To say that Billie Eilish’s “Your Power” video is intended to get under your skin (as many online commenters have suggested) is understating things.
First, there the topic of the song itself (which I won’t comment on). Then there’s the interspecies intimacy (which I also won’t comment on, except to say, I can’t imagine doing this myself).
Then there’s the video itself, but here I’ll issue a spoiler alert and just say: watch the video, from start to finish. Watch it full-screen. Pretend you are the camera. What are you feeling? What are you doing?
As a camera (/drone), as an anaconda, you draw in gradually, then wrap yourself around her, then give a stunning, triumphantly upward stretch and graceful twist at the 3-minute mark, come back in briefly, and retreat.
But your retreat turns out to be feigned. (How else to explain what happens at the 4-minute mark?)
When I first watched that (if you haven’t yet, read no further), I was sure I had lost power and was waiting for my computer to reboot. I waited. It didn’t.
(Who has lost power? Who has regained power? Who pulled whose plug?)
Questions for the Eilish Studies department (and film/media studies, and animal studies, et al): What are the subject (and object) positions here? (Film viewing, like everything, is a matter of subject/objectivation.) What’s the interplay between camera/anaconda and Eilish? Between camera/viewer and Eilish/anaconda? Between her subject (object/predator she is singing to) and her subjectivation (with anaconda)? Who is predator and who prey? Who is allied with whom? How do you (we, us, me, I, viewer) become an ally?
Finally, what is the place of the anaconda/serpent in these multiple power relationships? What is the kinship here, the alliance, the friendship, the risk, the fear, the transgression, the subversion?
Note: This post first went up earlier today in a shorter form; I’ve added little bits to it as they’ve come to me. Now I’ll stop.