Banksy uploads video of rocket attack on Dumbo
Bansky, the pseudonymous street artist, has uploaded a video to YouTube which appears to show a group of Middle Eastern rebels shooting Disney's beloved flying elephant, Dumbo, out of the sky with a rocket launcher.
The 90-second video was posted on Banksy's website on Sunday (6 October) accompanied by the message: "I’m not posting any pictures today. Not after this shocking footage has emerged..."
Banksy is currently engaged in 'Better Out than In', a project that sees him act as artist-in-resident to the streets of New York.
The residency involves creating one work of art a day for the month of October, with efforts so far including a landscape painted on the back of a van so that the vehicle appears to contain an elysian secret garden.
However, in lieu of a painting, the artist, known for his anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist motifs uploaded the video which depicts the militants shooting a missile at an unseen object in the sky, celebrating wildly amid shouts of "Allahu Akbar" on seeing a plume of black smoke emerge, and then running for cover as the object plummets to earth.
After a few chaotic seconds, the camera steadies to reaveal a charred Dumbo, the big-eared, flying elephant from the eponymous 1941 Walt Disney classic, prompting a nearby child to fell the shooter with a kick to the shin.
The video's meaning has been a matter of some online debate, with Complex speculating that Dumbo could be a reference to an area of Brooklyn, "Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass."
Other theories include that the video is a specific reference to the situation in Syria, or that Banksy uses elephants as a symbol of poverty.