Photo Credit by: Sharon Alagna
American feminist band The Julie Ruin have just released their newest music video to the public. “Mr. So and So” is one of the hit tracks off their most recent studio album Hit Reset, which is currently number one on the CMJ charts, is the newest video to come out of the group’s workshop.
Directed by The Julie Run lead singer Kathleen Hanna, the video is an odd compilation of scenes featuring each female member of the group in various states of stuckness in the world, while the male members are living a more forward moving reality.
The video opens up with the female problem with being stuck, with the female group members constantly walking in circles through a revolving door, later on walking into a subway turnstile over and over again, leading into the chorus of the track where we see male drummer Carmine Covelli pouring champagne on himself, seemingly talking business on his phone with a cigar in his mouth, and fanning himself with $20 bills. As the track goes into the next verse we are shown the Keybordist of the group, Kenny Mellman, appearing in a scene with a strange faceless puppet on what seems like a date, returning to the drummer in his yellow shirt and black bow tie living it up.
The video tokenizes the themes that are discussed throughout the song and album, as Hanna stated to Paper Mag during their interview “When you’re in a band there’s always a Groundhog’s Day element… you meet the same ‘guy.’ There’s always the guy who knows more about sexism than you do. Or the guy who wants to tell you ‘my girlfriend is really into your band,’ but says nothing about how he actually feels about your music.” Going on to say that there is always that male fan or concert promoter on tour who is always looking to make himself known, but curiously seems disinterested in the band’s actual work, trying to make their actions speak louder than words.
The group intends on hitting the road again on a crazy run up and down the East Coast, performing their new work and entertaining all their fans, men and female alike.