Thursday, March 06, 2008

That New Obama Video...   [Mark Hemingway]

Ye gods. I wish Yuval hadn't alerted me to the fact that there's a new will.i.am video about Obama. I watched the original "Dipdive" video after reading numerous hysterical reports on blogs about how the video was so moving that it made them cry. And yet, I watched the same video and its Riefenstahl-meets-Gap-ad aesthetic made me want to perform an impromptu lobotomy on myself with a screwdriver that's accidentally been dropped in the toilet.

But if the pseudo-inspirational music weren't bad enough — lest we forget the orchestrator of these videos is will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, a man who's signature achievement as a professional musician is "My Humps" (Chorus: "my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my lovely lady lumps") — it's still the celebrity endorsement angle that kills me.

I've written about this before, and color me amazed that candidates still seem to aggressively court this kind of endorsement. I mean, a second rate actor such as Ryan Phillipe telling me to vote for Obama because he wants a "better future for his children"? Alternatively, if Phillipe wanted a better future for his children he could have not gotten divorced amidst rumors of an affair played out in the tabloids, raising them in a broken home. But at least I recognized Phillipe. I didn't have any idea who the pouty guy with the stubble was who proclaimed that he's voting for Obama because "I want to live in a world without fear." Seriously? If a candidate and his supporters are promising to rid the world of fear, I'm very, very afraid.

I mean, I'm not exactly a cultural elitist who doesn't get that rock, hip-hop, Gossip Girl et al. possess a great deal of sway and are relevant to the masses. But GAH. This stuff just grates on me — and I doubt I'm alone in my hatred of such lowest common denominator appeals.

03/06 04:41 PMShare