Barackula
The latest electo-tainment vid lampooning slash celebrating (lampoon-a-brating?) the great white-ish hope, Barackula's a rock horror musical depicting a young Harvard Law School Obama, who must battle a secret society of vampires to save his immortal soul. Which is cool, in a shoulda-seen-that-coming, blaxpoitation-still-has-legs, wait-where's-Sam-Jackson kind of way. Which is probably a testament to a wacked out mediascape, in which self-de-suffragettes like Obama Girl are rump-tastical media darlings. If someone could please produce an Obama movie involving pirates (Bargh!ack, Matey?) -- or maybe a spoof novel, called The Audacity of a Third Book -- I think we'd have the allegorical bases covered.
Despite the glut of preceding Obama vids -- the aforementioned OG, Will.I.Am's Yes We Can -- Barackula acquits itself as the most well-produced and entertaining electo-tainment yet. It's a little tortured, allegory-wise, i.e., I get it, I get it, the jazz-handed vampires are undead political functionaries subsisting off the blood of innocent voters, and Barack has to convince them to change. And politically, it's translucent -- Obama? Fighting evil incarnate? And Democrats are more nuanced than Republicans how? There's the irony, right. In the left's rhetorical battle against GWB's zero-sum, you're-either-with-us-or-against-us eschatology, Obama's elevated into an action hero. Or maybe a prophet. Jesus Christ, YouTube Star.
Barackula also represents the zenith, thus far, of political coattail meme media. That's not a bad thing: Pick a public figure, mashup his/her image with an entertaining motif, viral success. (It's worth noting, though, that Barackula's available on its own site, not as a YouTube vid).
All in, Barackula's a schlock-filled, highly-entertaining vid. It's actually more of a pilot than anything, with one 5-minute vid completed and online, with more to come (though the producers say they don't have a set schedule yet). If there's time in the electoral cycle, the series'll likely get picked up. And won't that be a happy President's Day.
