Don't most rich old ladies regret marrying the dull bastard who got them all their stuff and wish they'd spent their lives with the hot, passionate artist who ran off that one night when they'd had that big fight?
Don't ask me. That's not what I did with my life, but it's a fine old cultural meme — that the wives of rich men are so unhappy and that they wish they'd gone down the other road, the one with all that hot sex and emotional turbulence — and it's pithily realized in Katy Perry's new video "The One That Got Away." (I'm watching this because my son Chris emailed me to say: "I'm not generally a Katy Perry fan, but I think this new video is great and very emotionally effective.")
I'm worried that this video will influence young girls to get their boyfriends to draw DIY tattoos of hearts on their inner forearms, but quite aside from the unfortunate tattoo incitement...
[NOTE: Watch the video before answering, and answer the question asked.]
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83 comments:
~~But now your heart is filled with gold
As if it were a purse~~
He didn't really quite get away, did he?
The advice young women SHOULD take:
- Remain in your glorious, full-flavor natural state.
Peter
Johnny Cash?
Would that be the artist who comes to mind when daydreaming about the Italian stallion who drove a Mustang?
None of the above. They suggest she had a choice when she did not; fate took the choice away.
It's a rather sick video, I think. What should be a wistful remembrance has become a life-defeating obsession and depression.
Were she my wife, I'd be pushing for counseling and/or medication.
On a Meade-adjacent point, the singer really isn't regretting a choice she made, but merely musing over a might-have-been life. Having lover No 1 go out in such a trite way obviates any considerations of how life with him might have had its rough patches.
I wonder, though, whether it isn't revealing about one's own assumptions to conclude that all of the material things enjoyed by the older, regretful persona were acquired by her mate, rather than by herself.
There really isn't that much evidence in the video to support that conclusion is there?
OH -- and the Johnny Cash song at the end just evokes that scene in Kill Bill 2 where Bill's brother (Budd?) shoots Beatrice Kiddeaux in the chest with rock salt.
Once again, we need a "None of the above" button. Or, how about "No matter how it turns out, women will be dissatisfied?" Not enough love and excitement or not enough money and material goods.
Marry the artist and live in poverty all your life and hate him for the hardship when you could have had it so easy. Of course the love or money thing is a false dichotomy.
Sheesh. Unhappy hipsters are the worst.
"On a Meade-adjacent point, the singer really isn't regretting a choice she made, but merely musing over a might-have-been life."
Note how her bed is set up: You're supposed to see that she does not sleep with her husband.
To answer the specific question, What lesson will young girls take from this video, the answer is #1 because they are generally unrealistic and idealistic. Should have stayed with the handsome, penniless, sexy artist. However, at 60 or however old the grown woman was, she would be just an embittered and unhappy because poverty is not as romantic at that age as it is at 20-something.
As my mother used to say, it's just as easy to love a rich man as a poor one.
wv: ovenes - what ovaries become as they age.
The video isn't about choice though, is it?
It's more about the roles that luck and chance play in life.
False choice. Replacing a hot romance financed by daddy with a steadier source of income later on.
She's made to look old enough that the Mustang and the Polaroid were current when she was as young in the other part of the video but that is way before Radiohead came along.
We think of things that could have been as progressing in the most ideal manner while real life is what it is. It's hard to imagine that if you had done things differently you would have a whole different set of regrets, but you would, and would then be imagining the choices you really did make in this life as having a "happily ever after".
Ann -- There was no choice involved because Guy #1 drove off in a huff & ran off the road. The Singer did not choose Guy #2 over Guy #1 no matter how she arranges her bed decades later.
Irene, We Italians are would be honored to have Diego Luna in our tribe. However, he is The Mexican Stallion. He has a real Marcello Mastriano/Raul Julia mix quality to him that would lead folks to believe he is a paisan.
Diego Luna is one of the actors who I truly respect. A more obscure flick of his is Criminal w/ John C. Reilly and Maggie Gyllenhaal. It's worth renting. Better than 97% of the shit out there.
Raul Julia died way too soon. My brother is a chef. He was working @ Mama Maria's in Boston and made a meal for Raul. Well, Raul's family was in the restaurant biz in PR. He came back to the kitchen, thanked and hugged my brother. Spent an hour talking, pitching in, bonding w/ the kitchen staff which of course was primarily Hispanic. He was a wonderful man and a superb actor.
Since it's the woman's story and she wasn't with him when he crashed, it could just be her wish that he was thinking of her and beginning to regret leaving just before he died.
Will young girls think that having a ghost who loves you forever better than a vampire? (Edward and Bella)
The video reminds me that Diega Luna is really hot.
I loved the scene in that Mexican movie where him and his best friend had a three way with the woman who had cancer.
