Posted by Maura Johnston on 02/01/2011 at 11:00 AM Videos

The Popdust Files: music videos, rihanna, s&m

Rihanna’s brightly hued, sexy-for-its-own-sake video for “S & M” sure is something! The singer’s hair looks really great, but the clip is sort of a mess of signifiers, all of which add up to … well, a sign that she’s looking to get talked about. (Which, really, who can blame her? Attention in the current, always-distracted attention economy is hard to come by.) Here is a list of things that I thought of while watching it.

• Lady Gaga resisting arrest in her “Paparazzi” video.

• Also, the tight, weird, and sexy outfits Gaga wears in that clip.

• Speaking of outfits, that ripped-from-the-headlines dress Rihanna’s wearing seems very inspired by Amy Lee from Evanescence’s self-lacerating Malice In Wonderland dress.

• And speaking of “ripped from the headlines,” the way Ri-Ri is tied up during her “dressed like a baby” segment brought to mind the episode of Law & Order: SVU called “Ridicule.”

• The herky-jerky, kinda-nausea-inducing camera work of Beyoncé’s video for “Why Don’t You Love Me.”

• The innate hypocrisy of complaining about gossip bloggers asking too many questions while courting them via offering them video cameos, because the co-dependent relationship between celebrities and the people who write meanly about them is pretty far beyond toxic-sludge status. BUT I DIGRESS.

• Binging on Franken-Berry that’s had the marshmallows picked out first.

• And, finally, a Sexy Peanut Butter Jelly Time Halloween costume. I know she was going for a more Carmen Miranda feel with the banana-deep-throating at the end, but come on.