Graffiti in Media

[SATIRE]

Film, book covers, album covers, video games, music videos... whatever. If it's graff, let's see it! But here's the twist... unlike the other threads on this forum, let's give a rating and some feedback. 1-10. 10 is best. Maybe a little explanation or observation. I have thought about doing this thread for years, back when I was posting regularly on the other place.

There's this scene in the phenomenal "Children of Men" where Theo and Julian walk across this bridge in London. And it's COVERED with really nice stuff. Most of it is throws, but the stuff you see is fantastic. That's a good film by itself, and there's so much graffiti in that movie sprinkled throughout. But that's a standout as far as graff is considered. 10 out of 10. No notes. (I dunno if it will play the video but if you download it, that might work).


https://www.bangyard.com/media/CoM.mp4

If that don't work, try this one...

https://www.bangyard.com/media/CoM.avi

 

[SATIRE]

9 out of 10
Pretty authentic document of the nineties. There may have been graff in other music videos prior to this, but this is the O.G. of music videos ABOUT graffiti. I'd rank it 10 out of 10 but that animated stuff is kinda toy.

 

[SATIRE]

If you have never played Mark Ecko's Getting Up, it is a real treat. It's not a perfect game. The controls can be a little wonky at times, but it has a fantastic story, acting, soundtrack and probably the most faithful graffiti ever included in a video game... 9 out o f 10!

 

[SATIRE]

Here's some of the artwork created for the game:

 

[SATIRE]

Last night I watched Beetlejuice 2. It was fine. A real return to form for Tim Burton, who had been making a lot of high-budgeted crap as of late. And I was ambushed by this scene in an art gallery where Catherine O'Hara's character is describing her art show, including "The King of Graffiti tagging." Ick.

And it's just a throw. Nothing special. Not even that great a throw. 5 out 10. There was only one shot I could get of the actual piece, because it was so blurry when you saw it, so this background shot will have to do.

This is part of the reason I wanted to start doing these looks into media. I imagine I will discuss The Santa Clause 2, which not only features some real toy shit, but goes into this lengthy and seemingly-tacked on diatribe about how graffiti is a bad thing to do. I also want to discuss Demolition Man, because it's been forever since I saw the automated stuff Denis Leary throws up in that. I have a feeling it is pretty toy, but I don't remember.

 

[SATIRE]

Okay, so here's a banger of a song (I loved the sample so much, I tracked it down and sampled it myself). It has an amazingly well-done video too... and some of the toyest graffiti ever. Sadly. I really wish the graff was better. 5 out of 10, and it only got rated that high due to how dope the song and the video are.

 

[Tenix]

 

[SATIRE]

Rating?

I mean, SDK gets 9 out of 10 from me.

 

[SATIRE]

Found the Santa Claus 2 graffiti scene online...

The piece is... really good, actually. I remember it being worse, but it is quite well executed. 8 out 10!

I searched for the script to find Scott lecturing his son about graffiti, but it's not as bad as I recall. I have not seen this movie in probably 20 years, but I remember it being way more cringe than it actually is, so color me pleasantly surprised!

 

[Tenix]

Rating?

I mean, SDK gets 9 out of 10 from me.

Thought I put it sorry as coverage goes 10 outta 10 it got worldwide exposure

 

[Sir Mildred Pierce]

Some small stuff in Back to the Future (1985). Pretty sure that's all production design, since I think it's a backlot set. SMEGMA lol

 

[SATIRE]

Okay... Don't worry about rating pieces that are featured within the media. I'M still going to do that. But you don't have to.

My rationale for having that included in this thread was because I see a lot of graffiti in various media and sometimes it's not represented in a way that is very true to life.

For instance, I haven't talked about it yet but I am going to do a thing about the video game Jet Set Radio. Because I know for a fact that that stuff is awful. I've never played the game so I can't really comment on that, but that game typifies my point.

Graffiti will often appear as an element of a piece of media, whether central to the plot or not, and how it's portrayed can be a thing to look at.

 

[Sir Mildred Pierce]

So... a movie about a street artist is probablly cheating, but it's one of my favorites in the small genre of movies about artists themselves.

1996's Basquait is a semi-surreal depiction of the 20th century artist. He was only active for about a decade before he died in 1988 of a heroin overdose. His art is extremely influential. The movie itself depicts a lot of scenes in the Lower East Side, some great street scenes with graffiti.

