“Oh check it out! I learned the bass line from Final Fantasy II”: Scott Pilgrim vs. Geek Culture

by Sean Ahern

The 2010 release of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Edgar Wright's adaptation of the popular Scott Pilgrim series created by Bryan Lee O'Malley, introduced a worldwide audience to the adventures of Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) as he fights for the

affection of Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) via her seven “Evil Exes.” Both O'Mally's original comic book series and Wright's big screen adaptation rely heavily on the application of video game narratives and aesthetics to push the storyline forward. As Scott defeats each of the members of The League of Evil Exes, he collects the bonus coins left behind in their defeat and moves onto the next level of his relationship with Ramona in hopes of finally saving his princess from the final Evil Ex (and final boss)- Gideon Gordon Graves (Jason Schwartzman).  The application of familiar video game narratives to the story, classic video game characters and titles for band names, and “8-bit” styling in both the comic and movie appropriates hip, geek culture for a mainstream audience. Using Dick Hebdige's theories on Subcultures, I will look at the use of  geek culture  as a new storytelling tool that brings subcultural ideas and images to the forefront of summer movie events like Scott Pilgrim.

In Subculture: The Meaning of Style, Hebdige writes about punk culture in England in the late 1970s and the appropriation of safety pins, fetish wear and household items by members of the culture to create a fashion style that undermined normal styles of dress alongside new style of music.

“They display their own codes (e.g. the punk’s ripped T-shirt) or at least demonstrate that codes are there to be used and abused (e.g. they have been thought about rather than thrown together). In this they go against the grain of a mainstream culture whose principal defining characteristic, according to Barthes, is a tendency to masquerade as nature, to substitute ‘normalized’ for historical forms, to translate the reality of the world into an image of the world which in turn presents itself as if composed according to ‘the evident laws of the natural order’ (Barthes,1972),” (Hebdige, 101-102).

Hebdige explains that through fashion and music the subculture of punk was able to upset the cultural norms of the time and create a new style of dress and genre of music through bricolage, appropriating commodities and reintroducing them into society under new terms (Hebdige, 104). I would argue that in the Scott Pilgrm series, O’Malley uses well-know video game aesthetics and pop culture references to 1980s video games to create a style that sets itself apart not only from other comic books, but also current video games- harkening back to a simpler time when one only needed a directional pad plus A and B buttons. As Hebdige states in relation to punks found culture:

“Objects borrowed from the most sordid of contexts found a place in the punks’ ensembles: lavatory chains were draped in graceful arcs across chests encased in plastic bin-liners. Safety pins were taken out of their domestic ‘utility’ context and worn as gruesome ornaments through the cheek, ear or lip. ‘Cheap’ trashy fabrics (PVC, plastic, lurex, etc.) in vulgar designs (e.g. mock leopard skin) and ‘nasty’ colours, long discarded by the quality end of the fashion industry as obsolete kitsch, were salvaged by the punks and turn into garments (fly boy drainpipes, ‘common’ miniskirts) which offered self-conscious commentaries on the notions of modernity and taste” (Hebdige, 107).

In relation to Hebdige, then, I argue that while the images that have been taken from pop culture (most often early video games and the superhero genre) might not have been as shocking as the fetish wear of punk rockers he wrote about, but are nonetheless similar to the culture that is being highlighted by O’Malley and their movement from the mainstream, using earlier commodities to set themselves apart from the overarching culture. With Wright’s adaptation, we again see a split from the mainstream, comic book inspired, summer movie as the character looks less like a typical hero and embodies not the style of Superman but that of a 23 year old, Toronto hipster.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World revolves around the life of the title character, Scott Pilgrim, as he deals with dating (and then breaking up with) 17 year old girlfriend Knives Chau for the American, rollerblading, subspace traveling, Amazon.ca messenger Ramona Flowers. As the bass player in the band Sex Bom-Omb, Scott works to fight Ramona’s seven evil exes while dealing with the repercussions of breaking up with Knives and gaining the respect of his band mates and friends. With the help of his gay roommate Wallace, sister Julie, band mates Kim Pine, Stephen Stills, and “young” Neil Scott works towards defeating each member of the League of Evil Exes as Sex Bomb-Omb gains notoriety in the indie rock scene as a part of an international battle of the bands. The main villain (and leader of the League of Evil Exes) Gideon Gordon Graves works to get Ramona back for himself while playing the part of the final boss and “the man,” appropriating the style of the burgeoning indie scene for his Chaos Theatre (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World). Overcoming both internal and external conflicts- Scott is able to defeat each of the seven evil exes and win both the love of Ramona, come to terms with Knives, and the respect of his band mates during the final showdown at the newly opened Toronto branch of the Chaos Theatre.

