MUSIC « In Which I Was Born Ginger And Born Free »
Tuesday, April 27, 2010 at 9:55AM 
I've Got Something To Say
by MOLLY LAMBERT
The really fucked up thing about the sort of fucked up and generally just brilliant new MIA video that came out yesterday is that it's still nowhere near as fucked up as the Wikileaks video from Iraq that leaked earlier this month.
I've been making ginger genocide jokes longer than anyone so obviously this touched a special nerve with me. I even wrote a fake chapter from a future history book (The Red Ribbon) about the oncoming redhead race war a few months back.
I really liked this video because it's the kind of thing I can imagine seeing on The Box as a child (even though The Box has been displaced by the internet?) and just being totally fucked up by it forever. Like how the Tom Petty video for "Don't Come Around Here No More" gave me really cool psychosexual nightmares for months as a kid.
"Well it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle." "That's right."
MIA is bringing back the long form mindfuck electronica video mini-movie with pasty hunted gingers in the place of Richard D. James's bikini clad horrormask girls. Shades of his "Windowlicker" and all the other night terror inducing ultra late block videos that were on AMP in the nineties. She blows up "Telephone" with a landmine.
The string section during the train to Gingeschwitz sequence recalls the long version of U2's "All I Want Is You" from Rattle and Hum. Also the movie Punishment Park and the last part of Roy Andersson's grotesque dystopia Songs From The Second Floor.
screenshot from Call Of Duty 2: Modern Warfare, teaching lil' kids how to frag
It should also be said that I hate shock value for the sake of shock value, and I hate poshlost (high-minded attempts at importance) and I thought this transcended either category, as sort of basically hamfisted as it is. I LOL'd, mission accomplished.
Humanity's inhumanity is not exactly the sort of topic that gets easily played out, just like growing up Tamil in Sri Lanka and witnessing all kinds of fucked up government supported shit doesn't seem like something you'd get over by your third album.
That motherhood mellows you out or permanently enlightens you somehow is just another lie of the patriarchy/Dick Cheney's LOST. Fight the power. Ginger Pride 4 Life.
LOS ANGELES FUTURISTIC DYSTOPIA MOVIES
Harley Davidson & The Marlboro Man
Escape From The Planet Of The Apes
Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She tumbls and twitters.
"Seed" - Crystal Castles (mp3)
"Doe Deer" - Crystal Castles (mp3)
"Mother Knows Best" - Crystal Castles (mp3)
Reader Comments (9)
The best part of this was re-introducing me to that Tom Petty video, but it really was a great article.
$5 if you can tell me a single political view that M.I.A. holds
she's against genocide, duh. pay up Aziz!
Another ginger video, from only a few weeks ago: Berndsen - "Young Boy".
The Weasley's have magic.
4got to put 500 Days Of Summer on the LA futuristic dystopia movies list
MDMA
ur my F4v0RiTe!
u da best
To be fair, the video seems to have a lot more to do with the themes of Romain Gavras, the director.
Also, poshlost, what a great term. Thanks.