Giving Head
Radiohead has never made cheery videos. The band, fiercely protective of its music and how it is handled, agreed to let MTV use the song "All I Need" from In Rainbows for the network's MTV EXIT campaign, intended to raise awareness about the exploitation and human trafficking that results in slave labor and forced prostitution throughout the world.
The resulting clip, a split-screen shot comparing the typical day of an affluent boy with the day of a child in a sweatshop, is not dissimilar from clips the band has put out commercially, since it frequently uses the form to communicate social messages. The surprise here is that the band trusted MTV. Singer Thom Yorke admits the irony in MTV - a brand that can't deny its complicity in sweatshop manufacture - leading the campaign. Radiohead has been championing the end of slave labor and human exploitation for years, claiming to have been inspired by Naomi Klein's book No Logo.
In general, MTV wouldn't know social responsibility from a spring break wet T-shirt dance-off, so it must be heartening to a notorious curmudgeon like Yorke to see the network nearly as interested in where designer jeans come from as it is in selling them.Recent Media Magazine Articles
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