertisement message along the street and in the subway. Billboard liberation front is held by a group of funny old men who make stylish and funny ads and to cover outdoor ads along highways. I like the one they take bake the images of great people from Apple’s advertisements. They are right, if big companys have the right to use Dailai Lama’s image, we can use it to. Scott Stark’s film also disscussed the issue) My favorite one is that people from “the church of stop shopping” pretending to be consumers in Disney’s rant on the cell phone that buying Mickey Mouse or Snow White is a bad idea for children. Compared with other tactics like preahing, or vandalising ads in the subway car or outdoor buildboard, conveying the message as an ordinary person will be more powerful. Like woman interviewed in the film, I don’t think people like others to tell them what to do.
But still, they are all very good ideas. They are jokes with style and creativity, nothing like slapsticks we see on TV. With laugh, we take in the concepts unconsciously. I hope we can see things like these in Taiwan soon.