A Banksy film.

I had the pleasure of seeing Exit Through the Gift Shop Sunday afternoon, the new film by the street artist Banksy. This film was billed as a documentary on street art but may very well be more of a living art experiment, there are many rumors and speculations flying around that this film was actually a hoax masterminded my Banksy himself. The film starts out following a self-proclaimed filmmaker, named Thierry Guetta, while he films many well known street artist as they scale buildings and billboards putting their art up for everyone to see. At one point in the film Banksy, an artists who’s identity has always remained a secret, seems to fall into his lap and he begins filming him as well, with the stipulation that his face is to never be shown. About three quarters of the way through the film Banksy realizes that Thierry is not really a filmmaker and all the footage that has been shot will never become a watchable film if left in Thierry’s hands. Banksy dispatches Thierry on a wild goose chase to become a street artist himself, leaving the footage with Banksy to try and salvage something of value out of the thousands of hours of raw material Thierry has shot. Upon returning to LA, Thierry takes on the moniker Mr. Brainwash or MBW. He goes on to put on a huge art showing in LA selling over a million dollars in art, much of which is clear rip offs of other artists, such as Banksy and Shepard fairey. It appeared that in an attempt to get Thierry out of the way Banksy had inadvertently created an international art superstar.

When I left the theater I though it was funny how so many people bought into the hype of Mr. Brainwash, when clearly his work is imitations of many other artists including Andy Warhol, all in an attempt to be the hippest of the hip. One guy standing in line says “I don’t even know what I am here for”, he just wants to be part of the in crowd. When I got home my friend Ross sent me a message saying that the whole thing may actually be fake and that Banksy was behind it all along. I did some research and it turns out that there are two main theories on the film, first that Banksy was behind all of the Mr. Brainwash’s art, with the help of the likes of Shepard Fairey, as well as the art showing, Thierry is actually just an actor playing the part of an artist, all in an attempt to show everyone how willing they are to buy into the hip new thing. The second theory is that Banksy is actually Thierry and the artist who’s identity has been hidden for all these years is actually right in front of our eyes for all to see while never being the wiser.

What I find interesting is that the people who bought the Mr. Brainwash art could very well have bought art that was a joke, but if it is ever proven that it was a joke, and that Banksy was actually behind it, the pieces they bought will probably be worth ten times as much.

In the end we will most likely never know what the truth is, as Banksy is as much of a prankster as an artists, and will never reveal the joke. Essentially the film has no ending as it is ever changing with what opinion of theory you believe. The uncertainty of whether it is a hoax or not makes the film endless, without knowing that fact the film goes on forever.

Whatever the truth is I think is unimportant, I think that Banksy has accomplished exactly what he intended with this film, a mystery as big as his identity.

She talks really black.

I was having a conversation with a woman the other day and she was describing another woman’s accent and she said she had a very south side accent. I knew what she was trying to say but apparently she didn’t think she was clear enough and she followed it up with, “what I meant was she talks really black, I guess I should have said she talks in ebonics”. This is a woman that knows me but doesn’t really know me, she doesn’t know my family or where I come from, for all she knows I very well could have been adopted by a black family and her statement could be very offensive to me. What really caught me off guard was she said it very matter-of-factly as if it was normal to say someone talks really black. Not only did she say it so casually but she said it again in another conversation, describing a phrase the woman used as “a very black phrase”, which made it very clear to me that she thought this was a very acceptable description of someone’s accent and dialect. It was interesting to me that she felt these were completely acceptable phrases and I cringed instantly when hearing them.

Has every girl gone wild?

Am I alone in thinking that they have made enough Girls Gone Wild DVDs?

I saw an ad for another Girls Gone Wild DVD and I thought to myself “I think they have made enough of those.” I remember when the first one came out and it was awesome, these were normal girls flashing the camera. Now when I see an ad for Girls Gone Wild – Girls of K-Mart or some other ridiculous version all I can think is “wow, has every girl gone wild now? Is there a single girl in this country that has not been naked on a DVD for Joe Francis?” I have to admit it is casting a bad light on the female gender in my mind to see that there are that many girls willing to get drunk and naked for a free t-shirt. I'm just saying.

Is this real or a Saturday Night Live Skit?

I sat down to watch the Conan O’Brien interview on 60 minutes and shortly after the segment started I thought, “this looks a lot like an SNL skit”. Every thing from the way it was framed, to the soft focus, and the banter between Conan and Steve Croft. It was amusing to me that in this time of hybrid type news shows, i.e. The Daily Show and the Colbert Report, where you are getting news delivered in a satirical way, that an actual news show was invoking the same reaction from me as those shows. To me it seemed as though Conan was putting on a performance or an act rather than an interview, and he very well could have been.