On Politics| For Your Consideration: Piranha 3D
“Hello,” begins the latest viral video making the Internet rounds.
“I’m Hollywood treasure Jerry O’Connell and I’ve worked on some serious projects in the past. ‘Stand By Me,’ ‘Crossing Jordan,’ ‘Sliders,’ ‘Kangaroo Jack,” the young actor explains before a brief pause.
“But none of them hold a candle,” O’Connell argues, “to ‘Piranha 3D.’”
And so commences in earnest the Best Picture Oscar campaign for “Piranha 3D,” director Alexandre Aja’s remake of B-movie producer Roger Corman’s 1978 “Jaws” knockoff, on the popular website Funny or Die.
“Well, obviously Best Picture,” notes “Piranha 3D” actor Adam Scott. “But, why stop at Best Picture. How about Best Penis Being Gobbled and Spit Out In 3D? Best Gun-Toting Jet-Ski Fight in a Piranha-related Film?”
Since its August opening two weeks ago, “Piranha 3D” has scared up nearly $20 million, secured a sequel and emerged as something of a critical darling amongst the nation’s film critics, enjoying a 75 percent fresh rating on rottentomatoes.com and favorable reviews from Variety and Rolling Stone.
Who knew that a 3D film about ancient piranha unleashed on a small Arizonan lake community would cause such excitement around the country?
The answer is anyone paying any attention whatsoever to what passes as political discourse these days, particularly in the waning days of summer as the theater of the absurd offers distractions in lieu of the serious.
“From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August,” former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card explained in a 2002 New York Times interview on why the Bush Administration wanted to wait until September to sell its case for an Iraq War to the American public.
This Tuesday, President Obama takes to the Oval Office to address the nation on Iraq, specifically regarding the drawdown of troops in that country and marking a formal end to combat operations that began nearly seven years ago.
A serious moment requires a serious venue and a primetime address from the Oval Office certainly fills that bill.
Still, the recent weeks leading to this moment have surely been anything but serious with an Islamic community center located two blocks from Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan magically becoming “Ground Zero Mosque” and occupying most of our time.
So serious was this issue that protestors took to the streets of Manhattan to voice their concerns.
Just days before Obama makes his second address from Oval Office, Fox News’ Glenn Beck “reclaimed the civil rights movement” (whatever that means) and captured headlines across the country for having the audacity to deliver a speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
According to the Associated Press, tens of thousands of conservatives attended the rally ready to restore the country’s honor (lost when we sanctioned torture? Invaded Iraq under false pretenses?).
In times of high economic anxiety and unemployment, distractions have a funny way of illuminating the obvious and perhaps there’s no better example of just that than “Piranha 3D.”
Set in Arizona, the film follows Elisabeth Shue as a local Arizonan sheriff (and single mom) who must not only defeat the monstrous, bloodthirsty piranha unleashed by a recent earthquake but also deal with the thousands of rowdy college students who’ve descended on her lake community as their spring break destination.
Given the anti-immigration rhetoric dominating Arizona’s politics, the most interesting thing about “Piranha 3D,” then, is its setting, an Arizona overrun by interlopers threatening its way of life.
That it is not a serious film matters little. That the film tackles a serious subject, albeit through allegory and metaphor, only makes it that much smarter, right?
It matters only that we say it’s serious and worthy of consideration.
So, ladies and gentlemen, kind Academy voters, I present for your consideration: “Piranha 3D,” a Best Picture contender if there ever was one.
James Cooper is a MA student in screen studies and political science. He received his BA from the University of Oklahoma
