The presently unshakeable trend in music videos, largely championed by Doja Cat (thanks to that bullshit Planet Her theme), of setting the “narrative” in space has reached a new crescendo with Camila Cabello’s latest single from Familia, “Hasta Los Dientes.” Featuring “Argentine rose” María Becerra, the song is a mid-tempo lament about wanting one’s significant other all to themselves, and the “puerile” jealousy that tends to ensue when such feelings flare up. Obviously, a motif of this nature has little, if anything, to do with space, and yet, the video dares its viewer to question otherwise.
Opening on a spaceship that looks like something far more high-budget than what could be afforded on Space Cases (but less high-budget than what Michael and Janet did for their “Scream” video), Cabello opts for more non sequitur references with use of an announcer paying homage to famed soccer commentator Enrique “El Perro” Bermúdez when he says, “…aficionados que viven la intensided del fútbol” (meaning: “fans who live the intensity of soccer”). For the purposes of the video, Cabello swaps out the word “fútbol” in favor of “nuestros conciertos interplanetarios” (“our interplanetary concerts”) before director Charlotte Rutherford (who has worked on such surreal videos as Ava Max’s “EveryTime I Cry” and Charli XCX’s “claws”) pans down (into a pair of lips) to reveal just what kind of freaky deaky goings-on occur in the outer reaches of the galaxy.
Turns out, not much that’s too different from what one might see on any Spanish variety show (or an Italian one for that matter). As a bevy of muscle men establish the (body) buildup to Camila’s peering entrance from behind the wall of the ultra A Streetcar Named Desire-but-in-the-1980s set, she makes her grand debut onto the scene. In a vaguely silver-toned wig, she proceeds to deliver her choreographed number with the requisite amount of backup dancers needed to exude something like “spectacle.”
But all anyone can really focus on is how Cabello and her cohort, Becerra are sporting a slew of wigs in varying hues and styles (including a yellow one that looks very “Telephone”-era Lady Gaga, who also has a song called “Teeth”… you know, in lieu of “To The Teeth”)—indeed, the duo could make any drag queen (alien) green with envy (a phenomenon that happens to be the primary emphasis of the single).
Becerra creates her own bombastic entrance around the one-minute, fifteen-second mark as she descends the stairs in a lavender gown (with a lighter shade of evening gloves to contrast with the tone) to make her own “to the teeth” sentiments known. It is during her appearance that the correlation between this video’s setup and the scene in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes of Marilyn singing “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” (or even Marilyn and Jane singing “A Little Girl From Little Rock”) starts to become rather overt… seeing as how pillaging Marilyn’s memory is all the rage these days. And yes, the vibrant color palette of “Hasta Los Dientes” not only echoes what Cabello achieved in the video for “Don’t Go Yet,” but also seems to be the entire “purpose” of the “storyline.”
One that, again, accents a larger “movement” in music videos (Katy Perry’s “Not the End of the World” and Doja Cat’s “Kiss Me More,” “Need to Know,” “You Right” and “Get Into It [Yuh].” So, “yuh,” apparently anything Doja Cat puts out). Except for the one pop star who actually should have spearheaded said movement: Ariana Grande, with “NASA.” And even though Britney Spears was already doing space shit long ago (see: “Oops!… I Did It Again,” “Pretty Girls” featuring Iggy Azalea; hear: “Alien”), if one were a conspiracy theorist, this sudden barrage could almost incite a person to believe that the rich and famous are blatantly lording their future plans to defect from this planet to all their plebeian fans watching with laudatory “amusement.”
What other purpose could Cabello really have in making a song about jealousy and possessiveness so patently unrelated to its accompanying visuals? Can it really be as straightforward as her saying, “I just saw the last cut of the music video yesterday. It’s kind of like space vibes; like a performance on a spaceship”? Maybe. But if Cabello really were that “simple,” she probably would have managed to keep Shawn Mendes around (but then, who’s to say he couldn’t “keep” her?). Since we all know men can’t deal with a “complicated” (read: sentient) woman. Though maybe, after seeing this, he’ll beg Cabello to return from the planet she’s currently occupying (/gigging on) to don that moon goddess getup for him in person.
