Aren’t you bummed that the second Airplane! movie wasn’t called Airplanes!? I’ve been thinking about airplanes because I am going on a flight today. As a people, we are scared of flying. I certainly am. Flying is an extremely dangerous way to travel. The only ways to travel more dangerous are by train, by motorcycle, by bike, by foot, and by car. But that’s it. Oh, boats are more dangerous, too. Did you know that you are more likely to die in a plane crash than to be killed in a shirt factory fire? Chilling.

Car-related side note: In Chicago after a snow, it is traditional for people save their precious parking spot by blocking it off with lawn furniture. People who are new to Chicago get really excited about this tradition and decide to partake of it immediately. They don’t understand the rules, though. In case you are one of these people let me lay it down for you and see if you can pick it up.
1. You must have shoveled the spot out. This is the most important! If all you did was block some of the falling snow with your car, you may not save your spot.
2. You only get to save it for a day. Maybe two, but probably not. Shoveling out a spot once does not reserve it for the whole winter.
3. People are allowed to steal your lawn furniture. Sorry, it’s just a fact of life.
I hope these rules allow you to fully enjoy dangerously driving around on slippery roads at 10 miles an hour over the speed limit!

Okay, back on track. So, I know deep down that flying isn’t dangerous especially compared to driving. I’m still frightened about it. This Burt Reynolds quote really explains it, “My movies were the kind they show in prisons and airplanes, because nobody can leave.” When you are in an airplane, there is nowhere for you to go. You can be in Alfred Hitchcock’s favorite situation: You know something bad is going to happen and there is nothing you can do about it. Now, I know I should be approximately 400 times more scared when I’m riding in a car, but I’m not. I imagine that I could just hup out the window at 70 miles an hour and roll to safety. This is why I always recommend practicing jumping out of speeding cars on the freeway. You won’t regret it.

Anyways, this trapped feeling shows up in music videos. Did you know that Another Flavor is a blog about music videos? And that on Twosday we talk about two videos with something in common? Well, now you do. You’re welcome.

Today we’ll be looking at the video for Britney Spears’s Toxic and Foo Fighters’ Learn to Fly. Let’s start with Toxic.

First off, isn’t Toxic a great song? It really is.

Spears is addicted to her man. She needs him. But she’s on a plane because she is a flight attendant from 1960s space:

So what can she do? She’s gotta grab some random dude and drag him into the bathroom.

She has no choice. She’s trapped. That’s what happens when you get on an airplane.

Unlike Spears’s harrowing story of unfulfilled sexual desire, Foo Fighters warn us of the dangers of drinking non-alcoholic beverages in their video for Learn to Fly.

I’m not sure how I feel about this video. I’m not a huge fan of men dressed as women in fat suits.

Disgusting. Fat people are not inherently funny! Neither is cross dressing!

This video does show the trapped feeling of being on a plane well, though. Almost everyone drinks drugged coffee.

This leaves the alcohol-only members of Foo Fighters to save the day. Normally, you’d be able to call for experts in a disaster situation, but when you are in a plane you only have the people you took off with. This is what is so terrifying. Just look at Lost! Imagine having to spend 6 seasons with whoever happened to be on a plane with you! Crazy.

If I don’t die in a fiery wreck, I’ll be back tomorrow with more music video goodness!

-PTD

Since starting this blog I’ve learned a few things:

1. Numbered lists are extremely useful.
2. If you use metaphors in your writing, you make a met out of ap and hors.
3. A lot of music videos use dreams or dream-like imagery.

This video, “Everlong” by Foo Fighters, is all about dreams.

At the start we are introduced to this couple:

Aren’t they wholesome looking? This is like an asleep American Gothic except the man’s and woman’s positions are reversed, the woman appears to be taller than the man, and the woman is a man in a wig.

Each of them is dreaming a separate dream, that just happen to have the same characters. In the man’s dream, he returns to his youth as a punk:

Based on his buttons (specifically the one with the skull and crossbones on it) he is a total mess. He’s using an old fashioned water-closet-type toilet, but he is not alone. He is being menaced by some goons who seem to have followed him into the bathroom.

These are some grade-A goons! They both have 1950’s juvenile delinquent hair and are wearing ridiculous clothing. Why do white people look back on the 1950’s as a golden era? It was clearly the golden age of the juvenile delinquent! Yes, it was a golden age, but that’s like longing for the ‘80’s because it was the golden age of the crack epidemic. Back in the ‘50’s every time you turned around a couple of swarthy, hirsute hoodlums would leer at you from underneath their duck’s ass haircuts. Terrifying.

The goons are causing more trouble than just exposing the man to their horrifying visages, however. They start manhandling the woman.

Manhandlers! Note: manhandle is such a great word. It’s like one of those German words that is just a bunch of nouns bundled together describing exactly what the word means. Manhandle: to handle in the manner of a man.

This manhandling infuriates the man and he decides to show those goons just what kind of hand a real man has to handle other men who need to be handled in a manly fashion.

He then proceeds to beat the living shit out of them with his enormous hand.

They are beaten soundly. Onlookers, who were apparently not at all bothered by the goon-powered manhandling, are shocked by this real-man-powered giant hand manHANDling.

Having thus defeated the goons, we can move to the woman’s dream.

She is sitting in a cabin in the woods (just like the popular Joss Whedon movie, Serenity) reading a book. She is concerned, though, because the man is outside in the dark collecting wood.

OH SHIT! THE GOONS ARE HERE TOO!

Being a woman, she does not decide to grow a giant hand and beat her attackers until their bodies are limp. She is completely helpless except for her ability to use the phone. Women! Am I right?

She doesn’t take the time to think that since the man is outside collecting wood, he would be unable to answer a phone call. But wait! She is actually calling him in real life from inside the dream!

Instantly realizing that the woman would in no way be able to protect herself and unable to wake her, the man decides to try and enter her dream world.

At first he enters into every man’s dream reality, fondling (manhandling?) a group of women.

But didn’t he come to the dream world for some reason? That’s right! He has to rescue the woman!

He steels his resolve and enters the cabin wielding two logs chained together like nunchuks.

He finds the goons tying up the woman. Apparently they didn’t really have a great plan for what to do if they were successful in menacing her.

Now, despite the fact that the man marched into the cabin with the nunchuck logs, and that he spent time swinging them around in a menacing manner, he drops the logs and goes with plan A: a giant hand.

Meanwhile, the woman shows that she wasn’t so helpless after all. She can defend herself, but only when using a woman’s tool.

The couple successfully defeat the goons. Oh no! The goons are in the couple’s bedroom watching them sleep!

Everyone sheds their costumes. Check out this delightful sequence:

The fact that he pulls back his shirt to reveal his real arms underneath his fake arms is absolutely amazing.

Then, the band rocks out.

There are a lot of things to like about this video. I love that all the members of the band have major parts in the plot. Why not have half the band act as antagonists and the other half as protagonists? It’s such a good idea! More videos should use that. I also love that there are funny parts without being a joke-y video.

One thing I don’t love is the way lip syncing is handled in the video. The singer sings a few lines, seemingly at random, throughout the dream part of the video. This bothers me much like it did in Lorde’s video for “Royals” because I don’t understand the decision to sing some lines and not others. I feel like if they waited until everyone changed out of their costumes and started playing their instruments to start lip syncing it would make a lot more sense.

That isn’t too important, though. This video is so much fun and I love it.

-PTD