Occasionally I will zip over to the Knoxville 24 Hour Film Festival’s YouTube page to check out how many views our film “YoGun” has gotten. It’s generally been in the 120 or so range. Not the most views on the page, but nowhere near the least. The other day, I checked on it and …. WOW! There were more than 3400 views in the last week! Had the K24HFF page suddenly gotten super popular? Hmm … nope. Everyone else was still pretty much where they were the last time I checked. So I Googled “YoGun.”
What I discovered was that somehow a blogger who is a vocal advocate of gun rights posted it on his blog, his Facebook page, and his Twitter saying how stupid it was. His “followers” agreed. (I noticed, in addition to the 3400 + views, there were also 22 “Dislikes” that had been clicked). There were many comments on the Facebook link with the ever-so hilarious critique of, “That’s 4 minutes of my life I’ll never get back.” One actually said “3 minutes,” which makes me wonder if he can’t tell time, or maybe he actually liked one minute of it.
When I posted about it on a Facebook group I belong to, I got cyber-eviscerated by a guy saying that you “NEVER have someone point a gun directly into the camera. It’s disrespectful. This is just common sense!” Hmm … Apparently he is not a James Bond fan. He also told me that “in this day and age” with all the shootings and stuff, I am “not allowed” (yes … according to him I am not allowed by … whom, I don’t know) to do this in a film. Hmmm.
Thing is, “YoGun” is in no way meant to be any sort political commentary on gun control (or yoga control, for that matter). In fact, the main actor in the film is a gun owner and gun user. He is very respectful of guns and is also a defender of the Constitution and all its amendments, as is his wife (the “hot hippie chick,” according to one commenter). So to call it a liberal treatise on gun control, or presume it was “sponsored by MAIG” (no idea what that is) is pretty ludicrous.
The film was conceived, shot, and edited in 24 hours (actually, probably closer to 16, over all). The impetus of it all was the visual from the very beginning of someone in a peaceful yoga pose in a serene environment with relaxing music playing, then suddenly turning to the camera to shoot a gun at it. That’s it. Juxtaposition of extreme opposite is a cornerstone of comedy, and the fact that just telling people the premise of the film before they even see it elicits laughter, I think the choice of subjects was appropriate. (It DID win Best Comedy at the festival.)
Goofy. Silly. Funny.
Guess some people can’t take a joke. Reminds me of the old line from Bugs Bunny (may actually have been someone else, but he’s where I heard it from first): “Don’t take life too seriously. You ain’t getting out alive.”
Nevetheless, I appreciate the views (all publicity is good publicity), but I just wish it were linked from on my own YouTube page instead of the K24HFF’s page (and monetized).
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