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Honey
CLIP IN
00:37:16
CLIP OUT
00:40:42

SUMMARY

At her next music video shoot, Honey uses a megaphone to direct a group of dancers, but remains unsatisfied with their performance. Michael Ellis comes over and informs Honey that something is missing from the routine, and to fix it. Honey dismisses the dancers with concern.

Wandering away from the shoot, Honey notices a group of kids playing basketball and draws inspiration from their movements. Moving on, Honey spies a group of kids jumping rope, and proceeds to incorporate their urban flow into her choreography. Back at the shoot, Honey revises the dance routine, to Michael's unending delight.

Honey travels home in a taxicab early the next morning. Though she is exhausted, she manages to smile.

ANALYSIS

By now, the viewer has surely picked up on a certain amount of romantic tension between Honey and Michael. While this pairing seems initially to make less sense than Honey's attraction to someone from the hood like Chaz, this clip showcases at least one key attribute Honey and Michael have in common: they are terrible at their jobs.

Honey, at least, may be excused for being prematurely swept up the ranks by an irresponsible director; if Honey has one lesson to impart upon its audience, more so than "Follow your dream on your own terms," it is "Don't confuse raw talent with actual competence." In reality, Honey has only set foot on two video shoots in her life, which is apparently insufficient experience to have taught Honey not to use a megaphone to address people standing three feet away from her.

Perhaps most startling of all is Honey's presumed authority to yell "cut" during filming, widely known in production as a cardinal sin for anyone who is not the director. Unfortunately for whichever artist hired Michael to direct their video, he is so bad at his job that Honey's transgression is the least of his worries; instead, Michael reluctantly takes a break from slouching, texting, and chewing gum to shuffle over and mumble to Honey that something is missing. Fortunately for him, the artist does not appear to have shown up to their own video shoot, adding to this parade of unprofessionalism.

Having already plagiarized the moves of other street youths, such as Benny's "You've got something on your-- no, it's over there" move, Honey feels no hesitation moving on to her next target: strangers. Standing before a chain link fence, Honey is presented with a series of compositions depicting urban youth in motion, helpfully provided so she can craft embarrassing dance moves such as "dribbling an invisible basketball," "shooting an invisible basketball," and "jumping invisible rope." Truly, Honey's choreography is revolutionary in the way it fuses street culture with hip-hop, two seemingly irreconcilable worlds if ever there were any.

After a grueling day and night of shooting, Honey still finds it in herself to smile at her good fortune. That good fortune, of course, being that a song whose lyrics consist only of her name happens to be playing on the soundtrack right now.


ANIMATED GIF
Really, just focus on the guy to the right (1.5 MB)
DELETED SCENES
Originally, there were several more urban panoramas viewed by Honey through the same chain link fence while standing in the same place. Among the shots removed for time constraints:
  • Little girls playing hopscotch
  • Honey doing a dance that looks like hopscotch
  • Someone gesturing wildly on his cell phone
  • Honey doing a dance that looks like gesturing wildly
  • An old woman knitting
  • Honey doing a dance that looks like knitting
  • Benny dealing drugs
  • Honey disapproving briefly, then doing a dance that looks like selling drugs

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