9/23/10

The Notorious 'Sex Dwarf' Music Video

from Dangerous Minds,

Directed by Tim Pope, Soft Cell’s Sex Dwarf  video, released to promote their debut album, created quite a scandal in 1981. Claiming it was pornographic, British police actually confiscated copies of the video. It was banned from MTV at the time and is currently banned from Youtube.


Not safe for the workplace or the kids, obviously. But not as disturbing or offensive as you might think, either. It straddles a fine line between ridiculous and genuinely frightening, echoing the ouvre of Paul McCarthy or Hermann Nitsch (Soft Cell met in art school, where Dave Ball was composing avant-garde soundscapes and Mark Almond was a performance artist).



Bonus clip: Soft Cell tears through a sleazy cover of Suicide's "Ghost Rider" with Foetus on guest vocals:


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