Beyonce - “Run The World (Girls)”

We start out with Beyonce riding on horseback, cantering through some dusty place with hills in the distance. (Beverly?) Then we get shots of tragic things like burning trashcans and discarded satellite equipment. Oh, and some vaguely-liberationist banners with angry women looking unsettled. Beyonce rides through this mess, while we get shots of more angry women beating the roofs of abandoned cars and mobs of disgruntled people running amok.

I’m thinking this is not going to be a happy video.

Quick shot of Beyonce showing that her horse is really special, then shots of military men running about in an aggressive manner. We also have scantily-clad women in wooden cages waving their crotches at the camera, one woman lounging on a giant wooden cross, and nasty desert winds blowing sand in everybody’s cracks. Still with the “not happy place”.

Cut to some confrontational area, where lots of bizarrely-dressed woman are standing defiantly. (“Roman gladiators on estrogen” comes to mind.) Zoom in on a tight shot of Beyonce sporting harem-gear and looking at us intensely. This goes on for a few frames so we can carefully study her lip gloss and place orders online. Back to the confrontational women, more of them this time, and now they look like Gestapo Yakuza members.

It seems these colorfully-dressed women are facing off against the military men, and the showdown starts with Beyonce marching up to them in short-shorts that can’t possibly be comfortable. Then, and I’m not sure how to describe this, but Beyonce goes into the most bizarre dance I have ever seen. Something about bouncing her shoulders in a violent manner and whipping her hair around. I’m sure somebody, somewhere thought that this choreography might be hot and inspiring. That person was wrong.

Beyonce insists on doing this mess for quite some time. Trying to make the best of things, her posse of defiant women raise their arms in solidarity to the beat. This doesn’t really help, so various members of the posse run out from time to time and try to make the whole thing a perky line dance. But it’s not working. I try to get into it, but somebody done made a wrong turn.

This goes on for a long time. A very long time.

Cut to Beyonce wandering around among the mens and trying to steal their cell phones and such, mixed in with images of Beyonce somewhere else, her hair jacked to Jesus and doing something with what I think are hyenas. Then the dancing Beyonce crawls between the legs of one of the men and flips us off. Really?

Next up is Beyonce doing some mess with water cannons, and then stomping around near burning cars while wearing shoes that can’t possibly be comfortable. Then we cut to Beyonce wearing an anorexic jumpsuit and fondling her breasts. (Not making this up.) The we zip back to B and her posse doing another line dance in the confrontational area, this one involving them spreading their thighs as wide as possible so that we can see their tiny panties.

What the hell am I watching here?

This dance also goes on for a while, including a segment where the ladies get on all fours and wave their fannies in the air. Then all hell breaks lose when the tarts and the troops rush at one another. While these people pounce on one another in an unexplained war of whatever, we have side shots of Beyonce doing sexual things with sand.

Well, dang, the girls are dancing again, so I guess the war is on hold while the pissed-off sisters undulate and high-kick. The vision for this scene is that Beyonce wears an oddly-cut green dress, all her hundreds of girlfriends wear garter belts and little else, and they all do a routine where they slowly flip their hair from side to side. The military men, apparently enthralled with the heaving bosoms and lack of modesty, just stand there and watch.

Really?

As has become typical in this video, the sequence goes on for far too long. I understand that when you’ve paid for this many extras in a video, you should try to use them all and get your money’s worth. But come on. How many gyrating crotches can you see before it all becomes a blur?

No matter, it’s Beyonce’s vision, we’re just the observers here. So we watch as she and her posse reach the point where they raise their fists in the air in what they think is total domination of the male species. The girls advance on the still-stunned men (None of whom have raised a weapon or tried to fight back. That’s real, right?), and Beyonce, lead dancing tramp, reaches up and rips something off the chest (Medal? Medic Alert bracelet?) of one of the men.

At which point all of the women salute the men and the video ends.

What the hell, Beyonce? Seriously.


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