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Sidescroller (Level 15)
Went to lollapalooza and turned 18 at mindnight. A pretty good leadup to manhood.
followed by
31
I already posted this over on Giant Bomb, but figured I would duplicate it here because I use this site way more and I am a needy attention whore.
So over the last three days my friend and I have been working on making our first serious attempt at rap music. About an hour ago we completed it, figured I may as well post in here and see what you guys think.
Any responses are appreciated. We worked really hard on this, here are the lyrics.
Robert was robbed blind every time he got in line
At the lunch counter, got pounded when he caught the devils eye
So every day through 7th grade he prayed to make it to spring break
So he could take his conscious out of orbit and let it escape
He’d take all his frustrations and put them on tape
And drape poetry around mistakes to let them take shape
What would hurt became beautiful, his attitude more suitable
To shoot the goal he aimed for to become the undisputable.
Champion of his crucible, king of all things musical
With a stature to dispatch to detract from his fractured cuticle
So by eighth grade it was bye-bye beyblades and straight-A’s
His hey-days would be made to agape the gateways
His freshman year he was unrecognizable
Freestyles pulled a sizeable tidal of guys who liked his flow
Made all of his dough on weekends playing his local sold out shows
Opener to dope-for-sure when he’d throw his poetic prose
Rows upon rows drove down, just so they could see Rob up close
Didn't need to boast, he did it for himself, everything he composed
Father’s ghost was never there, his mother out having affairs
But the public loved it and they sent the chorus sailing through the air
Spotlights
When we soak in the rays we become godlike
When we litter the stage with all our dropped mics
Not like we bite with our bark
What’s left for us when it’s over and the spotlight goes dark?
Robert was robbed blind the first time that he laid eyes
On the vision of beauty that made him lose part of his mind
Took her out for fine dine, wasn’t old enough for wine
But he stole his mother’s whiskey however risky so she’d say “be mine”
Time after time inclined to have love defined through the white powder lines
And she stayed by his side, night after night, so swept up in a haze of smoke that it seemed alright
When on graduation night on a bed of used rubbers, Robert said to his lover that there would be no other
No longer would he suffer if he had her as a cover to smother out the pain that dripped off the end of his cutter
So after one more sex session he sputtered a suggestion
Through the stuttering he pulled out the ring and popped the question
Destiny says he’s blessed to be resting in ecstasy
Lest he be messed when he’s pressed by the pressure of the
Spotlights
When we soak in the rays we become godlike
When we litter the stage with all our dropped mics
Not like we bite with our bark
What’s left for us when it’s over and the spotlight goes dark?
(Hook twice)
Robert was robbed blind when he first got signed
Aligned with the hive mind, left his old life behind
Inclined to resign at the top of his prime
But still working the grind by the time he hit 35
Not like we bite with our bark
What’s left for us when it’s over and the spotlight goes dark
Parked in the lot, taking shot after shot
Exploring memory lanes corners that he long forgot
Bought his girl’s affections, but she went her own direction
Had a collection of guys that made her high off the injections
So now at the intersection of his failure and perfection
He reflects on not being there to witness cancer’s progression
In the womb that blessed him overwrought with infection that nested
Her face in his mind, his finger on the trigger, he depressed it
2 Comments
So, I guess this what me laying all of my credibility on the line looks
like. The movie is getting almost universally panned by critics, and
the Screened community appears to have taken a generally negative stance
on it as well. I think a lot of the negative reaction came from
expectations that people had about the film, most of which were left
unsatisfied. People saw the surrealist-fantasy-action sequences in the
movie and wanted to go see a cheesy, over-the-top action movie ala 300
or even Kick-Ass. What they got didn't resemble either of these things.
I'm not saying that this movie is a masterpiece, or that it deserves any great praise, but I am saying that it is a good film, and hopefully this blog will help people view it at a different angle than they initially saw the movie.
SPOILER WARNING: For good measure, I am not going to be censoring myself about any aspect of the film, so it is inevitable my ramblings will go into spoiler territory, just a warning for those who care.
Review after review points out the same common complaints, and many are valid given the reviewers' overall opinion of the movie, so instead of trying to counter those, I'm going to go over a few of my own points based on how I think people misjudged the film. Alright then, here we go
#1 Sucker Punch is more intelligent than audiences thought.
Once again, when people talk about this movie, almost all of their attention is focused toward the action sequences, seen in full effect above. What they don't say, is that these sequences may not even take up a full-third of the films running time, as flashy and CGI-tacular as they are, they are not meant to be the only focus-point of the movie.
What really is the main focus-point of the movie is the theme of oppression. The main character Babydoll is oppressed by both her father, and later the asylum staff, and the film chronicles her struggle to fight back against them. The way the film presents this is not over-the-top in the slightest, in fact in the entire opening sequence is presented as a sort of music-video, during which I audibly heard audience members complain about their confusion.
