“Change my pitch up
Smack my bitch up”

Banned everywhere in late ’90, named the “Most Controversial Video” in MTV’s history when the full uncut version (in the previous ones were missed scenes of heroin, sex and incidents) was aired on MTV2 in mid-2002 and nominated for several awards and shocking videos countdowns, the video filmed by Swedish director Jonas Åkerlund match up the highly criticized the repeated lyrics of the song: “Change my pitch up/ Smack my bitch up” that led to feral attacks by feminist groups. As the Prodigy‘s lyrics so the video drew harsh criticism for misogyny, but his violence is not a destruction of female figure like lyrics are not an incitement to maltreat women: the lyrics actually meant “…doing anything intensely…” and video reflects this sense.

Jonas Åkerlund, who is the man behind videos of Moby, Smashing Pumpkins, Madonna, Rammstein and Lady Gaga among others (and, most important fact, he was the drummer in the first years of the cult black metal band Bathory) drives us in a first-person perspective run, where we are continuously shaken up in a drunken and doped vortex in a world of physical and mental violence.

There is also a lot of sounds: Jonas succeeds in a perfect sound-editing to enforce the marriage of music and video using sound effects to recreate reality that fill and make the hit-single stronger.
We are the eyes and the ears of evil, that’s the game.

Through the first-person point of view, Jonas forces us to make that violence. And he plays with the common sense, reversing our convictions in the last sequence.

Smack your bitch up.