THE WALLACE BROS. RELEASE CHART-CRUSHING DEBUT VIDEO AMID STORM OF BODY-DOUBLE CONTROVERSY
For Immediate Release – A storm of controversy has erupted surrounding the release of The Wallace Bros.’ first-ever music video, “You Don’t Think It’s True,” which has catapulted past footage of a bulldog burping Christina Aguilera’s ‘Ain’t No Other Man’ and the aftermath of a rain of frogs in suburban Chicago to capture YouTube’s #1 video ranking for the past two weeks, riding a wave of publicity concerning allegations that the band hired more attractive stand-ins to double for them, a charge which the band denies only in the details.
“We didn’t hire them,” Mark says. “They did it for free.”
The identity of the body-doubles, despite the efforts of crack reporters affiliated with major news services on several continents, remains a mystery. Positive identification is complicated by the fact that, according to early and often contradictory reports, both actors seem to share the given name Andrew. One bears a striking resemblance to the late James Dean, the other strong physical similarities to Lawrence of Arabia as portrayed by Peter O’Toole in the eponymous 1962 epic. Sources claiming to be friends or acquaintances of both Andrews describe them alternately as artists, track stars, submarine operators, engineers, emergency first-responders, government-trained code experts, or construction workers, and place their current location anywhere from Maine to Seattle, with a cluster of recent sightings in southeastern Michigan. All sources agree that both actors are strikingly more attractive than either of the actual Wallace Bros. “on their best days,” as the AP wire succinctly put it.
Whatever their identities, the appearance of the actors in the video, still available at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7k0op0p6vI,
has ignited a firestorm within the Wallace Bros.’ notoriously excitable fan base. Effigies of the once-popular siblings have been burned in the streets of Burma, Boston, and Kansas City, and response videos posted on the YouTube service react to what many fans see as a deep betrayal with messages that range through all seven of the clinical stages of grief, including guilt, anger, and bargaining. Some fans, however, seem already to have achieved a measure of acceptance. “Well, Mark can play the hell out of a guitar,” one Detroit-area fan reflects. “And Carey can write a lyric. But you’ve seen them, right? And you’ve seen the guys in the video? What would you rather spend five minutes looking at?”
For their part, the band insists that perpetrating a fraud was never their intent. As proof, they point to the video’s often sloppy lip-syncing, and the fact that in over half of the video Carey’s vocals appear to be voiced by a male actor, a detail which the band says should have tipped fans off to the fact that the actor was not in fact Carey. “I mean, Andrew sings like a girl,” Mark says. “But not that much like a girl.”
As usual, Carey is somewhat more philosophical. “I never thought of it as a trick,” she says. “More like a joke. But I don’t know if people can tell the difference anymore.”
The Wallace Bros.:
The Film Comment Interview
Film Comment: So, I have to tell you, I was very impressed with your video, and I think I’d have to say the most effective bit of it for me is the pianos. One black, one white. So evocative. They share so much, yet they’re so different. I felt the white was actually quite rakish, but the black one had so much dignity. You could just see everything it had been through, but also that sense of.. triumph.
MW: Actually, they’re the same piano.
Film Comment: Remarkable casting, then! My compliments to your wardrobe and makeup departments.
MW: Yeah, well, it was a real hassle. For the whole first verse, they’d let them do one line, then paint the whole piano, then wait for it to dry, then do the next line.
Film Comment: Well, art takes time.
MW: Finally they figured out we could just shoot all the lines at once on the black piano, and then paint it white and do all those lines.
Film Comment: Yes, yes. In Eight Below, another favorite of mine, they used similar tactics. All the footage with the actors was shot in Vancouver, but when they pull back, you see Iceland. They packed up all those little huts and dogs and shipped it all from continent to continent. It was an elaborate process of story-boarding and matching shots. You have to deal with these kinds of budgetary constraints when you're making finer films with less mass-market appeal.
MW: Well, like you said, art takes time.
Film Comment: But it’s always worth it.
MW: Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more.
CW: There were two pianos.
Film Comment: What did you say?
CW: There were two pianos. I’m sorry. He’s having a little fun at your expense. We had two pianos in the house, one in each apartment.
MW: She always wants an easy answer, even when it’s not the truth. She’s got no tolerance at all for complex solutions, for mystery.
Film Comment: I can see that.
MW: She thinks the Tooth Fairy isn’t real, too. She says it was our dad.
Film Comment: Artists have a lot to bear up under, maintaining a pure vision in this soiled world. But let’s return to the specifics of your video. There has been some controversy, I understand. The comparisons to Milli Vanilla, deserved or undeserved, are inescapable.
CW: Milli Vanilli.
MW: Man, I think they’re still my favorite band. It’s always between them and Steve Vai. But you know what’s crazy? You can’t buy their songs on iTunes! I’d buy that s*** in a minute! I’d pay TWO BUCKS a song for it!
Film Comment: I don’t think there’s any question about their legacy during those dark years from 1988 to 1990.
MW: Right? It never made sense to me. I mean, it was great music. We all loved it. They sold like 30 million singles. I thought their punishment totally didn’t fit the crime. Maybe Obama will finally let them out of Gitmo when he takes office.
Film Comment: I’m sorry?
MW: Yeah, I mean, and look where we are now. Half of the profile pictures on Facebook are totally Photoshopped, and that’s after these girls drop ten thousand bucks on plastic surgery. If all of us could afford to hire someone better looking to pretend to be us, we’d totally do it. Honestly, you know what I think their only crime was? Being ahead of their time.
Film Comment: Or a robot.
MW: A robot?
Film Comment: I always wanted a robot I could send out to do my job, and go on dates and stuff. And I’d run it by remote control, in my pajamas, back at home.
MW: Awesome, man! A robot! (to CW) This guy totally gets it.
Film Comment: But I wanted it to be smarter than me, too. At least quicker on his feet.
MW: Why not? It’s a robot! It can be whatever you want!
Film Comment: Really? You think?
CW: So we were really excited about this video.
Film Comment: But then does the robot get to kiss the girl at the end of the night, and not you? How does that work?
MW: That’s a good question.
CW: For us, the video is really about the song. It’s just another way we’re hoping to get people to listen to it.
Film Comment: What if she can tell it’s a robot? Do you think they can tell?
MW: I don’t know! (to CW) Can you tell if it’s a robot?
CW: What if she doesn’t want the robot? What if she likes you?
Film Comment: But the robot is smarter than me. And better looking.
MW: I don’t know. Girls are funny.
Film Comment: I don’t buy it. Why would she want me when she could have the robot? It doesn't make sense.
MW: I feel like we could write a song about this. Like, about how sometimes you fall in love with somebody, but they can’t believe it.
CW: We could call it, “You Don’t Think It’s True.”