Before Jennifer Lopez rolled out the music video for “Dinero,” she unleashed the first live performance of it at the Billboard Music Awards, where, as though to unwittingly admit to settling for post-post capitalism, a clip of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps was used, a film that suggests the admission, “No, we can’t even use the original 80s version because nothing about that economic system remains credible.” Thus, we’re left with the image of DJ “won’t give head” Khaled just sitting there smoking a cigar amid stacks of money (as that’s really all he seems to be capable of doing other than shouting, “Another one!”) as he watches what one imagines someone thought was the very poignant clip of Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) asking Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf), “So what about money, Jake? You like her?” Jake stammers, “Do I like…I’ve never thought about money as a ‘she.'” And Gordon pontificates, “Oh! She lies there in bed at night with you, looking at you, one eye open. Money’s a bitch that never sleeps. And she’s jealous. And if you don’t pay close attention, you wake up in the morning, and she might be gone forever.”
Enter J. Lo from behind a bank vault-inspired backdrop and dancers dressed accordingly in homage to the gangsters of the 30s and 40s, with Lopez herself sporting the type of mafia don white suit you could definitely find for sale in the Bronx. It’s all very self-aware (one would hope) in its cheesiness, possessing a vague knowledge of the fact that capitalism hasn’t really worked for anyone since the era of which Lopez is doing an impersonation of (and even then, it was only by means of criminality). Then again, it might evade Lopez and even her other featured “vocalist” on the track, Cardi B, that capitalism has long ago been a defunct mechanism responsible for repeated patterns of inflation and unemployment that surely can’t sustain themselves forever. Yet because both Lopez and Cardi (and, one supposes, DJ Khaled) have all benefitted from the system that preyed upon their parents’ dreams of an American promised land via the oh so tantalizing trappings of fame, how can they resist showing love to the one thing that has never criticized their representation of a culture?
Bedecked in diamonds and eating a Jersey Mike’s sub (maybe they paid her some dinero for that plug) in the video that would come after the Billboard Music Awards, it seems as though J. Lo is perpetually torn between the guilt of being richer than everyone else she left behind in the Bronx and the need to call out how she’s still “real.” But is anything real about money? No, that’s why it’s so delightful–for it essentially buys your way out of reality. Which is exactly what J. Lo has managed to do in large part thanks to Selena’s rather tragic existence (we all know “Jenny From the Block” wouldn’t have launched into the forefront without that magical biopic).
And yet, Lopez is perspicacious in her decision to promote a “hustler’s anthem” such as this, for all America wants to do is believe that it still has the same luster and cachet as its twentieth century incarnation. The one-track American mind that forsakes all else except money (this includes absconding with any sense of political wisdom) has, to be sure, persisted against all odds even twenty-first century, at a time when the gig economy clearly outlines that we’ve opted to repurpose the hustle required for a capitalist society that constantly dangles the promise of fortune when, in fact, most people will have to settle for barely getting by.
Even so, that mantra in all of our minds persists, “Yo quiero, yo quiero dinero/Ay!/Yo quiero, yo quiero dinero/Ay!/I just want the green, want the money, want the cash flow.” Of course, white people’s minds can’t think in that language (unless a chihuahua peddling Taco Bell catches on again) but the gist of it is within them as they fuck most other people over for the sake of a healthy bank account over healthy relationships. Emotions and sentiments be damned–it has always been and will always be a country of financial opportunists creating opportunity where there is actually none. And it’s true that to lust for and covet money is generally to be a person of vacant character, the kind who shouts, “I just want my money, chips, guac and queso.” Incidentally, this desire is in keeping with the old adage that money can’t buy class (just ask the Clampetts).
So maybe Lopez isn’t beating a dead horse, so much as giving the people what they want: the belief in the American dream that has consistently proven viable for only the most vile of clientele. Those all too eager and willing to be part of the Boschian spectacle of horrors.
