Flat Eric five bucks
December 1, 2014 10:42 AM   Subscribe

Mr. Oizo - 'Ham' directed by Eric Wareheim (SLvimeo) (Possibly NSFWorSanity)
posted by fearfulsymmetry (34 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 


i was led to believe there would be ham
posted by murphy slaw at 10:59 AM on December 1, 2014 [4 favorites]


Nice to see a short piece like this where the end is actually a conclusion to the action begun in it, rather than a dramatic surprise of some kind.

It's also interesting to see make-up being given such a big role in story-telling: everyone looks both sugar-fat and etiolated, as though they've been spending all their time gorging viciously in the dark, like rats.

The ending itself is wonderfully spare, too, and its quiet after the stylish noise of the video somehow makes the viewer feel vaguely complicit.
posted by clockzero at 11:02 AM on December 1, 2014 [2 favorites]


Hollywood ending.
posted by bird internet at 11:10 AM on December 1, 2014


This is a semi-regular occurrence down at the local Walmart
posted by surazal at 11:13 AM on December 1, 2014 [1 favorite]


There's a Charles Bukowski poem about driving home after seeing a movie. It includes a line that's something like, "Millions of dollars spent to make something worse than actual life."

This probably didn't cost millions of dollars, so there's that.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 11:23 AM on December 1, 2014 [2 favorites]


Who knew Eric Wareheim was in bed with the NRA?
posted by oceanjesse at 11:29 AM on December 1, 2014


Was that John C. Reilly?
posted by Mister_A at 11:49 AM on December 1, 2014 [2 favorites]


The whole "Tim & Eric" crowd make me feel old and crotchety. I don't see the appeal at all, I don't see the humor in it, I just find their abject worship of the repulsive and obnoxious to be a complete waste of time. It's like watching toddlers giggle while wallowing in their own filth.
posted by evilcupcakes at 11:52 AM on December 1, 2014 [6 favorites]


Tim & Eric's work always hits me in a weird place. It starts from anger and revulsion in the same way as satire, but instead of lampooning the targets (consumerism, the vapidity of media), it flops around nihilistically in what it hates. It feels like the voice of people who know that their response will not be heard, but still want the catharsis of lashing out.
posted by murphy slaw at 12:09 PM on December 1, 2014 [14 favorites]


The whole "Tim & Eric" crowd make me feel old and crotchety. I don't see the appeal at all, I don't see the humor in it, I just find their abject worship of the repulsive and obnoxious to be a complete waste of time. It's like watching toddlers giggle while wallowing in their own filth.

This is about where I'm at. I actually grew up with Eric and knew him well in high school, but despite many attempts to try to enjoy their various comedic ventures, I've accepted that it's funny, but just not funny in a way I enjoy. There was a lot to like about the "cinco" era videos, but also a lot of repetitive "douche chill" humor that gets old after the third or fourth minute. Tom Goes to the Mayor was just terrible, Awesome Show had some moments but not enough to justify sitting through the bits that don't work, etc. I cracked a smile during this and enjoyed some of the slo-mo cartoonish violence bits, but didn't have any impulse to laugh.

Enough people love them that it's impossible to make a case that their stuff isn't funny, but just like music, different comedic approaches resonate with different people.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:11 PM on December 1, 2014 [1 favorite]


America, fuck yeah!
posted by zardoz at 12:11 PM on December 1, 2014


This isn't just unfunny to me, it's also more of the same caricature-porn from the testosteronal middle class straight white guy's POV.

I mean just look at all the boxes it ticks: Fat shaming, middle american lower class culture shaming, gun & violence fetishization, banal anti-"consumerism", and trite pseudo-symbolism all set in perfectly technical, big budget cinematic homage to the male gaze. There's no nuance, no subversion of any mainstay tropes, no purpose whatsoever. Why does this exist? Who made it? Who for?

It's not just that I don't care for it, I think it's actually problematic.
posted by an animate objects at 12:21 PM on December 1, 2014 [6 favorites]


I don't think this was supposed to be funny, or not ha-ha funny at the very least.

Here's an explanation from Wareheim for the genesis of the "Ham" short, from komara's link above:

I was visiting my relatives in St. Louis and we were going to a Wal-Mart to stock up on ammunition because my uncle was going to take us shooting at the range. And at the Wal-Mart there were about six or seven enormously obese people on Rascal scooters all trying to get in the front door at the same time. It was like a logjam. Then I walked in and noticed more of these Rascal scooters were going up to McDonald’s, which was inside Wal-Mart, and they would get their Big Macs and sodas and they would shop with the food, so they would be taking clothes and putting them on their bodies for sizing and they’d be all stained with ketchup and meat grease. It was just unbelievable. And then we went to the ammunition section and it’s literally right next to the toy section, which I couldn’t believe. So this whole idea of how our society is going toward fast food, obesity, and all the gun violence that’s been going on for the past couple years—it hit me really hard and I wanted to make something kind of showing the future of America, or actually present day America. A lot of my work doesn’t really have a social statement but this one leans a little more toward that.

