Remix Project
For my remix project I used the comic book adaptation of the video game series Max Payne by Rockstar Games that acts as a prequel to the third installment in the series. In particular, I focused on the second and third issues titled “Hoboken Blues” and “Fight and Flight” written by Dan Houser and Sam Lake. The series Max Payne is about a former homicide detective who tries to recover from the murder of his wife and infant daughter by drinking heavily and by committing less than honorable deeds such as murder. The segment I used for my remix was a confrontation in a bar between Max and mafiosos where hateful remarks were exchanged and guns were drawn. It was resolved by the arrival of Passos, who drove the mafiosos out of the bar. Values that Max shows throughout include his sense of defending women be it his mother or a complete stranger in a bar and violent outbursts in defense of himself or his morals. Values that are observed in the segment I used include the aforementioned defense of one’s self as seen by both Max’s and the mafiosos’ barbs during their conversation. The values perpetuated by this comic suggest the comic is intended for males as the ideology is masculine in that males must protect women and their territory from threats. The audience may also include fans of the Max Payne series or any other violent game produced by Rockstar. There are a few hateful remarks used in the book such as guido,spic, and faggot along with the depiction of Max’s father beating his mother exclaiming, “I will teach you to respect me, Helen!” Overall, I would say I enjoyed the comics as it does an excellent job depicting Max’s past that shows why he currently is a shell of his former self that clings to alcohol.
My remix featured the confrontation between Max and the mafiosos but I changed the dialogue to reflect the Playstation and Xbox fanboys involved in the console wars. The narrative now revolves around a comedic depiction of how the Playstation vs. Xbox argument happens in real life where the fanboys squabble about flaws in the other’s system and is then ended by the PC gamers asserting their dominance over both consoles. The values my remix communicates is the need to defend one’s territory, much like the original material does. Since my remix propagates the same value as the original but with different subject matter, my remix is a complicit one. The audience of my remix includes those fanboys of Playstation and Xbox as they feel the need to explain why their console is better by attacking the other and defending theirs. The comic is restructured with rearranged panels and new dialogue that selects console gamers as the subject of the remix by bringing up common insults the two communities may hurl at each other. This remix acts as a caricature of the real life fanboys who are the audience for this piece.This is an example of remix culture as I took pre-existing material and put my own spin on it as many artists do with music or the countless remixes of Barbie, I Can Be A Computer Engineers following the realization it didn’t actually portray Barbie as an engineer. This is also an example of convergence culture as I used digital technologies to produce existing content with new meaning. I took Stuart Hall’s concept of media producers as encoders of meaning and inserted myself into that category. This is the idea of convergence culture that through technology consumers can become producers as well.
Remix:
Original:
