Redefining "Sochi," Santorum-style

Philly-based band Potpourri of Pearls, as a reaction to the ongoing furor about Russia’s anti-gay , has released “Sochi,” a song off their upcoming album We Went to Heaven that attempts to redefine the word as: “n. A delightful anus v. To do butt sex.” It’s been getting attention, even getting linked repeatedly by notable word-redefiner Dan Savage. City Paper talked to Potpourri’s Adam Brody about Sochi as he waited in an apparently never-ending line at IKEA.

 

City Paper: So what were you hoping to do with the video?

Adam Brody: I think the first thing that inspired me was the sort of — neologism? I don’t even know how to pronounce that word, I’ve only seen it written.

It doesn’t come up very often.

Yeah — neo-LOG-ism? Neo-LOW-jism? That’s great, it has “jism” at the end. [Laughs.] If that’s how you pronounce it. Anyway, a decade ago, Dan Savage shifted Rick Santorum’s name to mean something completely different as a sort of political action — take something back despite a moment of homophobia.

With the Olympics, I felt like Sochi as a city had already been co-opted by the Olympics — in some ways, I think I would have been more sensitive toward jumping onto a place or a culture and trying to change what it meant, but whatever Sochi was or is,  it’s already been rebranded.

With the video — this is sort of the way that I always try to work, you know, shock and awe. But also move one step ahead of people who are viewing what I make. I don’t want to do something that’s just guys’ butts jiggling because … [Pauses.]

Are you trying to avoid saying “I wanted this to be serious?” Because the video and song both have a distinct silliness to them.

Hmm — no… I think what I’m trying to say is that I think a lot of times when I make something that could be instantly pigeonholed as just for gay audiences or just appealing to a gay sensibility, I think there’s something so much broader in the way that culture is starting to process sexuality and sexual freedom in general, so I imagine this video as something that’s while specifically talking about something right now that concerns discrimination against gay people, I want to create something that… It’s like one of my heroes, John Waters, the way that he’s working through a gay or queer lens, but so much of what he does is an affront to any kind of culture? So yes, that’s my long-winded way of describing my visual aesthetic.

Were you living in Pennsylvania during the election where the Santorum redefinition happened?

Yeah! I grew up outside of the city, my parents were liberal, suburban Philadelphia Democrats in a very conservative area; there were signs with his name all over the town that I grew up in. It’s really hard as a teenager especially to have a viable political discussion happening from a respected politician that incirimnates your identity. So I remember hating the shit out of that guy. Even at a time when I wasn’t engaged in a larger political discourse. So when Dan Savage did that, it was a real moment of vindication, it gave me a taste of how this sort of smart, snarky, daring political maneuver could actually work. It had a pretty big effect on me at that time.

You know Dan Savage totally linked you up today, right?

 Yeah, he totally did! That’s, like, the most exciting thing.

Why do you think the Santorum definition caught on?

I don’t know! It’s such a disgusting definition. I have no idea. I would love to talk to Dan Savage about what kind of PR he did to make that happen. I think a lot of it must have to do with that his whole career has been about speaking candidly about sex and making all sexualities and sexual interests fair game for open discussion.  I revisited the Spreading Santorum website a couple weeks ago, and when you open it up, the first thing you see is “a frothy mixture of fecal matter and lube.” [Laughs.] It’s so nasty! Our definition for Sochi by comparison is tame. Maybe if I had more standing as a public figure I could have made a more disgusting definition without fear of nobody wanting to look at it or watch it whatsoever.

But the word Sochi is cute! I think buttholes — er, cartoon buttholes — are kinda cute.

Who drew the little cartoon butthole that’s flying around?

Oh, I did that, yeah! [Laughs.]

It is kind of adorable. How did you put the wings on it?

Actually, the butthole is my creation and the wings are from freegreenscreenanimations.org or something. I’m a video person, digital animation is definitely not my strongest suit. Read some blogs, figured out how to make a flying butthole.

Is it something that you came up for specifically for this video?

Yeah — it was funny, I was talking about the video with a friend who’s a very accomplished computer graphics guy, and he was, like, “We need to make a wide-open, glistening anus!” and I was like [makes a negative noise]. I wanted to make something that wouldn’t get censored on YouTube, because that’s happened before and it was sort of devastating because the stuff that got censored was so much tamer than what’s in a lot of other videos on YouTube.

What was it?

It was a video that used footage from this really amazing gay porn from the ‘70s about ballerinas. And there was some, like, butt. There was some guy-butt, and maybe a little bit of, like, back balls, where the guy bends over and you can see his balls a little bit? It was really funny, because thousands of people were watching it and all of a sudden it disappeared, someone had flagged it and it got taken down. I don’t know, I feel like SupaBass has so much more stuff in it. But I’d guess that lady-butt is more invited than man-butt. So, whatever.