Battle of the Sexes: The Video Game

Has it been too long since battle of the sexes was a household phrase?

Maybe. Turn on MTV, and the war’s in full gear everywhere you look, from videos that make playful hay out of male louts--like the ongoing teen soap opera seen in recent Aerosmith videos, and the Don Juan-dissing of ZZ Top--to the more outright feminism of Queen Latifah.

For nostalgia for the prototypal days of women’s lib, turn to two silly duet clips that invoke the campy memory of Sonny & Cher, the duo whose divorce for a generation symbolized a free-spirited thrush escaping a dominating chauvinist.

And for a less enlightened kind of sexual nostalgia, check out the prostitutes in Snoop Doggy Dogg’s latest, or the beautiful corpse in Tom Petty’s current clip. They’re all part of this edition of Sound & Vision, in which current music videos are reviewed and rated on a 0-100 scale.

Queen Latifah, “U.N.I.T.Y.” “Who you callin’ a bitch?” Uh, well, certainly not you , Ms. Latifah--especially given your demonstration in this video of how well a solid right hook works as a short-term cure for sexism.

Other female rappers have made stabs at feminist “answer” songs addressing the misogynist side of black pop culture, but Latifah’s is the first to definitively take on the entire spectrum of thinking that turns a whole gender into “ho’s” for fun and profit. The video includes a potent scene in which she packs up her kids and leaves a physically abusive lover, and another in which she lands a punch on a stranger in response to an epithet. There’s a lot of lib-revisited to cover here, but somehow Latifah comes through looking both sexy and like someone who could hurt a fellow if she had to.

Though guys take most of the heat here, her most powerful lyrics are lobbed against those young women who buy into the “gangsta bitch” mentality without knowing or caring about the price. Given that there’s a female trio out right now called Hoez With Attitude, no one should suppose that she’s speaking into a void. 80

ZZ Top, “Pincushion.” At just the right moment to capitalize on Lorena Bobbitt-mania, here’s a timely video further celebrating the sharp infliction of great bodily harm on philandering sex-aholics. It’s violent beyond watchdog Sen. Paul Simon’s wildest dreams, albeit purely psychic in its gore.

The story unfolds in two locales: In one, a jilted bride imposes brutal voodoo on the groom who didn’t show, taking pins, knives and scissors to the rascal’s photos. Across town, said groom--who apparently overslept in the company of the stripper hired for the bachelor party--finds himself contorting in all sorts of gymnastic agony.

This very expensive-looking clip, directed by veteran Julien Temple, is extremely well-done, viscerally speaking, though the overall vibe is too brutal to provide a pleasurable video experience, and you start to wonder just what kind of points are being scored. It’s remarkable that virtually the entire video oeuvre of ZZ Top--a band that would seem to have a primarily male appeal if ever there was one--has been based around the group superheroically defending pretty young things from sexist dolts. Southern chivalry lives, and so does trendy male-bashing. 70

Cher With Beavis and Butt-head, “I Got You Babe.” As combinations of live-action and animation go, this ain’t exactly Gene Kelly dancing with Tom and Jerry. And the cynics among us may remain skeptical that 14-year-old cartoon metalheads Beavis and Butt-head fantasize about Cher because of her tattoos and her thing for “younger dudes” and don’t break character for her sake just because, well, they’re labelmates.

But is it worth a token heh-heh, heh-heh anyway? Sure. The dunderheaded duo’s trip through a virtual reality machine to meet the older biker chick of their dreams--and duet on a song born many, many years before they were--is animated like a cross between the ‘60s psychedelia of “Yellow Submarine” and the sketches a stoner kid might carve in his desk during study hall. And, predictable as they may be, Sonny Bono and the willful ignorance of pubescent boys both remain now, as ever, great butts for jokes. 67

Elton John With RuPaul, “Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart.” Elton’s weirdly bangs-overloaded hair almost qualifies as a kind of drag, so in a sense, having RuPaul along for the cross-dressing ride borders on overkill. But for those who can stomach a strong case of the camps (and who don’t mind that, as a diva, RuPaul’s limited pipes make Kiki Dee sound like Kathleen Battle), “Heart” has its undeniably cute spots, at least in its screen incarnation. Best is diminutive El and towering Ru dressing up as Sonny & Cher, though you wonder why they didn’t take the obvious next step and do Ike & Tina too. 52

Snoop Doggy Dogg’s “Gin & Juice.” Or, “House Party IV.” Little Snoop’s adult guardians, silly caricatures of elderly African Americans that might be right out of a Kid ‘N Play movie, leave our hero alone for the evening with specific instructions not to invite ruffians and loose women over. Naturally, Dogg, America’s favorite gangsta-slacker, invites all of West Long Beach, and fairly harmless, laid-back good times in the tradition of “Nothin’ but a ‘G’ Thang” ensue.

Expertly produced and directed by Dr. Dre, “Gin” is the season’s funkiest, catchiest rap and a divertingly loose video--which doesn’t mean you have to like it. It’s hard to tell how much of this ode to inebriation is intended as rough homage to “Risky Business,” but the penultimate scene does involve Dre (as successful a procurer as he is producer, apparently) arriving with a cadre of “tricks from the city of Compton.” Dre’s a friend indeed, shooing Dogg into a private room with the half-dozen hookers and unraveling a roll of condoms to match. Their parents and the Compton city fathers must be very proud. 45

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.” Petty, playing a creepy morgue worker, unzips a body bag and finds the daisy-fresh, comely corpse of Kim Basinger ( wrapped in plastic , as Jack Nance used to say on “Twin Peaks”). Petty zips her back up, wheels her lifeless form home, and tries to enjoy a quiet evening in with his dead date. Only, ha ha, Basinger’s head keeps flopping over every time he tries to prop it up, and she ain’t much of a dance partner. Finally, dejected, he dumps her body in the ocean.

Not since Alice Cooper’s “Cold Ethyl” have the joys of necrophilia gotten such an earnest airing in the pop mainstream, and the utterly purposeless perversity places this one high in the all-time music video what- the- hell- were- they- thinking? pantheon, ruining a perfectly good little Petty tune.

Though you might think Basinger would’ve thought twice before accepting as inexpressive a role as a dead sex object, you have to give her some credit: It is still a better career choice than “Boxing Helena.” 17

Chris Willman’s Sound & Vision column appears periodically in Calendar.