hermionesviolin: image of Katie Heigl with text "gay patron saint" (gay patron saint)
[personal profile] hermionesviolin
So, in group chat this morning, Thom goes:
Oh. My. God.  

Maybe you’ve seen this, but I guess one morning Sam Smith and Demi Lovato woke up and said, “Let’s make the queerest music video ever.” And yes, I discovered this because Alok is in it and posted about it on their Instagram.  

https://youtu.be/glD1M418bC0  

Okay. It’s 12 hours old so maybe you haven’t seen it?  

I mean, I’m not sure it actually _wins_ the title for Queerest Music Video Ever, but it’s a solid entry.
So, I watched the video and had the following reactions:
  • this is really gay male
  • oh, this is queer
  • wait, no queer women :(
I had A Lot of words. 

Excerpt from ensuing conversation:
Thom:

Yeah. I almost pitched it as gay and not queer. Would that have calibrated things better? I was excited about Alok being in the video and clearly overshot the mark. Sorry. 😢

me:

Yeah, gay would have been SO MUCH better.  

Because it IS gay. And it's also queer -- but it's you queer, not me queer.  

Thom:

And thus not even close to Most Ever.
They revised their pitch to: "OMG, check out this hella gay/genderqueer video that Sam Smith just dropped (with Demi Lovato). Sam is super hot in it and it has a bunch of genderqueer folks like Alok. (Though it looks like it’s entirely AMAB—my read—genderqueer folks.)"

I asked some of my Internet spaces for THEIR suggestions of Queerest Music Video Ever, and so far have gotten:Do y'all have any nominations you would add?

Edit:
Thom:

Sarah suggested this, but admitted she hasn’t rewatched it in a few years. https://youtu.be/hdYiYjuf0ko

[Zolita - Holy]

me:

That video is definitely a narrative journey.

Thom:

Sure is. 😮

Of the things posted here, my leading contenders are probably “All Night” and “Make Me Feel”.

But also, if the issue with the Sam Smith video is breadth of queer representation, I probably have some words about the other videos here.

But let’s be real, no music video needs to bear the burden of full and complete queer representation, I think.

me:

Yeah, a lot of these videos I was like, "Okay, this doesn't really improve on the narrow representation of the Sam Smith video" (though videos about queer women are obviously, imo, preferable* to videos about queer men/male-ish people, though I recognize the value of the latter) -- though I was also aware that it's unfair to ask any single video to bear the burden of, as you say, "full and complete queer representation."

*meaning my personal preference -- not that they're objectively better queer rep

Though it is possible to get ensemble queer rep in a single video -- e.g. Tegan and Sara's "Closer" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e9NSMY8QiQ

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hermionesviolin: an image of Alyson Hannigan (who plays Willow Rosenberg) with animated text "you think you know / what you are / what's to come / you haven't even / BEGUN" (Default)
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