Soon, the Asylum turns into a Brothel (which I'll get into later), but the dark tone remains there, the girls are still remain captive there, and their danger remains very real.
I chose to bring up this point first because it feeds into the other points I am going to make, so let the remaining points serve as more proof to this initial one
#2 Sucker Punch is not misogynistic
This is probably the biggest controversy surrounding Sucker Punch. Despite being a film that wants to promote itself as a female-empowerment movie, the way it goes about it is sexist.
There are people who stand under the idea that even if the film carries an anti-sexism message, the fact that they still dress-down the female-characters purely to titlate the audience kind of destroys any point they had.
Well, we live in a world where first person shooter videogames can carry an anti-war message, so I disagree with the above statement in the first place, but I don't think that the way the female characters were represented was purely out of a need to cater to the pervy-14-year-old-boy audience.
The movie takes place across three planes of reality. The first one, The Asylum, is completely normal on the surface, it looks like a standard-issue mental hospital where everything goes according to plan. Obviously, darker things are done on the side, and this is what leads to the manifestation of the second plane of reality.
The Brothel, which is Babydoll's interpretation of the Asylum, is a much more literal manifestation of what they do there. The women are dressed down because they are completely under control of the men, and this is how the men view them, as their pretty little toys to do whatever they want with. It sounds dark because it is.
But this feeds into the third layer of the film, the action-sequences. While it's easy on a surface level to view the sequences as being everything the aforementioned pervy-14-year-old-boy would find "awesome", they are what they are for another reason. Think about the four setpieces they use in the film. A snow-covered temple filled with samurais, a war-tarnished battleground, a fiery dragon-lair, and, finally, a futuristic train/city. These choices are interesting precisely because they are juvenile fantasies, they are all setpieces that are representative of masculinity, and the female characters are fighting against it.
These action-sequences represent Babydoll dancing, and whenever she is about to dance the film cuts to one of these. Earlier in the film the character of Sweet Pea talks about how dancing should be a reflection of oneself, and their inner-desires manifested. This is exactly what we are seeing on the screen, Babydoll's inner-desire is to fight back from this male empowerment fantasy and turn the tables on them, establish control.
I can't say the action sequences weren't intended to appeal to a lower demographic, because from a marketing standpoint they obviously were. What I am saying is that there is definitely an intelligent reason why they exist in the format that they do, and are not purely misogynistic testosterone-fests.
#3 Sucker Punch is a much darker film than people thought.
As stated before, the main theme of the movie is oppression, so it's naturally a dark movie, but let me just go down a checklist of plot points real fast.
The first thing that happens in the movie is the killing of Babydoll's sister by her father, which she is blamed for and sent to the asylum, the father is able to pay off the head of the asylum to have her lobotomized ASAP, which happens to be five days from her arrival. During her time in the asylum/brothel, she is witness one of her friends being stabbed to death, two of her friends being shot whilst unarmed and crying, and she herself is lobotomized. If the movie were presented in a darker light, this would be one of the bleakest, most depressing movies ever, but it's not presented darkly. It's presented from the viewpoint of a mind that is trying to cope with tragedy in an unimaginable hell.
Thus, it's up to the viewer to piece together what is really happening, and once you climb that wall, much of the movie takes on an entirely new meaning. A lot of people were put-off by the ending message of the movie declaring that our struggle is futile, and it will only end in failure. I think the message of the movie is that if we truly fight with all of our strength, we can manage to make an impact in our situation, no matter how small. Babydoll did succeed in letting Sweet Pea escape, and the head of the asylum, as well as her father are in police custody by the end of the film.
As I have described, much of the extremely dark plot is covered up by the presentation, which is done in an almost playful-fantasy setting. There is a reason why it is done this way, but I haven't read anybody get it right, so, with my final point, I am going to give my interpretation
#4 Sucker Punch was not interpreted correctly
The beginning of the film shows Babydoll going to the asylum. She has literally no dialogue during these scenes. She looks into the asylum and sees all of the future characters, as well as all the "items" they will later need to obtain during the films plot. The film then time-lapses to her actual lobotomy, up until the pike is literally about to go into her eyeball, and she grabs it and says "stop." This is her first line of spoken dialogue in the entire movie, and is how the movie transitions the asylum into the brothel. She literally gets up, walks into the other room, and it is a brothel.
How were people willing to just forget about that moment? How can you accept an entire shift of setting and not question it? I don't know how, but they apparently did, I really want to read someone else's interpretation of what they thought that scene represented.
My interpretation is fairly straightforward. I believe that the film skipped over her five days spent in the asylum as a whole ,and at the very beginning of the film she was lobotomized. In the moment of the lobotomy, she flashes back to the last five days and all the events that brought her to the table, with John Hamm's steely gaze upon her. These memories are not how the events actually transpired however, and are crude re-imagining of them, mainly because while she's imagining them she has a fucking pike piercing her brain.
