Thoughts on Jawbreaker

I'm not generally a huge fan of movies. I'd rather watch the same 5 movies over and over again than see something new. Last night, I watched two of those movies (Jawbreaker and Spice World) with a roommate. My two favorite mediums of pop culture are pop music (where I repeatedly listen to songs) and reality television (where I rarely repeat-watch an episode, but each episode repeats the same structure). Movies just don't have the level of repetition that I like in pop culture.

I've been thinking a lot about camp the past few months. I decided that, in my opinion, the two main elements of camp are excess and an overcommitment to the marginal. Watching Jawbreaker again reminded me of another element that is often, though not always, present in camp: failure. So many of the plot points and conversations in Jawbreaker simply don't make sense, and it adds to the general campy charm of the movie. Spice World is also very campy, but I don't think it's a failure on any level. I know that many people would disagree with me about that, which points out the important fact that failure is subjective. When something is campy (because it's excessive and features an overcommitment to the marginal), moments of failure (as perceived by the individual viewer) can add to the campiness (for that individual viewer).

Back to repetition: I would imagine that I have seen Jawbreaker about 20 times. I feel like I could watch it many more times, but it's difficult to sit through a movie so many times. I've listened to the song "Glamorous" over 200 times, but I listen to it while doing other things. I've watched over 100 episodes of America's Next Top Model (many twice), and while there's a lot of repetition (of episode structure, activities, themes, the word "fierce," and the judge comment "The camera loves you!") each episode is different. I want to watch Jawbreaker more, but since the same thing happens every time and movies demand that you not do other things while you watch them, it can become almost boring.

I'm considering trying to convert Jawbreaker into other forms. What I've come up with so far is to print off screen captures and put them up on the walls and to convert the audio to mp3 files, about the length of a pop song, and listen to them while doing other things.