Assignment: Venezuela: Difference between revisions
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In an article examining some MST3K shorts, Erin Giannini selects the version of ''Assignment: Venezuela'' as a good example of where MST3K makes good film selections to spoof with suitable commentary, and as showing how this practice appears in their shorts as well as feature films.<ref name=giannini>{{cite article|last=Giannini|first=Erin|title="People were whiter back then": Film Placement and In-Theater Commentary as Sociopolitical Dialogue|editor1=Weiner, Robert G.|editor2=Barba, Shelley E.|journal=In the Peanut Gallery with Mystery Science Theater 3000: Essays on Film, Fandom, Technology and the Culture of Riffing|publisher=McFarland|year=2014|pages=146-154|ISBN=9780786485727}}</ref><sup>:147</sup> Giannini also recognizes how the lack of public distribution of the short allowed the MST3K writers more space in their commentary,<ref name=giannini/><sup>:149</sup> though they still did not outright address the colonialism present in the film, though their reactions show an awareness of it, including interjections calling the protagonist "white devil" and sarcastically referring to the United States as "the best country ever". Other reactions are more critical of the oil industry, dubbing the placement pattern of offshore oil wells a "pentacle to Satan" and spoofing the over-exuberant joy at Venezuelan oil success by saying that "oil is a loving god".<ref name=giannini/><sup>:150</sup> |
In an article examining some MST3K shorts, Erin Giannini selects the version of ''Assignment: Venezuela'' as a good example of where MST3K makes good film selections to spoof with suitable commentary, and as showing how this practice appears in their shorts as well as feature films.<ref name=giannini>{{cite article|last=Giannini|first=Erin|title="People were whiter back then": Film Placement and In-Theater Commentary as Sociopolitical Dialogue|editor1=Weiner, Robert G.|editor2=Barba, Shelley E.|journal=In the Peanut Gallery with Mystery Science Theater 3000: Essays on Film, Fandom, Technology and the Culture of Riffing|publisher=McFarland|year=2014|pages=146-154|ISBN=9780786485727}}</ref><sup>:147</sup> Giannini also recognizes how the lack of public distribution of the short allowed the MST3K writers more space in their commentary,<ref name=giannini/><sup>:149</sup> though they still did not outright address the colonialism present in the film, though their reactions show an awareness of it, including interjections calling the protagonist "white devil" and sarcastically referring to the United States as "the best country ever". Other reactions are more critical of the oil industry, dubbing the placement pattern of offshore oil wells a "pentacle to Satan" and spoofing the over-exuberant joy at Venezuelan oil success by saying that "oil is a loving god".<ref name=giannini/><sup>:150</sup> |
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==See also== |
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*[[History of the Venezuelan oil industry]] |
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==References== |
==References== |
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Revision as of 21:27, 20 June 2019
| Assignment: Venezuela | |
|---|---|
 Title card for Assignment: Venezuela | |
| Directed by | Jack Tobin |
| Produced by | Creole Petroleum Corporation |
Release date | 1956 |
| Countries | United States Venezuela |
Assignment: Venezuela is a 1956 American short propaganda film, a fictional travelogue designed to promote working in the oil industry in Venezuela. It was produced by the Creole Petroleum Co. (now part of Exxon), and directed by Jack Tobin. It is part of the Prelinger Archive and available in the public domain. It was made into a Mystery Science Theater 3000 spoof in the 1990s.
