The First Taste: I Dug Up A Bad Fiona Apple Video

Side note before I begin: September really flew by. I wanted to get this post out before October, but my poor excuse is that I move to Brooklyn and spent most of my time looking for a job, and or had trouble focusing on other projects throughout this transition period. Thank you for continuing to read this blog, and I assure you, I have no intention of stopping despite my hiatus. Let me begin with a reference to a year-old post.

The post, I've Been A Bad Bad Girl, analyzed Fiona Apple's Criminal video and compared it to Miley Cyrus's video for We Can't Stop - because Miley Cyrus was all the rage back then and I'm a huge Fiona Apple fan. Criminal is a great video (obviously, it won a VMA and was directed by Mark Romanek), and Apple's other videos off of her debut album, Tidal, were enjoyable to watch as well. Sleep To Dream was moody and used cool special effects. Never Is A Promise didn't have a narrative, but it was gorgeous seeing Apple floating over the New York City streets at night.

Still from Sleep To Dream

Still from Never Is A Promise

Those were the only videos I knew of from Tidal, until I was watched a Fiona Apple video mix on YouTube. I came across a rare music video that was bizarre if only for how uncharacteristically sexual and awkward it is for Fiona Apple.

The First Taste, is an uncommon and sensual love song of longing. Most often Fiona Apple is known for songs about breakups, being depressed, or unbridled hate. Even her songs about being in love typically come with a warning - that she will be really intense (i.e. Fast As You Can or Slow Like Honey). With a Spanish hip-swaying vibe, The First Taste speaks of the desire to finally get it on with the special someone you've been seeing. It's mellow, it's personal, and it's really quite unfortunate that the video for it does not express this adequately.

Besides the fact that half of the cast doesn't understand how to behave in front of a camera, the party theme that runs through the video is mismatched by the song's personal lyrics. It's kind of a train wreck, so let's watch it.

Some people were told to throw confetti and look happy. Other's were directed to be Calvin Klein models and have zero reaction what so ever. Wow, cool party guys. I can really tell you're all friends...

With some research I was able to glean that the video was never released in the US, which explains why I had never seen it - being glued to MTV during her golden era. It was surprising this video came out before Criminal, because my first thought upon watching it was, "Wow this director was trying hard to ride the wave of Criminal's illicit house party vibe, except everyone looks alive." However, The First Taste video, directed by Dewey Nicks was released in February of 1997 and Criminal debuted that June. 

The video is a perfect time capsule for 1997, which makes it fun to watch in that respect. From the hair, outfits, accessories, to the bedroom floor Fiona is lounging on like a sullen teen.

Good speakers, groovy carpet, rotary phone; add some inflatable furniture and you've got yourself a Delia's catalog.

Argyle vests.

That sweater! This shot is a millisecond long, but when I saw it with those hands in middle school dance mode, it took me back.  

Shirt. Choker. Lip liner.

Those glasses.

Sisqo Hair.

Like many videos there are several different realms we are presented. Aside from the bedroom shots, there’s close up, hair gelled back, body glitter Fiona. 

I absolutely attempted to achieve this look.

Then there's swaying, billowy sheer shirt Fiona.

She's alone, she's grooving, she's got her wrists limp while Lorde was still in diapers. 

 Walking through a house party.

The most naturally acted moment in this video and it's 2 seconds long.

Floating through a house party.

This is one of the strangest aspects of the video (but it does get weirder later). By the Law of Music Videos, a person who appears to be floating through a room is not to be acknowledged by those around her/him. This is because being the only floating person in a group of people is an obvious metaphor for how someone feels at a party - either because they're high or lonely. In this video however, no one can avert their gaze, and it's creepy has hell.

Not only are you looking at Fiona while she's having her floaty time, you look absolutely entranced by her. Why is that? What's your motivation? Director!

Some grope and kiss her like she’s some kind of sexual house party deity. It's amazing to me how Fiona could put up with this.

Oooook. This is happening.

Fiona's smiling seems forced and fake. Maybe because it's rare to see her smile in any of her music videos, and her public persona is marked by moments like her "This world is bullshit." speech at the VMAs. Shots like the one pictured below make me feel like Fiona was being heavily coached, and there was no effort left to direct the other actors.

Girl to the right of Fiona: WHO TOLD YOU TO BREAK THE FOURTH WALL?!

Really, who are you guys looking at? I could grasp the concept of Fiona floating along and only her and I were sharing this magic moment, but when the non-floating party guests are completely cognisant of her, AND they're cognisant of me? Well that's just unsettling. 

The last and most awkward vignette in The First Taste video is the purgatory room where all of the party goers seem to reside in a different time line. It is a place where they will dance to The First Taste forever - in the most stilted way because no one can really agree how to dance to this song - and take turns making out and breaking the fourth wall like nobody's business. 

And it's a rule that everyone has to sexually engage Fiona at least once. 

 Hey! Guy in the blue jacket, don't get greedy.

Hands for a second!

There is also a barrage of clips where the party-goers are getting intimate with each other, but it seemed like the director was trying to be edgy by pairing up same-sex and interracial couples. It's my opinion that the scenes were ham-fisted statements that are more political than the song is meant to be.  A cynical part of me is thinking that by 1997 displays like this wouldn't have been shocking and shouldn't have been shocking. Considering how blatant the clips are, one would think in this day and age - even seventeen years ago - it would have seemed patronizing to the demographic it's trying to reach (14-30 year olds who listen to Fiona Apple and other alternative music). That thing we used to say, "It's the 90's!" was always used to imply that we've come to a point in our society where old social taboos were to be kept in the past. Or maybe I'm wrong. 

Maybe it takes moments like these to instill a normalization that we take for granted. Racism and homophobia are not completely extinct. If Dewey Nicks had the intention to shock or give a certain group of people a voice, was he being racist or homophobic by posing the concept that these matches are a novelty or that they should be payed special attention to? Or am I racist or homophobic because from the beginning I'm approaching this noticing that the couples are consistently interracial and gay? Should I just approach this thinking, "There's just a bunch of people making out in this video."? 

But it's not just a casual scene where couples are hooking up at a party and some of them happen to be gay or interracial couples (like any real life scenario). These shots are in the "purgatory," where they're highlighted and couples are singled out. They are displayed as a novelty. The whole video is not really romantic and intimate as it is objectifying and exploitative around every corner. It makes me wonder how or if Fiona stomached this shoot. It's as if the director could only grasp the surface of the song as sensual, but not it's intimate themes (and when I say intimate I mean when a couple shares a moment together, not how eight couples decide to ignore that there are other people in the room and start Frenching). 

It's clear that the director hijacked The First Taste's most basic theme and ran with it, using his own agenda to fill in the blanks. His agenda wasn't wrong. If he wanted to make a video about couples people would have disapproved of forty years ago (and maybe a minority that would currently disapprove), he should have done it with a different song. If he wanted to make a video about a woman at a party that everyone wants to touch and she maybe likes it (?) 

That body language is not saying "no" but it's not saying "yes" either.

He should have used a different song.