Random Movie Poster of the Week
RSS Add-Me
What Were They Thinking? European Music Video Edition
posted Tuesday, 16 January 2007
Let me admit to you right now, this may very well be the oddest piece of material I've ever chosen to discuss on this here blog. I've had it for a while now--so long that I can't remember how or when I first found it--and I've always wanted to share it with all of you, but I kept stopping myself out of fear that it might be one of those things so specifically attuned to my sensibilites that no one else in the world could ever possibly appreciate it the same way that I do. Plus it has a rather sketchy pedigree, coming as it does from a rather sordid and distasteful corner of the pop culture market. I actually had to do some research in order to figure out what is and even now I'm not quite sure why it exists, but it does and I doubt I have the words to express just how happy it makes me (though I'll do my damnedest to try).
The best I can figure out this is a 9 and 1/2 minute long credit sequence for the French version of the seventh edition of a mid-to-late 80s German porno series called Foxy Lady (whose subtitle is Teresa et L'Etalon Noir or Teresa and the Black Stallion). Before this scares you off, let me tell you now that apart from some very brief shots of bare breasts, this video could have easily been shown on any popular music video channel from that period. According to Wikipedia, the entire Foxy Lady series starred a mature Polish-born actress named Teresa Orlowski, who was made famous by her ambitious husband Hans Moser, who as Sascha Alexander produced and directed the series. Apparently the series ended when Hans dumped Teresa for a younger British model named Sarah Young (whose videos and magazines were still quite popular back when I worked at Source), which really has no bearing at all on the subject at hand, but since I went to the trouble to find it out I figured I would share it with you anyway.
The video consists of a male and female singing duo energetically lip-synching a pop/rock/new wave/hair metal/euro disco (if you can classify the song's genre go to it, because I sure can't) ode to Orlowski in front of a live audience, while a band that is equal parts new wave and hair metal pretends to play behind them. Intercut with this are shots of the "Foxy Lady" in question as she poses for photographs, drives around town and runs around a beach in a flimsy bikini. Though I can understand if you somehow lack the stamina to make it through the entire 9 and 1/2 minutes (personally I've watched it from beginning to end at least a dozen times), I urge you to definitely wait until the four minute mark, when the video reaches the zenith of its whacked-out absurdity.
Okay, I'll let you watch it now and after it's over I'll try to explain why I find it so strangely compelling.
Yeah, I know. I'm insane. How could I possibly defend such an artless endeavor? Well, for two reasons. The first is the passion evinced by its performers and the second is that it is entirely devoid of self-consciousness and exists even though it had no rational reason to.
Lemme explain.
What do you think is more noble? Sleepwalking your way through a mediocre or even superior artistic achievement or giving everything you have to something you have to know in your heart is a lost cause? One of the ironies of virtuosity is that often skill can disguise a performer's lack of joy in their performance. At the highlest levels of creative achievement are artists who are so good at what they do that they can get away with only giving their audience a small percentage of what they are truly capable of. They know that they will earn a standing ovation just as easily if they sluff off on the job as they would if they gave their performance everything they have in them. It's hard to blame them for their laziness, since it's the dream of most people to earn the maximum amount of reward for the least amount of effort.
That's why I have so much respect for folks who reach inside their chests and hand you their hearts all in the name of hopeless crap. Even more than the folks mentioned in the paragraph above, a performer in a doomed production certainly couldn't be blamed if they decided to just fly on autopilot and simply get the whole thing over with, which is why it is so admirable when they instead decide to give it everything they got and hope that their enthusiasm is able to transcend the limitations of the piece.
I don't know the names of the two singers who appear in this video, but I truly admire the completely unjustified exuberance they exhibit as they lip-synch to an epic-length ode to a 30-something porn star. If any two people in the world could be forgiven for doing a half-assed job, it's these two, but they don't. They pretend to sing about Ms. Orlowski as if she truly is the most important woman who ever lived--as if she was Mother Teresa rather than some busty Polish skank.
Add to that the impossible-to-believe enthusiasm of the audience and the other musicians and you have an experience whose inherent absurdity becomes inexplicably moving--not because of what the song is about, but because of the unrestrained showmanship with which it is performed.
And the result of this passion on the part of these performers is that it causes the viewer to question the validity of our desire to dimiss the project outright. Even though the song on a lyrical level is clearly idiotic nonsense in aid of a ludicrous proposal, the fact that it is performed without irony and with such elation makes it possible to overlook its faults and instead appreciate the dated catchiness of its genre-defying groove.
Thus the video serves as proof of the enormous redemptive powers of sincerity, which in this age of post modern cynicism is something I find myself more and more willing to embrace no matter how admittedly awful the work I'm holding close to me really is. This video with all its obvious faults makes me happy because it is entirely without shame even though it is transparently shameful--everyone involved should be embarrassed that it exists but you can tell just by watching it that none of them are.
Yes, I'm very easy to impress.
Commentary From the Masses (4)