What the Hell is Going On?

by Will 'The Cranky Music Man' Golightly

The fervor over the relief effort continues, and no one can find fault with that. But I’m going to try. It’s my job to complain, after all, so here we go.

The amount of money being donated to the various charities is genuinely touching. There is an ugly side, however, to the wave of emotion our country is experiencing right now: morality-spewing celebrities. I admit that Comedy Central’s "The Daily Show" is where I follow current events more often than not. But I can safely say that none of my important decisions are based on the axiom What Would Christina Do?

Christina Aguilera is one of the many celebrities who banded together to help the world by recording a version of Marvin Gaye’s "What’s Going On." And now it’s time for the video to be released. Fred Durst, Gwen Stefani, and Justin Timberlake are the type of A-list popstars that were on the record and will appear in the video. The premise is simple: famous people will be shown wearing blindfolds. Now before you get too excited, no one is in front of a firing squad. You see, the blindfolds have words on them like "Homosexual," "Woman," and "Muslim." And then the stars will slowly remove the blindfolds. It’s heavy, man.

What it means exactly I’m not sure. The video is being directed by schlockmeister Jake Scott, the man responsible for R.E.M.’s irritating "Everybody Hurts" video. In defense of "Everybody Hurts," however, I will suggest that Scott had to do whatever he could to distract viewers from such a lousy song. So maybe he did a good job on that one. I can’t tell.

What I do know, thanks to Sonicnet.com, is that the blindfolds in the video "are meant to symbolize how people are blind to dealing with issues like racism, sexism, homophobia, and religion and need to open their eyes." That’s what a spokesperson for the project says, so you can take that to the bank.

Maybe I’m just dumb. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been accused of that. But I don’t get it. So the "Homosexual" blindfold is keeping, say, Fred Durst from dealing with homophobia? Maybe the blindfolds are symbolic of poorly written sitcoms like "Will and Grace" and "The Ellen Show." No, that’s probably not it.

What would make a REALLY good video would be to put all the famous people in blindfolds and film them bumping into things and maybe walking into a busy intersection. Remember that cool blindfold Prince used to wear, like in "Purple Rain" I think? Just a blindfold and some tiny pants. And he’d be up on stage playing the hell out of his guitar, back before his guitars got too squiggly. That was cool. This video is not.

Next week I’ll try harder to get back to the good stuff, like Marilyn Manson’s criminal sexual misconduct and Stevie Wonder’s venereal diseases. I promise.