Beloved Auckland cinema faces backlash for ‘racist' AI-generated Russell Crowe video
What stands out straight away is the fact you can't really tell what it's supposed to be. It's Russell Crowe, but with a contorted figure that expands and thins, gets older and younger, generated completely by AI. Then there are the signs with the jumbled-up lettering that can't even properly spell the name of the cinema it's promoting – Auckland's the Hollywood in Avondale. Then you see the AI-generated Māori warriors whose tā moko are just geometric scrawls, and your theory that the popcorn's laced almost seems confirmed.
Created by US filmmaker Damon Packard and written and animated by ChatGPT, the video played before an advance screening of Andrew DeYoung's film Friendship at the Hollywood in Avondale on Wednesday. The historic cinema is an Auckland icon, an independent haven for film buffs, and the clip was met with boos from the crowd.
In the 10-minute clip, titled 'Hollywood Avondale PSA', Crowe guides viewers through a colonial Aotearoa, then finally modern-day West Auckland, while waxing lyrical about the golden days of cinema and bemoaning today's teens preferring TikTok over Tarkovsky. The video has copped flak online for its AI origins, which one movie-goer said fell short of the theatre's standards and reputation, and its depictions of certain ethnic groups. The Māori in the beginning of the video wear tā moko that bear no cultural significance or meaning, and when Crowe is transported to a modern-day Aotearoa and is lamenting the state of the society's teenagers, most of the phone-obsessed young people in the video are depicted as Asian.
Comedian Guy Williams told The Spinoff he was proud to throw the first boo at the 'genuinely quite bizarre and insane' video on Wednesday night. He said he believed it was real for the first 30-40 seconds, before he realised Crowe's body and face kept distorting and ageing and then de-ageing, and then the AI-generated Māori appeared. 'I'm a pretty white guy,' Williams said, 'but that didn't seem right.'
Williams said the video received a 'visceral response' from the crowd, which he said comprised mostly fellow comedians and media industry professionals. Currently in the process of making New Zealand Tomorrow for Netflix, Williams said the video spurred 'low-level anxiety' about the role of AI in creative industries. 'If their point was to challenge the changing landscape of media, the piece itself was a terrifying glimpse of the future,' he said. 'Occasionally things need a good boo,' Williams added. 'The whole thing was a fucking nightmare.'
Comedian Liv McKenzie also witnessed the 'true dog shit' video, and said the experience had left her 'bewildered'. She said the Hollywood was held to a higher standard than big chains like Hoyts, and she couldn't 'believe how far they missed the mark'. That feeling was shared among the crowd, she said, who started booing, heckling and 'banging on the walls' as the video went on. 'It was full-on pitchforks and torches,' McKenzie said.
The depiction of Māori was 'very misguided' and resembled a 'racist caricature', said McKenzie. 'Everyone was a bit like, 'hmmm, OK, someone's going to get fired.''
Matt Timpson, owner of the Hollywood, told The Spinoff the video was created by 'an underground artist in the US with knowledge of Aotearoa limited to a few Google searches'. He said the intention of the video was to create an 'ironic' public service announcement championing the Hollywood's 35mm film presentations.
'The audience reactions have been diverse, and it was never intended to cause offence, nor become a staple in our pre-show programming which changes all the time,' Timpson said. 'We acknowledge that this was a complete misfire. We hope to see you all soon.'
In a YouTube comment section, Packard said he had switched to creating content mostly made by AI in recent years for financial reasons. '[There is] lack of proper funding to make a live action film I'd feel worthy and worthwhile of putting the time into,' he wrote. 'I guess you could say I'm weary of those kinds of extreme limitations.'
In the comment section for the PSA itself, Packard confirmed he used ChatGPT to create the video, and that he had Crowe's permission to use his likeness. 'I'm a friend of Russell Crowe, he told me I could use it,' Packard wrote.
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