One of the things that links the subjects of Michelle Habell-Pallan's book Loca Motion is their connection to the birth of the punk music scene in Los Angeles in the late 1970s and early 1980s and their use of the Do-It-Yourself aesthetic as a result.
Habell-Pallan writes, "Punk was founded on a D.I.Y. (Do-It-Yourself) approach to music. The early punk scene was about playing with one's guts and heart, not displaying musical proficiency. Any fan with the urge could participate." (p. 48)
When thinking about current examples of the D.I. Y. aesthetic, the first person that came to my mind was the French filmmaker Michel Gondry. Though Gondry's films and music videos have had a great deal of commercial success, he continues make creative use of analog technology and tell stories that center on an egalitarian approach to art. His film Be Kind Rewind (2008), starring Mos Def and Jack Black, looks at an independent video store that starts making their own DIY remakes of films when all of their original tapes are destroyed. The moral of this fable is that anyone with a video camera can make their own film; a radical conclusion for a commercial filmmaker to make. Though the film did not attract a wide audience, only making about $11 million on a $20 million budget, it, "provides us with a map of alternative paths that may lead to alternative futures" (Habell-Pallan 14).
Here's the Be Kind Rewind trailer:
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