Showing posts with label Pink. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pink. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Backup Dancers From Hell: Pink - “So What”

We start out with Pink at a tattoo parlor (imagine that!) where she’s having them cover up tatts concerning her now ex-husband, Corey, with a big ole “VOID”. Cut to Pink driving a lawn mower down a busy highway, swigging from a go-cup that probably doesn’t contain chamomile tea. People are not happy with her slow-ass contraption, but we know it doesn’t bother Pink for one second.

Interestingly enough, real-life Corey is playing video Corey (guess they parted amicably, but you wouldn’t know it from the lyrics of this song), and we first see him covering Pink’s eyes when she warbles the bit about “I just lost my husband, I don’t know where he went”. More shots of Pink on that lawnmower, giving attitude to the other cars that seem to have a problem with her.

Pink has such a fun life. Just sayin.

Now we have Pink in a guitar store, wearing a pantsuit that we haven’t seen since “Charlie’s Angels” went off the air. She torments the sales guy by taking one of the expensive guitars and banging it on the floor like she just spotted a cockroach. He stupidly tries to stop her, so she naturally punches him in the face and gets all Rambo on his ass. Don’t mess with a girl that has unlimited access to peroxide.

Next up is Pink marching out of her house and up to a tree that has “Alecia and Corey” carved inside a heart. She’s lugging a chainsaw, so it’s probably not a good day for the tree. She starts sawing away, wood bits flying while a nosey neighbor stares from the next yard. (Dude, there’s been a breakup, get your ass back inside and watch ESPN.)

But Dude doesn’t listen, until the tree falls toward him while Pink does a high-kick in the air. She then does a victory dance involving thrusting the chainsaw over her head while raping the air with her pelvis. She must be really happy about her deforestation efforts.

Cut to Pink in a bar setting, where she’s singing the bit in the song about the waiter giving her table to Jessica Simpson. (Why either of them would be in this place is not clear, because it’s not that cool and they both have buttloads of cash.) Anyway, Pink is irritated by some slacker guy at the bar who thinks it’s still okay to do the “Wayne’s World” shtick. Pink decides that there are better things in life to be doing.

So she hops on a motorcycle (after apparently stopping at a drive-thru salon so she can get a new hairdo) and heads out. While waiting at a stop sign, a couple of newlyweds make a bad career choice by pulling up alongside her. Pink takes one look at the happy nerds, and decides to unleash. Next thing you know, she’s throwing beer cans at the duo, erasing the shoe-polish “just married” crap, popping their balloons, and climbing on top of the car to pound on the roof.

Pink might have some unresolved issues that she needs to work through. Just a thought.

Then, in my favorite shot of the entire video, Pink sits down in the middle of the road next to her motorcycle, and has another beer. This woman has her priorities in order. Screw Corey.

But Pink isn’t done with getting the anger out of her system. We cut to her on some paparazzi runway, where she whips off her purple slicker while the cameras flash at her completely naked body. Oh my. She then performs a dance move from the “Thriller” video, which is just icing on the cake. I so want to be Pink in that moment. (Yes, I have my own issues which require public nudity for resolution. Sue me.)

Now Pink is at a hair salon again (surely she gets frequent-flyer miles considering how many times she shows up there) while some confused queen works on her Tippi Hedren hairdo. Pink is stupidly playing with a lighter, so when the queen activates his high-pressure hairspray, Pink’s head goes up in flames. No idea what this is supposed to mean, but Pink has fun pretending to scream and writhe in pain.

Now real-life Corey is back, with him and Pink pretending to hate each other but you know that they don’t. Despite the distraction of Pink wearing a Dogpatch, USA outfit, Corey is able to act like he’s bored with Pink’s whining.

Cue Pink in an alley somewhere, sliding down the wall so she might have some motor-skills issues, then zip over to Pink performing on a stage where there’s lots of out-of-control fires burning. (Did she not learn from that surprising salon visit?) Scene with Pink signing autographs on the foreheads of adoring and probably-stoned fans. More of the performance on the fire stage, with Pink wearing enough eyeliner to fund several third-world countries. She sure likes to bounce a lot.

Back to that alley where Pink had trouble standing up, and we see two guys peeing into beer bottles. (I’m so scared right now I can barely breathe.) Pink takes the bottles and hands them to two other guys, who take a swig and then spew.

Okay, I’m all for complete destruction of ex-lovers via music and lawnmower-riding. But what the hell was that, Pink?

Now she’s in a hotel room where guys wearing underwear are having a pillow fight, with the requisite goose feathers wafting about. (There’s a few girls in the mix as well, but we don’t care.) This leads to a montage of all the angry Pink’s we’ve seen up to this point, and the over-riding theme seems to be, if you break up with me, I am going to destroy life as we know it. Which is perfectly understandable. Men are pigs and global destruction is an inevitable result of that.

