I’ve long thought that this track, from System Of A Down’s 2001 album, Toxicity, gives a pretty fair assessment of what would really happen if an alien turned up on Mother Earth. Forget intergalactic war, universal exploration a la Star Trek or even the Mars Attacks! account where the invaders are immune to nuclear weapons but uniquely vulnerable to Slim Whitman’s ‘Indian Love Call’.
Instead, this alien child turns out to have powers of telekinesis, and the early images of him joyously bouncing cars up and down suggest that it’s not something he’s able to do on his home planet (which is dry, desolate and Dune-like). It’s hinted that he may be the last of his people, or at least an escapee from an outlying community. He’s attracted into what looks like a slightly freaky circus tent by the sound of SOAD rehearsing.
On Earth, he’s rapidly turned into a celebrity figure: hounded by paparazzi, displayed on building-sized billboards and primed for success in a series of unnerving scenes that culminate in him grabbing desperately at a roomful of floating 100 dollar bills. He’s accompanied everywhere by minders and sidekicks out to turn a buck.
There’s a dissonance, though, because the earth depicted in the clip isn’t quite coterminous with the present. Particularly in the scene with the paparazzi, there’s a suggestion that we’re living in a steampunk world, notably in the women’s dress (hats and gloves) and type of cameras used (with huge bulb flashes).
The idea that - given half a chance - we’d turn an alien visitor into Britney Spears strikes me as rather likely. Particularly an alien visitor with a neat show-trick… That said, the humans seem never to tire of the trick, while the little boy does. It’s possible, too, that he begins to lose the ‘gift’ as he grows increasingly bored with it.
Toxicity was number 1 on the US Billboard Charts in the week of 9/11, and another of the tracks from it, Chop Suey, was on a general ‘do not play’ list in the wake of the attacks, mainly because it contained the words ‘I don’t think you / trust in my / self-righteous suicide’. The clip for Aerials - directed by one of the band members - came out in 2002. I sometimes wonder if it’s in the nature of a response.