Kim Kardashian Crawls Around in New ‘Santa Baby’ Video
The reality star’s cover of the Eartha Kitt classic was produced by her brother-in-law, Travis Barker.
Kim Kardashian/YouTube
Kim Kardashian celebrated the Winter Solstice by releasing her own, fever-dream version of Eartha Kitt’s Christmas classic “Santa Baby.”
The cover is accompanied by a music video featuring Kardashian crawling around the wreckage of a particularly deranged holiday party populated by a mix of Christmas misfits and American archetypes. Think Gordon Gecko finance guys, goblin-style elves, jocks and cheerleaders, disturbed nuns, Jesus cosplay, Mary Magdalene and a donkey.
The floors are littered with white powder and $100 bills.
When Kardashian finally reaches Santa’s feet, she runs a finger up his knee. The patron saint of Christmas turns out to be none other than a smirking, dead-eyed Macaulay Culkin, star of Home Alone.
“Santa Baby” is Kardashian’s first musical foray since 2011’s one-off charity track “Jam (Turn It Up).”
Produced by her brother-in-law Travis Barker, “Santa Baby” is far more stripped down, though the music almost feels like an afterthought. The video’s sound effects often overpower Kardashian’s whispery vocals, which at some points cut out entirely.
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But Kardashian looks great and her shapewear—which is presumably her own brand, SKIMS—holds up well amid the ruins of American consumerism.
The video, directed by Nadia Lee Cohen and Charlie Denis, seems to be a clear parody of the excesses of the holiday season. Using a glorified SKIMS commercial to make their point was probably intentional, though reasonable people can differ on whether making something meta is the same as thing as making it incisive.
Unless the point was that just like SKIMS, consumerism is seductive, and in that sense Kardashian’s curves are the perfect narrative vehicle. Sort of like how Bernardo Bertolucci’s expressionist masterpiece The Conformist uses stunning imagery to convey the seduction of dangerous ideologies like fascism.
Yeah, let’s go with that.
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