Iggy Azalea and Rita Ora have had one of the best summers that an artist can — with Azalea breaking several chart records, and Ora successfully sustaining popularity in between albums with collaborations with the likes of Snoop Dogg and a host of international festival appearances. How appropriate then that each artist comes together for the “Black Widow” video of their collaboration from Azalea’s album The New Classic — which gives several visual nods to director Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill .
“Black Widow” is also rife with other Tarantino references played out by Azalea and Ora. Tarantino regular Michael Madsen opens the video by walking into a diner not atypical of a Tarantino film — perhaps a nod to the opening and closing setting of Tarantino’s 1994 classic Pulp Fiction . Madsen plays a trope similar to the attitude he had to play Budd in the Kill Bill series — crude, chauvinistic, and pervy. He is accompanied by his girlfriend, Rita, and waited on by Iggy.
While the story itself is very Tarantino — it essentially focuses on Ora and Azalea tracking down their targets with a big samurai-sword wielding showdown at the end — it doesn’t really depict as many examples of his signature style as one would hope. “Black Widow” presents nods to Quentin, but it throws in just as many of the regular rap video clichés. Compared to Azalea’s “Clueless” video, it’s hard to say that “Black Widow” will be able to rival Iggy’s first hit’s success for shear share-ability of the video.
Apart from visual meat to pick apart in Iggy and Rita’s “Black Widow,” the video also features a prime example of the criticism of Iggy’s use of black southern dialect. Salon (Brittney Cooper’s article) is one of several publications that have published pieces attacking Iggy’s use of the local way of speaking — saying that it is an offensive way to imitate the “sonic blackness” of the region.
“I resent Iggy Azalea for her co-optation and appropriation of sonic Southern Blackness, particularly the sonic Blackness of Southern Black women. Everytime she raps the line “tell me how you luv dat,” in her song “Fancy,” I want to scream “I don’t love dat!” I hate it. The line is offensive because this Australian born-and-raised white girl almost convincingly mimics the sonic register of a downhome Atlanta girl.”
Do you think Iggy Azalea and Rita Ora’s “Black Widow” video is a strong Quentin Tarantino homage? Or is Michael Madsen the only touch of true Tarantino here?