The movie takes place between 1979 and 1988, so I even wonder if some of the graffiti is actually anachronisitic?




Opening shots of Basquait casually spraypainting messages in the Village.


Mildest vandalism ever. I figured you'd appreciate, Satire





Couple of shots from Crosby St. in SoHo, Basquiat taking a walk with Andy Warhol (as played by David Bowie)


I hit my 10 picture limit so I won't be able to post more than that It's worth looking at his canvas work. Jay-Z is a huge fan of his work and his song Most Kingz is based on one of his works. Been hearing that song a lot in the past half-year or so

Anyway, it's worth a watch and there's a copy on YouTube:

 

[SATIRE]

Alex Garland's "Civil War" is a great movie. But it also has an interesting downtime part where the crew goes to a stadium to take a respite from all the horrible things that keep happening as they travel across country. And the films is trying to convey a sense of an America where everything is falling apart and decayed. The stadium is COVERED with graffiti. While it never lingers on any particular piece, the stuff is in every shot while there. The stuff featured is all over the place in terms of quality. So probably 5 out of 10.

While nothing in the films inherently draws attention to graffiti, this scene uses graffiti to contribute to the overall apocalyptic feeling of decay the resat of the movie portrays.

 

[Tenix]

 

[Tenix]

 

[Sir Mildred Pierce]

Alex Garland's "Civil War" is a great movie. But it also has an interesting downtime part where the crew goes to a stadium to take a respite from all the horrible things that keep happening as they travel across country. And the films is trying to convey a sense of an America where everything is falling apart and decayed. The stadium is COVERED with graffiti. While it never lingers on any particular piece, the stuff is in every shot while there. The stuff featured is all over the place in terms of quality. So probably 5 out of 10.

While nothing in the films inherently draws attention to graffiti, this scene uses graffiti to contribute to the overall apocalyptic feeling of decay the resat of the movie portrays.

View attachment 13057View attachment 13058

That's really cool looking. Is the 5 rating a kind of overall rating? Is the best a 5? I kinda wonder if we might give 2 different ratings? One rating for quality, and another for how well it is used within the context of the movie? For example the Beetlejuice one might rank low because no gallery would look highly on that throwie, it's not realistic. but this scene from civil war might rank very high because it's realistic there would be mediocre graffiti mixed in. Another example, in Basquiat, all that graffiti in the background (which I'm certain was in situ, i.e. just there when they filmed it), is probably anachronistic for the mid 80s in the Lower East Side, so it would rank low.

 

[SATIRE]

That's really cool looking. Is the 5 rating a kind of overall rating? Is the best a 5? I kinda wonder if we might give 2 different ratings? One rating for quality, and another for how well it is used within the context of the movie? For example the Beetlejuice one might rank low because no gallery would look highly on that throwie, it's not realistic. but this scene from civil war might rank very high because it's realistic there would be mediocre graffiti mixed in. Another example, in Basquiat, all that graffiti in the background (which I'm certain was in situ, i.e. just there when they filmed it), is probably anachronistic for the mid 80s in the Lower East Side, so it would rank low.

10 is best. I discuss ratings in the very first post. The ratings are for the quality of the graffiti featured in media.

 

[Sir Mildred Pierce]

Oh yeah I get that, I guess because "quality" is so subjective, without any discussion about the stuff being rated, the rating feels a little meaningless. I come at the scene from a different place, as much as I appreciate it, I don't have the same knowledge to know what makes something good or not. I didn't think we would be rating the stuff we post, I figured other people would chip in with the rating.

I'm excited about the thread because I'm good at finding stuff in media, and I'm interested in viewing the evolution of graffiti through media. I'd love to learn what makes something good, but a flat rating doesn't reveal much.

Being subjective, I suppose we can all just come up with our own criteria for "good", I would certainly have a different criteria. Like I'm scratching my head at the 5 for "Civil War", to my eyes it looks way better than what you described it to me. But to me it just looks *real*, and that's what I would rate highly in media (fiction especially). But like I mentioned before, is it a 5 because of the overall presentation? There's a lot of different pieces seen in that scene.

Also would older media be judged by modern eyes? Just about anything from the 80s wouldn't look as sophisticated to our modern eyes.

Posted from my phone at work, pls excuse any typos etc

I've got screenshots for a post tonight, and it's something I have thoughts about

 

[Tenix]