Ice Cube Research Paper

Disaster cinema has a rich and fascinating history, with early examples coming from Italian produced Roman epics as seen in the early 1900’s. Audiences have always been interesting in seeing films that will blow them away with high concepts and spectacular spectacles, and disaster films have always done this to a certain extent. But as the genre became more common, audiences did start to find many silly or ridiculous things in these movies, which makes the entire cinema of disaster flicks a prime target for a camp theory reading. Camp theory is an easily explained theory that examines films that “couple the unimaginable with ‘banality’ and ‘vulgarity’”. In other words a campy film is something that is trying to be serious, yet the audience can’t buy into it and laugh instead of cheer. There is a lot that goes into the formula for a so-bad-it’s-good movie to exist, including the ridiculous plot/situations, the

Up to this point in his career Cube has been known for urban gangster dramas like Boyz n the Hood (1991) and comedies like Friday (1995) which is why he interestingly plays both a tough guy and comic relief. Ice Cube’s comic moments are suppose to include your momma jokes and lines like “I’m getting the hell back to L.A.”, he’s practically playing the same role LL Cool J played in another late 90’s disaster film Deep Blue Sea (1999). The cast is mostly people playing stereotypes or caricatures, with Jonathan Hyde playing a pompous/wimpy British actor, and Owen Wilson playing himself. Most audience members can’t get invested in the characters, so instead of seeing characters going up against a giant anaconda we see the actor’s personas going up against the snake. This actually lends itself perfectly to comedy, since the idea alone of Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube and Owen Wilson going up against a giant snake sounds like the start of a hilarious