My best approximation of an analysis of the official music video for "Prototype" (2004) by OutKast.
Some Context About the Artist:
OutKast were an American hip hop duo consisting of Andre "3000" Benjamin and Antwan "Big Boi" Patton, who have since the group's origination in 1992, gone on to create impressive and vast solo careers, both starring in movies, producing, and bolstering their own solo albums and singles. OutKast are responsible for such recognizable hits as "Ms. Jackson", "Hey Ya", "The Way You Move" and so many more. The video we're discussing is from their 5th studio (double) album, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. This video is both written and directed by Andre 3000.
Thesis:
First off, this video is every bit as fun and eccentric as the members of OutKast, themselves. It will always have a special place in my heart because the song kicks ass (the bassline is simply divine) and the video is so creative and weird and uniquely OutKast, but it doesn't exactly feel like one of their standards. Here's why.
Concept and Lyrical Integration:
In the beginning of the video, we are greeted by a robust narration that does not exist in the original studio recording of the song. The text being expository in nature, we are immediately thrust into a realm of fantasy- which is not unusual in the context of OutKast's body of work, but this highly immersive add-on celebrates the totally elevated sense of storytelling in this song and video respectively. It gives credence to the fact that this song is not lyrically intense or comprehensive. Somehow, you get the feeling that the song and video were actually conceptualized simultaneously, or else that they were literally made for one another in a way that you don't really notice in a lot of their other works. The song tells the exact same story that the video does.
Sequential Analysis:
Continuing, we are introduced to a human woman and the white, geometric spaceship of the seven-member family of extra-extraterrestrials we will be following throughout the video. The woman- a photographer- hides behind the trunk of a large tree and takes pictures as they exit their craft. She takes a handful of candid shots, which we earn in monochrome stills. This is the first time we witness the beautifully goofy and cartoonish representation of these aliens and their mannerisms that make this video a work of charming wit and absolute dedication to character and tone. This video makes no attempt to be anything but light and comforting. The aliens walk out in these bright white robes and blonde-ish off-white wigs. None of them look alike- many are very obviously not the same ethnicity- the only things connecting them being several accessories which are all identical, subverting expectations for the second time in 20 or so seconds.
Once we get to see them walk, they sport this weird, grating, but immensely funny gait. Arms out, knees up. Andre- of course, cast as the primary alien- does this curious little thing where he pretends that his spine is a flagpole, and all forms of movement are completely foreign to him. None of the others do that, so one can only assume that we are looking at Andre at his most creative and playful, easily making the character all his own and subtly encouraging the others to follow suit.
After the second verse, the human woman seems to have caught the attention of the family, as they all simultaneously turn to look over their shoulders at her. We watch the whole family stand there, still as action figures, staring at her for a comically prolonged moment, and then they suddenly give us this weird shot of the family presumably sleeping on the lush green grass- all stacked and pressed together side by side like sardines. Then a small slapstick show of the woman quickly turning around to evade their gaze and turning back around to snap more pictures, only to find that they aren't there, then turning back around to find the group has traveled seemingly at the speed of sound, and without a hair of notice, appeared right in front of her.
This quick succession of weird, lawless humor is only bested by the moment we get to see the aliens looking at the woman up-close, at which point- if we hadn't already- we notice that the women are wearing these huge fluffy silver falsies that dramatically weigh down their eyelids, and the lashes are accompanied by an even weirder spastic flutter of the eyes as if the air on Earth might be too much for their sensitive and quickly drying eyes. They also all turn their heads to the side every half-second like birds- even though birds and other animals with similar dispositions turn their heads to see through one eye or the other, since they are each on one side of the head. Some are even afflicted with eyes that don't move from their position in the socket. This family of aliens is apparently just quirky, because they can definitely see straight ahead at the woman. Their front-facing eyes are so obviously and desperately trying to maintain contact with the woman through these violent and unnatural flinches of the head.
Throughout all of these absolutely bewildering directing choices, Andre is able to sing to the woman they've scared senseless with a completely straight face- even managing to throw some acting chops in there with traces of sincerity and curiosity in his expression. Then he reaches out a hand to her. She obviously takes it, and they do the most bizarre thing ever. They smile at each other. Like, really big, and really wide. All of Andre's teeth are showing. ALL of them. It's supposed to be an endearing moment- a treaty between the two factions, but GOLLY. This is the most stubbornly off-putting and hilarious stuff.
