I saw "The Other Guys" tonight (what can I say, I'm a sucker for Will Ferrell comedies) and found it quite funny, although I probably wouldn't recommend it on this forum unless you like Ferrell's humour - this one's not going to win any converts. But the reason I'm posting about it is that I was quite struck by what appears during the end credits of the film.
Despite it being a comedy, and a rather ridiculous one at that, the credits feature a motion graphics presentation about the different bailouts and corporate money mismanagement in the U.S. It also draws attention to the massively growing gap between corporate CEO's salaries versus the average worker, how much AIG corporate henchmen got in bonuses post bailout and a comparison of stock prices over the years of various banking institutions versus the rest of the market. This was a presentation you don't often see mentioned on the news, except in passing, let alone at the end of a fluffy Hollywood movie. I was quite taken aback by it. It's like, after delivering a bunch of laughs, they slap you in the face with "by the way, you're being lied to and you live in a completely unjust world and you're sitting here laughing at distractions while you're being robbed blind by the psychopathic elite."
I still don't quite know what to make of it. It just seems so out of place at the end of a Will Ferrel movie. I don't really know what audience reaction is going to be like for this, although to be honest, I don't know if many of them will stick around for it - I and only one other group of guys were the only ones left in the theatre tonight once the credits finished. There was even another joke in the form of an outtake at the end, post credits, making the credits presentation seem even more out of place.
The whole thing had me perplexed, but I have to say, good on the filmmakers for trying to make this work. Bravo. In a sense, a Hollywood comedy is a good way to try to reach the masses with this kind of message simply because it's going to reach so many people. I don't know how effective it's going to be, but it certainly caught my attention.
EDIT: Just found a vid of the sequence here - http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2010/08/11/the-other-guys-end-credits-sequence-is-an-educational-feast-of-financial-factoids/
Despite it being a comedy, and a rather ridiculous one at that, the credits feature a motion graphics presentation about the different bailouts and corporate money mismanagement in the U.S. It also draws attention to the massively growing gap between corporate CEO's salaries versus the average worker, how much AIG corporate henchmen got in bonuses post bailout and a comparison of stock prices over the years of various banking institutions versus the rest of the market. This was a presentation you don't often see mentioned on the news, except in passing, let alone at the end of a fluffy Hollywood movie. I was quite taken aback by it. It's like, after delivering a bunch of laughs, they slap you in the face with "by the way, you're being lied to and you live in a completely unjust world and you're sitting here laughing at distractions while you're being robbed blind by the psychopathic elite."
I still don't quite know what to make of it. It just seems so out of place at the end of a Will Ferrel movie. I don't really know what audience reaction is going to be like for this, although to be honest, I don't know if many of them will stick around for it - I and only one other group of guys were the only ones left in the theatre tonight once the credits finished. There was even another joke in the form of an outtake at the end, post credits, making the credits presentation seem even more out of place.
The whole thing had me perplexed, but I have to say, good on the filmmakers for trying to make this work. Bravo. In a sense, a Hollywood comedy is a good way to try to reach the masses with this kind of message simply because it's going to reach so many people. I don't know how effective it's going to be, but it certainly caught my attention.
EDIT: Just found a vid of the sequence here - http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2010/08/11/the-other-guys-end-credits-sequence-is-an-educational-feast-of-financial-factoids/
