Episode #102: Pop Culture Seriousness

Podcasts – The Brick Room

Some TV shows really work, others don’t. Some special effects look amazing and others look cheesy. Some video games are enthralling, others can’t hold your interest. Why? Obviously, there are many reasons why a project in any particular medium might be successful, or not. Here at The Brick Room, we think one of those reasons is how seriously a TV show, or movie, or video game takes itself. Projects in entertainment need to strike a consistent tone. If your film is meant to be really gritty and dark and takes itself super seriously, then it ruins audience suspension of disbelief if characters then take actions or display abilities that are not consistent with real life. Even more so if character actions and abilities are not consistent within that film’s own universe. We start off our discussion today with the first example that pops into our heads: the Call of Duty series of video games. Whatever that series started out as, it’s a joke now. A parody of itself. Part of the reason that happened is because the games take themselves very seriously and, on the one hand, attempt to achieve a high degree of realism but then, on the other hand, pack both the story line and the gameplay with an ever increasing amount of unbelievable and downright absurd shit. Suspension of disbelief is lowered and enjoyment of the game is decreased because the audience can never figure out what the tone of the game is supposed to be. We move on from this to discuss several other examples from pop culture that suffer from the sin of taking themselves to seriously. Grab your drink, take a listen, and then tell us your thoughts in the comments section of this blog, or on iTunes. Thanks for listening!

https://marcandchrispodcast.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/brickroom21feb16.mp3