New Justice Video
Yeah, at first I was like, "Where are animated typefaces and the goodtimes?" but after about a minute in, I was mesmerized. I'm still mostly at a loss for words, so I'll leave the explanation up to Vaneska at Bif! Bam! Pow! Zap!
...the video is a flashback and commentary on the outburst of riots by French suburban youth in the fall of 2005. The riots were initially triggered by the accidentally deaths of two teenagers from a poor commune in the Eastern suburbs of France when they were chased by police and hid in an electrical power station where they were electrocuted. Over the course of three months, the unrest spread to 274 cities in France, with 2,888 arrests, 8,973 cars damaged, 1 death, and 126 police and firefighters injured. Damage was estimated at 200 million euros.
Ndeur told me that the significance of the camera crew in the video for "Stress" is the influence the French and international media had in sensationalizing and thus further triggering the youth riots. The lack of white racial representation of the delinquents in the video likely refers to international media coverage of the riots as acts of violence by the French Muslim youth, despite the fact that it was determined by the French Intelligence that there was no Islamic factor in the riots.
May 5, 2008 11:57 AM
Doomed to be Fabulous said:
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Wow, really disturbing video. Have you seen Mathieu Kassovitz's "La Haine"? It's a pretty accurate portrayal of the social situation in the French suburbs. The movie is 13 years old, but not much has changed, nor does change seem likely in the next while, now that Sarkozy is president.