Friday, September 21, 2007

the residents


I'm a little troubled by this film clip.
Which is not necessarily a bad thing.
Here's my experience of watching the film clip for The Third Reich and Roll by The Residents.
Perhaps you could watch it first before reading my post. Could compare our experiences.
Anyway, my first reaction was one of amusement. This is great! Funny drill-like go karts and strange warped-trumpet-wailing-voice over an absurd fanfare.
Then my humour went through the roof with the absurdity of the paper-clad KKK guys tapping their percussion out of time to the pseudo tribal beats wrung through a delay, dancing maniacally like a poorly animated Bananas in Pajamas stop motion nightmare. All over the top of a poorly rendered land of a thousand dances tune.
Classic! But disturbing. And this powerful symbol of racism
being both ridiculed but also paraded for my entertainment was also troubling. The KKK are real and have murder thousands and thousands of African Americans. Not necessarily something to make light of. But such funny presentation.
And when the storm trooper broke onto the seeming pagan ritual at the end, I hoped it would kill the Klansmen and then itself. But it only zapped one and then the clip changed scene so I felt a little bit frustrated.
The frustration continued as the symbol of the nazi swastika was revealed beneath the arch and then reappeared on the TV after it was destroyed by the giant steaks. I wanted to see it completely destroyed. And what of the further subjugation of another Klansman by a guitar weilding avatar, riding him off the stage? Why? But then Hitler was seen to preside over it all, unchallenged, just after a TV bearing a swastika and a guitar moved to the forefront of the stage, underpinned by detuned 50s surf rock.
What are they saying? That rock and roll is racist? That it's completely subverted its black heritage? Why is Hitler the last thing we see? Are they saying that modern popular music is totalitarian? That it's trying to destroy all other genres? I wanted to see more obvious denigration of the racist elements depicted even as I was enjoying seeing them portrayed so humorously. Presented as entertaining symbols. Perhaps there can be no greater indictment than to ridicule them in this way?
That's what I'd like to think but it's easy to make light of things that haven't directly assaulted me.
Fuck it. I like it anyway!
Does that make me a bad man?

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