POPSCREEN: Fergie

Fergie

“Fergalicious”

Dir. Fatima Robinson

What do you get when you cross Candy Land with an overtly sexualized one-time child actress turned ghetto-funk star? Fergie’s new video “Fergalicious” is Willy Wonka’s wet dream.

Fergie prances through candy-cane forests and lollipop trees wearing the flouncy frocks that remind us of childhood—except they are a whole lot shorter than you remembered. She later titillates with the most revealing girl-scout costume you’ve ever seen.

In the words of the song, which seem to capture the essence of both middle-school pubescence and this fantasyland video, “I smell sex and candy here.”

And for Fergie, these are things that go together well. The song deals almost entirely with how much men want her—she’s “tasty,” “delicious,” her body “vicious,” in fact, you might even say she’s “Fergalicious.” Fundamentally, Fergie treats herself as simply a piece of eye-candy, a buxom bonbon.

Visually, the video verges on seizure inducing, with dizzyingly kaleidoscopic scenes. There are also peculiar visuals, such as a svelte and feline sylph painted in pink and purple stripes, looking very much like a human Cheshire Cat.

As Fergie and her friends lather up with frosting for soap in a kiddie-pool of cake, it became clear that any social commentary on the problems of childhood sexuality would have to wait. At the same time, the video throws you back to the past, to a time when you thought Princess Peach was cute, and the fish in Fantasia were really sexy. But just as everything changes when Charlie enters the Chocolate Factory, there is a sinister and aggressive undercurrent in the video.

Fergie, a recovered meth addict, says she turned to drugs in part because of the pressures of being a child actress. Is this trippy video a subtle jibe at the exploitation of the young stars of Nickelodeon and Disney channel shows?

Probably not: Fergie’s much too interested in showing off her caramel cones and cloying crooning.

—Alexander B. Fabry