American Capitalism, "Larger Than Life"

Editor's Note: This music video was created initially in November of 2006 and has been posted and removed from YouTube a few times. At it's peak it had 100 000 views.

Artist's Statement:

I chose the Backstreet Boys' (1999) "Larger Than Life" because it is one of those songs which you might hear played at a hockey or football stadium. These types of songs put crowds of people in the mood to stand up and kick some fucking ass. These are the testosterone and adrenaline hormones working -- distinctly masculine characteristics. Among other prominent feminist scholars, Ontarios Sandra Whitworth argues America represents patriarchal male dominance in the liberal international economic order. Visuals coupled with specially designed music have the ability to provoke people to act and think a certain way. It takes balls to vote in elections, be an entrepreneur and compete in the capitalist market place. This feminist analysis will make any Schulich business student extremely uncomfortable. I could have chosen a really depressing tune, but I think the epitome of pop culture (Backstreet Boys) serves as a much better representation of the president's testicular fortitude. The superpower is larger than life.

Why else did I choose this song? Pop music is manufactured by Ph D experts (I read that in a Rolling Stones Magazine one time). Pop music -- and I am assuming "Larger Than Life" too -- is mathematically perfect and engineered to be pleasing to the human ear. Although designed with a selfish profit making motive in mind, pop music and the Backstreet Boys is the best American civilization has to offer.

The overweight CEO of which corporate monopoly is notorious for his adrenaline pumping and testosterone charged claims? Steve Ballmer has publicly asserted with force to "love this company!!!" Representing the business class by extension, Ballmer probably loves capitalism just as much. Starving children employed in factories in third world nation-states (as designated by the IMF) do not benefit the same way this intelligent and well advised business executive does. Raptor Ballmer is larger than life. And yes, the use of the word "raptor" in my last sentence is a reference to Nietzsche.

The sources of inspiration to create such a radical analysis are numerous neorealist, neoliberal, feminist, neomarxist, postcolonial theorists. Primarily: CWT, MN, AP, ES, GW, TK, SL, NC, RC, KR, AO'C, DP, MeK, MH, BH, R. Other chief sources of influence on my project and writing is Chaim Perelman, Noam Chomsky, Robert Keohane, Charlene Spretnak.

From the music video concept I have presented, see if you can extrapolate my hidden thesis statement. Hint: this is a parody and the punch line cums between 3:01 and 3:21. The very last slide is critical too.

I am working on an extremely bitter, lengthy, frame-by-frame, well referenced, Chomsky-like analysis for my larger than life music video. Additionally, I hope to use Perelmans rhetoric in order to deliver Nietzsche. Release date? When it's done.




My next pop-music project will be exclusively economic images. I will use Timberlakes What goes around-comes around to parody the invisible hand (job) the media and Wall Street economists rely on.

Category:

News & Politics

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• larger
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• neomarxism
• marxism
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• postcolonialism
• taxcut
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