Irish Times review of "Walk On The Wild Side"
dar...@iol.ie
on UK TV last week after the Brits:
" A VERY different "aesthetic" was featured in Walk On The Wild Side.
Produced, directed and narrated by Daniel Abineri, it was, in ways, as Dan's
utter dominance indicates, a stroll by a control freak. The production and
direction were fine but Abineri's narration sounded propagandistically certain
-
rather like a Pathe News voice-over or an old-fashioned CIA-sponsored film
trying to be hip. Still, it was saved by archive footage ranging from a young
Elvis Presley wearing eye-shadow to Eurovision-winning transsexual Dana
International gyrating while being interviewed in a bubble-bath.
Between Elvis and the surgically-constructed Dana, a chronological fast-
forward of androgynists included, among others, David Bowie, Marc Bolan,
Lou Reed, Roxy Music, The Rocky Horror Show, the New York Dolls, Freddy
Mercury, Adam Ant, Soft Cell, Boy George, Holly Johnson, and Annie Lennox (as
an example of the somewhat rarer creature: a woman cross-dressing as a man).
There were punks too and, of course, the egregious Malcolm McLaren as ever
spouting opinions as certainties. Given his characteristic sureness, old Malc
could easily cut it in the world of abstract art collecting.
Mind you, he was rounded-upon by a number of other contributors, who
insisted that he stole the punk image by combining elements of Richard
O'Brien's The Rocky Horror Show with the dog's dinner style of the New York
Dolls. The intensity of these opinions was no less than those that you might
expect in a row between the most precious, agenda-driven scholars arguing over
the identity of Shakespeare. But for the most part, it was all good fun, a
nostalgia-fest of gender-bending, wild make-up and spangled spandex.
Abineri cited Bowie as the Main Man - the high-point of this ultra pop art.
Old Top of the Pops footage of Bowie performing Starman certainly suggested a
moment of coalescence between waning psychedelia, emerging glam and self-
consciously bizarre sexuality. More important, of course, his music at the
time
was actually good. Afterwards the decline into shock-rock began to accelerate
towards the alarming (ignorance as art?) parody of Adam Ant and on to the
sadomasochistic, video orgy of Holly Johnson and Frankie Goes To Hollywood.
At one stage, somebody (surprisingly, it wasn't Malcolm McLaren) mentioned
"the aesthetic of punk". Having seen Col- lectors, it was tempting to think
that the word "aesthetic" has mutated, in pop culture as well as in abstract
art, into a kind of synonym for overconfident assertions dubiously grounded.
In
the same way as so many rock critics and commentators glibly use the word
"liberated" when, at this stage in history, they simply mean "promiscuous",
"aesthetic", in circles which have an obvious proprietorial agenda towards the
term, typically sounds more aggrandising than evaluating.
Still, there were some good sounds - whatever about the variable visuals -
in this one. Nobody wanted to dwell too long on the central truth that mere
gimmickry to attract attention in a competitive market was, in reality, very
often the driving force. Maybe Freddy Mercury singing I Want to Break Free in
laced corset, leather micro-mini skirt, fishnet tights, stiletto heels, curly
wig and fulsome moustache is art. Or maybe it was just Freddy acting the
maggot
and having the crack. Whatever the case, this account of pop's mascara-ed
history reminded you that few people could have realised just how big that
closet was when the first gay and bisexual people started coming out of it."
Slan libh,
Dara (np: THE DARK SIDE OF DAVID BOWIE)
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