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Forum nameThe Lesson
Topic subjectRE: I'm not so sure how conceptually thoughtful it is though.
Topic URLhttp://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=5&topic_id=2856906&mesg_id=2857230
2857230, RE: I'm not so sure how conceptually thoughtful it is though.
Posted by thebigfunk, Thu Nov-21-13 08:17 AM
I can see that as a fair criticism...

It depends on how you read the original song I guess. I've always heard its major themes as being concerned with phoniness, authenticity, and hypocrisy. I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about it, but playing the video(s) through a television, and having it sung predominantly by stars who straddle the real/fake divide (as reality stars, newscasters, game show hosts, over-the-top musicians), seems to draw out the impossibility of determining the real, the authentic, the unhypocritical in the first place. (And of course, the song is written in the first-person, so you have these half-real stars essentially accusing you of being the one who was/is artificial.) But I'm probably overthinking it here.

You could go in other directions w/it, too, though...

I don't think it makes any grand statement on the song's original themes, but I don't think it's hard to connect the conceptual frame of the video with the song in at least a few meaningful ways.

-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~