Scott Pilgrim vs. Itself

The End (also known as Conclusion)

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 17:04:00 -0400

Well, folks, we’ve come a long way. Quite literally, as this assignment is roughly 2,000 words over the required minimum. But we’ve learned a lot from each other - how to live, how to love, how to, if not prevent, be aware of the increasing influence of media on our lives. Right?

If I can take one thing from Jenkins, or more exclusively his article on media convergence, it’s that audience engagement with media is the most important relationship in the media industry today. Sure, it’s great that Scott Pilgrim can be turned into five or so consumable texts, but what does this mean for the consumer? Do we want this? Are we getting anything out of it?

For those of you who enjoy navigating Tumblelog’s on this subject, you probably are benefitting from media convergence, at least in so far as the sheer volume of material on one text. For the rest of you, perhaps media convergence is just an inconvenience, confusing your reading of a text by saturating the media world with too many entry points.

Or, if you happen to be Michael Cera, Jason Schwartzman, or any member of Broken Social Scene, you get to play all those parts that don’t exactly fit your job description. On the other hand, you have Universal Studios, cashing in on an entire universe’s worth of consumer product.

At this point, there is no clear winner at hand, and I doubt there ever will be. The real boon of this whole media convergence thing will be maintaining a balance of power between the consumer, as an audience, and the media, as a concentrated domain. So long as the axis remains even, we will continue to choose which products we want to engage with in any given universe, and will have a variety of these types of universes at our fingertips.

Or maybe we will just get a Scott Pilgrim sequel.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The TrailerMash-Up #4: Final Fantasy

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:33:39 -0400

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Trailer
Mash-Up #4: Final Fantasy

"Scott Pilgrim is kind of the hero of his own movie in his head."

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:33:33 -0400

““Scott Pilgrim is kind of the hero of his own movie in his head.””

- Edgar Wright, Director & Co-Writer

"Edgar described it really succinctly once. In a musical, when the emotion gets to be too much..."

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:33:17 -0400

“Edgar described it really succinctly once. In a musical, when the emotion gets to be too much between the characters to be expressed in dialogue, they break out in song and nobody ever comments on it before or after. And in the Scott Pilgrim Universe, when it gets to be to much for the dialogue, they break out in a fight. He called it a “fightsical.””

- Michael Bacall, Producer

Making of: Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World Part 1/4 For your...

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:33:00 -0400

Making of: Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World Part 1/4

For your viewing pleasure, I have posted the first in this four-part series. I highly encourage you to check out the remaining parts available on YouTube to become as scarily obsessed as I am with this text.

Like it or not, Annie Hall isn’t the crux of this post,...

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:33:00 -0400

Like it or not, Annie Hall isn’t the crux of this post, but it’s a good starting point. Mostly because we are going to talk briefly about Marshall McLuhan.

In this 1967 interview, McLuhan discusses the concept of point of view in an electronic age, and basically says it does not exist.

“You have to be everywhere at once, whether you like it or not. You have to be participating in everything going on at once and that is not a point of view.”

This arouses questions regarding online identity in this day and age, when an identity is so splintered across social networking sites like Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, et al. McLuhan was right when he said we have to be everywhere at once, which incidentally has eliminated point of view as we post and re-Tweet fragments of the online world we feel most closely applies to us. This can’t exactly be called a point of view, as it is a manufactured of construction of who we want to be, or think we, that has be remediated for quick online consumption and hyperlinking.

“[It is] certainly true that the book has had an enormous amount to do with individuality. It’s true that competition and repeatability has tended to create a great amount of sameness.”

Bringing this back to Scott Pilgrim, I had an interesting conversation with a classmate of mine regarding the film and the character (incidentally the same classmate who forwarded the above videos to me). He suggested it was only natural for the written character of Scott Pilgrim to re-tell his life story in the media hodge-podge format, as this is the environment in which he lives. And to a point, I think this is how we are all used to living which is why viewers are so comfortable with the format of this film. We get it, because it’s very close to what our own lives look like when we log onto Facebook while playing Halo 3 and listening to Canadian indie music all at the same time. Or something along those lines.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Trailer Mash-Up #3: Pirates of the...

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:33:00 -0400

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Trailer
Mash-Up #3: Pirates of the Caribbean

Scott Pilgrim’s box office results didn’t yield the...