Synopsis
Jim is a middle-level oil engineer who is being relocated to Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela, with his family; wife Ann and two sons. He initially tries to use a Spanish pocket phrase book unsuccessfully, but is quickly greeted at La Chinita International Airport by a company rep.[1] Jim is taken on a tour of Maracaibo, Caracas, and Lagunillas to familiarize him with the new country, shown as positive; in Maracaibo he drives across the waterfront in an imported American car, in Caracas he explores the newly-built University City of Caracas, studying Spanish at Central University of Venezuela.[2]:97-98 He writes letters to Ann telling her how great Venezuela is before his family joins him a few weeks later, all having learnt Spanish already.[3]:158
Analysis
The film was produced in the context of the Marcos Pérez Jiménez military dictatorship, with Lisa Blackmore writing about the propaganda and national image of this time having distinct dual purposes: for Venezuelans, the leaders wanted to show an independent anti-capitalist nation; for Americans who would produce and buy oil, they wanted to present an attractive, modern, Western nation. Blackmore writes that "This mission to confirm Venezuela's development on this basis of its embrace of the American way of life transpires clearly in the twenty-four-minute colour film Assignment: Venezuela".[2]:97
Miguel Tinker Salas wrote that the film was part of a practice intended to make the American employees more sympathetic to the Venezuelan locals upon arrival, and to not be too brash; he also believes it was unsuccessful in this aim. He states this is because it was only shown to employees of petroleum corporations, not their families, and was paired with extensive classes in Venezuelan culture that generally perturbed the employees—enough for stories of expatriates calling the practice "indoctrination" to arise. Tinker also suggests that anything learnt from the lessons and film were quickly forgotten, with American oil workers still retaining their opinion of cultural dominance.[4]:147-148
In examining the MST3K spoof, Erin Giannini does analyze the original film as "[sharing] features with mental hygiene films such as A Date with Your Family as well as the overt propagandizing of Invasion USA", writing that it "attempts to sanitize" many of the racial and environmental issues that should be present in US-Venezuelan oil ventures. She notes that some treat the film as an accurate historical record of 1950s Venezuela.[5]:150
Mystery Science Theater 3000 version
In the 1990s Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) began producing content for a CD-ROM, including two short films: MST3K—Assignment: Venezuela and another, lost, film.[3]:158 Initially screened at ConventioCon 2, the spoof was temporarily lost during a period of upheaval at MST3K during its production, when it was moving TV channel from Comedy Central to Sci Fi Channel, and when CD-ROM sponsors Voyager began failing financially. It was later released on the home videos "Assignment Venezuela and Other Shorts" in 2001 and "The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Volume 7" in 2005. Like many MST3K spoofs, it is a film from the 1950s, which were easier to acquire rights to; Erin Giannini also notes how this generally benefits the spoofs as it provides prime material to mock quaint 1950s American ideals in line with more contemporary social and political issues, which she believes Assignment: Venezuela shows very clearly.[5]:149 It also lacks the internal structure and scheduled framing narrative of many other MST3K shorts.[5]:150
Chris Morgan writes that the MST3K version of the film is long for an MST3K short, noting that the intended format gave the producers a chance to "stretch their legs" and keep close to the original running length. He criticizes the MST3K short as unfunny even though there were more jokes than usual in it and cheaply produced, and notes that keeping the original premise of oil-boom relocation to Venezuela ages the piece significantly. He did think that the running joke made about the width of the lake was funny, though.[3]:158-159
In an article examining some MST3K shorts, Erin Giannini selects the version of Assignment: Venezuela as a good example of where MST3K makes good film selections to spoof with suitable commentary, and as showing how this practice appears in their shorts as well as feature films.[5]:147 Giannini also recognizes how the lack of public distribution of the short allowed the MST3K writers more space in their commentary,[5]:149 though they still did not outright address the colonialism present in the film, though their reactions show an awareness of it, including interjections calling the protagonist "white devil" and sarcastically referring to the United States as "the best country ever". Other reactions are more critical of the oil industry, dubbing the placement pattern of offshore oil wells a "pentacle to Satan" and spoofing the over-exuberant joy at Venezuelan oil success by saying that "oil is a loving god".[5]:150
See also
References
- ^ "Assignment: Venezuela – 1956". Weirdo Video. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
- ^ a b Blackmore, Lisa (2017). Spectacular Modernity: Dictatorship, Space, and Visuality in Venezuela, 1948-1958. University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 9780822982364.
- ^ a b c Morgan, Chris (2015). The Comic Galaxy of Mystery Science Theater 3000: Twelve Classic Episodes and the Movies They Lampoon. McFarland. ISBN 9781476618838.
- ^ Tinker Salas, Miguel; Joseph, Gilbert M.; Rosenberg, Emily S. (2009). The Enduring Legacy: Oil, Culture, and Society in Venezuela. Duke University Press. ISBN 9780822392231.
- ^ a b c d e f Template:Cite article
