Zac Efron's EDM movie, We Are Your Friends, has caught some flack ever since the long trailer was released 10 days ago. The criticism has been largely leveled from DJs who aren't happy with the way their profession has been simplified and packaged for the Hollywood scene. One YouTube user decided to stop complaining on social media and took that one step further and overdubbed with whole thing a brutally honest and hilarious interpretation of what the movie has to say about being a DJ.
The video goes after Efron and his band of fellow DJs on their quest for worldwide fame and prosperity as upper middle class kids from Hollywood, which happens to quite accurate since most new DJs are white and come from well-to-do families. It goes on to ridicule Efron's characters ability to press play and his need to write music, so he should just hire a ghost producer, who turns out to be the young kid.
The line that got most people out of their chairs and screaming at their computers was the one that summed up what it takes to be a DJ today, "You only need a laptop, some talent and one track." However, it must be noted that Efron gets the DJ attire totally wrong. DJs where all black, all the time. The film should have at least gotten that right.
In a Grantland interview with Josh Stewart, better known as Them Jeans, the L.A.-based DJ who trained Efron for the movie talked candidly about that statement and how it is actually quite true today.
"Obviously a lot of DJs would be pissed off because they've put in years, if not decades, of work. I've been DJing for over 10 years, so I understand. The whole point of that line is basically to show how naive he is at the beginning of the process and how most people are at the beginning of the process. A young teen who wants to become a famous DJ, that's literally what they are thinking, that all you need is a laptop and one track, because technically that can be true. There are a lot of people who have never DJed in their entire lives, and if they have one track that's big, they're going to get booked for a DJ gig, and then get paid tens of thousands of dollars."
