{F} fiona apple, 2011 catalogue model.

i’m not completely sure what possessed me to re-watch fiona apple’s video from her 1997 song criminal.  i think it might have shown up on my tumblr readings, or i thought about it while listening to one of her happier songs this weekend.

regardless, i ended up last night watching criminal on youtube, and it was just as disturbing as when i saw it when i was 16, but for (mostly) entirely different reasons.  my best friend at the time was a guy named dan, who LOVED fiona apple. (and poetry, e.e. cummings, guns, working on cars, and having long hair. not your average teenage dude.) he listened to it a lot, and because i had yet to go through my depressing period of time (that came later in seattle) i didn’t connect much to fiona apple’s music, although i rather liked how it sounded.

i particularly liked the song criminal, because, well, it’s a really good song.  i wasn’t allowed to watch MTV at my house, so i avoided seeing the video for a number of months, until it came on over at a friend’s house.

i was…disturbed. i don’t even think i could fully put my finger on it, as nothing really explicit was happening in the video, but it just skeeved me the heck out.  i was a pretty good girl, and it just seemed so dark and twisty and creepy.  and i don’t think the bruises all over her helped.  the guys i knew thought it was both creepy and weirdly kind of hot (the boy confirms this to be true) but i didn’t get that at the time. i was not a dark and creepy teenager, even though i kind of wanted to be.

dark times certainly came later, but creepy always eluded me.

in fact, a few years later, after a little more life lived and boy heartbreak, i dug up my fiona apple CD’s and ms. apple and i got along on a whole new level, but i never saw another video of hers again.

fast-forward to last night.

watching the video again, i was disturbed, but for adult reasons.  the same adult reasons that cause me to balk at shortened text message-speak and give the side-eye to loud kids at a restaurant and go to bed at 8pm like i did last night.

i’m just too old for this business.

i mean, i’m not old, but i’m too old for the entertainment of the young people.

here are my thoughts when watching the video now, as a 30-year-old:

1. sad houses are usually not this nice-looking (i mean, without the dingy-porn-lighting). i mean, this house is remarkably well-furnished (there’s an expensive eames chair and a sports car in the first 30 seconds) for being, presumably, a Lair of Destitution.

2. that red-eye business makes her look like a rat.  how is that attractive?  they should really make a button to remove that from video/pictures.  so unflattering.  oh wait…there’s a button for that.  1997, meet 2011.

3. sleeping on concrete looks really uncomfortable.  why would anyone make a bed on a concrete block?  i thought this house-owner had money.

4. who’s holding the camera in the bathtub? aren’t they afraid they’re going to drop it in the tub?  cameras are expensive.  and, more importantly, someone else’s bath feet are about 2 inches from her FACE.  i’d freak the crap out.  i don’t like other people’s wet feet touching me.  or dry feet touching me.  let’s just make that feet touching me in general.

5. i get the pizza & bottles littering the floor, half-naked women strewn about and cameras…but the vacuum sitting out?  nothing says party like attempting to suck up the crumbs, amiright?

6. and what’s with the oranges in the bathtub?  won’t those go bad?  there’s, like, 8 oranges there — enough to make juice!  that juice would be so tasty. and healthy.

a decade ago i thought she looked so strung out and weird in the video, which i think was the point.

now, she just looks like an urban outfitter’s model.

times i have changed.