Reworking the robotic Frankenstein in music videos
Our story starts with this. If you're too busy to click through, it's Sady Doyle (of tigerbeatdown fame) being Sady Doyle (aka badass). Specifically, in that post she's charting how artists keep using robots as a metaphor for marginalized peoples, or rather using robots in ways that seeing an analogy with peripheral groups is really hard to avoid. Doyle focuses on women, which is more than reasonable given how the metaphors about them continually reflect a social space informed by social programming (The Stepford Wives), defensive violence that gets framed as preemptive and unacceptable (Battlestar Galactica), and exploitative dehumanization (oh god the sexbots). Doyle's right though, in mentioning how there's a clear thread of class conflict in many robot horror stories ("robot" itself is derived from the Czech word for "worker"), to say nothing of racial inequalities and related discrimination due to bodily difference. Robots in public consciousness frequently are the generic other that can be any people that the powerful don't see as quite human.
Something I couldn't help but seeing was how directional these metaphors were - marginal peoples are products, creations, something that follows humanity (sometimes in both senses of that term - as subjects or as descendants). When we humanize them, the robots become "our children" - even in Doyle's title. Returning to (the reboot of) Battlestar Galactica, one cyclon, while reimagining the discussion, says he thinks that the one true God might have considered his blessings to humanity and given the cyclons souls as well - robots are humanity's heirs, our replacements. Even if this new phase is a progression, it's still a result of and a response to "humanity". The privileged frame and define and create the unprivileged.
Lots of representation of (generally robotic) non-humans in horror pop-rock seem kind of like attempts to avoid that problem.
(As a rather lengthy aside, this genre, the idea that it can even exist slightly breaks my brain. At least in the US and Canada (and seemingly lots of other countries to some extent too) musical classification seems to have yielded increasing to how music is marketed and performed rather than how it sounds. Ostensibly there's always been a lot of wiggle room between how the lyrics and acoustic choices of a musician affect a song's "meaning" compared to how non-musical aspects to the staging extend, complement, contrast with, or complicate that "significance". But. It honestly seems as though visual components of performance in particular are increasingly being used to define musical genres - people have started saying that other female artists are borrowing heavily from Lady Gaga if they use seemingly any over the top visual bombardment. Comparisons are drawn based on visuals in music videos and performances rather than musical attributes. Is this a by-product of how music videos have become something publicly consumed? Or am I overselling or even imagining the newness to this? Comment on such things, please, for I am deeply confused).
In any case, horror pop-rock is this broad, confusing genre that seems more defined by visuals than music. Like horror rock or horror punk, it's a genre that (seemingly primarily visually) reflects horror motifs, generally related to futility. It paints with a loss of control resulting in despair but more frequently panic and fear. It constantly returns to themes of agency-less victims and agency-thieving victimizers and hence covers multiple strokes of what it can mean to be inhuman.
Natalia Kills is really befuddling at times, but repeatedly shows how easily the idea of the powerless and marginal as some flavor of non-human isn't incompatible with the powerful and hegemonic being just as non-human. In her music video for Wonderland (I'm linking to the director's cut because it makes so much more sense), Natalia is roughly treated and controlled by (all-male) SWAT forces, who seem something inhuman not just for the brutality but because of their bulky black uniforms and faces usually distorted and obscured by their visors. She is forced into a submissive but pampered role, as she is guarded by SWAT team members and surrounded by fellow female prisoners who are sitting at a table packed with sweets, Barbie dolls, at least one albino rabbit, and mounds of prescription drugs. All of the other prisoners are originally wearing rabbit masks. After leading the prisoners in an at least partial rejection of what seems to be essentially a restrictive and submissive idea of femininity, Natalia is forced out of the effective prison to her execution. Her killer's face is completely obscured with a pseudo-traditional executioner's mask.
The overall effect seems to have been that all of these individuals have a humanity presented as challenged but not negated. The masks reflect on a role within the hegemony - the SWAT forces strip at least one of the other protesters of her rabbit mask. When she tried redefining the limiting role this society presented her with, she was removed from that entire class. Unincorporated into the social order, she became an acceptable target for violence. The instigator of the revolt, naturally, appears to have previously shed her mask of her own accord (or perhaps had it removed for her?). Liberation is presented as involving a stripping away of the hegemonic artifice - theoretically either of those empowered by the social order or those restricted by it. Inhuman is something people can become. These themes of inhumanity as a sign of hegemonic incorporation rather than marginality are reinforced in other Natalia Kills songs, especially (TRIGGER WARNING: rape) Zombie.
