for the days of TikTokthe children of this country used to have a much nobler hobby: sitting in front of the TV, glued to the screen, watching music video channels for hours on end.
You’d come home from school, throw out your backpack and put your hand in a packet of chips with your eyes fixed on the pop princess twirling around the screen, always barely dressed and often with lyrics as evocative as her dance moves.
So maybe this is why I’m so unbothered by the outrage the viewers are getting from Sam Smith‘s new music video for I’m Not Here To Make Friends. The video shows Smith all in a cream silk corset, complete with matching nipple covers and parakeet smuggler pants, bouncing around like the non-binary birth of Venus.
The outfit, combined with raunchy choreography, has put some people’s underpants in a twist. The usual puce-faced suspects everywhere have criticized its explicit nature and called for age restrictions on music videos.
But where were those age restrictions when I saw Britney Spears pin a man on a table and tie a cherry stem in a knot with her tongue during the video for Womanizer when I was just 12 years old? Or when nine-year-old me watched completely unfazed as Beyonce and Shakira performed matching belly dances and crunched against walls in the video for Beautiful Liar, circa 2007?
If your issue is explicitness in music videos, there were plenty of other opportunities for you to bring it up before Sam Smith’s latest music video came out. Or maybe – just maybe – maybe you are a homophobe? Or some other kind of bigot?
I’m not picky, just admit it. Because, by no choice, Smith has become a singing, dancing vessel for other people’s wrath.
And if anything, you should be thankful for the nipple covers — Smith could have gotten away with leaving their nipples out, unlike women in music videos, and they still chose not to. An understated icon, if you ask me.