Final scene is of Pink and Corey, still pretending to be mad at each other. But we know it’s a lie. Pink would never change her hairstyle this many times if she wasn’t still in love….

 

Click Here to Watch the Video on YouTube.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Backup Dancers From Hell: Pink - “Raise Your Glass”

Fasten your seatbelts…

We start off in what might be a high school lunchroom, with a rather plain girl surrounded by life-size fashion-model cutouts sitting at the table around her. (Flashback to sucky teenage years, right?) Just before spending some serious quality time with a corndog, the plain girl smacks one of the cutouts to the floor. (Which is what we all wanted to do in high school. Unless you were actually the supermodel, in which case you’re probably not watching a Pink video.)

Cut to Pink, dressed up as Rosie the Riveter from back in the World War II day. She’s showing us her very impressive bicep while singing the opening lines to the song. Zip over to Pink in what might be a Spanish Civil War outfit, just as she’s stabbing a matador instead of the matador stabbing a bull. (Shout out to animal rights.) There’s some guys lurking in the background wearing creepy stockings on their head, with X’s for eyes, and I’m not really lovin’ on that, but we’ll see.

Now we have Pink, sporting slightly-nerdy glasses while strumming a guitar in what might be a fancy supper club. Back to the matador scene, with Pink shoving those bejeweled dagger things into the matador. He drops to his knees in surprise. (Just like the poor animals usually do, right?) Quick shot of Rosie again, then back to the supper club, where we see two guys kiss. (Okay, gay rights, and now I’m starting to see where Pink is going with all this. Totally wouldn’t have envisioned this when I first heard the song.)

Next up, Pink is hangin’ out with some street thugs swigging gin and juice, then we roll into a rapid-fire montage of the previous scenes, ending with Plain Girl hoisting her milk carton just as Pink bellows “raise your glass!” Cut to Pink with a punk hairdo, which is kind of a trite statement, I realize, as she stomps around with the thug guys. This goes on for a bit, with Pink concentrating on the younger thug-ettes standing around. Yo, better life than this. Find it.

Then Pink is facing off with a Sumo wrestler that oddly looks like that guy from the Monopoly game. Not sure what that’s all about, but there’s a dollar sign painted on the floor so maybe Pink is single-handedly trying to bring down Big Business. Then we have several blind-folded ladies feeding breast milk to a calf. (Not kidding, and my confusion grows, especially since one of the pantyhose-heads is spray-painting “FARM” on the brick wall behind them.) I’m sure Pink is making a political statement, I’m just not hip enough to get what it is.

Cut to Pink at one of those skateboard parks, where she’s thrusting a beer toward the sky while boys fly through the air. This kicks off a semi-morphing scene where different facial parts are pieced together to create unique characters. The morphing continues for a while, with jump cuts to the other scenarios in the video: Rosie, the skateboarders, Pink’s continuing efforts to defeat the Sumo Money Guy, and the mystifying feeding of livestock using Victoria’s Secret starlets.

Oh wait, they’ve slipped in a new vignette where diaper-clad toddlers are raising their bottles and sippy-cups to the lyrics. (This means that you should either celebrate life from the very beginning, or that you should demand premium formula from the daycare workers.) Then Pink wakes up after apparently having had sex with an Hassidic Jew.

Don’t even ask. I don’t know.

Next up is Pink sporting a tragic hairdo while she watches a rhythm-challenged guy trying to dance at a high school prom circa 1976. Pink sniffs at her armpit, because uncool girls always do that. I guess she smelled something really inspiring, because she suddenly leaps to her feet and starts to boogie, oogie, oogie, till you just can’t boogie no more.

This kicks off another montage, revisiting some scenes that we’ve already enjoyed, along with new stuff, like a scantily-clad woman who has a very special relationship with a hula hoop. (Really love the hyperkinetic hand gestures that 1970’s Pink teaches the nerdy guy in his polyester suit.) An important update concerns Pink finally getting that Sumo wrestler out of the ring, and then she does a victory dance indicating her nether regions are really, really itchy. Meanwhile, Hula Girl is able to spin that hoop horizontally, which is a skill that I now greatly desire.

More montage, where it seems that everybody should be able to find their special place in life if they just stay true to their inner wants and desires. It also helps if you drink a lot. In quick succession, Pink sleeps with the Pope, some guy with a really big hat, and a nun, with Pink saying a brief thankful prayer about that last one. (Apparently the message is that you should sleep with lots of flavors to make sure you find the right one. Can’t argue with that.)

The montage continues all the way to the end of the video, but as we wind down, we see Pink setting aloft these tiny flame-powered balloons into the night sky, and it all gels. Everyone can succeed if they try hard enough, knock it off with the senseless killing of animals, the morphing means that we are all part of one another so stop with the pointless labeling, all people are of equal value, and the balloons…

The balloons are hope.

At least, that’s how I’m taking it….

 

Click Here to Watch the Video on YouTube.