This Unruly: a repository of video cut-ups

The reaction video remix subcategory describes clips where through the use of intercutting an individual or group appear to react to a subject, which could be a person or a thing.

Creator: Edo Wilkins (2002). Bush's State of the Union (critically re-cut).

This is a political remix video (PRV) created by Edo Wilkins that inter-cuts shots of George W. Bush delivering his 2002 State of the Union address with reactions from prominent Congress members in the Senate and the House of Representatives. Importantly the clip intentionally presents Bush's statements out of context so that he appears to be advocating a number of politically unsound and overtly undemocratic ideas. His audience are also made to appear complicit through their applause and multiple standing ovations. (Perkins. S, 2017)

Creator: Simon Perkins (1994). Wranglers.

The 1994 reaction film "Wranglers", which is designed as a critique of film Westerns and their implied homoerotic subtexts is another example of the video remix sub-genre. The clip re-purposes a scene from Fritz Lang's 1952 film "Rancho Notorious" where the character Altar Keane (played by Marlene Dietrich) is shown surrounded by a group of admiring outlaws. In the re-edited version Dietrich has been removed so that the cowboys appear to be focusing their gaze on the film's protagonist Vern Haskell (played by Arthur Kennedy) thereby transforming the intent of the scene from one focused on heterosexual desire to one focused on homosexual desire. Because of its reaction structure, Haskell appears to be caught in a standoff, unwillingly pinned within the frame and locked within an escalating series of (sexually implied) confrontational exchanges. (Perkins. S, 2017)

Creator: Michel Hazanavicius and Dominique Mézerette (1993). La Classe Américaine.

Creator: Michel Hazanavicius and Dominique Mézerette (1992). Ça détourne (ou Le Triomphe de Bali Balo, ou La Splendeur de la honte, ou L'Invasion des pervers polymorphes, ou Le Lapin connaît la musique).

Creator: Matthias Müller and Dirk Schaefer (1990). Home Stories by Matthias Müller and Dirk Schaefer .

Home Stories is explicitly organised around the the concept of reaction. Its female characters, which have been taken from various 1950's Hollywood films are shown responding quite dramatically to something, which is not shown but which appears to be present off-screen (and which is causing them great distress).

The clip shares significant similarities with the form of the supercut, which is defined in terms of its selective stacking of reoccurring ideas that exist within multiple source clips. While supercuts are generally structured as a list that is designed to foreground the repetitive and often clichéd idea or motif, in this case the overriding feature of Home Stories is its use of reaction, which is skilfully used as a critique of 1950's North American preoccupations about the 'other'. (Perkins. S, 2017)
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