tapehead   |    Thursday December 6th, 2012

While co-organizing this year’s One World Berlin Human Rights Film Festival, Tapehead was pondering how the always simmeringly controversial subjects of religion and sexuality really exploded, at times collided and in any case dominated the human and civil rights discourse this past fall more than in the recent past. Questions as intensely personal as what we choose to believe in (including the option “nothing”) and whom we choose to love have also become highly political. Finding a balance between the personal and the political is an ongoing human rights issue.

Here’s to sex, drugs (if you go by Marx’ dictum that “religion is the opiate of the people) and rock ‘n’ roll in two clips that blast apart our perceptions and hopefully – if only by the virtue of their sheer outrageousness – open minds for thinking out of the box.

Cry Alliance of Our Hatred – Lasse Langström (director)

Queer rallying cry against Sweden’s swing to the right, sung to the tune of Bonnie Tyler’s power ballad Total Eclipse of the Heart.
This clip screened at One World Berlin Human Rights Film Festival in the special program curated by the My Europe Short Film Festival.

Wings of a Dragon – Megan Mullally & Nick Offerman

With Will Arnett (Arrested Development) and Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation) calling it quits, Megan Mullally (Will & Grace) and Poehler’s series colleague Nick Offerman now reign supreme as the premier comedy power couple. In addition to Mullally “gracing” (erm, no pun intended) Parks and Recreation in a recurring role as the scheming ex-wife of Offerman’s Ron Swanson character, the pair has given strong supporting performances in the Sundance winning comedy-drama Smashed along with making numerous TV, film and theater appearances. Not to mention this contribution to the evolution vs. creationism debate, which touches on various civil rights issues such as freedom of worship, right to education and, most importantly, the situation of mixed couples (creationist/evolutionist).