somebody has to say something

marilyn manson
"heart-shapped glasses"
dir., james cameron
2007

WARNING: YOUR SOUL MIGHT EVAPORATE AFTER WATCHING THIS VIDEO

i'm sure you've been wondering where marilyn manson has been these days. he hasn't released an album anybody cared about since the late 90s and he became somewhat of a dandy cavorting around town with his then-wife, burlesque entertainer extraordinaire dita von teese. they were goth, but glam and manson seemed to have matured beyond his shock value days when appearing on the mtv video music awards wearing a g-string got his name in the papers and into the collective pop cultural conscious. however, he is back and not necessarily with a vengeance, but with a new lady on his arm and music that people still don't care about.

there are many troubling things about this video. shall we list?
1. the soft core and volatile opening to this indulgent mess of a music video.

i have made it clear that evan rachel wood is one of the most shrill and uninteresting young actresses and i thought her performance in "thirteen" was showy and obnoxious. she carried this tradition of disturbed-lolita-bait type performances in films such as "pretty persuasion" and "running with scissors." and on a completely superficial note, she is not that attractive (too gangly and awkward). thus, to see her sexed up and grunting with the anti-christ superstar is deserving of a giant eye roll. it's not credible or arousing. give it up. this just makes us uneasy, and not in the way i think they want us to feel, and a clear attempt at furthering their staid, unimportant careers. (it won't. trust me.)

2. the james cameron direction.

hmmm. how does one follow up making the highest grossing film of all time? i know! make a ridiculous and repugnant music video for marilyn manson co-starring his new nineteen year old lover! cameron's scope is there, but within the context of evan rachel wood's groans and masturbatory gestures, it is lost and not exciting. and why do i get the impression cameron's "vision" is just as much to blame as manson's?

3. marilyn manson and evan rachel wood are the new tomkat.

give me a motherfucking break was my first thought when i heard word of this horribly wrong twosome. i imagine mr. manson sitting in his dark cave of a hollywood hills home sulking after dita didn't want to role play or drink absinthe and began dreaming of bright young things who would obey in his bizarro world. these ragingly insecure men need equally if not more insecure women to feed their bruised egos because too many tom, dick, and harry's made fun of them in high school. i say to that, GROW UP. now you know why nicole kidman and penelope cruz jumped ship before the utter absurdity that is tom cruise and katie holmes. the age range doesn't bother me so much, but rather the fact that the two of them had sexy, amazing significant others (jamie bell and dita von teese) who they both dumped only to downgrade for each other. i hope jamie bell is somewhere fornicating with dita von teese till both of their genitals fall off (pardon the violent imagery, but you know what i mean).

4. this video is in no way shocking, but rather a turn off and disgusting and not in that oddly hypersexual/violent way we've seen in the compellingly vile films of catherine breillat. manson stopped being shocking years ago. we've seen britney spears' cooter since his heyday. it's going to take a lot to ruffle our feathers these days. he's just old and dried up now. the lyrical imagery is too literal with the aesthetics of the video and the whole having sexy while covered in blood is so played out and not sexy. their chemistry is robotic and unconvincing.

5. i can't believe i watched the whole thing.

this video may be the sign of the apocalypse, but i did just write an entire entry about it, so maybe manson and wood have won in a way. damn them.