Sound And Vision: Just Jaeckin
In the article series Sound and Vision we take a look at music videos from notable directors. This week: Elton John's Who Wears These Shoes, directed by Just Jaeckin.
In 1988 Sir Elton John came out of the closet as a gay man, and more widely in an interview for Rolling Stone Magazine in 1992. He stated at the time he didn't do that earlier, because he thought that his sexuality was common knowledge. The problem with that statement is that just a few years earlier Elton made a few career choices that, in hindsight, might have seemed like trying to pass as straight.
I'm not trying to diminish the fluidity of sexuality, because as a queer person myself I know how gender and sexuality are pretty much a spectrum that doesn't need to follow the rules of heteronormativity. But in some cases, actions of pop stars about whose sexuality there is a lot of speculation, can seem like the work of spin doctors. Because pop culture is largely following a dominantly heteronormative narrative, whether you like that or not. And sometimes stars try to adhere to this narrative.
Elton John did, I think, by marrying Renate Blauel in 1984. They divorced in 1988, when Elton became publicly more comfortable representing his true self. Also in 1984 he released the album Breaking Hearts. This period in time is considered to be somewhat of a lesser era in the discography of Elton, eventually ending with his nadir, Leather Jackets, in 1986. It's kinda ironic that he released I'm Still Standing a few years before, because Breaking Hearts is considered a point where he started to falter, artistically.
At the same time, Elton did release a single for Breaking Hearts called Who Wears These Shoes. The music video seems like another way to confirm Elton John as a bonafide straight man. A Heart Breaker, if you will. In the music video Elton performs with a few scantily clad dancers in a setting heavily inspired by Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari. The whole choreography reads as Elton trying to sell himself as a lady killer, focusing on the eroticism and writhing movements of the dance. That Elton comes across as fairly stiff, and not in an aroused way, might not surprise you. This is not a look that fits him well.
The other reason why this music video comes across as Elton 'protesting too much' is its director: Just Jaeckin. This is a director whose name couldn't be more apt for the style of films he makes, cause Just Jaeckin is one of the more famous directors of erotic films and softcore. He was instrumental to the wave of successful European erotic import to the United States with the film Emmanuelle. That film got at least six sequels, not counting the television films of the same name, the Emmanuelle in Space series, the Emmanuelle 2000-series, the Emmanuelle through Time-series" or The Emmanuelle Private Collection, leading the semi-official series to count at least 45 installments. And that is not counting spin-offs and copies such as the Black Emanuelle series.
That is all to say that Just Jaeckin was hugely successful in his brand of X-rated, story-driven erotic movies. He followed the success of the first Emmanuelle with adaptations of Histoire d'O and Lady Chatterley's Lover, and Indiana Jones-with-more-Tits-movie The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik-Yak. In other words, Just Jaeckin made pornography and eroticism mainstream and acceptable. He made porn, by lack of another word, 'chique'. So imagine if you are a pop star who is rumored to be gay, and you want to put people off the scent, who do you hire but the straightest of straight directors?
I am not saying it fully worked, as this period of music and music videos is considered a low point in John's career. But still, the video at times is quite impressive. It isn't too bad a kiss-off for Jaeckin's career, who only made one other piece of media after: a video for Cheap Trick's Tonight It's You. Jaeckin retired in 1984, living on till 2022, mostly focusing on sculpting and photography. He made a very good career for himself, with a signature style that not only was all his own, but marked a sea change in how eroticism was presented on the screen. There is no way to overstate the power and impact his erotic films had on cinema of the seventies and early eighties. There is a reason Elton John asked him especially to direct this video is what i'm saying. It might be because John wanted to be straight-passing, but that is only part of it: if you want quality and sexual fireworks, you call Jaeckin.
