MKG "Bad Things"

I studied Machine Gun Kelly’s & Camila Cabelo’s “Bad Things,” through a feminist perspective. This music video portrays two people, perhaps social outcasts, who are in a relationship, and have been good friends for a long time, who essentially do morally questionable acts together. They drink, leave restaurants without paying and run through an abandoned warehouse. It shows them enjoying their indulgence in their behavior, together in ways which they find uncontrollable, as if they are incapable of their attraction. Initially, this may seem to reflect a gender equality between the sexes; after all, they are both participating in this relationship doing “bad” things. The leading female singer is shown in many scenes on her own, apart from the leading man, as if to emphasis her independence. However, there are just as many scenes, if not more, which show her together with him. I believe that the message underlying this video is ultimately dis-empowering for both genders because it essentially positions these people in a dynamic where they are unable to control their behavior and rely on each other for stability. Because both of the singers are together expressing their affection through each other, albeit in a self-destructive way, there is a sense of equality for both genders: they both do bad things to each other as a way of communicating. The female starts the opening song, and, in this sense can be said to be in a position of power because she has led the song. Based on Lana Rakow’s “Feminist Approaches to Popular Culture: Giving Patriarchy its Due” with her “Reception and Experience Approach” to analyze this video, it appears that, however, her position of power is, in some ways determined by her relationship with the male. That, without him, she would not have the power to exert control. Is her dominance in that case, dependent upon a male, or is that the only way she can effectively assert agency, through a relationship and destructively? Now, in some ways, she appears to have comparable agency as the male in relation to this scenario because both are low functioning, living destructively. Yet, the woman is seen in more scenes as sitting—for instance on the chair in the warehouse. Taken out of context, this can be analyzed as her sitting in subservience, that is, if we are to view sitting as a more passive act. In that case, you could also say that she is inept to her circumstances through the portrayal of immobility. Simultaneously, the camera is also, at times, showing extreme close ups where she is alone in the room, and therefore the “center” of our attention, as if to assert her separateness from the male singer, and thus we might presume that she is choosing to participate in these bad decisions with him, rather than being compelled to. Our attention is captivated by her eyes, but it is difficult to ascertain whether this is a seductive stare with which she gazes or just her embracing her femininity. At what point does beauty become objectification?