Twenty-first century American popular culture is saturated with extreme images of sex, violence, and consumption. Ours is an entertainment culture which feeds on the people’s desire to be awe-inspired, impressed, shocked, and appalled. Hence, each new video or song must be able to penetrate the audience’s increasingly calloused exterior in order to be lucrative. In the music video “Stinkfist,” Tool comments on our society’s consumer-based addiction to sensory stimulation, and although Plato does not directly address the issue of an over-stimulated mass society in the Republic, his theory is useful in interpreting the video and its greater societal meaning. Plato would argue that although the video intends to subvert the societal need for and emphasis on shocking entertainment, the fact that the video itself is so grotesque is enough for him to consider it unhealthful and dangerous for the masses.
In his Republic, Plato argues that stories which depict gods acting wickedly “are harmful to those who hear them” and that “that’s why such stories must be stopped, to prevent them from breeding in our young men a complete indifference to wickedness” (31-32). Indeed, this is exactly the stance Plato would take in evaluating “Stinkfist.” Rather than commend the video for its accurate depiction of two individuals’ obsessive and compulsive consumption and over-stimulation, Plato would attack the video for its use of disturbing imagery and its lack of positive instruction. When Maynard sings, “there’s something kinda sad about the way that things have come to be. Desensitized to everything; what became of subtlety?” (Tool), he admonishes the shock-based culture in which we live because of its tendency to numb and deaden individuals’ perceptions and ability to think. Although this is a concept Plato would appreciate, the means by which the band conveys the message are too poetic, and are too much of a rhetorical appeal to the audience’s emotions.
By showing the man caressing a television screen, inhaling a substance from a breathing apparatus, and swallowing spikes in spite of his apparent agony, and by pairing these scenes with the lyrics described above, Tool attempts to show the dark side of an addicting entertainment culture. In order to send this message, however, Plato would suggest leading by example. The music video, therefore, should be used to show individuals practicing positive, constructive behaviors so that the audience will not be desensitized to the very things Tool is saying we are desensitized to—corruption, violence, and sex. Hence, Plato would condemn the video for inadvertently promoting the very ills it is supposed to be subverting. To Plato, “Stinkfist” is devoid of any educational usefulness, and due to its ability to manipulate and influence the ignorant masses, he would consider it a danger to society. Indeed, this video reveals how absolutely necessary it is for those in power to be conscious of what and how much the people consume, and how that will affect their ability to effectively participate in their lives and the life of their community.
Works Cited
Plato. Republic 3. Classical Literary Criticism. Trans. Penelope Murray and T.S. Dorsch. London: Penguin, 2000.
Tool. “Stinkfist.” YouTube. 3 February 2009.
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