Michael Glode Professor Bednar Capstone March 6Th, 2021 Death To
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Michael Glode Professor Bednar Capstone March 6th, 2021 Death to 2020 Context and Description Death to 2020 is a British Mockumentary which offers insight into the year 2020, including presidential elections, environmental issues, and especially COVID through the lens of famous actors whose use of performativity leads the audience through different narratives. This is important because the way in which the actors portray their character’s personas to the audience determines if the message is interpreted correctly. This mockumentary style has become increasingly popular in recent years with shows like The Office and Modern Family but probably the catalyst for this genre was This is Spinal Tap. Within this analysis of Death to 2020 I will be looking at mockumentaries as a genre, the characters depicted within the special, and the specific events within the film followed by what they represent. Many characters have specific characteristics that add to the narrative that the director wants the audience to notice that I will discuss further below. There is also something interesting about the release of the special which was done before the year was even over and many critics pointed out that fact that this special is unnecessary. This is touched upon with satire within the trailer of this special which says “It’s coming soon,” but as the announcement also asks, is it “too soon?” It has only been a few months since the special’s release and it has received many mixed reviews. This is because many people believe the Special was unnecessary since we just lived through it while others say a collection of events in one place like this are beneficial to reflect upon. Many media critics had a lot to say about this Netflix Special including the flipping of perspectives inside American politics and a British frame of reference, which seems to include the queen who only seems to care about Prince Harry and Maghan leaving the royal family and views on Boris Johnson who is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The bottom line is that many would describe this as just a piece of content with no real purpose other than to recap of the year that no one wants to relive. Many critics pointed out that from the trailer it seemed as if the writers had something they wanted to present to the audience but they couldn't pinpoint what that thing is other than chronologically running through the year with fictitious characters for narrative. It was also stated in reviews that while this may be characterized as a political comedy, it lacks the imagination to take it to the next level. A political comedy does not need to persuade someone but rather it could change minds, or add new insight, or allow us to see the world in a new way, but all it really needs to do is let us laugh at the world (Allen). While a lot of the critics have been negative, there have been those that see the positives within the special. Dan Stubbs describes it as a story of “fake news, polarisation, the technocracy, media bias, the climate emergency, Karens, “lib-tards'', conspiracy theorists, anti- vaxxers and everything in between.” The Netflix special provides different perspectives that may be fictitious but the audience can still relate because again we all went through the same year. While there are events from the special that we still deal with right now, specifically COVID-19, this special tackles a lot of issues big and small that plagued the year in hopes to offer a satirical way of looking at these events. This allows us to view a year in review that seeks to bring comedic attributes to that hard year we went through and reflect on it in our own way. The humor seen in this special can be described as observational humor in which they observe the events over the year and bring satire in to make the viewers laugh or engage in some sort of social critique. The first clue to Death to 2020’s sense of humor is the names it gives to its characters. Samuel L. Jackson plays Dash Bracket, a journalist for a publication called the New Yorkerly News. Kumail Nanjiani is an ethics-free tech CEO named Bark Multiverse who is a representation of the top 1%. Joe Keery, whose character is identified onscreen as “Gig Economy Millennial,” gets the name Duke Goolies and is a representation of how society sees millennials. A scientist played by Samson Kayo is stuck with the name Pyrex Flask which is also ironically a flask used in a lab. The character development beyond the names and an impression provided by the characters is non-existent. This seemed to be one of the biggest problems with media critics because the creators decided all the characters needed was a funny name and stereotypical persona. However, the show does have more sturdier characters in its arsenal that are jam packed with quirks due to the actors performances. These include Leslie Jones, as behavioral therapist Dr. Maggie Gravel, who gets to be performatively furious with all of humanity. Cristin Milioti plays a next-door Karen named Kathy Flowers and gives the role to her all, with a brittle smile and intense gaze. Simplicity is the name of the game within this Mockumentary because there is no character development beyond that. This is important because seeking these stereotypes and understanding what they represent will be one of my biggest challenges. When viewing a medium that includes both real life footage events but fictional characters, you get an interesting dynamic which allows for an exaggerated representation of certain groups of people. The film in many ways wants to address the audience with these stereotypes, many times the personas are very exaggerated to express this. One of the most important ways in which they address the audience is through the actors they picked as well as the fictional names provided. This is because the audience can understand from very early on that the characters in the film are really actors playing these characters. So at a basic level we understand the line between fictionality and reality. This puts the audience in a position to decode and reflect on the information they are being given with each new character being introduced. The Netflix special begins at the start of the year and continues chronologically throughout the year supported with 12 months of actual news footage that the directors used around their fictitious characters. Nick Alen had to say: “This project on the other hand, only tries to engage with the viewer by scanning though headlines and giving it all a funny face, which itself is a cynical approach to a year that might have taken a lot out of us”. The first event was the Australian bushfires which took a toll on the country and required allied countries to give aid to Australia. This then led Greta Thunburg to speak at the World Economic Forum to discuss the world leaders inaction to assist in the first disaster that we would experience at the start of 2020. Greta Thunberg is a young 18 year old environmental activist who demands immediate change from world leaders. The show specifically takes a jab at her by saying that she got famous even though everything she says is depressing which goes to show that no one is safe from critique within this film. While the special addresses a lot of the big events, it also covers smaller ones like Prince Henry and his wife leaving the royal family, which causes the queen to not be focused on within the Mockumnetary. The special also touches upon the Black Lives Matter movement, which represents a political and social movement protesting against incidents of police brutality. This included specific individuals such as George Floyd and Brianna Taylor as victims of such police brutality who lit the flame of these protests. The Netflix special also touched upon the United States election between Trump and Biden which represented a transfer of power from Trump to Biden. This led Trump to spew out false claims and insisted on lawsuits that would never amount to anything because it was his beliefs as well as his followers that our democracy was trying to cheat him of a second term. This was followed by the overarching topic that is COVID-19 that struck the world causing shutdowns everywhere which originated from Wuhan, China. This event represents one of the world’s worst pandemics that took many lives over the course of the year but also shows the proper action many countries like New Zealand took to fight this virus while others like the United States still struggle to keep the virus under control. The show explores themes like life during the quarantine of these “average” people. It also makes apparent the amount of false news that was produced throughout the year specifically regarding COVID-19. Literature Review Mockumentaries Mockumentaries are a film genre that pushes past the boundaries of narrative to drive the story in a certain direction for the audience. In Cristina Formenti’s Expanded Mocku Worlds she presents us with the notion of texts outside of the Mockumentary taking part in the narrative landscape. She gives the texts the name of paratexts which help with her concept of transmedial storytelling. She directed attention to The Blair Witch Project, which has websites that presented the three teenangers as real missing person cases as well as a section labeled “aftermath” with things not included with the movie. For my Mockumentary, there was a trailer as well as a couple different movie posters that are specifically made to market the movie to its intended audience which are those of us that have access to a netflix account.