I think he makes a pretty interesting (though, obviously, not at all objective or journalistic) cinematic characterization of the feeling of life in America.
posted by clockzero at 12:29 PM on December 1, 2014 [5 favorites]


Also, minus points for "Make it weird! Put a dwarf in it!".
posted by murphy slaw at 12:34 PM on December 1, 2014 [3 favorites]


an animate objects >

This isn't just unfunny to me, it's also more of the same caricature-porn from the testosteronal middle class straight white guy's POV.

I mean just look at all the boxes it ticks: Fat shaming, middle american lower class culture shaming, gun & violence fetishization, banal anti-"consumerism", and trite pseudo-symbolism all set in perfectly technical, big budget cinematic homage to the male gaze. There's no nuance, no subversion of any mainstay tropes, no purpose whatsoever. Why does this exist? Who made it? Who for?


I disagree, respectfully. I don't deny that fat-shaming is a real phenomenon, but I don't think the idea here is that these characters should feel badly about being fat. I'm also not sure that "shaming" is really the right term when fiction is the subject, but I guess that's a different question. And I really don't think there's any shaming of middle American lower class culture, unless you conflate that axiomatically with the negative things being depicted here, which seems far more problematic, to me.

This is supposed to be grotesque. It's grotesque because the person who made this sees grotesqueness in the conditions and contours of American lives and American culture. Why should artists avoid making art that is grotesque when life itself is grotesque? How can we critique negative social forces (such as radically mis-prioritized agricultural subsidies and their complex effects, obsession with guns and consumption more generally, etc.) if the depiction of their embodiment is "problematic"?
posted by clockzero at 12:48 PM on December 1, 2014 [9 favorites]


Isn't what Tim and Eric do a "Grotesque" ? I mean, by definition, isn't it? Not Comedy, but something that exists to create discomfort and then perhaps amusement at it's lack of relationship with the generally accepted normals and distance from beauty and function?

I liked the Mr. Oizo video, good stuff and many of the other videos, as they seem to embody the notions of the songs they portray in moist fashion.

However, Tim and Erics body of work as a whole? Eww.
posted by NiteMayr at 1:10 PM on December 1, 2014 [1 favorite]


This isn't my favorite from either artist involved (I prefer when Dupieux directs his own videos), but Wareheim can be a really fascinating director when he's working with more "straight" material- there's a kind of sentimental grotesque mode that he works in for, say, his Depeche Mode and Beach House videos (the latter of which is genuinely beautiful for all the gratuitous weird shit) that's totally his own.
posted by Merzbau at 1:22 PM on December 1, 2014


That's a substantial and relevant question clockzero.

I feel like this is art that punches down and I don't think art should punch down (if there is anything it "should" or "shouldn't" do.) The people who made this art (Wareheim et. al.) are presumably more able bodied, more educated, more "talented," and maybe even wealthier than the subjects in the film (and which Wareheim describes from his visit to St. Louis.)

When we look at people and see them as grotesque, I do not think our priority should be to make art that say to everyone else in our clan, "Hey look at these freaks over here! Wow their life sure is fucked up right?"

This art does not touch on the reasons people become morbidly obese or obsess over marginally insignificant material goods, it simply makes spectacle of those obsessions. I am unable to find a more productive reading based on the composition (or "plot," as it were.)
posted by an animate objects at 1:26 PM on December 1, 2014 [2 favorites]


I like what Eric does because he works with ugly people, weird people, average people, old people, and he gets them to drop some of their self consciousness and have fun. I can often relate to people in his videos and sketches, much more than mainstream stuff from a world where everyone is beautiful.
posted by idiopath at 1:39 PM on December 1, 2014 [3 favorites]


Vimeo has never played a video for me in like 8 years of trying. I have wanted to like it but it's just never worked, at all. Here's the ham vid on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D55Djt9FQ0
posted by rubadub at 1:58 PM on December 1, 2014


I loved this and wish that they had extended it and used it to replace one of the lesser 'Bedtime Stories' shorts in their most recent season. It was horrific and would have fit in perfectly. Of course its problematic - American culture is problematic and Wareheim revels in its grotesquerie - he celebrates it. His Dancefloor Dale music video (not going to link it - as its very NSFW) Features two unconventional, 'unattractive' people who have passionate sex in front of you and dare you to look away. Its' awesome.