Likewise, Québécoise singer Marie-Mai, who often flirts with something horror-techno-rock-ish, similarly presents inhuman attributes as something shared by the privileged and marginalized while subverting the basic themes that accompany the powerful creating the powerless. Her music video for "C'est moi" shows us a team of scientists constructing a robot, who is of course Marie-Mai. While I'm inclined to think this at least in part her retreading ground she'd already covered in "Qui prendra ma place?" where she scathingly looks at how the music industry constructs (unstated - predominantly female) performers, she goes into new, more overtly feminist territory as well:
As much as Marie-Mai is a robotic product, the team of scientists appear to be equally robotic in certain scenes. Moreover, they seem exhausted, confused, and otherwise incapable, while Marie-Mai appears to surpass expectations in exhibiting super strength, super speed, and other talents. The lyrics themselves echo this theme of Marie-Mai more than besting her creators, as much as rendering them completely irrelevant. She sings (translated): I am the first, the last / Heat, cold / I have a heart of stone / In my dreams you don't exist / You don't exist [...] I am my own prisoner, never yours / Never yours. She steers close to a biblical declaration of being the alpha and the omega, while rejecting the idea that her creators programmed her - she has the latitude to reprogram herself. She can become anything, if she desires it. Throughout the video, Marie-Mai repeatedly rejects the typical expression of the human parent//robotic child relationship - she has no reason for feeling indebted to or noticeably compassionate for her creators, and has no indication of dependency on them.
Like other Frankenstein-esque presentations of creation of robots, she is a metaphorical descendant of her (human?) creators. Yet, the video repeatedly rejects any sense of continuity or perpetuation of humanity in her robotic nature - she is product of humanity (or something sufficiently similar?) and hence follows it chronologically, but she's an interruption not an heir. At first a blander and more traditional song plays on the radio, before her song cuts it off, literally breaking in and taking over the broadcast.
As Marie-Mai indicates, singers on the outskirts of horror pop-rock tend to play with the idea of reformulating this "creation" of the unprivileged non-human by the privileged human - variously by conflating privilege or at least hegemonic incorporation with true inhumanity, weakening the binary between inhuman and human, and suggesting different readings of "creation" without a parental overtone. All of those seem toyed with in this video: (TRIGGER WARNING: some sexual assault implications in the lyrics)
How do you analyze this? I'm asking anyone reading this. It seems like it takes representation of inhumanity to a whole new scale. The alien (played by a white woman) seems to liberate a black astronaut (albino? robot?) from a broken body. Does that bring us back to colonialism? Then again, there's an ostensibly female character singing "Take me into the light [...] Take me / Wanna be a victim / Ready for abduction" so are we getting some romanticized sexual dehumanization? We don't see either one acting as a parent, but only because there's so little of the video showing actual interaction. There's no assertion of parental power or rejection of it, but only because there's no conflict. Neither of them reject the role the others push on them. It seems like this juxtaposition of aliens against robots (is he a robot? Is she an alien?) isn't nearly as feminist as the others but just as easily renders non-humans as marginalized people, but in a way that potentially acknowledges horizontal rivalry. The man has an exotic other alien mate while the woman has a subjected husband? Does that cancel out? I'm inclined to think this just adds up to greater oppression for everyone. But I don't know, what do you make of this?
Something I couldn't help but seeing was how directional these metaphors were - marginal peoples are products, creations, something that follows humanity (sometimes in both senses of that term - as subjects or as descendants). When we humanize them, the robots become "our children" - even in Doyle's title. Returning to (the reboot of) Battlestar Galactica, one cyclon, while reimagining the discussion, says he thinks that the one true God might have considered his blessings to humanity and given the cyclons souls as well - robots are humanity's heirs, our replacements. Even if this new phase is a progression, it's still a result of and a response to "humanity". The privileged frame and define and create the unprivileged.
Lots of representation of (generally robotic) non-humans in horror pop-rock seem kind of like attempts to avoid that problem.
(As a rather lengthy aside, this genre, the idea that it can even exist slightly breaks my brain. At least in the US and Canada (and seemingly lots of other countries to some extent too) musical classification seems to have yielded increasing to how music is marketed and performed rather than how it sounds. Ostensibly there's always been a lot of wiggle room between how the lyrics and acoustic choices of a musician affect a song's "meaning" compared to how non-musical aspects to the staging extend, complement, contrast with, or complicate that "significance". But. It honestly seems as though visual components of performance in particular are increasingly being used to define musical genres - people have started saying that other female artists are borrowing heavily from Lady Gaga if they use seemingly any over the top visual bombardment. Comparisons are drawn based on visuals in music videos and performances rather than musical attributes. Is this a by-product of how music videos have become something publicly consumed? Or am I overselling or even imagining the newness to this? Comment on such things, please, for I am deeply confused).
In any case, horror pop-rock is this broad, confusing genre that seems more defined by visuals than music. Like horror rock or horror punk, it's a genre that (seemingly primarily visually) reflects horror motifs, generally related to futility. It paints with a loss of control resulting in despair but more frequently panic and fear. It constantly returns to themes of agency-less victims and agency-thieving victimizers and hence covers multiple strokes of what it can mean to be inhuman.
