Bjork
Cocoon (music video)
2002
I only recently discovered this video. It was being projected on the wall at a dance club I frequent, and I had to ask the manager what the title was. A little searching on the internet got me the rest of the information, and a net-viewable copy.
This video has never been shown on the usual music video outlets due to its bold imagery. To the best of my knowledge, it is only viewable on-line. I’m sure there are several venues on which it is available. I happened to watch it on iFilm.com, but that statement is not to be construed as an endorsement or advertisement for that site.
The video begins with a series of naked Bjorks standing in different poses. The J-card notes say that these figures represent Bjork’s various sexual aspects. I don’t need coaching to figure that out. I’ve seen enough metaphoric art to realize that a series of one naked woman repeated many times in different poses represents the different aspects of her sexual nature. It’s like a language — “metaphoreze” — after a while you can speak it like a native.
One of the naked Bjorks seperates from the others and then spends the rest of the video standing alone in a featureless white nowhere. As she sings, red strands of silk emerge from her nipples as if they were a spider’s spinnerets. This is a metaphor for her expressing her sexuality, and also a visual pun - a woman whose breasts are producing milk is said to be “expressing” milk. The woman in the video is “expressing” her sexuality in the same way.
As with all metaphoric representation, this must be viewed on two levels. As you watch the allegoric version of events, you must interpret the “secret” meaning and imagine the literal events in the background. The phrase “the woman expresses her sexuality” works on both levels, it’s just that there are two definitions of “express” being used here. In the non-literal vision presented, her sexuality is represented by floating, dancing red fibres with a mind of their own.
Bjork waves her hands and arms, and the silk responds. She’s directing its movements, but not directly controlling it. The implied meaning is that a woman cannot directly control her own sexuality. One can try, of course. One can make an effort. But how “sexy” you end up being is often a different value, greater or lesser, than how “sexy” you intend to be. That is one of the many messages of the video.
Bjork occasionally flaps her hands rapidly throughout the video. At first I thought she was shivering - after all, she was standing naked in a cold studio - but then I realized that the character she’s playing was nervous. She’s thrilled, of course, with her new-found sexual freedom, but also nervous, scared. Her face contorts. She is simultaneously thrilled and frightened by her sexuality.
The song which accompanies the video, by the way, consists of a particularly flowery description of the sexual act. I’ve been reviewing poetry for years and this type of poem never fails to disgust me. Women - and it’s always women - going on and on about how wonderful and beautiful sex is and it’s all flowery and joyful and good and… Please! You go in, you do it, you pay, you leave. There’s nothing beautiful or special about it. It’s a physical thing and it leaves you hot and sweaty and icky. End of story.
Anyway, back to the video.
The red fibres, thanks to modern-day CGI, swirl around her, and begin to bind her legs together. This is to represent the hobbling that can occur to a woman who’s sexually active. When a woman begins expressing her sexuality, certain doors are closed to her by society. Yet the woman in the video appears happy, as if she is unaware that she is losing her mobility and freedom.
Eventually the fibres cover her completely, head to toe, thus the title “Cocoon”. The woman is totally hidden, and all that can be seen is the red fibre. The cocoon rises into the air as the song ends.
This refers to the process by which a woman who is sexual all the time is soon seen to be nothing but sex. People no longer see the real woman underneath, they see only sex. Sex, sex, sex from all angles. However, she is “elevated” by this, as she is now held in higher regard, albeit by a much smaller audience.
It is obvious that Bjork herself conceived of the idea for this video. She is, of course, no stranger to visual allegory, having worn a faux stuffed swan to the 2001 Oscars in order to protest the death of other performing arts at the hands of the cinema. “Cocoon” is clearly her effort to both explain how sexuality works in the popular media and simultaneously cash in on it.
In the latter, of course, Bjork is doomed to fail. Even stark naked, she’s not the most impressive-looking female. Very few males will be drawn to this video by the promise of naked female flesh. Ironically, this video will also fail to damage her career. Most women would be shooting their careers in the foot by appearing naked in a music video, but unlike the character she plays in the video, she has not become a sex object in the eyes of the public. The bottom line is that most people already perceive Bjork as being such a dingbat that to hear that she’s made a video like this will cause them to only shrug and move on.