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Rihanna's Umbrella

ender4

By ender4
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What did you think of Umbrella by Rihanna?  

103 members have voted

  1. 1. What did you think of Umbrella by Rihanna?

    • Loved it
      12
    • Liked it
      20
    • Didn't like it
      20
    • Hated it
      40
    • Never heard of it!
      12

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  • 7 months later...
MMFy Newbie

MMFy

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Posted

From the Grauniad, 02/05/07

This week, Anna Pickard watches and picks apart the video for Umbrella by Rihanna

It's an enormous moment in the twin worlds of advertising and music promotion. You have to boggle at the gall of this makeup company, sponsoring a whole artist, song and, in this innovative case, the video too.

Having bagged Rihanna as the new celebrity face of their big slap-brand, we can only imagine the scenes of heady excitement in the Advertising Account Manager's offices.

"People - great news! The end of 30-second promos is over! We have four-and-a-half whole minutes to play with here! A whole music promo! It's ours! All ours! The world is our big, dirty oyster!"

So what do they decide to do first? Well, as we all know, nothing says "makeup" like an underdressed woman in some fog.

The ad agency is on top of the world. They've got Rihanna: She's extremely young, extremely beautiful, and a rising singing star in the world of R&B.

So the important thing, apparently, in this case, is to not let her make any noise at all for the first 40 seconds while Jay-Z does his Public Information Broadcast thing. He pulls some Jay-Z faces and says Rihanna a lot so we know who it is we're watching. This must be a great song if Jay's involved.

And so it begins. Dressed in some kind of leather-hotpant catsuit, Rihanna is so hot, her bottom is quite literally smoking.

Some of the lyrics, it must be said, are questionable. I could be wrong, but the first verse seems to contain the lines

Baby 'cause in the dark

You can't see shiny cars

That's when you need me there

With you I'll always share...

Not the stuff lyrical legends are made of. We're not even sure what she's suggesting they may "always share", unless it is, of course, Rihanna's famed ability to see shiny cars in the dark.

Well, we all have our skills.

And our legs. Cleverly veering away from a completely literal interpretation of the lyric, the ad execs running this show have decided to capitalise on Rihanna's obvious strengths - having legs, a face, etc - and use those in the battle to sell tinted face-goo.

"Well, we've pointed out that she's beautiful, yes, we've clearly shown that she can attract powerful men, and we've done the smokin' ass. But people, we've got 4 minutes here! We need to broaden the message, point out that our make-up is for EVERYONE."

And so, for the good of the brand, Rihanna is presented as quite the sweatiest Betty that ever walked the earth.

Intercut with shots of Rihanna's pretty face looking composed and flawless are shots of her dancing with wild abandon. Every time she moves a limb, flips her head, twirls around, great showers of sweat come flying off her at every angle.

You can rest assured that if there's a clearing around Rihanna on the dance floor, it may not just be in appreciation of her moves.

"Ok, so now she's everywoman. The sweaty Midwest LOVE her now. So what we gotta do? Introduce a note of dignity, poise, and the concept of waterproof mascara, THAT's what. How? That's right! Ballet! With umbrellas!"

Sadly, ballet with an umbrella tends to look not so much sexy as Jake-the-Peg-with-Rickets. Or a novelty coffee table.

You cannot deny that Rihanna is impressive with the whole pointe thing though (that's standing on your toes, you barbarians). Although wait. Hang on...

"Whaddayamean she can't do the standy-on-her-toes-thing?! Well, then film the legs of someone's who CAN and her top half walkin'! No one'll ever know! I ain't been in the ad business for 20 years and learnt nothin', you know! Hell, I can make a Big Mac look edible!"

Call me a big cynic, but when all you get are separate shots...

...there's a very fishy smell in the air.

And yes, of course, in order to hush the critics, there is one picture of Rihanna on her tippy toes.

Aaaaaand she's hanging on to a big old trapeze. Brilliant.

