I usually don’t watch music videos anymore, but I felt compelled to watch Ariana Grande’s new music video for Thank U, Next after seeing gifs from the music video on my Twitter timeline.
Last week, I saw a clip-on Twitter posted by Miss Grande herself that parodied the movie Mean Girls, and I was surprised to see a few of the original cast members make an appearance in that short clip.
I will admit the clip had me excited to see how this music video would play out, but I was not expecting the music video to go through with the Mean Girls theme, since artists usually stray away from content shown in teaser trailers for their music videos.
But then again, I was not expecting this music video to pay homage to other early 2000’s chick flick movies such as Bring It On, 13 Going on 30, and Legally Blonde.
Which made me happy considering I am a cinephile (a person who loves cinema) and enjoyed the films displayed in the music video. In particular, Mean Girls and 13 Going on 30, which are one of my two all-time favorite movies.
I was also not expecting to see cameo appearances such as fellow Victorious castmate, Elizabeth Gilles, who played one of the Plastics, Jennifer Coolidge, who reprised her role as Paulette Bonafonte’ from Legally Blonde, and Kris Jenner, who played Regina George’s mom. I thought these were nice touches to an already unique video.
Moving away from the movie references, I wanted to discuss the infamous Burn Book from the beginning of the video. For those of you who have not seen Mean Girls, the Burn Book is a book made by the Plastics which disses the people they hate.
In this music video, however, Grande uses it to throw a little shade at a few of her exes. Mainly, Big Sean, Pete Davidson, and Nick Alvarez. Although, she still shows them a little love and even has pictures of each of her ex-boyfriends with her in their happiest moments.
For Mac Miller, who passed away back in September from an accidental overdose, Grande can be seen on her bed looking to Heaven. I didn’t even get this reference until recently when I looked up the easter eggs for the video. But I thought this was sweet of Grande to do for Miller.
All in all, I thought the music video was entertaining and worth the hype it’s been recieving. If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend that you do. If you are into early 2000’s chick flicks such as myself, you’ll love and appreciate this video. Even if you don’t, you might still get a laugh out of it.