Naughty Boy - La La La ft. Sam Smith on Youtube
Well, what do you think?
Before proceeding any further, stop. Look at the ceiling. Imagine what you just saw. Who was the boy? Who were his friends? What was that man on the street?
(Hey! How are you reading this? I asked you to look away from your screen. If you haven't looked away yet, please do so. Activate your imagination!)
Oh, you're back!
Were you confused by the ending scene? Possibly even disturbed? I know I was, but before you scramble off to google with your questions, let me assure you I will make everything clear.
The figure that you saw at the end of the video is an "El Tio" in the mines of Cerro Rico (The Rich Mountain) in Bolivia. The mines are surrounded by the massive ramshackle town of Potosi. Because of a great silver rush centuries ago, the city has a packed population of over 200,000 people. Being a primarily catholic population, these miners over time developed the superstition of "El Tio" wherein they made statues of the devil in the mines. They believed that since they were entering into the caverns of the underworld that offerings were necessary to appease the devil for their intrusion.
However, that's not what you understood from the video, right? "El Tio" is not common knowledge outside of Bolivia. Perhaps instead of imagining the demonic, you caught the Wizard of Oz elements in the visuals. The boy's clearly a Dorothy-type character. There's a yellow chau chau that could represent Dorothy's Toto, the Lion, or a merging of the two. Then there was the "dusty" tin man who received a heart from a street vendor. And finally, the "cloth man" - who looked like a living sock puppet to me- could be the scarecrow. Then presumably, the four of them journey a great distance to reach a mountain (Emerald City?) where the boy is presented to the deceptive wizard (El Tio)
No
Sorry, no.
Not even close.
The story represented is actually a Bolivian folk tale and not an odd South American parody of Frank Baum.
In the original folk tale, the hero is a deaf boy who escapes from an abusive family situation. In his new freedom, he finds that he can help others with his powerful and healing screams. The short version of the story is that he befriends a stray dog, revives a dusty man by repairing his heart, saves a leper who was a slave to El Tio, and finally enters into an eternal battle with the devil (aka El Tio) to drown out his evil whisperings.
However, don't take my word for it. Kieran Hill, the group behind the video, has their own blog post explaining the tale. Here's the link:
Kieran Hill A2 Media Production Blogspot
Now, if you have the free time, I suggest watching the video again with your new perspective.
A side note:
I would like to say that this blog post was born of my own curiosity. After watching the video, I ran off to google and read this and that to try and figure out what I just saw. Apparently, the Wizard of Oz like elements were not entirely incidental (See The Wizard of La Paz) but were inserted to satiate a likely confused western audience. However, before I found out the truth of the matter, I ran across a number of wild theories. Particularly, a few christian bloggers claimed the video was satanic. They offered rationalizations based on the boy being offered to the devil and on how the song was a message about ignoring the gospel. Oh how Ironic! in that the actual folk tale is a christian story of self-sacrifice and hope.