Immediately following a brief scene in which the family literally traipse along the "foreign" landscape as if they haven't been walking on the grass this entire time, the woman makes them pose together for yet another monochromatic picture in which they all stand stock-still with light displeasure apparent on their faces. Not even confusion. Displeasure. And then after, they pull off the biggest, most gaudy series of product placement shots, starting with a pan-in of the family lounging about a pristine white Land Rover. One of the women is standing on the vehicle so that you can't even see the upper part of her. Two of them are lounging(?) on the front of the car, the older woman- presumably the matriarch- is behind the wheel of the car, ready to ram into Andre's character at the nearest convenience, and the patriarch is examining(?) the tire. Andre's alien is the only one doing something remotely normal and he's holding a brand new (what looks to be) Fender Jazzmaster mod with a silver lyre accent below the bridge- which is apparently the only one of its kind. I cannot find this thing anywhere. Nobody's talking about it, but it's iconic and it's an exceptional flex to just be holding it. Directly after this shot, we see the youngest member of the family casually perusing a brand-spanking-new copy of the album "Prototype" belongs to, (Speakboxxx/The Love Below).
Finally out of the dungeon of flexing hard on 'em for profit, we come back to the field proper, in which Andre's character and the woman share a moment of intimacy. Andre's character takes the glasses from the woman's face, and we can only assume that he's giving her ye old "more beautiful without them" spiel. Evidently, it works, and he's even able to use his magical
Proto-based powers to give her 20-20 vision. But what's decidedly more interesting than this plot point is the fact that we see the woman, for the first time, through the eyes of Andre's character.
Throughout the video, the bright white clothing and platinum wigs give them a glowy effect, either because the 2004 camera lens can not figure out how to do it when it comes to overexposure, or this was an editing choice, or, pretty laughably, both. Regardless of the cause, this is how we are made to view them- these glossy, ethereal beings- while the woman basically blends into everything else in the background. In this shot, when we see from Andre's character's point of view, she is positively radiant and vibrant- taking up the entire frame with the rays coming off her- which is either to say that Andre's character has really bad astigmatism, or she might just be the most brilliant, undeniably beautiful thing he has ever seen. Both is also still an option, and honestly, neither are much more likely than the other.
After this vision-based debacle, he gently unwraps the ribbon from her hair, leaving it to frame her face, and she shyly accepts his doting. So cliche it almost comes back around to being cute. Then another random shot of the family sleeping like sardines, and we finally earn a time-lapse of the two main folks somewhere that isn't the field- which ultimately ends up being the only one we get at all- in which, the newly joined couple frolic (in however close an approximation Andre's character can get to frolicking) off screen.
Next, we get to see that beautiful instrument again when Andre's character engages us in a sequence of shots of him standing on top of the spaceship that the family arrived in, playing mostly in time with the guitar solo that begins in the music. While he plays, the woman circles the craft with an old, old, old school video camera, verbally and physically entreating him to "Come 'ere" and "Uh uh, come here" while filming. Oh, every single shot of her in this sequence blinds us with her Alien POV-brand overexposure, by the way.
Presumably later that night, the family sits around a campfire, each partaking in a different human ritual, (The Patriarch reads a magazine, and the Matriarch roasts a marshmallow over the fire that most definitely will fall into the fire when it has become too soft to stay on the stick, as she will most definitely not know what to do with it after this step). Andre's character, as it remains undisclosed what the actual action is until the next shot, literally seems to be just staring wide-eyed with a toothy grin, straight down the barrel of the camera. He is the only person even remotely looking near the camera. With absolutely no context besides the popcorn pan he's holding next to his head; they give us absolutely no reason to believe that he's listening to the popcorn pop inside the foil until we see him holding this thing over the fire like nothing had ever happened.
A point that I hadn't noticed the first 4,000 some-odd times is that the human is actually there, too. She's sitting next to the patriarch reading a book and drinking from a cup, which serves as the catalyst for the next shot. In this scene, the women of the family try this activity for themselves- mostly performing terribly. The focal woman of this shot is also missing one of her nails, so I can only assume that it broke off and they either only ordered a certain number (I'm unsure if these are press-ons or acrylics), or they thought it was too late and took too much effort to get her nail done again. Either way, they definitely could have featured one of the other characters instead, so I'm not quite sure what went on there.
Fun fact, it was at this point that I also realized that the little boy who completes the family structure, is nowhere to be found at all. Is he in the car? Is he laying on someone's lap in such a way that we can't see him but he's definitely still there? I'm very convinced that the only reason he does not appear in this or the next scene is that they were both shot at night, and it was probably way too late for the little guy to be out with a bunch of adults filming a weird-ass music video.
Regardless, after this fiasco, we see the family sleeping, once again, all packed up in this line, but this time they are standing straight up with their heads on each other's shoulders? Why did they randomly change how they sleep? And why is it still wrong?