The characters are hyper saturated, nerdy versions of modern-day hipsters. Pulling from the past with references to Nintendo Entertainment System and Super NES titles such as Zelda, Mario, Final Fantasy, and Earthbound among others O’Malley creates characters that are cool for being uncool (for liking video games and being for all intents and purposes lame). Much like the ironic-cool that separates hipsters from mainstream culture comes from the appropriation of decades-old fashion in new contexts, the appropriation of obscure 8-bit gaming references by O’Malley (and later Wright) create a style that appeals to a specific nerd audience.  In the movie adaptation of the comic book, Wright goes a step further and employs the soundtrack of these games to enhance the aesthetics of the movie. In much the same way Wright showed his own love for the Resident Evil series or Star Wars in the television show “Spaced” (or his love for zombie and cop movies in Shawn of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, respectively); Wright uses the sounds of the video games as a way to keep the audience deeply entrenched in the storyline and also recognize the specific niche that the movie appeals to while still trying to relate to a wider audience.

As the movie begins, the audience is subject to sounds that are seemingly ripped from the cartridge versions of Zelda: A Link to the Past as the camera pans down towards Sex Bomb-Omb’s practice space (Scott Pilgrim…). While Kim and Scott argue about his relationship with Knives in a later scene, we hear the sound effects of a Windows operating system as “Young” Neil works on a computer in the background.  The different sounds highlight the main parts of the argument between Kim and Scott: while Scott looks at the positives of dating a 17 year old high school student, Kim questions the legitimacy of his relationship with Knives, highlighting each of the main parts of the argument we hear the error message of a Windows operating system multiple times during the conversation.  During fight scenes, the audience is also introduced to cliché video game fight sounds that are reminiscent of the Street Fighter franchise, and, when each of the ex-boyfriends are defeated, coins are left in their wake. After the defeat of the first evil ex (Matthew Patel) at the ROCKIT club, Scott even mentions that the coins aren’t enough for the bus fare home (O’Malley, Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life). The characters are clearly entrenched in a world based in a comic book/video game hybrid. O’Malley mixes music and video game culture to draw readers in and allow them to relate back to the characters themselves. If the characters are cool for being uncool, I argue that O’Malley is writing for an audience who has had similar situations occur in their own romantic relationships- using video games and comic references to create a bridge between his fictional adventures between Ramona and Scott and the audience member.

On top of Wright’s addition of sounds and 8-bit aesthetics in his movie adaptation, O’Malley applies video game culture to the rock scene of his fictionalized Toronto. Each of the band’s names is also a reference to video game culture.  Scott’s band Sex Bomb-Omb is a mixture of the Tom Jones song “Sex Bomb”and the Mario Bros. villain “Bomb-Omb,” a walking cartoon bomb that explodes when Mario (or Luigi) steps on it. Crash and the Boys and Clash at Demonhead are both taken from titles of NES games while Gideon’s Toronto Chaos Theatre is a reference to the cult-classic SNES game Earthbound (Ward). In the second book in the series, we also told that Kim and Scott had a band in high school called Sonic & Knuckles- referencing a sequel in the Sonic the Hedgehog series for the Sega Genesis (O’Malley, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World).

These sounds and references may not be apparent to an audience member who is new to the franchise, but help to connect with the nerd audience on a second level- while the comic book narrative is played out on the screen, we see a transformation of the comic and nerd culture references in the comic book in a new form. Pulling directly from the comic, in the film after Scott has broken up with Knives and shown up for band practice, to get around the question of the breakup with Knives, Scott proclaims, “Oh check it out! I learned the bass line from Final Fantasy II” (O’Malley, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World). Those who are not in the know may not get the reference to the long-running Role Playing Game, but this reference allows those who are already in the subculture further access and credibility.

These ideas run parallel to the one-upmanship we see in the hipster culture, where credibility is based on an obscure knowledge base.  A mixture of popular culture from past decades with a specific knowledge of indie bands, modern artwork and fashion- the hipster takes specific images from mass culture and uses them as the basis for a specific skill set.  Douglas Haddow, in a 2008 Adbusters article said it best-

“An artificial appropriation of different styles from different areas, the hipster represents the end of Western civilization- a culture lost in the superficiality of its past and unable to create any new meaning. Not only is it unsustainable, it is suicidal. While previous youth movements have challenged the dysfunction and decadence of their elders, today we have the ‘hipster’- a youth subculture that mirrors the doomed shallowness of mainstream society,” (Haddow).

The Scott Pilgrim series (and the film in particular) uses popular culture references as fuel for the main storyline. With League of Evil Exes (bosses), 1-Up Bonus Lives, RPG-esque “stats,” and other video game references O’Malley and Wright each create a text that is filled with cult imagery that is only apparent to specific audience members. While the movie may be more accessible to a mass audience that the comic book series, that mass audience must already have prior knowledge of the franchise (or where it is pulling its influence from) to make an impact. O’Malley has also created a mixture of hipster style (rock clubs, indie music) with geek culture (comic books, video games and movies) that is further applied by Wright in his adaptation that shows (often jokingly) the intricacies of hipster culture. As Scott enters the Chaos Theater (Level 7) for the first time he is asked by the bouncers what the password is, Scott replies “whatever,” and is let in by the hip guards. Stopped by two more guards asking for a second password, Scott replies with a shrug and a groan, allowing him to pass (Wright). As much as the movie plays on the fact that the character himself is a geeky twenty-something hipster, it is the aesthetic of the hipster embodied by his enemies and those employed by Gideon that are the enemy. Much like Haddow points out-

“Punks wear their tattered threads and studded leather jackets with honor, priding themselves on their innovative and cheap methods of self-expression and rebellion. B-boys and b-girls announce themselves to anyone within earshot with baggy gear and boomboxes. But it is rare, if not impossible, to find an individual who will proclaim themself a proud hipster. It’s an odd dance of self-identity – adamantly denying your existence while wearing clearly defined symbols that proclaims it,” (Haddow).

