Music 🎼: The Surreal World Of Music Video! Part Two

Thanks for joining me again as I post the second part of my film & media assignment from the memorable course taught by Carole Vernallis, “Music Video And Its Siblings” with the continuation of my paper about Francis Lawrence and his prolific music video oeuvre. Continuing where I left off in Part One, this is what I wrote in 2011: With Aerosmith’s “Jaded”, the alluring, pampered young woman he sings about (like the other videos described) is placed in a somewhat surreal environment that is reminiscent of the florid, bohemian world of the big screen Baz Luhrmann spectacle Moulin Rouge as it takes us back to early twentieth century Paris. Like “Son Of A Gun” , a luxury, vintage hotel (not so “Gothic”) but along the lines of Monte Carlo or Nice provides a grand setting of decadence. “Play” and “Bad Romance” also offer fascinatingly artificial settings, but the big difference is in period, with these two representing worlds of the ultra-modern.

Vernallis brings forth another important point in her Experiencing Music Video… study: “Soon a performer tests the possibilities of the space – playfully flicking on and off a light or brushing her hair back so that birds fly off as in Janet Jackson’s “Son Of A Gun” or Nelly Furtado’s “Like A Bird” (Pg. 120) A delightful test of the possibility of space occurs near the close of “Jaded” when the young woman escapes the theatre, through the hotel (again trying to break free of some automation figures) and lifts a trap door and rises up into a redwood forest. For this video the outcome is pleasing, and there is the relief of coming to the natural or the “real” rather than being trapped in a perpetually dissolute, “Jaded” way of life. Then again, this entire video could be interpreted to mean that the woman’s emergence and “freedom” is just another aspect of her still being caught up in a performance and world not of her own making as Steven Tyler acknowledges in his lyrics.

Another bleak, corrosive example of destructive love gone awry is Pink’s “Just Like A Pill”. Having the star performer grab the center is especially vital here as the setting appears to be a defunct mental ward where the patients are left to their own devices. As in all the other videos, except for “Play” overcoming obstacles and triumphing over emotional hurt and pain are a favored theme of “Just Like A Pill”. While Lady Gaga and Janet Jackson seem to get satisfaction and revenge for their sufferings, Pink’s situation is resolved by escaping (presumably) into the light of understanding and breaking free of her mental and emotional addiction at the end of the video. Although, in the first half of the video this outcome is not so assured – as what appears to be a maestro of death looms just behind her – as the subconscious mind and desiring her to give into her internal demons. With “Just Like A Pill” Francis again makes good use of corridors as avenues of escape and expansive sets which directly contradict the rather smothering subject matter of crushing romantic failure and emotional illness.

At least both “Jaded” and “Just Like A Pill” offer the impression of some life lessons learned, but there is an uneasy feeling with “Bad Romance” and “Son Of A Gun” that the same poor reasoning and bad judgement in the complicated world of relationships will happen again. Nelly Furtado’s “Like A Bird” has an entirely different tone from any of the aforementioned videos with its emphasis on free spiritedness, the utter lack of confinement of the physical or emotional kind…just like a bird. The broad meadow and soaring woodland’s absolutely compliment this along with lyrics such as: “I don’t know where my soul is…where my home is” – to drive home the point that while her love may be great – it will not be abused and poisoned as Lady Gaga’s and Janet Jackson’s have been. Furtado’s lack of mission and any clear intent inform this video entirely, almost making the lyrics redundant. As Furtado is suspended in mid-air, birds zip through and brilliant sunshine blesses the setting, so we have a polar opposite to the other videos. Furtado’s delight and fixation on the evolving colors of a dark beetle in “Like A Bird” is clearly evidence of a concern completely unrelated to Lawrence’s other works that have been discussed thus far.

