News > Linkin Park
Linkin Park’s Catalyst Video Gets Those Brownies Good
By Johnny Firecloud
Sunday, August 1, 2010
It’s only fitting that on the morning the talking heads in Washington are finally clarifying that the war in Afghanistan has nothing at all to do with “freedom” or building a better society, we’re given a new video from Linkin Park that’s equal parts video game commercial and Team America army recruitment ad.
Watch The Catalyst:
The video, directed by LP DJ Joe Hahn, features several shots of game footage from the upcoming Medal of Honor game. Opening with nearly a minute of gunfire and visions of war, The Catalyst centers on killing lots and lots of digitized enemy forces with Linkin Park’s typical sense of epic urgency and… techno?
The white American soldier’s Commando-style gear up for battle in the sand against brown “insurgents” goes in a little too heavily on the post-9/11 Americana, world police “Go Joe!” ideals. LP may be better off just going the Godsmack route, cashing the big checks as their songs are made into soundtracks for the fun, exciting and rewarding adventures you’ll have if you sign up for the armed forces at a time of multiple massively unpopular wars and scandalously unwelcome occupation.
The single, by the way, is from LP’s upcoming album A Thousand Suns (out Sept. 14) and is basically a guitar-free dance track with even less balls than that Dead By Sunrise assjam frontman Chester Bennington got involved with last year. But it sure makes for some good towelhead-killin’ tunes, right?!
Because war is apparently the ultimate in awesome, and deserves every bit of the polarizing romanticism we’re so eager to lather on it. Disagree? You’re clearly not a real American.
[Update: Watch the "official" shiteous new video for the song here.]
sure tied a pretty long racist tail on that kite, sir.
Mixed feelings. Im pretty big into first person shooters but Ive never been very comfortable with middle-easterners being the end-all-be-all bad guy lately. Years ago it was Russians. Before that, Germans. Its all in your perspective. They are fighting for what they believe in too. That sure as hell doesnt make us the righteous ones.
From a gamer stand-point I cant wait to get my hands on the game. But from a moral stand-point Im afraid too many less then intelligent people will play it and race to enlist. Its a fine line they are walking thats for sure.
really? i mean we’re at war with afghans and iraqis now, for better or worse or even worse. it’s not racist to show them as “the other side” in war games/movies made in this point in time. calling them brownies and towelheads on the other hand… is totally wrong and offensive.
the only thing racist here is this article.
I agree its not racist to portray them as the other side, just worry about some americans ability to process something like this intelligently. Theres a guy at the college I go to that is fervently hoping for the next Crusade. His quote: “if only to kill a few A-rabs!” its a unhealthy way to think, of course but it happens alot more then Im comfortable with.
Interesting perspective. I didn’t call the video racist, and that’s not the core intention of the piece. I put it up to point out how very healthy the machine is still running to make these international conflicts a commercial-goldmine matter of “us vs. them” regardless of the details and complications.
I clicked the original link expecting just to hear a song. Instead I got some half-cocked video game promo that also doubled as a heartstring-tugging narrative of a white American soldier joining his other white soldier buddies in the desert (after a proud send-off from Mom) to kill the towel-headed insurgents so clearly “threatening our freedom” and hating America, as we’ve been fed time and time again for the past decade. It’s an insulting, thinly veiled army recruitment ad and I called it out. How is that racist?
brownies and towelheads? not saying the whole piece is racist, but the racist parts of the piece are more racist than anything implied by the video.
not that racism is even categorically off limits. sometimes you gotta be real about shit. i just didn’t see the justification for throwing around slurs.
though i think you made up brownies, so that’s probably not as sensitive as towelheads.
I didn’t make up brownies, but the fact remains (and it’s the core of why we’re having this discussion) that war-romanticizing media such as this not only entirely sidesteps the fact that there’s sky-high and mounting evidence that we’re in over our heads, faltering badly in our military invasions and slaughtering scores of civilians, but also encourages the blanket impressionism of white, Christian America bringing justice and humanity to the savages (non-whites) of the world. It’s a fist-pumping bro-video for the kids to get pumped and ready for some killing… and who’s the target?
I’ve got a boss at a job to tell me what’s “categorically off-limits” – outside of that I’m not sure what the fuck you’re getting at.
i was with you right up until you pumped your own fist, bro. i ain’t the boss any more than you are. we respect each other’s veto power, and i’m not even close to going there over something like this. i just disagree with some of the tone. and the fact that one of us can feel free to speak up publicly when that happens is part of what gives the other one the freedom to do whatever they want around here. so put that in your torch, lady liberty. :)
puff puff
the “towelhead” and “brownie” comments are pretty obviously supposed to be sarcastic, he’s just using the terms that the video suggests should be used. That’s all. No need for racism sensitivity training, just better reading comprehension.
Am I going to have to ban you fuckers?
hahahaha man…
Just to be clear everyone agrees this song sucks right ?
ha-yes, I believe that goes without saying.
yes, absolutely.
http://tinyurl.com/27n8t32
lolz
eff.
Coming from someone who doesn’t hate Linkin Park, this song is absolutely awful.
“Back again to save the motherfuckin day ya….America Fuck Ya!”
While I would not call myself a big Linkin Park fan, I do defend them much of the time because I think they have a lot of good going for them. Having said that, I can only like them on a very skin-deep level.
I do not like this song or video.
The song might be almost bearable without the lyrics and the video.
I honestly preferred Linkin Park when they weren’t so political.
Also, I don’t think this is even the bands official video for the song. It isn’t on their own YouTube channel. There is however a completely different video up there for the song.
Yes, it’s a video game cross promotion. And yes, it’s on their official YouTube channel.
Yeah, that is not the video for the song. At all.
Right, it was totally a ghetto bootleg video that the video game company did on their own with no involvement or endorsement by the band. It’s not like it was a big budget production built to promote the album and a video game – this is clearly just a fan-shot clip, right? Thanks for clarifying.