We stand in a unique moment in time wherein on the one hand, there’s rampant anti-queer sentiment passing oppressive laws and forging a straw man out of the threat of sexual deviance. On the other hand, metropolitan culture has all but gone overboard compensating for the historic exclusion of gays and theys from everyday life. Pertaining to the latter, the concept of the “ally,” or the ever present know-it-all trained in the latest and most benevolent lexicon, becomes a twisted embarrassment; trying so hard to be supportive that they wind up sucking up all the oxygen in the room for themselves.
To this effect, Los Angeles underground veterans’ new project MMDA is pulling no stops in their brazen critique of the white knight culture and the pandering of rainbow capitalism that has all but overshadowed queer people themselves. The new music video for “Good Ally” invokes the 2008 PSA featuring Hillary Duff “Think Before You Speak” in which two apparently straight teenage girls are trying on clothes at a department store and calling the clothes gay, perhaps implying a negative connotation. Luckily, the day is saved by random bystander Hillary, correcting them on the proper use of the word gay and throwing in an insult for good measure.
Of course, nobody needs Hillary’s self-righteousness. She doesn’t know her interlocutors or their sexual orientation so to interrupt two strangers’ lives with zero context to police their dialogue seems absurd, haughty, and self-back patting. We’ve seen situations like this transpire day in and day out as people quickly cling to a revolving door of corrective terminology to absolve themselves of anything else for which they might be guilty, thereby assuaging an abstract or overzealous offended party. But who actually benefits from such domineering annoyance?
The music video for “Good Ally” reminds the viewer to listen twice as much as they speak; to not be a hero and to stop taking everything so seriously. If it is freedom that we’re after, why simply seek to change the targets of control and admonishment? Mind your business, dance your ass off, and embrace the hard- hitting blend of ballroom, house, and donk with an industrial twist. MMDA is doesn’t give a fuck — you shouldn’t either.
