POPSCREEN: Good Charlotte

Good Charlotte

“Get Your Hands Off My Girl”

Dir. Marvin Scott Jarrett

“Write what you know” is a timeless adage. The members of Good Charlotte don’t know very much, but two of them do run their own clothing line (DCMA), of which they presumably know something. So, it is appropriate that their new single, “Keep Your Hands Off My Girl” contains multiple non-sequiturial references to said brand. QED.

But seriously, Good Charlotte love to talk about couture brands, brass knuckles (which are, not coincidentally, the logo for their brand), and knives. Whether that knowledge is of a practical variety is open to interpretation: it’s possible that Benji Madden has knifed a hipster or two in his day (the song is not kind to that fey breed), but I doubt it.

In the video, lead singer Joel Madden looks like he wandered onto the set fresh off a hard day’s work on Wall Street and started singing without even removing his coat. Despite Joel doing his diabolical best with the painful vocal processing to claim the title, Benji, with his tattoos and piercings, is clearly the evil twin. As the video cuts between their two faces, it takes quite some time to realize that they are in fact two separate band members and not just Joel and his doppelgänger. I don’t know for sure that one day Joel will go to jail for Benji’s hipster-killing spree, but I have my suspicions.

What I do know is that, while a video consisting of the band performing against a white background is classic, it is also dull unless either the performance or the filming is particularly arresting. Having a lot of tattoos doesn’t cut it on the first count, any more than filming in black and white, occasional close-ups of faces or instruments, or occasionally switching to a black background count for the second. While minimalism is appreciated when so many videos have no goal but maximalism (“It cost a million dollars! Pamela Anderson was in it! I jumped over canyons! It has to be good!”), the fact that it can be done while still being interesting and original is something that Good Charlotte, for all their girlfriend-stealing, knife-packing, self-promoting knowledge, have yet to learn.

—Elisabeth J. Bloomberg