The Braffing of America

In the 60's, there was a real cultural revolution happening with roots in the civil rights and anti-war movements. Its far-reaching effects left us with a modernized American culture with liberalized attitudes about race, sex, language... you name it. The cultural revolution’s effect on cinema in America would only begin to really develop in the decade to come.

American film in the 70’s combined the cinematic techniques of the French New Wave with the mythology of the Wild West. The counterculture and its archetypes, passed down from Walt Whitman to Jack Kerouac to Bob Dylan became larger than life images on the big screen. From that period, after the counter-revolution of the blockbuster, we are left with the detritus of its empty symbols. Blind wanderers reminding us of a bygone time.

When the superficial images of American Counterculture are confused with authentic personal and social upheaval, you’ve been Braffed.

Braffs usually have all the superficial cues that you are watching a countercultural film, without any of the substance. Braffs are missing any deep radical criticism of psychology, capitalism, or the individuals place in society. They are overlooked for the glamour of depression and bourgeois intellectual elitism.

Richard Linklater's films are not Braffs, though they certainly follow the exact template of what a lesser director would Braff. This point could be debated, it certainly could be relative. Sometimes it may come down to: How afraid is the director of being seen as pretentious? Maybe that is off the mark. Perhaps it is the reliance on sentiment and not ideas that makes any given movie a Braff.

Countercultural art is deeply rooted radical thoughts and practice. Braffing is deeply rooted in looking like countercultural art.

A Che Guevara T-shirt is in fact the ULTIMATE Braff.

It may also depend on who is wearing the Che Guevara t-shirt. Some uptight politico in a Che is mediocre satire. A young person making a cynical joke about voting, thats a Braff. The original sin of Braffing is that idealism is a sentimental youthful quality, and not a fighting, living principle.

Either that, or I just Braffed you like Sonny Bono braffed Dylan.