Post #674233 by Tiki Shark Art on Fri, Apr 12, 2013 5:42 PM

ALOHA TIKI TRIBE!
"Happy Aloha Friday!"

April 12th, 2013. Today's report on Pop-Culture/Monster Kitsch in Hawaii:

Well, my experiment in pop-culture kitsch is still going strong 2 years later.
The idea was to make Hawaiian post cards that I always wanted.
And I wanted the classic movie monsters mixed in with Hawaiiana, and Tiki-culture, as post cards.
Would these strange things be excepted into the somewhat conservative and tightly controlled tourist trade here in Hawaii?
I really wasn't sure.
There was nothing like it out there.

Seems... now more than a year later, the answer is "YES".
Tourists coming to Hawaii "GET IT"!
But it wasn't easy...
It took a few years. The production company which makes them sat on the finished art for about a year, and I thought they had lost their nerve, but they told me they were just waiting for Halloween. And they brought them out. Mega-extreme-kitsch!

"The Creature From Kona"
"Dracula Drinks a Mai Tai"
"The Were-Wolf of Waikiki"
&
"Frankenstein goes to Hawaii"

What is this Kitsch you ask? It's an art form. Wikipedia sez:
Kitsch ( loanword from German) is a style of mass-produced art or design using cultural icons.
The term is generally reserved for unsubstantial or gaudy works, or works that are calculated to have popular appeal.[1]
The concept of kitsch is applied to artwork that was a response to the 19th century art with aesthetics that convey exaggerated sentimentality and melodrama, hence, kitsch art is closely associated with sentimental art.
As an example we can look at this:

"The Widow", kitsch example of late 19th century popular lithograph of a humorous painting by Frederick Dielman.

Well, If that doesn't describe the "Monsters in Hawaii" to a "T" I don't know what does!

At first the post cards showed up in small shops run by "hip" folks.

Then, they crept into the mainstream stores like the "Tourist Hawaiian Gift Section" at TARGET.
Excellent, I thought, but would they last beyond Halloween?

Yes, they've been out there ever since, at least here in Kailua-Kona .The Big Island is a bit of a wild place- were folks go to escape the mainstream, so, we may not be the bench mark. Has anyone seen them on Maui or Oahu? I'd be interested in finding out. I'll have to ask my production company I guess. But, now I've seen them in the "Hawaiian Gift Section" in K-Mart, too!
They are spreading!

Now, that they have been in the market, I can actually judge which Movie Monster is most popular by how many of each post card you'd find in the stores.

It seems the stores run out of "Frankenstein" first. Although, at first...

the" Were-Wolf of Waikiki" seemed the most popular.

When I get the chance I ask small kids if they know who the monsters are. Kids know "Dracula" (or Vampires), and Wolf-Man (thank you Twilight). They think Frankenstein is a "Zombie"... interesting. In a way he is, I guess. But, sadly, kids today do not know the Creature. Guess we need a re-make of that movie. Their parents know, and that's usually who I spy buying these things.

Anyhow, the great experiment in Monster/tiki kitsch goes on! I don't know for how long. It may stop any day now, or it may go on long after I have gone. Right now, it just makes me feel good that people coming back from their vacations in Hawaii have these Monsters on refrigerators all over the world. That's my mark on Pop-Culture!

If you'd like to be in the great experiment, and get a set of all four "Monsters in Hawaii" post cards, autographed by me, ands mailed to you: send me your mailing address and $5 to my pay pal e-mail account. [email protected]
ALOHA!
B~

[ Edited by: Tiki Shark Art 2013-04-12 22:58 ]