Ian Galsim | Theban / 2013 [music video]

in the blood

by Douglas Messerli

 

Ian Galsim Theban / 2013 [4 minutes] [music video]

 

Director Galsim begins Sebastian Castro’s November 2013 music video with a brief reminder of the Greek society of male warriors, prefacing his video with two comments: “The sacred band of Thebes was an ancient Greek army composed entirely of men,” adding in the next frame the words, “It was believed that if you fought next to the person you loved, you would fight that much harder to keep them alive.”

      We have clearly moved out of the high school locker room in this mythical recreation of Greek homosexual society, and Castro’s new video loses nearly all sense of humor in the process. Castro’s lyrics immediately establish an all-gay world in which the sexual difference is the central issue:

 

“You’re—different

Un—like the rest.

They—fall for

Women. You could

Care less

I—know why you don’t—get the fuss

Let—me show you a different kind of buzz”

 

    And he does indeed show us, not only through his heavily hyphenated dialogue—which separates words in a manner close to how the world he presents which divorces men from women—but in a series of scenes where the men are clustered together in homoerotic friezes, sometimes appearing to engage in mock battle and at other times simply fraternizing with their friends in semi-sexual recreation.

      The song continues to stress the need for heterosexual suppression:

 

“It’s in your blood. Don’t second guess

That thing they taught you to suppress

Shut up listen. Don’t think give in.

To your every whisper from within.”

 

     The chorus continues in the notion of the all-gay world, a kind of separatism that is enforced by notions of collegial togetherness:

 

“You’re one of us

Bound by love, by love, by lust

Feel it kick in

He sees you the way u see him

Look at his eyes

You are the very reason why

Scream it out loud.

Let everything inside fall out.”

 

    The call to sexual brotherhood becomes a call to war, the two totally interconnected in the Theban cry of the chorus: “On On On On / The Theban sacred bond lives through us / On On On On.”

     Almost as soon as the chorus begins, the images become even more homoerotic, and as the next verse, basically a variation of the first, is sung we begin to observe greater and greater sexual activity.

      Laying out almost nude, Castro sings:

 

“I love you more than a shark loves blood

Can’t quench the thirst. Can’t get enough.

E-ven death can’t take you from me.

You are the color I bleed.”

 

     Again the chorus sings about how they are linked by blood and lust, the leader now presented in an image that is quite powerful.

 

    Before the video is finished, we see our hero kissing and engaging in sex, Castro’s music video becoming something closer to a soft porn film than what one usually thinks of in such YouTube musical presentations.

   One can well comprehend why Castro was seeking out something much more serious than his previous giggling high school sexual escapades, and one respects him for his attempts. But despite the beauty of director Galsim’s images, the music and lyrics just don’t delight one the same as his lighter works such as Bubble and You’re Gay.

 

Los Angeles, May 19, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (May 2024).