By Juliette Tang
God damn. Eric Wareheim (of Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job) has directed a music video for Major Lazer that makes me want to find someone willing to pretend that my ass is a turntable and get down. Watch the above video (and make sure you watch it until the end because 3:14 is, I believe, the most hysterical part of the whole thing).
We've been following the Jamaican daggering craze for a while now, but never would we have thought that the venerable Eric Wareheim would take a stab (hah) at interpreting this cultural phenomenon. For those who are unfamiliar, "daggering" is a style of Jamaican dance that basically simulates crazy rough sex. Like, the kind of acrobatic sex only Jamaican daggerers and Cirque du Soleil performers are capable of. One of the moves, called "sky daggering," literally involves dancers flipping and catapulting themselves onto one another in ways that scare me. Due to the increasing popularity of this form of dance, it's caused some public controversy, and the Jamaican government has even launched a campaign against "daggeration" and music associated with it are banned from Jamaican airwaves.
The term "daggering" even has a second meaning, one that exists off the dancefloor and in the bedroom: sex so insanely rough that it can actually cause your penis to break. Doctors in Kingston, Jamaica, have noticed an increase in "broken penises" (when the erectile tissue of the penis tears and the penis, well, fractures) and have attributed it to the hazards of daggering at home. Despite all the alarm, we believe that people should dagger if they want to, as long as they wear a condom. The dangerous nature of daggering is what draws people to it, right? If you break your dick, well, you aren't going to die, and it probably serves you right -- can you imagine what the woman must feel like in that situation?
My only question is how anyone could find "daggeration" remotely sexual. Watching Eric Wareheim and Major Lazer's video, all I can think is how funny -- not sexy -- the whole operation looks. It's sex simulation taken to the point where it actually becomes parody. For comedians like Eric Wareheim, that's a good thing. I sincerely hope the daggering phenomenon will give him more inspiration to keep doing his thing.
Bonus video: actual clip of daggering below.
