Trying to find ways to repurpose “old” material instead of working on something new during this period of quarantine, Selena Gomez has released a video for a track from the deluxe edition of her January (remember how simple January felt, that is, if you weren’t in China?) album, Rare. While, yes, there is no shortage of songs titled this (with additional offerings from Ashlee Simpson, Ariana Grande, Tegan and Sara, and Gomez’s oft written about ex, Justin Bieber), something about Gomez’s tone in the present climate feels ever so slightly different. More unabashedly desperate, in a uniquely “I know the apocalypse is happening and I don’t want to be alone” sort of way. It certainly echoes the tone of a particular voice note Lana Del Rey showcased in mid-March (since deleted from her Instagram, though no one knows what the point of a celebrity doing so is when fans always screenshot the receipts), entitled, “If this is the end…I want a boyfriend.” Along with “Grenadine quarantine 2” (a less lengthy “note” in comparison to the five-plus minutes of the former). But it is the title of the first one that seems to be a mantra reverberating through every hetero girl’s mind right now. Even the ones who mocked the pathetic twits they deemed retro anti-feminists for their unabashed codependency in relationships.
Ironically, Gomez had commented of the message behind her own iteration of the Del Reyism, “It’s a lighthearted song about falling down and getting back up time and time again in love, but also knowing that you don’t need anyone other than yourself to be happy.” That’s not exactly what the lyrical content suggests with such yearnings as, “I want a boyfriend/Tell me, are there any good ones left?/I keep finding wrong ones, but I want love again and again” and “I could phone a friend, use a hotline or something/But that won’t get the job done.”
With a video directed by Matty Peacock (who has been more known for working with, shall we say, “edgier” chanteuses than Gomez, including Billie Eilish and BANKS), we open on Gomez driving a convertible (an aesthetic recently repopularized by the album cover for Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia)–complete with the old movie star look of a scarf tied around her head, rounded out by sunglasses. In the backseat, a cage filled with frogs serves as her company for the ride. Upon driving into a deserted parking lot (it is nighttime, after all), Gomez gets out of the car, letting a few frogs jump out in the process. She then enters what appears to be a dry cleaning speakeasy, with a group of women beyond the many hanging, plastic-covered garments sitting at a table playing a card game. They look up at Gomez, nonplussed, as she picks up a potion and stares at it longingly. From there, a montage of dates during which she looks expectedly bored by each potential suitor ensues. Still, she daubs her magic potion onto her neck, a seeming lure for these men who inevitably turn into the frogs she’s now carting around in her vehicle. Except, in the end, she appears to set them free, having no use for such a collection of duds.
And while, in this sense, the intent behind Gomez’s aforementioned message of saying one doesn’t need to rely on another person for their own happiness vaguely comes across, it isn’t enough to mitigate the overall frantic and frenzied craving to feel close to someone in a romantic capacity. Even if one is “at peace” with themselves. In another moment of eerie antitheticalness to what the song represents in the present climate, Gomez also added, “We wrote it long before our current crisis, but in the context of today, I want to be clear that a boyfriend is nowhere near the top of my list of priorities. Just like the rest of the world, I’m praying for safety, unity and recovery during this pandemic.” Yet Gomez seems to be overtly ignoring that the female desire for a boyfriend–nay, the desire for companionship on the part of any gender, with any sexual preference–is, in fact, one of the most basic human priorities (on par with toilet paper) that those in the glaringly single category are being forced to notice during this period of enforced isolation.
With the bassline blatantly ripped off from Kanye West’s 2016 track, “Fade” (which, in turn, ripped off Mr. Fingers’ “Mystery of Love”), nowhere in the music credits is this overt “borrowing” mentioned… but perhaps someone with legal prowess will notice it sooner or later. It is this upbeat rhythm that sardonically anchors the inherent loneliness behind the expression of something everyone can’t help but want–and need–during this lockdown: love, affection. In short, a boyfriend. At least Del Rey wasn’t afraid to overtly admit in her voice note instead of posturing the missive as some kind of attempt at acknowledging it’s okay to be on your own. Never before has that been less the case as people reconcile with the notion that their last chance to meet someone–to date in an analog way–has vanished with the rest of the first portion of the twenty-first century.
