I doubt that either Shakira or Rihanna ever has a moment where she wishes “Could I just let my voice do the heavy lifting here and not have to flash and wiggle body parts to get attention,” because if they did, they wouldn”t have made the video for “Can’t Remember to Forget.”
Joseph Kahn directed the clip, but I”m guessing a 13-year old boy (or 45-year old drooling label exec) wrote the treatment because it has every cliche that a teenage male could hope for: Shakira and Rihanna looking like they just stepped off of a Victoria”s Secret runway, smoking cigars (nice touch! What could those ever by symbols for?), gyrating up against a wall, and rubbing up against each other in every straight man”s favorite Sappho fantasy. Then, for good measure, Shakira plays drums and writhes around on a stage filled with water… Rihanna”s long gone by then.
Not that any of this comes as a surprise from “Hips Don”t Lie” Shakira and “Pour It Up” Rihanna; it”s just that the sexuality is so patently obvious that instead of oozing sex, the clip pile drives it on. I suspect that the males who put it on repeat will just turn off the sound if they even noticed there’s a song there to begin with.
Shakira and Rhianna manage to look stunningly beautiful and slutty at the same time, so kudos to them (and their trainers and stylists) since it”s not always easy to do both, but I felt a little exhausted for them by the end of the clip because it just seemed like such hard work to make it appear so effortless. But, then again, this video isn”t aimed at me so I just hope they got to go enjoy a good meal after they were able to get out of the revealing, unforgiving lingerie.
“Can”t Remember to Forget” will be on Shakira”s new album that comes out this Spring.