In Stand By Your Man, women are commanded to, “Stand by your man. Give him two arms to cling to and something warm to come to when nights are cold and lonely.” While most women are content to be a warm something, some women demand more. They’d prefer to be referred to as “someone” rather than “something”. They have opinions independent of those held by the man they are associated with. These women are called feminists.

So how does a feminist select a man? She doesn’t just take the first man that comes along and gets her pregnant. She is looking for a very specific person.

Let’s find out if this video is feminist. That Don’t Impress Me Much by Shania Twain:

Shania Twain is not easily impressed. She is very demanding of men. Her first hit, Any Man of Mine, led us to believe that men she is interested in must do whatever she wants and spend a lot of time hugging and squeezing her. This video raises the bar even higher.

Is it feminist, though? According to this song she is looking for someone to keep her warm in the middle of the night. I find that blankets and a furnace usually do a good job of that for me. So who knows. [Once again](/posts/the- best-thing-about-being-woman-man-i/) we are left wondering whether Shania Twain is a feminist or not. I’m highly suspicious since most of her songs are about men. I feel like a feminist would spend more time singing about non- relationship stuff like spaceships or cowboy hats.

One thing that is definitely feminist, though, is that she refuses to be helpless. No matter what her situation she does not need a man to help her. The video opens with Twain wearing a fully coordinated outfit (your luggage must match your coat and all of your clothing) in the middle of the desert.

No one else is around for miles. How will she get home?

Luckily, a man on a motorcycle arrives.

I like to imagine that she is just standing in a desert with her thumb out. She’s probably been there for days until some insane person decided to drive across the desert for no reason. That’s how you hitch a ride so that is how she is doing it.

She is not happy with the man on the motorcycle (who is apparently a rocket scientist) so she will not ride with him.

He is super bummed.

Several weeks later a huge truck arrives.

It’s more likely that at this point she is hallucinating from sun exposure and dehydration.

The guy is pretty good looking except he is wearing a baseball hat with a crease in the bill. Low class, dude.

Naturally Twain rejects him.

During the guitar solo she turns off a valve that comes out of the desert ground for some reason? I don’t know what’s going on here.

The pipes represent men and by turning off the valve she indicates her non- impressed-ment.

A dude in a rad hot rod shows up.

He leans out of the car invitingly.

Naturally, he is rejected.

At this point Shania Twain gives a delightful smile.

She smiles between two lines of the song and it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Her expression while singing the line before and the line after is totally different from the smile. Why is she smiling like that? She’s like a modern- day country-Mona-Lisa.

A guy on a Jeep tries to pick her up.

He is extremely attractive and has a spot on his face, around his eyes, that is not filthy.

To try and clean off the filth he pours water over his face while shaking his head back and forth.

Awesome, but rejected.

Then a man dressed as an Arab arrives on a horse.

Naturally, Twain rejects him immediately. Too ethnic.

Ultimately she is still alone in the middle of the desert.

That is dedication. She will probably die out there.

Also, I’m just noticing that Shania Twain kept sticking her thumb out for a ride, waiting for the vehicle to stop, and then waving the driver away. What a jerk! I’d be so pissed if I were one of the drivers. If she didn’t want a ride why did she stick her thumb out?

Man, total dick.

-PTD

Note: I will not be posting tomorrow or Friday due to Thanksgiving. Another Flavor returns on Monday, December 2 with more music video fun.

I am a white person who grew up in the suburbs. There are two types of music that live in the suburbs amongst white youth. The first is loud, heavy, and fast music. This means heavy metal or punk rock. This is what I listened to. The other option is hip hop. I never got into hip hop for whatever reason. Probably because I am extremely racist.

This doesn’t mean I am unaware of any rap music. Whenever it gets hot in herre I immediately take off all my clothes. One song that has worked its way directly into my brain is Mo Money Mo Problems. The concept, that having more money leads to more problems in your life (basically the with-great-power-comes-great-responsibility speech from Spider-man), is 100% part of our culture now. And the song is so catchy!

Unfortunately, the video totally ruins it. What happened was The Notorious B.I.G. died. This let Puff Daddy take over completely. As a result he plays golf?!? in the video. Don’t ask me.

Mo Money Mo Problems by The Notorious B.I.G.:

I can’t get over all the golf. Apparently that’s what it’s all about? I think Tiger Woods was just becoming a thing when this video came out.

In the extended pre-song scene we see Puff Daddy conferring with his caddy.

Mace is the announcer, pretending to be as boring as possible.

He shoots…

He scores! Everything is very exciting.

I, of course, hate this whole pre-song thing. What is it there for? It adds absolutely nothing to the video, isn’t funny, and doesn’t really make any sense.

Finally the song begins. Mace and Puff Daddy float in the air while a woman (not sure who she is) sings on a screen.

I like having real people in the room plus a person on a screen. That is a pretty cool idea.

A group of people in white dance in a blue room.

Mace and Puff Daddy dance in a black room with white lights while wearing red jumpsuits.

This is basically the whole video through the first two verses. Everything is weird and futuristic. Everyone is dancing and having fun.

