This is the fifth of my music video analyses. As always, I'm looking to the video to help provide a different reading of the text of the song. In the case of Rage Against the Machine, there's always a lot to unpack lyrically, and the choices they made for this music video add complicated layers. That there is an additional story behind the making of the music video, as well as the video's connection to the band ultimately breaking up after the music video lost to one of Limp Bizkit's back in 2000 drops more potential interpretations into a way to read this piece. Oh, and in case you were unaware of Rage Against the Machine's politics, it's far, far left. Not like "Hillary's on the left!" kind of "left" (which she isn't, but whatever), but I mean--seriously far left. If you aren't down with heavy critiques on capitalism and its inherent injustices and abuses, then you may want to step away today. All right. Let's rock. The Set Up As before, I have the music video below, as well as the lyrics. Once you're up to speed, we'll move along. The world is my expense Critique of the System The video begins with the sound of a typewriter as the words on the screen bring up a familiar idea: "Wall Street announces record profits, record layoffs." The perennial criticism of capitalism is that it's a system that enriches the few at the expense of the many (with the counterargument that rising waters lift all ships, and though some become ultra-rich, a vast majority are bettered because of the system understood but not agreed to). This critique presses throughout the entire video, complete with the understanding of the irony of it all: The band itself, dressed to the nines during their green-screen cuts, gives the appearance of conformity, with their image being bourgeois, their lyrics being bourgeois, their message being proletarian. This critique is further enhanced with the parody of the then-popular TV show, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? For the RATM version, it's Who Wants To Be Filthy F&#%ing Rich? (seen at :35). The criticism of capitalism is reduced down to a binary, which also serves as the parody of Millionaire. In the original game show, contestants had to pass multiple choice trivia questions to earn up to the eponymous millions. The game was more complicated than RATM's version, but the Filthy F&#%ing Rich style relies, as I said, on binaries, drawing a stark line around the problems the song is protesting. The details inside of the questions were pretty much correct for 1999 (when the song was released), including answers about the gender pay gap, quantity of people without health insurance, and the amount of wealth controlled by the top 10% of the earners. In other words, the game provides the commentary about the corruption of the system as the song, in the Voice of the System, crows its successes and mechanisms for maintaining them (the oft-repeated "fire"). Within that commentary, we see people confused by reality (see the woman's response at 1:24 about uninsured people) and obviously guessing at the systemic flaws (see, for example 1:36-1:38). The idea that the system abuses the masses and the masses love it, adore it, accept it is all summarized in the title of the song and its entire refrain: "Sleep now in the fire." The interpolation of the stock exchange reminds me of the film The Dark Knight Rises, which attempted (and failed) to capture the zeitgeist of the then-important Occupy Wall Street movement. Despite the problems with that film, there's a moment of significance when Bane (the bad guy) takes over the Gotham Stock Exchange. "There's no money here. There's nothing to steal," says one of the day-traders. "Then why are you here?" asks Bane, unimpressed. The music video ends with the claim that RATM caused the NYSE to close down...and no money was hurt. One of the reasons director Michael Moore included his arrest--his hand painfully squeezed and pulled behind his back--is to drive home this point. The money wasn't hurt, but a human was. Again, this relies heavily on the motif of being peacefully ensconced within the thing that harms: Sleeping in the fire. And the "thing" here is the system. Look at the different images that are chosen: Rudy Giuliani, looking smug (:07); stereotypical rich men lighting their cigars with dollar bills (2:05); corks popping off of champagne bottles (2:01); the swarming of the NYSE floor at :16, like ants within the hill, all industriously working beneath the symbols of prosperity (the man with the gavel, who strikes on the beat at :21. The audience--whether hired extras or curious onlookers, I'm not sure--is comprised almost entirely of white men. In the crowd scenes, I see glimpses of women and perhaps a Latino or two, but the overwhelming consumers of Rage are white men. They're jumping up and down, screaming--whether at or with is unknown--and pumping their fists into the air. Taken at face value, they're unironically consuming that which they otherwise despise, having taken the commodification of communism that the band endorses as though the rage and system were understood. This is the great subversion and irony of Rage Against the Machine in the broad strokes, made clear in the minute minutes of the music video: Rage sells. The system that propelled Zack de la Rocha and his crew to international stardom and fame was the very thing the entire band despised. I believe that everything de la Rocha raps and screams about is something that he definitely believes, and one of the things that he understands is that there is no atmosphere too rarefied for capitalism to believe as healthful. Yes, the band critiques the things that make them famous, but their motivation is to accumulate that power, wealth, and notoriety in order to bring it down--they aren't motivated by the things that the audience, huddled outside of the NYSE, are motivated by. It isn't about earning stacks of money for the luxurious house or mudbaths (1:54-1:57); it's about decrying the injustices of the system ("over one billion people live