Reality is being airbrushed away right before our eyes, and the motion picture business is one of the main bodies to blame for the dystopian descent into illusion. Film posters project the Photoshopped images into our eyes and infiltrate our senses, spreading their influence on the sides of buses and on roadside billboards. You think that’s air you’re breathing? No! It’s all a computer-generated simulation pumped out by Korean slave labourers on their break from additional effects work on the Battleship movie. If you find yourself choking and suddenly coughing up an alien spaceship, a US naval vessel or a crude digitalised head that bears a startling similarity to Liam Neeson, you know the reason why. I resent this dishonest infraction on actuality, and want the fresh air back. I fear that we’re rapidly rushing towards a sick cyberpunkish state of computer-simulated hyperreality upon which The Matrix and the Ghost In The Shell universes are built. I don’t want the purer, raw elements of the world to be eaten alive by artifice, sacrificed for the sake of meddling or pursuing misguided ideals of perfection. I want mud, natural Earth odours and skin with blemishes and wrinkles – not uncanny valleys, replicant lovers and neural nanotechnology. Deschanel’s deadly whip lashes sting, but as a male (at time of writing) I’ve been moved to muse on the cosmetic features of the movie world by Mr Ryan Reynolds. The star of Green Lantern is a fine specimen of a man, an excellent actor (see Buried as testimony) and comes across an all-round nice guy of warmth, charm and wit. He also has an incredible physique and dashing good looks. Reynolds is the all-American acting studmuffin, which wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for the fact that every interview with him seems to get derailed by his status as one of the sexiest men alive. I’d like to see serious journalists asking the actor profound, important questions like, “What’s happening with the Deadpool movie?” “What’s it like to act alone in a box?” and “Can you still recite the Green Lantern oath after downing seven glasses of absinthe?” (Green Lantern 2‘s working title is Green Lantern Versus Green Fairy.) I don’t blame Ryan Reynolds for this. I blame easily distracted, flirty reporters and the marketing department demons that have pushed him through Photoshop and spread him worldwide on eerie-looking film posters. Going a step further, I blame the aspirational values of the society we live in. The message we get isn’t simply, “Ryan Reynolds is a famous, popular film actor and an all-round excellent guy to boot!” but, “Look at Ryan Reynolds and wish you were as good-looking and masculine as him! Revel in his awesomeness! He is the epitome of success and perfection, and you are lacking, loser!” To well and truly hammer this message home, The Change-Up is coming to cinemas soon, with a plot about how Jason Bateman’s life would be better if he were Ryan Reynolds. It’s a body-swap comedy, because apparently there’s somebody in Hollywood who fails to see that this idea is unoriginal and unfunny. I may be wrong to approach this flick with scepticism. It could be a winning flick exploring adult man issues in hilarious style, with its leads delivering excellent comic performances. Alternatively, it could be a flat feature built around a duff premise – because Bateman isn’t really ugly, the body horror element is negligible – that seeks to advance the aesthetic conspiracy of the hegemonic order. The Change-Up could, indeed, be a propaganda piece for the movement to make us all ‘perfect specimens’. The dead eyes of Reynolds on the excessively airbrushed promo prints are gazing ahead to a flawless future that wants to claim our souls and resculpt our flesh. Pulling the tinfoil hat right over my eyes, I’m struck by the timely arrival of Pedro Almodóvar’s The Skin I Live In, and wonder whether it’s come to commence phase one of the cosmetic coup d’état. I’m not convinced that the release of a film about the creation of a perfect synthetic skin is pure coincidence. This sci-fi vision of indestructible flesh is merely the preface to the point where the public surrender their bodies to the Utopian Order in order to achieve the unblemished ideal celebrated in film posters. If Banderas’ Robert Ledgard can’t effectively achieve the metamorphosis with his scalpel and his experimental perfect skin, then I expect Korean slave labourers and graphic designers will add the finishing touches in post-reproduction. The revolution will not be televised, but rather manifest itself through the mass media, all-encroaching virtual reality, and in our very bodies. The Utopian Order rises up as a repressive regime, enforcing a specific ideal of homogenous perfection on humankind. Look on the bright side though. They’ll finally have to stop making body-swap comedies! James’ previous column can be found here. Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
