Despite Cardi B deleting her Instagram account after Azealia Banks called her “a caricature of a black woman,” she came back on the social media outlet’s radar on May 20th to tease her followers with a snippet from the video for “Be Careful,” all inundated with blatantly Kill Bill-related imagery (much to Uma Thurman’s chagrin). With the full video’s release on May 21st, the Kill Bill motif became even more apparent, elsewhere intermixed with faint traces for the funeral concept behind Jhené Aiko’s recent video (one of them anyway) for “Never Call Me.” For there are similarities in seeing Aiko, dressed all ceremoniously in white as she and a flank of “bridesmaids,” so to speak, accompany her to the cliffside funeral of her ex. Clearly, there are a lot of shitty men in the world that have inspired this popular plot point of late.
But, of course, Cardi, or rather, her director, Jora Frantzis, borrows primarily from Tarantino to detail the beginnings of a wedding turned grim as Cardi sits outside on the steps explaining, “Poured out my whole heart to a piece of shit.” Still, she goes through with the nuptials–well, that is, until the ceremony is transformed by Cardi #2 driving up to the church all dressed in black. For this is the car that Frantzis has been cross-cutting to all the while throughout Cardi’s so-called “vows” (to kill if her man cheats again), its ominous approach reaching the denouement as the more jaded Cardi (with a long pink ponytail to boot) enters the premises to pay her final respect to the corpse of both her now ex and their relationship. And as one of the many religious statues and icons honed in upon throughout the video previously cautioned, “Yo reinare.” That means “I will reign” for those of you non-bilingual twats (a.k.a. those of you who don’t orbit enough Dominicans and Puerto Ricans of NYC the way Cardi once did). And reign this “mourning” Cardi does, taking on the vengeful aura of Beatrix Kiddo herself (sans sword, or even half as much motive). What’s more, the onlookers at the wedding appeared so much more bored watching this incarnation of the dynamic (a motherly-looking figure fanning herself languidly being just one case in point). And while they’re still largely stoic as the Cardi all dressed in black saunters in, there appears to be just a touch more bemusement on their faces, as though they, like Cardi, have also suffered playing the fools to a good-for-nothing philanderer.
And while “Be Careful” is one of the few songs from the largely unlistenable Invasion of Privacy (save for this single and “Thru Your Phone”) that shows the stripper-turned-rapper as being anything resembling vulnerable, what’s more remarkable about it and its visual narrative is that women are still surprised when men turn out to be anything other than incapable of monogamy. Like asking Trump not to be orange, this is an act they’re simply incapable of (unless, of course, their libido has been mostly stamped out by overplaying of video games or watching of porn). Would Cardi (and women in general) be happier and less prone to collecting the debt on their revenge if they could accept this? Still probably not–and it at least makes for a good murder story in “fiction.”
