David Bowie vs. Mick Jagger: who is the best on the silver screen and why?

A. Lisandro Cressi (Ph.D. candidate)

UNITOBA (University of Manitoba)
Strong empirical evidence has proven that Mick Jagger is a complete failure as an actor.
Films like that science fiction flick about immortality and time travel, the one in which Mick Jagger
plays the role of a bodyguard, or movie set in a concentration camp, or that one about breaking Nazi
codes in World War II, they were all astounding box office failures, and none of them turned out to
be cult movies whatsoever (Pond 2013). On the other hand, any film starring David Bowie has
been commercially profitable (Saphatle 2013), and some of them have become cult movies.
Examples multiply: Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), Nagisa Oshima's Merry
Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983), Tony Scott's The Hunger (1983), Jim Henson's Labyrinth (1986)
etc. It is somehow illustrative of this phenomenon the fact that in this very abstract we forgot the
titles of the movies featuring Mick Jagger, whereas all films starring David Bowie can easily be
recalled and kept in mind forever.
In summary, we suggest that David Bowie is a multimedia, multitask, manifold artist, an
everlasting success and demi-god, whereas Mick Jagger lacks talent, representing a typical looser
and a misfit restricted to the rock band scene and a certain timeframe (the 1970s and 1980s).
Drawing on previous studies (Marx 1969; Lapin 2013; Bueno 2014) which have proven that Mick
Jagger is far from being a lucky person or luckbearer (i.e. someone who brings luck to other people,
such as in Lapin's 2013 analysis of Mr. Jagger's attendance to stadiums), this paper aims to better
understand why every film in which the former rolling stone appears turns out to be a complete
failure and disaster. Incidentally, we would like to notice that the source of Mr. Jagger's mischief
and bad fortune might be ascribed to one of the first films that featured him as a main character:
Julien Temple's Running Out of Luck (1987). Curiously enough, this film suggests a liaison between
Brazil and the rolling stone, as one can see in the following synopsis: A rock singer goes to Brazil
to shoot a video, but winds up getting kidnapped and turned over to the oversexed owner of a
banana plantation. Authors such as Pond (2013) and Saphatle (2013) have sustained that Temple's
film foresaw Mr. Jagger's cinematic curse and convoluted relationship with the country of the
future.
It is worth mentioning that our methodology consists of film analysis (Jabor 2010)
complemented by statistical data concerning both Jagger's and Bowie's filmographies, followed by a
survey inspired on reception theory (Manchu 1895). This survey will be conducted in a minute tribe
in the Amazon rainforest, known as the N'uaktii. The reason for choosing the N'uajtii lies in the fact
that they had no contact with neither white men nor Western civilization until 2014. Discovered by
the British anthropologist, biologist, historian, philosopher, taxidermist, gambler, gunslinger and
womanizer Sir Allan Quartermain (Quartermain et al. 2014), this tribe represents the perfect test
group in our experiment, given the fact its members have had no contact with the media this far,
remaining unbeknownst to Sting or any other pop star throughout the whole 20th century.
Therefore, N'uaktii individuals will be exposed to films starring both Mick Jagger and David
Bowie. Following the film screenings, a questionnaire designed to measure affection and sympathy
- with questions ranging from I would kiss him on the face to I would bear his child - will be
given to N'uaktii individuals which will then answer Y/N to each item. Film stills featuring closeups of both Jagger and Bowie will be also presented to N'uaktii individuals while they are having
meals, in order to test their receptiveness and tolerance. Drawing on McIver (1985) ideas on the star
system, the collected data will eventually be interpreted under perspectives proposed by Pond
(2013) and Saphatle (2013). We strongly believe that this double-blind experiment, reinforced by a
Marxist (from Groucho Marxism) framework and a twist of Surrealist automatism will finally cast
light on this long-lasting controversy: who is the best and most complete artist, Mick Jagger or
David Bowie?
References:

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Jabor, Arnaldo. Comme Analizzare una Pelcula: Il metodo spaghetti. Bari: Ediziones della
Sapienza, 2010.
Lapin, Arnaud Caesar. La Rgle est Claire: Bonheur et celebrit l'ge du Facebook. ClermontFrrand: ditions du Poche, 2013.
Manchu, Fu. Zen and Reception. Shanghai: HSBC Publishing Co., 1895.
Marx, Groucho. How to become a member of my club. New York: J. J. Abrahams, 1969.
Pond, Louis Phillippe. Neither Mick Jagger nor David Bowie: Masculinity in crisis after the fall of
the Berlim Wall. So Paulo: Publifolha, 2013.
Quartermain, Allan. N'uaktii, Children from the Rain Forest. Springfield: The University of
Springfield University Press, 2014.
Saphatle, Dmitri. The scattered mirror: David Bowie and his multiple skins. Reikjavyk: ICE, 2013.