In a genre of it's own, Manson has once again overwelmed his fans and cased mass media fuss over a performance of his, in this video, Manson portrays he assasination of JFK which went down terribly in the US. The Genre characteristics of Marily
n Manson's music videos are usually bizarre, scary, gory and have often been referred to as a fracture of Manson's sick imagination, alas, this music video is strangely calm, yet what appears to have stayed with Manson during production is how he always uses his whole band in his videos, like he does not want to exclude them, there are many shots of him with his band which also gives them a feel of a union. Also the use of colour is very toned down as usual, Manson's previous videos like "Beautiful people" have always been the same with only a limited amount of colour, usually red, light green and blue is used within setting and background, otherwise, it's mainly Manson's hair which for example in Coma White is red, people are dressed alike as the set, in this video's case I believe it is to emphasise that everyone fades in with each other in society. The relationship between lyrics and visuals is oddly strong, looking through the video first I barely noticed the relation, but embraced the thought of this girl in the beginning - the only person who wears a white, long, innocent dress throughout the video, as the girl which Manson refers to, but this spreads further with the mob surrounding JFK - portrayed by Manson himself, so it is like Manson is singing to the world, the interesting bit that emphasised this I found was the chorus in the lyrics - "a pill to make you numb, a pill to make you dumb, a pill to make you anybody else, but all the drugs in this world - wont save her from herself" Manson - a man who's experienced with drugs, alcohol and the rock lifestyle, I believe is warning the world - perhaps directly his fans, as this song was written shortly after a Manson fan committed suicide whilst listening to an earlier Manson album. This I found an interesting theory - Manson basically saying "no drug can make you happier" this is supported also by how his lyrics continue "You were from a perfect world, a world that threw me away" At the end of the day there is a definite hidden message to this song, using JFK may have been because JFK was the president but he also embraced drugs and had many affairs - love is a drug? Some people can't go without it, but in the end JFK was assasinated, nothing in the world could have h
elped him, no doctor or member of the mob, no love, prayers or drugs, he died. Between the music and the visuals, I believe it is very strong use of clips, and it is very well edited, the phase in which everything moves goes steady as the beat of the drum in the song, and rarely in this music video does it return to normal phase, the use of colours makes it look even more sinister, and how no one has an expression of emotion on their face apart from Manson himself - it makes it look like people are not bothered, they all look like they are on morphine. What I found was a delight was how there are many close ups of the band, Manson and some of the characters portrayed, both in and out of focus, seeing Manson up close performing is strong also as it gives people a visual as to how he'd perform live, but also a strong visual of the video, the viewers feel closer to Manson if he gets close to them and you feel more part of the video with the type of shots from within the mob and surrounding Manson. The definite intertextual reference is the assasination of John F. Kennedy, this is highly offending to some, but in a way I find that Manson's style of crossing the line is just so creative and artistic, it's rebellious and it tells us in a way as viewers that we have every right to express ourselves in our way. The video is partly performance based but also both narrative and concept. Manson was always about concept which makes him so unique, he has his complete own style within costume, props, setting and acts.
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