All My Underdogs
I'll be perfectly honest, when I first heard about the Raise Your Glass video I was excited for two reasons
a> hello? P!nk...
and b> the gay wedding!
but then i saw the video and the KISS didn't even have time to register in my head, through no fault of the director.
why didn't it register?
because of two very specific and very heavy scenes in the videos
P!nk, compassionate hard ass that she is, tackles something she believes in in a very unique and risque way.
First, she stabs a bullfighter.
Said bullfighter is sobbing and has a very ridiculous expression on his face. But the scene is not funny. P!nk's cold, unforgiving expression weighs it down and the bull looks on in what looked like sadistic vindication.
Sure, there are men with pantyhose on their heads (with little smileys drawn on them) standing with her and the bull (yes, the bull is not a prop, it is an element) but their smiley masks somehow manage to alleviate the macabre happenings in the scene.
What scared me was that I was feeling just as vindicated as the bull as the poor bastard was getting stabbed. It was overwhelming and I was gritting my teeth the entire time in a feral grin. My brain kept going "Die you evil son of a bitch, DIE."
See, I'm a very docile person. I avoid confrontations whenever I can. And as a vegetarian, I have tried to preach to people I know about cruelty to animals on multiple occasions. But alas, the Mahatma Gandhi school of thought doesn't apply to obstinate idiots who won't listen.
Bullfighters in their fine gold trimmings have always had a very weird effect on me.
Yes, they are sexy, I will concede.
But they are also killers, and it seems just cruel to dress up in one's finery just to celebrate a living being's death. It's almost like making light of it.
So the outfits have never struck me as fashionable.
Art is love after all, not death.
But it works here. Pink's awesomely pointed attempt at making light of the situation makes it seem even more gruesome and effectively delivers the punch line... "How does it feel having it done to you, ya stupid muthafucka?"
There's no love for the poor fellow, even when he grovels and looks on in betrayed helplessness.
The message is simple, "Pick on somebody your own size"
To bad for the poor sucker then that P!nk is much bigger than he can ever hope to be.
It feels good to be pro active as opposed to passive-aggressive and Lord knows it gets the job done and while I know that conflict only leads to more conflict, it's high time that we underdogs stand up for ourselves and give the naysayers and haters what they've been asking for for so fucking long.
The next of the two aforementioned scenes is even more startling.
The image is disturbing at first sight and somehow chaotically sensible once you have taken the time to understand it.
The image is like this.
A line of women are sitting blindfolded in electric-chair like contraptions with their breasts uncovered and suction pumps are attached to their nipples as their milk is drawn and collected to feed a... wait for it...
baby cow.
P!nk, in a ski-mask, feeds the calf and one of her cronies monitors the machine while the other helpfully spray paints the words "DAIRY FARM" onto a back wall. Another possible reference to an obvious
cliché
The shock value of the image alone is tremendous and overwhelming.
So when the camera closes up on the women's faces, we can see their discomfort as their lips twitch and their throats move in gulps.
I found this scene immensely disturbing at first because the problems with dairy farms and slaughter houses are just so much more prominent when the subjects are bipeds.
But I quickly warmed up to the idea and now, and sue me if this makes me a freak, I find it intensely beautiful. It's just so... loud and helpful to the animal rights cause. It's so 'in your face' it makes me wanna scream.
So, in conclusion, P!nk's new video takes pop art to places it has never been while screaming at you to help make the world a better place.
What's not to like?
a> hello? P!nk...
and b> the gay wedding!
but then i saw the video and the KISS didn't even have time to register in my head, through no fault of the director.
why didn't it register?
because of two very specific and very heavy scenes in the videos
P!nk, compassionate hard ass that she is, tackles something she believes in in a very unique and risque way.
First, she stabs a bullfighter.
Said bullfighter is sobbing and has a very ridiculous expression on his face. But the scene is not funny. P!nk's cold, unforgiving expression weighs it down and the bull looks on in what looked like sadistic vindication.
Sure, there are men with pantyhose on their heads (with little smileys drawn on them) standing with her and the bull (yes, the bull is not a prop, it is an element) but their smiley masks somehow manage to alleviate the macabre happenings in the scene.
What scared me was that I was feeling just as vindicated as the bull as the poor bastard was getting stabbed. It was overwhelming and I was gritting my teeth the entire time in a feral grin. My brain kept going "Die you evil son of a bitch, DIE."
See, I'm a very docile person. I avoid confrontations whenever I can. And as a vegetarian, I have tried to preach to people I know about cruelty to animals on multiple occasions. But alas, the Mahatma Gandhi school of thought doesn't apply to obstinate idiots who won't listen.
Bullfighters in their fine gold trimmings have always had a very weird effect on me.
Yes, they are sexy, I will concede.
But they are also killers, and it seems just cruel to dress up in one's finery just to celebrate a living being's death. It's almost like making light of it.
So the outfits have never struck me as fashionable.
Art is love after all, not death.
But it works here. Pink's awesomely pointed attempt at making light of the situation makes it seem even more gruesome and effectively delivers the punch line... "How does it feel having it done to you, ya stupid muthafucka?"
There's no love for the poor fellow, even when he grovels and looks on in betrayed helplessness.
The message is simple, "Pick on somebody your own size"
To bad for the poor sucker then that P!nk is much bigger than he can ever hope to be.
It feels good to be pro active as opposed to passive-aggressive and Lord knows it gets the job done and while I know that conflict only leads to more conflict, it's high time that we underdogs stand up for ourselves and give the naysayers and haters what they've been asking for for so fucking long.
The next of the two aforementioned scenes is even more startling.
The image is disturbing at first sight and somehow chaotically sensible once you have taken the time to understand it.
The image is like this.
A line of women are sitting blindfolded in electric-chair like contraptions with their breasts uncovered and suction pumps are attached to their nipples as their milk is drawn and collected to feed a... wait for it...
baby cow.
P!nk, in a ski-mask, feeds the calf and one of her cronies monitors the machine while the other helpfully spray paints the words "DAIRY FARM" onto a back wall. Another possible reference to an obvious
cliché
The shock value of the image alone is tremendous and overwhelming.
So when the camera closes up on the women's faces, we can see their discomfort as their lips twitch and their throats move in gulps.
I found this scene immensely disturbing at first because the problems with dairy farms and slaughter houses are just so much more prominent when the subjects are bipeds.
But I quickly warmed up to the idea and now, and sue me if this makes me a freak, I find it intensely beautiful. It's just so... loud and helpful to the animal rights cause. It's so 'in your face' it makes me wanna scream.
So, in conclusion, P!nk's new video takes pop art to places it has never been while screaming at you to help make the world a better place.
What's not to like?