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:32:52 -0400

Scott Pilgrim’s box office results didn’t yield the kind of reception expected, but the film was critically acclaimed across the board.

Rotten Tomatoes: 81%

The Guardian UK: 4 Stars

Rolling Stone Magazine: 4.5 Stars (from Pete Travers, no less!)

Can these low digits be compensated by the sheer engagement of the audience that tuned in virally (either legally or otherwise), own the soundtrack (either legally or illegally), or are in general examining all of these aspects of the Universe after having seen a trailer or engaging with any one of the available Scott Pilgrim products?

"For the foreseeable future, convergence will be a kind of kludge - a jerry-rigged relationship..."

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:32:24 -0400

“For the foreseeable future, convergence will be a kind of kludge - a jerry-rigged relationship between different media technologies - rather than a fully-integrated system. Right now, the cultural shifts, the legal battles, and the economic consolidations that are fuelling media convergence are preceding shifts in the technological infrastructure. The way in which those various transitions play themselves out will determine the balance of power within this new media era.”

- Henry Jenkins, “The Cultural Logic of Media Convergence” (International Journal of Cultural Studies, 2004: 7, 33-43)

Scott Pilgrim vs. The Spoof Note:This bears little to no...

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:32:00 -0400

Scott Pilgrim vs. The Spoof

Note:This bears little to no significance to my thesis, but the headware and soundtrack throughout this video, not to mention the on-screen make-out, made it impossible not to post.

Media Convergence in the Scott Pilgrim Universe

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:32:00 -0400

Pretty much all I’ve been talking about this entire time is the vast amount of media that perpetuates Scott Pilgrim. Graphic novels, as texts, are as dimensional as any given work of fiction, which is all well and good for someone who wants to flip through a comic book on an airplane, and maybe buy a second copy to keep in the original packaging for collector’s credentials. But this century has seen a clear shift in consumer trends, as predicted by Henry Jenkins. Put simply, audiences want more. Not just more action, more drama, more skin, but more of the same, more versions of the text they love and more ways to engage with it.

It’s pretty groovy, actually, because the superfan can now extend their fandom from obsessive Google-searching to actualization by way of these hard-copy products that have been copyrighted within the universe. For instance, Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little App.

This also means that any one of us can be a superfan, simply by virtue of the sheer quantity of entry points to this text. This model is already becoming visible among mainstream pop culture, particularly in the film industry where movies don’t even have to be in theatres for an entire universe of trailers, teasers, merch, music and the like to be circulating as hype. Naturally, I am inclined to question if this affects the credibility of the superfan. Is it easier to become a devotee to any given text now that several products often constitute the existence of just one text? Certainly it’s easier due to the volume, but there is a superficiality about it in that total dedication requires a degree of attention that many fans aren’t willing to pay, particularly due to the fact that there is more than just one text on which they can focus.

In a knowledge culture made up of collective intelligence, the new consumer need not stretch as far to engage with a text. This does not necessarily imply a detracted dimensionality of the texts in question; in the case of Scott Pilgrim, there are just as many layers to uncover and indulge. But this is precisely the condition Henry Jenkins is imposing: in order for consumers to maintain the balance of power in the largely concentrated culture industries, a degree of critical engagement is required with the texts as they are released and commodified.

So, how are Scott Pilgrim fans doing?

Proceed to the numbers to find out.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The TrailerMash-Up #2: Inception

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:31:43 -0400

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Trailer
Mash-Up #2: Inception

DID YOU KNOW? Beck, indie hit-maker of the millenium (and part...

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:31:00 -0400

DID YOU KNOW?

Beck, indie hit-maker of the millenium (and part of the 90s) penned all of the songs for Scott Pilgrim’s band Sex Bob-omb, by the request of Edgar Wright and Bryan Lee O’Malley. They are grungy, and apathetic, and could be heard in any dingy club near you! Fortunately, www.stereogum.com has archived the MP3s (by way of www.24bit.com) for your personal use. Or, you can download the Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World Original Motion Picture Soundtrack on iTunes. I’m sure you could buy it at a record store too, if you want.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Trailer Mash-Up #1: The Matrix

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:30:30 -0400

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Trailer
Mash-Up #1: The Matrix

