In a year characterized by the distinctly flaccid music video posing as “lo-fi” thanks to Covid restrictions (see: Ariana Grande, Lana Del Rey and Billie Eilish), Megan Thee Stallion has decided that below average simply isn’t good enough no matter what the circumstances. Like SZA (who she collaborates with on “Freaky Girls” from Good News) back in September with her video for “Hit Different,” Megan has reminded us all of the value of choreography that doesn’t consist of a few bullshit moves designed solely to be executed within the fifteen-second confines of a TikTok video.
Just as “WAP” before, the visual conceptualization for “Body” is also fond of arbitrary cameos including ones from Jordyn Woods, Taraji P. Henson, Blac Chyna, Maliibu Miitch, Tabria Majors, Asian Da Brat, Bernice Bergos and Daren Kyle. As they all make their way into Megan Thee Stallion’s body positive narrative, we see inside of a Hype Williams-esque backdrop (except it’s directed by Megan’s seeming go-to Colin Tilley, who also directed “WAP” and “Don’t Stop”) characterized by a series of ostensibly endless white planks arranged in a manner that makes a group of backup dancers’ moves look particularly fire. Dressed like a haute couture version of someone who belongs in an S&M gimp cage, Megan Thee Stallion twerks and shakes for the camera, all too proud to showcase what she has.
The other girls in the video have plenty to show off, too–including their own array of sartorially seductive ensembles that look pulled out of an off-brand Alexander McQueen runway. Megan also finds plenty of opportunities to switch up her aesthetic for different scenes, whether she’s twerking inside some giant structure that looks like a Thierry Mugler perfume bottle or standing on a white square in the middle of a blackish watery abyss (something about it smacking of Busta Rhymes and Janet Jackson’s “What’s It Gonna Be?!” video, paired with a Nicki Minaj in “Chun-Li” hairstyle).
Commenting on where the idea for the song came from, Megan explained, “I’m like walking around the living room, freestyling, and appreciating my quarantine body ’cause I feel like I got a little fluffy and thick, and I was like, ‘Baby I still look good.’ So I’m, like, rapping and twerking, and I’m like, ‘Body. Look at this body.’” Oh how simply genius can be born.
The video, too, is technically simple, yet the memorability and enthusiasm of its dance moves go hand in hand with some of the most iconic ones of the 90s–from Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” to 2 Live Crew’s “Me So Horny” to LL Cool J’s “Doin’ It.” And maybe what it goes to show is that the lackluster approach to music videos in the present is directly related to not giving even half a fuck about choreography.
Yet it wasn’t so long ago, in a now fabled period called the 00s, that emphasis galore was placed on choreo–that’s why Britney Spears videos, for as basic as the concepts were, remain more remarkable today than Ariana Grande’s, who has similarly banal notions of what a “storyline” should be for her various videos. Thus, it just goes to show that Megan really is one of the only people to have brought us Good News this year. For she serves as a reminder that doing away with “frivolous” pageantry is what has made pop culture so overtly boring for the past several years.
