(Part 2B) Armond White on Ludacris “Get Back” (Dir: Spike Jonze)

 

The Following Text Has Been Cut and Pasted From The YouTube Page.

July 28, 2005. (Part 2B)
CRITIC Armond White “MUSIC TO MY EYES” Music Video Presentation at Lincoln Center.

Due to low camcorder battery energy, I didn’t videotape the entire music video. I focused on the critic’s comments.

Artist: Ludacris
Song: “Get Back”
Director: Spike Jonze

Here are some excerpts from an article on the video:

“Rapper Ludacris as Popeye? That’s the big surprise of the ‘Get Back’ music video in which Ludacris joins the roster of artists to collaborate on a project with acclaimed, avant-pop director Spike Jonze. ‘Get Back’ is another antic satire like those Jonze created for Bjork (‘It’s Oh So Quiet’), The Beastie Boys (‘Sabotage’) and Fat Boy Slim’s ‘Weapons of Choice,’ which revitalized actor Christopher Walken’s career.”

“In ‘Get Back,’ Jonze also revamps Ludacris’ pop image. It is the year’s most startling music video because it applies an unexpected twist to Ludacris’ persona. Always the comical partyer, Ludacris cleverly expounds the crazy thoughts in a kid’s head when he gets high on camaraderie (or some chemical substance). He shows off exuberance for the enjoyment of his boys but also as a code that communicates he understands their desire to feel good. ‘Get Back’ forces viewers to reconsider some of the stereotypes of black male behavior commonly seen in hip-hop music videos but that has previously gone unexamined. So far this year no black actor has made a movie as clever as this. “

“As a team, Jonze and Ludacris provoke audiences to think. By portraying an exaggeratedly macho figure — a live-action cartoon — Ludacris goes beyond the good-time imagery he’s used before. This video demonstrates the degree of play-acting that goes on in rappers’ brash exhibition of gangsta attitude. He is shown with huge, inflated Popeye-style forearms. It is a hyped-up image of strength that relates to the boyish affectation of machismo. Through this playful yet subversive image, hip-hop’s macho ideal gets subverted. Its truth is often covered up by the contemporary fashion of hoodies, Tims, Kangols and prison gear. Jonze and Ludacris’ Popeye image makes fun of selling woof-tickets. The masculine threat that is so popular in hip-hop videos is revealed for what it really is by making it so strange and funny…”

“…Ludacris has the confidence to indulge a macho performance while also showing that he is aware how silly it is. (The Popeye cartoonishness admits that this is indeed a performance.) The opening lavatory scene where a fan annoys him while both stand at their respective urinal, is a startling suggestion of homosexual panic — the fear that psychologists say is a symptom of male insecurity. After this, Luda-Popeye’s swaggering explosion of macho-pride and macho-defensiveness doesn’t simply seem natural — it is exposed as desperate. Even scenes of Luda and his boys (some of them literally juveniles) stalking the streets, swinging their arms like cavemen, busting the cornerstones of buildings and smashing a mailbox (an object Jonze repeats from his Bjork video) further convey the idea that precepts of masculinity and patriarchal communication are being re-examined…”