on MIA's "born free"

M.I.A, Born Free from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.

"does MIA's genocide video go too far?" is the question asked in mary elizabeth williams' music column in yesterday's salon, and the short answer is: yes. the longer answer is: yes, thank god. I've embedded it within this post and I'm not going to give away much of the 9-minute video's plot, but I do want to warn you away from it if you aren't willing to watch uncompromisingly brutal and realistic violence. not the violence of the saw films, all gratuitous gory splash, but the quiet, personal violence of history and reality normally hidden from us.

it's powerful in all the right ways and does damage to our sense of being outside it all. the director, romain gavras, son of the immortal costa gavras, imbues "born free" (the ending minutes give us a greater sense of the irony of that title) with the closeness of active involvement. we can't pretend we aren't a part of what's going on in the rounding up of a despised social segment: we are the eyes and ears watching and participating, and if there was such technology available, we would feel the clubs in our hands and the blows on our backs.

MIA and gavras are no limosine liberals, but even if that epithet held, it can't take away from the power in watching people rounded up and dispatched. released the same week arizona passed a law I argue is a first step toward the video's reality, and in the same country that imprisons enemy combatants in a lookalike guantanamo after rounding them up in similar situations that play out in the first minutes, this is a harsh, dispiriting, ugly little movie. is it provocative? of course. is it meant to sell MIA, copies of her album, and her agenda? so what. that's the market. this is a literal personification of natalie merchant's lyrics from "candy everybody wants": "if lust and hate is the candy, if blood and love taste so sweet, then we give 'em what they want."

if you can stomach it, and not just the violence but the violent impact it will have on you, you should see it. between this video and erykah badu's recent "window seat," it seems that at least two women of color are pressing the spit beyond the flap of the envelope and as far across the table as it will last.

naked truth

I was not mtv's audience when it originated. a homeless 20-something with no disposable income and less inclination to watch commercials of radio songs I didn't like, I think the network could be excused for letting people like me fall between the cracks.

but the fact is that mtv was a great boon to the vagabond. when I was on the road, nearly every lonely rural laundromat television was tuned to it, nearly every roadside store clerk staffing a register had it on, nearly every bar television tuned to it between waves of laid-off factory workers. it was where I learned about what was happening or what mtv wanted me to know was happening. I can't diss it: I saw my first images of tiannaman square and tank man, heard my first strains of james mcmurtry, saw my first glimpses of the twisted weirdness whose existence warmed me in the remote dark. mtv, while not the revolution people like me had hoped for, was televised at least, and enough people appreciated it that wherever I went, I could witness it.

this is to say that while I'm not a child of the video age, I am alive to it and to its messages. the latest video to catch my attention, and that of a lot of other people's, is erykah badu's "window seat." I love nudity, of course, and while badu isn't nearly as naked as I might like her to be, it's the statement she makes by appearing as naked as youtube will allow that is important.

badu shows, in shot after shot, she has got some back and sags and her belly juts out where most women are taught to pull in. this is a real person stripping down on dealey plaza, and badu has opted to share the truth of her naked, common-woman body with the viewer. she struts, she rolls, she has folds and she jiggles and she is not ashamed. the song itself is pleasant way to spend time and not likely to be remembered in a year's time. but it's the act of taking off her clothes--and the sudden, jarring, dispiriting ending that most viewers seem to ignore or forget--that resonates for me. (the fined leveled against her by the city is a minor reminder of the truth of her ending statement.) I am the audience for this music video. they have finally caught up to me.