So okay. Self-appointed pop-punk princess Avril Lavigne released a music video for her song “Rock N Roll” yesterday and I’ve been obsessively mulling over its monumental lameness for the past 24 hours. It is so SUPER fun to hang inside my head, ya’ll. But truly, the lameness and the posturing involved in this video is worthy of much discussion. Here are 8 reasons why this thing sucks more than most things suck.
1. FIRST OF ALL, the video starts with an ad for a stupid Sony cell phone. That’s lameness that need no further commentary… moving right along!
2. The video proper sees Avril dressed up as the cult comic badass Tank Girl in a story that supposes that the fate of rock ‘n’ roll is in danger because the planet is being attacked by “BearSharks.” I respect you enough to assume you can figure out exactly what a “BearShark” is. Also, I definitely don’t expect either you or me to understand how BearShark attacks endanger the entire genre of guitar-based pop music.
3. Avril wants us to know that rock ‘n’ roll is NOT, in fact, dead, and she’s correct — both Chuck Berry and Keith Richards still have beating hearts, and they both still perform in front of live audiences. Avril Lavigne, on the other hand, is married to Chad Kroeger, the man who is widely acknowledged to physically embody the downfall of all music (the “Nickleback” card always trumps in my games of Cards Against Humanity) — which is to say, she probably wouldn’t know a Little Richard tune if it hit her over the head.
Okay, good golly, that wasn’t fair — Avril is Canadian. She would’t know a Neil Young song if it tiptoed up behind her and crooned gently into the soft part of her ear. (Canada, you guys!)
4. The most supremely lame thing about the video is Avril’s uncomfortable makeout session with Danica McKellar, the gal who played Winnie Cooper on “The Wonder Years.” Here’s the thing: everyone in the world has some degree of crush on Winnie Cooper, but Danica McKellar is not actually Winnie Cooper. Danica McKellar is a sporadically employed mid-level actress who has written four books about how algebra can be a useful and fun part of your life. Winnie Cooper never would have made out with Avril Lavigne.
Plus, their kiss is incredibly awkward and entirely unsexy. If you’re going to do girl-on-girl, at least make sure the involved parties don’t look completely miserable about it. For comparison, please feast your eyes on the infamous Britney Spears/Madonna kiss from the 2003 VMAs:
Whether because of an adrenaline rush from being “naughty,” an actual narcotic high, or, like, legitimate hormones, the Britney/Madonna incident was controversial because it’s obvious that the women were actually into it. Which is to say, there was probably at least a modicum of vaginal secretion formed by that kiss. That’s the grossest sentence I’ve ever written; I stole it from Danica McKellar’s math book.
Whatever else you may think about Britney and Madonna, they’re both big time sex symbols with legitimate sexual agency. As far as Avril Lavigne and Danica McKellar go, they have collectively given a whole BUNCH of 11-year-olds boners. And maybe accomplished the same for one or two more with this gross display of fake lesbianism.
ALSO? By deciding to kiss Danica, Avril wasted crucial time that could have been spent asking the mathemagician to quantify exactly how the existence of BearSharks puts all of rock ‘n’ roll in danger.
ALSO ALSO, if you want to talk about actual subversive sex, Tank Girl’s boyfriend was a fucking kangaroo.
5. “November Rain” reference. Sigh.
6. Billy Zane on a Segway. Sigh. I’m not even sure what this is supposed to be referencing, other than quirkiness itself.
7. Not convinced that the video is truly the lamest thing on earth? Well, there is a cute dog wearing a tie introduced at the beginning and he fucking dies.