After a fraught-with-drama video shoot due to an “unexplained” fire that started in Paris Hilton’s trailer, “Bad Bitch Academy” a.k.a. “BBA” has made its visual debut in support of Infinite Icon’s September 6th release. The video, directed by none other than Hannah Lux Davis (proving, yet again, that when it comes to Hilton’s music “career,” money always talks), is in keeping with the “teach-y” (not preach-y) lyrics of the song, which serves as a “manual,” of sorts, for how to be a bad bitch in a world that has ostensibly forgotten the true meaning of the phrase. If for no other reason than because, per Hilton’s logic, club culture has practically ceased to exist. And if it does, it’s sodden with inhibitions because everyone is filming everyone.
Flexing the notion that she herself attended a “Bad Bitch Academy” by way of a single cover that features her eighth-grade graduation photo from St. Paul the Apostle School (an alma mater that doesn’t exactly scream “bad bitch” in that it’s a private institution for grades K-8), Hilton also gets into the spirit of things by starring as the “teacher” of the video (this includes writing out her name like it’s the intro to Clarissa Explains It All). That is, a version of a teacher straight out of an 00s-era male fantasy, with Hilton sporting a skin-tight, vinyl bodycon dress (or is it a pencil skirt with matching blazer?—you be the judge) in Barbie pink. Because, yes, as usual, Hilton would like to remind you that she’s a “real-life Barbie.”
As she instructs her class of students—who look as though they themselves were plucked straight from the 00s (complete with Britney Spears in “…Baby One More Time” meets Cher Horowitz aesthetics)—Lux Davis then transitions the scene to “Paris In the Club,” with Hilton taking her favored position behind the DJ booth as the crowd “loves it” a.k.a. laps it up. After all, the entire premise of the video is centered on Hilton knowing just how to save the dire state of “club culture.” Though one imagines that randomly showcasing products (including, but probably not limited to, MCoBeauty lip gloss, Poppi soda [recently in the spotlight for a class action lawsuit regarding its false claims about “gut health”], various Absolut vodka flavors, the Motorola Razr+ and SmartSweets) for the purpose of fulfilling a “brand partnership” isn’t really the way to embody “bad bitch energy.” No matter to Hilton though—a check is a check.
In the next scene, viewers are hit with the caption, “Your Professors” in reference to Lance Bass and Heidi Klum suddenly being present (far more arbitrary in terms of cameos than Meghan Trainor, who appeared in the classroom setting during the intro [along with Lele Pons, looking increasingly like Ivanka Trump…and perhaps that’s part of Hilton’s “friendship attraction” to her]—but Trainor is both a featured artist and a songwriter on Infinite Icon) to “teach” the ways of being a “bad bitch.” It is during this segment that Megan Thee Stallion’s verse plays—because apparently she wasn’t entirely sold on the song/visual concept…at least not well enough to actually materialize in the video (though she’ll concede to appearing with Renée Rapp in something as equally subpar as “Not My Fault”).
Not one to let the cameos stop, Hilton also manages to squeeze in, of all people, Simon Rex in the “Anthropology 101” section (as he holds a giant glass that reads, “I Paid For the Table”). This done as she instructs, “Step five, let him pay for your drinks/Step six, don’t go home with no creeps [says the girl who went home with Rick Salomon]/‘Cause when it’s seven a.m., go home, go to sleep/Stick with your girls till we rinse and repeat/Rinse and repeat (bitch, dance with me).” Of course, this enduring image Hilton likes to paint of herself as the “forever party girl” doesn’t quite align with another brand image she’s recently gotten into bed with: mother and homemaker. Hence, laying it on thick (when the moment suits her) about how her partying days are effectively donezo with such pronouncements as, “I used to look at my friends who’d be like, ‘Oh, I have to go home to my kids and my husband,’ like, ‘You’re so lame. This is so fun. I can’t imagine being like that.’ Now I’m one of those boring people, and I couldn’t be happier. I couldn’t imagine it any other way.” But, if the video for “BBA” is any indication, of course she can. And what else is “hired help” for, if not to accommodate her night-out-on-the-town needs by watching her kids?
So it is that Hilton can effortlessly take the club by storm, referencing her days of “owning” nightlife in L.A. before, as she herself has said, social media ruined it (even if Hilton has endlessly benefited from the invention of said media). In typical (and narcissistic) Paris fashion, she also makes reference to herself in the 2000s by way of including one clubgoer wearing a “Stop Being Desperate” tank (which was famously meme-ified into “Stop Being Poor,” an image that became more iconic than the original tank top’s saying).
In her own way, the “how to,” instructional style of “BBA” is a bit like Marina and the Diamonds’ 2012 single, “How to Be a Heartbreaker” (the type of song that Hilton only wishes she could come up with), with Marina similarly breaking down how to be just that via a list of “rules” in a playful, tongue-in-cheek manner. Except that, one gets the sense that Hilton is taking these instructions very seriously indeed, not seeming to understand that her ticket to being a “bad bitch” has been endlessly supported by generational wealth (which, of course, is the antithesis of the term’s definition).
With that seriousness in mind, Hilton’s final lesson in the video is “Intro to Portraiture” a.k.a. Taking A Selfie with Klum. As the other clubgoers/students watch in awe, Paris keeps wielding her Motorola Razr+ to take a barrage of selfies for continued good product placement measure. Then, wanting to get in one more “slay” before the video is over, Hilton switches “costumes,” with her final outfit being a black latex outfit (and matching captain’s hat) that looks as though it could have been ripped out of Madonna’s closet circa the Erotica era.
She then joins in something like a “coven circle” with Klum and Bass, for an effect that makes it come across like the intro titles to a fashion judging reality series on Bravo. And as she brings the “club banger” to a close, Hilton persists in telling her listeners the key to bad bitchery with a bridge that commands, “Bat your eyes, let him notice/Keep him guessin’ ‘bout your motive/Make him fall in love, that’s what a bad bitch does.” Again, these sentiments echo Marina’s “tutorial” on “How to Be a Heartbreaker,” when she says, “Rule number one is that you gotta have fun/But baby, when you’re done/You gotta be the first to run.”
Unlike Marina, however, Hilton’s rhetoric is in keeping with a cliched heteronormativity—of the variety that she’s been touting and promoting since her proverbial heyday, the 00s. And as for the “steps” detailing how to be a “bad bitch,” Hilton doesn’t bother to mention that all one needs to do is donate a very sizable sum to the “academy” in order to get her certificate. How do you think she became one, after all?
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