What I am suggesting, is that the movie did not show us events in real-time, we were not with Babydoll during her struggle to survive the asylum, we were with her after her plight had already failed. In short, the entire movie is a fragmented flashback.
This explained a lot of the movie's surrealism to me, and I think if the movie did a better job at letting you know this is what actually happened, a lot of people would have appreciated it more, but they decided to play it more subtle. There is no doubt in my mind that this is the actual intention of the director however, there is too much symbolism that this is the right interpretation.
Take the action sequences. If I recall correctly, each of them ends with her stabbing the last enemy in the brain. This isn't just for flair, it's her actual situation, and her fleeting desire to turn it around to the opposite side.
Before the twist in this movie, I was comparing it to the likes of Kill Bill and 300. After, I am seeing more elements of Brazil and Jacob's Ladder. I'm not saying that Sucker Punch is as good as either one of those films, but I think people need to view it as more of a psychological-action movie. It is certainly different than anything I have seen before, and is far from the run-of-the-mill CGI-fest people are making it out to be.
It may not be the greatest film ever made, but if people asked me if I got my eight dollars worth for the movie ticket, I would say hell yes.
I'm not saying that this movie is a masterpiece, or that it deserves any great praise, but I am saying that it is a good film, and hopefully this blog will help people view it at a different angle than they initially saw the movie.
SPOILER WARNING: For good measure, I am not going to be censoring myself about any aspect of the film, so it is inevitable my ramblings will go into spoiler territory, just a warning for those who care.
Review after review points out the same common complaints, and many are valid given the reviewers' overall opinion of the movie, so instead of trying to counter those, I'm going to go over a few of my own points based on how I think people misjudged the film. Alright then, here we go
#1 Sucker Punch is more intelligent than audiences thought.
Mmmm. Scholarly
Once again, when people talk about this movie, almost all of their attention is focused toward the action sequences, seen in full effect above. What they don't say, is that these sequences may not even take up a full-third of the films running time, as flashy and CGI-tacular as they are, they are not meant to be the only focus-point of the movie.
What really is the main focus-point of the movie is the theme of oppression. The main character Babydoll is oppressed by both her father, and later the asylum staff, and the film chronicles her struggle to fight back against them. The way the film presents this is not over-the-top in the slightest, in fact in the entire opening sequence is presented as a sort of music-video, during which I audibly heard audience members complain about their confusion.
Soon, the Asylum turns into a Brothel (which I'll get into later), but the dark tone remains there, the girls are still remain captive there, and their danger remains very real.
I chose to bring up this point first because it feeds into the other points I am going to make, so let the remaining points serve as more proof to this initial one
#2 Sucker Punch is not misogynistic
Mmmmm. Tasteful
This is probably the biggest controversy surrounding Sucker Punch. Despite being a film that wants to promote itself as a female-empowerment movie, the way it goes about it is sexist.
There are people who stand under the idea that even if the film carries an anti-sexism message, the fact that they still dress-down the female-characters purely to titlate the audience kind of destroys any point they had.
Well, we live in a world where first person shooter videogames can carry an anti-war message, so I disagree with the above statement in the first place, but I don't think that the way the female characters were represented was purely out of a need to cater to the pervy-14-year-old-boy audience.
The movie takes place across three planes of reality. The first one, The Asylum, is completely normal on the surface, it looks like a standard-issue mental hospital where everything goes according to plan. Obviously, darker things are done on the side, and this is what leads to the manifestation of the second plane of reality.
The Brothel, which is Babydoll's interpretation of the Asylum, is a much more literal manifestation of what they do there. The women are dressed down because they are completely under control of the men, and this is how the men view them, as their pretty little toys to do whatever they want with. It sounds dark because it is.
But this feeds into the third layer of the film, the action-sequences. While it's easy on a surface level to view the sequences as being everything the aforementioned pervy-14-year-old-boy would find "awesome", they are what they are for another reason. Think about the four setpieces they use in the film. A snow-covered temple filled with samurais, a war-tarnished battleground, a fiery dragon-lair, and, finally, a futuristic train/city. These choices are interesting precisely because they are juvenile fantasies, they are all setpieces that are representative of masculinity, and the female characters are fighting against it.
These action-sequences represent Babydoll dancing, and whenever she is about to dance the film cuts to one of these. Earlier in the film the character of Sweet Pea talks about how dancing should be a reflection of oneself, and their inner-desires manifested. This is exactly what we are seeing on the screen, Babydoll's inner-desire is to fight back from this male empowerment fantasy and turn the tables on them, establish control.
I can't say the action sequences weren't intended to appeal to a lower demographic, because from a marketing standpoint they obviously were. What I am saying is that there is definitely an intelligent reason why they exist in the format that they do, and are not purely misogynistic testosterone-fests.
