Brad tries understanding critical theory.

Terrorists, freedom fighters, resistance groups whatever…

These groups tend to have an identifiable aesthetic of their own which is part of their political strategy.

Let’s have a look at how radical aesthetics and images move through culture…

From thecoolhunter (!) ….

“Terror fashion” is about to invade cities. The new French brand Anticon is launching a new concept of hooded sweatshirts. Graffiti artists, people with acne, snowboarders or simply superheroes would certainly be into them. To order your sweatshirt, you’ll have to wait a few more weeks but we wanted you to be first in the know. Definitely an eye-catching fashion statement!

Note there is also excerpts from Bret Easton Ellis’ Glamorama in the readings. Which might be useful in someway. Here’s an excerpt of a review from the NY Times:

It’s awfully hard to make the leap Mr. Ellis wants us to make from the world of beautiful narcissists to the world of coldblooded killers: there are, after all, differences between models, however self-absorbed, and bloodthirsty serial killers; there are differences between fashion-obsessed hipsters and Hitler, whom Mr. Ellis has the nerve to quote in an epigraph to this novel. (”You make a mistake if you see what we do as merely political.”)

It is equally hard to understand why Mr. Ellis wants to spend so much time (in this novel and every other book he’s written) chronicling a world he seems to recognize as shallow, mercenary, cynical and meaningless — a world he glamorizes as much he debunks. This time around, it results in characters whom the reader and Mr. Ellis have nothing but contempt for, and a novel, as Victor might say, that ”equals yuck.”

Urban Outfitters called their kaffiyeh an “anti-war scarf.” Delias.com gives it the Orwellian name: “Peace Scarf.”

From The Black Snob:

Usually accentuated with some sort of bling, rocked over expensive urban couture. It was outlaw fashion. Terror chic. And it made sense that the coolest of the cool would be attracted to a look sported by rebel fighters living along the Pakistani border with Afghanistan and in the besieged territory of Gaza.

…

Hot with every paramilitary, militia-loving Zapatista-uprising or FARC, PKK, PLO bomb maker, the look is the no. 1 accessory for all terrorists and revolutionaries from Hamas to Hezbollah. The scarf has been hot since Fidel Castro took Cuba from Batista and the upper class. A mainstay since the Viet Cong made it hot in the Mekong Delta. Basically, if you’re a rebel with a murderous cause, you can’t live without your scarf. Not only can it serve as a mask, but it can keep the sweat off your face, the bugs out of your mouth (if you’re in the jungles of Colombia) and keep the sand out of your nose (if you’re in Saudi Arabia).

It’s a must have.

Of course the Madhi Army and the original gangsta of all radical jihadis, Osama bin Laden, aren’t rocking Kanye’s Louis Vuitton model. Mostly because they 1) despise our narcissistic, hedonistic capitalism, mixed with our imperial desires for global domination and 2) are not going to pay $100 for a scarf. You know they probably get those two-for-one at the flea market.

And Kanye has to take it even more uptown. He’s not going to any jungle or desert anywhere to kill anything. He’s from Chicago, USA. He’s not interested in getting his ass blown up. Rather than fight the man, he just adds a pair of matching gloves and color-coordinated custom kicks to pimp that look out a little more.

War urban chic isn’t a new idea. During the first Gulf War in 1991 desert camouflage was all the rage among the hip hop set. While shouting out “Peace in the Middle East” lazily at the end of a track there were the tell-tale military style boots, desert cami baggy cargo pants and a crisp white T-shirt with a platinum chain dangling.

From Gawker:

How does Mingo’s shirt represent “a Muslim looking for a kind of salvation because his family is poor”?

Carl Williamson, graphix designer

Oh sweet Jesus. Do you remember that annoying girl on America’s Next Top Model who said she was from a gated community in the Bronx? I have a hunch this is her brother.

Damali Campbell, soon to be grad school drop-out

Because punishing Americans by flooding our stores with dumb shit like that is cheaper than Jihad.

Now some stuff on M.I.A. from City Pages:

So M.I.A.’s website filled me with revulsion, rage, and probably a little envy. Most of her artwork appropriates terrorist iconography–sometimes incongruously. For example, the airlines that border her self-designed album cover are a nod to that other terrorist group. Planes have nothing to do with the LTTE, or their tactics, but sweeping it all together seems to connect to the terrorists are people too view she espouses. It’s galling to see LTTE tiger symbols on candy-colored backgrounds. People died because of this! And she makes it…cute? But she is here, in the West, and so am I. And she’s taken her Sri Lankan-ness and pushed it to the fore, something I’ve been too timid to even try.

…

I love “Galang”; it’s my favorite track, and the “yah yah heyyy, oey oey oh oh oh” near the end reminds me vaguely of being at the Galle Face beach, listening to the fishermen’s chants as they hauled in the day’s catch. But I saw the video the other day, and as she’s dancing all these stenciled pink bombs fell in Pop Art sheets behind her. Does she know what she’s doing? I mean, this stuff is real. She gives her images power and meaning by connecting her work directly to her father (the album title is supposed to be his “rebel code name” for shit’s sake). Her music, for all its nonsensicality, is so…smart. It’s fun. It’s interesting. She’s not concerned about proving her identity to one group, and instead searches for other dislocated people, displaced sounds. But, at least for me, what she’s trying to say (oppressed people turn to violence for a reason) gets undercut by the gimmicky enthusiasm invested in these symbols.

Finally an interesting interview with Bruce La Bruce director of 2004’s The Raspberry Reich (thanks machinepeople for the heads up), a film critiquing terrorist chic, from kamera.co.uk:

Why did you decide to tackle the Radical Chic theme? When did you develop an interest in that?

Radical Chic has always interested me, ever since I took a course in university called Protest Literature and Movements. Part of the appeal of all the early equal rights movements – feminist, gay, black – was that they understood the importance of adopting a militant image and rhetoric that was both intriguing to the media and also politically charged, alluding to the kind of Marxist-based guerilla insurgencies that were happening in Latin America in that era. But the problem with working within the capitalist system by making these radical political movements alluring and even sexy is that it plays into what Marx called commodity fetishism.

Eventually each of these movements was subsumed and co-opted by the corporate media to the point where you have someone like Madonna manufacturing reputedly radical images of guerilla insurgency to sell millions of records, and the image of Che Guevera becoming a capitalist, sexual icon in the order of James Dean or Marilyn Monroe. The political substance of these radical images has been excised, resulting in a set of empty signifiers which can only be seen as an aspect of fashion or style.

I think that’s the biggest problem facing any new radical political movement today, is to figure out how to avoid the co-optive powers of the media and make a sexy insurgency without succumbing to the merely cosmetic realm of radical chic. Nonetheless, you can now order the new Raspberry Reich t-shirts at www.brucelabruce.com featuring six sexy slogans: The Revolution is My Boyfriend, Join The Homosexual Intifada, Put Your Marxism Where Your Mouth Is, Heterosexuality Is The Opiate Of The Masses, Madonna Is Counterrevolutionary, and Corporate Hip Hop Is Counterrevolutionary.