Post a Comment On: eMpTyV: Music Video Reviews

*1/2 (of four)

[Image]

Hilary Duff, star of Disney Channel tween favorite "Lizzie McGuire," is tired of not being taken seriously. In the opening lines of "Wake Up," she sings something like, "There's people talking about me / Talking about me like they know everything / But they don't know anything."

So enlighten us, Hillary, what's lurking in that big brain of yours? Well, the next line, after she opines to prove her worth, is: "Give me a dance floor / Give me a DJ." Yes, the big message is, the paparazzi and tabloids are bad. Going to clubs and dancing are good.

As we also learn from Duff's doctoral dissertation, she likes to put on makeup on a Saturday night. Be sure and take notes - the educational experience of life doesn't end when school gets out, people.

"Wake Up," the video, shows us exactly how Duff gets down on a Saturday - she sits around the house, wearing headphones and lip synching; she puts on her makeup and rides around the back of a limo.

Somehow in the same night Hillary Duff manages to visit clubs in New York, Hollywood, London, Paris, Tokyo and, for the length of time it takes to slam a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon, a bar called the Nook 'N Cranny just west of Topeka, Kan. Home of the world's smallest large-screen TV.

It's TRL nonsense, to be sure, but "Wake Up" is worth watching once, and I'll tell you why. Amid the shots of Duff alternating between her squeaky-clean blonde pop tart and faux-Avril Lavigne pop-punk images is a sequence that has her walking through a sterile-blue room with hanging plastic sheets. This is the Tokyo motif, and accordingly, Duff has a short, berette-filled black wig and eyeliner that extends her lids out horizontally.

I'm aware this somewhat stereotypical portrayal may be offensive to those of the Asian persuasion, but it makes Hillary Duff look hot as hell. Blond Hilary has always seemed kind of generic to me - and the red beret she dons to complete the Parisian motif in the video further cements it - but Brunette Hilary can be my jailbait geisha girl any day of the week.