The notion of the stripper as slut (ergo “fallen woman”) has long been the well-established male narrative regarding the (often, believe it or not, underpaid) profession. When portrayed in film or music video, the woman in question never appears to be dancing by choice, and least of all as a means of empowerment. Even someone as “modern” and “feminist” (of late, like everyone who didn’t use to find it so chic) as Lana Del Rey opts to play into the all too common stripper as fallen woman trope (specifically in the thirty-minute short, Tropico).
Thus, to see FKA Twigs overturn the standard expectation of 1) a woman dancing because she has to and 2) the idea that she’s dancing for anyone but herself (and her own catharsis) is utterly unprecedented in the pop culture canon to date. The sci-fi element of the storyline is also certainly more “arthouse” than whatever the fuck Lindsay Lohan was trying to achieve in I Know Who Killed Me. But this, of course, makes all the sense in the world when considering the director of the video is Andrew Thomas Huang, best known for his surreal visuals as most succinctly evidenced in Björk’s “The Gate.” It was during FKA’s intensive six-month training period in the art of pole dancing that Huang began approaching her with his “CG pre-visualizations” for the video. One that opens on her emerging with an initially timid look from behind the curtain to take the stage.
All at once, an aura of confidence overtakes her as she drops her cape to the floor and traipses across the stage wearing the “no apologies” cliche of the very definition of stripper heels. She is gentle with the pole at first, writhing against it in a sort of “light play” manner. As though she’s really taking her time with it before she systematically proceeds to break it off. Laying on the ground before delving into a position that is nothing short of kama sutra-inspired (for its flexibility alone), FKA proceeds to then, essentially, stab the floor with the heels of her shoes (replete with hyper-real sound effects as only Huang could ensure). She used to dance for someone, you can tell, formerly thinking about what his reaction might be in the shadowed audience beyond. But now, it’s plain to see she’s dancing for no one. Doing it purely for the release it gives her, the purging of all thought–therefore, all pain.
Treating the pole like her bitch in between adopting a fetal position while on it (ironic, considering poles connote decidedly abortive imagery), her celestial, gravity-defying moves suddenly become so affecting that the pole sprouts higher into a limitless sky (like some sort of kinky Jack and the Beanstalk). A winged creature that looks part phoenix, part robotic wise old woman descends from the heavens to commune with her–to silently praise her physicality and pole dancing brilliance, in short. More affronted than terrified by it, she kicks the creature in the face, only for her foot–or, more to the point, her killer stiletto–to enter directly into its head.
Now she’s falling into it and through the ether, away from her beloved stage where she was not a fallen woman both literal and metaphorical. No, she was a vision of perfection there. For, as Huang stated of the concept behind the video, “This story that we just did is about someone trying to achieve excellence.The story is quite archetypal. We’ve all been hit by that truck in some way or another, and that’s why people relate to it.” Except the part where most people don’t consider pole dancing as a means to achieve perfection when they probably should. What’s more, stripping and pole dancing do not need to go hand in hand, as is so commonly thought. A girl can perform all the right moves without ever having to take off the already scant amount of clothing she’s wearing anyway. FKA’s pole dancing instructor, Kelly Yvonne, built upon this notion with her comment, “People see it in the same way most overly-sexualized things are. Yes, there are undeniably sexy aspects, but there are also a variety of ways to move on a pole. It can actually be interpreted through the lens of any form of dance, including contemporary and hip-hop. It can make you cry, laugh, or reflect. ‘Cellophane’ fully embraces the potential for pole dance and provides the first platform to begin a new conversation about the art form.”
With the entire video (and the descent into the depths visually manifested) being an overt allusion to her time in a heightened spotlight thanks to a relationship with Robert Pattinson that begin in 2014 (also the year her debut–and still only–album was released), it can be no wonder that the highs and lows in it are so profound. Falling down, down, down and away from “working the pole,” as opposed to just clinging to it for dear life, the scene offers powerful insight into the state of being FKA must have felt while trying for so long to ignore the public scrutiny of and pressure on her relationship, which everyone was rooting for to fail (particularly the racist cunts that comprise the Twilight fanbase).
“Didn’t I do it for you?/Why don’t I do it for you?/Why won’t you do it for me/When all I do is for you?” she continues to ask both Pattinson and the public as she reaches out for no hand to take hers while she careens and cascades irreversibly into the abyss of obscurity. An obscurity that comes from both severing ties with Pattinson and “failing” to put out new music for so long.
Finally hitting the bottom, FKA lands with a forceful thud onto some interplanetary soil. Soon enough, a slew of David Lynchian beings are bathing her in the sludgy mud she rests upon. She lets it happen, lets it run its course. This is her allowing the public to fling its dirty vitriol at her–which they could never do from her empowering perch on the stage. The sanctity of the “stripper’s” stage, to be more specific. And yes, she is laying quite a lot bare (but far beyond the surface of just her skin). It was on the stage that she could preen and perform without the concern of any plebeian opining (for we are all plebes in the face of FKA’s pole maneuvering). Yet, in the end, it is precisely because of her poise and self-assurance that everyone tries to pull her back down again. To brand her the skank harlot that needs rescuing.
But with “Cellophane,” FKA Twigs asserts, for the first time in the medium’s history, that pole dancing–or stripping, if one wants to be reductive about it–is not about being damaged at all. No, in contrast, it is tantamount to achieving the level of perfection Nina was obsessed with in Black Swan.
