The return of M.I.A and a controversial music video that we shouldn’t consider a mindless stunt

Since my Sky+ subscription expired, leaving me with little more than The Friends Channel, The Friends Channel +1 and a glut of misspelt music stations that feature more texted-in piffle on screen than moving images (channels like FLAVA and Starz TV that give Dan from Kent the platform to broadcast, ‘Bet I’ve got the best car outta everyone here!’ to other Justin Bieber fans), I’ve not watched music videos as much as I once did.

In the vacuous non-space of the Internet, music promos are swallowed whole and bullied aside by porn clips and nerds singing about ‘Chocolate Rain’, so getting an MTV fix there isn’t a real option either. For a while I started to believe that bands had stopped making music videos altogether, perhaps from as far back as the Top Of The Pops axing. And then, on April 26^th, MIA floated her eventual comeback single ‘Born Free’ and, more importantly, its accompanying mini film, which in nine brutal minutes does for the golden age of attention-through-controversy what ‘Thriller’ did for Hollywood/pop music relations in 1982.

For those yet to see ‘Born Free’, it’s still tossing up a host of opinions at www.miauk.com. Directed by Romain Gavras – the man that gave us the stylistically similar and forceful video for Justice’s ‘Stress’ – it depicts, with zero uncertainty, US troops storming a desolate, urban landscape, kicking in tower-block doors and beating anyone not already being beaten. Before long it’s clear that the prizes of the siege – whom have been bundled into a prisoners’ bus – are all redheads. They’re then marched into the desert and forced to run across a minefield, hunted by their gun‘n’stick-wielding captors, in what appears to be the most needless, frightening and ultimately fatal war torture game ever imagined. Like so many examples of masterfully executed filmmaking, it’s completely harrowing. The track itself, despite being MIA’s first in three years, could only ever play second fiddle to such bold scenes and as the film’s own dialogue kicks the single further into the wings, it’s made practically forgettable. And perhaps it’s this fact that’s horrified some more than the video itself.

Jaded by the sight of Lady Gaga using her wang to dial as she calls Beyonce, it’s little wonder that after watching ‘Born Free’ and having a moment of silence many might consider it a cheap (or not so cheap, considering its movie stylings) trick – a get-banned-to-get-known stunt. Sure enough, the video was almost instantly deleted by Youtube, “MIA’s new video is dark” was re-Tweeted almost as much as “Cameron is a snake” on its release date and we’re still talking about it now. But for that to be your final thought on the matter would probably be missing the point and importance of the film – a promo, lest we not forget, for a politically vocal artist whom we’d surely like to hope is above such charlatan antics.

It’s important to point out that throughout the video there are only two moments of blatant, gruesome violence, both of which could easily be removed without affecting the overall, heart-stopping effect of the film. What ‘Born Free’ trades on is something far more real than the pantomime blood and guts that the gore-dependant videos of Marylin Manson et al. implement so theatrically. It reminds us of the horror of war, genocide and, ultimately, man. It’s a film to wince at because we’re fully aware that such inexcusable torment has gone on and, quite unbelievably, continues to go on around the world. And that’s far more shocking than Samantha Morton stuffing a rotten squid up her dress for The Horrors’ ‘Sheena Is A Parasite’ video. None of us felt the sinking feeling of guilt when we first saw that.

Ian Hamrick, the 12-year-old star of the video told celebrity trash site TMZ, “I think [MIA] was trying to show violence to end violence,” which is pretty astute for a boy not yet a teenager. It makes you wonder why we didn’t think of that, before you remember Lady Gaga and her phone again. But as for the song being low in the mix and lower in our consciousness as we watch this suggestive film, maybe that was a sacrifice that MIA was willing to make to get her views heard. And maybe that’s all ‘Born Free’ really is – MIA using the attention that her comeback was bound to generate, regardless, to shine a light on something she cares about.

As speculative as that is (much like saying, ‘Bet I’ve got the best car outta everyone here!’ is quite the random guess), ‘Born Free’ is such a potent and poignant film that perhaps we should be willing to give MIA the benefit of the doubt and simply be happy that music videos can still cause such a stir.

By Danny Canter

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Originally published in issue 17 (vol 3) of Loud And Quiet. May 2010