A New Look at Today’s Woman (and Bad Girls)

Two of the pop world’s favorite divas, Whitney Houston and Annie Lennox, let themselves be seen in a family way in their latest music videos, celebrating rather than cloaking their expectant state.

Demi Moore beat ‘em to it with that Vanity Fair cover photo, of course, but Houston’s and Lennox’s somewhat brave clips represent a small but sure sign that the objectification of the female form that’s been a hallmark of music video is going through significant shifts.

It’s been a cliche for over a decade now to associate MTV with babes in bondage, and even now the channel is hardly without its sulking-models-missing-their-rock-star-boyfriends montages or egregiously sexist, thong-celebrating raps. But the truth is, right now you’re slightly more likely to come across a feminist statement than a Victoria’s Secret homage amid the flow of mixed messages the heterogenous network sends out.

This edition of Sound & Vision (in which recent pop clips are reviewed and rated on a 0-100 scale) focuses exclusively on recent videos by and/or about women--including cautionary tales about what happens to bad girls, from Madonna and Diamond & the Psychotic Neurotics; warnings about falling prey to pretty packaging, from INXS and 10,000 Maniacs; and, for balance, pure girl-lust from Dolly Parton.

INXS, “Beautiful Girl.” This clip sounds preachy, and is: Buzzwords associated with the artificial upkeep of gorgeousness--”perfection, binge, boys, breasts, calories, shame, lie, 34-24-36, liposuction is stupid,” et al.--flash across the screen at near-subliminal speed. Shots of surgical knives alternate with images of breast implants being pulled apart. We see close-ups of a woman sensually stuffing chocolate cake past her pursed lips, followed by the inevitable bowing at the porcelain shrine. All this assuring women that they don’t need to change to be beautiful may seem a little hypocritical coming from INXS, which hasn’t exactly filled its videos with average gals heretofore.

Despite its P.C. predictability, though, the clip remains remarkably effective, largely because its imagery becomes more touching in tandem with the simple single notes of the plaintive piano riff that anchors INXS’ tune. And by opening and closing the video with a parade of starkly framed female faces whose beauty tends toward the unusual side, director Mark Pennington does make a good case for the glorification of eccentricity. 77

Madonna, “Bad Girl.” Those who blame Madonna for inventing sexual licentiousness might be surprised by this reactionary clip, in which a tender-hearted hussy’s promiscuity finally leads to the morgue. The video opens with Madonna’s corpse being carried away on a stretcher, while mysterious onlooker Christopher Walken flashes back over the behavior that led to the Bad Girl’s bad end. Is Walken her ex-lover, her killer, or both?

Neither, as it turns out: He’s her guardian angel, who shares a cigarette and a camera boom to the sky with Madonna’s ghost at video’s end. That makes “Bad Girl” a short remake of “Looking for Mr. Goodbar,” with an angelic ending redolent of “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.” But it holds up on repeat viewings, largely because of the production values brought by director David Fincher, some subtle and very clever editing, and a surprisingly strong, even moving, silent-movie performance from Madonna--who puts her brassiness in check for once to play a completely passive character. 77

Whitney Houston, “I’m Every Woman.” At first, it looks as if the filmmakers are trying to disguise Houston’s pregnancy, shooting her front-on in a basic black dress, with a lot of the shots from the chest up. But her condition is increasingly more noticeable over the course of the clip, until the climactic shot, a tell-all side view of a tired Houston letting out an exhausted breath. You could almost call the video a tummy tease.

The song is one of Houston’s best, catchiest singles ever. And the clip, while not terribly imaginative, does fair justice to its celebration of femaleness, with a cast that includes several young girls, mama Cissy and songwriter/honoree Chaka Khan. Photographer Randee St. Nicholas directed. 72

Annie Lennox, “Little Bird.” Lennox’s pregnancy is undisguised but seemingly incidental here. She’s playing “Cabaret” character Sally Bowles as an expectant mother, which, if it’s a purposeful gag, is an obscure one. The real running joke here is that Lennox’s stage performance is overrun by eight look-alikes, all dressed in guises recognizable from previous Eurythmics or solo Lennox videos: the red-haired androgyne from “Sweet Dreams,” the leather rocker from “Would I Lie to You,” the mad housewife, the blond tart, the raccoon-faced gal, et al. The scuffle that breaks out among these Lennoxes doesn’t lead to a funny enough punch line at the end, but for video-watching veterans, along the way it makes for a cute game of Name That Persona. Longtime collaborator Sophie Muller directed. 70

10,000 Maniacs, “Candy Everybody Wants.” This wonderfully Maniacal tune--which is pepped up (off-screen) by James Brown’s horn section--is deceptively cheerful, in the service of a lyric that’s not coincidentally about the deceptive chocolate-coating of the things that would do us harm. Advertising is the motif in former commercial director Jefferey Plansker’s video debut, as some fairly abstract images get co-opted into a series of print ads with silly catch phrases like “Glazed apathetic leash” and “I can’t believe it’s a pine leg brace!” Singer Natalie Merchant even gets into the act by dressing up as glamorously as the female models who populate the clip; it may or may not be an irony that she looks stunning. 70

Diamond & the Psychotic Neurotics, “Sally Got a One-Track Mind.” Plenty of rap tunes talk about “ho’s,” but this one, for once, actually offers more pity than misogynist scorn for someone who’s “never been in love, always been an object.” The Sally of the title starts out as a 16-year-old with a fondness for baubles and Beemer rides from stray Lotharios; it ends with her as a 21-year-old with a baby, a rep and an already-diminishing ability to use and be used. The song is too sketchy to illustrate the social conditions that create a Sally, but doesn’t pull punches in portraying where a lack of self-respect might lead a lady who really believes diamonds are a girl’s best friend. David Perez Shadi directed with a nice black-and-white visual sense. 61

Dolly Parton and Friends, “Romeo.” What sexism! Parton, along with guest subjugators-of-guys Tanya Tucker, Kathy Mattea and Mary-Chapin Carpenter, lusts after Billy Ray Cyrus’ body in a bar--complete with lines like “I wish I had a swing like that in my back yard,” mutual conferring about how none of them quite got around to looking in his eyes ‘cause there was so much good stuff below, and Dolly’s description of herself as “in heat.”

All right, so this silly role reversal is in harmless enough bad taste and maybe men shouldn’t carp if women want to make up for thousands of years of oppression by learning to be lunkheaded too. Still, the video’s guaranteed to cause true discomfort to Carpenter fans, who’ll cringe at the embarrassing charade of such a tasteful lass pretending to pant after the Achy Breaky Hunk. Fellow female chauvinist pig Randee St. Nicholas directed. 43