Thursday, January 13, 2011

Autotune The Law - Melding Law and Popular Culture

Our students are all well familiar with "Autotune the News". (The oldtimers among us will remember Peter Frampton autotuning his guitar licks in "Show me the Way".) The Gregory Brothers take video news clips and creatively turn them into songs and music videos.  The Bed Intruder Song (video below)has well over 35 million hits as of the time I am preparing this post. NPR has reported on the phenomenon.

Here is the video clip of the underlying incident reported in the news:



Here is the song created from the news video:



There is much academic discussion about how the law is portrayed in poular culture.  There is also scholarship on how popular culture acts to shape the law and its understandings.  I believe that we are seeing a new dimension, here, where the law is not merely reflected in the poular culture but has melded or fused into the popular culture in a way not previously found.  I'm not sure what it means for the law or for enhancing the understandings of law, but its worthy of discussion.

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