The video was ridiculous. Radiohead was an 80's band. How do you get from 20 something to 80 something in 35 years? and that drum line--gahh!
There's sentiment in a song, and then there's sentiment. We've seen Katy Perry, and she has set the bar for feeling.
This one, while not as moving, almost gives the listener sentiment and feeling of the Katy Perry kind.
http://youtu.be/0qhe_U5q7tI
It's also a useful morality tale for the instruction of others.
I showed this to my teenage daughter. She said, "I knew he was going to die, it was an okay video until then."
I asked her which was a better boyfriend, a ghost or a vampire. She said a vampire because you could make out in public and people would see him, with a ghost it would just look like you're sticking your tongue out.
In the video she's responsible for killing the artist. Had she not splashed his painting he would not have sped off then become distracted by her fluffy crap in the car and hit the rocks. What will girls take away from the music or the video? I have no idea.
Probably get a tattoo to mark stages of your life because that's all you'll have left.
Everything is a choice. Maybe she regrets choosing to squirt red paint all over his work, thus sending him out to run off the road and forcing her into the arms of her lifelong sugar daddy. I don't know.
I do think that judging by the young girls I see on MTV, their takeaway from this would be "painters are hot." Full stop.
Well, shit. I got all distracted, wandered off and Chip read my mind, said it better and hit post before I did.
The vid pushes the old idea that you can't love anybody who isn't sexy and has a groovy lifestyle.
Problem is, the sexy artist usually takes off when the babies start coming or things get rough, one way or another.
The dull guy was good to her and she doesn't get it. The dull guy may have been the one to help her get through Sexy's death.
Again,we've seen this since the 60s. The vid pushes shallowness and ingratitude.
Agree with Burgess, needs more options.
DADvocate said...
Once again, we need a "None of the above" button. Or, how about "No matter how it turns out, women will be dissatisfied?" Not enough love and excitement or not enough money and material goods.
Marry the artist and live in poverty all your life and hate him for the hardship when you could have had it so easy. Of course the love or money thing is a false dichotomy.
Over the years a lot of surveys have said the, "No matter how it turns out, women will be dissatisfied", is a myth, but the Lefties don't want to it.
Largely because when women follow paragraph 2, they end up on welfare.
PS Damn, that stupid thing was almost 5 minutes out of my life.
but merely musing over a might-have-been life.
Or as famously said: when you see a fork in the road take it.
Who hasn't mused over what might have been had you made another choice at a crucial time in the past. Went to this college instead of that one. Took that job path and moved to that city instead of this one. Married that old boyfriend. What would your life be like?
Musing is one thing. Moping is another.
Note how her bed is set up: You're supposed to see that she does not sleep with her husband.
I think we are supposed to see that there is an empty space in her life.
Whether is is because she never re-married or because she just is alone now for whatever reason.
There is an empty space and she is wealthy....but alone.
Who made this rule that rich guys have to be boring, or that only the poor and young are creative? Talk about your stereotypes.
Advice to girls: Look for fun, sexy, creative AND rich. Then don't f*ck up his work.
Best advice to women is: Be happy and be fun, if that's what you want back.
I also agree with Lucien.... why do you (generic not particular you) assume that the subsequent wealth was from her marrying a sugar daddy?
Why couldn't she have been successful on her own? We don't see any evidence of another man in her life.
If that is the meme you want, marrying the older richer man and wishing for the other.....this is the song.
Cuckold your Beta husband with an Alpha, whose child you then get the Beta to pay for raising: that seems to be the ideal female strategy nowadays.
Is it just me, or did anyone else find the simple Johnny Cash snippet at the end far more moving and evocative of lost love than the entire Katy Perry video?
I abhor Katy Perry.
Emotionally as well as sexually, she's porno-coy. A bug-eyed Zooey Deschanel twee-freak playing at being a slutty, trailer-trash Ke$ha or latex-clad Gaga.
Even more than those peers, her shtick is infuriating, fatigueing, disgusting. A shot of sentimental porn (as this), then back to some more freak-drag watered-down midtempo K$/LG retread.
Lady Gaga revels in Helmut Newton decadence, which she shamelessly and unimaginatively plagiarizes, then shoves in the face of an unwitting audience. But Katy-- even worse!
I can't think of a parallel or precedent for a celebrity who so bizarrely bases her public image on looking and behaving like a messed-up twelve year-old who switched bodies into a pop star. Her reveling in sheer mishapen *kookiness* is unnerving. She's patently ugly (as is her voice), and she consistently amplifies this with her bizarro-drag as a goofy teenybopper or here, as a Little Old Lady.
Those goddamn floral-print latex dresses she always wears: what the FUCK is that about?!!?
@Tom I agree with you.
