Remember the song “Fetish” by Selena Gomez? The music video was published on 26th of July, last year. When I watched the video for the first time I had absolutely no idea what I was looking at. It seemed to be the most bizarre music video of Selena. I understood the lyrics and could not relate it to the video.
In the beginning, she is seen to walk on a road with bag of groceries in both of her hands. As soon as she reaches home, she throws the bags away and starts doing weird stuffs including wrapping her tongue in a string, eating soap, painting her teeth with a lipstick ( I don’t know what exactly that was), snapping her tongue with a eye liner extension. She becomes a self-destructive person. But why is she doing all this? Is she crazy?
For the first time I thought that it was one of those videos carrying no meaning at all. At some point I suggested my friend Honey to watch the video. She doesn’t listen to English songs and I wanted to have a random point of view regarding the content.
“I think the girl is going through some post break up trauma. She has gone bad and started doing crazy stuffs”, she told me.
“What about this? You watch the video once again and come back to me some days later?” I asked her as I wasn’t satisfied with her answer.
“Cool! I can do that.” Honey assured.
The next time she explained, “… this girl is alone. She’s turned on right now and there’s no one to fulfil her quest. Maybe because of that? I don’t know what they are trying to tell… ”
None of the explanations was something that I could agree with. But it’s good to know how differently people interpret a situation. This is my final thought about the song. The girl in the video is talking to her lover. They have a kind of on and off relationship ( You got a fetish for my love. I push you out, you come right back). The girl can’t get over the unhealthy relationship and she sympathizes with her lover too ( Don’t see a point in blaming you. If I were you, I’d do me too). Eating inedible things out of addiction is same as being in a toxic relationship, it’s not good yet it feels right. The rain inside the house/water leakage signifies how dysfunctional her life has become and she is drowned in her own tears.
