This is one of the more disturbing references that I’ve seen, and I’m surprised more people aren’t talking about it. This visual of hands reaching out of holes in the wall toward someone walking down a hallway has been repeated a few times.
Most recently it was in Sabrina Carpenter’s video for “Tears” with the hands tearing her clothes off.
Last year, Entertainment Tonight released an exclusive “extended cut” of the flying monkeys scene that uses the same visual with Elphaba and Glinda. The final cut in the film shows the monkeys ripping off Glinda’s jacket.
Taylor Swift also used this visual in her video for “The Man” - but since she is dressed as a man, she is giving them high fives instead of them tearing her clothes off.
All of this seems to be referencing a 1965 film called Repulsion, which is about a woman named Carol, who is so repulsed by men that she isolates herself in her apartment and slowly descends into madness. An unwanted suitor tries to kiss her, and she runs away to brush her teeth and cry. Her sister’s lover leaves a shirt at the apartment, and the smell of it makes her throw up. She has nightmares and hallucinations about men trying to r*pe her, and she eventually unalives two different men who try to proposition her in real life.
Extra gross points for it being co-written and directed by Roman Polanski. The most common interpretation of the movie is that Carol had prior experience of abuse that led to her schizophrenia and repulsion toward men. Others have suggested that it’s about Carol’s refusal to conform to the expected “path of femininity.”
To me, the repeated use of this reference feels like a subtle commentary on the extensive abuse and control that women continue to face in the industry. And the fact that the visual was recently used by four different celebs who are either out or heavily rumored to be queer is also notable.
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