Imagine some kind of unholy combination of 
Jul 16, 2009 10:31 PM
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Imagine some kind of unholy combination of the worm scene in Galaxy of Terror, the Cremaster movies, Pink Floyd, the feminist art of Cindy Sherman, and that bean orgy in Tommy. Then you're ready for this snippet of The Worm.
Be warned: Don't watch this video unless A) you have a stomach of steel or B) you have read at least one essay about gender and film by Kaja Silverman or Slovaj Zizek. You could also read Julia Kristeva's work on abjection. That would work too.
The Worm is an art movie in progress by Austin Young, who is posting chunks of it on YouTube as he finishes them. It seems as if he's starting in the middle with episode 7, which you can see above. Young's work has been lauded by Perez Hilton and he's apparently filmed a chunk of the movie with Margaret Cho, so he's got subversive celebs on his side. And that makes perfect sense, because The Worm is all about subverting celeb culture.
Basically the worm is a grotesque, bulgy creature who eats nothing but canned beans. It gets created out of the combined trashy terror of Cher, Britney Spears, Winona Ryder, and Madonna. And somehow Gloria Steinem is in there too. (All played rather amazingly by Nadya Ginsburg.) What's going on in this video? Basically the combined vapidity of these women, and their hunger for power, turns into a giant, vibrating something that resolves into . . . the worm.
The worm is the needy, ugly, lipsticked creature that lurks in the heart of all fucked up and fucked-over megastar women whose looks are shot, but whose wish that you would look at them is not. Imagine if you tried to explain Britney Spears to an alien. Maybe you would show them this video.
And if the video above confused you, Young has posted an analysis of the video too (below).
via The Worm on MySpace and Undead Backbrain
Send an email to Annalee Newitz, the author of this post, at annalee@io9.com.
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
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