Complete honesty leads to character assassination

Mar 30, 2010 12:19 GMT  ·  By

Over the weekend, on her official website, Erykah Badu released her latest video, for the single “Window Seat.” Shot in one single take at the Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, the video sees Erykah walk towards the site where President John F. Kennedy was shot in 1963 as she’s removing clothes. The explanation for the video, which is already causing quite a controversy online, comes straight from the singer in an interview with the local Dallas News.

As noted above, the vid was done in one single shot. By the time Erykah gets close to where the President was shot, she is virtually not wearing anything, having removed everything she had on save for her hairnet. People she walks by look on in disbelief, with some even trying to cover the eyes of the children they’re with to prevent them from seeing the woman who walks around in a public space in her underwear.

“It was filmed Saturday (March 13) before St. Patrick’s Day. It was a pretty spontaneous thing. The song ‘Window Seat’ is about liberating yourself from layers and layers of skin or demons that are a hindrance to your growth or freedom, or evolution. I wanted to do something that said just that, so I started to think about shedding, […] taking things off in a very artful way. I am from the theater, and this is just a part of expression to us, a part of art. And I saw a video by a group called Matt and Kim, and it was filmed in Times Square. And I thought it was the bravest, most liberating thing I’ve ever seen two people do. And I wanted to dedicate this contagious act of liberation and freedom to them. I hoped it would become something contagious that people would want to do in some way or another,” Erykah says for the aforementioned publication.

The message is that the honesty that is achieved by eliminating so many layers can actually lead to character assassination. If one shows oneself to the world just as one is, one will have to suffer the consequences. Erykah herself knew that she’d have to pay the price for showing herself in the video, so she was prepared for what is happening right now – the backlash in the media, where many are saying that she’s only using shock tactics to get people’s attention and that there’s nothing more to it.

“As soon as the thought came to my mind, I decided to assassinate myself as a gesture. Because it was going to happen anyway. The video is a prediction of what is happening now. […] I would like to say that it was a protest to awaken a term called ‘groupthink.’ It’s a term that was coined in 1952. It’s the recognition of a state of being for humans. It’s human nature for a person to be afraid to express his or her self in fear of being ostracized by the group or general consensus,” the singer explains.

For obvious reasons, we can’t embed the video here. Those of you who want to see it can do so by visiting Erykah Badu’s official webpage.