As arguably her most iconic (and substance-laden) role, Megan Fox was perhaps drawn to the prospect of starring in Machine Gun Kelly’s latest video, “Bloody Valentine,” not just because he’s rumored to be her rebound (playing into the stereotype about her as a sex-crazed succubus–which is part of the reason why she was so well-cast for Jennifer Check) from Brian Austin Green, but because the part has some decidedly Jennifer’s Body qualities. Not to mention the fact that the entire narrative and aesthetic for the video feels like a throwback to a time in the 00s when Blink-182 was still relevant (appropriately, Machine Gun Kelly is not without his Travis Barker connection).
Bringing the pop-punk spirit back at a time when things really didn’t need to get any darker (and in ironic opposition to his “idol” being DMX) MGK banks perhaps entirely on Megan Fox distracting from the song itself as the video, directed by Michael Garcia, opens with the lighting of candles in the shape of hands (one making the gesture of the devil’s horns and the other flipping the bird–so punk!) and a wary MGK looking over at his domineering (or is she simply acting how men do?) girlfriend, who immediately muzzles him by putting some duct tape atop his mouth and taking over lip syncing the words to the song, consisting of such gems as, “I don’t do fake love/But I’ll take some from you tonight” and “The simulation just went bad/But you’re the best I ever had.” Fox, if adhering to her narcissistic Jennifer persona, would surely agree with him telling her she’s the best he’s ever had, even if most of the experience has been akin to torture.
In the tradition of the 00s favoring music videos by overly dramatic, often whiny men starring actresses of the moment (see: Justin Timberlake’s “What Goes Around Comes Around” starring Scarlett Johansson and Enrique Iglesias’ “Hero” starring Jennifer Love-Hewitt), Fox herself partook of it already as well in the 2010 video for Rihanna and Eminem’s (another MGK foil) “Love The Way You Lie.” Also opening with a scene that features her in bed with her boyfriend–though one who doesn’t make her fell nearly as “breezy”–she proceeds to spit in his face and enter a scuffle with him after finding the name of a woman and her phone number written on his hand from the night before when he was presumably flirting at the bar. Intercutting between the violence and the carnal sexual release both of them get from “making up” after a fight, the vicious cycle continues until the two characters themselves go up in flames.
Indeed, a burning house (conjuring the image of Little Fires Everywhere) and reflections in a broken mirror are just some of the overwrought tropes the vestiges of the 00s saw fit to showcase in videos such as this. In MGK’s unwitting homage to that era, things get escalatingly zany and macabre as the song progresses. Mocking him at the dinner table as he is now tied to a chair with the pink duct tape still stuck to his mouth, Jennifer Redux faux cries, “I’m overstimulated and sad” before approaching him in his seat and force feeding him a donut (for dinner though? How Twin Peaks). She then puts the duct tape back on and kisses him (not unlike the scene in Charlie’s Angels where Sam Rockwell does the same to Drew Barrymore, for further 00s comparison).
Although she seems to briefly warm to the idea of letting him speak his own words again, things take a turn for the worse when she finds herself sitting next to him while he’s in the bathtub. The fancy suddenly striking her to toss a pink blow dryer (the pink tone once again being a sardonic play on “femme-ness”) into the rose petal-filled water. Bolts of pink-hued electrocution offer MGK a slow, painful death, not unlike the one Jennifer gives to her own male victims throughout Jennifer’s Body. In point of fact, the sound of MGK’s music isn’t entirely unlike the band Low Shoulder (whose lead singer was played by the 00s “prom king” of actors, Adam Brody, though the original top choices were Pete Wentz or Joel Madden–perhaps too real for anyone’s deal to handle). Also known as: the band that tried to offer up Jennifer as a virgin sacrifice, foolishly believing her when she intimated she was “pure” (a similar Satanic sacrifice gone awry also occurs in the 2019 movie, Extra Ordinary).
Maybe, in part, that’s the accord Jennifer 2.0 wants to strike here with her handling of MGK (far from virginal as well), patently useless to her as a romantic prospect. Whatever her motives, “Bloody Valentine” in video form is most assuredly the anthem of Jennifer Check, and something of a wormhole back to the simpler times of the 00s.
