10 Most Controversial Music Videos Of All Time
8. Soft Cell - Sex Dwarf (1981)
1981’s most infamous music video remains banned in the UK to this day. A chaotic mess of raw meat, chainsaws, brothel workers from Soho, Marc Almond in a snug codpiece, David Ball getting maggots thrown his way and a rather curiously dressed dwarf, the music video was swiftly confiscated by British police.
During an interview with Yahoo, Almond explained, “The video for Sex Dwarf was ahead of its time, in the way we were using transgender people, or we would use people who were prostitutes that we found around Soho, people that were working in clubs. And then here was the dwarf himself, which really went against what you were supposed to do.”
The video begins as a borderline snuff film with the pop duo looming over a tied down woman. From there, it quickly turns into a meat-themed orgy with the titular character being unboxed and let loose on the action.
Almond and Ball have both come to like the fact their most outrageous video remains banned. Almond explained, “I’ve never wanted to release it publicly, officially, because it became such a legendary thing. We like the fact some people have seen it and created this urban myth about it. We like that it’s bootlegged and slightly seedy.”
Despite the multi-decade outrage and intrigue, a simple listen to the lyrics explains the video perfectly. Both are a hot mess of the duo’s apparent fascination with over-sexed dwarves and BDSM among other things.