"Scream" Michael and Janet Jackson (dir. Mark Romanek)

Having over the weekend seen Mark Romanek's kind of masterful (I hate using that word because I'm wanting to avoid hyperbole) new film, Never Let Me Go; I felt it was appropriate to take a look at one of his most classic videos. Of course, this video has to be the absolute farthest from his ethereal and haunting third feature. It was famous for being the most expensive video of all-time at the point of its release and came only a few years after the child molestation accusations against Jackson. So what do you do to combat all the negative media coverage and potentially career-ending scandal? You go into a spaceship goddammit!

Jackson usually came up with the concepts for his videos; this time to though he left it up to emerging music video-visionary Romanek. Being what had blown everybody away from this guy was Nine Inch Nails' groundbreaking yet uber-controversial and disturbing Closer video, this had to be a risky choice. You needed something rather upbeat and feather-light to remind people of Jackson the entertainer and not the creepy potential-pedo whom was magically changing colors. The concept behind this is essentially that Jackson, to escape the media, goes up to his magical spaceship with his sister where they play pong and flippantly observe art. The video is pretty damn silly and a bit of a relic of its time; that being said though Romanek was truly onto something aesthetically.

The big accomplishment is truly that the video is pretty much aware of its own ridiculousness; its wear the fakeness and plastic feeling of its setting on its sleeve. It's understood that while being a song about the frustration that comes with dealing with the vulture-like media, at the end of the day it's still a vapid pop song. Romanek is never intending to homage 2001 : A Space Odyssey here; if anything it's a celebration of how ridiculous it really is to be a celebrity.