That was a great post.
Thank you. The post was a witness. The world, including the entertainment of our time, is in darkness, but God always provides us light.
I’ve watched that video a number of times now, and the more times I see it, the more I see the different ways in which it attacks Christianity. I didn’t expressly get that Bowie was dressed like an old-time circuit riding preacher, but did vaguely get that impression.
These are also a couple things on the video. The second is a secular review from when it was released:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstar_(David_Bowie_song)
http://flavorwire.com/548737/deconstructing-the-imagery-in-david-bowies-blackstar-video
The Wikipedia article says that Aleister Crowley was part of the discussion between Bowie and the video director during its making. (I also discovered that Bowie made a video against Christianity and the Catholic Church a few years back, called “The Next Day.”)
As I mentioned, to the flesh “Blackstar” is something good, superficially at least, while to the spirit, ruled by Christ, it’s evil.
And that’s actually something the music and video play upon, which adds to its attractiveness to the flesh.
It invokes the meaning of existence, as well as the supernatural. In a word, the profound.
It includes the demonic and Satanic, including some of their sounds, but also Heavenly-sounding music and choirs of angels sounds, and a Heavenly echo of Bowie’s singing voice. Some of it also sounds poignant and nostalgic at times.
Then it also includes the scenery and images of actual dreams, but also dreams of the imagination, and especially the imagination of children and the viewpoints, I believe, of childhood. The world seems a little strange, and not at all mundane, when you’re a child. The dark sky, the fields, the scarecrows, the volcano like candle, and the space-travel view of outer space, all of that evokes, I believe, the memories of childhood.
Then of course it goes into religions, and especially Christianity.
And it seems to be an attack on Christianity that utilizes to beliefs of the Christian faith in the attack.
The woman finding the astronaut’s remains: She’s like another Eve, but also Mary Magdalene at Jesus’ tomb.
She is like Eve, the video says, because she succumbed to “temptation,” and but in this case the temptation was to create a religion. And how she did, according to the video’s symbolism, is that from the death of man, she attached to it a beauty and value it didn’t truly have (the jewels).
She should have seen that the jewels had no place on the skull, but she was blinded by a deception that the two went together. And in accepting the jewels for their beauty and preciousness, she was deceived into accepting death.
The same thing goes for the woman as she represents Mary Magdalene and the female followers of Jesus (and that allusion is extended by the skeleton ascending to the Black Star once the skull has been accepted as some sort of idol.
This equation with the woman as Eve and Mary Magdalene absolutely exchanges the places of God and Satan, with God being presented as the deceiver who slips destruction into what’s good.
I will also point out the scene towards the middle, where Bowie’s voice becomes distorted and evil-sounding, and he acts evil and deceptive as well. The review I linked to notes that at this point the dilapidated attic he appears to be in resembles a church, and he is acting as a preacher. Notice what he says, too:
“I can’t answer why (I’m a blackstar)
Just go with me (I’m not a filmstar)
I’m-a take you home (I’m a blackstar)
Take your passport and shoes (I’m not a popstar)
And your sedatives, boo (I’m a blackstar)
You’re a flash in the pan (I’m not a marvel star)
I’m the great I am (I’m a blackstar)”
This sounds to me like what those who reject Christ and identify as atheist often say. Christians don’t have any real answers, but tell you just follow what the Bible says. Then what he says sounds not only like that preacher, but also resembles words Jesus said, but what both an abductor and customs and airport security might say.
Jesus promises to those who believe on Him is to get them home to Heaven, for one thing.
Then where it says (take) “your sedatives too,” that could mean both the heavy-handed government official, but also Christians opposing drug use.
And “You’re a flash in the pan/I’m the great I am,” is clear. It’s Bowie’s distorted representation of how God and man appear in Christianity.
You also have the scarecrows up on crosses that can’t bear human weight. That creates the suggestion that the Crucifixion didn’t happen, but was meant to scare.
The Wikipedia article, I believe, also says that Bowie wanted the animal tail on the Eve/MM woman. It says he wanted that for “sexiness,” which I imagine is true. The whole video also uses sexual themes, including it appears, homosexual ones. But the tail on the woman also sends a clear message to me that Bowie believed that the truth was that we were descended from apes.
There’s a lot more that could be said, but all in all, the song and video are very anti-Christian.
Twenty years ago, with the interests I had in English, photography, music, the visual arts, as well as all religions and philosophies, and the surreal, symbolic, mystical and gnostic, I would have been very attracted to this video, I believe. It might have almost become like a major part of my “religion.”
Yet as I said, despite its attractiveness to the flesh, the spirit can accept the truth of the evil of this music, as God’s Word reveals it to be, and so not be overcome and deceived by it.