Music Video
Serj released one of the videos on September 11, 2007, matching the video's War on Terrorism theme. The music video was directed by Tony Petrossian and was uploaded to YouTube on September 12, 2007. The video shows young children playing in a daycare center with their play imitating the War on Terrorism.
The video opens with a felt Homeland Security Advisory System scale (accompanied by a seal reading "U.S. Department of Playground Security"), followed by a young girl building two towers of blocks. A boy launches a toy airplane into the towers, knocking them down and upsetting the girl, and she is shown to want revenge.
Various scenes in the video refer to the War in Iraq: the children preparing for play war, a teddy bear being pulled down (referring to the symbolic pulling down of Saddam Hussein's statue), a presidential figure with a sign declaring "Mishin Akomplishd", an imitation of the capture of Saddam Hussein, a child in a cage reminiscent of one of the Kenneth Bigley hostage videos, the aforementioned collapse of the block towers, a child dressed and positioned in imitation of a published picture of Satar Jabar from the Abu Ghraib prison, and several children pulling another from a toy house to play execute him with a can of silly string (in reference to the Hamdania incident). A boy inside a toy car puts on goggles and is driven into a plastic ball pit wall to cause a burst of confetti, symbolic of the many suicide bombings at US Army checkpoints. The children performing acts similar to those of the US military are clearly distinguished by wearing helmets reminiscent of soldiers' helmets.
Meanwhile Serj, dressed in a top hat and suit, sings as they play. The video concludes as the children all look out the daycare window and solemnly watch a Marine Corps detail load a flag-draped casket into a hearse. Meanwhile, the dead Marine's grief-stricken parents are looking in horror and disbelief at the day care, after seeing what the children have done.
The video has also appeared on Much Music's Video On Trial.
Read more about this topic: Empty Walls
Famous quotes containing the words music and/or video:
“Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
“We attempt to remember our collective American childhood, the way it was, but what we often remember is a combination of real past, pieces reshaped by bitterness and love, and, of course, the video past—the portrayals of family life on such television programs as “Leave it to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” and all the rest.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)