Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

  • oasisob1

    Banana Skirt: just look at it.

  • http://twitter.com/kpkpkp Kevin Pierce

    Josephine Baker? Nutella? “Just look at it.”? The WTF is strong in this one!

    • http://twitter.com/beep54orama B E Pratt

       That pic reminds me of Carmen Miranda singing The Lady in the Tutti Frutti hat from the Busby Berkeley flick The Gangs All Here. A must see film with practically no plot to get in the way of mondo bizarro song and dance numbers. Not only does Carmen wear that HAT (there’s an I Love Lucy take-off on it), but just LOOK at those 6 foot bananas being waved around!

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLsTUN1wVrc

      • euansmith

        Josephine Baker looked a lot batter in the Banana Skirt; and got a Legion d’ Honour for her work for the Resistance during WW2. Pretty damn classy.

    • euansmith

       Yeah, a red leotard, what was that dude thinking?

  • gtrjnky

    “We believe in nothing”

  • MonkeyBoy

    Wet and messy fetish (WAM), sometimes known as sploshing, is a form of sexual fetishism whereby a person becomes aroused when substances are deliberately and generously applied to the naked skin, predominantly the face, or to the clothes people are wearing.[1] Several websites are dedicated to WAM fandom Messy substances can include whipped cream, mud, shaving foam, custard, baked beans, ketchup, ice cream, pudding, chocolate sauce, peanut butter, Japanese-style lotion, paint, oil or gunge/slime, cake batter etc. A subject will often be pelted with cream pies, slimed or sit on cakes. Wet substances are mainly water but can also include other liquids such as fruit juice, milk or alcohol (usually beer). …

    • Boundegar

      Also, the film version of Tommy.

  • surreality

    Damn, now I want Nutella.

  • exile

    I know! I know! It’s “man’s inhumanity to man”, right?

    • http://codeflow.org/ Florian Bösch

      inuteallami to nutellaawsit not gonna work pun

  • unclemike

    “The Death Of All The Dinosaurs?”

  • bzishi

    Okay, I think I get most of it. I’m not confused by the smearing of Nutella, the banana skirt, eating of the banana skirt, the singing, or the flag waving. But what is up with the giant red pointy hat? Does it have something to do with the gimp-fascist duality?

    • Paul Renault

      My first impression at the 1:45 mark (I hadn’t noticed/remembered the tile of the piece) was “Hunh!  The man is lying face down in front to the ‘altar’ – just like when Catholic priests are ordained…”

      The title of the piece is Nutellapriesterin.  You might want to revise what you got from it.

      /one whole jar just for his head.  How many jars for all of her?

    • Ipo

      Redshirt. 

    • Gilbert Wham

       Oh, now THERE’S a band-name…

    • LuisDanielCarbia

      The music -”La Saeta” http://youtu.be/J_7sCnZrQ5Q played as a traditional march- and the pointy hat of a “Nazareno” are references to spanish Holy Week, maybe viewed as some extreme catholic ceremonial.
      This celebration is an easy prey for fun and sarcasm. My favorite is http://youtu.be/7flvpfnpBfk

  • http://www.facebook.com/victor.jimenezmerino Víctor Jiménez Merino

    Accompanied by a good old Sevillian Holy Week Brass Band marching song and a weird “capirote” guy.

    That´s some awesome religion I would like to adhere.

    • Smash Martian

      >That´s some awesome religion I would like to adhere.

      I think with that amount of Nutella, the religion would adhere to you.

  • chaopoiesis

    I prefer to experience it with no context whatsoever.

    … a sound approach to Nutella.

    • Ipo

       Too late for me. 

  • http://capl.washjeff.edu/ capl

    Everyone is so worried about HFCS, but I stay awake thinking about Palm Oil and this hasn’t helped me much. http://www.saynotopalmoil.com/

  • $19428857

    Given the obvious Josephine Baker riffing, does this qualify as performing in blackface and should I be outraged?

    • Brainspore

      Questions I had also. “White(?) person covering themselves in chocolate and dressing as an early-20th-century black celebrity who was active in the Civil Rights movement” definitely has SOME kind of racial overtones going on, I just can’t quite parse the intent.

      • allenmcbride

        Especially with the second person’s hood evoking the KKK, it does seem likely to be making some sort of race-related point. But like you I have no idea what that might be.

        • http://twitter.com/sirkowski Sirkowski

          Did you know Nutella comes from Europe? Hitler came from Europe. The implications are making me quite uncomfortable.

          • Antinous / Moderator

            Yeah, but Hitler only had one nut.

          • Gilbert Wham

             Goering had two, but very small.

          • Wild Rumpus

             Godwin’s law…  every f***king time…

          • pacobahn

            Himmler, had something simmler…

        • Preston Sturges

           The red hood is similar to the Spanish religious costumes.  They come in purple also.

          • Brainspore

            The “pledge of allegiance” scene combined with obvious allusions to an early-20th-century African-American celebrity makes me suspect that wasn’t an allusion to Spanish religious culture. Then again, Nutella (like Josephine Baker) is better-known in Europe than the U.S., so who the heck knows.

