Jose Saca – Gremlins 2: The New Batch (Eleventh Post)

ANNOUNCER

Because of the end of civilization, the Clamp Cable Network now leaves the air. We hope you've enjoyed our programming, but more importantly, we hope you've enjoyed... life.

- From Gremlins 2: The New Batch

The above quote is a line spoken by a TV voice-over in an announcement made by the Clamp Cable Network, a channel run by media mogul Daniel Clamp in NYC’s Clamp Building. The quote is included because, I hope, it gives the reader a sense of the satirical nightmare persuasive in the ideology of Gremlins 2: The New Batch.

Gremlins 2: The New Batch is a film directed by Joe Dante and released in 1990. It marks the return of Billy Peltzer (known as William at work), Kate Beringer and everyone’s favorite little Mogwai, Gizmo. The main characters in the first film, played by Zach Gaffigan and Phoebe Cates, have moved away from their small town of Kingston Falls to New York City, both getting jobs at a large building owned by the city’s richest media mogul, Daniel Clamp (a not-too-subtle satirical hit at Donald Trump).

The post in question will analyze the anti-capitalist and anti-totalitarian ideology found in Gremlins 2: The New Batch.

Though essentially a comedy, the film has, either directly or indirectly, criticizes the soullessness of capitalism and the repression of totalitarianism by chronicling and using the insides of a New York skyscraper as the primary setting. In the beginning scenes, the audience is privy to world where men and women in casual work clothes are in positions of power, as in the scene where associates pay a visit to the elderly Chinese apothecary found in the last film. The power shifts in this scene are clearly in favor of the men in the suits, who solidify their strength and newfound glory when the central associate, unnamed here, tells its co-workers to hold off on the deal since the old Chinese man is “an antique” who is bound to die at any minute. An important thematic motif is established, that of society and the media’s disrespect for the past and urgency for constant innovation.

The urgency for constant innovation is explored soon after, with a funny physical comedy bit involving a motorized revolving door that goes haywire and sling-shots a young woman onto the entrance floor. Another recurring motif that relates to the prior point is the PA announcer in the building. The voice, warm and disgustingly optimistic, spouts out gems of satirical comedy that include a plug for a new colorized version of Casablanca, now with a happy ending, and a plea to the driver of an old, dusty car who parked in the building parking facility to move his car outside, he’s detracting from the other parked cars.

Relating to the prior point, the malfunction of machinery in a machine-ran society is also prevalent in this film. The entire insides of the building go haywire once the gremlins take over the controls of the energy systems in the building. The computers malfunction constantly soon after, with a key scene involving the near-death of the Phoebe Cates character after the elevator she’s on drastically falls over 40 floors and destroys the machine and the gremlins on top of the elevator in the process. The unreliability of having an entire enterprise, perhaps symbolizing the world in general, and run on computers is eerily hinted at in scenes like the latter.

The horrors of a mass consumer market are explored throughout as well in both nightmarish and satirical length. In one particular scene, visitors to the Clamp Building gorge on “fat free” frozen yogurt while the gremlins play inside the gooey substance, all while the filmmakers juxtapose cuts between the gremlins and the consumers gorging equally on yogurt.

The film serves as a warning against the horrors of a capitalist, opportunistic society that runs under business rather than reason or intellect. In short, it tells the viewer to look past the superficiality of consumer America. It shows the soullessness of said belief system, especially in the earliest scenes where the male lead goes through a monotonous day in his job at the Clamp Building art department, and laments the loss of the past. No more is this apparent than in the key exchange between the character of Granpa Joe, who hosts a late-night show that profiles classic horror films, and Billy, where Joe laments on the disrespect of the past by key figures in the media, primarily Daniel Clamp. In this exchange, the filmmakers manage to satirize colorizing and the narrow-headed by mainstream corporations that black and white pictures’ color are weak because of their color. The mentioning of a colorized version of Casablanca shows just how disrespectful media moguls and their associated are regarding the past and classic art.

The film shows the possible implications of leading a rigid, repressive life brought on by capitalist and totalitarian dogmas, directly or indirectly, in the gremlins themselves, who wreak havoc inside the Clamp Building by destroying most of the inside machinery, taking over channels that are run from inside the building itself, running amok in toy stores and food shops that are inside the mall area of the building, and, in one surreal and postmodernist scene, interrupting the film itself as it’s being run in the theater. A cameo from Hulk Hogan and Paul Bartel (of Eating Raoul fame) top off this zany, over the top scene, as the anarchy that may be the end result of such repressiveness is suggested in a scene like this one, shows the viewer that, despite the repressiveness of these systems, they are just that, systems, a series of rules and established beliefs that can be broken if repressed persons wish to do so; quite a dangerous message coming from a mainstream film.

By analyzing the corrupt means by which capitalist and totalitarian dogmas have established repressiveness over society, and how this same repressiveness correlates with the total anarchism established by the gremlins themselves as they run amok inside the building, Gremlins 2: The New Batch presents the viewer with a complex and profoundly cynical view of contemporary American life.

* Quote credited to imdb.com