I don’t know why, but I feel oddly drawn to this music video by spoon+. Yeah, the name, I know. The title of the song is essentially “Chameleon,” but we’re not going to bother with lyrics. I want to look at the context of the video. So watch it first, okay?
The first thing we see is spoon+’s blank slate. Is she a baby, a child of innocence at this point? Potentially.
Then she walks into the pink room. Pink is unjustly associated with childishness, mostly of the feminine variety. The human chameleons have pink eyes and a pure white body. This means their only viewpoint is “pink.” The different eye colors throughout the video represent narrow worldviews. These pink-eyed buddies dress spoon+ childishly. So they’re probably representative of parents or teachers, more likely parents.
They drag her to the table as they all bang their utensils. spoon+ is going through the motions, only acting as a chameleon herself, not questioning these creatures. But (GASP!) One of her pink buttons turns yellow! The pink chameleons throw her out, much in the way a parent might do if they discover their child is gay. They also throw out her yellow button, as they do not want certain concepts to linger in their home.
While spoon+ laments her fate, a yellow chameleon hops up to her and takes her button. She follows it to discover a yellow land. These chameleons lack the structure of the pink creatures, sitting on ladders, watering spoon+ like a plant, overall giving representation of “freer” stages of life. College or traveling abroad allows spoon+ to get a new worldview, but it turns her outfit yellow. Yellow is a bright, sunny color, something in the range of artistic.
spoon+ has more freedom, but dudes keep mackin’ on her. She only wants the freedom of life, not love. spoon+ chases a blue butterfly to the blue room. Here, it’s orderly and elegant. spoon+ grows out of her open period and gains her blue period. She’s an adult now, and blends in with the blue-eyed chameleons with another wardrobe change. This isn’t your cyan-variety blue; this is a deep, calm blue. spoon+ has mellowed out.
Then a human male arrives on the scene. He wants to dance. It’s love, right? They dance, the various chameleons dancing with them. He makes her feel everything at once: childish, free, mature. Then he commands the chameleons to dress her again, as he walks out. He dumped her. Note that it took multiple chameleons to change spoon+’s views, but the guy commanded them all to change her just by leaving. That’s the power of heart-break.
spoon+ is now all mixed-up. She is everything and therefore nothing. Her outfit is tattered, her hair is ragged. The drug-addict explanation is easiest, but I like to think it more as depression. See, she’s got everything on her, so she can’t decide when she was happiest. She has no identity to bounce off of, leading all the creatures to avoid her.
Finally, we get one last chameleon variety: The gray eyes. They may represent bad things happening to her, such as depression, doubt, death. They tear her apart, leaving nothing left. I mean, that’s what she was, nothing.
So what’s the message? Well, it is called “Chameleon,” so it’s obviously talking about trying to have your own views and not trying so hard to fit in. But there’s also the point that the different species have different approaches, so looking around like spoon+ did could be a good thing. Just don’t let a broken heart end up defining you.
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