Review
of “Radio” by Rammstein
As
you have probably noticed already, Rammstein has just come back this year with
three music videos that stand out in the crowd of lyric-videos as they are the
typical Rammstein MVs, that is: videos entertaining us with a fun idea, a good
story, or shocking imagery.
I’m
here giving the translation of my review of the second video, Radio, which I
wrote right after it came out. My reviews of Deutschland and Ausländer will
follow shortly.
A
glimpse at the lyrics enables you to identify the theme of the song nearly
right away. Someone living in the GDR is trying to find a way out while
listening to western songs on the radio even if he (or she) knows that it is
strictly forbidden. Neither the East, nor the West are mentioned in the lyrics
but you can easily make up for the context if you know a bit of the band’s
story. However, from the second half of the song on, the persona is describing
an ecstatic moment, while listening to those forbidden songs, that gives the
impression that he (or she) is leaving our world and experiencing something
close to an orgasm (I’ll come back to this point later).
So
I can identify two main ideas in this video. On the one hand, the radio
epitomizes hope: it represents a way to fight against oppressors, or more precisely
censorship here. On the other hand, it represents a consumer product which is
fascinating, thus another way to oppress people, women here. I’ll study both
aspects, which are linked to each other, one after the other in order to put
the light on the video’s strange ambivalence.
A
Radio to fight against censorship…
Right
at the introduction, the context is set up: the town of Königs Wusterhausen,
near Berlin, is mentioned by the host. This town is well-known for its radio
transmitter in the communist era, so it enables us to understand that the video
is set in an imaginary GDR in which Till, dressed up as Klaus Nomi (a
West-Berlin singer, famous in the 1980s), is singing with a band wearing 1920s
clothes while the police, who is led by a chief officer wearing a Prussian
Tschako helmet dating back from the 1930s, are trying to stop the transmission
in vain.
Why
are they trying to do so? It seems the song on the radio is spreading a sudden
need for freedom among women (and girls). After watching some of them making
the radio receiver, you can see other women rebelling in order to claim for a
freedom called “Sendefreiheit” (freedom of transmission) on one of the signs
they are carrying while marching.
It
seems contradictory to say so, but black and white here stresses on the
timeless aspect of the MV, which could refer to a totalitarian past as much as
a contemporary period: have a look at the way the cops are dressed, with their
weird masks, or the European Union flags (which turn out to be red at the end
of the video). Indeed, censorship remains a main issue even today in western
societies, and Rammstein have already faced such troubles (for example, the
song ITDW was censored in Germany when LIFAD came out). Moreover, the jumpcuts
– a trick already used in Ich Will video directed by the same person – simulate
interferences in the transmission due to the fluctuation of waves, and one
should notice that both MVs deal with the media and the way a message can get
out of government control. In Radio, the band cannot be stopped by the police;
in Ich Will, the robbers are arrested but are later awarded for their mischief.
The
police trying to stop the concert in vain shows how elusive music can be. One
can curb freedom of speech but music, as it is universal, becomes a means to
get over the limitation. In the lyrics, you can find a persona who “vanishes
from the world for a couple of hours.” In the video, the idea is revealed by
the group of police officers dancing while their chief is away. Even the most
totalitarian state can do nothing against a need for freedom spreading among
half of the population.
Besides,
this fight for freedom is dealt with humor. The situation comedy, which can be
identified in the scenes of excess – from the women’s hysteria to Till’s funny
faces – gives way to the absurd, as a hairdresser is cutting a man’s ear off to
sing with it or a nun is whipping herself in front of a sacralized radio. Of
course, this type of humor is there probably because it is the easiest to understand,
but you can also identify a meta-textual commentary on Rammstein, who have
often challenged moral values and had to fight against censorship precisely
because of that.
…and
surrender against consumerism
Freedom
of speech, however, is here immediately supervised by consumerism. Right at the
beginning of the video, you can notice that the women who built the radio
receiver are holding it like a trophy, symbolically putting it up over
themselves. In the shop (on the window of which you can spot the sign “Radio
für Sie” which can be understood as “radio for you” as much as “radio for her,”
since women make up for most of the customers), they are fighting tooth and
nail to get the brand new products, reminding me of those viral videos taken on
Black Fridays, showing people fighting one another for just a TV screen.
Women
here are just customers, whose common sense might have been lost. This idea is
epitomized with the scene of a woman breastfeeding a radio which she walks in a
pram, right in the streets, though owning a radio in this society is obviously
prohibited. When the chief officer is confiscating it, she is immediately falling
to her knees in a submissive posture – she symbolically expresses obedience to the
police, thus to the state, but also to the radio, thus to the consumer product,
as if it were a bare necessity.
Moreover,
the women’s hysterical attitude reminds me of that of pop star fans. You may
have noticed that the radios on sale are branded with the names of a few
Rammstein members and women are buying them like fans would buy boy-group dolls
or figurines, or any kind of band merchandising. This idea becomes obvious with
the ending scene, in which a woman is rushing towards the band. Therefore, you
could consider this video to be a star system criticism, star system which
started in Western countries (everyone remembers the Beatles phenomenon) and
made it possible for a band or singer to be promoted, even created, in order to
please and entertain a specific audience.
