molotov man and a rough theater

where to begin...well i'll start with the rough theater. after the initial reading i was a little confused as to what the hell was being discussed. theater. got it. i read it again and it clicked and i found the article humorous because it is honest. theaters can be formed from anything. whether in the backyard of a neighbor's house or in a carmike, the sources for entertainment can be found anywhere, but often times it is the creative ideas the spark our imaginations that make for the best entertainment. for example, i thought back to when i was a kid and i would make videos with my cousin and we would use all sorts of household items and pretend that they were something else. the audience (our parents) would always enjoy our films because of what we came up with, what our imaginations could produce. i couldn't help but think back to this time while reading 'the rough theater'. i think as we grow up our imagination becomes grounded and we look at such ideas as silly and pointless. in this light we lose the fruits of our childhood and we become little machines who walk through life with glazed eyes going to see the same predictable films over and over. it almost seems like films today grab our imaginations by the balls and they take it away from you.

For the other article, 'Molotov Man' this article was relatable in the fashion that copyright shit always tries to get in the way of creation. i personally love parody films (not epic movie, more like Blazing Saddles) and its something that i hope to create one day (again not epic movie). But if i made a parody film with no rights i would get sued like whoa! which sucks because despite how creative your idea may be you have nitpick around these little things that could get in your way. Another aspect of the article that i liked was how we tend to decontextualize pictures and other forms of art. we don't consider what was happening at the exact time, only that it represents something bigger. people loved this image of the man but no one really asked what was happening. we do that with films, as well. for example, i recently watched the documentary on wattstax. i personally hated the film. but given the context in which it was set, i had to appreciate what they were trying to do. so in that since i understand how we can decontextulize art/media.