Scott Pilgrim as a model of knowledge culture

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:30:00 -0400

Henry Jenkins introduces a few new terms for the twenty-first century in The Cultural Logic of Media Convergence, two notables which will be discussed in tandem in this post:

knowledge culture: As an extension of Levy’s description of collective intelligence, the new knowledge culture can be seen as new forms of community emerging as ties to older forms of community and physical geography begin to break down, as well as allegiances to the nuclear family and nation states. The knowledge culture we are familiar with is inextricably tied to commodity culture, and relies upon the mutual production and reciprocal exchange of knowledge, meaning everyone contributes actively, therefore the information available to the culture is constantly influx.
new consumer: A product of knowledge culture, the new consumer shapes both programming and marketing in the creative industries. They are migratory with declining loyalty to networks of specific types of media. They are socially connected and take media into their own hands. Most importantly, they are active and critical, often in a very public way. The new consumer is experiencing new currency within the media industry, according to Jenkins, and they create new opportunities for academic intervention in the policy debates that will shape the next decade of media change. This is a focal point of Jenkins’ article as he explores how the new consumer currently interacts with creative industries as well as how they could interact in order to redirect the coming evolutions in new media.

Certainly these concepts are familiar to anyone with the slightest inclination of the culture of the communication age; in fact, readers of this post are likely new consumers of knowledge culture themselves. All it takes is a Wifi connection and some curiosity, after all. And I’m sure all of us can identify at least marginally with Scott Pilgrim as a human being, likely some more than others. (Least of all the broken-hearted bassists among us.) Of course, this connection does not guarantee Scott Pilgrim as a model of the new consumer, but it certainly provides footing. I’d like to take some time in this post to consider Scott Pilgrim as a New Consumer and the feature film as a conglomeration of Knowledge Culture.

Scott Pilgrim : 23-year-old : New Consumer

How can a comic book character/film protagonist/Player 1 be a consumer, exactly? Well, within the film, Scott Pilgrim has as short an attention span as any, indicated in both his string of girlfriends as well as his nonchalance for his e-mail account that leaves him unwittingly facing his first round of battle with Evil Ex-Boyfriend #1 at his band’s gig.

Translation: Scott Pilgrim’s allegiances to media are fleeting, yet cover a diverse array of mediums with which he engages. (E-mail, music, films, video games, etc.)

Scott is equally critical of the meta-script that frequently reflects on itself. For instance, he uses a 1-up to “get a life” and collects the coins from his vanquished villains to ride the bus home.

Translation: Scott Pilgrim is both active and critical of the medium within which he exists, recognizing his constitution as all three of the media personalities listed above. He navigates his life by way of examples from pop culture, thus paralleling, and parodying to an extent, his function as a character through which the audience experiences the Scott Pilgrim Universe as a text.

Scott Pilgrim : The Universe : Knowledge Culture

The Scott Pilgrim Universe can be accessed by any given entry point, from graphic novel, film, video game, music, T-shirt…you get the gist. Although each individual text can stand on its own, there is a glorious awakening that comes in accessing each of the texts: you understand the references in the film and can live the universe on a deeper level by subscribing to the textual iSpy at work.

Translation: The Scott Pilgrim Universe holds no privilege to any one media, preferring to converge them all in one to maximize the grasp on viewer’s attention and engagement. Scott Pilgrim, then, has become a culture of its own, combining several forms of media to form one unified commodity within pop culture.

The Scott Pilgrim Universe can be purchased on a variety of levels via as many platforms (iTunes, HMV, Silver Snail), with each object claiming a space in commodity culture, be it in magazine reviews or bestseller lists or the box office. But this universe is also partly a response to the demands that marketers of Scott Pilgrim are receiving or reading from the target audience. Comic book fans like music, fans of Beck play video games, gamers like movies about games, you get the picture? These audiences, then, each contribute to the Scott Pilgrim Universe as a unified text by adding dimensions of intertextuality, and glean something from interacting with one another. The producers of the Scott Pilgrim Universe recognized this demand early, thus providing the film industry with a text that could cover all these bases with a little help from the budget afforded by Universal Studios.

Translation: The Scott Pilgrim Universe exists due to this mutual exchange of information and reciprocity between audience and contributing medias.

Again, we arrive at the question: So what? How very Scott Pilgrim.

Well, I’ll tell you what. All this means that this whole Scott Pilgrim Universe thing could be predicating a new form of mainstream commodity culture, in which one cultural product exists on a variety of platforms and is born out of the response of cultural industries to the demands of their consumers. These demands have evolved at the pace of the new consumer, who is both more technologically-savvy and hence less loyal to their mediums of choice. This suggests that consumers want more, a lot more, right now. Scott Pilgrim responds to this demand by saturating its own market with media, using Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel series as the logical point of origin.

