Performativity

Here is a link to The 1975'a music video for "Girls"  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkubQCI4Fxo.  This is a pop video intentionally made to be not-so-typical.  The band takes very common things that are seen in pop videos nowadays like close up singing shots, only lip shots, attractive girls, bright colors, provocative outfits, etc. and uses them to mock what they normally are in other videos.  The un-amused faces of lead singer Matt Healy in his close up shots, the moments where he actually stops singing the song and comments about what is happening around him, like when there are girls dressed up and playing instruments by the pool (which has nothing to do with what he was singing), the complete lack of interest the band has in doing this video, all of these things contribute to what makes this an anti-pop pop video.  Did you follow that one?  In the very beginning, Matt Healy even points out how everything seems to be too poppy, and they aren't a pop band.  BUT ACTUALLY, they are a pop band!  Indie pop to be exact.  Now, this performative act (in this case, the entire music video) that they created was tweaked from its mainstream counterparts to say something about pop culture.  I believe that this does count as a performative act that was intentionally performed to mean something else because it has all the usual conventions of pop videos, but it isn't what you'd typically expect.  It is instead making a statement about how nonsensical these videos normally are and how their main purpose is to lure in viewers with the simplicity of loud colors and attractive women.  The scenes around the pool ring Katy Perry, the short clips of lips with cigarettes, pill bottles, and the girl spitting up pink goop relates to Miley Cyrus, the car crash scene speaks of an earlier Lady Gaga, and the rest of it where the band is playing, singing, and dancing reminds me of just about any One Direction music video or boy band video to be completely honest.  The 1975 took all of these images and ideas that had been seen before from these artists and did exactly like what they did in their videos and made it into something with a brand new meaning.  If they had just taken the events that occurred in the video seriously and tried to be charming and appealing, then this music video would have just been like all the others.  But, they chose to make it different, even though they incorporated these mainstream ideas.