#3 Sucker Punch is a much darker film than people thought.
Mmm. Depressing
As stated before, the main theme of the movie is oppression, so it's naturally a dark movie, but let me just go down a checklist of plot points real fast.
The first thing that happens in the movie is the killing of Babydoll's sister by her father, which she is blamed for and sent to the asylum, the father is able to pay off the head of the asylum to have her lobotomized ASAP, which happens to be five days from her arrival. During her time in the asylum/brothel, she is witness one of her friends being stabbed to death, two of her friends being shot whilst unarmed and crying, and she herself is lobotomized. If the movie were presented in a darker light, this would be one of the bleakest, most depressing movies ever, but it's not presented darkly. It's presented from the viewpoint of a mind that is trying to cope with tragedy in an unimaginable hell.
Thus, it's up to the viewer to piece together what is really happening, and once you climb that wall, much of the movie takes on an entirely new meaning. A lot of people were put-off by the ending message of the movie declaring that our struggle is futile, and it will only end in failure. I think the message of the movie is that if we truly fight with all of our strength, we can manage to make an impact in our situation, no matter how small. Babydoll did succeed in letting Sweet Pea escape, and the head of the asylum, as well as her father are in police custody by the end of the film.
As I have described, much of the extremely dark plot is covered up by the presentation, which is done in an almost playful-fantasy setting. There is a reason why it is done this way, but I haven't read anybody get it right, so, with my final point, I am going to give my interpretation
#4 Sucker Punch was not interpreted correctly
Mmmmmmmmm....I don't know what this is so I'm just going to hit the "brain-off" switch
The beginning of the film shows Babydoll going to the asylum. She has literally no dialogue during these scenes. She looks into the asylum and sees all of the future characters, as well as all the "items" they will later need to obtain during the films plot. The film then time-lapses to her actual lobotomy, up until the pike is literally about to go into her eyeball, and she grabs it and says "stop." This is her first line of spoken dialogue in the entire movie, and is how the movie transitions the asylum into the brothel. She literally gets up, walks into the other room, and it is a brothel.
How were people willing to just forget about that moment? How can you accept an entire shift of setting and not question it? I don't know how, but they apparently did, I really want to read someone else's interpretation of what they thought that scene represented.
My interpretation is fairly straightforward. I believe that the film skipped over her five days spent in the asylum as a whole ,and at the very beginning of the film she was lobotomized. In the moment of the lobotomy, she flashes back to the last five days and all the events that brought her to the table, with John Hamm's steely gaze upon her. These memories are not how the events actually transpired however, and are crude re-imagining of them, mainly because while she's imagining them she has a fucking pike piercing her brain.
What I am suggesting, is that the movie did not show us events in real-time, we were not with Babydoll during her struggle to survive the asylum, we were with her after her plight had already failed. In short, the entire movie is a fragmented flashback.
This explained a lot of the movie's surrealism to me, and I think if the movie did a better job at letting you know this is what actually happened, a lot of people would have appreciated it more, but they decided to play it more subtle. There is no doubt in my mind that this is the actual intention of the director however, there is too much symbolism that this is the right interpretation.
Take the action sequences. If I recall correctly, each of them ends with her stabbing the last enemy in the brain. This isn't just for flair, it's her actual situation, and her fleeting desire to turn it around to the opposite side.
Before the twist in this movie, I was comparing it to the likes of Kill Bill and 300. After, I am seeing more elements of Brazil and Jacob's Ladder. I'm not saying that Sucker Punch is as good as either one of those films, but I think people need to view it as more of a psychological-action movie. It is certainly different than anything I have seen before, and is far from the run-of-the-mill CGI-fest people are making it out to be.
It may not be the greatest film ever made, but if people asked me if I got my eight dollars worth for the movie ticket, I would say hell yes.
As we enter Oscar Season, I figured now would be a good a time as any to lay down my top 5 of 2010 before it gets demolished by the incoming assault of movies late-November through December, also seeing as how I just mentally figured out how I would rank them, I just kind of felt like sharing. Feel free to share your own list here. Also I'm not going to include any pictures, I was just diagnosed with mono and I'm going to use that as an excuse for being lazy as hell. This is just gonna be a brief rundown.
The most recent movie on this list, but one that left a huge impression on me. Every scene, every room in this film seems so deliberately designed to create a feeling of unease in you, The perfectly askew camera angles, the unsettling stillness of all the rooms, and the ambient noises that fill the house, everything was put there for a reason. Sure the film uses a lot of jump-scares, but they are all extremely well-earned. I didn't like Paranormal Activity 1 because it built a creepy atmosphere, but failed to deliver a satisfying payoff. The last half-hour of PA2 makes the first movie look like a joke.
