Hollywood celebrity and filmmaker Justine Bateman recently shared a hilarious, sarcastic critique of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s recent video reacting to President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election. Bateman has led a “#SocialMediaVideoCritique” series on X, providing parody film critic reactions to people sharing meltdown videos regarding the election.
Commenting on a video of AOC, Bateman began, “The director delivers a piece full of subliminal messages,” Bateman wrote. “The camera is hand-held and uneasy, telegraphing uncertainty and confusion.” She added, “The actress’ left hand comes up and cups the chin repeatedly, indicating the character’s deep desire for a beard, a covering. The dialogue is almost inconsequential, serving merely as a means to showcase the visual clues in the piece.”
“The background is the star here. The chaotic blend of blacks and grays is almost a blurred representation of Picasso’s ‘Guernica,’” Bateman wrote. “But here, the production designer strays slightly with a red accent at the right side of frame, bringing an immediacy to the piece, and making the ‘Guernica’ reference unmistakably modern. Fin,” she concluded.
In the video Bateman was reacting to, AOC said, “I’m getting a lot of questions to this effect, what’s the game plan? What do we do? What’s the deal? What happens is so massive that it’s going to take just a second. It’s coming, but it’s going to take a second to share. I would say, personally, as I’m thinking about this, I’m going to be doing a lot more direct communication, so I think I’ll be planning on using my email list to give a lot more thorough and specific things about what’s on my mind and how to prepare for things.”
The progressive Democrat further urged her followers to join together in community following Trump’s decisive victory. She concluded, “My recommendations to join and enter community right now, whether it is church, or you’re knitting circle or mosque or temple or whether it is joining here New York City, New York City DSA or Working Families Party and interest group get into physical community.”
Watch AOC below:
Bateman also critiqued another video of AOC delivering an alarming rant about the implications of the election. The filmmaker wrote, “Again, we see this lighting mistake that many are making. Notice the vague, overhead lights, the absence of a ‘key light’ on her face, and the way her face is flattened as a result.”
“However, the dialogue is a major issue here,” she continued. “There are very long sentences spoken that are difficult to follow, and don’t suit the short duration of this video. A rewrite could help a lot to simplify and focus the intent. The wardrobe of a white shirt doesn’t give us much … information about the character…”
“My biggest problem with this is that it feels like it was take 2 or take 3. The emotional performance feels drummed up, like it was fresh on take 1, but they couldn’t really get the same intensity back on subsequent takes,” she said. “The second major issue is the unpredictability of the camera movements. Because the emotions are high, the scene would have benefitted from a locked-off camera position, or a slow, graceful movement. The jiggling of the camera doubles down on the emotions, and is overkill.”
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
"*" indicates required fields