Lil' Scarface

A home video has surfaced of elementary school children making liberal use of the word "fudge" in their play adaptation of the violent climax of Brian De Palma's Scarface. That is premise, anyway. The piece itself is a clever-ish put on.

I would add "obviously," but apparently not everyone is in on the joke. In fact, I find the funniest thing about the video to be the outraged comments it has elicited. "Yes - I have kids - and this is R-Rated material - someone has a screw loose big time - idiots," opines bapwebdesign, while beachkween delivers the impassioned type-scream, "NO WONDER KIDS ARE MESSED UP TODAY AND THE WORLD IS ABOUT TO END - THE PARENTS AND TEACHES OF THIS SCHOOL SHOULD BE SHOT - WTF???" Even the artistic community itself takes exception to the piece, as antoniotheartist offers, "Those kids could have has as much fun doing a play about WALL-E." Indeed.

Geoff Boucher outed the video as the work of Jonas Akerlund, the director most recently behind Lady Gaga's stunning "Telephone" video. Even without the director's name floating around, the video has several tells: the uploader cindymomof6 joined four days prior and has only uploaded the play video and "favourited" three humourously earnest Christian message videos; the complete silence of the supposed families in the audience as the bizarre action unfolds; the video's mere existence.

For whatever reason Akerlund seems to have taken a run at Michel Gondry territory. So why the dip into the viral pool? The Gaga video is the most high profile project he has done in years, so maybe he is ramping up for promotion of a big feature following his dead-in-the-water Horsemen film of last year. Akerlund has always had a great eye, but so far he has been unable to sustain that for a full movie. Hopefully he can capitalize on his recent success to turn out a great feature. Sure, a sequel to the overwrought drug tragi-comedy Spun may seem like the worst idea ever, but just imagine this: "And the Oscar goes to... CGI Brittany Murphy!" Call me, Jonas.

EDIT: TMZ is reporting that the video was actually done by Marc Klasfeld. He directed The LA Riot Spectacular, a comedy about the aftermath of the Rodney King beating starring Snoop Dogg. Yes, that exists. Try not to bust a gut watching the trailer. Also, writing about the same stuff as TMZ? I am garbage.

You can watch Scarface School Play after the jump.