Feigning Ignorance Is Bliss: From Morbius to Minions
One hot summer’s day, I was watching Jurassic World (2015) at the Peckhamplex, the £5-a-ticket venue in South-East London. James, my friend, had fallen asleep. I was still hanging in there. Having been obsessed with the original film as a child, I wasn’t on the edge of my seat because I found the film to be a worthy successor to Spielberg's original dinotastic adventure. No, no. I was intrigued by a man sitting near the front of the cinema.
Run
As the characters were running from their prehistoric assailants, ostensibly in peril, the gentleman in question loudly advised them on their next move.
“RUUUUN!”, he would say, intermittently. Now, I don’t think he thought the 2D figures on the screen could hear him. He wasn’t mad, nor had he been hit on the head by a Brontosaurus.
It dawned on me, on that hot summer’s day indoors, that he was mocking the movie.
I feel confident in saying that not only was he perfectly aware that his input regarding the characters’ survival fell on deaf ears, but that that was exactly the point. A jest! A jest! But what was the joke? Or what was the point behind it? Sarcasm, my dear. I do believe his advice was heavily tinged with irony.
But what was the joke? Or what was the point behind it? Sarcasm, my dear. I do believe his advice was heavily tinged with irony.
Feigning ignorance is bliss
South-East London is home to, for want of a better word, a thriving community of hipsters. I admit that this term may well be out of date, having graduated university in 2016. But I still live in the area, and am privy to the sarcastic youth; the middle-class art students who are privileged enough not to take anything seriously. Not even the threat of death at the hands of a monstrous prehistoric predator.
Take a walk up Peckham Road, with views of Camberwell College of Arts, and you’ll see a peculiar fashion parade - a hodgepodge of trends and styles - tongue in cheek 90s garb and beyond. The young are draped in irony.
I got the internet when I was about 11 years old. That sounds a bit weird - like describing when I picked up some degenerative illness, or perhaps found inner peace via alternative modes of spirituality. Maybe, in a way, both are true.
The internet is synonymous with youth culture. Youth culture is of course a very broad definition, but so is the internet. Did you know the internet spans farther than our entire universe? It’s probably true, but please don’t quote me.
What’s in a meme?
Enter, the internet meme. Coined by Richard Dawkins, the atheist who, for my money, would make even the most devout non-believer want to convert to Christianity if only to have some distance from the man’s party-pooper spiel. A meme refers to recurrent features in biology, being repeated. Or something. Transposed onto online content, it describes an image or text or video or all three being repeated and repeated and repeated. Things being replicated to such an infinite extent will usually lose any meaning they may have had.
Things being replicated to such an infinite extent will usually lose any meaning they may have had.
But did they have any meaning to begin with?
Andy Warhol, facilitated by his ‘Factory’, dealt in the replication of images - cans of soup, Marilyn Monroe’s face. And it held some philosophical weight, too, it may be said.
Internet culture has recently inspired people to go outdoors. People have been stepping out into the real world, like cartoon characters entering reality in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988).
Who or what is responsible for this migration?
At first, it was Morbius (2022). Well, not quite. But the film planted the seed. The vampire film, starring Jared Leto, was apparently selected at random (that’s so random!) to be elevated to legendary meme status.
But this is different from, say, the communal event that is seeing Tommy Wiseau’s so-bad-it's-good romp The Room (2003) in theatres, where fans, delighting in in-jokes, throw plastic spoons at the screen and grin and laugh and hoot and holla at the enjoyably awful acting, directing etc.
Morbius isn’t even a particularly bad film
It’s bad, sure. But it’s hardly the best of the worst, being on a similar level to a lot of today’s silly superhero drivel. Its averagness may well be the point. The meme firmly nods at media oversaturation.
But fans, nonetheless, have voted the film very highly, leaving detailed, adoring reviews in comments sections.
This does not reflect its quality. It's rather a case of mass-trolling. What did the butler say to Batman that one time? Some people just want to watch the world burn.
Like in Batman
Also like in Batman, people like to light cash-money on fire, too. Just for the hell of it, which is what actually going to see the film is the equivalent too.
In a way, mass trolling is kind of nice. It mocks the absurdity of arbitrary scores. But this is only a by-product.
Enter, Minions. No, I’m not referring to the devilishly silly lads who have flocked to the cinema lately under false pretences.
Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022), is an animated film about diminutive yellow bean-shaped beings. It hit cinemas recently.
This would-be children’s movie, a confection of colour and sound, has been warmly embraced by young men.
The release of the film took what started with Morbius to the next level.
Teens on TikTok are coordinating group viewings, besuited in their Sunday best, adopting uniform stances, and applauding at regular intervals as though attending the opera or something (does that happen at the opera? I’ve never been). The lads feign a variety of emotions, some even breaking down in faux-tears.
The boys refer to themselves as Gentleminions
So, just what in the hell are these kids doing?!
The dude bros resemble a budget ‘Project Mayhem’, the group of anarchists from Fight Club (1999) who also wanted to watch the world burn, and manufacture soap out of the fat drained from rich liposuction patients (and sell it back to them).
Ultimately, the Gentleminion’s money isn’t going towards tearing the master's house down and starting anew. It’s actually going towards the funding of yet more Hollywood schlock. Universal Pictures has seized upon the meme as a marketing opportunity, announcing their support for the ‘movement’. Some countercultural street cred has been attained, though. In the UK, Odeon put up signs banning formal attire in their cinemas.
Do these young men lack the tools to grow out of their adolescence? Maybe that’s a bit of an over reading. The videos of them sitting dead-pan, fingers formally aloft and almost in a pose of prayer, are actually pretty hilarious.
Post-irony
Sarcasm and irony are, really, tools to mask pain. To fill the hole in our souls. Many of the lads were children when the original film was released. Genuine nostalgia isn’t limited to middle-aged recollections of how fine and dandy life was decades ago. These boys might actually be sincerely enjoying what they see, but through the armour of sarcasm. Boys do cry.
Could it be described as meta? Is it postmodern? Part of it smells more like 4chan-esque incel culture. Or at least a parody of the ‘sigma male’ categorisation of modern man-folk.
The internet is too cool for school. But it did still attend. My memories of being a boy are receding every day. I think the joke is that only distinguished gentlemen have the refined taste buds to enjoy what is in actuality a so-so family film. But in summary…
I don’t think I'm in on the joke anymore.