By Knarf Black XIVProfessional Malcontent
Pretty neat huh? He looks just like Christian Bale! (If Mr. Bale and Mr. Cruise had a creepy baby together.)
I'm not going to blame you for having that reaction (and I certainly won't blame you for going "Huh?" if you haven't seen the movie) as I had it too. A few minutes later, I suddenly realized that this was a huge piece of shit with absolutely no reason to exist.
Don't get me wrong, the technical prowess of those involved is not in question. The video is extremely well produced and the Talking Heads cover is... not as bad as it could be, I guess. Okay, so I have nothing good to say about the pitch corrected butchering of a personal favorite, but my dislike of the song is not my real beef with this particular slice of Internet pie.
My issue is that it lacks a soul, or at least a reason to exist outside of "Hey, that'll get us some YouTube hits!" Is there some kind of biting satire in the juxtaposition of David Bynre's love song to a floor lamp and Mary Harron's adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis? Possibly, but it's certainly not something that didn't already exist in either of the adapted works of art. The point of a mash up (as far as Knarf is concerned) is a dialectical combination of two disparate works in order to create new meaning. American Psycho and 'This Must be the Place (Naive Melody)' create no dialectic energy together because they are thematically similar. The irony of juxtaposing a simple love for 'home' and the hollow existence of Patrick Bateman can already found in the song's subtly downbeat tone and the film's biting satire. Really the only song more obvious and 'on the nose' for this video would have been 'In Every Dream Home a Heartache' by Roxy Music.
Without irony or dialectic frisson, we are left with the viral video equivalent of a Dane Cook "joke." It shows up on stage, references shared experiences so the audience can feel connected to the performer and each other, then flails its arms in a hollow simulation of entertainment.
Oh, good for you.
As Internet culture continues expanding at a geometric rate, I fear that this is its sad future. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with the endless splintering of niches and subcultures; a full ecosystem of memes can spawn incredible post-modern weirdness that the pioneers of Dada couldn't have even begun to imagine. Example: Selleck Waterfall Sandwich. The risk is that we will mistake breadth for depth, expansion for evolution.
Sure referencing awesome songs and films will garner your YouTube videos a plethora of hits, but at the cost of further calcification of whatever niche(s) you are representing.
My apologies for the lack of teh funnies in this post. Allow me to make amends:
Butts.
Posts
2 comments:
Goddammit, Knarf. This is no place for astute observations on the banality of uninspired social engineering, nor the lamenting the Frisbee-deep state of a pop culture that mistakes familiarity for quality and obscurity for depth.
Oh, shit..wait. This is PRECISELY that. My bad.
Spot-on, as usual...This is pretty sad. However, the thing that I find most pathetic about this video is the fact that the number in the upper-left corner of the "business cards" he keeps slapping on the table? It's the number to his New York talent agency.
Also, if you want to continue to get your chuckle on, go check out his Wikipedia page. Damn thing SCREAMS "I wrote this myself."
nailed it.
well done, knarf
Post a Comment