Rammstein
may be expressing a form of self-mockery here: they are identifying themselves
with those modern icons, nearly deifying themselves as they end up being just
holograms, which are impossible to reach, apart from other people. But
self-mockery is not as cleverly used here as it was in Keine Lust video (which
was directed by the same man): KL is symbolically more efficient as it avoids
the problems I will mention in my conclusion.
Besides,
the video shows the totalitarian state being submissive to Western consumerism
as the police officers start dancing as if no political power could be as
strong as well-conceived entertainment. You can notice that entertainment is
the winner in the end, while the band is walking away – this type of scene has
been a leitmotiv in Rammstein MVs since Du Hast) – their glory becoming all the
more obvious as color come back to the screen at the same time.
The band’s
attitude at the end of the video – they look serious, stone-faced – because it
is radically different from their attitude in the rest of the video, creates
ambivalence in the message. After a very burlesque imagery – with absurd scenes
where women are enthralled by the music and start screaming, where a few
musicians (Flake or Schneider for example) move in a ridiculous way, where Till
even looks weird – the video is concluded on six men who are walking slowly,
looking up to the horizon and away from the fan running towards them, not even
smiling to anybody, as if they did not care at all. This strange conclusion
gives the impression that the band does not accept their burlesque aspect, the
“pure entertainment” in them, that all of this was just an act, even though it
has become part of what makes Rammstein since the Mann gegen Mann, Mein Land or
Pussy videos.
Their
“badass” attitude at the end neutralizes any star system criticism or any
commentary about consumerism that there might have been in the video.
“My radio
belongs to me”: mishandled feminism
It is
impossible to conclude without taking into consideration the way feministic
imagery was used in the MV and helps neutralize any criticism that might have
been offered.
Here are a
few emblematic scenes not already mentioned so far: the stay-at-home mother who
is hearing the song on the radio and rebelling against her husband sitting and
waiting for his dinner before she knocks the table over and lets him fall on
the floor, to her great joy and her daughter’s; the masturbating woman in her
bed, with the radio between her legs as if it were representing her vulva,
while a peeping tom is watching her from the streets until the chief police
officer intervenes and takes a peep at the woman as he looks horrified; the
threesome with a woman riding a man and kissing a woman who is giving the man a
sip of champagne (from the way they are dressed, you could see it as a
reference to the sexual liberation of artists in the 1920s). These three
scenes, along with the marching one, all represent the women’s rights movement.
The
movement calls for, among many other things, taking back one’s own body, which leads
to controlling one’s own sexuality, on an equal footing with men. This is one
of the main ideas claimed by 20th century feminism. Sexuality may here
be interpreted as pleasure, which leads to a new interpretation of the lyrics,
especially the moment when the radio listener is describing an ecstatic ride:
Every
night I secretly took off
Flying
on Music’s back
I
laid my ear on its wings
Singing
quietly in my hands
Every
night I can fly again
Straight
ahead with the music
Floating
thus through space
No
frontiers, no borders
You should
notice here that only at night can the persona listen to the “forbidden songs”
and the “dangerous notes” that make him or her reach the climax. Music and masturbation may be the
same thing.
However, a huge
problem remains in the video: the feministic fight is associated with scenes in
which women, subjected to consumerism, become hysterical in front of a shopping
window or fight each other for mere radios. But feminism precisely denounces
the way capitalism has turned women into the perfect consumer since the 1950s –
and it is nowadays improper to associate two ideas that are radically
contradictory. It is even ludicrous, if not alarming, for a band of males to
associate the groupie with the feminist.
Nevertheless,
it is hard to spot any reactionary intention in this video. I take as an
example the breastfeeding in public scene, which is legitimate feministic message
nowadays.
Consequently,
there are a few blunders in the video – the strangest one may be the way Delacroix’s
famous painting is reenacted, with Marianne (the allegory of France) standing
on the barricades and showing the words “My radio belongs to me” on her naked breasts
as if she were calling for submission instead of freedom, submission to a
consumer product but also to that group of men who are just holograms in the
end and who do not care much about the movement they have triggered (again,
this is a huge mistake about feminism).
Let us be
reminded that there can be ambivalence without contradiction. The band, without
this ludicrous ending, would have given efficient self-mockery. However, the
criticism against modern icons is neutralized by the way the band present
themselves in the end, as they belong to another world – they are definitely
not on an equal footing with the rest of the population. But if the band is the allegory of freedom of speech, fighting against censorship and joining women
in a call for a freedom, the end contradicts the idea, as they reject the woman
who rushes towards them: freedom cannot just be for the band’s own interests.
Finally, if the band only symbolizes a new form of oppression, that of
consumerism, manipulating people’s needs and desires, the whole video is
incoherent because of the imagery it uses: feministic symbols, the red color of
EU flags…
It is very
surprising to see that many blunders in a video which is undeniably beautiful, with
fine aesthetics and a lot of work done beforehand. This video was directed with
a strong sense of beauty, and it gives a very interesting, ambivalent
interpretation to the lyrics, with imagery never seen in a Rammstein video
before (for example, the dancing cops, probably the best part of the whole
video). Even though there are mistakes, Radio, like many of Heitmann’s MVs,
will be part of the most memorable videos of the band. It is just a shame that
he missed perfection – just a little.
