Do you remember where you were when you first heard of Justin Bieber?
My memory is particularly vivid, because it's also when I realized the world was not the one I used to know. When Usher came in to that eleven year-old's party and gave him props, I realized a torch was perhaps literally (given Usher's history of STDs) being passed, and that I belonged to those who no longer carried the torch (or gonorrhea).
So away with our destroyers (of sexual virtue)! They have no place within our tween world. But this new world carries with it disturbing questions and moral quagmires of its own. Like is Justin Bieber actually a robot? And what is he hiding behind those bangs?
All of this brings me to BABIES, which is terrifyingly hypnotic in much the same way Bieber is. You're never really sure if you're watching because you're fascinated by what's happening, or wondering why you're fascinated by what's happening.
The tagline for the film is "Everybody loves babies", which has to stand as one of the laziest advertising attempts I've ever seen. I was worried this was going to be the film equivalent of an eating-Rolo-ice-cream-out-of-the-tub YouTube cute binge, complete with kittens, orphans, and ridiculously adorable renditions of "Tomorrow".
And while BABIES doesn't have any hits from the Annie soundtrack, it does coast an awful lot on the cuteness of babies doing baby stuff. But there's also some really interesting stuff about competition, survival, and the essence of humanity in there - but I might be reading too much into it. The film is like a fascinating semiotic exercise, where you're constantly debating the meaning of every little gesture and look.
Which brings me back to Bieber. I'm never really sure if I'm looking at a savvy scruple-less media manipulator or an innocent dreamboat, but I do know I'm watching.
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