SELENA GOMEZ’s SHORT FILMS
Selfish Love, Bad Liar, Come & Get It +
There are many Selena Gomez videos like “Come and Get It” and “Dance Again” in which she brings a straightforward-“let’s just dance”-sexy-fierceness.
However, in her best videos, she portrays one of two personas. The first character, let’s call her Saint Selena, lives in a world of sacred imagery or iconography, which lends gravity to her lyrics and performance. The other character, Selena the Siren, sings hearts to break.
While Saint Selena seeks closure and healing, Selena the Siren is a total man-eater.
Take two of the videos starring St. Selena: “Lose You to Love Me” from Rare (2019) and “De Una Vez” from the EP Revelación (2021). In “Lose You…” St. Selena sits in a latticed and veiled confessional booth singing about strength after heartbreak. The religious iconography continues in “De Una Vez.” The video begins inside a bright, red-hued space where crystals are rapidly forming. The viewer is pulled backward out of this space through a crack in the exterior of a heart, which she wears on the outside and is nearly identical to the Sacred Heart of Christ and the Immaculate Heart of Mary depicted in religious art. St. Selena, herself, looks like a goddess. She is wearing the floral dress that Kendall Jenner tried to use to throw “who wore it best” shade at her. She dances from room to room of a modest home, performing small signs and wonders; these range from turning on lamps with a wave to tearing off the roof by conjuring a tornado. Eventually, the heart folds in on itself, sealing it from the world as she sings, “ahora este pecho es antibalas” (But now this chest is bulletproof). At the end of the video the words baila conmigo (Come Dance With Me) appear. You can if you want, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Now, let’s look at two of Selena the Siren appearances in “Boyfriend” (2017) and “Selfish Love” (2021). In the first, she “wants a boyfriend,” but all her dates are definitely not love connections. So, she turns them into frogs. Ice-cold, right? In the second video, she doesn’t hunt; no, the men come to her. They (each alone) walk into her beauty parlor, ask for haircuts, are primped and pampered, and disappeared. It’s the Hotel California of salons.
BONUS
Selena Gomez Music Video Drinking Game: every time you see a mirror take a drink.
