There are just SO MANY THINGS to love about the music video for Mandy Moore’s “Candy”.
Here are the Top 7:
1. The CLOTHES. Skinny cargos. Belly shirts. That WTF arm band. The Sketchers, good god the Sketchers.
2. The Volkswagen Beetles. As a girl who drove a Volkswagen Beetle in high school, I can tell you, it was basically the coolest car you could have as a teenage girl. There wasn’t a lot about me that was cool (in fact, almost nothing about me was cool), but I did drive a light blue Beetle.
3. Mandy’s Aggressive Lip-Synching. The poor thing probably gave herself jaw strain mouthing those lyrics so hard. Work it, girl.
4. The Hottest Guy Ever. The guy Mandy is crushing on in this video is the total embodiment of EXACTLY what I thought was hot in high school. And, if we are going to be honest, still is. I also enjoy that he’s a skater instead of a regular jock. How edgy of you, Mands.
5. The Waters. These girls go en masse in their bright green punch bug to the local soda shoppe (sure, why not) and then commandeer a table for 6 and order WATER? Gawd. I bet I totally did that in high school, too. If that’s not teenage entitlement, I am not sure what is. Please tell me they left a tip before they left to go dance in the parking lot.
6. The Dancing. This choreography is exactly the right difficulty for girls like me and my BFF Katie to learn in our living rooms watching the same music video over and over again off of a homemade recording of it on VHS. You’d have to have the tape in, ready to go, and just HOPE that it made the TRL Top 10 so that you could record it.
7. The Unabashed Popular Girl-ness. I have spent several years trying to put a finger on why it is that I detest Taylor Swift as much as I do. It’s not her talent. Girl can sing and play and I have no problem with that. She’s even a decent enough lyricist. She has some pretty sparkly things that I wouldn’t mind having in my own closet. But I hate her. And I think I just figured out why. She is a hot, skinny, blond girl. She is now. She was when she appeared on the scene. But all her songs (even now, after years of fame) are about being unnoticed or unloved or feeling self conscious or broken-hearted. Now, I understand that these are things that girls relate to. I would definitely have been one of them in high school and maybe even now. But forgive me for finding it hard to stomach when those feelings come out of the mouth of a thin blond goddess with gobs of self confidence. What I love about this music video is that Mandy is also a skinny blond teen who can wear a tight tank top, tie a strap of fabric around her upper arm and strut her stuff in front of the cutest guy in school and know that he’ll come chasing after her on his (WTF?!?) scooter. Sure it’s ridiculous. But it’s also the way high school works. Maybe Mandy is just as broken hearted and insecure as any other girl, but this song rings much truer to me and what I remember about how the social order worked in my teen years.
also in the beginning she has a turquoise discman strapped to her waist. yessss.
