Site Feed
 Daily Ops Feed
 Podcast Feed | iTunes

Blog / Op-eds Daily Ops Home

Where the Indie Kids Are

As is the case with most long-time independent-minded members of a particular culture, there are parts of one’s self that start to reject the more blatant or obvious tropes of that culture. As a long-time member of indie culture, I quite a while ago went through that stage where recognizable “indie” characteristics were a turn-off/embarrassment. This is my independent mind’s rejection of the socialized and commercialized image of independent art, a.k.a. indie, now used to sell shows on the CW and New Moon soundtracks and films with Paul Dano. Of course, I’m also past the point where I point and sneer at indie shit, mocking Death Cab as I clutch my Galaxie 500 LPs or shuddering at hipster rap while rocking Stress: The Extinction Agenda. I got to the point where I just no longer cared. People will like what they like and I can’t derive some sense of smug self-satisfaction from thinking that my tastes are more independent or more unsubsidized than theirs. Hell, I’m sure somewhere out there is a corporation already waiting to meet my deeper hipster needs. Hov and Kanye probably even own shares.

And though I take all too much pleasure in deleting music off my HD by bands who cop their names from Vonnegut novels or who use glockenspiel or who look like they could be related to me and all my friends so that I can make room for more rap, more soul, more dubstep, more Norwegian death jazz, more artists who have very little in common with me—sometimes the Indie Fam gets me back. Wolf Parade’s Apologies to the Queen Mary was the last uber-indie rawk record that I straight up could not deny. It was poetic, original, fierce, plain good...so what if it was a bunch of white dudes with guitars and drums and Isaac Brock? On Sub Pop, no less?

Where the Wild Things Are is like the Wolf Parade of contemporary fantasy movies. The indie pedigree is immaculate, verging on disgusting. Spike Jonze adapting a book that every hipster loved when they were five? Karen O and a bunch of indie scenesters doing the soundtrack? Mark Ruffalo cameo? Last week I filled a prescription and the pharmacist was wearing a vintage Where the Wild Things Are tee; she looked so indie I can practically hear the Arcade Fire every time I pop one of those pills. But the great thing about this movie is that it bypasses that whole tangled mess of where one’s independent leaning alienates them from the familiar in a vain search for isolation, for a desert island where the five records you’re playing are like no one else’s. On the island of the mind in Where the Wild Things Are the only record playing is the one that all of us have heard our entire lives; Jonze is tapping into something resonant, something that uses all those indie trappings just as an entry point to then move us past the image, the self-loathing, the scooping out of niches within niches to hide away in…back to where our independence and our desire for art and all of that started. Like Wolf Parade, the expression is poetic, original, fierce. And plain good.

So Paul Dano voices a Wild Thing. So what. Here we have a gathering, a confluence, of the primal churnings that make me and my friends and those bands with glockenspiel and probably Paul Dano go through all the silly obsessions that we go through to find a way to express ourselves and what’s happened to us and what we feel. To share all of that and to find family in that, regardless of whether some of us go down the road of Norwegian death jazz and others end up at Tegan & Sara. Where the Wild Things Are is not just for the indie kids, but it does explain us beautifully at the same time that it explains a lot of other people beautifully, too. All the neurotic ugliness and self-absorbed sadness is there, yeah, but the movie asks that we treat it with understanding, each other with understanding, at the same time that we acknowledge that even in our own selves lies vast uncharted territories and untamed beasts. This is exciting. This helps one move past the point of indifference or of labeling people too easily. The next time I see a girl in flannel listening to the Decemberists or some dude with Tunde Adebimpe glasses talking about Bradford Cox or a cat in Vans who I just know loves Wale, I’m gonna think about the movie I watched last night. I’ll bet they felt it, too.

Chet Betz | 10/18/2009 |                

⊙ See all Blog posts, or just Op-eds Blog posts, or head back to the Daily Ops index.
⊙ Keyword Tags: , , , ,
6people have commented.
jayson
19 October 2009

If the first half of Where the Wild Things Are is Apologies to the Queen Mary— exciting, fresh, pointing toward catharsis, unease, and full of possibility, then I think the second half of the film is At Mount Zoomer; searching, frustrating, irresolute and ultimately sort of boring.

The man who ripped our tickets was reading ‘A Man Without a Country’.

1

cp
19 October 2009

FINE betz, i’ll go see the movie.

2

chet
19 October 2009

jayson, i think there are a lot of people and critics right there with you due to the film’s lack of narrative drive. but i personally never found the film lacking for ideas or emotional intensity and thought it incredibly cogent and effective in the way its themes play out. a “stronger” plot would have ultimately felt contrived and pretty disingenuous, in fact, in relation to the source material. maybe you agree with me and your criticism of it being “searching” and “boring” are just the film’s failure to connect with you in its second half. but i don’t think this film is irresolute. it is pyrrhic without being tragic, clear without being obvious or unambiguous. which is also like the first Wolf Parade album.

3

David
19 October 2009

Chet: Recommend me some Norwegian death jazz; sounds like something I could get behind. Please.

Also, don’t forget Dave Eggers’ contribution — as much as I sometimes want to shake that man, he does still occasionally bring on the heartbreaking and/or staggeringly genius.

4

jayson
20 October 2009

I was thinking about this a lot yesterday; I picked up the book downtown and reread it in my spare time. I hadn’t read that thing in probably a decade and a half.

There’s a line.

“Max said ‘BE STILL!’ and tamed them with the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once… and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all.”

Super beautiful and potent and I think an idea the film displayed almost masterfully without being too overt.

I think you’re right about it being pyrrhic; not just for max or even the wild things but for the viewer. Initially that felt bleak to me, but now I understand it’s brutality a little differently. The viewer being set somewhere between max and the wild things gives it the opportunity to put a point on the story so that it can choose to grow from the experience or ignore it and give into it’s melancholy— Max being set aside in KW’s belly, hearing Carol and understanding why his behavior is so unfair.

Rereading it again for the first time in forever with knowledge of the screenplay also put it into a weird place that sort of defines the curiosity of a few generations, whether it be mine or the one before me or the one after.

If anything I really feel like I need to sit through it again, and maybe take a step back from projecting my own need for brutal realization onto pieces of art that otherwise might deserve to be experienced separately.

5

chet
20 October 2009

hey David, i’m gonna assume you’re not Dave Eggers. you’re right, i shouldn’t forget his contribution. it was big. but this was obviously less of a review and more focused on the whole indie culture connection so you’ll forgive me if i don’t give all the credit due.

the “Norwegian death jazz” was mostly a silly reference to Supersilent and stuff of Deathprod ilk. which I do love.

jayson, cool. i’m in agreement with all that.

6

⊙ Comments are turned off for this article.