"the media is the antichrist"

mac"It is information meltdown – text, sayings, truisms, untruisms, oxymorons, soothsayings, etc., all blasted at high speed, just fast enough so it's impossible to actually read what's being said," the Edge once explained.

As a sequel to my previous posts on U2's live version "The Fly," and its many and sundry projected maxims and "iconic ironics, " I need to add this clip from Boston 1992...Vintage Fly era..

I caught many of my old favorites:


"guilt is not of God"
"everyone is a racist except you"
"it's your world, you can change it/charge it"

Some I had not been able to make out before:

"pesssimism is a self-fulfilling prophecy"
"fear is an american problem"
"we are all a part of the malaise"

My new favorite:

"the media is the antichrist"

May be true! And what better way to express that truth...through media!

Enjoy the clip...and enjoy below it a helpful excerpt of one professor's take on the whole thing.



EXCERPT FROM
"'The Fly' on the Stage: Readings and Misreadings of the 'New' U2"
( A Paper Presented to the Music Area ofThe Popular Culture Association
April 13, 1995 Samuel R. Smith, Center for Mass Media Research, University of Colorado)

From As the song ends the video monitors light up with "EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG." As the band then launches into "The Fly" we reach, quite early in the show, what proves to be the band's critical master stroke. As the band performs the song, the screens are appropriated by a rapid-fire barrage of videotext - as many as perhaps twenty words or phrases are flashed onto the screens in a single second, while others are drawn out over several seconds, one presumes for effect. The words and phrases themselves are curious in places. A string like "WIFE / VICTIM / RAPE / FOOD / SEXY / WAR / BLOODY / KIDS / TRASH / MOM / FRENZY / FISH / COLOUR / NIGGER" makes no apparent sense - you merely have random words generated and presented in, as Jameson might predict, a blank pastiche.

Other sequences, though, appear more substantive. In one procession we get this string repeated two or three times: "CHARGE IT / WEAR IT / DEBT / DOUBT / HYPE / HOPE." This is closely juxtaposed with another repeated string: "GUN / PUSSY / SCHOOL." This last part is obscure, perhaps, but the debt string appears purposive in light of both the consumerist theme I assert above and the context in which the word "charge" will recur later.

In addition to word bursts, the audience is presented at intervals with phrases which range from the hopeful to the platitudinous to the sarcastic and cynical. "THE FUTURE IS FANTASY; SUPERFICIALITY IS GOD; AVOID CONFLICT; IGNORANCE IS BLISS; IT'S THE REAL THING; CONSUME LATER; DO NOT ACCEPT WHAT YOU CANNOT CHANGE; CHANGE WHAT YOU CANNOT ACCEPT; BELIEVE EVERYTHING; DO YOU BELIEVE ME; YOU ARE A VICTIM OF YOUR TV/HATRED/APATHY/SELF; IS THIS ALL WE GET?; YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE; WHAT DID THE FIRST PUNK ROCK GIRL WEAR TO YOUR SCHOOL?; WORK IS THE BLACKMAIL OF SURVIVAL; I WANT IT NOW; BE GENTLE WITH ME; THIS IS NOT A REHEARSAL; ENJOY THE SURFACE; FREE MANDELA; THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT; AMBITION BITES THE NAILS OF SUCCESS; IT COULD NEVER HAPPEN HERE; TASTE IS THE ENEMY OF ART; BELIEVE" (with the "BE" and "VE" fading, leaving only "LIE"); "MANIPULATION IS ART; YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE; EVERY ARTIST IS A CANNIBAL; CELEBRITY IS A JOB; DEATH IS A CAREER MOVE; MOCK THE DEVIL AND HE WILL FLEE FROM THEE; REBELLION IS PACKAGED; RELIGION IS A CLUB; CONTRADICTION IS BALANCE; I'D LIKE TO TEACH THE WORLD TO SING; GUILT IS NOT OF GOD; TOMORROW BELONGS TO ME; EVOLUTION IS OVER; SILENCE = DEATH; DEATH IS INEVITABLE; EVERYONE IS A RACIST EXCEPT YOU; ROCK AND ROLL IS ENTERTAINMENT; WEAR A CONDOM" (U2 1994).

The cumulative effect is numbing. The pace of the bursts makes catching and processing everything impossible, and in this sense U2 has quite successfully presented a microcosm of our mass mediated consumerist everyday lives. We are literally assaulted by sales pitches - I have heard estimates of anywhere from 1600-3200 per day - and seemingly no institution is innocent of contributing to the noise. In the videotext above, we see that most elements of our culture are represented - corporations, religions, advertising, schools, art, criticism, all are in some fashion called on the carpet.

The problem is that the form allows for no consideration of depth. All messages have been democratized, and the sublime is diluted at every turn by the ridiculous ("wear a condom" is potentially life-saving advice; "I want it now" is the impulse which arguably necessitates the condom message). On the surface, then, meaning has been rendered unknowable, and in the final moments of the song we find the band cynically undercutting sloganeering and the shallow ideology of social change. "IT'S YOUR WORLD YOU CAN CHANGE IT" is projected on the screens, then recycled over and over in a rapidly accelerating loop (in total this phrase is looped at least thirty times in twenty seconds, with one burst probably looping it fifteen-twenty times in five seconds). Upon seeing this the crowd explodes in a frenzy of cheering - on the heels of such a confusing mush of mixed signals, we shouldn't be surprised to see idealistic young U2 fans seizing fervently upon a moment of hope.

However, it only appears that this phrase has been presented over and over in a reaffirming cycle of hope. In fact, the third and fourth loops replace "change" with "charge" - "IT'S YOUR WORLD YOU CAN CHARGE IT." Again, consumerism is challenged, and this time it is challenged within the context of U2's traditionally positive social-consciousness. They have always been a band spreading the rhetoric of change, but here they undercut the message, implying that the potential for change is undercut by rampant consumerism. We are, it seems, mortgaging much more than our financial futures. As noted, the song began with "EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG"; fittingly enough, as the final chord fades into the crowd's frenzied cheering, the monitors resolve into "WATCH MORE TV."

We might read this performance as a subtle, yet pointed indictment of a culture hijacked by television and its attendant consumerism. The shallowness of the culture is certainly evident in every facet of the presentation, and Bono's televangelist and Macphisto (devil figure)indulge in a decadent wallow which, at the very minimum, paints an unseemly picture. Macphisto's appearance, ninety minutes in to the show, signals the coming-out of the self-indulgent parody. Gold-suited, gold glittered platform shoes, washed out pale makeup and bright red horns - "Look what you've done to me," he tells the crowd. "You've made me very famous, and I thank you." He then announces that his time among the audience is almost over (we're into the encore at this point) but he is leaving a legacy in his wake. "I leave behind video cameras for each of you."

"'The Fly' on the Stage: Readings and Misreadings of the 'New' U2"
A Paper Presented to the Music Area ofThe Popular Culture Association

April 13, 1995
Samuel R. Smith, Center for Mass Media Research, University of Colorado

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