on less than a dollar a day" (1:51) and people luxuriating on yachts is the point of the Filthy F&#%ing Rich? game (;50)), using injustice to draw attention to the selfsame. The Voice of the System Zack de la Rocha's lyrical delivery is high pitched, strident, and loud. To be honest, I don't know how he has a voice at all, considering how much he screams. He also will whisper (as during the bridge) to drive home his point. Interweaving history, economic critique, and irony, "Sleep Now In The Fire" is an example of de la Rocha at his best and most angry. Line by line, the song speaks like Smith (Adam Smith, that is) with all pretensions of mutual gain removed. This is the reason that the "poor black man" at the end of Filthy F&#%ing Rich? rejects the ill-gotten, greed-motivated gains--much to the bafflement and surprise of the host. Aside from the utopian vision of the proletariat rising against the bourgeoisie that those final moments (3:03-3:10) portend, it's the "cost of [their] desire"--that those who've caused so many to "sleep now in the fire" to be burned by what they've created. The "poor" man doesn't need money, and the idea that the problems can be solved by the thing that created the problems in the first place is insulting and rejected. De la Rocha takes aim at the specifics of whom he blames as the orchestrators of this built-to-lose game of capitalism, and though he is less direct here than in other songs (I'm thinking of "Bulls On Parade", in which he's calling out the bull elephants of American politics, the Republican party), the invocation of Jesus as being the one who blesses and allows this exploitation puts the target squarely on the so-called "Christian conservatives". The idea of "prosperity gospel" is alive and well in America, and, for de la Rocha, this is utter garbage. That's the entire critique. And considering the rank abuses, done in the name of God, it's little wonder that he's claiming rage* as his foundational emotion. Yet he sings as the Voice of the System, as a naked, ruthless, confident-in-its-audacity version of Capitalism. "What will happen if you stand up to me?" he seems to implicitly ask. The direct answer: "Jail and bury those committed/And smother the rest in greed." Clearly declaring Capitalism's modus operandi, de la Rocha's Voice of the System is shockingly calloused. By stripping away the hypocrisy of capitalism--both in its images and in its lyrics--Rage Against the Machine is predicting inevitable crises (including the moment at 1:04 of a sign "Trump for President") that come from the adoration of capital above all else. The lie is my expense The scope of my desire The Party blessed me with its future And I protect it with fire I am the Nina The Pinta The Santa Maria The noose and the rapist And the fields overseer The agents of orange The priests of Hiroshima The second verse echoes and modifies the first verse, which I've put side by side here. The opening lines of both fit metrically, but their power comes in the substitution: How did the Voice get the world? Through lies. It comes at a "cost" but we can see the "scope" of its success. And substituting "The Party" from "Jesus" (which metrically doesn't fit as snugly, but that doesn't seem to be the point) is a clear condemnation of what has become--or maybe always was?--the way in which American politics works. This is brought home when one recalls that white Evangelicals overwhelmingly support President Trump--as do many Mormons,** despite him being of a character so debased that Mormon Jason Chaffetz couldn't support Trump, but voted for him anyway, then did nothing to stop any of the administrations abuses while in charge of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, leaving partway through his term for a job on FOX News. Chaffetz is the exact trajectory criticized in "Sleep Now In The Fire": It's likely that he started his politics because of his religious beliefs (though, not being the man, I can't say that's completely the case; his Mormonism certainly didn't hurt his political career, and it's likely that his success came, in part, that his religion is the same as the majority of his constituency), but he certainly traded in whatever religious values as he drifted deeper into the Party's power structure. He famously said that he couldn't support Trump because of moral failings in the candidate, but then turned around, voted for the man, and continued to attempt to persecute Clinton on the Benghazi scandal, despite repeated failures to come to any fault. When his political career turned sour, he pulled a Palin, retired, and turned to broadcast punditry. From God to Party to Capital--all since 2010. De la Rocha hits additional points, alluding to the atrocities of Agent Orange, declaring the nuclear annihilation of civilians as a holy choice (hence "priests of Hiroshima"), and the twin terrors of physical- and sexual slavery ("the noose and the rapist/ The fields' overseer"). His invocations of these deep-seated sins of capitalism are sharp, but when coupled with the fact that this Voice of the System isn't trying to hide behind anything--that is, he isn't trying to justify atrocity because of eventual bottom-line benefits--it puts the critique into an uncomfortable focus. If capitalism were honest, would we still support it? Or is it too strong, too deep, too insistent? What is the cost of our desire? Are we truly sleeping in the fire? Are we secretly relieved that "no money was harmed in the making of this video"? --- * That the Western Tradition, built upon The Iliad, is a tradition of anger may be another interesting avenue of interrogation to the name of the band. ** More than half a million Utahns voted for Trump. You don't get those numbers without a large swath of Mormons thinking he was "less evil" than Hillary Clinton. Or you get people who "vote their conscience" for someone who was not capable of gaining enough country-wide appeal to stop a fascist. But that's a rant for another day. |
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