With this entry into the annals of MVM, we may have the answer to the musical question, “Where do we go after Ozzy?” With the Black Sabbath icon Ozzy Osbourne shuffling off his mortal coil this July, one can’t help but look to those who carry on his legacy. And here, from a woman’s perspective, in ways totally unique to its own glorious rules, this video, and Haley Ivey of Little Baby Tendencies, capture echoes of the Oz and other great screamers, but that’s only a starting point. Watch on, and it becomes an exercise in world-building, in shape-shifting and gloriously unrestrained anger.
Since both director Ben Siler and band frontperson Haley Ivey happen to be particularly thoughtful about their craft, we asked them both to add their own artist’s statements to the video debut’s preamble. Read on, and be amazed at one of the most visceral videos you’ve seen in a long while. Music Video Monday presents Little Baby Tendencies’ “Stupid Game.”
Ben Siler, Director
My friend Andee Buggey took me to see Little Baby Tendencies play the Lamplighter for the Memphis Women and Non-Binary Safety Summit 2024, and it was the best show I’ve ever seen in my life. Just the insane faces Haley makes, the energy and inflection she brings to every line. It was amazing. I loved it. Chris [McCoy, the Flyer‘s film/television editor] and Laura Jean [Hocking] agreed to produce/edit and Sarah Fleming to shoot, Chad Barton to help her, and Sallie Sabbatini to control props, set, and wardrobe. (Haley brought her costumes from her show).
She got into the role like an actor, and chose Sarah Fleming’s suggestion that the ending shot be more humorous by having her friend Mitchell walk over her on the way to the bathroom as she lay there exhausted.
Robert Fortner, who is in the second episode of Better Call Saul, is in the video. I think I heard Sallie say “Having Robert Fortner in this doubles the production value.” I agree. He and Kim Howard really got into the little scene they got to share together, in which Robert hits on Kim and Haley holds him down and spits a drink in his face.
The concept of the vides is about communication. When you play a show or make art of any sort sometimes people just stare at you, having no reaction but indifference. It feels like this. You play, they are frozen, ignoring and at most just waiting for you to be done. Haley is screaming in the faces of people. This disconnection mirrors the one in the song, where Haley is trying to communicate being mistreated by a man/men and receives no response or recognition from them.
The song was personal to Haley. It was an interaction with an audience member who got upset, and the video took on aspects of her recreating that and making it positive and her being in control of it.
That shot, involving buying a collapsible chair made of balsa wood, turned out the best shot in the video because the way the food on the table rose with the broken pieces of chair perfectly in slow motion.
Haley Ivey, Singer/Songwriter/Auteur
There’s a game I play with covert sexism, the most fluently insidious sexism of all: when you are talked down to, made to feel like an object by words or tone, treated as if speaking against their contempt is so silly of you. You can begin to tip the bucket of full blown misogyny with any form of standing up for yourself and your right to exist in the same space. How quickly will this perpetrator use a misogynistic slur in the heat of his own argument? If he says it, he loses. They’ve named them all just for me, and the tally is marked up higher every year. What they lose is my gain: to shake that sexist pillar to dust once and for all.
My experience working with Ben Siler and his team was incredible. The amount of work that was put in by each member could have been exhausting, but everyone pulled through valiantly from the initial talks all the way to end of the day of filming. Ben and his team opened up the gate to any input and anxieties I had, willing to bring to the life the core beliefs of the song that was written. If anything happened on set, it was taken care of. The positivity in the face of all that happens on a film set was consistent. They helped me make something I can be proud of, and brought the song to its proper meaning, intention, and chaotic play I so wanted it to be.
See Haley Ivey and the public premiere of the “Stupid Game” video at B-Side Memphis, Friday, Sept. 19th, at 9 p.m. Also featuring Snörkler, Spoonful, and Tüth’s debut show.