In this Chromeo video for “When The Night Falls,” the band’s sexy looks and hot beats spontaneously impregnate every woman who dares to gaze upon them. Bizarre as it is, their message might actually be kind of feminist.
Here is a play-by-play of the piece, for anyone who was so confused that their eyeballs simply cut out mid-viewing: Chromeo members P-Thugg and Dave 1 are performing in a bar. The ladies present are so turned on that — pop! — they are suddenly eight to nine months pregnant. Meanwhile, Dave 1 is singing about how he happens to be in your town and yours is the only number he can find, so probably you should sleep with them. This is very romantic, and the pregnant ladies (one of whom turns out to be Solange Knowles) are getting more and more excited. But they are also hungry. Hungry for P-Thugg and Dave 1! They are crazy zombie pregnant ladies! They give chase.
As a result of this chase, P-Thugg is “changed.” He is wearing ugly yellow clothes now. I think this means he is a dad? Is this what dads wear in Canada? He says Dave 1 is changed too but Dave doesn’t buy it. More chasing. Now the crazy prego zombies are upon him! And he, himself, is pregnant! The tables have turned!
But wait, it was all a dream. Dave 1 is not pregnant. But he should really go see this girl he knows. Oops, she doesn’t want to let him in. Then she does. And look, it turns out she has a baby. I guess it is his baby. He is cradling it, because his dream has changed him and he is not going to be neglectful anymore. They are a family. C’est fini!
Despite its incredibly bizarre mixture of tones and styles, upon a second viewing I have decided that this video is kind of great. It’s both a knowing mashup of different cinematic clichés (the sudden, Alien-style pregnancy; the zombie chase; the deadbeat dad made good) and a commentary — albeit not a particularly subtle one — on men’s anxieties about growing up and becoming parents. Yes, the ending is sort of schmaltzy and tacked-on, but I think Chromeo is actually taking the idea of the sexy lady who is oh-so-turned-on by your music and doing something new and different — and maybe even a little bit feminist. I think those pregnant zombies are supposed to represent not actual women but a dude’s fears about women — fears he has to overcome. I don’t think I’m giving the band too much credit here — Dave appears to know his way around subtext. He’s a graduate student in French literature at Columbia, where his dissertation is tentatively titled “Theorizing the Pleasure of Reading in Eighteenth Century France.” Perhaps someone should theorize the pleasure of watching a totally fucking weird zombie-pregnant-lady video, because against all odds, I think I did enjoy it.
