MIA Video - Amazing

[Kemalettin Sert]

Director is a son of Costa Gavras

 

[Andrew Rieger]

After some research on trusty old Wikipedia:

The Huffington Post stated "Whether it's a comment on the absurdity of genocide (of which M.I.A. saw plenty during her early childhood in Sri Lanka) or a challenge to the idea of "other" in Arizona's immigration law, it is startling even in the context of recent genre-bending music art-films."[7] The Village Voice added "NSFW isn't exactly the word. More like art film? We can think of no goofier political allegory than the persecution, abuse, and murder of redheads, but then again, M.I.A.'s politics have never been of the kind you read about in the New York Times."[8] MTV described it as "unflinchingly, unapologetically real" depicting "the kind of things that most nations — including the U.S., which is portrayed as the aggressor in the clip — often pretend don't happen: the rounding-up of ethnic minorities, the trampling of personal liberties, the bullying of the powerless by those with authority." Real life parallels were drawn with the "ongoing issue of immigration in states like Arizona, the treatment of prisoners by U.S. troops at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, and, more universally, the brutal tactics used against minorities by government forces all over the world."[9]

I'm sorry but these comparisons are absurd. To state that the blatant act of genocide in the film is a critique of Arizona's new immigration laws or the mistreatment of Iraqi pow's is illogical. Typical MTV and Huffington crap. All in all, I find this video to be very disrespectful, especially to law enforcement. Why did MIA choose to have the film take place in the US and not in the UK? Oh wait, I forgot that bashing the military was hip and cool. I bet James Cameron enjoyed this.

 

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

Please do not discuss gun politics, or any politics for that matter.

What worries me is that there is no age restriction on seeing the video. I don't see the necessesity to show unprovoked, highly visual violence. Yeah, some probably think "cool; exploding body parts", "cool, a child's brain splattered in slomo".

It's a bit like No Country for Old Men. Brilliantly made, but why? What is the point? To me this comes across as a glorification of violence while pretending to criticize it.

I believe that we as film makers also have a responsibility. And the first responsibility is not to shock people into giving us their attention. Images like these only make us number towards real life, not more aware IMHO.

I totally agree.

The same is true for The Passion of The Christ, for example. I mean, I got the point after 5 minutes of gore, but it kept on till the end. Bad directorial choice.

 

[Stefan Christou]

Oh I "got it." Doesn't mean it was a great video. I'm a big MIA fan, but this video never really went anywhere. The whole scene of "explosions" (which looked exactly like movie pyrotechnics, not real explosions) and chasing redheads across a random desert didn't work for me. I was waiting for some kind of awesome visuals (think of the Joker hanging out of the police car in Dark Knight) but those amazing visuals never came, IMO.

I think it's interesting to make something like this and put it out with sort of an R-rated style, but in the end, the promise and idea of the video were better than the final result, IMO. The whole thing was too ham-handed, on-the-nose and obvious.

Ehhh I didn't mean to get it was to like it. Definitely agree concept was better than the execution. But how many really really good propaganda films have you seen?

 

[Simon Dunne]

haha, Gingers.

Most of you guys are probably American. The whole 'Ginger' thing is really a UK thing, it's a touchy subject over here......if you're ginger! MIA is a UK artist.....possible reason for filming it with a US twist i think??

Youtube made the right call to pull the video for many reasons. Vimeo should do the same. Replace gingers with pretty much any other 'ethnic' group like race, skin colour and this would be all over the news a lot more than it has been.

Thought provoking, yes. The best way to do it, no.

Simon

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

Replace gingers with pretty much any other...

Bingo.

 

[roryhinds]

gay video.
lame attempt to raise her profile by getting people to talk about her "censored" video
just goes to show if you can't impress them with musical talent then shock them with gay videos

 

[Alex G. Cohn]

Honestly, what was the point? For one, something like this would never happen and such a video only serves to further cast the United States in a negative light. The video has American men in uniform acting like Nazi's. Read the comments on Vimeo, almost universal praise which I cannot understand for the life of me.

You do realize that the Nazis committed their atrocities only 65 years ago, right?

If you had asked anybody at the turn of the 20th century whether something like the Holocaust was possible, they would have said that it could never happen.

But it did happen, in the middle of our so-called civilized world.

Now, will American police ever round up and kill people just because of their red hair? No.

But to suggest that something like this could "never happen" is naive, because it has happened, over and over again throughout history. It is happening today.


The filmmakers chose red heads, because it is supposed to seem arbitrary and ridiculous, but considering what human beings are capable of, it actually isn't ridiculous at all.

 

[Andrew Rieger]

Pol Pot murdered around 15% of his population in Cambodia in the 1970's, what's your point? Yes these things happen. My question is why a British singer would choose to depict the United States as the perpetrator of such a heinous act. Why not have the video in a place where something like this actually happens like say, Iran where to this day homosexuality is punishable by death. This is just another product of the whole "the US is the bad guy" movement that has seemed to have invaded all forms of entertainment.

 

[Alex G. Cohn]

Pol Pot murdered around 15% of his population in Cambodia in the 1970's, what's your point? Yes these things happen. My question is why a British singer would choose to depict the United States as the perpetrator of such a heinous act. Why not have the video in a place where something like this actually happens like say, Iran where to this day homosexuality is punishable by death. This is just another product of the whole "the US is the bad guy" movement that has seemed to have invaded all forms of entertainment.

Because it is supposed to make people angry.

Showing images of the Holocaust and atrocities in Darfur, Cambodia, Iran, Bosnia, etc obviously doesn't work, because most people really don't care unless it is happening to them.

 

[Ruairi Robinson]

gay video.
lame attempt to raise her profile by getting people to talk about her "censored" video
just goes to show if you can't impress them with musical talent then shock them with gay videos

I guess it's still okay to use gay as a derogatory term then? I thought we'd got over that.

...And I thought that fat people and gingers were the two groups it was still socially acceptable to arbitrarily discriminate against, free of consequences.

R.

 

[Ruairi Robinson]

Pol Pot murdered around 15% of his population in Cambodia in the 1970's, what's your point? Yes these things happen. My question is why a British singer would choose to depict the United States as the perpetrator of such a heinous act. Why not have the video in a place where something like this actually happens like say, Iran where to this day homosexuality is punishable by death. This is just another product of the whole "the US is the bad guy" movement that has seemed to have invaded all forms of entertainment.

If they set it in a place where this is actually happening it wouldn't really be pointing out the absurdity of racial profiling based on arbitrary characteristics, would it? Pointing to the reality doesn't highlight the absurdity. And that's the point.

R.