i remember my first introduction to youtube was when i was abroad in france, and i found an article online talking about how the trailer for brokeback mountain was being reappropriated with many other films - and how the resulting videos ranged in success. there was one for point break, heat, and many others, including brokeback to the future (probably my favorite). this article mentioned how carefully viewers must have been to know these films, to be able to lift and recontruct a new meaning to some charged "homosocial" scenes between two men. and seeing the closer + star trek mashup, i was wondering about the motivation behind it. i feel like there are some intersections to be found, thinking in terms of vito russo's celluloid closet, and how there was a homosexual subtext in many films under the hays code - and that still continues in modern films. the representations of male buddies/companions still seems to be something that can't be explored fully on screen, so it's interesting to see how these heterosexual friendships are parodied into suggesting homosexual relations on youtube. who is the creator of things like this? what is her/his purpose? for some reason, i have this hunch that it's a teenage boy who's doing it for shits and giggles, but then i wonder who the target audience is? beyond the immediate group of friends said author is sharing these works with, on youtube it opens up accessibility, and then a major paper (i think it was the nyt) reports on it... i wonder what this new message is. i noticed the comments on youtube for the star trek video were mostly focused on how this was funny - but also creepy. and in class, we all laughed to see the funny new way that back to the future was presented to us -- but what is really being said in cases like this?, i oan't help but wonder. and how come the ones i am familiar with usually involved suggesting male homosexual undertones made overt?