During the chorus we see the woman singing on the screen while the men float and dance.

Puff Daddy carefully positions himself to block Mace from the camera.

I really like the video up to this point. It is ridiculous, but I love that they rented something that makes them float! I think it just blows air up really hard so it’s like you are always falling at terminal velocity. Sweet.

At this point the video is ruined. The music stops and Puff Daddy talks.

What does he say? “Mo money mo problems.” Uh, that’s the message of the song! Just let the song play! We want to hear the song!

The song resumes and it is time for silver jumpsuits.

I get a kick out of these dancers. Their clothing is so baggy it’s like they are little kids getting ready to go out into the snow.

The music stops again!(!!!!)! This time to see some archival footage of The Notorious B.I.G. explaining that mo money means mo problems.

Again, that is what the whole song is about! Why do we need these interludes that break the flow? The song discusses what changes in these men’s lives when they get more money. We imagine that money will solve our problems. Money does not change our social class, though. They are still black men who grew up (I think? I’m not about to start doing research) poor. Money only removes money problems. It doesn’t cause people to respect you or make you happy. And a whole host of other problems come with it. If they grew up upper-middle class, their motto would probably be more money more yachts. Anyway, stop stopping the song!

The final verse is by The Notorious B.I.G. But when they filmed this video he was dead. So what do they do?

More archival footage. Here he is on the screen rapping while the other guys float around.

A party starts in front of more archival footage.

It seems like Puff Daddy and Mace are manning the controls of the footage? Who knows. Just making sure that Puff Daddy gets more screen time.

The video ends with the real theme of this song: golf.

And explosions with falling money.

Also: hero walk.

So is this video good? No, it’s pretty bad. But there is a good video in there. Just edit out everything that happens when the song is not playing and it would be fun! I like the ridiculous costumes, ridiculous sets, and Puff Daddy constantly standing in front of the camera trying to look cool. I think they wanted to create an homage to The Notorious B.I.G.‘s life, but I think the song does that the best. Just give us the song, that’s what we want.

-PTD

Last [week](/posts/lock- cellar-door-talk-dirty-to-me-by/) I talked about a couple of videos that were either partially or entirely about having fun. I think it is a noble goal for a band to make sure your audience has as good a time as possible. According to the British Academy of Fun (official motto: “Get chuffed about stuff”) Kiss is the band most dedicated to entertaining us.

Since their inception they dressed up in outlandish costumes and embodied cartoon-y characters. People frequently say that they dressed as comic book characters but I don’t see a lot of similarity between them and the characters in Ghost World or Snookums, That Lovable Transvestite. Comics is a medium not a genre, people.

Anyways, after about 10 years of the same (or at least very similar) costumes the band decided that it was time for a change.

Check it out. Lick It Up by Kiss:

This video is absolutely ridiculous, which I love. It opens with some people’s legs.

A sexy woman pops up from the sewer, flipping her hair back.

Another woman is washing her clothes with water from a fire hydrant on a manhole cover.

What is going on here? It appears that we are living in a post-apocalyptic world where everyone who is not a young, sexy woman was killed. It also destroyed a significant portion of these women’s clothes.

Based on this information as well as the pattern on those cheetah print boots, we can assume that these legs belong to some sexy women.

They stand in front of some skulls of people presumably too ugly to survive the apocalypse.

The food supply in the world has been effected as well. The only remaining food is in squeeze bottles or plastic boxes.

Finally, after a long wait, we get to see who those legs belong to:

It’s not sexy women, it’s Kiss! And they aren’t wearing their make-up! WHOA! Lick It Up is their first album where they took off their make-up (this did not happen on Unmasked for some reason) so it was kind of a big deal to see their faces.

The band kept their cartoon-y personas, though, which is fantastic. Just look at Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley below.

Gene Simmons is looking sinister, just like his Demon persona. Paul Stanley looks hip, similar to his Star Child persona. This is great! Also, Gene Simmons looking sinister is hilarious. He isn’t actually very good at it, he just tilts his head down and looks up at you.

Since the members of Kiss seem to be the only men in the entire world, the sexy women living in squalor are very interested in them. They pop up from behind some tires.

They all crawl out from behind burning wreckage. Why are they crouching like this? It’s sultry and ridiculous.

Kiss joins these women. The women seem to live in burning wreckage with no way of getting food or shelter. How does Kiss respond to these conditions?

They gorge themselves on the women’s food. Classy.

The band starts to play.

Obligatory Gene Simmons tongue shot:

Paul Stanley prances around.

Gene Simmons again fails to seem menacing.

The video ends with a woman with a skull.

This video is amazing! The song is absolutely terrible. I’m not even sure if it qualifies as a song since it doesn’t really have a melody or a riff. It is pure attitude, but that is what Kiss is all about. We take it at face value that Gene Simmons is terrifying just because that is his character. We take it at face value that Paul Stanley (who is 75 years old in this video) is attractive and that sexy post-apocalyptic women would be interested in him. Kiss takes off their make-up and remain cartoons. That is quite a feat.

-PTD