I make no secret of my utter love for Tim and Eric and I feel sorry for those that don't get it. Underneath the filth and repetition and immaturity is some seriously angry, biting satire on consumer culture and real humanity and heart. They're smart dudes making seemingly dumb comedy.
posted by AzzaMcKazza at 2:07 PM on December 1, 2014 [2 favorites]


Punching down? This was one 'Merican flag short of a tea party rally. The sort of person portrayed in this video would scoff at the idea that they're anything less than the most important and powerful people in America. The last election certainly suggested that they may be right.
posted by Joey Michaels at 3:10 PM on December 1, 2014


That's a substantial and relevant question clockzero.

I feel like this is art that punches down and I don't think art should punch down (if there is anything it "should" or "shouldn't" do.) The people who made this art (Wareheim et. al.) are presumably more able bodied, more educated, more "talented," and maybe even wealthier than the subjects in the film (and which Wareheim describes from his visit to St. Louis.)


I really hear and appreciate what you're saying. I think I see it differently because, to me, the characters (such as they are) in "Ham" are big caricatures, almost like those in political cartoons: they don't necessarily represent individuals or even regional/demographic groups so much as themes, social trends, and of course other representations, as well. That's why it doesn't read as punching down to my eyes, though I can see why it looks that way to you.

When we look at people and see them as grotesque, I do not think our priority should be to make art that say to everyone else in our clan, "Hey look at these freaks over here! Wow their life sure is fucked up right?

I see those people as embodiments of grotesquerie that transcends individuals, and individual choice. The grotesquerie of a barbaric culture of violence and domination that's valorized as patriotism; the ugliness of manic consumerism; the absurdity of human bodies that are simultaneously overfed and undernourished, the critique of our structural priorities that that implies.

This art does not touch on the reasons people become morbidly obese or obsess over marginally insignificant material goods, it simply makes spectacle of those obsessions. I am unable to find a more productive reading based on the composition (or "plot," as it were.)

Again, I see what you're saying, and I think I'm closest to agreeing with you on this point. While there are personal reasons that people might be heavier, or preoccupied with material possessions, there's also the bigger context, and I think that's what this is interested in depicting. It doesn't attempt to explain anything, it merely magnifies the structural irrationality of modern life, in degree but not in kind, until the viewer becomes upset by the ugliness. It's a wonderful tonic, I feel, to the constant stream of cheaply manufactured beauty in modern art (using that term in the broadest possible sense). And there's a difference between the ugliness of these characters and the intense gore of modern films and video games, e.g., that of the zombie genre. If people are desensitized to gore but not to ugliness, what does that imply about the way that modern cultural products temper our empathic response to depictions of suffering? What kind of society is awash in images of blown-open, inside-out bodies, but almost completely evacuated of non-beautiful humans of the intact variety?
posted by clockzero at 3:16 PM on December 1, 2014 [13 favorites]


Reservoir Slobs?
posted by dgaicun at 5:33 PM on December 1, 2014 [1 favorite]


I watched once and was disgusted, twice and was intrigued, three times and was fascinated. Maybe it's the music.
posted by kinnakeet at 7:00 PM on December 1, 2014 [1 favorite]


Back in the mid-80s, me and a few of my university friends in one particular circle -- well, mostly just my much-missed pal Rick and I -- would try to finish every story we told about something we did or saw or movie we watched or book we read with '...and everybody died. The end.'

Which is what this reminded me of.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:53 PM on December 1, 2014


The only thing this needed (spoiler alert) is for the cops to come in at the end and shoot up the last woman standing.
posted by tunewell at 9:19 PM on December 1, 2014


Tim and Eric are the gravediggers that show up when a "culture" is on its deathbed.
posted by any major dude at 10:12 PM on December 1, 2014


Tim and Eric are the gravediggers that show up when a "culture" is on its deathbed.

Is that a compliment? I think to their fans it would be.
posted by cell divide at 10:16 PM on December 1, 2014


The only thing this needed (spoiler alert) is for the cops to come in at the end and shoot up the last woman standing.

I think it would be more appropriate for the cops would have to come in and shoot up a random black guy who'd just been standing watching the whole thing.

Anyone trying to make something "weird" is in competition with Chris Morris' Jam. (BTW, calling Jam problematic would be a bit like calling the Atlantic moist.)
posted by Grangousier at 1:50 AM on December 2, 2014


Needs more Flat Eric.
posted by orme at 4:24 AM on December 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


I think you are all missing the most significant issue - the tragic death of Flat Eric, an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire of a society gone mad.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 4:30 AM on December 2, 2014 [1 favorite]




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