Sexism, homophobia, and Flight of the Conchords?
I've been kind of bothered by a trend I've noticed lately related to vids/political remixes using the Flight of the Conchords song "Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor." The vids themselves are critical of gender imbalances found in their source media -- this Daily Show version is the most recent, and it's great -- but in the discussion and commentary surrounding these vids -- I'll quote from that link:
The original Flight of the Conchords song is in no way meant to be critical of sexism - in fact its actually homophobic - but when it is combined with any male-centered media source it instantly becomes a subversive critical commentary. Try remixing it and see for yourself!
Except, no. I keep seeing people talk about what a sexist/homophobic song this is -- and yes, the lyrics by themselves uphold this statement -- but to imply that the songwriters themselves agree with the content of this song seems to ignore the song's intent (to be humorous) and the context from which it was taken. The TV show Flight of the Conchords follows two New Zealand musicians (fictional characters who happen to share names with the men who play them) in various hapless struggles to be successful and find love, and although I believe we're meant to like those characters and be invested in them, at no point are we meant to find them anything but ridiculous. "It ain't no good if there's too much wood"? "Skedaddle with the cattle prods"? Really? Their "politically incorrect" attitudes are exaggerated to make us laugh, because of course, these sorts of attitudes are not okay. And so, when this song is used for critical commentary, it's not being subverted, merely repurposed.
I mean -- is there something I'm missing? Cause I kind of feel like this is similar to accusing Tom Lehrer of animal cruelty [youtube link] -- and I wouldn't even bring it up, except I've seen the sexist nature of the song mentioned in multiple places, and it seems like people are missing the joke.
The original Flight of the Conchords song is in no way meant to be critical of sexism - in fact its actually homophobic - but when it is combined with any male-centered media source it instantly becomes a subversive critical commentary. Try remixing it and see for yourself!
Except, no. I keep seeing people talk about what a sexist/homophobic song this is -- and yes, the lyrics by themselves uphold this statement -- but to imply that the songwriters themselves agree with the content of this song seems to ignore the song's intent (to be humorous) and the context from which it was taken. The TV show Flight of the Conchords follows two New Zealand musicians (fictional characters who happen to share names with the men who play them) in various hapless struggles to be successful and find love, and although I believe we're meant to like those characters and be invested in them, at no point are we meant to find them anything but ridiculous. "It ain't no good if there's too much wood"? "Skedaddle with the cattle prods"? Really? Their "politically incorrect" attitudes are exaggerated to make us laugh, because of course, these sorts of attitudes are not okay. And so, when this song is used for critical commentary, it's not being subverted, merely repurposed.
I mean -- is there something I'm missing? Cause I kind of feel like this is similar to accusing Tom Lehrer of animal cruelty [youtube link] -- and I wouldn't even bring it up, except I've seen the sexist nature of the song mentioned in multiple places, and it seems like people are missing the joke.