Comments on The Obama Putin Girls

This is the worst Slog post of all time.

unfortunately I have to agree with @1 - this one just lost me. nice links tho.

@1: Hardly.

In general: I've always thought the Putin song was something bordering on genius. I mean seriously, who comes up with stuff like that? Who buys into it?

I understand what you're saying, Brendan, and nausea seems like an appropriate response. But, if we're at the point where this idea can be raised with compelling real-life examples, isn't it sort of too late? If it's already effective, if it's already in motion, and the people who say, "Hey wait a minute, think about this" are written off as "snobs," then isn't it destined to only get worse?

I don't know. I find something amazingly sexy about Putin. And as a college student, I appreciate the content of this post.

Unless you live on an island devoid of anything not produced by you, you will never be entirely an individual. It really doesn't matter whether the culture is mass or not. So get over yourself and just enjoy life. Singing a song has absolutely nothing to do with totalitarianism any more then using the same words as other people does.

i found this a very interesting post, as well. it is yet another real-world example of idiocracy coming to pass. we already "know" that most people don't vote on the issues... but at least most people still pretend to.

i think it is important to resist mixing politics with entertainment. we seem to be moving in that direction, and there is little good about it.

when i see the putin video, i kind of laugh. but can you imagine the american equivalent? a popular president appearing in a popular music video?

@6 - I was just thinking of Bill Clinton's historic appearance on MTV...

"idiocracy coming to pass"

Has it ever been any different. Its not like there was this mythical time wherein all the people were really smart and educated and what not.

Remember when Beethoven was writing his music, simply being able to read and write was a rarity.

"the marriage of politics and pop culture comes uncomfortably close to totalitarianism."

Same thing I thought when Sound Transit started talking about the million dollars of art that will be in its train stations.

@8. you left off my "yet another." i don't think it's been terribly different. in fact, one might argue it is better than it's ever been before.

but in the past the voters were mislead by a different kind of misinformation. now, we can read -- but we choose not to! we choose based on superficial rationale instead of reason.

which is precisely why it is scary to see more evidence of the mix occurring. to say it's always been this way is defeatist. instead, let's resist in every possible way. let's hold the gains we've made, and not sacrifice them for the easier but less perfect route.

same totalitarianism; different tools.

@8 and 10: No, things haven't always been the same.

Totalitarianism requires centralization of technology, infrastructure, and culture—a centralization that was impossible in Beethoven's time.

This was a great post! Ignore the haters! More Adorno! Of course, Adorno's culture industry theory was written before it was technologically/economically feasible for people to take the tools of cultural production in their own hands. But it is important to point out, as you do here, how ostensibly populist mediums like youtube are often used for antipopulist ends.

But Euro pop is the most evil of all pops.

One can clearly see that Putin uses the secret Politburo handshake to pass his greatness on to the bad boyfriend near the video's end.

The Yes We Can video uses as lyrics the content of an Obama speech. You can argue that Obama's speeches are light in the issues, but the video is still more real politics than MTV flash. It is probably the only way that many Americans have actually heard his words, which makes it more a method of involving people in politics than obscuring the importance of politics.

Otherwise, I agree completely with Brendan and Adorno.

First of all, the title is Takovo Kak Putin (or Takogo Kak Putin to transliterate the letters exactly).
Also, this song is from a while ago, maybe 6 or 7 years - it had nothing to do with Medvedev and I don't think anyone thought it was spontaneous (supposedly or not). If anything it was meant to cash in on the growing cult of personality built around Putin starting in his first term.
I think most people knew that it was brainwashing, but that didn't stop them from falling for it, humming the melody,
and then adoring Putin.
Horrible music video though.

this sounds just like the arguments we have at home when i want to get rid of cable tv.

Doesn't the 'success' of the will.i.am videos just demonstrate the way that the market can seperate the sentiment of political change (and political triumph) from the actuality of that change? Russia should catch up. If they were doing it right, those Putin girls would be dancing infront of the falling Berlin wall and we would all be believing Medvedevev to be the return of Yeltsin.

The Daniel Craig ref is right on the money: clearly whoever directed this spent a bit of time studying Maurice Binder's, sexy, hypnotic opening title sequences from the 1960's & 1970's James Bond films.

While the results here are a decidedly crude and heavy-handed by comparison, there are a surprising number of elements lifted directly from Binder's Bond work: the low level, nearly back-lit outlines of Putin's face, frequently isolated to just an eye, or lips cut off at the edge of the frame; the juxtoposition of exotic locale shots alternated with those of the female form; even the incorporation of a slightly altered vesion of Binder's iconic "rifled gun barrel" image in the background, all of which are undoubtedly intended to create the impression in the mind of the viewer of Putin as the invincible, sexy, sophisticated international Agent of Justice.

And if these somewhat more subtle references to the Bondian archtype weren't sufficient to communicate the intent of the piece, they've thrown in additional suggestive imagery frequently associated with the Bond films: high tech tele-communications gear (the rotary-dial phone not withstanding!), a portly, bald "nemesis" (shades of Donald Pleasence!), sharp sartorial trappings, the aforementioned judo bout; hell, they even pop in an image of Puten standing protectively next to Queen Elizabeth!

And of course, making a derogatory comparison of the boyfriend to "Austin Powers" (a parody of James Bond), just reinforces the notion that Putin is the antithesis of Myer's parodical imitation.

We can scoff at the ham-fistedness of the delivery, but in some ways it's also a very clever (if not terribly subtle) attempt to appropriate and commodify a pop-culture icon, while simultaneously drawing clear associations between the fictional character and Putin as "the real deal".

Sure, it's all branding, but Putin is smart enough to recognize that marketing himself as a commodity, like he's a soft drink ("I love Putin, she loves Putin, they love Putin, WE love Putin - wouldn't you like to be a Putin too?"), is an easier, and ultimately more effective means of generating "loyalty to the brand" than
all the policy speeches and decrees he could puke out over a given period of time.

Like the spot demonstrates: how much cooler, how much hipper, how much more BONDIAN could one be, than to have the leader of the world's greatest "superpower" call YOU on the telephone?