Girl power or porn?
Issue #34
Queens of the Stone Age video appeals to the feminist mind and the male libido
By Amber Drea
Published: December 1st, 2007 | 1:11pm
Cat fighting, pole dancing, prisoner whipping, lollipop sucking, and knife licking — these are just a few of the images that bombard the viewer in Queens of the Stone Age’s video for their song “3’s and 7’s.” It’s a campy trailer for a fake movie about “Four hell kittens on the run,” shot in the lo-fi style of ’70s sexploitation flicks, complete with faded colors and degraded film effects. The ladies, wearing studded leather, short shorts, and tight tank tops, wreak havoc in a desert town, kicking the asses of long-haired bikers and a hook-handed dude called “The Colonel.” Did I mention bare, blood-drenched breasts?
While that seems like nothing but gratuitous sex and violence, one could also see the video as a tribute to women taking control. “I think good art just elicits a reaction of one sort or another,” says frontman Josh Homme, who credits director Paul Minor with the idea and look of the video. “There’s probably a fair amount that would believe it’s empowering, and others that would be like, ‘How dare you?’ ... I think it’s really up to everyone else. I just love to push buttons. If people didn’t show their buttons all the time, I wouldn’t have anything to do.”
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