Marilyn Manson - The Beautiful People

What this video is

Released in September 1996 as the lead single from Marilyn Manson's second studio album Antichrist Superstar, this video emerged at the peak of mid-90s culture war anxiety around transgressive rock. Produced by Trent Reznor, Dave Ogilvie, and Manson, the song and video were deliberately confrontational, appropriating the visual language of fascist spectacle and medical body horror to critique conformity and beauty…

Why it matters

A landmark artifact of 1990s industrial metal visual culture. The video codified a new grammar of shock-aesthetic music video production — rapid montage, body horror, industrial surrealism, and propaganda-referencing mise-en-scène — that influenced scores of directors across metal, alternative,…

The director

Italian-Canadian director, photographer, and screenwriter born 1965 in Pescara, Italy; raised in Hamilton, Ontario. Studied painting and illustration then photography at the Ontario College of Art and Design. Began career as a fashion photographer before…