Trapped In The Closet - Chapters 1-12
- Trapped In The Closet - Chapters 1-12
- R. Kelly's ridiculous fever dream revives the musical serial format.
- You know you want to buy it at Amazon
Unless you’ve been living in a hole upside-down, you’ve heard of the unbelievably strange ‘Trapped In The Closet’ saga that everyone’s favorite bukakke pedarest R. Kelly unleashed upon the masses this past summer. As a precursor to his curiously titled album TP3: Reloaded, Kelly created a mini-drama of 5 songs performed over the same music bed, where a cheating husband is found by a gay preacher and then is pulled over while driving home by the police officer that is sleeping with his wife. The public was so ridiculously excited to hear each of the next installments, each released to radio 2 weeks after the previous, that stations were touting the premiere of the next episode as if it were the most important thing ever given to aural transmission. Consider the whole situation a viral marketer’s ultimate wet dream.
The success of the saga led to Kelly premiering the ‘Closet’ videos in a theatre in his hometown of Chicago before vowing to make more chapters. This promise is fulfilled in the recently released DVD Trapped in the Closet: Chapters 1-12, an unbelievable mind-fuck of a collection that is so bizarre that I can’t imagine any person NOT owning it.
Chapter 6 picks up where 5 left off, with Kelly (as Sylvester) and his wife, now knowledgeable of each other’s indiscretions, laughing about previous events. Over the next 5 parts, Kelly’s brother-in-law, a recently paroled felon, is drawn into the fold when he is accidentally shot. From there the story travels to the officer’s house to meet his hillbilly wife and a pants-shitting midget named Big Man. Watching the saga unfold is like viewing a mad-lib come to life: you’re not entirely certain how all these parts would fit together logically, but it’s just too silly to worry about that.
The narrative of the story takes weird turns in the later chapters, veering from the first person into the third person, as if Kelly couldn’t have been bothered to listen to the previous chapters to see how the narration was composed. I’m sure it would be tough to maintain focus on the characters when he steps into the role of impartial viewer only to slip back into first person a minute later without the aid of the video. But not to worry, you have all 12 glorious videos in this little DVD package (Kelly also leaves the final chapter on a cliffhanger so that we can speculate on where this will lead next).
Sadly, one of the oddest parts of the saga doesn’t seem to be included on the disc: a series of interviews that were aired on VH-1 with each of the actors IN CHARACTER. There is an appropriately weird commentary track, however, in which we watch Kelly watch all 12 chapters and pointlessly explain things that we can already see (for example, when a chapter ends with a crazy situation, he tells us that it’s a cliffhanger. Thanks, Mr. Obvious!). There is also a behind-the-scenes featurette that seems like something they made to sell the DVD, which is pointless since if you’re watching this, you or someone you know already owns the DVD. On all these bonus features you get a lot of Kelly touting the staying power of ‘Trapped,’ like how there will be TV shows and films based off of this premise decades from now. It’s great that he’s so humble about his success.
If you can’t appreciate this saga, ironically or otherwise, then nothing here is going to change your mind. This review is for anyone who has heard about this insanity and wants to know what the fuss is all about. I’m telling you, you need to see this.
When the beginning of the saga was released, people weren’t sure whether or not Kelly should be considered a genius or a nutbag. We all realize now that it doesn’t matter: It’s R. Kelly’s closet, we’re all just trapped in it.
