Norwegian rap group Gatas Parlament created a music video recently for their song, "Kill Him Now." Early on in the video, it talks about killing President Bush and, under pressure from the United States government, the Norwegian government banned the video. However, because of this little thing called the internet--which has a way of spreading around various types of speech that people find distasteful--the video can be viewed in full with English subtitles on iFilm.
The existence of the video brings up some interesting questions about freedom of speech, particularly when that speech is being used to possibly advocate murder. The other question, of course, is whether or not the damn video is any good.
The most controversial part of the video is the beginning and the end. At the beginning, you have a news announcer reporting that the (real) site killhim.nu has raised enough money to hire an assassin to kill President Bush. At the end of the video, we see the actual killing of Bush--or, the implied killing of him, through some juxtaposing of images of the president with images of an assassin carrying what appears to be a missile-launcher.
But this video isn't just about hating Bush, it's about hating America as a whole. The group has a litany of complaints about U.S. foreign policy dating back before Bush's presidency. These complaints run by quickly, accompanied by graphs that appear to be very informative, though I can't say for sure since they're not in English. Mixed in with these graphs and the lyrics and various other images, though, is what perhaps is the real source of the group's hatred toward America: clips from Saved by the Bell. Particularly, clips from the episode of Saved by the Bell that involves a dance competition.
Now, the group might have some fair criticisms about U.S. foreign policy. Perhaps they have some legitimate beefs with President Bush--I know, personally, I haven't been the biggest fan of his. However, I really would expect Saved by the Bell is the true source of their ire. Because, in case you've never seen the show, it's bad. I mean, it's really bad. And if I were watching that show and took it as any sort of indication of America--especially if I were watching an episode guest-starring Casey Kasem, for god's sake--well, I would probably hate America too. I'd be wondering just how we might bomb it right off the face of the earth.
Article comments
1 - Vidar Hokstad
I actually used to employ one of the guys in Gatas Parliament about ten years ago, initially as work placement from school.
They're self confessed revolutionaries with links to a Norwegian Marxist youth organisation and have always tried to be extremely provocative - including swearing at the Norwegian Crown Prince from the stage at a concert he was attending.
Personally I wouldn't call them anti-American. But like a large section of the European public they are deeply opposed to the US government (and given their political affiliations also against the US economic and political system), and contrary to a lot of people they are perfectly happy to make a big deal of it in ways that may get them in trouble.
2 - HW Saxton
Ironically enough, Mr. Casey Kasem is of
Middle Eastern descent.Lebanese to exact
kids.
3 - LegendaryMonkey
It IS a pretty good video.
Maybe if we here in the States would stop having tantrums and/or sticking our collective head in the sand every time someone spoke out against us, we could eliminate some of the reasons for things like this.
Not foisting our policies and ideals on other countries might be a good place to start. But hey, why deal when you can ban?
4 - Dave Nalle
>>Personally I wouldn't call them anti-American. But like a large section of the European public they are deeply opposed to the US government (and given their political affiliations also against the US economic and political system), and contrary to a lot of people they are perfectly happy to make a big deal of it in ways that may get them in trouble.<<
So basically they are loudmouthed losers who subscribed to a failed economic and political movement and have nothing meaningful to contribute to society.
Dave
5 - Joel Caris
Interesting stuff, Vidar. After posting, I regretted a bit stressing the Anti-American stuff as much as I did. It seems more that they are against much of America's foreign policy and the government more than against the country itself.
I suspect--I hope, anyway--that that's the attitude of many in Europe, as you say. Think what you want of our government, but as a people, I think we're a pretty damn good country.
LegendaryMonkey--if the government really did involve themselves to get this banned, which wouldn't really surprise me, then I do think it's silly based on the video itself. Like I said, there isn't any explicit directive to kill Bush, it really just plays more as a skit.
6 - DrPat
politicians and other people who have made a conscious decision to put themselves on a public stage are a bit more fair game
?!?!
So it's okay to advocate (maybe even carry out) assassination because politicians are public figures? How about political candidates?
How about Simon from American Idol, would it be okay for me to call for his killing?
While we get a cuddly with "it's just a video" let's use some common sense here, too. Substitute the face of your favorite public figure for W, and ask if you'd be as sanguine about it then.
7 - mistamo
There is still a lot of issues about the American foreign policies that a lot of people still don't know about. it its good that there are musician voicing out their opinion, and yes i believe the video is fictional but how many kids have died in Iraq? there were never any weapons of mass belief we all knew that there is no threat, but the goverment lied to us. The only reasons for war were oil and the expansion of American colonialism and just like any war innocent lives are taken
8 - jo molu
check out this band called weapons of mass belief
9 - ima
The Norwegian government didn't actually ban the video as far as i know. What happened was that the American embassy in Oslo pressed police charges against the Killhim.nu website, which in turn caused more publicity about their point of view then they could have ever managed on their own. The police never did anything to persue the case, other then sending a letter telling them to remove the content of the website.
The video is actually pretty good if you undersand Norwegian, the translated subtitles are somewhere between inaccurate and plain wrong.