Machete- Purely for the fun theater experience
Piranha 3D- See: Machete
Kick-Ass- Early on in the year was my number 1, but got pushed back by the others
Special Awards
Worst Movie of the year- Devil
Most unmemorable movie of the year- Tie: Salt, Despicable Me
Most disappointing movie of the year- Tie: Predators, The Expendables
Still worth the inflated ticket price- Avatar Imax 3D
5. Toy Story 3
While I don't think it stood up to the near-perfection of the first two Toy Story movies, it was still a fantastic sendoff to the franchise. My only real complaint is that it relies too much on familiarity with the other two movies to truly resonate, and it's message seems more geared towards young adults than actual kids. I still think kids will enjoy it on a surface level however, and it's good enough to snag the number 5 spot on my list4. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
I spent a long time weighing this against Kick-Ass for my number 4 spot, but eventually gave Scott Pilgrim the edge, mainly for it's hyperkinectic ADD style. This is something a lot of people disliked about the movie, but I loved it, the entire film was like one giant rollercoaster ride, I've never seen anything like it before, and I think it suceeded at exactly what it was trying to do. Easily one I could watch over and over again.3. Paranormal Activity 2
The most recent movie on this list, but one that left a huge impression on me. Every scene, every room in this film seems so deliberately designed to create a feeling of unease in you, The perfectly askew camera angles, the unsettling stillness of all the rooms, and the ambient noises that fill the house, everything was put there for a reason. Sure the film uses a lot of jump-scares, but they are all extremely well-earned. I didn't like Paranormal Activity 1 because it built a creepy atmosphere, but failed to deliver a satisfying payoff. The last half-hour of PA2 makes the first movie look like a joke.
2. The Social Network
This movie has quite possibly the best dialogue I can ever remember in a film. They have created an iconic character that will forever be remembered in film history with Mark Zuckerberg. Sure, he's based on a real person, but Jesse Eisenberg just brings such pitch-perfect arrogance to the character that it's going to become impossible to hear the name "Mark Zuckerberg" without thinking of Eisenberg before the real guy. Worth seeing for the powerhouse performances alone, but the direction and writing make it my second favorite of the year1. Inception
Will most certainly be a lot of people's number one movie of the year, but there's no denying the genius of Inception. The rules that Christopher Nolan establishes in the movie, and the depths to which he takes them are truly outstanding. What's really remarkable though is how easy he makes it to follow. I haven't talked to a single person who was actually confused about the movies logic (aside from the ending, of course), which is quite a feat for such a complicated concept. Everyone is cast perfectly, and the set-pieces are absolutely breathtaking. The hotel fight-scene will go down as one of my favorite movie scenes of all time, and this movie is one of the few that deserves all of the hype it getsRunners-Up
Machete- Purely for the fun theater experience
Piranha 3D- See: Machete
Kick-Ass- Early on in the year was my number 1, but got pushed back by the others
Special Awards
Worst Movie of the year- Devil
Most unmemorable movie of the year- Tie: Salt, Despicable Me
Most disappointing movie of the year- Tie: Predators, The Expendables
Still worth the inflated ticket price- Avatar Imax 3D
So I got a spot on my school's newspaper reviewing movies, I'm going to try to do at least two for every issue. For the first issue I'm doing Devil and The Town. I already have the column typed up, the only problem is I don't have a title for it.
SO. If anybody is more creative than I, and would like to pitch a title to me, feel free to do it. Keep in mind that this is a recurring column, and thus will remain the title for all future articles. Also, you are most likely going to receive no credit for the idea, but you would receive my absolute and unconditional love.
SO. If anybody is more creative than I, and would like to pitch a title to me, feel free to do it. Keep in mind that this is a recurring column, and thus will remain the title for all future articles. Also, you are most likely going to receive no credit for the idea, but you would receive my absolute and unconditional love.
Not since Bruce Springsteen's classic "Born in the U.S.A" has a song been so misjudged by the masses. The lyrics were just too cryptic for most people, many shrugged off the line "Sent me off to Vietnam, to go and kill the yellow man" as a simple statement of apathy towards The Simpsons. Of course, to those of you reading this blog, it may come as a shock to you that "Born in the U.S.A" is actually NOT about detesting The Simpsons, but is in fact about the cruelties of the Vietnam War.
Following in Bruce Springsteen's sizable footprints, Will.I.Am has taken it upon himself to unleash a intensely political song to the radio waves for mass consumption. The trick is, to the untrained ear this only sounds like a simple party-pop song. However, like any good film by David Lynch or Michael Haneke, the song reveals itself to you in layers. You can't pick up on all the symbolism upon the first listen, but by the 150th time, I think you may have a firm grasp on what is being said. Of course, how could one listen to the song 150 times in a row voluntarily? I'll tell you how, the Black Eyed Peas radio stations enough money to play the song at least ten times a day, if you drive for at least half an hour once a day, you are guaranteed to hear it at some point, and if you hear it once a day, you will have listened to it 150 times in approximately half of a year. I guarantee you have heard this song, probably more than you have ever wanted to, but I'm about to make you hear it in an entire new light. The song I am talking about, of course, is I Gotta Feeling.
