Sticking to a theme that launched her into a Taylor Swift-like echelon in terms of exuding a Crowned Singer-Songwriter of Pop vibe, Olivia Rodrigo has followed up her debut hit single, “drivers license,” with “deja vu” (again, vexingly “stylized” in lower case letters and with no accent marks, to boot… but that’s just the culture we live in now).
Unlike Beyoncé’s own 2006 hit, “Déjà Vu” (appropriately punctuated because Bey is of a different era), from her second album, B’Day, this is not an upbeat single touting how one is unable to get over their titillating and incomparable ex (mainly because she’s reminded of him everywhere she goes). No, instead, it is apparently more shade directed at Sabrina Carpenter (who has her own recent response single to “drivers license” called “Skin”) and Joshua Bassett as Rodrigo pulls a sort of Alanis maneuver à la “You Oughta Know” with lyrics like, “So when you gonna tell her that we did that, too? She thinks it’s special, but it’s all reused.” In essence, a tamer interpretation of, “An older version of me [let’s not forget Rodrigo calling out Carpenter’s age with, “She’s so much older than me/She’s everything I’m insecure about”]/Is she perverted like me? Would she go down on you in a theater?”
This girl replacing Rodrigo certainly doesn’t seem like the type (which de facto means Rodrigo isn’t either) to do something so risqué (and, now, potentially corona conjuring). What’s more, she’s merely a carbon copy being served all the same moves that Rodrigo was–she has little to gain by “upstaging” with some public fellatio, because the bloke in the permutation only wants her to be sugary sweet like strawberry ice cream (it’s likely a whole Madonna/whore issue). Plus, what’s even worse for Rodrigo than the notion of the new girlfriend’s willingness to please sexually is that her ex has the gall to pass Rodrigo’s seemingly cursory knowledge of Billy Joel (“Uptown Girl”? Come on…) as his own, hence, “And I bet that she knows Billy Joel/‘Cause you played her ‘Uptown Girl’”–in addition to, “Play her piano, but she doesn’t know/That I was the one who taught you Billy Joel/A different girl now, but there’s nothing new.” Billy Joel could certainly get on board with the maudlin sentiment, but honestly Rodrigo is only feeding the old man fantasy about “young girls” (a term put in quotes because it’s just too icky to say it without them in this context) actually being familiar with Joel’s canon. Shit, even Joel might cream himself listening to this.
With a tone that starts out all idyllic and wistful as she drives down the picturesque coastal roads of Malibu–complete with scarf and sunglasses for that Old Hollywood movie star look–the music and intonation gradually grows more aggressive as she delves deeper into the house she pulls up in front of. Covered in leafy vines for that sinister feel (even if they are manicured), it is at this point that director Allie Avital’s key influences start to come into play, as she remarked of the video that it was “inspired by everything from Ingrid Goes West, Persona, 3 Women, Killing Eve, surveillance and stalking. Shout out to all the it girls in high school whose identities I tried to emulate.”
In this case, however, it seems to be “the other woman” unwittingly emulating Rodrigo (unlike the more calculated puta in Madonna’s “She’s Not Me”). And, in turn, her ex trying to recreate the exact same girl and relationship. Including such geekish, Gen Z things as, “Watchin’ reruns of Glee/Bein’ annoyin’/Singin’ in harmony.” There are other, more decidedly 1950s sort of things mentioned (like, shit, are we in Grease [the original, to specify]? Then again, Olivia is a Disney star; a certain level of wholesomeness can’t be helped at the outset of her singing career)–including “car rides to Malibu/Strawberry ice cream, one spoon for two/And tradin’ jackets.” One supposes it’s “the simple things.” Though if this were a Miley song, there would at least be a drug reference mentioned in the relationship activities.
Co-starring Talia Ryder (best known for Never Sometimes Rarely Always), she appears inside the house Rodrigo is stalking, yet doesn’t seem to notice the latter is there. Or, for all we know, Ryder is merely a phantasm in Rodrigo’s mind as she revists all the sites of her relationship like Joel (Jim Carrey) in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Peering in on her wearing the same green dress Rodrigo once wore to, ostensibly, impress her ex, she then goes back home to put on the same frock she owned first as she approaches a room filled with old school TVs showcasing various memories interspersed with the “new” yet same ones being unknowingly reenacted by Ryder. If this were a duet (preferably with Carpenter), there would be more than a tinge of “The Boy Is Mine” cachet. Except, in this case, one woman involved is entirely unaware that she is sharing a so-called man.
As is the case with “drivers license,” the Lorde influence can’t be ignored here either–particularly with regard to the motif of an ex running game on a more naive girl who doesn’t yet know all his tricks. This much is evidenced on Lorde’s “Green Light,” during which she sings, “I know about what you did and I wanna scream the truth/She thinks you love the beach, you’re such a damn liar/Those great whites, they have big teeth/Hope they bite you.” In the case of Rodrigo’s ex, the real bite might come in the form of a friendship being forged between these two women. And clearly, since they’re so similar, they could theoretically be friends–as elucidated by dressing the same and sporting matching coifs (i.e. braids–how very Shelley Duvall indeed).
The most effective device used by Avital, however, is the VHS aesthetic to show static lines “in real life” that allow a multicolored Ryder to flicker in and out of the screen while standing next to Rodrigo. It’s almost as effective, in fact, as the jilted lover in question taking a sledgehammer to the stack of TVs at the end of the video. But no matter how hard she smashes, there’s still one TV left. A screen parading Ryder in the exact car and ensemble Rodrigo was in at the beginning of the video, leading us to believe that the same fate is doomed to befall her as well, and that this dude is a serial user of particular “types” of girls. Oh, but just wait until they all find out and decide to band together against him.
