As the queen of modern pastiche and how to wield it for the benefit of creating her own aesthetic, Lana Del Rey’s latest video, itself a cover of Sublime, for “Doin’ Time” borrows heavily from so many pop culture moments that it almost sends one’s mind haywire (since it won’t be discussed heavily, let us also say Attack of the 50 Foot Woman is another obvious homage here). However, there are a few specific people and film/music video scenes she draws on with particular overtness with the help of Rich Lee, who also directed her recent double video for “Fuck It I Love You” and “The Greatest.”
To start, though not usually cross-referenced with Madonna in any way (save for when it comes to the “White Mustang” video and the fact that M herself is the original queen of pastiche), there are notable similarities in the 00s videos “Love Profusion” (directed by Luc Besson) and “Get Together” (directed by Logan, and incidentally animated in a Venice studio), barring the giantness of LDR’s stature, of course. In both videos, however, Madonna traipses through cityscapes and bodies of water as though she ought to be as mondo (to use California speak) in size as Del Rey to mirror that sort of imposing confidence she, as a Leo, already naturally possesses.
That Madonna seems immune to the chaos around her also pervades the spirit of a lazily wandering Del Rey as she meanders through L.A.’s Westside in search of any accoutrements that will help her beat the heat (while passersby presumably both male and female beat their meat to her augmented bella figura). Wandering to the water’s edge and splashing about in the Pacific, we soon see that she is nothing but a Godzilla-esque monster on the silver screen at a drive-in movie theater. Her hugeness in size also certainly harkens back to Lit’s 2000 video for “Miserable” starring none other than Pamela Anderson in a white bikini and black platform heels (better known as stripper heels, though not to the same extent as FKA Twigs’). Considering Sublime is a SoCal band, one wouldn’t put it past LDR to also have been subconsciously affected by the Orange County-originating Lit, ephemeral though they might have been in terms of having much staying power past their now ironically titled A Place in the Sun record (‘cause, you know, they don’t have one anymore). Of course, Del Rey doesn’t turn quite so vindictive in her acts of retribution, keeping it tamer than Anderson’s eventual cannibalistic revenge for the band playing all over her assets.
What’s more, Del Rey’s silent rage isn’t even on behalf of herself, but for a cuckqueaned lover at the drive-in, who she also happens to play the part of, albeit in a blonde bobbed wig for differentiation. It is in this way that Del Rey shifts to another pop music icon in terms of subtly borrowing: Mariah Carey. For those who remember 1999’s “Heartbreaker” video, it, too, gives us a tale of two Mariahs…at a movie theater…involving a cheating man (played by Jerry O’Connell, a guy far less suave than the one in Lana’s video). Contrarily, however, the two Mariahs, one being her black-haired alter ego known as Bianca, are not simpatico, with the cuckqueaned Mariah taking the chance to follow Bianca into the bathroom after she flees from her seat in the midst of Carey and her friends pelting popcorn at her. Once in the bathroom, an altercation ensues, after which we’re left to wonder who won until Mariah comes out to surprise her now ex by sitting next to him and pouring ice cold soda all over his crotch. It’s more than the blonde wigged Lana can do for her damn self in “Doin’ Time,” instead relying on the kindness of her own “evil” alter ego to take back the night by literally emerging from the giant screen à la Tom Baxter in The Purple Rose of Cairo–directed by none other than the man all feminists (as Lana Del Rey has taken a shine to being) are trying to eschew in every way, Woody Allen.
Strong tinges of Grease (as all retro scenes at a drive-in can’t help but connote while one unwittingly hears the swelling of Danny Zucco’s parodically emotional “Sandy” a.k.a. “Stranded at the Drive-in” come to mind when Lana sees her man cheating–though she probably would have preferred him to make a pass at her instead of this proverbial other woman, unlike Sandy, who generally wants to keep everything chaste) also pervade in this moment. For added meta effect, Mariah plays “Sandra Dee” (or Stockard Channing mocking her) in the onscreen footage of what’s being watched in the movie theater for the “Heartbreaker” video. And yes, there is no greater tableau for two-timing in a 50s and 60s-inspired milieu than the drive-in, ergo Del Rey sets up the perfect denouement for her vengeance delivered in female solidarity (not that Lana heroine Courtney Love is necessarily about that life), with blonde Lana giving her a conspiratorial look of thanks before heading for the hills with all the other terrified patrons. Or is it a conspiratorial look regarding just how much both of them have gotten away with putting all this twentieth century pasticcio in a blender and repurposing it for the twenty-first?