I Gotta Feeling is a chilling tale of a young boy who has just come back from the Vietnam War, both physically and mentally scarred. He tries to forget about his troubles in the only way he can, partying and taking copius amounts of drugs. Unfortunately, this only leads him further down the rabbit hole, as he begins experiencing Vietnam flashbacks and suffering from clear signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Let me guide you through the song step by step so as to understand it as greatly as possible.
The song begins with a fairly upbeat guitar strumming pattern, to symbolize the hope of the young soldier coming home from Vietnam. It doesn't take long before the subtle tones of sadness infiltrate the back of his conscious, in the form of soft violins in the background. The violins symbolizing the lingering terror in his conscious, the ever-present reminder of the horrors he witnessed, the faces of the people he killed. Bravely, he confronts the sadness by proudly proclaiming
I Gotta Feeling, that tonight's gonna be a good night, tonight's gonna be a good night, that tonight's gonna be a good good night
This is the boy's proclamation to himself. It's been so long since he's had a "good" night, that he is desperately convincing himself that maybe, somehow, tonight will be different. Tonight he will be able to forget the atrocities he committed and be able to reclaim his innocence. He repeats it several times out loud, and even gives a meager "woohoo" inside his head to further convince himself as the music picks up tempo, raising the pressure on the situation, he sings the above line again, this time with the autotuned voice of Fergie accompanying him. The autotuned voice represents the killing machine he has stored up inside of him, prying to take control. This use of auto-tune conveys a sense of auto-pilot, that he is a mindless robot that is controlled by others, no longer even in control of his own voice pitch, or, symbolically, his own actions. The ever-looming autotuned voice haunts him throughout the music. As the autotuned voice gets more apparent, he attempts to drown it out again by thinking about his escapism yet again. He proclaims
Tonight's the night, let's live it up, I've got my money, let's spend it up
He is trying to retroact his post traumatic emotions by engaging in irresponsible behavior. No doubt spending all of his money on drugs and parties, as an escape from having to remember what has happened in the war. Unfortunatly, he suddenly and violently has a vietnam flashback
Go out and smash it, like oh my god, jump off that sofa, let's kick it off
This is no doubt a direct flashback to his drill instructor ordering him and his unit to destory a village, or "Smash it". The "like oh my god", resembles his reaction to the order, having the utmost reluctance to follow through on it, but he is no longer his own person. He has no choice but to "jump off that sofa" and "kick it off" referring to various methods to hang himself. Suicide being the only reasonable escape he can see from the pain.
I know that we'll have a ball if we get down and go out and just lose it all, I feel stressed out, I wanna let it go, Let's go way spaced out and losing all control
This represents that the boy's only option of ever being able to forget about the attrocities commited in the war is to lose his sanity all together. He feels stressed out trying to fight back the pain he has pent up inside, and the only way to recover from it is to "lose all control", or let his mindless killing machine take over, losing any trace of humanity he had left. This is said in the voice of his millitary split-personality because it wants to take control ,and wants him to lose it. It is tempting him with the promise that it will relieve it's stress if he relinquishes control. He attempts to fight back by partying some more.
Fill up my cup, mozel tov, look at her dancing, just take it off.
The boy attempts to forget his troubles through alcohol and partying, being much more aggressive than he was before. Even going as far to demand that a woman take her clothes off, anything he can do to forget. Unfortunatly, it's too late, and he slips into another flashback.
Let's paint the town, we'll shut it down, let's burn the roof, and then we'll do it again
Suddenly he's back in vietnam. His drill instructor orders his squad to paint the town in the enemies blood, shutting it down and killing anybody inside. He's instructed to burn all of the houses down, the images of the thatched roofs burning still imprinted on his eyes as if it were happening right now, they commit these attrocities and then it's on to the next town.
Let's do it, let's do it, let's do it, let's do it
All of the heinous acts he's commited come flowing back to him all at once in sequence. The faces of the women and children as they are being burned alive, the bullets flying through the air and into anything that stands in the way, it all comes flooding back, causing him to cower on the floor, while the ever-presented, malicious autotuned voice reassures him that this is "living it up" Suddenly he snaps back to the beginning of the cycle, apparently the next night, after cowering in fear of his flashbacks the last one, hoping beyond hope yet again that this will be his unobtainable "good night"
I gotta feeling, that tonight's gonna be a good night...
