A review, by Ariella Phillips, Student, University of Notre Dame, Class of 2012
"With my freeze ray, I will stop the world.....
That’s the plan/ Rule the world/ You and me/ Any day
Love your hair.”
Dr. Horrible’s Sing A Long Blog is a production that is utterly Millennial. Not quite definable, it’s a movie/blog/musical/webcast/thing. It was never shown on TV, never advertised, a case of completely out-of-the-box thinking and approach. Despite the low budget (it was made during the writers’ strike), the quality of the music and acting is top notch. And every college student has seen it.
If you haven’t seen it, here’s the link. It’s a little long (40 minutes) but if you have 10 minutes it’s worth watching through the first song, “My Freeze Ray.” In case you don’t have time, here’s why I think Dr. Horrible appeals to Millennials.
The message.
We want to change the world. We’re a little fuzzy on exactly how, but as Dr. Horrible says in the first few minutes, “the status quo is not… quo!” We’re a little innocent on this point, almost naïve. Still, we know there’s something wrong with our world, and we are going to fix it, either through Penny’s volunteering with the homeless and vegetarianism, or Dr. Horrible’s freeze ray.The Medium.
Dr. Horrible is on OUR media, the Internet, which Millennials take special pride in. Yeah, yeah, we know our moms are on facebook now, but gosh darn it, we’re the ones who know it best. Dr. Horrible starts off talking to a computer cam, blogging his email responses on his exploits in world domination and love. If you look closely, you’ll see the remote for his heist is an iPhone. Technology is something all millennials use, know, and exploit. Even if we don’t have a transmatter ray, it’s our superpower.The Nemesis.
Captain Hammer, the Corporate Tool, is Dr. Horrible’s "true nemesis". Captain Hammer is the ultimate boomer. Or gen X-er. Or just a jerk. But he represents everything our generation isn’t. If Millenials are trying to make a change, there is the status quo, thwarting us at every turn (Hammer: “It’s curtains for you, Dr. Horrible; lacy, gently wafting curtains”). Really, we’re sick of our Captain Hammers. Please forward the memo to all the boomers, gen X-ers, and the rest who say we can’t make a difference.
The Attitude.
Millennials are constantly struggling to prove to the rest of the world that we can make a difference, that we’re not the pampered, “everyone gets a trophy” generation, but one that will make an impact. We empathize with Dr. Horrible as he strives to show Penny he’s “not a joke, not a dork, not a failure.” Millennials who survived the gauntlet of college applications understand his anxiety to gain admission to the Evil League of Evil. Those who survived the gauntlet of the workplace understand Penny’s tale of all the times she was turned down and fired from jobs. Dr. Horrible tells Penny over frozen yogurt of wanting to do great things, and be an achiever, but it seems he just won’t be given the chance to prove it. It’s a worry of all Millenials. We just want to be given a chance to show what we can do – and we’re terrified it’ll never happen.
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First of all, Ariella, thank you for introducing me to Dr. Horrible! If you check my bio on Twitter, you'll see the word "revolutionary". So I immediately connected with the Dr. as a kindred spirit and his message of change.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who spends a great deal of time helping members of different generations work together effectively, I, for one, am doing everything I can to help you and all the Millennials get that chance to prove you can make a difference.
I offer a few thoughts...
The bad news is that there are Captain Hammers everywhere. I refer to them as CAVE people - that stands for Citizens Against Virtually Everything. Here's the good news. There are many people in other generations - Boomers included - who have had it with the Captain Hammers and the status quo they all represent. I think you will find some allies along the way - sometimes who they are will surprise you.
It is important to get clear where and how you want to make a difference. Back in the 60's, we wanted to change the world, too. Unfortunately, sometimes we acted like "rebel's without a clue" - and we spent too much time competing with each other. Millennials have so many great ideas. Pick where you want to start, get your game plan together, and then collaborate, collaborate, collaborate!
Finally, please don't give up. You may be the best and brightest generation ever. You have allies that you can call on because we want you to succeed. Go for it!
All excellent points, and let's not forget that Dr. Horrible was an outstanding success because it was originally distributed for free and not sold to us Millennials with traditional marketing. Because it was originally offered for free, it let us discover it on the internet (which as Ariella says, we feel is our domain and that we know it best) and tell our friends about it. There were no commercials, just word-of-mouth buzz coming from real people.
ReplyDeleteIn my (humble) opinion, that's the crux of marketing to Millennials. We want our brands to communicate to us personally through a real person: we buy things that are recommended by real people on Amazon.com, we interact with real brand employees and reps on Facebook fan pages, and exchange tweets with real people who happen to work at large corporations like Dell or Apple. Likewise, Dr. Horrible was "sold" to us- the first among our generation to see it sold it to the rest of us. We'd had a chance to try it out for free, claim it as our own discovery, and do our own person-to-person marketing for it.
Interestingly, even though it was done for free at the time, it was later released on DVD with extra features for sale on Amazon- and sold well enough that Joss Whedon and the other creators were more than able to pay back cast and crew for their efforts. Just goes to show you that Millennials aren't all about stealing music and videos--not if we can have it for free, first.
-Nicki Pierski (@nmarie)