Queen's Most Controversial Music Video

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Yes, it's I Want to Break Free.

I'm not here to criticize the video or its use of drag, but every bit of it is utter confusion!


It's also important to mention that the song has no chorus. We'll be looking at the lyrics here, and the context doesn't seem to.. correlate? Is that the word? "Correlate" with most of the visuals?

We start with Brian May waking up to an alarm and rushing to the living room.


No lyrics yet. We then cut to the most iconic use of a vacuum cleaner in a music video.

Yeah, Freddie!
Freddie enters from the side while vacuuming the floor, wearing a wig and a pointed chest. She's a tired housewife clearly dissatisfied with her life.


Granny John Deacon reads the paper in the background, and now Freddie starts to sing:
I want to break free
I want to break free
I want to break free from your lies
You're so self satisfied, I don't need you
I've got to break free

Now we see a pretty schoolgirl (Roger Taylor) turn around and sing the "God Knows" part, before Freddie continues on.

I want to date her. Wait, I mean-

God knows
God knows I want to break free

The highlighted lyrics from above makes it sound like a dead relationship Freddie wants to break free from. John Deacon wrote this song and it was about women's liberation. Valid. This first part of the video doesn't contradict the lyrics. It's just.. 
The middle part! Aww goodness, the middle part!
And now, to the middle part.
Freddie opens a door which seems like a portal into her fantasyland of a male Freddie with no pointy boo-
A Freddie that has broken free, a Freddie that has fallen in love. For real, this time.

I've fallen in love
I've fallen in love for the first time
And this time I know it's for real
I've fallen in love, yeah
God knows
God knows I've fallen in love
It's strange but it's true
Hey, I can't get over the way you love me like you do
But I have to be sure
When I walk out that door
Oh, how I want to be free, baby
Oh, how I want to be free
Oh, how I want to break free

Look at the highlighted lyric. This further provides evidence that Freddie, in this video, wants to break out of a toxic relationship while committing chronic infidelity. How much more seductive can it get, really?
A lot, actually. A lot. And I've taken screenshots!
Freddie starts hysterically dancing around a rectangular box. 
He jumps behind it, and the box (bless their soul) explodes and falls over to reveal this: 
I.. don't know what this is, to be honest. It's so layered yet meaningless, literally and figuratively, I don't know what to think of it! A large chunk of the song has no lyrics and is mostly visuals and the keyboard going pow pow pow. Now that we've reached the real meat of the conversation, I'll show you what it looks like.

Freddie dramatically falls on a heap of grapes, and the other dancers hop on him, only to fall over the grapes as well. And then, we get these glorious shots:

Freddie is carried by ballet dancers.
Takes a lot of skill! 
Two dancers dragged by another, while emotionally contemplating the ceiling.
An inverted dancer is spinned around by another.
Trust fall, baby! Freddie leaps towards a group of dancers.. we do not find out whether he lands on them or on the floor.
Freddie rolls around on the other dancers. For fun.
A shot of Freddie and a woman.
Andddd cut!
We are now here:
But life still goes on
I can't get used to living without living without living without you
By my side
I don't want to live alone, hey

The way Freddie sang that highlighted part was so beautiful. But also poignant. This could be interpreted as Freddie's true lover has, disappeared? Died? That she couldn't move in with them? She also does not want to live alone.. it seems like she's afraid of breaking free, even.
Oh, and guess who's back!


Roger joins Freddie to sing the God Knows part, and then Fred continues on:

God knows
Got to make it on my own
So, baby, can't you see
I've got to break free

We cut back to the mining shaft.
Freddie, surrounded by his bandmates, sings:
I've got to break free
I want to break free, yeah
Shots quickly panning out from the three bandmates:
Roger Taylor's back! Heck yeah!
That's Brian May. No guitar solo for this one, hence the keyboard.
And the talented bassist John Deacon who wrote this song.

We then slowly pan out from Freddie, who sings:
I want, I want, I want
I want to break free
I love how he sang this part. The lyrics echo into the void, as if no one's really listening.
My first takeaway from the video was that Freddie Mercury, the person, was trying to come out as Gay™ by breaking free from the confines that were the social norms of the 1980s. In the mining shaft, I first thought most of them were men, a couple were women. This might reflect his love life (as we are told by the media). He dated a woman named Mary Austin in the early 1970s, but broke up when he was caught having an affair with another man. Mary remained the closest friend of Freddie until his death in 1991.
She is so beautiful.
Freddie used to say that none of his other lovers could replace Mary, and that they should have married.
Most of Fred's lovers after Mary were men, as far as we are told. He lived with his boyfriend and hairdresser Jim Hutton until his death.
Hutton (pictured left) looked after Freddie in his home until 1991.
But is that really what the 1984 music video was even about?
The Wikipedia article says that, at least.
According to an article I found analysing the video,
"...the clip contrasted the realities of mundane life with a fantasy world of orgies and pleasure."
That's one way to put it.
But David Mallet was the director, not Freddie Mercury. It comes off as hard to believe that Fred was trying to tell us something here, like a cry for help, despite not having even written the song. There was a whole crew behind the curtains, the fact that one band member wanted to cheakily out himself in 1984, comes across as very, very bold. And even if there was no meaning to that middle part, if they were all just joking around,
WHY??!
I'm not complaining, it's a masterpiece! But why do I like it so much??
I think I realise that, there is value in finding something chaotic, and having it resonate with you. Yes. I'm bisexual. And I can't stop pretending I am not. I can't wait for the day that I can openly love whomever I want, no hurdle in my way, where a land of no judgement over pleasure, boundless in its ferocity, could actually happen in real life. When I could actually see it in its glory. Ballet dancers and their feminine grace, not limited by it, but empowered, fall on grapes and stare at ceilings. And Freddie gets to play with them, too. But all good things must end, and he (she?) must return to dust the banister.
Happy Pride Month, mother lovers! 🌈
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"Chess-kuh." You're welcome

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