Capitalist Realism - Blog Posts

The track ‘In The Flesh’ invites the audience to “go to the show” - to come along to the rally and show support before forces mobilise and foment a violent uprising across the streets of London. The band onstage, characterised in live performances of the album by a surrogate band comprised of different musicians adorning life masks of Floyd members Waters, Gilmour, Wright and Mason, replace a Pink that remains ‘comfortably numb’ in his hotel room:

“I've got some bad news for you, sunshine

Pink isn't well, he stayed back at the hotel

And they've sent us along as a surrogate band

We're gonna find out where you fans really stand!”

This uncanny representation of band members is understood to represent the musicians’ surrogacy as agents of ideological repression, insofar as they serve to perpetuate the dominant ideology while also acting as a form of entertainment to keep the subjects enthralled and entertained while, ‘behind the scenes,’ they are in fact complacent in their own oppression through ignorance and acceptance. Taking into account Freud's psychoanalytic consideration of the role of the uncanny, it is recognised that an intentional feeling of discomfort and unfamiliarity actively subverts and disrupts the individual’s understanding of the reality around them. The use of these masks can also be understood to comment on the role of the musician in a capitalist society - by portraying the band members as masked and interchangeable, Waters suggests that musicians are often recognised to be commodified tools of an industry which promotes capitalist ideals of excess and grandeur.