The point at which my stomach
curdles during this video is not the
gore or
penis and
testicle pulling, which, has been oft-commented upon by others of
Bob Flanagan's gender, but rather the mixture between
pain and
pleasure on his face. This really kind of pulls the
song along, as opposed to usual
song to
video hierarchy. I actually dislike this
song quite a bit.
The combination of happiness and slavery upon his face reflects upon many things. The forced sexual servitude is, of course, a major theme, but the word slavery invokes images of blacks in the South picking cotton. This is probably just my own prejudices coming into play even when I try and force them away. When I think of slavery I think of that. Sorry. Back to the video:
The pleasure can be seen as the way some unpleasent people think that life was like for a slave, where they had little to really worry about except for the crop. The sheer damage done to Bob Flanagan is something I see as a metaphor for what happened to African culture, with the white man as the videos infernal butchering machine. An old friend claims that he identified the plants upon which the remains are spilled as Marijuana.
I'm putting far too much into this, I know. It's probably just a song. For the curious amongst us, I direct you to download it on eDonkey or something. It's interesting, even if I am reading too far into it.