During the last fight scene, as Scott returns to the Chaos Theatre for a second chance at saving Ramona (thanks to an extra life picked up earlier in the movie) we hear background characters talk about the differences between the movie and the comic book- Wright most likely poking fun at other comic book movie adaptations as well as himself (Scott Pilgrim…). In the fight before at the Chaos Theatre, we hear the same characters talking about the difference between unnamed bands first and second albums. I argue that Wright while pulling from the source material is also adding his own commentary on the hipster culture through Scott Pilgrim and his friends, showing what he believes is a key part of living in your twenties is creating  a library of knowledge in a specific  area of popular culture be it music, video games or otherwise.

Unlike Superman or Batman, characters who were either born with extraordinary powers or honed their skills through intense training, Scott Pilgrim is able to fight the overly-powered evil exes by using his wits alone. He is not particularly strong or powerful but is thrown into a situation where he must improvise with what he already knows. The Scott Pilgrim franchise helps to also apply comic book heroics in the context of a twenty-something loser while reinforcing the structure of a myth that is made apparent to a new audience. This relates to how Claude Levi-Strauss wrote about looking at the structure of a myth as it is retold orally. “First, the question has often been raised why myths, and more generally oral literature, as so much addicted to duplication, triplication or quadruplication of the same sequence. If our hypotheses are accepted, the answer is obvious: repetition has as its function to make the structure of the myth apparent,” (Levi-Strauss, 443). The Scott Pilgrim series helps to recreate a new way to look at a story by using hip, geek culture as its base. The character is unlike other American superheroes and, as Jamie Weinman states is “innocent compared to the more violent, powerful Americans (plus bad guys from India and Japan),” (Weinman, 78-80).  Instead of mythological beasts to slay, Scott must win back his love through a series of modern-day tasks that often revolve around the motifs of video

games embedded in live music concerts. In defeating evil exes #5 and 6, for example, Scott and the rest of Sex Bomb-Omb had to go “amp to amp” with the Katayanagi Twins- fighting each other above the crowd with rock and roll powered beasts (Scott Pilgrim…). The heroic fight to the top by Scott is reminiscent of video games like Super Mario Bros. and Megaman, where a final boss meets the hero at the end of each stage. What differs with Scott is that we are led to believe that his predicament could happen to any of us and is relatable to anyone who has ever had to deal with exes while dating, even if the exes don’t transform into coins after a fight.

O’Malley and Wright use video game culture as a way to tell a story of romance and self-realization, using geek and hipster culture as a basis for the tale, with O’Malley pulling from popular culture as a way to connect with a specific audience.  The film adaptation also builds upon popular culture knowledge of the audience to strengthen that specific idea of what it means to not only be hip but also what it takes to be a hip geek. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is, at its core, a romantic comedy that uses youth culture to forward the storyline that updates the perils of Mario and Link in a modern, Canadian setting.

Works Cited

O’Malley, Bryan Lee. Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life. Portland: Oni Press, 2004. Print.

O’Malley, Bryan Lee. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Portland: Oni Press, 2005. Print.

O’Malley, Bryan Lee. Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour. Portland: Oni Press, 2010. Print.

Haddow, Douglas. “Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization.” Adbusters. 29 Jul. 2008. Web. 11 May  2011.

Hebdige, Dick. Subculture, the meaning of style. New York: Methuen & Co., 1979.

Hudson, Laura. “’Scott Pilgrim’s Finets Hour’ Arrives for Bryan Lee O’Malley [Interview].” ComicsAlliance. AOL Inc. 20 Jul. 2010. Web. 11 May 2011.

Levi-Strauss, Claude. “The Structural Study of Myth.” The Journal of American Folklore. 68.270 (Oct-Nov. 1955): 428-444.

Medley, Mark. “Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Finest Hour.” The Afterword. National Post. 20 Jul. 2010. Web. 11 May 2011.

“Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010).” IMDb.IMDb.com Inc. n.d. Web. 11 May 2010.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Dir. Edgar Wright. Perf. Michael Cera,  Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jason Schwartzmna, Kerian Culkin, Ellen Wong, Alison Pill, Mark Webber, Johnny Simmons, Anna Kendrick. Universal Studios, 2010. Film.

Ward, Dick. “’The Top 5 Videogame References in ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.” High-Def Digest Presents The Bonus View. High Def Digest. 19 Aug. 2010. Web. 11 May 2010.

Weinman, Jamie J. "Somebody loves Toronto." Maclean's 123.33/34 (2010): 78-80. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 11 May 2011.