‘Criminal’: How Fiona Apple subverted the male gaze
Fiona Apple was never interested in taking the typical pop star approach to music. From the minute that she first stepped onstage, she was looking to challenge the audience as well as make them question the reasons why they catered to her music in the first place. Although ‘Criminal’ is still one of the best pop songs to come out of the 1990s, Apple never let anyone in her audience forget the power that she wielded by playing to everyone’s stereotypes.
It’s difficult to neatly define what Apple does. Throughout music history, there’s never been a shortage of singer-songwriters aiming to sit at a piano, play a handful of tunes, and tell a story rather than embody the superstar persona. Yet, on this track, Apple crafts a melody that would make Carole King proud, pairing it with the biting wit and sarcasm reminiscent of Randy Newman’s finest work.
Looking at the song itself, the narrator is looking to treat this nameless man as someone who doesn’t look at her past her looks. Even though there are moments where she says that she needs to be redeemed, the sarcasm is in every single syllable that Apple sings, knowing that the person on the other end of this conversation isn’t listening to anything that she has to say and will more than likely only remember the pretty face.
Even the video managed to play with everyone’s expectations of what this kind of song is supposed to be. Since every other pop starlet was used to making extravagant videos ever since Madonna took over the world, having the idea to parody the Calvin Klein underwear models of the time was a stroke of genius. Apple delivered that message with the same tactics that the male gaze is drawn to.
Despite catering to what the rest of the world thought a singer-songwriter was supposed to present themselves, Apple thought that the power behind the video was bringing the song to life, saying, “I’m treating the audience watching this video the same way the character in this song treats the man. ‘I don’t have to give you anything because of how pretty I am. Look how successful I can be with you and how much power I can get just by letting this light shine on me in a certain way.’”
Considering the amount of subversion already going on in MTV at the time with the rise of industrial icons like Nine Inch Nails or the more abstract videos by Björk, ‘Criminal’ may be one of the best ways to subvert expectations by using male gaze tactics as critiques against themselves. So, naturally, that meant absolutely no one got it.
Despite Apple deserving the music video equivalent of an Oscar, it was clear that no one understood what she was going for when she started racking up MTV Awards for the tune. And in only a few words of her acceptance speech, it was clear she had no time to mess around, telling everyone in the audience that the world that they talked about on that stage was complete bullshit.
People may have painted her as a controversial songwriter, and parents needed to monitor her to see if their kids were listening to her, but Apple never really did anything wrong. The kind of exploitation in these videos happens every single day, and the only thing that she was guilty of was making everyone collectively take a hard look in the mirror and question why they were drawn to that style of video in the first place.
