While Kim Kardashian may continue to be generally hated (turning that hate into a multibillion dollar “underwear” empire), there’s no denying that, in the twenty-first century starting from 2010 onward (even though Keeping Up With the Kardashians premiered in ‘07), she’s remained the biggest reflection of what the country “means” and what it “stands for.” That is to say, not much of anything at all—save for shameless self-exploitation in the name of profit.
And even though those with ears might have thought they would be spared from another song release by Kim Kardashian after 2011’s “Jam (Turn It Up)” (which she admitted to regretting), “at least” this particular track isn’t an original composition. Then again, it’s almost worse to contribute to the destruction of a Christmas classic like Eartha Kitt’s “Santa Baby” (and no, don’t say that Madonna did that already with her 1987 cover) than it would have been for Kardashian to “compose” something “original” in the decade since her debut single (made “solely” for charity) was unleashed.
Of course, Kardashian is no stranger to decimating classics that were established by other women with actual artistic talent (this includes ruining the “classic” that was Marilyn Monroe’s Jean Louis dress). “Santa Baby” just marks the latest medium through which Kardashian has opted to do so. However, in a bid to ensure that she’s deemed “artistically viable,” Kardashian has once again turned to someone else with genuine skill to ensure she herself comes across that way (though of course it fails miserably in that regard). Thus, enlisting the help of her go-to photographer of late (particularly for all things Skims ad campaigns), Nadia Lee Cohen. And, in conjunction with Charlie Denis, Lee Cohen picks up where she left off on other Kardashian photoshoots, lending her that same “trophy wife gone wrong” sort of appearance and aura in “music video” form as she crawls around a house intended to look like the “quintessential” suburban American home. If that home’s aesthetic were drawn from 1970s and 1980s-era stylings.
As she crawls around the floor in a Marilyn-esque blonde coif and what one can only assume are Skims tights, the viewer is given a voyeuristic snapshot of the “sinister” goings-on around the house. Granted, they’re only “sinister” by the standards of a person trying too hard to achieve that effect. And honestly, Kardashian doesn’t need to try, for she’s already the ultimate emblem of American decay. Signaling the complete twenty-first century pivot away from any notions that one had to have talent to succeed (whether critically or commercially). Of course, those “speculations” were already being made in the postmodern twentieth century, but never had it been so solidified as it was with the success of Kardashian selling herself merely as a “personality” (despite seeming to have none).
That much is evident in the soulless “Santa Baby” video, where the visuals—each more contrivedly “absurd” than the last—serve to distract all attention from Kardashian’s (lack of) singing. Imbued with a “VHS aesthetic” via graininess and arbitrary screen glitches, Lee Cohen and Denis still opt to include the “modern-day tell” of showing someone (a Kim-with-long-dark-hair ringer, in fact) glazed over as they stare at their smartphone. Elsewhere along the way, there are ravenous elves, men tossing “the ol’ pigskin” around while money flies in their general direction (one imagines that’s exactly how it is in the Kardashian household as well), Jesus and Mary lookalikes, an “old” depravedly cutting at the branches of a tree that needs no trimming and two “homeless” men warming themselves in front of a trash can fire.
All of this while Kardashian continues to unfazedly writhe/crawl through the carpeted hallways as the sound on “the tape” comes across as being totally inconsistent (thanks to mirroring the “VHS quality” desired), fading in and out to lend that “haunting” quality Lee Cohen is going for. But again, Kardashian is haunting all on her own (arguably why she was cast in the worst season of American Horror Story ever made). For she is the ultimate symbol of creative bankruptcy in the U.S. (the country’s moral bankruptcy is another issue altogether).
Occasionally lying amid the ruins of torn wrapping paper or, in another room, lying flat on her stomach in front of a fireplace where someone is vacuuming up money (again, a seeming allusion to how meaningless it is to a person as “rolling in it” [doing so literally here] as her), Kardashian appears to be going through the motions of Christmas as much as anyone else who arrives to a family-hosted event out of a sense of “tradition.” But in this context, if one were to read into it—try to make meaning where perhaps there is none at all—the alternate message is that trying to “take up” with a “found family” can make one feel just as lonely and ignored.
Even so, Kardashian still seems to be searching for that “paternal approval” she never found at home as she finally comes to the end of her crawl through the house, approaching a pair of legs in Santa pants. And yes, she is filmed in such a way/placed in such a position as to make it seem as though she’s about to give the “Santa Baby” in question a blow job (in this sense, too, Kardashian a.k.a. Lee Cohen appears to be alluding to the “personality’s” breakout moment in “the business”: having her sex tape leaked).
The camera then switches perspectives to show who Kardashian is seeing, in what is supposed to be the big gasp! moment of the video: it’s Macaulay Culkin. In other words, the unspoken “king” of Christmas thanks to Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York being staples of many a household’s yearly Christmas viewing. That Culkin is a “fixture” of innocence who became so “perverse” in his own right later on in life (complete with a drug-related arrest in 2004) adds a certain “cachet” to Lee Cohen’s aim in driving home the point that everything is tainted…sooner or later. Even the once wholesome holiday of Christmas.
To help further sully it is none other than the Queen of Sullying herself, Kim K. And who knows? Maybe, in spite of how simultaneously meh and meaningless it is, the video/song might become a “Christmas classic” in the future. Oh, what a long way down the U.S. has fallen.
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