This time the auto-tuned voice of Fergie gives the "woo-hoo" as opposed to the boy, symbolizing that she has more control over him than ever before, and is celebrating it. She watches in amusement as he tries to fight off his demons in vain. Of course, the exact same flashbacks persist, this time with the auto-tuned voice of Fergie taunting him between lines. A notable one is when he says "Fill up my cup" and the autotuned voice simply says "DRANK!", as if to say "Go ahead and drank, there is nothing you can do to stop this, I am in control and there is nothing you can do about it" When he gets back to the "Let's paint the town" part, it's his voice yelling inbetween lines as opposed to fergies, clearly meaning to say that he and the killing-machine from the war have become one, and he has spiraled into insanity, with no way back. The flashbacks continue, this time more violent and aggressive than EVER before.
Here we come, here we go, we gotta rock. Easy come, easy go, now we on top
These lines do not even try to hide the fact that they are about the Vietnam War. The images are very clear of his squad coming in the town, watching the troop easily come in and watching them "easy go" as they pump them full of lead, securing america's position as number one.
Feel the shot, body rock, rock it don't stop, round and round, up and down, around the clock
Now things get really disturbing, he begins to remember the gunshot wound he suffered in combat, and this causes him to enter a seizure, the flashbacks have finally had a toll on his real-life body, and he is writhing on the floor with no sign of stopping. He stays upon the floor, seizuring for an indeterminate amount of time, presumably hours.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Saturday to Sunday
He continues to suffer seizures throughout the week with no end in sight, all the while still suffering flashbacks, which can be heard in the background in the form of his millitary squad shouting "DO IT!". He becomes dillusional and ends up back at the beginning of the deadly cycle again as he fades from conciousness
I gotta feeling, that tonight's gonna be a good night
The music builds as he fills himself with hope, hope that in the afterlife he will be able to atone for his attrocities, hope that he can be forgiven for the lives that he has extinguished. As his vitality fades, he gets happier knowing the pain is finally about to end. In his final moments of life, with all of the flashback voices gone, he let's out his dying breath in the form of a meager
Woo-Hoo......
Clearly, the song is one of the most haunting and beautiful compositions ever released, and the tragedy in it all is that barely anybody realizes it. I am a prophet, having listened to this song no less than 200 times, I consider myself an expert on the artistry that is the Black Eyed Peas. I hope I have guided you on your journey, and you discover many more of the masterpieces by this amazing band.
Following in Bruce Springsteen's sizable footprints, Will.I.Am has taken it upon himself to unleash a intensely political song to the radio waves for mass consumption. The trick is, to the untrained ear this only sounds like a simple party-pop song. However, like any good film by David Lynch or Michael Haneke, the song reveals itself to you in layers. You can't pick up on all the symbolism upon the first listen, but by the 150th time, I think you may have a firm grasp on what is being said. Of course, how could one listen to the song 150 times in a row voluntarily? I'll tell you how, the Black Eyed Peas radio stations enough money to play the song at least ten times a day, if you drive for at least half an hour once a day, you are guaranteed to hear it at some point, and if you hear it once a day, you will have listened to it 150 times in approximately half of a year. I guarantee you have heard this song, probably more than you have ever wanted to, but I'm about to make you hear it in an entire new light. The song I am talking about, of course, is I Gotta Feeling.
BEP? More like PTSD
I Gotta Feeling is a chilling tale of a young boy who has just come back from the Vietnam War, both physically and mentally scarred. He tries to forget about his troubles in the only way he can, partying and taking copius amounts of drugs. Unfortunately, this only leads him further down the rabbit hole, as he begins experiencing Vietnam flashbacks and suffering from clear signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Let me guide you through the song step by step so as to understand it as greatly as possible.
The song begins with a fairly upbeat guitar strumming pattern, to symbolize the hope of the young soldier coming home from Vietnam. It doesn't take long before the subtle tones of sadness infiltrate the back of his conscious, in the form of soft violins in the background. The violins symbolizing the lingering terror in his conscious, the ever-present reminder of the horrors he witnessed, the faces of the people he killed. Bravely, he confronts the sadness by proudly proclaiming
I Gotta Feeling, that tonight's gonna be a good night, tonight's gonna be a good night, that tonight's gonna be a good good night
This is the boy's proclamation to himself. It's been so long since he's had a "good" night, that he is desperately convincing himself that maybe, somehow, tonight will be different. Tonight he will be able to forget the atrocities he committed and be able to reclaim his innocence. He repeats it several times out loud, and even gives a meager "woohoo" inside his head to further convince himself as the music picks up tempo, raising the pressure on the situation, he sings the above line again, this time with the autotuned voice of Fergie accompanying him. The autotuned voice represents the killing machine he has stored up inside of him, prying to take control. This use of auto-tune conveys a sense of auto-pilot, that he is a mindless robot that is controlled by others, no longer even in control of his own voice pitch, or, symbolically, his own actions. The ever-looming autotuned voice haunts him throughout the music. As the autotuned voice gets more apparent, he attempts to drown it out again by thinking about his escapism yet again. He proclaims
Tonight's the night, let's live it up, I've got my money, let's spend it up
He is trying to retroact his post traumatic emotions by engaging in irresponsible behavior. No doubt spending all of his money on drugs and parties, as an escape from having to remember what has happened in the war. Unfortunatly, he suddenly and violently has a vietnam flashback
Go out and smash it, like oh my god, jump off that sofa, let's kick it off
This is no doubt a direct flashback to his drill instructor ordering him and his unit to destory a village, or "Smash it". The "like oh my god", resembles his reaction to the order, having the utmost reluctance to follow through on it, but he is no longer his own person. He has no choice but to "jump off that sofa" and "kick it off" referring to various methods to hang himself. Suicide being the only reasonable escape he can see from the pain.
