Most music videos are made by a collection of musicians, directors, writers, cameramen, stylists, performers, and other audio-visual artists and specialists who have come together for the love of a song—or a paycheck. Other music videos, such as the one for Mary J. Blige’s “World’s Gone Crazy,” are not so much “made” as they are willed into existence by the vengeful soul of a woman who will stop at nothing until the child she birthed some 19 years ago is killed slowly and painfully in front of the eyes of America’s most miserable daytime TV viewers.
“World’s Gone Crazy” is not exactly a terrible song. Written by Diane Warren and performed by Blige, it sounds straight out of an early-2000s romp about three women (Whoopi Goldberg, Susan Sarandon, and Kathy Bates?) who take it upon themselves to save the world from kooky aliens called, oh something like If Mama Ain’t Happy. But the video! Dear god, the video.
Though presumably meant to be a celebration of The View’s cockroach-like persistence in the barren wasteland of daytime television—one that’s never quite been able to get rid of that funky Regis Philbin smell—“World’s Gone Crazy” is a profoundly unpleasant examination of delusion and all its resulting horrors.
Just take a look at some of its most hellish, unforgettable images. Even when ignoring the fact that I have no idea who half the people even are, watching them convince us of their camaraderie has left me shaken.
Can you make it through three minutes of that? I have no faith in your ability to.
