Madness and Civilization

Madness gets slammed by folks for not having the same level of commitment to antiracist politics as the other 2tone bands. They were the only all-white 2tone band, and they were never really down with Rock Against Racism - indeed they never really repudiated the neo-nazi element of their fandom, despite their Prince Buster covers and encomia. We should find that extremely problematic in the context of the political climate of Ska's so-called "second wave." Paul Gilroy certainly does in There Ain't No Black In The Union Jack. This video is certainly "not helping" a la Claudia Merson to TWF and yours truly Summer 2003, in that this is not a particularly critical interrogation of the imagoinary of British colonialism. I'd love to read the salutes and hatstomping and the dead bassist (wtf) as a subtle politics of anti/post/colonial mimicry, but I don't think that reading works or is responsible, acknowledges the silences of the green screen and those beyond it.

Bonus: someone say something about the gender and class politics of the multip,e forms of drag being performed here. (Also, we can just talk about how great this video is.)

Although my favorite may actually be