MAMA

MAMA is not just two grown men with a female sounding name that confuses most people. It is an idea that transcends names and grown men. To be in its presence is to eat the finest of breakfast burritos while simultaneously laughing so hard you get a bit of indigestion but you don't care because for the first time in a long time you feel alive. So alive you stand up and rush out of video village to hug your MAMA. You're so excited that you don't realize they're rolling and you ruin the shot, but that's okay. These things happen.

So, you sit back down and you have to wonder what it is about MAMA that makes you feel so alive? Is it that the MAMA men were once boys, who both grew up on making funny things in video format that evoked literal spit takes from anyone who watched them? Is it that they both have blown shit up, worked with bear trainers, and wrote a spot about a zombie ghost dog while they worked in the advertising industry? Is it because when you're feeling a little sad, you watch their reel and are swept away by the dark, absurdist humor they've captured through a cinematic lens? Did you just call it a cinematic lens? That's a little hoity-toity but you're not wrong and yes, they are good at making dumb funny things look beautiful. Is it that they do it the hard way, with real things that actually exist, built by real hands, in a world where everyone else is reaching for a keyboard? Is it that when everything is becoming artificial MAMA is somehow becoming more real?

Is it that you saw one of their music videos and realized that when unconstrained by the shackles of broadcast guidelines, aspect ratios, and really really short social content that things get even funnier and more beautiful? Is it that you found out that they're moving into the narrative space and that the short film they're making right now is going to make you feel something in your stomach that isn't the breakfast burrito? Is it that the MAMA you know now will still be here but the things they make will be bigger, laughier, cinematic-ier and they might even end up shooting Jurassic Park 9: Dinosaurs in Space, Return of the Ankylosaurus? Their joint favorite dinosaur by the way. Do you feel bad because you don't have a joint favorite dinosaur like MAMA? It's okay, they'll share the Ankylosaurus because they are generous.

Or maybe it's because you know they can't be contained by space dinosaur theory, so they'll write and direct their own feature that's unwatchable, not because it's bad but because it's so good people who watch it explode.

Are you wondering how you know so much about MAMA when you didn't write this and it's written as if they didn't write it but you are still along for the ride? Is it that you're saying this loudly out loud to yourself in video village and yet again you've ruined another shot? It's really okay. But try to calm down, enjoy the show. And if you're not in video village you are probably wishing you were, with a breakfast burrito, laughing bits of it out of your nose, because MAMA wishes they were there with you too.