Can't really embed the vid I'll touch on here given its 147 uses of the f-word and more, but with this in mind you can watch it at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlrbNqs61nU
Directed by
Chris Cunningham (rem, a comp. DVD of his vids is available for loan) for the Warp
dance act Aphex Twin,
the video for Windowlicker is an edgy satire of contemporary US urban, hip-hop cultural tropes and cliches; the far end of the spectrum from Michael Jackson's comparatively effete streetscapes in
Bad or
Billie Jean.
Clocking in at 10:34, this goes beyond the typical brief diegetic intro we get in many vids - again, a useful comparison would be Jackson (the John Landis-directed
Thriller).
 |
| Aphex Twin play with gender identity |
There's a nice, and not too complicated (the sort of thing you have the facilities as Media students to replicate), effect to create a 38-window streeeetch limo (look for the telltale repeat of light moving across the two women to see the join). The vid also sees gender identity played with (a nod to Judith Butler's 'performativity of gender' theory?),
something the band have done in live performances/artshows.
Unsurprisingly, the vid was the subject of censorship - with an equally common response in that 'clean' versions were created, though
MTV did receive a fine for airing an uncut version before 9pm.
I've copied in below the informative blurb from the YouTube uploader below, but put this behind a 'read more' rather than remove the swear words contained in this. But first...
Consider this: is there an issue with censoring satire of sweary, misogynistic cultural forms and behaviour, which surely requires the use of swearing and images of misogyny to function with some level of verisimilitude?
There's another useful web feature on this, and Cunninghmam's work:
http://www.director-file.com/cunningham/aphex2.html
Now the YouTube text:
