KICK-ASS Directed by Matthew Vaughn
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Having watched numerous children’s movies with my eight-year-old son, I’ve noticed that their stories often center on the pursuit of fame, inexplicably presented as a virtue unto itself. In such kid pics as Alvin and the Chipmunks, The Spy Next Door, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and the TV movie High School Musical, fame is elemental, waiting to be liberated, like fossil fuel in the cave of our collective consciousness, by some enterprising young go-getter. Mirroring the all-or-nothing gamesmanship of Survivor, Project Runway, and countless other reality shows, these movies present the social milieu as a funny, life-positive cockfight. This odious permutation of social Darwinism invariably celebrates the savviest gamer, whose every relationship and calculation are effortlessly, holistically directed toward a big payoff on a big stage, with an audience, applause, and approval.
In the new millennium, though, it’s a different story. As globalism marches onward, blending or eradicating economies and cultures, a new model of citizenship has emerged, designed to encourage consumption and reach across every market culture on the planet. Outside the classroom, Paul Revere and Rosa Parks are no match for bottle-bronzed death machines like Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, famous just for being famous and inspiring nothing more than a need for the spotlight. In the age of YouTube and American Idol, when social aspiration and civil discourse take the shape of TV talent contests and viral video, celebrity is the de facto expression of citizenship.
The movie’s violent finale occurs, naturally enough, in the mediasphere; hoping to discourage other would-be vigilantes, the villain launches a streaming online video, picked up by TV news, to reveal the true identities of Kick-Ass and Big Daddy. The audience is presented with celebrity content that would never get past Standards and Practices, let alone Marketing: Kick-Ass gets kneecapped, and Big Daddy is set on fire. Once the torture begins, the TV station terminates the feed, sending rapt viewers scrambling to their laptops to continue watching on the Internet (no wonder ad revenues are plummeting). It’s pretty rough stuff, but not all that different from the suffering and humiliation people gladly endure on a program like Fear Factor.
