Re: Babooshka video

[vickie@chinet.chi.il.us (Vickie Ann Mapes)]

Subject: Babooshka (was Re: embarassing videos)

Chris here,

I posted:
>>  That's (as near as we can tell) "The Sprit of Female Vengance". The
>> video was the end result of weeks of touring European TV stations
>> lip-syncing the song, dragging around what appears to be a bass bigger
>> than she is. >(Actually it's a cello, she's _really_ tiny!) The story
>> deals with a repressed wife who suspects her husband of cheating, 
>> arranges a tryst with him in costume...

and Christopher Tate posts:
> Put a great big IMHO in front of everything I'm about to say....

  No need to. Not everyone on .gaffa is incapable of telling what is and
isn't an opinion. Actually, I agree with everything you say.

> I don't think that "vengeance" fits the spirit of the song *at all*.  The
> woman portrayed in the video, especially in the chain mail bikini [:-)],
> fits your term "Spirit of Female Vengeance" very well.  But I don't believe
> that this interpretation is appropriate for the song.

   It's just what we call it 'round here, due to some of the moves Kate
make with that sword. Yikes! _Severe_ castration anxiety! Mostly it was
an in-joke; sorry if there was any misunderstanding.

> Now, what happens now is that we have to decide whether KaTe really
> *meant* for it to be the "vengeance" image, in which case I mourn that
> the author has missed what I feel to be the main strength of her work,
> or whether that interpretation just needs to be tossed out and a new
> one developed.

  No, it wasn't intended to be a serious analysis of the song. Though,
at the risk of sounding too flip, we probably take that video _much_
more seriously than Kate does. It may well be that the sword-wielding
character only represents Kate's desire to wear an outfit like that.
Later on she took a more serious interest in her videos. When I talked
to her about my video in '84, she was very interested in the technical
aspects of production. HoL marks the start of Kate's "videos" being
produced on film, rather than videotape.

> (Whew!  This is turning into quite a weighty analysis of the song and
> the video, isn't it!  I certainly didn't intend it to be so long....!)

  Actually the performance evolved from touring around, and a must-be-
seen-to-be-believed appearance on "The Dr. Hook Special". On the TV
lip-syncs Kate variously hid behind the bass, attacked it and kissed it.
On Dr. Hook show (Snow White and the Seven Cretins) Kate wore a costume
and make-up splitting her in half; her right side severe and repressed,
in a prim black dress; her left (our right) side in a wild shiny pointed
outfit, her face painted with lightning bolts. When she was interviewed
(HA!) the idiot on her right jokingly hit on her, and the idiot on her
left said that she told him that the wild side was "the good side".

> In this light, I think the video is better than it may appear to some
> viewers at first.  I think of it as providing the "Greek chorus," and
> letting the lyrics and our imaginations fill in the actual characters...

  Some very good thought on a song we have unfairly neglected.

                                    Chris Williams of
                                        Chris'n'Vickie of Chicago
                                            katefans@chinet.chi.il.us