DBQ, the other man in her life is the one that asks, "How was it?" at the beginning of the video.
I married the sexy hot guy, he decided to dump the artiste persona and go to med school. See you can have your cake and eat it too.
Marry the one you love. Life has twists and turns down paths that we cannot foresee. Enjoy it while it lasts, no regrets.
@ Mary Beth....ahha. Watched it again. I missed him in the beginning.
Women are idiots. And this kind of fucked up dog shit has contributed to a part of the idiotic imagery of love we have in our society.
Old Dad,
The video was ridiculous. Radiohead was an 80's band. How do you get from 20 something to 80 something in 35 years? and that drum line--gahh!
I can't answer Ann's question as asked because I seriously don't know. I do know the video's not compelling (I watched about half of it) which is why all the attention is on it's concept and Perry's makeup. The song sucks.
I don't know what to call this but a kind of celebrity masturbation. It's Katy Perry. I get that. Why she's a celebrity, I have no idea, but I know she is one and Ann's playing into that. She's got a crap song. A demo tape for a song would actually be more accurate - and it needs work. (She did mention Radiohead, right?) Whatever, she's Katy Perry. Like I said, I get that.
But, other than the celebration of Katy Perry's celebrity, or vanity, without a good song - which should be the whole point of even suggesting the making of a video - there is nothing of value here. "That drum line--gahh!" sums up my reaction pretty well, sending my thoughts back to what the world was like before Rap came along. Let me tell you, it was a sad time. I'm talking about Folk Music, OD.
And what is up with this Katy Perry trading men for "all her stuff" talk? I enjoy listening to Too $hort and that sounds an awful lot like whoring to me, though it's obviously so pervasive videos can be made of the "meme" with hardly anyone remarking on that phenomena, as that phenomena. If this is really it (and Ann's comments suggest it is) then let's cut the "men are pigs" bullshit right here and now, o.k.? What lesson are little GIRLS taking from this? Who cares? What lessons are little BOYS taking from this? Here's a possibility:
We are men, just trying to have a fucking life, and women are the fucking Borg.
Keep in mind, I admittedly didn't watch the whole thing, because I couldn't. It had the same effect on me that being stabbed did, when I realized I was losing a lot of blood and had to get help fast before passing out. My hand movement in such situations, hitting the "stop" button, is practically involuntary at this point. (My rejection of "peace" signs is almost just as complete,....)
Maybe somebody else can find some-thing else, but I don't see any good coming out of this video. It's a perverse litany of bad ideas. Which, I swear, I don't have a problem with. But Jesus H. Christ, just give me a good motherfucking song. That's all I ask. It's the "music" business, right? Shouldn't be too difficult. Got any videos of songs that are good in their own right? Remember that silly little ditty "Brand New Key"? I used to marvel that, when it came out, it could play in ghettos and everyone's head would still nod along. Has Katy Perry got anything like that? I'd happily settle for that.
Cute video, but that is one weak song.
Am I a bad person for preferring Elmo?
To quote Titus: "Tits!"
And some Clouds, too!
I picked the third choice b/c the "rich people are unhappy" meme, really a Romantic meme, flows through many rock songs. Like in Desperado...but the Eagles and Katy Perry seem pretty happy with their money.
Maybe hip-hop is the first to reject that? Bling is good!
@ Crack Melanie Safka
:-)
Old Dad said...
The video was ridiculous. Radiohead was an 80's band. How do you get from 20 something to 80 something in 35 years?
I think maybe you're interpreting the "old woman" part of the video as being present day when it's supposed to be the future. Note the coffee pot at the beginning. But also, Radiohead got big in the 90's. So, it's 90's and maybe 2050's?
Getting away has a positive connotation, for the one that got away. I assume this video is a tremendously self loathing video: "Better to die than have to live your life with me."
I'd like to take Katy Perry up on that to see if it is true.
...... the message that should be taken away from this video is ..... keep your eyes on the road, dammit !
Good grief, people. She had a fight with the guy, he drove away mad, had an accident, got killed, and now she regrets having the fight, because in the end, whatever they were fighting about wasn't that fucking important, in a way you'll never quite realize as much as when you're looking at it fifty years later. Simple as that.
I thought the video was great.
Let's put it this way: fifty years after you learn he was killed by an exploding loaf, you're going to all be really, really sorry you flamed Titus. Aren't you?
AREN'T YOU??
(after you stop giggling, that is)
Is that him driving off the side of a mountain and (apparently) dying? If so-I'm missing the part where she made any choice to stay with or leave him.
Why are we assuming her husband is the *provider* of her wealthy lifestyle?
Lord.
Katy Perry needs to use some of the millions of dollars she's earning from sexploiting herself, to clean up her drug-addled dirty bumlike husband.
