- Joined
- Jan 16, 2017
The worst thing about the Funko Pops I think is their sheer cynicism and lack of merit as objects of art. I mean a Gundam or Transformer is also a useless piece of Chinese plastic with no practical purpose, but at least some effort went into making each one look unique and interesting. A Gundam figure is at least worth looking at even if you don't know what a Gundam is because it's a cool-looking robot with an intricate design. A Funko Pop, by contrast, is just a plastic cube with a few bits tacked on to it, just enough to indicate that it's supposed to be [thing] from [thing]. The same soul-less, dead-eyed vinyl abomination, but with literally the least amount of superficial signifiers of what it's supposed to be that someone familiar with that thing might recognise it (though often it's incomprehensible, and I think that's why most are displayed in the box; without the label you might not even figure out it's supposed to be Indiana Jones or Katniss or whatever). The very essence of symbolism, the absolute bare minimum. It's not intended to be a recognisable depiction of the thing or to even resemble the thing in any real way, or carry any inherent value as a piece of art, it just carries signifiers to indicate that it's owner has heard of the thing and is a fan of the thing. It conveys so little artistic value or reference to the original that you could achieve exactly the same thing by just writing "Davros out of Dr Who" on the wall in permanent marker.
It's almost cargo-culty. A Funko Pop represents what it is based on by imitating a handful of visual features, but nothing that made the original thing worth liking. A Funko Pop of C3-PO contains nothing of the character, the costume, the actor who portrayed it, the role it had in the story, or any of the other things that made C3-PO a character that people liked. Instead it just says "I think the essence of C3-PO is that he is gold and has some robot bits." Just the most basic visual signifiers, demonstrating no understanding of the context or function of the original, like a walkie-talkie made out of coconut straw. Or it's like those fucking horrible Friedberg/Selzer "parody" films, whose idea of parodying a character was just to put it on the screen, point at it, and (quite literally in many cases) say "Hey, it's Britney Spears", without actually making any kind of joke. Look, it's a thing on the screen that looks a bit like another thing that people like! That's a reference!
It's almost cargo-culty. A Funko Pop represents what it is based on by imitating a handful of visual features, but nothing that made the original thing worth liking. A Funko Pop of C3-PO contains nothing of the character, the costume, the actor who portrayed it, the role it had in the story, or any of the other things that made C3-PO a character that people liked. Instead it just says "I think the essence of C3-PO is that he is gold and has some robot bits." Just the most basic visual signifiers, demonstrating no understanding of the context or function of the original, like a walkie-talkie made out of coconut straw. Or it's like those fucking horrible Friedberg/Selzer "parody" films, whose idea of parodying a character was just to put it on the screen, point at it, and (quite literally in many cases) say "Hey, it's Britney Spears", without actually making any kind of joke. Look, it's a thing on the screen that looks a bit like another thing that people like! That's a reference!
