Terrorist chic is the reconfiguration of terrorist iconography and aesthetics into commodities for consumption. It is becoming increasingly pervasive from the hooded sweatshirts of Anticon (link) to the reappropriation of Hamas’ kaffiyehs by hip hop’s fashion elite (link). My aim with this essay is to challenge the idea that terrorist chic always operates to transform terrorist symbols and narratives into empty signifiers for consumption, through an analysis of the pop star MIA. Born Mathangi “Maya” Aulpragasam, MIA is a recording artist who spent her early life in Sri Lanka before the ethnic conflict forced her family to move to London as a refugee. Her father was an educated, militant Tamil but resisted joining the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Her music is a mash up of various cultural styles, often combining the sounds of world music with a contemporary Western electronic dance aesthetic. Her music and visual art show sympathy for the plight of the oppressed and disenfranchised and, most controversially, those who are stigmatised as terrorists. In the first section of this essay, I will argue that MIA’s terrorist chic is a legitimate strategy for engendering a revolutionary politics from within commodity culture. In the second section, I will argue that MIA deterritorialises her own terrorist body and in doing so, transgresses the cultural/regional/political borders that prevent radical becomings. I will be discussing MIA as a machine in the Guattarian/Deleuzian sense. MIA as a machine is a cultural assemblage, the consumption of which brings MIA into the process of productivity production even as exterior elements define what the MIA machine is (Guattari, 1995, 37).
M.I.A. on Jimmy Kimmel tonight!
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/001479.html
MIA: Terrorist chic
http://bradtriesunderstandingcriticaltheory.wordpress.com/2008/06/10/mia-terrorist-chic/#comment-89
M.I.A. accused of terrorist imagery, Interscope sued
http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2008/08/mia-under-scrutiny-for-using-terrorist-imagery.html
Is M.I.A. a Terrorist?
http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/08/is_mia_a_terrorist
Please go through these links and make a comment against her terrorist activities
M.I.A. on Jimmy Kimmel tonight!
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/001479.html
MIA: Terrorist chic
http://bradtriesunderstandingcriticaltheory.wordpress.com/2008/06/10/mia-terrorist-chic/#comment-89
M.I.A. accused of terrorist imagery, Interscope sued
http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2008/08/mia-under-scrutiny-for-using-terrorist-imagery.html
Is M.I.A. a Terrorist?
http://lineout.thestranger.com/2008/08/is_mia_a_terrorist
Please go through these links and make a comment against her terrorist activities
