Music Videos: The Miniature Movie

Today, when posting Thinking About Something by Hanson in my 5 songs, I realized that I hadn’t seen the video. As soon as I saw the few opening seconds to the video I almost peed myself with excitement. Hanson decided to do a parody of the Blues Brothers (movie), specifically the scene where Ray Charles sings Shake Your Tail Feather. Now I’m hoping all of you readers have seen the Blues Brothers, but in case you haven’t click the text of the song above. My mom used to watch the Saturday Night Live sketch when it first came on SNL. So of course high expectations were held for the movie, and it didn’t disappoint. To date it remains the most successful Saturday Night Live sketch-turned-movie. I’m not sure how John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, or John Landis did it, but the first movie featured a bevy of musical celebrities including Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Cab Calloway, and Ray Charles. In the particular scene I am mentioning Ray Charles owns a music exchange (or pawn) shop, and the boys go in to get some musical instruments for their upcoming gig for themselves and their band mates. Yet, what they aren’t aware of is Ray’s skills on the piano and how his music incites the crowd inside and outside the store . Hanson evokes the same feelings and vibe of the original movie clip in this video. It’s as if Taylor Hanson is channeling Ray through his sunglasses. What’s magical about this video is they were able to take the idea that music can unite everyone around and incite an organized dance number! Who knew everyone in Tulsa (where they filmed the video) would all of a sudden break into the same exact dance! Whatever the case, Hanson paid respect to the movie without changing or updating the classic too much.

This got me thinking of other videos that were based on movies. The first example I thought of was Madonna’s Material Girl. Madonna was already established as a fashion icon and sex symbol when Material Girl came along. Yet, what better way to cement her status than to emulate the ultimate sex symbol Marilyn Monroe. Madonna takes on the scene from the 1950’s Film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. In the scene in question, Marilyn is dressed in a strapless pink gown, with a large pink bow, her hair coiffed to a T, and is being courted by various suitors. See the resemblance? What Madonna ingeniously did was take the concepts of the song Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend, sung by Marilyn Monroe in this scene, and update it for the new generation. The ideas of both songs are the same. Both women like shiny expensive things and are materialistic. Yet, Madonna, in her video ends up falling for a man who impresses her with flowers and not diamonds.  Interestingly enough, Marilyn has many other women in this song-and-dance scene to whom she is preaching. Madonna, on the other hand, does not. I’m not sure if it is because she wanted to only keep the focus on herself, and make sure that no one could upstage her sex appeal, or if it was a way of her telling the narrative of the video. Whatever the case, it was a definite departure.

 

Another music video parody is Michael Jackson’s Bad. The dance moves and setting of this music video was clearly inspired by West Side Story, specifically the song and dance number Cool.  Cool is actually one of my favorite numbers in the entire West Side Story. In the film, Riff is trying to make everyone cool off and channel their anger into their next fight (or dance moves!). Michael obviously updated this number quite a bit and took mostly just stylistic techniques from the Bernstein musical. What I have posted is just the music video to Bad, but Michael Jackson also put out an 18 minute movie which was reminiscent of West Side Story, and which was directed by Martin Scorsese. Both stories involve street gangs in an urban area who conveniently get out their aggression with gang violence through dance. Both videos include organized dancing and solo dance routines. Michael obviously updated the dance moves for the new generation (including but not limited to moves like the moonwalk) and also didn’t have any women in the video. 

The past three examples have all been music videos that parody/or were inspired by movies which all contained musical numbers. Yet, there are many other options I could mention which are all based on movies that have no musical numbers. A few examples of these types of music videos are: Fountains of Wayne’s Stacy’s Mom which parody’s the excellent scene from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, where Judge Reinhold envisions Phoebe Cates coming out of the pool, while in the restroom. The Decemberists were inspired by the film Rushmore in their music video Sixteen Military Wives. In this video they created a fictional school with a temperamental student (with a similar haircut to Jason Schwartzman in the film) on the model U.N. team who wore a uniform and expressed rivalries between the students at the school. The Killer’s drew inspiration from Moulin Rouge (I know a movie with musical numbers) for their video Mr. Brightside. The colors, motifs and themes were all the same in this video as it was in the original movie, with Brandon Flowers (the lead singer) playing Ewan McGregor’s part. The Foo Fighters also decided to parody a movie in their video for Everlong. In this case they parodied the Sam Raimi horror classic The Evil Dead, in a dream sequence.

And the list goes on…. Obviously many artists decided to take inspiration from film for their music videos which are essentially 4- 10 minute “mini films,” and who could blame them? With so many genre’s and classics to choose from it’s a wonder that people come up with their own concepts these days. I thank artists who do come up with their own material (as long as it isn’t the bizarre- see post below). But I also welcome the artists who draw inspiration from great movies just so that viewers can giggle and get a real sense of nostalgia from their artistic piece. 

For a really amusing music video-movie tribute see Paula Abdul’s Rush Rush which was inspired by Rebel Without A Cause and stars Keanu Reeves (!).