This video is getting a lot of attention in the film universe, and it's being called the most subversive cover song of the year. Very Short List describes it as such:
Have the words "I wanna be your dog" ever taken on such dark overtones as when each pretty face blends into the next, all in the hopes of pleasing a visibly bored casting director?
I don't know about that. I do know that this video caused an intense physical pain in my brain. Funny Games didn't even cause that kind of pain: it caused a lot of mental stress that paid off in the long term (much like exercise).
There's kind one glaring problem here: it is made from within the fashion industry, much like a TV show that tells you to turn off the TV as often at it tells you "don't touch that dial!". I am not sure whether Georgie Greville, the director, is (or identifies as) a man or women, and it doesn't matter. All I can say is that no matter how intense the image is, it never goes beyond "woah! hot models are like sex slaves!" This is the kind of video that even the most intelligent liberals can laugh at, acknowledge as "true," shake their heads at and move on. Or in other words, this is Dov Charney's business model.
You can dispute that. You can't dispute the pain it caused in my brain.
Here's a video that succeeds in doing what the above video tries to do:
efiImage by Getty Images via DaylifeThe impact of the Barack Obama presidency is already beginning to be felt in traditionally leftist circles. Mike Daisey has already talked about how If You See Something Say Something his unscripted show attacking the military industrial complex, has already taken a different tone since the election. Jon Stewart commented on New Yorkers who are actually making eye contact. Before Obama even does a day's work as president, he has alreay inspired traditional liberals to change their minds about America in a big way. Hipsters, this decades' description of the young, artistic, independent-minded, have been buzzing. But the Obama victory may have sealed the deal on a generational shift that has occured countless times in decades previous.
Adbusters, the publication that brought you one of the most heatedly debated anti-hipster articles, has already published an article declaring apathy dead after the Obama victory. But some are deflecting the victory, saying the term hipster has been overused and misused so much that hipsterism has no meaning anymore. I have debated this topic on the Prefix forums repeatedly. But make no mistake: hipsterism has peaked; anyone who says that the term hipster has lost all its meaning is using a hipster tactic to deflect the discussion they so sorely need to have, with themselves as much as with others.
Let's be clear on one thing: the definition of what we think of when the think of the present-day hipster iseasily definable. The modern hipster is a liberal arts college graduate who appreciates so-called "low" cultural works of "art" that are crude, low-quality or heavily commercialized because it is ironic. This is justified with postmodernism: If no one can develop a universal standard of what's good or bad, how can anyone say Troll 2 or Warrant is good or bad? Often, this is used to justify personal incongruities (how can I like avant-gare sculpture artists when I also appreciate the NFL)? This definition of hipster is tied to a political sense of apathy/nihilism inherited from Generation X, where a disdain for the effectiveness of politics leads youths to remove themselves from the conversation entirely.
This definition, we can all admit, has become garbled. Now, anyone can shop at American Apparel or listen to Joann Newsome and call themselves a hipster. Some will say this renders the term meaningless. But notice how saying that the definition of a word loses all its original meaning reeks of postmodern speak? And notice how admitting that lost meaning allows one to continue in the hipster mindset? One of the strongest traits of postmodernism is its infallibility—anything can be explained away in postmodernism. A whole generation has already explained away the Bush presidency. This mindset has been around for awhile.
At their core, however, humans need something to believe in, and can't remove themselves from the conversation forever. That's why I'm arguing that the election of Barack Obama is more of a symptom of a younger generation's dismissal of postmodernism-based apathy than a cause. Obama was not only a mixed racial, progressive liberal candidate for the Presidency: he was actually one who had a chance of being elected. By placing a tangible, achievable goal in front of a generation who for 8 years had felt hopeless under a Bush presidency, Obama's candidacy woke up a younger generation that was desperate for a cause but couldn't be heartbroken another time.
So yes, hipsterism has been taken over by a look and a marketing tactic. But so were the flappers, beats, hippies, punks, and Yuppies. The link that connects all of these phenomenons were that when these generational steretypes first emerged, they were new, radical and exciting. Once they became institutionalized, they ceased to be interesting, and a new tradition was paved. Hipsterism is in decline, and something new is in store. I can't predict what it will be, but I will say that apathy is nothing new to human nature. It's intellectual justification was. Keep in mind that many Obama supporters this time around were too young to fully experience the dissapointment of 2000 or 2004, This is a generation younger than the traditional hipster, one that is finally realizing that it's anger, frustrations, and importance cannot be explained away. no matter how much the increasingly graying hipsters try.
So far, my vote would go to the following couplet from TV on the Radio's "Dancing Choose":
Angry young mannequin/ American, apparently
It should be obvious why I like the first lyric. Buy it's the second lyric, a a subtle jab at American Apparel, that kills me. (I sounds like sounds like Tunde Adebimpe is saying it in the song, but the official lyric is lawsuit-free).
These five words reek with so much concentrated intelligence that I may need to put it in a bottle.
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