Sound And Vision: Adam Shankman
In the article series Sound and Vision we take a look at music videos from notable directors. This week we discuss Miley Cyrus' When I Look At You, directed by Adam Shankman.
Miley Cyrus, the artist behind the music video we are discussing in this particular Sound and Vision, is a drag queen. That is in no way meant as a disparaging remark on either Miley Cyrus or drag queens, even if both the artist and the art form have been lambasted and dragged through the muck (or even scapegoated) in current day America. What I mean by saying Miley Cyrus is a drag queen, is that she embodies the spirit of that art-form, being a stylistic chameleon; celebrating music, fashion and performance in equal measure; and embracing the queerness and camp inherent in being an artist. She has gotten a lifetime achievement award on the famed RuPaul's Drag Race, especially for being a self-described drag queen, and being a champion for queer rights. She has been a staple of Drag Race, as a frame of reference for other queens (even being a category on the runway), a guest jury member and more.
The director behind this Sound and Vision, Adam Shankman, is also a well known guest judge on Drag Race, in two popular episodes of the main series and the All Stars spin-off, where he also was a choreographer for those particular episodes. Shankman started out as a choreographer after all, and had a stint as a judge on Dancing with the Stars. That both Miley Cyrus and Shankman share this love for drag, and the commercial iteration of it in RuPaul's Drag Race, isn't necessarily all that clear in the music video we are talking about today, as it is an early-career Miley Cyrus music-video. The song When I Look At You (see below) is a tie-in for the movie The Last Song, produced by Shankman, starring Cyrus, and directed by Shankman's long-time best friend Julie Anne Robinson.
Shankman has been leaning into the camp with most of his features, from Hairspray, the musical adaptation remake of a John Waters classic; to Rock of Ages, the cock- and glamrock-jukebox musical. And now with Stop That Train!, he embraced the drag of it all in earnest, in a riff on train-on-the-run-films like Unstoppable and Speed or disaster movies like Airport and Earthquake, starring a bunch of Drag Race alumni, a lot of C-list comedians and RuPaul herself. The film itself is, like most good drag, for the most part steeped in irony, but also about a search for authenticity, in this case playing some of the tropes hilariously straight. Good drag lambasts gender-roles, while also searching for sincerity and authenticity in a playful portrayal of gender. True great drag is equally both ironic camp and authentic sincerity. Irony being about conviction, and authenticity being about honesty. So we need to address the elephant in the room: the Stop That Train! AI controversy.
Having seen the film it is quite clear that the usage of AI has been downplayed in the media, showing up especially in the special effect heavy scenes, as a clearly visible cost cutting measure. Several queer film critics have been pointing that out, after which the filmmakers, including Shankamn, severely downplayed the usage by using a bunch of legalese, and being very technical linguistically about how much AI was used in what instances. They, in other words, threw small queer critic accounts on Instagram and TikTok under the bus, something that was detestable and should have been called out way more.
Regardless of how much AI was technically used and in which part of the process, there is a sloppish 'quality' to some of the action scenes. Which is all too bad, because the comic timing in Stop That Train! (aside from Michelle Visage) is quite good, and some of the writing is surprisingly witty and dry. It is heaps better than the writing in the Drag Race acting challenges, is all I'm saying. The cost cutting is altogether disappointing, as there was no real reason to go that big. It wouldn't have been more expensive to do the special effects Michel Gondry-style, which would have fit the campy tone, or even to have used CGI in a more deliberate way. If it would have been way more expensive, then maybe don't write as much action into your movie. However you cut it, AI is a sign of a lack of creativity. It's cheating.
True drag, and true camp, has a way of using irony and sincerity in a much more creative way, and Shankman has shown he can do it before. A Walk to Remember is schmaltzy melodrama that is gaudy in the right way, never winking at its audience, and therefore nailing the tear-eyed histrionics of it all. Hairspray is infectious in its energy, with go-for-broke actors hamming it up, but being so delightfully sincere at the same time, the film literally sings. And I will even go to bat for Rock of Ages, which understood the big-hair-don't-care-attitude of the bands it was inspired by. It has a devil-may-care attitude that can be easily dismissed, and sadly, it was by both critics and audiences.
Like the aforementioned films, When I Look at You is achingly sincere. Not much seems to be happening on the screen, story-wise, but the settings are big and the emotions are bigger. This might not be Miley in Club Kid Drag, don't mistake it for Miley being a straight normie: this is Miley doing Torch Song drag. Miley doing Latrice Royale lipsynching Natural Woman. She is giving it her all.
And so is Shankman. There is no cost cutting in this video. The locales at which they are filmed are gorgeous, the piano at the waterside with just enough greenery around it; Miley in the woods blending into the environment with an equally green dress, without fading away, but becoming the centerpoint instead. The color correction is truly stunning. The blue skies, full of fluffy, rolling white clouds; the golden hues of the reeds; the buoyant greens of the leaves, this music video is simple but looks scrumptuous. This is drag excellence, selling big emotions and selling them well. With sincerity and conviction, and just enough of a campy wink, with the white-instead-of-black letterboxing. Don't mistake it for something ordinary, Adam Shankman knows what he is doing here.
Miley Cyrus might be wearing a costume, playing the straight girl, and Shankman might seem to be holding back, this is a great music video regardless. It is just very well done for something seemingly slight. It is like a good evening dress, not begging for attention, but eye-popping regardless. For all its glitzy glamour and gaudy excess Stop That Train! sadly is the reverse: something that beckons attention, but falls apart at the seams, because it is hanging together with hot glue and safety pins.
