White privilege means that you can say shit like this "ironically" when "discussing" Lady Gaga on Twitter:
[From Amanda Palmer's Twitter feed. Text reads: "@JoanArkham ironic product placement is only ok if you take no money & beyond that give all the income to something ironic. like the Klan."]
Yes, because giving money to a group that perpetuates domestic terrorism (warning for very graphic content) toward black people is IRONIC and totally comparable to...product placement in a music video.
I look forward to people defending this ridiculousness with any number of derailing techniques and/or trying to school me in why it's not harmful and is, like, TOTALLY HILARIOUS, why can't you take a joke? It's just hip(ster) racism.
So, Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls has recently gone public with her spat with her record label, Roadrunner Records--the label is refusing to promote the new single from her album (which I've been listening to NONSTOP, by the way) because her belly "looks too big" in the video.
Frankly, I'm not seeing this too-bigness:
Also, in a recent blog post, Amanda recounted a meeting with her A&R guy:
right before the european tour i went to the new york offices of roadrunner to say hi and check in. my a&r guy (my main contact at the label) sat me down in his office and said he wanted to discuss the “leeds united” video. he told me that there were certain shots that they wanted to either cut completely or digitally alter to “be more flattering”.
my favorite quote from that meeting: “i’m a guy, amanda. i understand what people like.”
That last line is, I swear, just about the most unintentionally hilarious thing I've read all week. I like how "guy" stands in for all "people." Not all people are men, but okay, A&R dude. Congrats, you've just proved Laura Mulvey's 1970s-era theory about the male gaze, and it's 2008! Male is NOT the default, nor does it constitute the single set of eyes in the music video/film world or otherwise. How many times must us evil, hairy, angry feminists say it? GODDAMN.
Anyway, I'd meant to write about Amanda's album much, much earlier, as it's been in pretty much constant rotation here at the HamShack, but this whole debacle has given me an inroad. If you are looking for interesting, original music, please check out Ms. Palmer's work--both her solo album and her work with the Dresden Dolls. You can purchase her album here.
I have a complicated relationship with music videos. I remember seeing the video for Brandy and Monica's song "The Boy is Mine" when I was 11 years old or so, and thinking, "That's what I have to look forward to as a young woman--being in constant competition with other young women for boyfriends and the like? Ewww."
I saw the video for Garbage's "Push It" soon after, and found that I could relate to that video much more. The song was weird, the woman singing it was both in control and viciously beautiful (on her own terms, too!), and the video was completely bizarre. I found myself wishing that I could inhabit such an odd environment, one that did not seem available to the majority of women in music videos; often, the women in videos were reduced to sex toys for the male performers, or worse, singing almost exclusively about about their sexual capabilities. There were (and still are) obvious exceptions to this, but at that time, sex (or the appearance of it) sold. In many regards, sex still sells. (Try uttering that phrase three times fast.) For a more academic/media studies-esque view on this topic, check out Sut Jhally's excellent Dreamworlds 3: Desire, Sex and Power in Music Video.
If you'll allow me to indulge my nostalgic tendencies for a bit, here is Garbage's "Push It":
From around the same time period (late 1990s), here is Tori Amos's "Talula":
And another Tori video, this time for "Raspberry Swirl." It's sort of like the Garbage video in that it involves a weird alternate universe:
Tom Waits's "God's Away on Business." I might be an atheist, but damn do I love this song and its accompanying video (dig those ostriches!):
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' "Do You Love Me," which does some interesting things with gender (lots of drag queens):
And, to end, Alanis Morissette's latest video ("Underneath"). It is a bit cheesy, but I do like the special effects:
In an effort to get myself to blog more, I'll be blogging every Friday about various video clips from around the internet that I find especially amusing, pertinent or thought-provoking. This week, the theme is "Videos that make me laugh because of their ineptitude." [Pro tip: If you get the lovely "This video is no longer available" error message, try reloading the page, or going straight to YouTube to watch the video. You can always use the back button on your browser to come back here for my acidic commentary.]
First, let's start off with Scarlett Johansson's video for "Falling Down," from her recently released and incredibly ill-advised collection of Tom Waits covers:
OH, SCARJO. She is such a talented actress--why she felt that she needed to get into the music industry is totally beyond me. Assuming that you already have a successful career, actual talent, lovely and youthful good looks, and millions of dollars, here are the ingredients that one needs to make something like ScarJo has done here:
1. Find a chronically underappreciated, unique musical talent who has been in the industry for decades, and claim his or her work as an "inspiration." If this person is famous for their lack of vocal talent, even better!
