In honor of AANHPI Heritage month, let's celebrate Filipina-American pop star Olivia Rodrigo and her love of horror movies. Grammy-award singer Olivia Rodrigo not only sings about the angsty teenage experience, but she references women-led horror movies in her music videos that give us a glimpse of how brutal girlhood could really be. In no particular order, let's see what horror movie references we can spot in Rodrigo's music videos.
In the music video "good 4 u" Olivia Rodrigo famously wears black gloves throughout the video. After recently watching a classic J-horror film, I got déjà vu because one of the characters also is known for wearing black rubber gloves. If you haven't guessed it before, Olivia Rodrigo's gloves are inspired by the J-horror film Audition (1991). The female lead, Asami wears black rubber gloves when she reveals her cruel intentions toward a widower. FYI, Audition is about a woman seeking revenge on men that have done her wrong, and "good 4 u" has got that covered, alright.
In, "Brutal" Olivia Rodrigo shows us that life can be brutal for teenage girls or just women in general. This music video is all about hyper-feminity and how suffocating it is for girls to keep up with unrealistic images of themselves. We see scenes of ballet dancers and Rodrigo breaking a leg to keep up with the dancers; this definitely screams Black Swan (2010). She's even wearing black pointe shoes!