‘Video Girl’ 2011 – The Fallen Fantasy In The ‘I Just Wonna Be Successful’ World

Director: Ty Hodges
Writer: Datari Turner (screenplay)
Stars: Meagan Good, Adam Senn, Benjamin Brandon Ledee and Phil Austin

Do you know where you’re going to… Do you like the things that life is showing you?

A directed tagline that correctly returns Lorie Walker’s path in Video Girl back to the viewer, “Are you sure you know what you are doing?”

I am tempted to answer the question. Only that, whenever I try to think about it, the question rings louder and I wonder what it means. However, if Video Girl aroused any wavering tension wrapped up inside you between where your life is headed and where it should be headed, then I think the new director in Ty Hodges and the burgeoning actress in Meagan Good would have aptly made their case in the film world.

Usually, I would pose the question after seeing a movie like this, ‘What is the point?’ What’s the substance… after all? But, when it comes to the kind of black movies we are making and supporting these days one must become a little more circumspect with the substance question. It used to be our dilemma concerning the complete lack of substance and disrespect for black women in our music videos – something to which I feel this Video Girl response is rightly placed.

However, we can’t continue to dip our heads into the ground and pretend that the madness has not already caught up to our filmmaking. Perhaps, that’s why I am glad, and I have to confess that in fact, I got something out of Video Girl even though I think the script could have more wisely spelled out its admirable intentions.

The take home message from Video Girl is laudable. Lorie Walker (Meagan Good) who is an aspiring dancer, gets swept up into the glamorous showbiz life by a music video director Shark (Adam Senn). Little does Lorie know that Shark wants her in two places only – his music video set and his bed. Her quick catapult into success as a video girl then comes in direct proportion to a swift personal price – she spirals into the self-destruction of substance abuse.

Director Ty Hodges and writer Datari Turner’s point may be a tad exaggerated – not every video girl out there is on drugs. But I mostly agree with the message of the fallen fantasy in the now prevalent ‘I just wonna be successful’ cancer eating away at a considerable part of our society. There’s something refreshingly honest about watching Video Girl that many new black filmmakers can emulate.

Video Girl is a strong moral narrative of self-identification and acceptance. It is a message I would teach my girl child growing up in America albeit in the same way. The fallen fantasies of the corruptible young black woman in Lorie striving for fame in the music video business, is one that needs stressing. More important, it gives us, the consumers, a piece of the arsenal we need to begin to attack the world that keeps feeding us the crap we continue to complain about.

Clearly, Meagan Good is a class act when she plays the role of the fallen from fame; she is a ‘natural’ (for lack of a better word) when she plays the addict, distraught and the destroyed – by her own desires for fame. Good is ready to carry a whole film if the role is right. My only fear is that, she would end up playing solely such roles even though she might be equally competent for many other ones.

All in all, Video Girl was more so a message to a wise than a real attempt at a pleasing cinematic experience. I’m probably one of those people out there elated that the invisible pendulum swinging on Meagan Good’s career may soon catapult her into a significant player in cinema – I may be notoriously short-sighted that way. But I’d like to see her succeed!