| Deconstructing JASON DERULO's 'What If'. |
| Written by Brendon Green |
| Monday, 04 October 2010 10:53 |
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JASON DERULO is more than just a pretty face hovering above an occasionally spiky leather jacket. Apparently the guy not only has super powers, but also a tormented view of love and life. Derulo is the tragic hero mainstream music has been asking for, although it probably didn’t realise it was doing so. The clip for 'What If' - which I can only assume was devised and directed by Derulo himself, because he is just that talented - is a surprisingly cynical fairytale posing as a sub-standard R&B music video. (It’s also a PSA on why Texting and Driving is dangerous, even for middle-aged white guys). It opens with Jason Derulo and his unclothed massively muscular arms helping his impossibly adorable girlfriend (whose head is around about the size of his biceps) move apartments. We can only assume they are going to move in together, because as she asserts her 21st century feminist right to participate in heavy lifting, Jason is left alone in the room checking out the ring he is about to give her to ensure they have a life of uninhibited bliss together forever. (But does he really need to flex so much to get that little ring box open? Really?). This is LOVE, and the music hasn’t even started yet. 
But uh-oh! There’s a car screeching outside, and that’s where Jason’s girl is. This can’t be good. It’s time for Jason Derulo to shed his cover life and expose the world to his freakish unnatural abilities. SUPER POWER #1 – Super Speed. Jason is standing contemplating his amazing life and upper body in the bedroom of an apartment that, to be fair, we don’t know the layout of. But as soon as he hears the car tyres start to screech, he know exactly what to do: run really really fast. Let’s assume that the front door of the apartment is directly next to the bedroom. Through the magic of film editing we witness Jason making it out of the bedroom, through the front door, down the quaint stoop stairs, down the sidewalk a bit, across the road to get just within reach of his girlfriend, all in the space of time it takes the car to hit the brakes and come within millimetres of killing the girl: about 1 second.  That’s super quick. That’s so quick it’s not actually possible. Forget Usain and the Lighting Bolts, Jason Derulo is the World’s Fastest Recording Artist! He runs so fast that the only way we can see it is if it’s played in extreme slow motion. But this isn’t a narcissistic vanity ploy to show people, again, how muscular and athletic he is. No, the slow motion happens because of... SUPER POWER #2 – Time Stopping. Jason Derulo can stop time! And he can also reverse it. That’s pretty cool. I’m guessing that this must be a new found power to Jason, because then why did he need to run so fast? He could have just stayed in the bedroom and stopped time like a proper super hero would’ve.  To save his girlfriend from being mushed, Jason stops time and reverses it right back to when they met. Why not just reverse it a few minutes? Because that would mean no awesome backwards montage. We get to see the all the happy times that Jason and the (possibly) future Mrs Derulo have had over the course of their courtship. And it’s all in reverse! This includes everybody’s favourite past times like washing a dog, popping champagne and another Derulo special... SUPER POWER #3 – Making Fruit Huge.  Seriously, those are some massive Strawberries he’s rubbing in and around her face. But it all leads back to the moment they met. In the park, with the dog, looking cool in a leather jacket in the middle of summer; Jason Derulo knows what he wants, and he’s going to get it, but does he really want it? That’s the conundrum. The girl is just chilling out on a park bench looking at the hundreds of people walk past, but her eye is especially taken by Jason. Maybe it’s his lack of effort to actually walk his dog, instead choosing to lean on his $100,000 car taunting the dog with a vision of what’s just out of reach that interests her. Or maybe they have been chatting on the Internet for ages and this is the fateful meet-up. Either way, she is keen.  Jason knows that if he talks to her, he will end up in love, and she will end up on the road in front of the text-and-driver. So what does he do? He ignores her and chooses to go on with his life Ridin’ Solo. Sure, her self esteem is going to take a hit, but that’s nothing compared to her literally getting hit by a car. And that is what sets Jason Derulo apart from every other love-song singing scoundrel out there, he knows the absolute truth about life (despite breaking almost every rule of physics and continuity over the course of the video), it’s that life sucks and nothings fair and it’s just a deep dark hole of misery. The moral of the video? Don’t get close to anybody, because everyone you love will die.  Even with all of his amazing super powers, Jason Derulo still has a wounded soul. Let’s hope he can find something to fill the pessimistic hole in his heart. Possibly a giant strawberry. |