Now, there are a number of wacky explanations for why this occurred, but my best and favorite approximation is that the woman noticed them sleeping like sardines at some point and asked them why they were doing this. I imagine that she told them they didn't have to sleep all together on the ground like that, so they interpreted that as "we should all sleep huddled together standing up, then. Like humans." And proceeded to do just as much when she refused to say anything further on the matter and walked away to get settled in her tent.
Once everyone is all settled (the boy is still upsettingly absent), Andre's character awakens from his slumber and tiptoes over to the woman's tent. It is unspoken whether Andre's character was invited into the tent or if he just sort of crawled in there like a scavenger, but as he zips the closure of the tent back up, the patriarch almost wakes, then smiles and goes right back to blissful unconsciousness. While in the tent, we get a backlit shot of the two of them sitting across from one another. They both lean in for an equally reciprocated kiss, which is interesting, because I wouldn't think that would be something that the Proto's did as a sign of love and affection- because if the narration at the beginning is to be believed, they discovered love when they stepped on the planet, and would not have nearly enough frame of reference to even begin to do something like that intuitively. As Andre's character and the woman share this kiss, the woman's belly grows round and full. WHAT THE FUCK. Was that like "They've all been here for nine months, but we can't really show that in a music video, so oops movie magic" or was it a "This is how we think the people on Proto reproduce" because there's one that obviously makes more sense, but that's not the one they lead me to believe.
The next morning, or perhaps A morning after this encounter, we see the Proto women brandishing a flag that we can only assume is the symbol of their world (without getting into the politics of a world with possibly many different countries and factions all having to agree on a singular brand to project and bring with them to other established worlds). This is a very obvious gesture. We've all seen this happen in all the alien movies, and even when real life humans discover new frontiers and throw their flag in the soil like a touchdown on another team's field. But what does this actually mean? Is this just a symbol of how they "veni vidi vici"'d and now they can go home? Because no they haven't. They've stayed in the same spot for a couple of days OR nine months and followed a woman around. Or is this symbolic of them finding an uninhabited land and claiming it for their own, because no it's not. They know it's not. They just followed a woman around for a COUPLE OF DAYS or NINE MONTHS, who obviously had a culture and had cultivate knowledge and traditions from people elsewhere. Maybe this was their way of being friendly and putting their flag in the hat of Earth-friendly peoples, but who did they ask? The woman? What did they figure was going to happen? The zoning issues would be a fucking nightmare, let alone getting the American government to recognize their outreach as anything but direct terrorism. Anyway, that shot only lasts a grand total of two seconds, and is absolutely not that consequential in the context of the rest of the shit that happens, but the issue still stands.
Moving on, the patriarch for some reason retains the ability to turn Proto-based beings into humans, or to make them look like humans? The lore's still out on that as well as Andre's character's ability to restore vision. However he's capable of it, he puts his head on Andre's character's head in some sort of ritualistic gesture and he is magically transformed. He now sports a white button-up and yellow vest, doing away with the vulgar off-blonde wig. The woman, now holding a child that looks much too old to have been born even months ago, sits in a yellow tent, wearing an off-white shirt. Time, as evidenced by the wardrobe change and the baby, has passed, but how much, we can't be entirely sure. We can, however see that the new couple is happy together.
The family huddles in what looks like a generic farewell, and then we see flashes of the Earthed flag and the spaceship, as if we needed exposition for what was about to happen next. To wrap up, we get a pretty shot of the baby girl(?) with her pretty, pretty eyelashes with the Proto emblem either meticulously drawn on her forehead, or else permanently branded on her. Was she just born with that or what's up? None of the other aliens had this branding. Does it go away when she gets old enough? But there was also a little boy who didn't have it (who btw is in the rest of the shots with the adults). Blissfully ignorant of my personal distress over the matter, the couple happily waves farewell to the family, as they presumably take off in the spacecraft, they came in.
Thus ends the humorous, imaginative and frankly disquieting adventure of this video.
Costuming:
With glee and violent curiosity, I simply must comment on the fabric choice in the garments. While the woman sports a warm, red-based ensemble, complete with a pretty dip-dyed maxi skirt, the family is clad in several different fabrics all in the same sterile white and neutral black. When Andre reaches out his hand to the woman in their first interaction, we actually get to see the texture of the fabric he's wearing, which for the main tunic, can only be described as sturdy quilted cotton. Not the kind sewn into North Face jackets, but it rather reminds me of the material of a keikogi if anyone's ever worn one or knows what it is. Underneath, though, it looks like he's just wearing a silk-satin dress shirt. Seriously, as if they had another thing that he was going to wear but then someone's dog ate it and the only other thing they had on-hand was someone's dad's Sunday best. Okay, maybe that's a reach, but the cuffs on that shirt are so starched and pristine, it's weird and steals attention away from the outfit as a whole. Whenever I see them, I get iron-burns.
