Borkowski Weekly Media Trends 24-09-21
Bond deviates from the mission | Family Guy's vaccine PSA | Netflix x Roald Dahl
Is Bond deviating from mission?
With fans overripe with anticipation for Daniel Craig’s swansong as 007, and given the franchise’s increasingly progressive overtures of late, it was surprising this week to see its star being enshrined in jingoistic, pre-Cold War machismo .
This Bond film has always had a progressive edge to it. The recruitment of Phoebe Waller-Bridge as a screenwriter, Billie Eilish on the theme tune, and Lashana Lynch as ‘007’ all felt like a bid to make the aged franchise relevant with Gen Z.
Then this week it was announced that Daniel Craig would now be made an honorary Commander in the Royal Navy- matching his on-screen character’s title- to serve as an ambassador and advocate for the Service. The news sits uncomfortably with the legacy Craig appeared to be building – as an avatar for a cooler, contemporary masculinity and a champion of those once marginalised by Bond.
Craig being the subject of such a trad, militaristic, ‘Rule-Britannia’ stunt also somewhat undermined the other big Bond story this week; Cary Fukunaga’s posturing (virtue signalling?) towards more parity in the franchise’s gender representation. The No Time to Die director made comments (rightfully) claiming that Sean Connery’s Bond was ‘basically a rapist’, showing the receipts with reference to a specific scene in Thunderball.
Yet, by gesturing towards a woke present while maintaining Bond’s institutionally regressive associations, the press machine may actually tarnish the shiny, progressive podium that Craig’s Bond stood on.
With all the demand for a non-white/female/gay/anything-but-homogenous Bond increasing, and tickets flying off the shelves for the new film, it’s possible that playing nice with such an old school institution might actually harm Craig’s Bond legacy.
Family Guy’s Vaccine PSA
This week, the popular animated sitcom Family Guy ‘won the internet’ with a viral short film spreading necessary information about the Covid-19 vaccine.
The PSA managed to inform and entertain, without taking any inflammatory positions that might've stoked anger from anti-vaxxers. Family Guy managed to dip their toes into the Vaccine Wars and come out on top. Viewers are praising the clip as the best educational tool for the Covid vaccine ever. And in what might be peak 2021, Stewie Griffin is the voice of reason.
Seth McFarlane appears to have dodged the crowds of conservatives wielding their pitchforks claiming Family Guy went ‘woke’ with the term hardly appearing in the discourse surrounding the film.
Family Guy appeals to a broad audience; its humour - although tame by the standard of its heyday- is still avowedly anti-PC, while also taking aim at conservatives, and appealing to older demographics drawn to the regular pop culture references born out of the 80s. Delivering a short film that’s packed with straight-talking vax-facts makes for an effective moment that millions have watched.
For TV show that’s seen its viewership decline every year since 2009, this is a massive win, just as it could be for the global vaccine roll-out.
Can Netflix’s Roald Dahl gambit curb Disney’s family dominance?
The success of Disney Plus -however bolstered it was by mass COVID captivity- was years in the making.
The media giant had valuable IP but not enough to make a significant dent in the streaming market, so it hoovered up new rights and properties, notably Star Wars and Marvel, in order to create a big enough archive and pipeline of future content to truly corner the family market and even make strides with adults.
Netflix, the once dominant force and still market leader, will have felt Disney’s entrance into the market like a fist to the jaw, especially when it comes to young audiences.
This is crucial context when it comes to understanding Netflix’s much publicised purchase of the rights to Roald Dahl’s acclaimed canon of children’s literature. One of the largest, most respected tranches of IP in the children’s literary world, with several books, characters and worlds ripe for re-adaptation or deeper exploration, it gives them a toehold in the family market, much as Disney’s classic animations or Warner Bros’ Wizarding World Harry Potter do for them respectively.
But will Netflix’s Dahl adaptations impact its rivals’ behemoth presence in family homes? It’s true that Dahl’s work, in its darkness and strange fantasy, suggests several potential creative points of difference, but it will be interesting to see if its understated, slightly folksy characters can inspire the same obsession in kids as Moana or BB-8 has done for Disney.