Marc Herman’s 101 post about flash mobs flamenco-ing in Spain’s ailing banks sounds like an echo, or perhaps an ancestor, of this summer’s edition of the “Step Up” film oeuvre, “Step Up Revolution.”
In Spain, the group Flo6x8 draws attention the corruption that’s gnawing at the foundations of the nation’s financial system; in SUR, a chirpy troupe known as The Mob battles an evil tycoon (are there any other kind?) who wants to raze a Miami neighborhood and replace it with something that’s presumably more profitable.
While the premise of “Step Up” first struck me both as a tired cliché (“Hey kids, let’s put on a protest”) and manifestly silly, the Spanish example suggests I’ve been a bit too dismissive. Even silly can mask serious intent and dangerous consequences, as the flash-singing Russian band Pussy Riot is discovering in having trod on Putin’s toes.
So as my own endorsement of Flo6x8 and Pussy Riot and even the mob, let me offer the observation made by my Fresno homeboy Tonio K. in his ’70s song, “Funky Western Civilization”: “But just because we’re hypnotized that don’t mean we can’t dance.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7B238iwAmw
