An Ode to Fiona Apple, the Ultimate Video Vixen
Make it stand out
Late last year, Fiona Apple decided to remove most of her discography from TikTok, after a viral trend emerged of women using her songs to relate to their own perception of themselves as either a female manipulator and/or manic pixie dream girl; labels Apple herself has been boxed into for nearly her entire career. Refusing to be misunderstood, Apple removed the ability to misinterpret altogether.
Fiona Apple, aged 19, burst onto the scene when her first album Tidal came out in 1996. While the record itself received rave reviews from the get go, controversy surrounding the music video for the album’s lead single - Criminal - threatened to overshadow her debut.
“Criminal” is both similar to many pop and indie-style music videos and to none at all. Set in a dimly-lit New York loft-style apartment, the video depicts Apple slinking around the home, slowly underdressing and looking the epitome of skanky 90s grunge. Apple poses with numerous anonymous male bodies and sings “I’ve been a bad bad girl”, while seducing the camera with her gaze, captivating her viewers.
Despite “Criminal” being an instant classic, the backlash against the video was significant, deriding Apple for not only looking like an “underfed Calvin Klein model” but being overtly sexual at such a young age. Apple hit back at the former complaint at a later date, explaining her issues with disordered eating. As for the latter comment - that was, arguably, the point of the visual as well as the song itself.
___STEADY_PAYWALL___
Apple makes the viewer central to the video, forcing them into voyeurs of the sexual nature of her lyrics and actions. As the video opens, we see the singer taking photos of the audience, inviting us into the seediest of 90s house parties. The lack of identifiable features on the male background cast of the video effectively reduces men into a body prop for Apple’s and the audience’s viewing enjoyment. The traditional music video storyline is flipped on its head. “Criminal” is the first of many of Fiona Apple’s visual explorations of womanhood.
Fiona Apple’s gift for creating thought-provoking visuals to match her lyrical complexity isn’t exclusive to her original songs. Apple’s cover of John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s “Across the Universe” was named by MUBI as one of the “top 50 films of 1998”, despite its four minute length.
“Across the Universe” was produced for the soundtrack for the film Pleasantville, where two teens – Reese Witherspoon and Tobey Maguire – are transported into the 1950’s, bringing chaos into a stereotypical conservative suburb. The music video focuses on Apple walking calmly through a riot taking place in the same diner the film is set in, wearing over-ear headphones and blissfully oblivious to the teenage boys and men that destroy the restaurant around her.
The camera zooms into Apple’s face and slowly flips her upside down as she grins at the audience. Apple never breaks eye contact with the audience when singing “Nothing’s gonna change my world.” The video is a stark contradiction between atmosphere and self. Sung from a female perspective, The Beatles’ original is given a softer, dream-like quality, juxtaposed against her violent surroundings. Much like in the face of criticism in her real life, Fiona Apple stays strong to herself, providing her own calm among chaos.
Apple’s complex artistry is also exemplified in the video for “Every Single Night”, a single from her fourth album The Idler’s Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do. Often called the sequel to “Criminal”, the video is the most surreal in her archive. The imagery is vivid and dream-like; she sings with a squid on her head, with snails all around her in a dirt bed, with a giant monster popping up from the water as she walks over a bridge, and that’s the simplest of the absurdist scenes.
“Apple’s art and music is united by a sense of radical sensitivity which few can master. Throughout her career, which has spanned more than 27 years, Apple’s music videos have been consistently daring and fun, composed of a visual language that challenge societal norms by subverting criticisms associated with female musicians.”
While the video is fantastical, the camera keeps coming back to Apple lying in bed, tossing and turning. The singer breaks the fourth wall - a signature move - and stares into the camera while singing “Every single night’s a fight in my brain…every single fight’s all right.” Apple has previously addressed how throughout her career “instability became her brand” after being labelled as crazy by her fans and her critics alike due to her mental struggles, yet in “Every Single Night”, Apple shows that while mental struggles can lead to seeming or feeling out of control, the calm of her address to camera reflects once again the importance of being collected in the face of turmoil.
Apple’s art and music is united by a sense of radical sensitivity which few can master. Throughout her career, which has spanned more than 27 years, Apple’s music videos have been consistently daring and fun. The videos for “Criminal”, “Across the Universe” and “Every Single Night” are a sample of a visual language curated by Apple to challenge societal norms by subverting criticisms associated with female musicians. A language that repeats itself across all of Apple’s work - music videos for other songs such as “Fast as You Can” and “Paper Bag” also break the fourth wall to allow Apple to distort the relationship between artist and viewer through her unwavering gaze to the camera. Once aware of it, it is almost impossible to remove Apple’s challenging stare from the songs themselves - being retrospective is a requirement of listening to Apple’s music and watching her accompanying videos.
Words: Eleanor Brady