By José Gandue @Gandour
We're all adults, right? According to our statistics, Zonagirante.com's visitors are primarily university and postgraduate students, and I don't think we're exaggerating when we suspect that 99% of our audience is over 18. Even so, just to be on the safe side, we're giving you a heads-up: Those who are under eighteen years of age should refrain from reading this note further, knowing that if they continue without their parents' permission, they cannot accuse us of inciting them to indecent acts or to have involuntary encounters with the devil. Well, now that the warning is out, we can continue. From this moment on, relax, take off your uncomfortable clothes, and join us for a discussion (with educational materials included) that's a bit more complex than you suspect: Is making music videos with explicit sexual content really a good thing?. Beyond the moral barriers and obvious reservations of a conservative society like ours, is creating pieces with pornographic content to promote new songs we want to be popular a worthwhile exercise?
The topic arose between us with the release of the new clip of Megalomania, the third single from the upcoming album by the Chilean hard rock band Aisles. The work in question is a piece of just over seven minutes that It feels more like a short film whose soundtrack consists of only one song than a typical promotional music video. It is an arduous audiovisual undertaking, which, at least it seems, appears to be expensive and which uses actors little known in the international scene to dramatize a story of violence, friendship, doubts and lots of sex, with nudity and obvious physical action. The lens pushes certain boundaries and suggests that the action taking place in front of the camera is real. It exceeds the limit set by YouTube (a company that is sometimes overly conservative, but never misses an opportunity to make money from a potential scandal), and therefore is subject to a rule that I find ridiculous: The video is accepted on the platform, but it prevents any media outlet (as happened to us at Zonagirante.com) from taking the codes and deciding to share its display on their sites. As you will notice, that is why we have turned to Vimeo, a much more liberal company, in order to be able to display the cited videos in this note.
Aisles – Megalomania from Bernardo Quesney on Vimeo.
Most social media platforms are quite particular about these matters. A few months ago, we shared a promotional flyer for one of our articles that we had illustrated with a series of images of Eadweard Muybridge, a renowned 19th-century British photographer, specializing in detailing the movement of bodies. We had come across snapshots of a half-naked man jumping over a fence. Barely his chest was exposed, and little else. We were blocked from our personal Facebook page for using "indecent images." A little while later we found out that a friend, who was advertising his contemporary art appreciation course, had used the painting. Liberty leading the people, made by Eugène Delacroix, and received the same punishment as us, since, as you will recall, The protagonist of that historic painting appears with her breasts exposed, leading the French people towards the revolution. In short, how many times have we heard that a pair of nipples, especially if they're female, infuriate Mark Zuckerberg's censors, who then mobilize their troops to block any reference to them, in defense of our vulnerable moral and spiritual values? And at the same time, How much racially, politically, religiously, and socially hateful material is allowed to circulate out there, to protect the extremists of the day who attack democratic principles?
But let's not get sidetracked, let's get back to the suggestive music videos. Another one that goes through a similar filter to the one imposed on Aisles is... Miami SM, from the Venezuelan group La Vida Boheme. Of course, the band had a clear vision from the start of the project, especially with the presence of the increasingly acclaimed pornstar LaSirena69, a compatriot who has been climbing positions in the ranking of preferences of Pornhub and other specialized portals, for her exuberant and obvious beauty and because she has not been at all shy in the development of her career. Miami S&M, It must be said, it's a complete and fun package. It's a rock song that explodes on any occasion it's played, since its lyrics are contagious to the listener and it has an irresistible rhythm for dancing. This is a tune that deserved the best possible video. And it succeeds, because the work not only features Antonella Alonso (the name registered on the identity document of the guest actress, who, by the way, is the niece of the once famous María Conchita Alonso), but also because, as has happened on most occasions when the Caracas-based group has decided to present audiovisual material, the photographic and editing work is impeccable. The script is ingenious and tells a story that has surely occurred on several occasions among Latino immigrants in the United States in the era of digital stores and the easy and practical sale of erotic material online. However, there are two versions of this clip: The explicit, yet disguised with a bold animation that barely leaves anything to the imagination, But this leaves the regulators of social media platforms and networks without arguments, and the one who goes all in, which can only be seen on La Vida Boheme's Onlyfans, for a modest price. Without fear of being called prudes, we prefer the animated version. The other can be seen for free in any of LaSirena69's works on XVideos or XNXX.com.
But let's return to the original question: Is pornography a valid tool for promoting new music? Likewise, since we began writing this article, we have felt the critics of urban genres hovering over our shoulders, Those who are easily offended by the daring movement of buttocks in front of the camera in recordings by any of the most popular artists of the moment, guy Bad Bunny, Maluma or J Balvin. Let's not get confused: Anyone can do it twerking upon registering a cell phone and thereby making more than one unsuspecting person sigh, But making porn seems to be the work of bolder people. Reggaeton still doesn't easily cross that border; it still wants to be spicy in its language (and even misogynistic in its messages) but is fearful of real action. Pornography, In these kinds of situations, whether we like it or not, He wants to tell stories that unsettle the viewer And, to that end, he embraces censorship as a risk, questioning those who judge them. I can't see Yatra, the fool, or Luis Fonsi, the insufferable one, risking everything and breaking the mold of the girl in a bikini on the yacht of the moment.
We are all adults and each of us has consumed some type of porn in our lives, although we are discreet when discussing it with friends and acquaintances. Nor is it about always starting the conversation by talking about how well you Verónica Leal, Colombia's best representative in the European adult film industry, performs her amorous duties, or we're talking about the AVN Awards, the Oscars of international porn. The debate isn't about that, and we acknowledge that, after several minutes, Any material with strong erotic content can become as boring as a documentary about how dentistry was practiced in Czechoslovak territory in the sixties. Series like Bruna, Sex/Life, Elite, You, Me and she y Masters of Sex, Among other things, they have demonstrated their popularity thanks to the skillful handling of their voluptuous scenes. No one says it's porn, but we like it when this material pushes boundaries and makes us feel a little uncomfortable watching the screen.
When it comes down to it, We live in times when, when it comes to breaking down barriers, anything is possible, as long as it manages to attract attention long enough to become a worthwhile discussion. and enhance the work presented. Later, on another occasion, we can discuss all the rottenness surrounding the erotic industry, and the undeniable exploitation of those abused in that environment, but for now, This is simply a matter of knowing whether the pieces presented are worthy of admiration or not.
The Bohème Life: "Miami SM" (2020) from Otto Scheuren on Vimeo.
