Deeply kooky but very enjoyable: Ariana Grande, “God Is A Woman” – Obviously, the video for Ariana Grande’s latest single opens with a shot of her hula-hooping at the center of a faraway galaxy and gets weirder from there. This is an over-the-top, bombastic, overtly symbolic Ariana like we’ve never seen before; at various points, she literally towers, solemnly, over her haters, now immune to the burly men who hurl the word “bitch” at her, walks a tightrope across a valley of pins and needles, and shatters a glass ceiling from below with the help of her superhuman strength and a comically large gavel. In the more abstract scenes, Grande lurks in colorfully painted waters, drifts through the stars, dips her hand into the Earth’s atmosphere. Women seem to both represent the world and create it over and over. There’s a lot going on.
Think about it too long and things start to fall apart—so don’t. Like a lot of Grande’s songs, “God Is A Woman” is likely an ode to mindblowingly orgasmic sex—but it’s also definitely a public service announcement about her capacity for rage. In the middle, Madonna’s voice projects from Ari’s tiny body, reciting the Ezekiel 25:17 line from Pulp Fiction. The original goes, “And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers.” But here Madonna swaps out “brothers” for “sisters.” She can’t spell it out any clearer, folks. Then Ari swings left, swings right, and launches a gavel almost as big as she is at the sky. —Frida Garza
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