Caught a glimpse yesterday of Eminem’s most recent video, “Mosh.” I don’t have any particular love or hate for Eminem. If nothing else, he has a real talent for playing with media. The spot I saw on MTV News said that the video was produced by a member of the Guerilla News Network organization. The Salon review of it says it was directed by Ian Inaba. Ah, here we go, a page of commentary by the director himself. Hm, his comments turn out to be not terribly groundbreaking. And that’s pretty much how I feel about the video. [Download it here]

I mean, the video is kind of cool on one hand. It’s all animated and sinister seeming, and features all these soldiers returning from war, and finding out that they are being fucked by Bush in return for their service. So they all put these black hooded sweatshirts over their fatigues and storm out into the streets. He even squeaks out words like “rebels” and “anarchy” as this mass of black hooded figures storms the capitol.

The weird and ultimately disappointing part is that as soon as this band reaches their destination, hellbent on destruction, this one guy (I guess its M&M himself) rips off his black hoody, revealing a blue business suit underneath. And then the entire crowd starts voting. What the hell? This hellstorm of angry disaffected people comes together to overthrow a corrupt government, with the seeming intent of violence - only to be subverted at the last second by a pied-piper in a suit who suddenly brings them back into the system, yoking their anger back into appropriate channels.

It’s a cocktease is what it is. But instead people are calling it “powerful” and “groundbreaking” and suggesting its a “bold statement.” But it doesn’t even touch songs like KRS-One’s “Sound of da police” or NWA’s “Fuck tha police,” just to name a few. Hell, even Rage Against the Machine’s friendly neighborhood brand of anarchism was more stirring. I wipe my ass with stronger stuff than this. To his credit though, this will certainly piss a lot of uptight pantywaists off - and that’s always a worthy pastime.