There’s no irony to the fact that Olivia Rodrigo has decided to craft the majority of her latest video in the very distinct style of what was done in 1996’s “Ironic” (with the song itself unleashed in 1995 via Jagged Little Pill). After all, this is the girl who oughta (and does) know that a song like “good 4 u” owes just as much debt to Alanis Morissette as any of the other people she gives official credit to on said track (e.g., Hayley Williams). This likely being why one of the “Musicians on Musicians” cover stories for Rolling Stone back in 2021 had Alanis and Olivia paired together for an interview/filmed conversation that explored, among other topics, how their musical styles align (perhaps to Morissette’s chagrin). But now, thanks to Rodrigo’s overzealous love of “homage” (which is often a symptom of capitalism creating the conditions in which nothing can ever be new), their visual styles have aligned as well.
At the outset of “get him back!,” however, we don’t immediately see the overt line drawn from the “Ironic” video to this one. Instead, Rodrigo (swapping out her usual music video director, Petra Collins, in favor of Jack Begert) starts things off with the image of a blurred-out male figure. Who could just as easily be the same “non-person” viewers were presented with at the end of “bad idea right?” Whether or not this is Rodrigo’s bid to let girls “fill in the blank” literally as they channel their rage toward whatever fuckboy has disappointed them most recently is left up to the viewer. What isn’t, on the other hand, is how obviously Rodrigo wants to re-create the “Ironic” video after a few scenes of deliberating in her apartment (with various other Rodrigos marching in and out of the space). Spinning around in circles, so to speak, over how, exactly, one would go about the task described by the song title. And if what one actually means by “get him back” is to seek revenge or try to make up and reinstate the fuckboy in her life. For the most part, Rodrigo leans toward the former (though her moments of weakness in wanting the guy back are apparent on tracks like the aforementioned “bad idea right?”).
Which is why she (after emulating the same “rotating set” effect of that 1994 CK One commercial meets the Smashing Pumpkins’ “Ava Adore” video [side note: Rodrigo already borrowed from “1979” for “traitor”]) ends up leaving the abode to go on a telekinetic car window-bashing bender. Barring the shattered glass everywhere, it becomes a scene similar to the car-filled abyss that appears at the end of the video for “brutal.” After all, Rodrigo is the only other singer at this moment in time who can give Charli XCX a run for her money on being a little bit car crazy in her lyrics and aesthetics (call it a symptom of being from California). Initially, she takes to the street (conveniently filled with plenty of randomly parked vehicles in the middle of it) on her own, but the viewer soon sees that she’s joined by three other Olivias. Much the same way that Alanis is joined by three other Alanises before she gets into her 1978 Lincoln Continental Mark V in “Ironic.” Of course, we don’t immediately see that Morissette has three other “friends” (alter egos, pieces of her personality, visual manifestations of her DID, or mere hallucinatory visions—however you want to describe it).
Instead, director Stéphane Sednaoui (known for videos with the kind of versatility that appealed to Garbage, Björk and Madonna in the 90s) takes his time about unveiling each of the three “fellow” Alanises in the car. Who are pointedly set apart by their costuming (unlike the various Rodrigos in “get him back!,” who are all wearing a white crop top and ruffled-hem mini skirt). Starting with Green Sweater Alanis, who makes her appearance around the forty-second mark of the video, when Red Beanie Alanis (call her “the real” Alanis) adjusts her rearview mirror as she asks, “Isn’t it ironic? Dontcha think?” Green Sweater Alanis is quick to agree by belting out, “It’s like rain on your wedding day/It’s a free ride when you’ve already paid/It’s the good advice that ya just can’t take/And who would’ve thought: it figures?”
Green Sweater Alanis is then upstaged by Yellow Sweater/Braided Hair Alanis, who recounts, “Mr. Play-It-Safe was afraid to fly/He packed his suitcase and kissed his kids goodbye/He waited his whole damn life to take that flight/And as the plane crashed down/He thought, ‘Well, isn’t this nice?’” Sednaoui then cuts to the final Alanis, Red Sweater Alanis, in the front seat, who, just as the others, happens to be fidgeting about like an impetuous child. Even though, years after the video came out, Morissette would differentiate Green Sweater Alanis as “fun and frolic-y,” the Yellow Sweater Alanis as the “quirkster” and the Red Sweater Alanis as “the romantic—wistful and thoughtful and also the risk-taker” (hence, sticking half her body out of the car window [revealing that she’s also wearing pajama pants]).
The editing techniques used to convey that all four iterations of Alanis are interacting with one another (in addition to the viewers themselves as they stare earnestly into the camera) were far more effective than any of the special effects seen in “get him back!” This includes the constantly blurred-out boy in question that Rodrigo wants to, that’s right, get back (in more ways than one). He shows up again as the glass to all the car windows surrounding them shatters, with Begert transitioning to the next scene through one of those broken windows that leads us inside a car that now has three Olivias in it with the blurred-out boy as the driver of a car featuring a license plate that reads: GUTSY (a nod, naturally, to her sophomore album title).
But, in truth, there’s nothing “gutsy” whatsoever about this video—from being a rip-off of Alanis’ most iconic visual to the fact that no aspect of “revenge” is displayed in any way (maybe because SZA already freshly “paid homage” to Kill Bill, so that was out for Rodrigo). Unless you count 1) property damage to other people’s cars (how Beyoncé in “Hold Up”) or 2) sitting in a room full of purple (she clearly loves the color as much as Prince did) petals while plucking off one petal at a time from a single rose à la “he loves me, he loves me not” as somehow tantamount to claiming vengeance. Then again, maybe imitating Alanis is some mastermind (no Taylor reference intended) form of retribution. Because who will ever write a song as vicious as “You Oughta Know” for someone as unworthy of its passion as Dave Coulier? So maybe Rodrigo figures just trying to be (visually) like Alanis during her Jagged Little Pill era is the closest to “great revenge” she’ll ever get.
That said, at the two-minute, thirty-three-second mark, we see all four Olivias in the car (with one of them now replacing the blurred-out boy who formerly sat in the driver’s seat [call it something like symbolism]) to really, ugh, drive home the point that this has become “Ironic” to a tee. Except without Rodrigo bothering to give us any costume changes for the sake of differentiating the Olivias. Perhaps because there is no distinction between any of her “facets”; all of them are mere amalgamations of the women who have come before. Including, needless to say, Morissette.
Genna Rivieccio
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