2. Make an entire album of covers of this person's songs. Be sure to drown all of the great songs that you select with crazy overproduction, as well as your own inability to carry a tune (don't worry too much about the latter; hopefully, with its evil twin, overproduction, no one will notice! Also, don't skimp when it comes to the pretension of the cover art!
3. To make the video, film some random shit, use your song as background music, and add liberal sprinklings of every young, trust fundy art school student film cliche ever, including: Lars von Trier-esque handheld camera work; shots of yourself looking variously pensive, bored, and vaguely anxious; cool-toned lighting; close-up shots of a process that no one finds particularly new or interesting; something to do with automobiles; overused time-lapse photography.
Stir. Serve chilled. Watch the money (or criticism) roll in! If you're lucky, iTunes might even invite you to contribute a live set to their series of "exclusive downloads"!
Next up, we have Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' video for "Stagger Lee," off of one of my desert island discs, Murder Ballads.
NOT SAFE FOR WORK, or for children, due to lots of swearing and just a bit of homoeroticism. It will come as a surprise to no one that I once wrote a term paper for a music class on the song, the video and the homoerotic dynamics of both (as usual, I read waaaaaay too much into both song and video and used Michel Foucault's seminal The History of Sexuality to support my argument). It's pretty clear as to why I chose to write about it:
Love the song, kind of love the video simply because it is so hilariously bad. Let me count the ways: Nick Cave's dancing, his silver pants, and his Take That! shirt; the fact that there are no women in this video, and yet everyone involved seems somewhat oblivious to the homoerotic subtext of both song and video; the video's complete irrelevance to the actual subject of the song.
I was also going to post that damn Katy Perry video that everyone seems to love, because I hate it, but it won't embed! Blast.
I swear to God, this is the funniest damn thing I have seen in a while:
ILU ALANIS.
As for her new album, I'm really hoping that it'll be a covers record. Just think of all of the bad songs that she could feasibly improve! Optional Comments-Section Question:One artist of your choosing + One BAD song. Who would you pick and what song would you force them to cover, and in what style?
I can't seem to get the video to embed properly, but: Go watch the Showbiz Show's take on the ridiculous new Pussycat Dolls "reality" series.
While I don't think calling these women "skanks" is too feminist itself (they just dance like skanks, and might not actually be skanks--there is a difference), the rest of the piece is pretty much right on. Don't you love it when corporate America sells eensy bits of an actual political movement back to you using something that actually has nothing to do with that movement, despite their insistence that it totally does? Yes, dancing around in lingerie in a glass cage is SO EMPOWERING! It's a way to gain confidence! It's a way to get in touch with your femininity! Or something. God forbid that you focus on ways to gain confidence that don't involve whatever "empowering" and yet still uber-feminine acts/dance moves/clothing/what have you that the powers that be have decided to shove down our bulging throats this month.
I think a quote from Mystery Science Theater 3000's Crow is particularly appropos here: "Yes, girls, this is the ONLY way to make potential boyfriends like you!" (In case anyone is wondering, it's from the episode Hobgoblins--Crow says this during a scene in which one of the female characters--who is established as a "prude" at the film's beginning--strips at a nightclub).
Hell, why not co-opt other movements besides feminism for similar purposes? Gay and lesbian rights movement? Interior decorating kits for straight people with (supposedly) no taste! Black Power? At-home perms to make "problem" hair magically smooth! The Revolution May Not Be Televised, But Horrible Stereotypes Used to Sell Shit Will! Wheee.
I, like, worked on this movie, you guys. As a Production Assistant, which sounds like more fun than it actually is.
I've already seen the film, but the trailer made me want to see it again--which is an odd reaction for me to have (considering that I usually detest movie trailers).
Remember this guy and his Away Team? I certainly do!
I like how he says, "Rather than give you any history," (around the two-minute mark) and then immediately follows it up with, "Well, I'm going to back up and give you some history." Also: Referring to yourself in 3rd person is a surefire way to make yourself look really, really strange. And don't get a haircut like that, for goodness sake!
I'm doing a research project on Heaven's Gate for my Feminist Inquiry class (I know, an odd match, right?), and a good friend of mine found this little gem for me. (Hat tip to Sabine for finding this for me when my unskilled self couldn't!)
Here are some fascinating tidbits on the cult that were not exactly covered by the mainstream media:
* The leaders' names for themselves (Marshall Applewhite was "Do" and Bonnie Lu Nettles was "Ti") were chosen from the musical scale, as Applewhite was a former music professor at a university in Texas.
*Applewhite was once a moderately sucessful opera singer (!)
*The cult ran a computer consulting and website design business in Southern California for a number of years, and were remembered by various clients as being very polite, obedient and helpful.
Fascinating, huh? Okay, not the fact that they all killed themselves, but some of the other stuff. I find this sort of thing so interesting!