Along with the challenges and ways that space is used in videos, Vernallis brings forth another valuable point that applies to Lawrence’s efforts (as with all music videos) when she says that: “time in music video is undoubtedly strange” and “though the music of the pop song can delineate the shifts in thought and feeling of the performer, it cannot describe an exact expanse of time (fifteen minutes, a week, or a year”). (Pgs. 132-33) Vernallis also tells us that: “Pop lyrics are equally vague, and the image can only suggest time’s passing through references to certain types of light or a type of clothing or prop that suggests an era.” With “Son Of A Gun” and “Jaded” there is a blend of time periods with contemporary music star clothing and vintage structures of bygone eras, the sleek props of “Bad Romance” and “Play” largely suggest some unspecified time in the future, and “Just Like A Pill” with its quasi-institutional setting is almost in a glaring state of perpetual limbo. Except for some of the costuming, like the red outfits on Lady Gaga and her dancers that could represent rage, there is so much gleaming white throughout “Bad Romance” that pinning the video down to a specific time and place is impossible, and this could very well be an allusion to the timeless nature of emotional distress caused by disintegrated relationships.

Since music videos have the tendency to lack many frames of reference to the larger world, they exist in a netherworld apart from “ordinary lived time…with strangely textured and constructed sets…and figures are facsimiles of people.” (Pg.133) as Vernallis tells it – and the Lawrence videos examined here are largely unexceptional in that sense. However, this brings us to another of Lawrence’s intriguing collaborations with Janet Jackson on “All Nite” which does have some connection to the larger world and a temporal setting suggesting “real” time. Right from the outset the viewer understands that there is a power or rolling blackout in the city, we see a few people out and about on the street listening to radio reports that warn the electricity may be out all night during a hot summer and Jackson’s troupe will have to improvise sources of light and to keep their sound-system operating (this resourcefulness includes, flashlights, copper wire, and a car battery) if they wish to continue their rehearsals.

Even though there is more of a defined sense of time and place, “All Nite” still functions in a limited, self-contained world. Jackson and company were still able to provide for themselves before the lights come back on at the close of the video and this implies their indifference to the outside world. In any case, “All Nite” is easily the most intensely erotic of the videos under discussion – as the “dance practice” quickly becomes more like an exercise in soft-core pornography than a genuine practice session and the level of self-absorption and hyper sexuality is acute. In this sense “All Nite” is more closely related to “Play”, and the highly seductive moves of Jackson and her dancers immediately bring to mind the nearly orgasmic sensations “of the D.J. playing her song all night long” that Jennifer Lopez coos about in her own video display. Still, “All Nite” is the most blatantly sexual of the videos reviewed at this point, and it could be argued that both it and “Play” exist only in the world of sexual possibilities and pleasures with arousing dance moves, sexy gyrations, fondling, and the frenzied, shaky editing that accompanies them (especially as a titillating prick tease in “All Nite”) as their chief identifying if not “temporal” marker.

The Jackson and Lopez videos may be the most satisfying of all (even if only superficially) as they offer a pleasing window into a world of sexual delights without complications or consequences – in sharp contrast to “Bad Romance”, “Son Of A Gun”, “Jaded”, and “Just Like A Pill”. Once again, “All Nite” shares the common theme of existing in a surreal milieu that emphasizes a blend of the vague pop musical world, blended with the action occurring in baroque, cavernous surroundings. One remarkable difference that sets “All Nite” (and “Play”) for that matter apart from the other Lawrence creations, is that Jackson’s dancers and the revelers with Lopez are clearly real people while the other videos (outside of the main performers) mainly present us with zombies, clones, or automatons that fit into the more dreamlike or nightmarish dimensions. Both “All Nite” and “Just Like A Pill” are surreal in a gloomy, spooky way. The former is representative of literal blackness and the latter of darkly disturbed minds. Though all the Lawrence-helmed videos chosen for this discussion are definitely focused on high-octane stars, “All Nite” goes the extra mile of self-promotion as the conspicuous Damita Jo (Jackson’s childhood name and her self-titled album from 2004) neon sign is prominently placed in the balcony of the building.

Thank you for joining me here, and next week will be the final post of The Surreal World Of Music Video!