Any beach-oriented video with a woman romping around in it, of course, automatically harkens back to Madonna’s 1989 “Cherish” directed by Herb Ritts. Later, Paris Hilton, too, would take the concept of that to a less empowering level in the 2006 video for “Stars Are Blind.” But even before that, Jennifer Lopez herself would do the “sexy bitch on the beach” shtick with her 2000 single, “Love Don’t Cost A Thing.” Yet the message of that non-material girl anthem doesn’t quite ring true as we see Lopez living and dressed in the trappings of wealth she claims she could do without in exchange for her boyfriend, frankly, giving a damn. Willing to spend time on her instead of money. The former clearly being her love language.
“Love Don’t Cost A Thing” certainly echoes “Cambia El Paso,” Lopez’s latest hit, visually… in that both videos were shot in Miami—the singer’s clear surrogate home. Yet the motif of “Cambia El Paso” is entirely different from all of the aforementioned songs, even if each was filmed on a picturesque beach. It also bears noting that “Cambia El Paso” translates to “change the step.” In other words, it refers to J. Lo’s breakup with A. Rod (also once linked romantically to Madonna) in more ways than one. But come on, she didn’t change no step, unless you count stepping right into the same boudoir she was in circa ’03 as a change.
In any event, the phrase is meant both literally and figuratively. As Lopez stated of the single, “The song is about change and not being afraid to take the step. Like, just take the step, advance, do what you need to do. If something’s not feeling right, whatever it is in your life, like, just make that move and dance.” Or, as Missy Elliott would tell you, put your thing down, flip it and reverse it.
To iterate this dance-as-metaphor point, Lopez once said as Ramona in Hustlers, “This whole country is a strip club: you have the people tossing the money and the people doing the dance.” But even if you’re relegated to flashing your ass for the cash (as J. Lo does quite literally in the video for “Cambia El Paso” and “Love Don’t Cost A Thing”), it doesn’t mean you can’t still have a good time while doing it. Regarding the notion of “dance,” Lopez added, “I’m talking about something else. ‘All she wants to do is just dance, dance, dance, dance again…’ You gotta live. You gotta be yourself. You got to be happy. And that’s what the record’s about.” Miami, then, seems a fitting tableau for the message—for it is a fun-loving place Lopez not only has ties to right now due to her upcoming portrayal of Giselda Blanco, but because that’s where she seems to be spending most of her time with Ben Affleck in their 2.0 incarnation.
In contrast to lyrics like, “Give me faith/Give me joy, my boy/I will always cherish you” from Madonna or “I can make it nice and naughty” from Paris Hilton (who spends more time wrapped in the arms of a man on the beach than being alone on it), Lopez offers the empowered perspective of a woman who realizes she doesn’t have to settle, remarking (albeit in Spanish), “He doesn’t deserve to have her in his arms/She knows it, she knows it/Your life is better now without him/You don’t need anyone to be okay/She does not fail, she does not fail.”
Perhaps that’s why we see a rare “obscene” gesture from her as she confidently flips off the man she’s with in the video and walks away in her jeweled bra and proudly paraded D&G underwear (there’s also some overt product placement for Don Ramón tequila), whereupon she pulls a “Love Don’t Cost A Thing” maneuver by going to the beach and cavorting in a state of liberated undress. Yet it has to be said that while Madonna’s “Cherish” offers more codependent lyrics, there’s a greater sense of genuine strength and freedom in the gestures and expressions M makes. Despite the fact that she seems to be lusting after both a large-footed (you know what that means) merman and the prospect of motherhood as a merchild also comes to shore.
Nonetheless, Lopez, with the help of Rauw Alejandro and the ocean waves randomly interjecting, does her best to set the tone for dancing to the rhythm of your own beat—even when it switches synchronization from the person you thought you loved. At the same time, J. Lo must have been pretty drunk on the dance floor to fall in step with A. Rod to begin with. It’s also worth noting that Madonna’s own “independent woman” beach video came out right after her divorce from Sean Penn (the two were married four years, the same amount of time Lopez dated Rodriguez). Guess there’s just something about breaking up that makes a bia wanna do some baptismal shit on the playa.
