Amazing new video about toxic masculinity by Rosalía
Another stunning video to accompany a great song by Spanish singer Rosalía, who is absolutely my favorite pop artist at the moment. If you don’t have her debut album yet, which came out last year, make sure you get it, because it’s a fitting soundtrack to the scorching summer we’re having.
Like her last video, this one is brimming with the ever present threat of domestic violence, dooming machismo, of the destructive force that is toxic masculinity.
What I find interesting is that the video is also a showcase of typical Andalucian working class aesthetics: the excessive golden jewelry, the kitschy interiors, the statuette of a flamenco dancer, the intimidating monster trucks and the muscled men with their perfect hairdos, it seems to be an ode at first glance, but there is always this dark cloud of threatening violence darkening everything.
Same with the lyrics, which remind me a lot of the lyrics of ‘Every Breath You Take‘ by The Police, which is, same as this song, about jealousy. But one could regard them as very romantic, too:
I’m afraid when you go out
Smiling in the street
Because then everyone can see
The dimples in your cheeks
But it’s an obsession for the character in the song. In the next verse it’s clear that he’s jealous of the wind too, for lifting the hair of the woman he loves, and of the sky and the moon, because she admires them, and even of the water she drinks, for wetting her lips.
I think about your look, piercing, it’s a bullet in the chest.
Hence the shotgun in the video with the olives for bullets, causing wounds in the chests of men. Rosalia and the maker of this incredibly clever video, Canada, present the violent men as victims of the women they’re obsessed with, which is of course from the point of view of those men. They can’t help themselves, it’s the women wounding their hearts, making them crazy.
It all ends with the deadly crash of a truck with Rosalía’s name on it, with Rosalía standing on it like a ghost.
Damned powerful statement. (PB)
RSS