    • Antinous / Moderator

      Let me just throw this curve ball into the discussion.

      • http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns

        Curve ball? Sir you lost your mitt.

      • avraamov

        i think this might be a clip from the ‘making of’ - 

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=o-96erIM50o

      • welcomeabored

        ‘Sun tan mom’ from Nutley, New Jersey?

        • Antinous / Moderator

          I don’t think that there’s any “sun” involved.

          • welcomeabored

            I thought you were trying to draw our attention to her town of ‘Nutley’.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Nell-Anvoid/100002383626402 Nell Anvoid

    Nutella IS context.

    At least they’re not using Vegamite.

    • bzishi

      That would be obscene!

  • http://twitter.com/amanicdroid Dr. Chronobiologist

    Needs sparklers.

    • oasisob1

      Spinning LEDs = modern sparklers?

  • cstatman

    and still?   nutella rules!   :)   :P   

  • http://codeflow.org/ Florian Bösch

    It’s good for your skin isn’t it? I should try that sometime.

  • UnderachievingSheep

    Did these two performers from the local fetish club confuse the venue of their act and ended up at a school gym? Also, is that a portrait of Steve Forrest in the “altar”? I have so many questions that I am sort of unsettled now…

    • Ipo

       It’s the opening ceremony for an art show. 

  • subhan

    This is the kind of stuff that makes Republicans want to defund the NEA

    • Antinous / Moderator

      And yet, they’re quite happy to fap to this when someone points it out to them.

  • gumbowing

    What’s the big deal? It’s just two people who love each other very, very much.

    • ocker3

       I’m just glad they share what looks like a Very intense passion for Nutella and bananas!

  • http://twitter.com/chrisjimson chris jimson

    I know exactly what this performance represents: A chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella.

  • capnmarrrrk

    Some things in life need no context. This is one of them. It’s perfect as is.

    • http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan

      So true. Regular expression can jade one so. There’s lots to be said for a context free drama.

      • http://www.xradiograph.com/ OtherMichael

        Some people, when confronted with a problem, think “I know, I’ll use performance art.” Now they have two problems.

  • http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan

    I, for one, welcome our new nutellaceous overlords.

  • Actionverb

    Would definitely give some credence to Pistorius’s defense.

  • robuluz

    I bet it was easier to get the lid of the jar in rehearsal.

    • http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns

      Performance art PROTIP: Don’t try to open things up infront of a crowd, you just screw up.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9lmvX00TLY

    • http://profiles.google.com/westcarleton Ray Perkins

       She came close to not being able to remove the top, which would have made the whole thing a joke. Oh, wait…

  • SomeGuyNamedMark

    Needs more raw meat

  • Rich Keller

    Where can you get jars of Nutella in that size?!!  I Need to Know!

    • paulio

      eBay http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/HUGE-NUTELLA-5KG-TUB-Ferrero-Hazelnut-Chocolate-Spread-Cocoa-GIANT-Jar-Italy-/230885696479?pt=AU_Food&hash=item35c1dc23df&_uhb=1#ht_4915wt_1163

  • 10xor01

    It’s sort of like a sweeter, more operatic version of Carrie.

  • Igpajo

    Was that Bjork and Beck?

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004010696887 Lucas Reid

    i

  • http://doran.pacifist.net/ Doran

    I’ll wait for the Vivid version.

  • Wild Rumpus

    same genre, the classic butterdance:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnPNr9yquuc

  • retepslluerb
  • Jan_Willem

    As if anyone cares after this Nutella smear campaign: the German song is “Ruhe, meine Seele!” by Richard Strauss (lyrics Karl Henckell) from Vier letzte Lieder (1948). But perhaps that’s too much context for some.

    • Martijn Vos

      And Richard Strauss is of course better known for “Also Sprach Zarathustra” from 2001: A Space Odyssey. (In case anyone thought he might be the guy from the waltzes.)

  • http://redesigned.com redesigned

    not so easy to open the jar when your hands are covered in nutella is it?

  • Felix Kellewald

    Seriously though, anyone got an idea where this is from? She finishes by saying ‘das Fest der Kunst ist eröffnet’, referencing some art festival in German.

    • bencollier
    • http://www.bencollier.info/ Ben Collier

      I thought I’d found something until I discovered that Fest der Kunst means, like you say, “Art Festival”. So it could be anywhere, I guess.

  • CLamb

    All that ritual makes pastafarianism seem quakerish by comparison.

    • euansmith

      “Get your paws off my meatballs, you filthy ape!”

  • guest

    She has a handful of other videos, most in a similar vein. I am guessing she now has an art degree from her college –  and a job at Edeka, where her suggestions for product displays go strangely unimplemented…

  • Adam Rice

    Now we see the violence inherent in the system.

  • keithrc

    My takeaway here is that when you’re already covered in Nutella, it’s hard to open another jar of Nutella.  I’m certain there’s an important concept relating to moderation and the dangers of over-indulgence there, but it’s juuust eluding me.

  • reddot1

    Yoko Ono inspired :)