WGG TEST

by Paul McCarthy (2003)

Video, colour, sound, 5:20 min



Paul McCarthy’s "WGG Test" takes one of the popular movie genres of recent years, the slasher film, to even more outrageous extremes. A handheld camera records a number of women in bikinis partying on a boat and taking turns to hack at a very human-looking leg with a hatchet.  The publicity material provided claims that McCarthy ‘questions the effects that violence and mutilation, both real and simulated, have on the viewer in contemporary culture’, but this compelling yet repulsive film also acts as a commentary on reality television culture and its fascination with ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Its title alludes to the American media brand Girls Gone Wild – an exemplar of what Ariel Levy calls ‘raunch culture’ – in which young women are induced to flash and pose suggestively for the camera in exchange for baseball hats and T-shirts.

Paul McCarthy was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1945. He received his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and his MFA from the University of Southern California. McCarthy gained recognition for his intense performance and video-based work on taboo subjects such as the body, sexuality, and initiation rituals. McCarthy’s work has also explored themes of family, childhood, violence and dysfunction while using bodily fluids, paint, and food to create elaborate and grotesque critiques of cultural icons.

To start a sailing party gone wrong, simply click on the link below. Enjoy.

http://www.ubu.com/film/mccarthy_wgg.html