Vid: Shake It Out

[mresundance]

Shake it Out by mresundance
Song and Artist: "Shake it Out" by The Manchester Orchestra
Primary Source: The New World
Length: 04:42
Summary: "I felt the Lord begin / to peel off all my skin." An allegory.
Contains/Warnings: Vidder chooses not to disclose.
Crossposts: Tumblr
Betas: ladymajavader, echan, and lola who all helped shape and strengthen this vid tremendously. Thank you!

For the 2012 Vividcon Challenge Theme, "Transformation".

Anonymous comments are enabled! I encourage people to comment honestly. I would love to discuss this vid.

Please use the mediafire links before the permanent link.

Permanent link (right-click save): 103 MB wmv

103 MB wmv @ mediafire
48 MB wmv @ mediafire

https://vimeo.com/44082326

Password: pocahontas

Also on Youtube: http://youtu.be/T5wvRupIorU

Lyrics

Shake it out, shake it out
God,
I need another, and another, and another, and another --
I can feel it now
I felt the Lord in my father's house.

And I could see, I could see
Standing we were seventeen -- make it clean --
I am the living ghost of what you need
I am everything eternally

God, just speak.

'Cuz I'm done being done with the funeral,
At least for now.
Are you tired of being alone, are you tired of being alone?

Shake it out, shake it out
God, I need another and another for the other wasn't wanted
And I heard it out
I felt the Lord in my father's house.

And I can see, I can see
Standing you were seventeen, make it clean
I am the living ghost of what you need
I am everything hypocrisy
Can't you see?

'Cuz I'm done being done with the funeral,
At least for now.
Are you tired of being alone, are you tired of being alone?

I felt the Lord begin
(I swear, I'll never go)
To peel off all my skin
(Don't stop, don't nothing, don't ever, no)
I felt the weight within
(I swore, I swore you'd go)
Reveal the bigger mess
(That you don't know)
That you'll never fix.

Notes

Quick nod to obsessive24, who gave me her blessing to use a song she had already used, basically. Oh I know, songs are free game anymore, but I always like to be polite.

Also a further nod to lolachrome, who has gone above and beyond the normal call of duty, first in her excellent beta advice, second, in reading over my notes and providing input and advice there as well. She rocks.

I have enclosed the notes in a PDF document file. It's rather long (~2,300 words), but it explains some of the ideas that went into this vid. It also explores some of the process of making the vid.

ETA. Removed the link to the PDF. If you are dying to read it for some reason, message me or comment here with a way I can contact you and I'll send you the link.

The shortparts version of the notes:

1. This is an allegory. It might work better if you think John Smith = Europeans, Matoaka (Pocahontas) = Native Americans.

2. Like an allegory, this narrative greatly simplifies very complex ideas. It is one of the unfortunate limits of both the choice to use allegory, and the structure of a vid itself. I have only five minutes to make a coherent point of some kind.

3. The target audience for this vid is white European Americans. Mainly because, I don't necessarily think Native Americans are the people who need to "hear" this message. They heard it, unfortunately, loud and clear, ages ago.

4. I am a white dude and this vid, despite my best efforts, remains a European perspective on colonization in the Americas.

5. Because the vid is a European perspective on colonization, and is targeted at European Americans, the primary goal is simply to provoke. I wanted the vid to provoke a reaction, and to provoke discussion about a topic which is too often glossed over, or actively ignored, in American culture.

So that's it. Comments and critiques of any kind are lovely.

Comments

[bop_radar]

I really liked this piece very much, though I'm more interested in the emotional narrative than all the aca/theory. While I did read it as an allegory (as you framed it as such) I was also interested in the personal narrative between the characters (which I read purely as fiction--but agree with you above when you say we tell stories for a reason). In that fiction, I did read hope for something better in Pocahontas's character's yearnings and attempts at connection, something human, irrespective of race ... so I found her ultimate 'transformation' all the more tragic. Whether you believe the historical reality of the story, I think it's interesting that myths of love between coloniser and colonised exist. Here I got a real sense in THIS version of a human connection and longing between both parties to transcend their identities (even if briefly). Their social (political) selves betrayed their personal selves is how I read it. And I agree with hollywoodgrrl that the line you chose as your summary is the most powerful moment in the vid for me.

[mresundance]

Heh, I have realized that I like being in a middle space between aca/theory and the creative/emotional thing. Sometimes I create as an emotional outpouring; but more and more I create to solve intellectual and emotional problems which I can't grasp any other way. But I think a lot of creative people do that -- you included. Sometimes you just have a feeling, or something which bugs you, and you can't put your finger on it except to maybe vid it, or write it, and then it becomes clearer. Or not. :P

Here I got a real sense in THIS version of a human connection and longing between both parties to transcend their identities (even if briefly). Their social (political) selves betrayed their personal selves is how I read it.

Heeh, that is a groovy reading. I think I like it better than my own reading. I do think it's allegory, but it's really incomplete, because I'm bad at simplifying people that much. So some of the personal connections and motivations still come through, and I'm glad you saw that.

The more important question is, however: why must we be so far from VVC?

[bop_radar]

Yeah, for sure... vidding to explore something, without a fixed idea upfront, is the most rewarding kind for me. :)

bad at simplifying people that much
Haha, better that than the opposite!! ;)

I'm glad you're comfortable with me seeing the personal motivations anyway... I know I might not be in the majority there and that's fine. I imagine the social/political discussion around it will be primary, for good reason. I was just more inclined in my loungeroom viewing to connect personally--especially to the female character. Her expression at the end is heartbreaking.

I know... it must be very hard not to have been there for the reception of this vid. I heard it was a little on the dramatic side. ;) I definitely would have liked to have seen the collective reaction--one of the things I miss about not being there is that sense of reaching an audience as a whole, rather than as individuals (though one is not better than the other!).

[mresundance]

The journey and the process itself really is paramount in creative work, which is why I am okay with things being flawed in my own work, because it matters that you tried and did something.

It's impossible to separate personal and political with something like this. And if you can, then well. Uhm. How? Even if it is not my personal lived struggle, it's something that is part of my history and my culture and it influences who I am and the world I live in. There's no escaping it, really. I don't mind people seeing that and knowing it, especially if it gets them to think about how events like this influence their own lives in ways they may not have thought of before.

I was just more inclined in my loungeroom viewing to connect personally--especially to the female character. Her expression at the end is heartbreaking.

I KNOW. I love her character so much in this film. She is so sweet, so warm, and so courageous and resilient. Maybe that's a mythic version of her, but it's hard not to be drawn to the character and her struggles.

[bop_radar]

Yeah, definitely hard not to be drawn in... and good to be. Empathy does a lot of your work here with you, and she's a very accessible character, I think (not having seen the source, I can only go by what I see here). :) I liked getting that window ...

[morgandawn]

I came away with many mixed emotions, but to pick up on bop radar's thread: a sense of sadness that the personal can be overrun by the social/political. That we're ultimately helpless and yet we try nonetheless to make that human connection.

Another interesting point: the most emotional visual was not the (sadly) familiar images of death and massacres, but the boarding school photos. It makes me want to go back in time and wrestle with history.

I never saw the movie so I don't know how *this* version of the Pocahontas story played out but that was not necessary to the vid as allegory.

[mresundance]

a sense of sadness that the personal can be overrun by the social/political. That we're ultimately helpless and yet we try nonetheless to make that human connection.

Yes. I think that is definitely there, yes. Definitely an idea I felt and wrestled with when making the vid.