What can music videos still say about artists and their intent, now that the medium’s so thoroughly saturated with the sticky ooze of marketing? Most are little more than sales pitches for fucking or patriotism, the two hottest-selling commodities nationwide–take for instance the slow-motion grind of pert, oiled ass in hip-hop videos and the three-and-a-half-minute “God ‘n’ my sweet Kentucky home” minidramas that run nonstop on Country Music Television. But it’s a false purism to claim that the taint of commercialism means videos can’t also send a message. Even if the song itself is little more than a marketing ploy in the first place, its video can help us establish our identities as consumers–who we are if we believe in the artist or like what the song is saying. Pink is mainstream, and the Gossip are underground, but both are feminist–what begs further discussion is the ways their new videos address it.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Pink has always played up what sets her apart from her Top 40 peers, so she can reasonably lay claim to the role of critical outsider: she’s in-your-face and a touch butch, often wears her pink or bleached-blond hair boyishly short, and favors bedazzled sports bras and track pants over the “do-me” outfits young divas usually choose. Her feminism is lightweight but genuine–leading by example, she encourages girls to reject the status quo. Sometimes that just means flipping the bird and hitting the dance floor (“God Is a DJ,” “Get the Party Started”), and other times it’s about not getting played by nasty dudes (“Respect,” “Private Show”). “Stupid Girls,” the current single from her forthcoming album I’m Not Dead (LaFace), mocks and rejects subservient femininity. Pink may be a pop singer shaking her ass to sell records, but she wants us to know she’s not one of them.
The parodies are funny, especially the one of Simpson–she slides all over a soapy car, furiously attempting to wash it and hump it at the same time, then sucks suggestively on the dirty sponge–but the antidote Pink suggests for such stupid-girl behavior is just as rooted in old-fashioned gender prescriptions as anything she’s criticizing. If to be a strong woman you have to act like a man, then femininity equals weakness. The video ends with the pigtailed girl shutting off the TV in revulsion, then looking from a heap of frilly dolls to a second pile that contains a keyboard, a football, and a tiny microscope. She grabs the football and runs outside, and guardian angel Pink flashes an approving smile and disappears into the CGI mist.
It seems like our ability to ask anything big of pop forms is continually ebbing–instead we get signifiers to work with. Pink’s feminism consists of little more than sorting signifiers into a “good girl” pile and a “bad girl” pile, and the Gossip hide their version behind a playful jumble of brightly colored whatever–which I’m afraid might signify that they’re giving up the fight they called on all of us to join, hemming themselves in because they don’t want the cool kids to make fun of them for being too sincere. It’s enough to make a girl put down her football and pick up a video camera.