I know that we'll have a ball if we get down and go out and just lose it all, I feel stressed out, I wanna let it go, Let's go way spaced out and losing all control
This represents that the boy's only option of ever being able to forget about the attrocities commited in the war is to lose his sanity all together. He feels stressed out trying to fight back the pain he has pent up inside, and the only way to recover from it is to "lose all control", or let his mindless killing machine take over, losing any trace of humanity he had left. This is said in the voice of his millitary split-personality because it wants to take control ,and wants him to lose it. It is tempting him with the promise that it will relieve it's stress if he relinquishes control. He attempts to fight back by partying some more.
Fill up my cup, mozel tov, look at her dancing, just take it off.
The boy attempts to forget his troubles through alcohol and partying, being much more aggressive than he was before. Even going as far to demand that a woman take her clothes off, anything he can do to forget. Unfortunatly, it's too late, and he slips into another flashback.
Let's paint the town, we'll shut it down, let's burn the roof, and then we'll do it again
Suddenly he's back in vietnam. His drill instructor orders his squad to paint the town in the enemies blood, shutting it down and killing anybody inside. He's instructed to burn all of the houses down, the images of the thatched roofs burning still imprinted on his eyes as if it were happening right now, they commit these attrocities and then it's on to the next town.
Let's do it, let's do it, let's do it, let's do it
All of the heinous acts he's commited come flowing back to him all at once in sequence. The faces of the women and children as they are being burned alive, the bullets flying through the air and into anything that stands in the way, it all comes flooding back, causing him to cower on the floor, while the ever-presented, malicious autotuned voice reassures him that this is "living it up" Suddenly he snaps back to the beginning of the cycle, apparently the next night, after cowering in fear of his flashbacks the last one, hoping beyond hope yet again that this will be his unobtainable "good night"
I gotta feeling, that tonight's gonna be a good night...
This time the auto-tuned voice of Fergie gives the "woo-hoo" as opposed to the boy, symbolizing that she has more control over him than ever before, and is celebrating it. She watches in amusement as he tries to fight off his demons in vain. Of course, the exact same flashbacks persist, this time with the auto-tuned voice of Fergie taunting him between lines. A notable one is when he says "Fill up my cup" and the autotuned voice simply says "DRANK!", as if to say "Go ahead and drank, there is nothing you can do to stop this, I am in control and there is nothing you can do about it" When he gets back to the "Let's paint the town" part, it's his voice yelling inbetween lines as opposed to fergies, clearly meaning to say that he and the killing-machine from the war have become one, and he has spiraled into insanity, with no way back. The flashbacks continue, this time more violent and aggressive than EVER before.
Here we come, here we go, we gotta rock. Easy come, easy go, now we on top
These lines do not even try to hide the fact that they are about the Vietnam War. The images are very clear of his squad coming in the town, watching the troop easily come in and watching them "easy go" as they pump them full of lead, securing america's position as number one.
Feel the shot, body rock, rock it don't stop, round and round, up and down, around the clock
Now things get really disturbing, he begins to remember the gunshot wound he suffered in combat, and this causes him to enter a seizure, the flashbacks have finally had a toll on his real-life body, and he is writhing on the floor with no sign of stopping. He stays upon the floor, seizuring for an indeterminate amount of time, presumably hours.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Saturday to Sunday
He continues to suffer seizures throughout the week with no end in sight, all the while still suffering flashbacks, which can be heard in the background in the form of his millitary squad shouting "DO IT!". He becomes dillusional and ends up back at the beginning of the deadly cycle again as he fades from conciousness
I gotta feeling, that tonight's gonna be a good night
The music builds as he fills himself with hope, hope that in the afterlife he will be able to atone for his attrocities, hope that he can be forgiven for the lives that he has extinguished. As his vitality fades, he gets happier knowing the pain is finally about to end. In his final moments of life, with all of the flashback voices gone, he let's out his dying breath in the form of a meager
Woo-Hoo......
Clearly, the song is one of the most haunting and beautiful compositions ever released, and the tragedy in it all is that barely anybody realizes it. I am a prophet, having listened to this song no less than 200 times, I consider myself an expert on the artistry that is the Black Eyed Peas. I hope I have guided you on your journey, and you discover many more of the masterpieces by this amazing band.
