"In JJ’s video, conversely,
the mental patients’ humanity is nullified
by injections and their chilly surroundings.
The most surprising and
disturbing moment come when, midway through the video,
two of
Kastlander’s eerie, red-and-black figurative doodles (the only non-white
objects in the video) come to life.
Through a computer-distorted
squeak, they take over Kastlander’s vocals, and despite their
two-dimensionality
and blobbiness, these little guys are presented as
the two most human characters in the video.
There’s something
desperately sad about their imitation of human functions such as
language and song,
and how they trump the human characters’ — nay,
props’ — personhood.
In the ’90s, the mental hospital was used as a place
where artists
could most promiscuously flaunt their emotional spectrum;
“All White
Everything” depicts the same setting in total opposition to this idea.
JJ’s video emulates the anesthetized, dehumanized, turn music has taken
—
especially earlier this decade, it reflected a general cultural leaning
toward aloofness
(see also: the vocal fry pandemic). It
presents its psych ward as a place where all feeling has been
subjugated
by the trappings of contemporary existence. It’s essentialized, perhaps — and goofily aestheticized at times
—
but at least it’s not venerated as a vessel for catharsis."
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