I only just got around to listening to “Now and Then,” the most recent of the zombie Beatles tracks assembled from demos John Lennon had made before his murder, mainly because this essay by Owen Hatherley for the New Left Review made me curious.
I thought Now and Then sounded like The Ruttles; it made me appreciate Neil Innes's creativity, which is what we relied on in place of both AI and critique back in the day.
It surprises me how much of this essay could also apply to the recent copyright expiration on Steamboat Willy.
I get the celebration of the seeming defeat of Disney (propagator of extended copyright laws) but it seems at least artistically the majority of Steamboat Willy Mickey use has been generally an endeavour to use the built up cultural capital of Mickey (arguable a cultural capital forced on us by Disney) to earn a bit of cash or alternatively an f’ you to Disney that potentially reinforces the (hollow) legacy of original “Disney” Mickey.
There’s probably something personal to the exhalation screw Disney creativity, but by the time it is shared and reposted and spreads it feels more like it just remythologises Mickey, or at least it runs the danger of strengthening Mickey’s place in the cultural sphere.
Tldr; maybe the picture of Mickey sucking his own d*ck is as much an act of love for Mickey as it is an act of aggression toward Disney and people smarter than me should figure out how successful it is at either.
I thought Now and Then sounded like The Ruttles; it made me appreciate Neil Innes's creativity, which is what we relied on in place of both AI and critique back in the day.
It surprises me how much of this essay could also apply to the recent copyright expiration on Steamboat Willy.
I get the celebration of the seeming defeat of Disney (propagator of extended copyright laws) but it seems at least artistically the majority of Steamboat Willy Mickey use has been generally an endeavour to use the built up cultural capital of Mickey (arguable a cultural capital forced on us by Disney) to earn a bit of cash or alternatively an f’ you to Disney that potentially reinforces the (hollow) legacy of original “Disney” Mickey.
There’s probably something personal to the exhalation screw Disney creativity, but by the time it is shared and reposted and spreads it feels more like it just remythologises Mickey, or at least it runs the danger of strengthening Mickey’s place in the cultural sphere.
Tldr; maybe the picture of Mickey sucking his own d*ck is as much an act of love for Mickey as it is an act of aggression toward Disney and people smarter than me should figure out how successful it is at either.