heavenly bodies
by Douglas Messerli
Todrick Hall and John Asher (directors) Rainin'
Fellas / 2021 [4 minutes] [music video]
Often it is the simply audacity of singer/dancer
Todrick Hall’s music videos that makes them so watchable. But in the case of
his 2021 video Rainin’ Fellas (influenced obviously by the Weather Girl’s
1983 hit “It’s Raining Men”) it is not only the audacity of the metaphor—a sky
pouring down beefy gay men for all below to grab up and enjoy—along with the
outlandish costumes that so many Hall’s videos feature, but the absurd
narrative itself. Here, finally, we leave behind the heartache ballads of
singers pining and praying for love to enter their lives, opening us to a world
where the gods have seen kindly to let everyone find the male beautiful body they
have long been seeking. Women and men both joyfully dance to the delight of
open sexuality—cis straight men need not apply.
It begins with a somewhat conservatively besuited Lance Bass hailing a
downtown taxi in the rain; only his high heels and pedal-pusher pants might
provide us with a clue to his gay sexuality, the costume itself almost
satirizing the mixed signals that Bass himself has created over the years as a
gay boy who sees himself as “straight acting” (i.e. not effeminate).
But the joke is short-lived as suddenly, you might say, the heavens open,
delivering up a nude man on the roof of the taxi. From here on out, the joy is
simply in finding the right man to grab hold of and fuck.
Feel the thunder crashing like we crash
the party
And the lightning flashing like the
paparazzi
And the weatherman says we probably should
take cover
But we're running outside to try to find a
lover
You better find an ATM
Baby, fast fast
Tip some cash cash
It's raining dicks and ass ass
It's a fire (work) and it ain't even July
Muscles falling from the sky
If you wanna find a guy
Get your umbrellas
Get your umbrellas
It's raining fellas
It's raining fellas
Get your umbrellas
Get your umbrellas
It's raining fellas
It's raining fellas
From here on out the splendiferous delights come
simply from the costumes and the dance routines—and of course the bevy of
beautiful boys.
In
one moment Todd, completely covered with glitter, is singing in the rain, the
next prancing around in a kind of laminated bed robe under a plastic umbrella. At
the next moment he’s part of a chorus of men in colorful latex outfits. Finally,
he appears in a costume with a showgirl bodice featuring panels of cellophane
cubes that serve as true pantaloons.
A plastic ruby red gown is followed by a yellow latex suit that gives
way to an entire Busby Berkeley-inspired chorus of naked men who hide their
private parts with the long black gloves they wear as their only article of
clothing. O joy, o rapture!
But the highlight or the piece is when Hall appears atop a mountainous
ochre-colored gown within which men are entrapped as the performers begins
naming names:
It's raining Billys, Bobs, Blakes and
Brandons
It's raining Willys, Robs, Jakes and
Landons
It's raining Garrys, Jerrys, Larrys
Raining twigs and berries
Toms, Dicks and Harrys
Bears, jocks and fairies
It's raining thighs, tries, briefs and
boxers
It's raining fly, guys, flight attendants
and doctors
It's raining feminine, gentlemen, dripping
down like a faucet
Yeah, these boys are coming out
Like the sky was a closet
Frankly how could any gay person not enjoy this music video, even the
music itself is nothing you might want to listen to without the visual stimulus
attached? This is a gay statement of true liberation.
Los
Angeles, February 1, 2026
Reprinted
from My Queer Cinema blog (February 2026).
No comments:
Post a Comment