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Following the success of Zara Larsson’s eponymous second single (with its 00s/Madonna in the “Love Profusion” video aesthetics) from Midnight Sun, she’s continuing to drum up interest in her fifth album with “Crush” (not to be confused with Jennifer Paige’s 1998 bop of the same name). Hence, her third video thus far from the seemingly Lisa Frank-inspired world of Midnight Sun. Directed by Grant James Thomas, there is, at certain key moments, a kind of Alice in Wonderland quality to the visuals in terms of the surrealism applied—not to mention that Larsson, by the end, becomes, let’s say, “too oversized” for the house she’s in. Though it’s one part of her in particular that bears the brunt of…enlargement (courtesy of someone named Mathis Laurenceau, in charge of the “butt prothesis” department, so to speak, for Larsson).
Before that enlargement happens, however, the spidery stage of the video is set with an opening that features a tropical backdrop that’s more than slightly marred by a pink spiderweb. One that, when the camera zooms out, reveals the spelling of the word “CRUSH.” Almost as if Charlotte of Charlotte’s Web herself had been there. The video then cuts to Larsson also set against a “tropical backdrop” that’s really just a poster as she runs on her treadmill contraption. Thomas then showcases Larsson doing a headstand and some other assorted yoga poses before she’s shown generally checking herself out in the mirror (and why not after all the hard work she’s just put into her body?).
Having already described the essence of a crush in the opening verse, “Talkin’ to you/Gives me butterflies/Wanna text you all the time/I can’t help that I feel like this/Talkin’ to you/Stayin’ up all night/Yeah, he knows somethin’ ain’t right/But it’s innocent ‘til we kiss,” Larsson soon experiences the kind of physical pain to mirror that emotional one when, out of nowhere (though it could also be seen scurrying near her feet in a previous scene), a spider descends from the ceiling and scares the living shit out of her. And, right as she jumps so far back in horror that she lands in her bathtub (conveniently filled with water to break her fall), the chorus bursts out, “Oh, baby, I’m crushed/It will never be us/That’s why they call it a crush/It will never be love.” Yes, Larsson hits the nail on the head with why a crush is named as such. Indeed, maybe not since Jim Baker (Paul Dooley) in Sixteen Candles said, “That’s why they call them crushes. If they were easy, they’d call ‘em something else” has someone put it so aptly.
Stumbling from the bathroom all wet, Larsson makes her way into the living area as she keeps slipping on the floor, deciding to just run with the slippage and turn it into choreo. Then, as if by magic, she’s suddenly dry—and in a new outfit. Specifically, one that features pink yoga pants with the words “Bite Me” (a Reneé Rapp-approved sentiment) on the back. Which is exactly what this indefatigable spider does as it crawls along her bum and gives it a huge “love” bite (complete with heart eyes being “activated” right after doing so).
The Barbie-ish (-meets-creepy anime doll) version of Larsson that’s occasionally been interspersed amid these scenes is then shown with her ass getting blown up from the bite as she’s suspended in midair to showcase that newly inflated “feature” as a heart shape (though, in truth, all the best asses already have that shape). Thomas then cuts back to the real-girl Larsson, her own big butt flare-up slowing her down as she frantically tries to chase the spider with a golf club, breaking and shattering just about everything in her apartment.
Then, at one point, the “extra weight” on her body is apparently so much that she spontaneously breaks the floor beneath her while standing in heels, with half her body now suspended above her neighbors’ apartment and the other half stuck in her own. Even though, logistically, this doesn’t make much sense since, at the end of the video, the domicile is shown as a right proper house, not an apartment building. But it’s not as though there’s anything “logical” about this entire video premise to begin with.
Instead, there’s plenty of “poeticness,” with the spider being wielded as a metaphor. This pesky, uncontrollable thing that Larsson just can’t seem to contain or kill. Something that a woman already in a relationship especially wants to do. And this is the perspective Larsson is coming from, singing such verses as, “What’s the need for destruction?/This might get ugly, you will ruin my life/Tell me, why do I crave your attention?/I got someone at home who treats me right/It’s only just a—/Crush.”
Prior to that, she also alluded to playing a “dangerous game” by even slightly entertaining this crush by saying, “In the gray zone of morality/Feelin’ dangerous when you’re callin’ me/Somethin’ ‘bout the secrecy of us.” That secrecy being part of what adds to the fuel that’s flaming the passion behind the crush. For part of what makes a crush feel so “ardor-laden” is that, more often than not, it can’t ever be realized.
So it is that Larsson finally does manage to “contain it”—that is, the spider. Using a glass topper to quell its dangerousness, the spider miraculously defies all laws of nature by then turning into a butterfly that Larsson soon after unleashes back into the proverbial wild (Larsson, by the way, is very into butterflies for this era).
In a scene that serves as the “tag” of the video, an exterior shot of the house that Larsson pretty much destroyed while trying to catch and/or kill the spider (a.k.a. crush) shows the pink graffiti on its façade that reads, “Got the spider!” And then, as Larsson quickly says “crush” one more time, a pair of giant, pink, shimmering stiletto heels comes along to decimate the house entirely. One presumes they belong to the Alice in Wonderland-ified Larsson, now too big to fit inside the house, and too big to deal with small (bullshit) crushes anymore either.
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Genna Rivieccio
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