I think that's the real message I came away with.
Ladies, marry the guy with the money. If your husband is boring in bed, the fault is at least half yours. Take some responsibility.
I'm still trying to figure out how we know the husband got Old Lady Perry all her stuff.
Why would young girls assume that? They are generations removed from knowing about the kinds of stereotypes that say women can't provide their own money and must rely on a man to get "stuff" for them.
I think maybe you're interpreting the "old woman" part of the video as being present day when it's supposed to be the future. Note the coffee pot at the beginning. But also, Radiohead got big in the 90's. So, it's 90's and maybe 2050's?
It must have been a bitch in the '90s for them to find film for a Polaroid camera from the '60s.
"Why would young girls assume that? They are generations removed from knowing about the kinds of stereotypes that say women can't provide their own money and must rely on a man to get "stuff" for them."
Because we've learned how to read film. We understand the narrative implied through images and editing.
I remember when I couldn't understand movies, when I was young. Are you still there?
Maybe the artist boyfriend didn't die in the crash, but lost his sexual and artistic mojo in the accident, and he is the man she's now married to. They are rich because of a lawsuit against Ford Motor Company.
I wonder, though, whether it isn't revealing about one's own assumptions to conclude that all of the material things enjoyed by the older, regretful persona were acquired by her mate, rather than by herself. There really isn't that much evidence in the video to support that conclusion is there?
I see where Althouse assumed the unhappy, "kept woman" theme in popular music, however: "Lyin Eyes" (Eagles), "Dirty Work" (Steely Dan), "Samer Old Lang Syn" (Dan Fogelberg).
Most of those performers are now the old rich guys, having tried to present themselves as the young, sexy, artistic types back when.
Forgot to add: what a waste of a great 1965 Mustang!
meh ... not only trying to recycle a self-serving stereotype, some people comfort their gnawing envy by convincing themselves that people "better off" than them are really miserable, but doing the cheat by having the guy forever young & sexy by dying.
Not that the story can't be told effectively -- Harry Chapin's Taxi is light-years better.
BTW Tom? NOT a 1965 Mustang. Look at the brief shot of the backend at the 3:30 mark ... concave rather than convex. That happened on the 1967 'tang.
I love Sorun's avatar photo, above.
Why do you all care about this no-talent assclown? Go listen to some Portishead.
When we move to some extreme, say instant gratification of physical or fiscal desires, then we can mitigate the loss through a vote for redistributive or retributive change, or engage in promiscuous or adulterous behavior, respectively. Both of which are causal factors in progressive corruption of individuals and society.
Life is an exercise in risk management.
Oh well. There is a growing consensus that we should enjoy the fruits of our ancestors' and parents' labor while they last. The desire to denigrate individual dignity and devalue human life is, once again, the preference de jour, as we dream of instant gratification.
I'm glad I didn't marry a Katy Perry-type girl.
Comfortably not a hot, passionare artsy type.
One would have to have a heart of stone to hear the death of little Luna without dissolving into tears...of laughter
It would have been way better if she'd done it as a teen car-crash song from the git-go.
Don't ask me. That's not what I did with my life, but it's a fine old cultural meme — that the wives of rich men are so unhappy and that they wish they'd gone down the other road, the one with all that hot sex and emotional turbulence
It's a myth anyway: Science says that rich guys are better at sex, too.
We are the 1%!
Have a hot romance with a beautiful artist, but marry the guy who'll get you all that cool stuff. The other options imply choice. She never made a choice.
She liked the bohemian hunk. But he dies, so she went with the sugar-daddy by default. Only reason she’s miserable is because she’s old & gross. Same thing would happen with artsy dude.
I went into the video not knowing who Kate Perry is and left one minute and 13 seconds later not caring.
I wonder how many lawyers took up how many pages to write her pre-nup with Russell Brand.....Another possibility: The talented young artist goes off the road and the price of his completed work goes up like a hockey stick. She's got a garage full of the stuff. The fine house and all the accessories come to her courtesy of this doomed love affair. She sits at the edge of the bed, awaiting her 3pm appointment with the pool boy, and eases her guilt with sad thoughts about might-have-beens......Katy Perry will not get wrinkles. She will get surgery.
I should have watched it before reading the description.
Sounds utterly depressing.
"It must have been a bitch in the '90s for them to find film for a Polaroid camera from the '60s."
I don't know about the 90s, but Fujifilm makes that old-fashioned peel-apart instant films for those models of cameras. I've got some in the fridge waiting for me to haul out the old Polaroid Color Pack I found at an antique store.
Damn, that Mustang is one hell of a beautiful car.
20 year old girls don't consider that old ladies get their money by marrying a rich guy.
Old ladies think like that.
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