‘Runaway Bride’! Most viewers who are over 35 or 40 years old will have had the Julia Roberts and Richard Gere film come to mind (an attempt to repeat the success of ‘Pretty Woman’) while watching Doja Cat in ‘Stranger’ transformed into a “runaway bride” running through the desert like Rosalía through Callao.
The director of the video clip, Dave Meyers, is 52, so it wouldn’t be strange if he had been inspired by Garry Marshall’s comedy.
The clip begins with Doja Cat dressed as a bride about to take a leap into the void, both literally and metaphorically (that of the marriage commitment). From that premise, Meyers opens his usual parachute of visual references and comic scenes at the service of the star, including a sequence that explains the album cover, ‘Vie’.
The most obvious reference is the homage to the famous plane scene in ‘With Death on Their Heels’, with the Californian rapper transformed into a Cary Grant in trouble, finally rescued by a motorcyclist. With an aesthetic reminiscent of the desert scenes from ‘Kill Bill’, the video continues with Doja “The Bride” dragging her dress – her engagement – until reaching a liberating climax: the bride shedding her heavy bridal robes and dancing like an unleashed Tina Turner.
‘Stranger’ ends with Doja shot in the heart by a mysterious cowboy-shaped cupid and winking knowingly at the camera. Wink that works as a cliffhanger for “To be continued”.