Natalia Kills is really befuddling at times, but repeatedly shows how easily the idea of the powerless and marginal as some flavor of non-human isn't incompatible with the powerful and hegemonic being just as non-human. In her music video for Wonderland (I'm linking to the director's cut because it makes so much more sense), Natalia is roughly treated and controlled by (all-male) SWAT forces, who seem something inhuman not just for the brutality but because of their bulky black uniforms and faces usually distorted and obscured by their visors. She is forced into a submissive but pampered role, as she is guarded by SWAT team members and surrounded by fellow female prisoners who are sitting at a table packed with sweets, Barbie dolls, at least one albino rabbit, and mounds of prescription drugs. All of the other prisoners are originally wearing rabbit masks. After leading the prisoners in an at least partial rejection of what seems to be essentially a restrictive and submissive idea of femininity, Natalia is forced out of the effective prison to her execution. Her killer's face is completely obscured with a pseudo-traditional executioner's mask.
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The overall effect seems to have been that all of these individuals have a humanity presented as challenged but not negated. The masks reflect on a role within the hegemony - the SWAT forces strip at least one of the other protesters of her rabbit mask. When she tried redefining the limiting role this society presented her with, she was removed from that entire class. Unincorporated into the social order, she became an acceptable target for violence. The instigator of the revolt, naturally, appears to have previously shed her mask of her own accord (or perhaps had it removed for her?). Liberation is presented as involving a stripping away of the hegemonic artifice - theoretically either of those empowered by the social order or those restricted by it. Inhuman is something people can become. These themes of inhumanity as a sign of hegemonic incorporation rather than marginality are reinforced in other Natalia Kills songs, especially (TRIGGER WARNING: rape) Zombie.
Likewise, Québécoise singer Marie-Mai, who often flirts with something horror-techno-rock-ish, similarly presents inhuman attributes as something shared by the privileged and marginalized while subverting the basic themes that accompany the powerful creating the powerless. Her music video for "C'est moi" shows us a team of scientists constructing a robot, who is of course Marie-Mai. While I'm inclined to think this at least in part her retreading ground she'd already covered in "Qui prendra ma place?" where she scathingly looks at how the music industry constructs (unstated - predominantly female) performers, she goes into new, more overtly feminist territory as well:
As much as Marie-Mai is a robotic product, the team of scientists appear to be equally robotic in certain scenes. Moreover, they seem exhausted, confused, and otherwise incapable, while Marie-Mai appears to surpass expectations in exhibiting super strength, super speed, and other talents. The lyrics themselves echo this theme of Marie-Mai more than besting her creators, as much as rendering them completely irrelevant. She sings (translated): I am the first, the last / Heat, cold / I have a heart of stone / In my dreams you don't exist / You don't exist [...] I am my own prisoner, never yours / Never yours. She steers close to a biblical declaration of being the alpha and the omega, while rejecting the idea that her creators programmed her - she has the latitude to reprogram herself. She can become anything, if she desires it. Throughout the video, Marie-Mai repeatedly rejects the typical expression of the human parent//robotic child relationship - she has no reason for feeling indebted to or noticeably compassionate for her creators, and has no indication of dependency on them.
Like other Frankenstein-esque presentations of creation of robots, she is a metaphorical descendant of her (human?) creators. Yet, the video repeatedly rejects any sense of continuity or perpetuation of humanity in her robotic nature - she is product of humanity (or something sufficiently similar?) and hence follows it chronologically, but she's an interruption not an heir. At first a blander and more traditional song plays on the radio, before her song cuts it off, literally breaking in and taking over the broadcast.
As Marie-Mai indicates, singers on the outskirts of horror pop-rock tend to play with the idea of reformulating this "creation" of the unprivileged non-human by the privileged human - variously by conflating privilege or at least hegemonic incorporation with true inhumanity, weakening the binary between inhuman and human, and suggesting different readings of "creation" without a parental overtone. All of those seem toyed with in this video: (TRIGGER WARNING: some sexual assault implications in the lyrics)
How do you analyze this? I'm asking anyone reading this. It seems like it takes representation of inhumanity to a whole new scale. The alien (played by a white woman) seems to liberate a black astronaut (albino? robot?) from a broken body. Does that bring us back to colonialism? Then again, there's an ostensibly female character singing "Take me into the light [...] Take me / Wanna be a victim / Ready for abduction" so are we getting some romanticized sexual dehumanization? We don't see either one acting as a parent, but only because there's so little of the video showing actual interaction. There's no assertion of parental power or rejection of it, but only because there's no conflict. Neither of them reject the role the others push on them. It seems like this juxtaposition of aliens against robots (is he a robot? Is she an alien?) isn't nearly as feminist as the others but just as easily renders non-humans as marginalized people, but in a way that potentially acknowledges horizontal rivalry. The man has an exotic other alien mate while the woman has a subjected husband? Does that cancel out? I'm inclined to think this just adds up to greater oppression for everyone. But I don't know, what do you make of this?