Idolator’s Tribute-Video Treasury Stages A Fray-MIMS Rumble

kater | July 16, 2007 4:20 am
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Ed. note: Once again, Idolator intern Kate Richardson scours the video sites, looking for the best fan-made music-video tributes. In this entry, she looks at two very different takes on The Outsiders:

On the mean streets of YouTube, some wear madras and make tribute videos dedicated to Michael Bay films. Others wear leather and pay homage to Francis Ford Coppola’s film version of The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton’s young-adult novel about culture clash in 1960s Tulsa. Unfortunately, things on YouTube are as misguided as ever and Hinton’s beloved greasers have somehow become tangled up with cheesy prep rock–the ultimate blasphemy!–and repetitive pop-rap.

Song: “How To Save a Life” by The Fray Concept: The Outsiders as story of a brave young burn victim and the friends who love him. If ever there were a band that Ponyboy and the gang would hate, it would be The Fray, especially this particular song about saving troubled youths. But such is the way of YouTube. The video seems determined to make The Outsiders more about Johnny’s tragic death than class struggle, and it certainly does succeed. The song, however irritating in its recent ubiquity, works really well with the clips of everyone looking so concerned, and an advanced understanding of the tribute-video form is shown with the use of the sepia filter. While not at all poorly put together or even difficult to watch, this video is, in the end, truly joyless. Who can derive satisfaction from something which uses music from a band that would have surely been beloved by the Socs to memorialize greasers? Best music-to-image sync-up moment: Just under a minute in, a very charred C. Thomas Howell is smoking a cigarette and looking distressed. Where did he go wrong? How will he save Johnny’s life? Silliest music-to-image sync-up moment: At 1:40, the lyric “Where did I go wrong?” coincides with the shot of burned-up Johnny face-down on a hospital bed. I’d say it was the moment at which you decided to run into the burning church and rescue those kids, Johnny.

Song: “This Is Why I’m Hot” by MIMS Concept: The Outsiders as plotless–but stylish!–gangster movie. I’ve never enjoyed this song in any capacity, but somehow it matches well with the swaggering attitude of the greasers. The video itself is hit or miss. Some of the clips–Matt Dillon smoking, Ponyboy and Johnny in the sunset, the gang on the way to the rumble–look appropriately bad-ass, but many of them–Ponyboy and Johnny sleeping, Patrick Swayze weeping, etc.–are just boring, poorly selected fillers that slow down the pace of the video and don’t even manage to create a narrative. But despite its failings, this video has a creative concept and its high points are truly stylish. Best music-to-image sync-up moment: The clip at 1:17 of Dally, Ponyboy and Johnny in the car. It just looks cool. Silliest music-to-image sync-up moment: The creator of this video has a hilarious preoccupation with the not-hotness of Cherry, the greaser-curious Soc girl played by Diane Lane, and insists on flashing her picture every time the line “You ain’t ’cause you not” comes around, which is kind of petty but definitely amusing. Runner up goes to the clip of Emilio Estevez sitting down to a meal of cake and beer, which is, coincidentally, often my claim to hotness, too.

Verdict: After a heated rumble down at the vacant lot, the conceptually superior and generally more fun MIMS video emerges victorious.

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