One thing that was left out of the clip of Kanye West premiering his video for “Love Lockdown” on yesterday’s Ellen DeGeneres Show: The revelation that the clip was inspired by the movie–not the book–American Psycho, which tells the story of a sharply dressed, music-obsessed Wall Street guy who also happens to be a homicidal maniac. But wait, Kanye has something to say about that whole killing bit! “You know at the end of the movie [that] he didn’t really kill anyone. [I just liked] the clean aesthetic and the way he was all about labels. I wanted to express all of that in the video.” Well, huh. Maybe this means that he’s trying to put himself in the running to score the musical version of the movie? Or he could just be expressing his worries about the economy, I guess. A side-by-side comparison of Mary Harron’s and Kanye’s competing visions after the jump.
And here I just thought he was inspired by all those silly condos going up in New York City.
Kanye West Says ‘Love Lockdown’ Video Was Inspired By ‘American Psycho’ [MTV]
[Pic via ONTD]
Thanks for the spoilers Kanye.
@D.R. Mosby: Kanye said “You know at the end of the movie…”. Sounds like he thinks we all are deconstructionists and do not give any weight to authorial intent.
That’s exactly what Kanye is counting on here. He is playing on our familiarity with pop culture (which, now more than ever, is chock full of borrowed images - isn’t much of hip hop, for example, built upon a foundation of appropriated signifiers?), along with our tendencies to subject pop culture to intense analysis - we are now trained to look for subtexts and hidden meanings, rather than to accept texts at their face value.
In the case of “Love Lockdown,”, Kanye distances himself from the violence of American Psycho by passing it off as imaginary, but then simultaneously embraces it by appropriating the imagery from that same film. His words are saying one thing (he likes the “clean aesthetic”, that’s all), but the video says another - just like you can’t hear the theme from Jaws without thinking of a person being attacked by a shark, you can’t see an apartment that resembles Patrick Bateman’s without thinking of the bloody events that shown in the film.
@D.R. Mosby: I think Kanye is trying to say that he wants to murder us all, whether it’s by wayyy too much autotune in new songs, sickening self-aggrandizing, epiliptic clothing, weird blog posts about nothing or off-the-cuff political remarks. Bateman really killed people, and those things listed are ways Kanyes trying to detach himself, to maybe be someone different. But in the end, like Patrick Bateman, the world mostly ignores those stabs and thinks he’s just busting our balls.
@MayhemintheHood: According to your analysis, then, would it be fair to say that the underlying root of Kanye’s interest in a so-called “clean aesthetic” is really his desire to cleanse the world of everyone besides himself?
@D.R. Mosby: I think I get what you’re saying, and that’s an interesting idea. It’s one that could definitely work, because perhaps that’s why Patrick Bateman’s apartment was so minimal and “clean”(although one could argue that was just a roided-out version of the 80’s “power yuppie” style of that time…still works though).
To be honest, I think he just liked the look of that scene where Bateman kills Paul Allen…with the clean, shiny apartment all covered up in case of any bloodspilling. I read that MTV article and Kanye says he’s Patrick Bateman on this album, and I also think he threw in that line “you know at the end of that movie nobody got killed” so he could simultaneously align and distance him self with the character.
No axe-wielding in Kanye’s version? Lame. It would’ve been perfect for the chorus.
Yeah, but can Kanye get a reservation at Dorisa?
What’s his business card look like?
@Audif Jackson Winters III: Nobody goes there anymore.
Does he pick up any hardbodies?
@wakeupbomb: Subtle off-white coloring, raised lettering, tasteful thickness…oh my god it even has a watermark….
His early work was a little “New Wave” for my taste…
Paul Allen has mistaken me for this dickhead Lupe Fiasco. It seems logical because Lupe also works at P&P and in fact does the same exact thing I do and he also has a penchant for Valentino suits and Oliver Peoples glasses. Lupe and I even go to the same barber, although I have a slightly better haircut.
kanye’s a dumbass. the director has said that christian bale’s character killed every one of the people, and that those scenes are not “daydreams.” it was all real.
@BladeRunner11:
kanye’s a dumbass. the director has said that christian bale’s character killed every one of the people, and that those scenes are not “daydreams.” it was all real.
Maybe Kanye’s a Deconstructionist and does not give any weight to authorial intent. By his own analysis, he apparently recognizes that there are enough signifiers encoded into the film to cast doubt on a literal interpretation of the narrative.