Slipknot and Ultra-Violence

Representation of Collectivity

To be clear, Slipknot is not a communist group. Yet, some of “the key metaphors of communist utopia,” including “fraternity, equality, … [and] the disappearance of the state, of property, of economic structures” (Todorov 364) appear throughout some of the band’s most popular videos, which is strangely logical considering there are very few concepts more contrary to “normal” American culture than the collectivity of communism. In many ways, the music video for “Duality” plays out like a (communist) revolution for maggots and a call for equality. The video starts by showing a mob of young, angry, white men – an accurate representation of the fan demographic described earlier – charging toward and tearing apart a dilapidated house in a nondescript rural setting. This is not violence for the sake of violence; rather, the destruction of the house represents the dismantling of the establishment. Beginning around the 2:18 mark, a period of stillness follows this chaos as the crowd realizes its fraternity or “comradeship [which] does not arise from religious love, but from the technological togetherness of bodies in the work process” (Todorov 371). Finally, the calm breaks around 2:54 and the moshing resumes (though the destruction of property is over), signaling that the maggots have succeeded in creating their alternative utopia. Under this reading, the music video, a poor image, “creates ‘visual bonds’” that connect the outcasts through “a sort of communist, visual, Adamic language that [can] not only inform or entertain, but also organize its viewers” for a call to action (Steyerl).

To a lesser extent, the video for “Before I Forget” also produces visual bonds instructing fans to rise above the infection of individuality (Todorov 367) in exchange for unity. “Before I Forget” is the only video that shows the band without their masks, though the video does not reveal their faces either. The band’s costuming – the masks, the barcoded jumpsuits, and identifying themselves by numbers instead of by names – are all tools to suppress identity, as the band’s DJ Sid Wilson asserts that “the whole point of this band is not knowing who [they] are so [the listener] can pay attention to the art and soul of it” (Bozza, “Slipknot: Highway”). But, the individual band members are still able to express their personalities through unique masks, so by removing the masks and faces and dressing the band in all black in the video, the band transcends the realm of humanity to be a pure symbol of unity with the maggots.

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