This is a lovely little thing Henry Jenkins refers to as media convergence. Want to know more? Next post, please!

"Scott Pilgrim is the best book ever. It is the chronicle of our time. With Kung Fu, so, yeah:..."

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:29:00 -0400

““Scott Pilgrim is the best book ever. It is the chronicle of our time. With Kung Fu, so, yeah: perfect.””

- Joss Whedon, film writer (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Toy Story, Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog)

The theatrical trailer for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The...

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:28:27 -0400

The theatrical trailer for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Movie.

Pay attention to the media convergence at work in the trailer alone: the film adapting the graphics of a comic book for the silver screen, the graphic novel’s references to video games readapted to film, that song by Metric that’s being sung by The Clash at Demonhead that’s being watched by Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) at Lee’s Palace.

Notice more? Post below!

The Thesis: Obligatory, Insightful

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:28:00 -0400

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Movie represents Henry Jenkins’ Cultural Logic of Media Convergence by demonstrating the emergence of a knowledge culture in a new media era by converging various types of media in one package; the character of Scott Pilgrim acts as a model for this knowledge culture through which the audience can understand their own interaction with the Scott Pilgrim Universe.

Whew.

What does all this mean, you ask? Well, there’s this movie called Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. Maybe you’ve seen it. (If you are taking this course, or happen to be the professor of this course, then you almost certainly have. In fact, I know you have. You can’t fool me.) But just in case, let me break it down. So, this movie. It’s based on the graphic novel by Bryan Lee O’Malley, a six-novel series based on Scott Pilgrim (d’uh), who is a 23-year-old male from Toronto. Maybe I should let Mr. O’Malley tackle this part himself…

“Scott Pilgrim is 23 years old, living in the big city with his gay roommate, just trying to get by in this crazy world. He’s in a band. He’s lazy. He likes video games.
Scott Pilgrim likes the new girl in town, Ramona Flowers, but to win her heart, he has to defeat her seven evil ex-boyfriends. Seven! Evil! Ex! Boyfriends! Lucas has muscles. Todd plays bass with his psychic powers! The Twins are twins! Matthew Patel is an Indian guy! AND MORE!”

Or, as the critics among us like to say:

“The High Fidelity for those weaned equally on Nintendo and record stores.” - Betsy Sharkey, The LA Times

“Turning Wright loose on Scott Pilgrim is perfect casting. The task requires that Scott’s position as hero of his own life, and his career as a bass guitarist for the garage band Sex Bob-omb (Beck provided the fabulous songs for the group, which includes Alison Pill, Mark Webber and Johnny Simmons), blend music, comics, manga, anime and video games into a seamless vehicle for storytelling.” - Pete Travers, Rolling Stone Magazine

“Scott Pilgrim is an intriguing picture for being so exotic and eccentric, and for aligning itself with the style and structure of a videogame rather than a film: following not conventional narrative arcs, but a series of game-levels and flavouring this sequence, not with the usual dramatic reversals and character-development, but with an open-ended comic shtick.” - Peter Bradshaw, The Guaradian UK

Well, now that THAT’S out of the way, let’s attend to this thesis.

First of all, who is Henry Jenkins?

Fortunately for us, Henry Jenkins is about as technologically literate as they come and has set up an entire website to answer this very question. Currently, he is the provost’s Professor of Communication, Journalism and Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern Carolina, where he is developing a new project focussing on participatory culture. (Prior to that, he served as the Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program. No big deal.) Jenkins also happens to have literally written the book for the Convergence Culture Consortium, which, as he says “seeks to build bridges between academic researchers and the media industry in order to help inform the rethinking of consumer relations in an age of participatory culture.” I would tell you his personal story, but his written account (scroll down, please) is far more articulate than any citation I could offer. It should be noted here that he self-identifies as an “aca-fan”, otherwise known as the “hybrid creature which is part fan and part academic.”

For the purpose of this project, however, Henry Jenkins is the author of The Cultural Logic of Media Convergence, an article published in 2004 by the International Journal of Cultural Studies. For a seminar on this same topic, I provided an abstract of this article which I will reference throughout this project because it happens to be a pretty effective abstract, thank you very much.

