Quick - name two of your favorite things that are much better when done painfully awkwardly. If you are like me, you probably answered "balloons dropping" and "zooming in on someone". To me, there's nothing more fun than a bunch of balloons being dropped on someone who doesn't really notice or care. Close second is the zoom in thing.
I guess it'd be pretty nice if a music video had both of those things. Pretty nice. Well, it's our lucky day, because today we're watching the 2007 video for "Back In Your Head" by Tegan and Sara, directed by Jamie Travis.
This video is part of a general obsession music videos have had with awkward stage performances since the mid 2000s. From people getting booed off stage to awkward children's plays, music videos really enjoy exploring this theme and all its variations. Tegan and Sara's take on it is a painfully brightly lit performance on a gymnasium stage, flanked by two sculptures. Oh, it's awkward. Very awkward. Just like we like it.
The twist here is that the brightly lit audience are all dressed in white and wearing white ski masks. I've heard them referred to a ninjas in several places, but I don't really see it. These people seem a little too dumpy to be ninjas, just sitting there blankly watching the performance. I feel like ninjas would look a little more alert.
You know who does look like a ninja, though? The one guy who appears in the audience in black, who has a menacing look that seems to disturb Tegan and Sara by just being there. This is the only clue to a storyline I can find, as most of the video seems to be more for aesthetic effect than a narrative - there are several sequences of the audience changing colors in time with the music and other visuals, and even things like Tegan and Sara running away have no clear cause and effect - they are just for fun.
This video is really all about how deadpan Tegan and Sara can get while performing, and they hit it out of the park in that department. The weary, serious glances these two give each other during their gymnasium performance are pretty great, and I think Tegan and Sara are at their best when they get to inject a little comedy into things.
And, about that balloon drop in the video. It was good, but if I had my way it would've been like half the video and look like this:
