Bowie always tends to reflect the world around him. I think this video is a metaphor for the darkside of religion. The book he holds up. The scarecrows in crucifix formation (scarecrows symbolic of fear which is a key element of organized religion). The blindfolds. The people who seem to be possessed by something. Somehow he ties Major Tom into all of this as his skull is treated like a sacred artifact perhaps meaning that anything can be turned into god and spun out of control. I think "Blackstar" might be like a faux-prophet or fervent disciple going around convincing people god is speaking through them. I think it definitely reflects what's going on in the world right now. I'm sure there are many ways to interpret this though, it's very abstract.
deathtokoalas
+Brooklyn Allman
the kind of ritual you're seeing in the video is something that "kids nowadays" actually seriously do. there's a pretty sizable movement built up around this amongst women that are roughly university aged. they get together in forested spaces and perform magical rites to what they perceive of as pagan spirits.
if you want to get into it, it's likely a reaction to the upbringing brought on by the previous generation - a kind of rebellion against the value system enforced by the "moral majority" in the reagan revolution. the women i've spoken to about this speak in these terms. they talk of how their christian upbringing created a lot of repressed desires. they talk of catholic guilt. yet, as the rituals become so massively enforced and engrained, they create a sense of safety, as well. so, they realize there's something oppressive about the ritual, but can't quite discard the sense of peace that the oppression provides. the result is rebellion on the terms of praying to a false deity, rather than simply discarding it. on that level, it's blowback.
on another level, the ideas are all around us in our culture. there was a movie released in the 90s called the craft that is very popular in these circles, and there have been a number of similar films released since then. it comes out musically in a couple of styles, like witch house. there's a band called esben and the witch that is kind of seminal (even if all the ideas trace back to the 70s, through artists like coil, who were themselves drawing on existing themes). and, remember: this is a generation raised on magic, from disney through to lord of the rings. magic is no longer seen as an archaic relic of the past to be shunned as a process of ignorance. rather, it's become quite normalized.
i think bowie is reflecting on something here, but it's the youth culture. this is, in fact, what he's always done. what i'm getting is that he's both amused by this (it is really quite ridiculous) and somewhat disturbed by it.
the key shot in the video is at the very end, when he's dramatically recoiling from the images being presented on the screen.
"on the day of execution,
only women kneel and smile."
it's the secular society being executed. but, from the inside out.
