Because Charli XCX is a “90s girl” at heart (hear: “1999”), it’s to be expected that she would come up with a concept as “retro” as being someone who shills mattresses at a brick-and-mortar store touting enticements like, “Hot Beds, Hot Deals.” Because, you know, the store is called Hot Beds.
Rolling up to the job in her 4xe Jeep in a very “…Baby One More Time” ensemble, Charli is sure to further play up the model of the car by rubbing her hand across the “4xe”—certainly not something that could be afforded on her mattress worker’s salary, but then, pop stars have never been ones for “realism.” Pop, after all, is meant to be “aspirational” escapism. And Charli is only too happy to deliver on that concept, even through a “commoner’s” channel like the mattress store.
Charli is sure to amplify the devilish angle of the song’s hell-oriented motif with a sign outside the shop that also reads, “Cal King 8 Inch Gel Memory Set 666.66.” An ad that Charli traipses past as she walks in and tosses her bag aside in a manner that one would except to cause a zany sound effect. The overstaffed location quickly reveals that the rest of the employees are just as blasé about the job as Charli. And why shouldn’t they be? Management is lucky that anyone shows up at all anymore.
While the others fumble with sheet packages, Charli seems to be the ringleader of all the fun as she summons them into a choreographed dance (per the direction of Nathan Kim, a Ryan Heffington protégé) that makes better use of the mattresses than simply trying to “sell” them. Capitalism is so fucking played at this point, after all (even if “sex sells” is part and parcel of capitalistic tenets). Except not to the couple who walks in to find all manner of debauchery going on despite thinking they were going to come in for some staid browsing. Or rather, a garden-variety pickup.
While the “wife” in the permutation appears vexed by Charli and co. carrying on with their lascivious mattress dancing (think: Madonna during her controversy-causing performance of “Like A Virgin” during the Blond Ambition Tour), the “husband” appears more than slightly titillated. Typical. His wife then irritatedly nudges him to remind what they’re actually there for: to pick up a mattress. So it is that he hands Charli his ticket and, all at once, director Hannah Lux Davis (who also recently collaborated with XCX on “Good Ones”) cuts us to the “riding in the back of the truck” segment of the video.
This, naturally, prompts a costume change from Charli only, as she now appears in a red bra and skirt while her co-workers are stuck wearing the same uniform. The crew then dumps the mattress out in front of the couple’s trailer park home as they proceed to continue dancing—this time with everyone getting the “glow-up” benefit of a costume change (Charli’s new “see-through” shirt reading, “Hungry Hole”—because, lest one forget, she is a gay icon). From there, Kim’s choreo takes the helm again, with the background denizens feeling aroused by the general hotness of these mattress store employees. Of course, Charli seems to be trolling the overall heat of the planet, too, as she waves her hand back and forth to cool herself and showcases an “XCX-brand” fan at the mattress store. So, in addition to being a braggadocious anthem, it also doubles as a climate change anthem.
Granted, what does being “hot in it” have to do with mattresses? Who really knows? But Charli makes it work somehow in spite of the song being better-suited to a video concept that reworks what Cher Horowitz was doing when she picked out her outfit at the beginning of Clueless (familiar territory for Charli after co-starring in the video for Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy”). And yes, with hotties like Charli selling mattresses, surely more people would want to replace theirs sooner than the average seven years rule. Then again, that would only further contribute to climate change issues that are already making all of us “hot in it.” “It” being Earth.
