Rejoice, earthlings! Feast your eyes on the new music video for “Break Free,” brought to you by Ariana Grande, Zedd, and Molly.
“Break Free” begins with a classic Star Wars opening crawl, because Star Wars is a famous nerd movie from a really long time ago that Ariana Grande’s manager told her about. Because cogent backstory is for losers and old people, this opening sequence favors nonsensical nothing statements: “What you are about to witness is scientifically authentic.” False. “It is just one step ahead of present day reality.” What? “And two steps ahead of present day sexiness.” Gross. “Prepare yourself to attempt to conceive an inconceivable outer space adventure.” Seems like you’re asking a lot here. “Brace yourself for something so fantastically fantastical you’ll soil yourself from intergalactic excitement.” Ew?
This sets the stage for a video that, while completely lacking in “narrative” and “human reason,” has like 10 galaxies worth of SEXINESS. Also tons of Beats by Dr. Dre paraphernalia. This video is blatantly sponsored by Beats by Dr. Dre.
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We open on our heroic warrior queen Ariana Grande, who looks sort of like a real-life Bratz doll in some futuristic lingerie and a great pair of white go-go boots. Grande is rocking some fancy white stick-on tattoos from Claire’s latest haute couture collection (not a real thing) and the highest ponytail, like, ever! Now cut to a shot of a bunch of sad space citizens trapped in cages. To be clear, these are sad cages, not sexy cages.
Ariana Grande, leader of men and breaker of chains, makes quick work of the sad cages and frees her friends. But Grande can’t even enjoy the ensuing dance party; she’s quickly surrounded by some evil-looking, heavily armed aliens. Meanwhile there are a bunch of interspersed shots of Grande walking down a white hall while singing and aggressively playing with her own hair, diva-style.
But back to the aliens! The most fantastical element of this whole sci-fi adventure is the notion that Ariana Grande’s tiny twig arms could actually hold up any sort of metal object, let alone a space gun. Nevertheless, Grande manages to shoot her foes to smithereens. Lucky for us, this leaves her with some free time to do cool, fun things like slowly strip while floating in an anti-gravity chamber. If you liked Ariana’s white corset ensemble (aka “daywear”), you’ll love her metallic bra and space diaper. At this point, we also get to see Grande shoot a big transformer-type fellow with rockets that blast out of her breasts.
(The fact that I’m still shocked whenever a female artist shoots something out of her boobs in a music video makes me feel old. Guess it’s time to leave pop music to sexy babies like Ariana Grande and her big metal space diaper.)
But not so fast! With his dying breath, transformer man shoots a rocket that transports Grande into an underground fire pit (to be honest, I’m a little hazy on the details here). Ariana is now being held hostage by an old guy with weird white facial hair. This part is really scary, you guys! Of course, Ariana manages to break free (get it?) of her captor and push him into an even deeper fire pit. Now we’re really getting into the anti-gravity chamber singing interludes, and they are amazing. The absolute best part of this music video is when Ariana Grande takes a break from belting and touching herself to apply space lip gloss from a glowing pink tube. The putting-on-lip gloss shot almost never makes sense, but it always, always, works.
Now that Grande’s finally free, she can get back to her day job: hosting gay-friendly, open-minded intergalactic dance parties (sponsored by Beats, of course). Grande and her space pals spend the rest of the video jamming out as the beat drops. There are leather jogging pants, tin foil dresses, and even a weird little space creature that hangs out by the Beats by Dr. Dre speaker system. There’s also two guys kissing, which finally answers the eternal question of just how cool is Ariana Grande?
Apparently she’s cool enough to casually feature gay action in a mainstream music video, but not cool enough to resist super blatant and obnoxious product placement. While “Break Free” is definitely bat shit insane, I’m just going to pretend it's Ariana Grande's sincere attempt to encourage young girls to pursue careers in science and technology. Keep doing you, Grande.
