Thursday, 04.03.08

Rickrolling and Racial Transcendence

Photo by Flickr user kbcool under a creative commons license

Rick Astley, known for his 1987 hit "Never Gonna Give You Up," has again become an object of amusement and fascination as Internet pranksters deceptively deploy links to his most celebrated song's groundbreaking music video.

Apparently there's something very, very funny about Rick Astley, judging by the endurance of "rickrolling." By now plenty has been written about the practice -- its origins as a sequel to "duckrolling," the emergence of more elaborate rickrolling hoaxes, its role in anti-Scientology protests, and YouTube's embrace of the rickroll. Basically, bloggers have been teasing readers with links that osensibly lead to to, say, celebrity gossip, but that in fact lead to the video for "Never Gonna Give You Up."

But the deeper question has been left unanswered -- what is it about this video that strikes a chord?

The video begins with a thin young man, possibly a boy, in a black trenchcoat and a striped shirt, bobbing and swaying in front of a microphone. His skin is a ghostly white, and he has a gelled red pompadour. Within seconds, we see him against another backdrop -- a late Victorian cityscape at night. He now wears an off-white trenchcoat over a black outfit. This young man, unlike the first, is up to no good. A woman wearing a tight black minidress appears, pointing her arms in different directions and staring mischievously at the camera. Next we see the young man in daylight, wearing sunglasses and a denim or denim-inspired ensemble. It is bright and sunny, and he is in an urban park next to a chain-link fence. He is shaking and thrusting his hips. The woman reappears, this time in an off-white sundress and sunglasses, with her back to the camera. The young man sings. And although he is pale and British, he sounds ... black and American. The images come fast and furious, alternating between the scenes already established. That opening scene, it turns out, takes place in a mostly-empty nightclub, where our hero is joined by two back-up dancers, who look like each other (i.e., they are both white and blonde), and, off-stage, a bartender who -- overcome by the power of the music -- decides to join the fun. The bartender, who never says or sings a word, is black. At first, the bartender is attending to his duties: wiping down the bar, cleaning glasses. But he soon starts spinning around and performing amazing splits, kicks, backflips, and other dance-feats. One would almost think this supposed bartender was in fact a professional dancer. We later see him in short-shorts bouncing against the chain-link fence and gyrating in the Victorian cityscape, to no discernible purpose.

The profound illogic of this video defies description. Yet one suspects there's more to it. As an exemplar of "blue-eyed soul," Astley could be condemned for appropriating a primarily black form of musical expression. But not only was he not condemned -- he was embraced by music-lovers of all colors, not least the acrobatic bartender featured in the music video itself. The earnestness and lack of self-consciousness contrasts with the paralyzing cynicism of our own time. What we're seeing is the promise of a post-racial future, in which color distinctions melt away in the white heat (so to speak) of Astley's soulful vocals.

Could it be that Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" is the soundtrack for the Age of Obama?

— Reihan Salam

(6)

Post a comment

Name:

Email Address:

URL:

Remember personal info?

Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)

By using this Service you agree not to post material that is obscene, harassing, defamatory, or otherwise objectionable. Although The Current does not monitor comments posted to this site (and has no obligation to), it reserves the right to delete, edit, or move any material that it deems to be in violation of this rule.