Death Penalty

Washington, D.C. activist, punk rocker, and subversive knitter Jenny Toomey croons Cole Porter's "Miss Otis Regrets" on The Executioner's Last Songs, a new collection of eerie, gruesome songs from Bloodshot Records. In Toomey's rendition, it's easy to imagine yourself as Miss Otis's forgotten lunch date: Waiting at a table for two, you've already ordered tea, straightened your linen napkin, and read every line of the menu. "Where is she?" you wonder.

It's as if Toomey has entered the restaurant to tell you the news herself: "Miss Otis regrets she's unable to lunch today, madam/ She's sorry to be delayed." Hers is a prim voice for delivering such chilling news in a tearoom: "Last evening down on lover's lane she strayed/ When she woke up and found that her dream of love was gone/ She ran to the man that had led her astray/And from under her velvet gown/ She drew a gun and shot her lover down." It's a sparse, matter-of-fact revelation of lust, lost honor, fury, murder, and vigilante restitution, delivered in a quiet, deadly voice.

Like "Miss Otis Regrets," the tunes on The Executioner's Last Songs—a benefit album for the Illinois Death Penalty Moratorium Project—subtly disturb lunch dates and complacent music listening. They also undermine America's cultural acceptance of capital punishment as a civilized and appropriate form of justice. The 18 "death" songs—written by the likes of Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, and Bill Monroe—are sung by Steve Earle, the Waco Brothers, Rosie Flores, and Neko Case, among others.

Travel the world over and American-generated advertising frames your view. McDonald’s, Coca Cola, AT&T, in billboard and signs, block skylines and provide ready landmarks with only slight modifications to reflect the local culture.

We the people of the United States of America are exporters of image. It is crucial to our identity. Even in radical countercultural circles, we know ourselves best when bemoaning uniquely horrific corporate American crassness—Rain Forest denizens watching Bay Watch, General Foods pimping mac and cheese to Latin American beans-and-rice connoisseurs, Kate Moss pushing voluntary starvation, even dot.com anti-advertising advertising.

So it’s jarring when some foreigner socks us in our cultural gut by turning our primary civic language against us. United Colors of Benetton—the Italian clothing company—has, for the last decade, been doing just that. Oliviero Toscani, the company’s advertising director and publicist, has brought to our billboards multicolored copulating horses, Ronald Reagan in the advanced stages of AIDS, a crucified Jesus with "Do You Play Alone?" stamped across the width. These thumb-waves at our prudish American sensibilities have incensed the Catholic League, AIDS activists, and people of good taste, most of whom have never seen (let alone purchased) a Benetton sweater or suit.

Benetton’s latest import is "We, On Death Row," a $15 million dollar print and billboard campaign. The centerpiece, a 96-page outsert bound with the February 2000 issue of Tina Brown’s Talk magazine (of which Toscani is creative director), profiles 25 men and one woman living on death row in the United States.