Seminar Abstract: Henry Jenkins illustrates media convergence as an inter-dependent dichotomy, “both a top-down corporate-driven process and a bottom-up consumer-driven process.” His consideration of the interaction between these two processes serves his discussion of the tensions and transitions at work, including concentration of media ownership, the emergence of knowledge culture, and the response of creative industries to these tensions, all as defining forces in the new media era. Jenkins suggests in an era of privatized ownership of media production, consumers must be more responsible for their engagement with the creative industries in order to ensure a balance of power in terms of the preservation of culture.

So, now that you know what Henry Jenkins is talking about, let’s get to what I’M talking about.

Essentially, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World has been published, over time, as a universe including a graphic novel series, a major motion picture, a video game, an original soundtrack and score, and a series of various merchandise from T-shirts to key chains to bobbleheads to tattoos. (Seriously.)

The Scott Pilgrim Universe is a working model for Jenkins’ theory of media convergence, that also happens to comment on itself by way of the protagonist, Scott Pilgrim, interacting with various types of media throughout the film. I suppose now is as good a time as any to wrap up this post and allow you to further explore www.scottpilgrimyourself.tumblr.com to learn more about media concentration of ownership, the new consumer, Michael Cera (to an extent), and my personal hang-ups regarding the Internet, indie music, Hollywood Films and Michael Cera. Or whatever.

I Tumbl, therefore I am.

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:23:00 -0400

Most people would take the quick and easy way out of a seminar follow-up assignment by regurgitating their Power Point presentation into a WordDoc. Most people would do this as quickly as possible so they could go for a bike ride or patio beers or hitchike to the BC Interior to plant trees for the summer.

I, for whatever reason, am not most people. I also had no idea how to use Tumblr before I embarked on this assignment, and for the most part, am still learning. I have a personal Tumblr that I’ve used all of once, and in the process of putting together this assignment, my laptop crashed, so it’s doubtful that I will be back online soon after, at least until I can afford that MacBook Pro I’ve been after.

But enough about me, let’s talk about Tumblr. Actually, first, we’re going to talk about me again.

I signed up for my Twitter account in the summer of 2008, on the recommendation of a particularly media-savvy friend who happens to have a very insightful Tumblr of his own. At first, I had no idea what the heck Twitter was. So much so that my first Tweet read as follows: “@emma_renda built this city on rock and roll.” I believe this was following a viewing of Detroit Rock City, but one never knows.

After a few months hiatus, I jumped on the bandwagon full swing and have been a “Tw’eep” ever since. If you think you must, you can follow me (@emma_renda). This naturally led to my fascination with all things social media, particularly due to being a journalism student at Carleton University, as well as a young woman with a laptop and an iPod. Turns out, the Internet is a great tool for social networking! Who knew? Pretty much everything I know about culture these days I’ve learned online, simply by knowing how to surf. Which, inevitably, led me to Tumblr.

With its posting capabilities (text, audio, video, links, chats, etc.), Tumblr is more comprehensive than Twitter, if more self-indulgent. It’s basically like a big network of blogs, essentially doing what WordPress and Blogspot never really could. I mean, John Mayer uses it, and so does Zooey Deschanel, so that must be saying something about its reach.

But seriously, folks, as I’m getting to know Tumblr, I’m realizing it is really just another tool in the massive universe of social networking. Which is what makes it perfect for this assignment. By posting the bits and pieces of my project on my tumblelog, I can create my own little universe around this assignment. You only have to visit www.scottpilgrimyourself.tumblr.com, and from there I will act as your tour guide for all things Scott Pilgrim. Just follow the hyperlinks, listen to the audio, watch the videos, and even comment if you feel so inclined, and thus another part of the Scott Pilgrim Universe is born! This is my own way of engaging with the media convergence Henry Jenkins was talking about, and contributing to the text in a way I suggest in my thesis is becoming more common and simple every day thanks to the availability and accessibility of technology.

I’m not sure if this site will remain active after my project is submitted, but maybe for brownie points or the fact that I’m now a university graduate with nothing real to do, I will continue to talk about Scott Pilgrim. Chances are, I will turn to my own Tumblr for more publishing, in which case, follow me there and we can talk about graphic novels and new media studies and indie music (probably moreso than anything else). (Has anyone else heard The Dodos’ new album?!)

Thanks for stopping by!