What do you think is the meaning of both the animated court jester who juggles at the beginning of the video of Innuendo (and who also appears on the album cover), and of the several claymation court jester figures who appear in the Innuendo video furing the flamenco solo, doing acrobatics and seeming to be...appeasing...who?
The jesters in my opinion could mean several things..all relative to the song's lyrics of social intolerance, given greater depth and meaning with the newsreel footage of warfare and nuclear bombs exploding in the video (and I think a quick shot of the Killing Fields in Cambodia).
The jesters...who clap, dance, juggle, do acrobatics...are the blind sheep of society...who through the wages of man...just merrily and BLINDLY follow any evil, do NOT think for themselves for fear of themselves being judged or persecuted, and keep in step and conform to the common popular evil opinions, rhetorics, war, crimes, intolerance, bigotry that is the mainstream norm. They don't "rock the boat". They do whatever it takes to appease everyone elese and "stay in line", even if it means...millions of innocent people through time, are persecuted..and worse...slaughtered for just being different (ie; race, creed, sexuality, color, religion, national origin, etc.)
Also during the Flamenco solo there is footage of peasant dancers just merrily dancing along...as if Nothing..is wrong...means the same thing.
The only thing that BREAKS the conformity of the jesters...is a claymation butterfly that transforms out of one of the jesters' hands and flies away...perhaps symblizing HOPE, that there are and "Forever will be" (Song lyrics)those people who are not afraid to THINK for themselves and stand up with freedom of speech, who take action, and speak out and take a stand against bigotry, war, intolerance, "Yes, we'll keep on trying" (Song lyrics).
The one haunting image I STILL am trying to figure out, is the FACE that the final curtain, closes on, that has such a stark, dark expression...perhaps...leaving us to ponder the bleak reality of this's song's message...yet intermixed with the HOPE of this song's message...that if we stand up, break the conformity of evil and intolerance...humanity will triumph.
Since Freddie wrote the song as we now know...and Roger too, but at a time when Freddie was dying of AIDS...and he saw the stark reality of the world's and people's judgement and intolerance of Gays and AIDS...it is to me his outrage, crying out to people...to stand up..think for yourselves..and open your minds and hearts to all people with tolerance and acceptance...his song of a call to arms & hope.
arlene wrote: Since Freddie wrote the song as we now know...and Roger too, but at a time when Freddie was dying of AIDS...and he saw the stark reality of the world's and people's judgement and intolerance of Gays and AIDS...it is to me his outrage, crying out to people...to stand up..think for yourselves..and open your minds and hearts to all people with tolerance and acceptance...his song of a call to arms & hope.