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28 februari 2015

Funky goofiness from Japan

 

 

The Fat Fox Fanclub is a pretty cool all girl band from the land of the outrageously tasty peaches. They mix rock with disco and funk and a healthy dose of good old fun. The video above has a cameo by Xiroh from Buddy Girl and Mechanic, the band I’ve been plugging so aggressively these past two years.

It’s crazy and goofy and full of irony of course, or postmodern irony or post postmodern irony, whatever. I feel a little uncomfortable watching it.

It’s not exactly blackface, that spear shaker girl’s face is just smudged, isn’t it. Still, almost every cliche from those old Tarzan movies and fifties’ cannibal cartoons is in it, right up to the sexy jungle savage eating a banana.

I feel guilty, because until not too long ago I found this stuff funny. I saw it as a comment on Western cultural misperceptions and as a satirical take on racism.

Now I am not so sure. Isn’t this hipster racism? Should I denounce Iggy Pop’s African man too, and Lou Reed’s I wanna be black?