We were asked to watch the 1954 Godzilla film, and tweet during the experience. I immediately point out that the film didn’t star Bryan Cranston, and therefore probably not as good. This was followed by my friend Bradley tweeting an edited photo of Bryan Cranston’s face on Godzilla captioned ‘Look again”. This led to me using MS Paint to draw rollerblades and crop Bryan Cranstons face onto Godzilla, in, what I consider to be, a witty retort.
Contextually, this is a large web we drew on for both of our entertainment. And people responded on Twitter to this. They got that Bryan Cranston was in 2012 Godzilla, a remake of the current film, that he was also in ‘Malcolm in the Middle’, rollerblading in a single episode. And now, somehow, the audience understood what I was making reference to. Which, is bizarre. How did these people make these links, without assistance? Looking back, it is convoluted, and was mostly a joke to one of my friends.
I guess what I took from the live tweeting experience, is that somehow, we can draw on a collective knowledge as people when viewing something. We all bring our own knowledge and share it together. Did it enhance the film? I would say no. But was it more fun? Probably.
Digital Asia 
I find the idea of understanding a film through the cultural context of how it is watched fascinating. If you were sitting down and watching with friends at home would that affect your understanding in a different way? Or is it simply the act of you and a friend acknowledging Western interpolations and connotations of that which affect your understanding. Probably both, really. I thoroughly appreciate Haljira engaging in his favourite form of motion.
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This was a really interesting post. Unfortunately I was not one of the people in the class who understood your pop culture reference, not being ‘up’ on the Godzilla franchise in any way. I am interested, however, in the way others drew those connections. It takes me back to ‘The Medium is the Message’, in BCM112. Twitter’s affordances as a platform have promoted a fascinating new paradigm. If Chris had asked us to journalise our thoughts about the film using a pen and paper instead of Twitter, would our findings have been the same? Of course not. This article (https://theconversation.com/tits-are-all-a-twitter-about-the-benefits-of-social-networking-9052) analyses the impact of social media live communication on the human conversation and concludes that it helps us to understand both the topic we engage in, and people themselves
-Claire.
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Tweeting is obviously an interesting and accessible way to facilitate communication and there’s no better conversation than “why is Hal off Malcolm in the Middle in Godzilla”? That of course coming from people who don’t realise that Walt in Breaking Bad is the same actor. I think due to the ubiquitous nature of the medium even if people didn’t get the reference, it’s not difficult to “google it”.
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I actually really like the stand you took on this. I think acknowledging that twitter connection is just another example of how we are modernizing all our “connections” and basic realizations. Something so dumb and simple, making a movie reference, only made extremely more awesomely. With a dumb and idiotic meme, and live tweeted online on a public platform. Why not?
I also think you have officially made Godzilla more stupid than the poor lizard is already made out to be. Which is interesting since we kind of learnt how he has so much more to his story haha. But it’s interesting to note this pattern to make fun of it. Isn’t this how it begins? A meme here and a comment there, slowly chipping at the eroded reputation that Godzilla has left.
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