Thoughts About Apoptygma Berzerk "Deep Red" (Official Music Video)

"Deep Red" is my favorite Apoptygma Berzerk track, even though I think it's problematic. This is the first AB song that I heard, when I was 17 years-old and sometimes naive about the lyrical content of music. I'm 25 years-old now, and I see things differently. It definitely bothers me that the song seems to be about a man's sexual fetish for cutting women. Lyrics such as,

I want you to explain your feelings for me
The blade on your skin is what matters to me

and

The knife cuts through her skin
and your heart starts beating faster

make me feel that the song is about objectifying women, and deriving sexual pleasure from physically harming them.

After watching the video, I suppose one could interpret the song as a reflection of the fears of some young women. The video features a couple of young girls in long white night dresses, who don't seem to be sexualized in any particular way; therefore, you could argue that the song is about the terror a young girl might feel if she's told that she is vulnerable to being attacked in her sleep. I think that's kind of a thin argument though, given that the perspective of the song is that of the attacker. Ultimately, the use of young girls is more accurately about infantilizing women, given the content of the song.

Sexualization of feminine terror and victimization of women is a common theme in slasher films. It hardly seems worth devoting an argument to, as I doubt that I would have anything new to contribute to the discourse, but if you're curious you can easily find many different articles devoted to the subject, such as Horror Week 2011: The Sexiness of Slaughter: The Sexualization of Women in Slasher Films, or an excellent book I would recommend is The Dread of Difference: Gender and The Horror Film. I realize that this is a song and not, in fact, a slasher film, but the culture of slasher films is relevant to the song or to any horror-themed music. It's all very tied to rape culture, which is about using power to oppress others.

Sounds like a cop-out, but I actually do like the song because it is danceable. The lyrics could have been about another type of creepy blood experience, maybe something like menstruation or something Carrie-esque, or even about self-harm for that matter, and I would have been happier. Could have been about fuzzy bunnies and I still would have danced to this song. I can live with some cognitive dissonance, and so I still love the song even though I view it through a feminist lens. Heck, my blog address was inspired, in part, by "Deep Red."

NB: I am not trying to suggest that I think AB condone violence. I am merely making observations about the content of one of their songs.