Scariest Music Video Ever (Morford on AmericaWweStandAsOne)

[Shallah Kali]

Scariest Music Video ... Ever
Meet Dennis Madalone. He loves America. Really, *really* loves America. Oh, and sad '80s haircuts. Watch and learn

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2005/04/29/notes042905.DTL

See, there's patriotism, and there's patriotism, and then there's patriotism that's meant be written with a capital P and a long flowing scripty font with little butterflies dotting the i's and a big fat bullet hole where the o should be, and it's all circled a thousand times with a bright red crayon that's been licked to a smooth nub by aging members of, say, REO Speedwagon.

It's the kind of patriotism where everything in its warped purview has been happily whitewashed with this rabid glaze of shuddering mediocrity and flag-waving dorkiness and desperate earnestness, where dead people become white floaty angels and manly firefighters literally walk in the clouds and overweight people give each other slow-motion hugs and children become innocent cherubs of light and the American flag becomes a giant beach towel and bad hair becomes, well, even worse hair.

SNIP

Dennis has, for some reason, written a song. And made a music video to accompany it. This video, it is about America, an America that simply does not exist anywhere but in Dennis' amazingly coiffed head, an America that is all about the aforementioned twice-baked patriotism and a heartrending love of country so syrupy and exaggerated it would make you gag if it weren't so utterly perfect, so beautiful, so breathtaking in its, I don't quite know what to call it. Genius? Simplicity? Harrowing vision of colon-flaming hell? Yes.

SNIP

They are saying, stop whatever you are doing right now and click on this link right now as in immediately, please, and be enlightened as to the bizarre meta-saccharine joy that is Dennis Madalone's America. You will never be the same again.

AmericaWeStandAsOne video:
http://www.americawestandasone.com/video.html

[minkyboodle]

1. omg

that is fucking funniest thing I've ever seen... ROTFLMAO!!!! for real.

[mike6640]

2. Kick

Morford is always a hoot.

M

[mike6640]

3. okay, read the article...

finally got the movie loaded.

Oh.... My.... Goodness.

That was truly awful.

Wiping the tears of mirth and coffee of my nose from keyboard.

M

[Jack Rabbit]

4. I'm not too excited about Madalone's video

We've seen stuff like this before, only then there were no music videos. Remember Up with People? That was the early seventies version of America, We Stand as One. It was a rock show (very soft rock; I believe Pat Boone was one of the producers) in support of clean cut, patriotic values.

Madalone's video is just bad. It's preaching disguised as art. That sort of thing doesn't work from any political perspective, even one that I find more agreeable. However, this is a long ways from being Triumph of the Will. Leni Riefenstahl's documentary of the 1934 Nazi rally at Nuremberg was at least powerful enough to leave a modern audience wondering why they are so impressed with a love song to people who turned out to be mass murderers. There is no such power in Madalone's magnum opus. Anyone who watches it with an open mind comes away asking, "What on earth was that?"

Madalone is entitled to his opinion; as long as he respects my right to voice mine, I have no problem with respecting his right to voice his. He's also entitled to sink his time and effort into producing bad art. It will probably make him a lot of money which, unfortunately, will find its way into Republican campaign coffers.

[salvorhardin]

5. Everyone knows

Free To Be You and Me was where it was at. Up With People was for dorks. :-)


And yeah, that Maddalone video is just... just... awful. I thought it was a parody too at first.

[LeftCoast]

6. Please, please, please. Do yourself a favor. Read this Morford article!

OMG this made my day! Funniest read in a long time and so true!

:rofl:

[cookiebird]

7. OMG

I thought the video was a "vanity" piece, and a tacky one at that. Thanks for the Link to Morford