The Power of A Name

Names are personal, their something that (though not everyone can choose) usually feels like fate. Often times people's names say a lot about them from, for example, Karen. I hope you imagined this ...

This isn't necessarily relevant but when looking up a 'Karen' google defined said group as "the stereotype ... at least in the US — is [a] white women in their mid-30s or 40s. The archetypal 'Karen' is blonde, has multiple young kids, and is usually an anti-vaxxer". This is honestly... top tier Gen Z humor

Another example would be a name like Chad... we all know a Chad.

Chads are seen as overtly athletic white men who are usually derogatory and bigoted in nature.

So why did I just educate you on Karens and Chads you may ask? Well, when you hear any name you immediately conjure up a prejudice about that person, this is the same with movies too! I don't know if you've noticed but I'm very indecisive and so is Yejin when regarding certain topics, and picking a title is definitely one of those topics we're having trouble in committing to.

OPTIONS FOR TITLES:

BELOW THE LINE

HARD TIMES

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED

A FRIEND IN NEED

CAN'T BUY ME LOVE

Most of these options are songs, but also shortened versions of phrases commonly said about the poor. BASICALLY many famous movies once had very opposing titles to their final project, so how does that affect the end result?

Here are my personal analysis and opinion of how movies would've done if they stuck to their original names.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre- Headcheese

Now if I'm a general consumer my first question would be, "what in the HELL is Headcheese?". In this instance, I really don't believe the confusion of what 'Headcheese' means would entice anyone. When looking it up Head cheese is "not a dairy cheese, but a terrine or meat jelly often made with flesh from the head of a calf or pig, or less commonly a sheep or cow, and often set in aspic". Gross. Maybe gross enough to excite people but not me, since I'm vegetarian. Nor do I think any other vegetarian or vegan would be particularly pleased. 

Headcheese- 3/10 on name scale

Scream- Scary Movie

Ironically before Scream's parody entitled Scary Movie was created, Scream's original title was actually "Scary Movie".  Now I've seen both "Scream" and "Scary Movie", and I do believe Screams director made a smart decision in changing the title, the vagueness of "Scary Movie" has no chance in exciting the audience and 'spoils' the fact that it's going to be scary leaving nothing to the audience's imagination. Its been a recent trend, especially within Jordan Peel movies, directors have been misleading audiences when watching traditionally known "horror movies" and marketing them as something else, or developing the plot through another theme. This ploy has been extremely successful and creates the products of some of my favorite horror/thriller movies like "Get Out" or "Us". The title 'Scream' still incites enough thrill and anxiety marketing needs in order to attract a horror driven audience.

Scary Movie- 5/10 on name scale

The Incredibles- The invincibles 

In this instance, the power of connotation with two words that are synonyms is extremely powerful. In reality, both 'Invincible' and 'Incredible' would work, but Disney is great at highlighting conflict and making the audience genuinely feel as though the main character(s) ultimate conflict is something they may never overcome. The name "The Invincibles" completely obliterates this fear, having the audience think "well their name is invincible so they'll make it through".

The Invicibles- 7/10 on name scale

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