The scene changes. "OK - we've introduced the waterproof angle, we've introduced the sweatproof angle, we've seen the flawless cover. What else do people want? They want to know we have different shades, people. How are we going to show them that? Jesus, do I have to do all work here? We put Rihanna in really big knickers and colour half the screen orange! Come on, people! Think outside the box!"

Ah, so from this, we can safely gather that this particular makeup company provides shades for all skin tones, from very pale - or, you know, grey, whatever - to orange. Which is good and useful information, because we all know that orange is an in-demand colour in the makeup world. Or those of us who've ever been to a nightclub in Stockport do, anyway.

Rihanna is a good mover, Let us give her that. She bends like a willow and wiggles like a randy worm in the wind. The video makes the most of that. If there's one thing we learn from advertising, it's that with the right colour blusher, our legs can suddenly become five and half miles long.

"Damnit, people, there's not enough ART to this. This ad is never going to be complete until we paint someone gold. We sell eye shadow, don't we? Well, get a bucket of that!"

And thus, with the aid of 18,579 metallic eye shadow palettes fresh from their "Nu Rave" line, some chip fat and a really big applicator stick, Rihanna is covered head to toe in shiny things. Some people might say this is an excuse to have a young and really quite naked lady front and centre. Others would say it was art.

Which would have course be rubbish. Look! Naked shiny Rihanna! Rowr!

In case people feel determined to copy her example and wander the streets wearing nothing but budget eyelid powder, the socially conscious company concerned have mocked up some street signs for use by local councils.

"DANGER: Shiny Naked Ladies Ahead". Very public spirited. They can cause dreadful damage to your bonnet, naked shiny ladies. They're worse than elk.

Suddenly a storm breaks, and Rihanna is surrounded by well-built male dancers wearing appropriate raingear and carrying protection. In a stunning moment of weather-consciousness, Rihanna actually opens her umbrella.

"What? What've you got her opening the damn brolly for?! I don't care if this song IS about sheltering under someone's pop-up water-waiver: This new powder-cream-foundation is meant to be waterproof to a depth of 50 metres! Get that damn thing down!"

And so, in the worst storm seen in years, Rihanna is forced to dance with hardly coverage at all. Both in terms of umbrellas AND clothing. She points the umbrella, she twirls the umbrella, but for a song that centres on the idea of you joining her UNDER her umbrella ("ella-ella-eh-eh-eh..."), she barely gives anyone a chance. Unless they're VERY thin and/or standing on her head.

So the umbrella in the umbrella song popped open just the once. Which is probably quite lucky, actually, as the rain, now that we look at it, appears to be composed of sparks of bright fire, and any common rain-shade would in the circumstances be dripping molten plastic on the user's head.

"And that's what we're saying, people! Our maxi-strength cover-up can deal with even the most obvious blemishes and/or third-degree plastic burns! Anyway! What's all this stuff about umbrellas? Why hasn't she said anything about the PRODUCT yet? This is our video! Our star! Our song! She's ours! All OURS! Mwa ha ha ha!"

And it is, after all, a corporate video. And to reinforce this point, the song fades out, and Rihanna appears. Just to contrast with the moody, sophisticated look of the video, they seem to have put her in photo booth at Disneyland and dressed her in New Look's early-teens range.

"Hello! I'm Rihanna! Blah Blah Blah Makeup!" She says in a video statement with dubbing almost as bad as Bob Hoskins in Jamie T's new video.

And that's it. The big sell. The company involved must be so, so proud. Usually you have to wait until the end of a career before you can sell-out, don't you? Still. She's very pretty. Well done all round.

That's some damn good ranting right there. Sums it up nicely.

And, for the record, Jay-Z has never done anything significantly memorable in his career, despite the size of his reputation. For **** sake, his first commercial success was "Hard Knock Life", with samples of Aileen Quinn from the musical "Annie".

And further, it's not R&B. R&B, as stated, is rhythm and blues. This is just nothing more than chart pop gash.

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