In honor of Fancy That’s long-awaited release, PinkPantheress dropped another video (following “Tonight” and “Stateside”) for one of the songs off the mixtape. This time, she opted to take her listeners into a visual world of psychedelic paranoia via “Illegal.” Directed by Ethan & Tom, the video begins with The Boyfriend (played by Sekou Diaby) offering “Pink” (as she refers to herself in the song) a heart-shaped box of “sweet treats.” Or rather, mind-altering delights of the edible variety. Looking hesitant upon being presented with the box, this is the moment PinkPantheress asks him the lyric, “Is this illegal?”
Of course, in the UK, drugs as innocuous as marijuana are still treated with far too much legal severity. Which is why, in response, The Boyfriend replies, “It feels illegal” as he shrugs and tosses one in his mouth anyway, an animated flourish of stars surrounding his mouth as he pops the “bite” into his gullet. PinkPantheress, meanwhile, walks ahead of him, “just saying no” to drugs (even though she clearly didn’t when it came to making this song, and quite a few others on Fancy That that were inspired by her mental state after “blazing up”). A maneuver that tracks considering she’s billed this as her “weed diss track.” And yet, for someone who has such issues with/aversions to it, she makes herself right at home in the universe of psychedelics, starting with the instant everything goes “full-stop tartan” (Fancy That is, after all, an homage to all things British culture [even if the Scots usually have the monopoly over that particular fashion statement]—which, to some, is an oxymoron…but certainly not when it comes to music). The tartan pattern and silhouetted image of PinkPantheress burst onto the screen after she announces, “We’re gettin’ high around the corner.”
In truth, the only one getting high is The Boyfriend, apparently warranting the kind of derision from PinkPantheress that Claire Standish (Molly Ringwald) delivers in The Breakfast Club when she says, “Only burners like you get high.” But, for PinkPantheress, “derision” isn’t really the word, so much as “evasive.” For, while she doesn’t want to join in on The Boyfriend’s “fun,” she still wants to observe him. Not judgmentally, per se, but almost to see what his side effects are like so she can decide for sure if it’s something she really wants to risk for herself. Considering The Boyfriend ends up having tartan-drenched visions, he’s not doing the best job of selling others on the joys of getting high. Nor did Jane F. (Anna Faris) in Gregg Araki’s still too underrated stoner comedy, Smiley Face.
In fact, like Jane F., The Boyfriend makes getting high look like a choice that can lead to nothing but nightmarish visions (on a related note: Smiley Face is not without its own memorable animation sequence). Unless, of course, one is unbothered by the sight of an animated scene of PinkPantheress running frantically through various settings (in a manner that harkens back to a certain animated scenario in Run Lola Run) in such a way as to induce anxiety rather than calm. This further compounded by the frenetic backing rhythm of PinkPantheress’ sample for this particular track: the Dark Train remix of “Dark & Long” by Underworld.
And, even though PinkPantheress is doing her best to be a “soothing presence” for The Boyfriend by allowing him to rest his head on her stomach as he waits out his high in her bedroom, it isn’t enough to quell the various “visions” that he’s having. At one point, this includes the tartan pattern forming an animated portal leading to a black hole that PinkPantheress is running toward. Interspersed images of an EKG and a pumping heart add to the general sentiment that The Boyfriend is filled with a level of anxiety and paranoia he can’t quite control. That PinkPantheress starts to pant during this portion like she’s Britney Spears on “I’m a Slave 4 U” enhances the listener’s own feeling of slight unease.
As The Boyfriend tries to “touch” the black hole, he rips through into another tartan pattern, the viewer then seeing a bevy of PinkPantheresses slide across the screen (in such a way that’s similar to the multiple MARINAs shown in the “Butterfly” video). Twitching on the bed whilst he has these hallucinations, The Boyfriend, while still inside his head, turns into an animated version of himself that falls off a high-rise building (Mad Men intro-style) and then, at last, lands back down to Earth. Right onto a railing he’s now sitting on next to PinkPantheress. For the two are no longer in her bedroom, but perched on this railing in front of a building near the same street where The Boyfriend first popped the edible into his mouth.
It was a long way to fall, but, ultimately, The Boyfriend seems unscathed by his psychedelic journey (with PinkPantheress giving a little smile to herself about his ridiculousness). Jane F., alas, could not say the same in Smiley Face.