Along with the disturbingly pristine cuffs of Andre's disturbingly terrestrial shirt, all the aliens have little black accents on their clothes- piping along the hems, little black additions under the shoulder hems, and, for the men, black slacks and boots. The women don't wear shoes. I'm not sure about the boy and the old man, but Andre is almost definitely wearing some sort of tabi-gym shoe hybrid. This assumption is only promoted by the one shot we get of the side of his feet when he's high-stepping through the field with the rest of the cast, and a couple shots from a downward angle in torturous 2004-brand low res. The fact that Andre, himself, would be wearing a split-toe shoe crossed with something like a Nike or a Tretorn is so unsurprising, it almost gives context to the choice to wear them as this alien, but speaking explicitly for the story and the information we've been given, the concept is jarring and distressingly humorous.
Though, I suppose one could argue that if all of their robes are just cut up keikogis, a shoe with Asian influence is not out of the blue. It's just that there would be absolutely no reason for them to dress this way if their people had never been to Earth before... Or perhaps they'd already been, but a very, very long time ago. Long before the family came into being.
Conveniently drifting back into the topic of wardrobe, we also see that all of the aliens are fitted with this gorgeous silver nail polish which makes it unclear if their nails are meant to be perceived as naturally unnatural in color, or if this is a custom which everyone from Proto- called by name in the beginning narration- partakes in. Likewise, it is also just as likely that Andre just liked the color and thought everyone should wear it.
Color Symbolism:
Lastly, I should mention the color symbolism, because I'm not sure if they quite meant to, or started to think of it and then quit halfway through, but this video does contain enough of it to speculate in wild and arbitrary ways. That being said, let's do just that.
As I've stated, the woman wears decidedly warm clothes- an orange tank top and reddish, brownish, orangish dip-dyed skirt- red being the color of passion, brown being highly associated with grounding and wholesomeness and orange being the color of activity, energy, and health- interesting, considering about a billion of the shots that we see of the aliens involve them sleeping, yet we never see the woman sleep. The entire time, she appears tireless, polite, and passionate. Always taking her pictures and compassionately guiding the family wherever they want to go. On the other side, we have the aliens all dressed in white- purity, simplicity and perfection- and black- sophistication and power. While not exactly antithetical to the colors the woman dons, the white and black express the aliens as inexperienced beings- perfect in all ways, but cold and isolated. Not one bit of passion between them- which circles back to the narration at the beginning, which states: "Moments upon landing, they experience the rarest of all human emotion; Love."
The woman doesn't necessarily teach them love or passion, but rather, it bleeds from her into them. At the end of the video, when Andre's character is transformed into a human, he is not also wearing red or orange, or brown. He is wearing white, black and yellow, with accents of brown sprinkled in. He has managed to hold onto his character- his perfection and sophistication- but he has been affected by the woman's vitality and a smattering of her passion, yellow being the cross between white and orange, and intimating a boost in compassion and communication. Yellow can also invoke clarity and focus, as if he is now more self- aware and available to the world outside of himself than ever before. He is grounded and connected to the earth by the tiny leather accents he wears- now a citizen of the planet. Beside him, the woman sports an off-white button-up and a blue skirt. She, too, has been touched by the qualities of Andre's character and the others. Off-white inviting a sense of honesty and perfection, but maintaining small traces of the warmth that allowed it in. The blue of her skirt could express harmony and tranquility; a sense of belonging. This may be even more of a stretch than applying color symbolism to any of this, but blue also implies sadness and grief, which she could only be expected to feel as the six other aliens head back to their ship to get to wherever else they are headed. She is upset to see her friends go, but content with the progress they've made and the relationships they've been able to form. It would furthermore make sense that Andre's character is not wearing blue, because he has come a long way from the apathetic detachment, he arrived with but has not yet had a chance to experience grief at length, or even know what it is to be sad. He is still looking at their departure objectively. The baby the woman is carrying is cloaked in white. They are purity, perfection, and innocence, as well as an extra-extraterrestrial of the same ilk as the rest. The white could also imply that the baby is a blank canvas, in need of their parents to show them the value of a more colorful outlook and looking to them to guide them through different experiences that would season them with this vaster array of colors.
Closing Remarks:
Although this is my first time writing a full-blown analysis on one, I have always loved watching OutKast music videos. This video, in specific, boasts an incredible slew of energetic, playful, and creative features that pull you into the OutKast fanbase like a delicious, furiously delirious quicksand, and the more you try to parse this thing, the further you descend into the madness.
Thank you for reading!
-Laani
"Though this be madness, yet there is method in't."
-William Shakespeare, Hamlet