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March 22, 2005
Hootie Returns
In the last few days, I've been getting more and more hits for this essay on Hootie and the Blowfish I wrote about ten years ago. It's even turned up in a couple of blogs, Dead Parrot Society and The Long 21st Century. That's a healthy change of pace, since the other spot my name has turned up recently is in this blog, in which one of my dopplegangers writes about his heroin addiction. (Still, that's better than the Ted Friedman who always used to turn up in Lexis-Nexis searches - a disbarred lawyer so infamous in certain New York law circles that a certain kind of sleazy activity would be knowingly referred to as "a Ted Friedman kind of thing.")
The reason for the renewed interest in Hootie is clear: those strange Burger King commercials featuring Darius Rucker in western gear. I love Dave LaChappelle, the deleriously over-the-topphotographer/music video director who made the commercial. (He should get to make an SF epic - it could be The Sixth Element. And his video for Xtina's "Dirty" is one of the most gloriously perverse things MTV has ever aired.) But I find this ad really depressing. Rucker looks abashed, humiliated. His singing is almost mournful (although also quite lovely - he still has a beautiful voice). And the racial politics are deeply creepy. Rucker's long been mocked for being a deracinated black man in a white frat band, but I've always admired his willingness to play the kind of music he likes, no matter how whitebread. And I found the old-fashioned sentiments of "Hold My Hand" a sweet throwback to '60s peans to cross-racial brotherhood like "Joy to the World." But here, the commercial seems to be mocking Hoote for how far he's willing to go to humor the white man. He's even singing about fried chicken. I imagine LaChappelle thought the image of a black man as a cowboy would be an empowering reversal of cliches - like that cowboy character Laurence Fishbourne played in Pee Wee's Playhouse (a clear influence on LaChappelle). But something went horribly, horribly wrong between concept and execution.
Update:
Check out today's Boondocks on Hootie.
Posted by tedf at March 22, 2005 03:38 AM
Comments
If there's an ounce of justice in this world, Chad Kroger will be put in tacky hog-ropin' getup to flog Harvey's burgers in my home nation in roughly ten years or so....
BMN
Posted by: BMN at March 22, 2005 03:35 PM
no matter what hotte is the best and i even like the song he sings on TV, the fact the hes open enough to nething makes him a kooler guy ne way. I dont no y theres such a fuss
Posted by: mugg at May 21, 2005 10:56 AM
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