Remember that strange manga outfit on Kirsten Dunst a while back? And remember we said it was for some kind of shooting? Well, it turns out if was for a music video!
With Takashi Murakami, Kirsten’s “Akihabara Majokko Princess” video is actually sung by her! This is meant as an art project for the Tate Museum in London Pop Life: Art in a Material World. Commissioned to Charlie’s Angels director, McG, the video story is a colorful, lifefull Lost in Translation vision. (hit the jump for more demystification)
Kirsten impersonates a magical girl character, something often seen in manga and anime stories bringing magic and music in the Akihabara district. The Akihabara district, they say, has a Japanese distinctiveness, independently growing in style and inspiration away from any other cultural interference. Choosing Kirsten to play that magical princess is supposed to morally, ideologically contrast with the very Akihabara free spirit.
If they did or did not succeed in demonstrating the artsyness in a material world with Kristen Dunst dressed like an anime singing like an amateur in a video (which would have just as well been done by an aspiring director, you wouldn’t have told the difference. Except maybe an aspiring director would have made some real artistic efforts!) you have to tell me. For now, I only conclude that this comes to queue up in a long strain of pretended art. Just because they label it so, doesn’t automatically make it museum-worthy! (Ellington, a hand, please?) (via)
1 comment so far
No this is not museum worthy at all! It is a poor parody of art I’d say. If you are going to doing something with the idea of manga (which is already an exaggerated art from, then you have to be a bit more subtle and maybe turn it on its head). I do like manga and can find some of the images intriguing kind of like Roy Lichtenstein’s pop art and parodies of comic strips, it can be clever and visually stunning, this video isn’t that for me.
I like Kristen Dunst she is usually good in what she is in but this she is like a poorman’s copy of what Gwen Stefani has done in her music videos.
The manga images of sexualized school girls there are too much of it in this video. And the use of that song (which is about masturbation) was a tad cliche.
Gwen did use some of these images but with her videos and the Harijuku Girls I found them to be not sexualized but sexy and in control of the gaze. They are in on the joke and the fun.
McG did start out as a music video director but with this I think that he has lost a bit of his touch as I find it rather flat.
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