Rose McGowan’s artistic video is cosmically underwhelming.

Actress, artist and feminist Rose McGowan recently released a music video for her new single “RM468” and it is quite the art piece.

McGowan is best known for her acting in the television show “Charmed.” She has also starred in films such as “Grindhouse” and “Scream” and is a well-known aficionado in the fashion world. As of late, McGowan has branched more into the music world, abandoning acting and focusing on her art and image.

This image, as portrayed in her new music video, is bizarre and weird.

The synopsis of the video is McGowan covered in plaster, breaking out of said plaster looking like a naked albino alien and then wearing various costumes and paints as she sings to the camera.

What I experienced in viewing the video was watching a naked woman sing a less-than-stellar song while occasionally putting on some odd wardrobe choices. She looked like the twisted lovechild of Lady Gaga and Marilyn Manson (who she was actually married to for a short time).

The song just does not appeal to me at all; specifically her singing style. The backing track was actually decent. The problems I have with the music video are in the message it tries to portray.

McGowan is a feminist icon, known for her sense of fashion and criticism of sexist Adam Sandler movie scripts. She obviously believes in furthering the feminist cause. This music video does not seem to do much of that at all.

After reading interviews with McGowan about the video, I understand it more and have some level of respect for it. The artistic vision of the video was to show five sides of her or five stages of her life, with the different costumes showing each stage. If I had not read these explanations, I would have had no idea that there was any point to the video at all.

The major problem with the music video for me is the nudity. McGowan’s breasts are shown through most of the video, albeit with a covering of white body paint. I viewed this video on YouTube, and there were no age restrictions on the video. The video on McGowan’s official YouTube page does have the age restriction, but on the page NOWNESS, which has the most views of the video on YouTube, there is no age restriction.

Any child surfing YouTube for cat videos could easily stumble upon this video in the sidebar, and they most likely would be shocked by the bizarreness of the video, as well as the nudity. They most likely would not understand the art behind the nudity.

Is the nudity portrayed in the video really art, though? I do not see how wearing body paint automatically makes her an art piece and she can therefore be nude on one of the most popular websites on Earth for anyone to view. Slapping some paint on should not be used as an excuse for artistic nudity. It is much too easy for artists to make excuses for their art forms and it allows them to get away with a lot.

Of course, the body paint is not the art of the video. It is just a small part of it. But something tells me if McGowan was not wearing the body paint, the video would have been taken down from YouTube or an age restriction would have been set to view it. However, since she is technically covered by paint, I suppose it is all right for her to be nude on YouTube.

Also, how does being naked in front of millions really help the feminist cause? I understand that it is her body, she can do whatever she wants, but I am sure plenty of men will support her in being topless, but not for the reasons for which she wants them to support her. Perhaps the bizarre nature of the video was meant to put-off anyone from viewing her body in the wrong way, but it is not hard to imagine a young teenage boy ogling the video over and over, despite the crazy costumes and body paint. Something tells me a man ogling the body of a woman is something that would make any feminist upset, so I think McGowan’s video defeats the purpose of feminism.

Maybe I am just not artistic enough to appreciate the video, but it just does not appeal to me at all. I believe nudity can be instrumental to art, as it has been for centuries, but the format and publicity of this video should not allow it to be viewed by just anybody. It almost seems like she got naked just for the sake of being naked, as if to push boundaries and offend people, which I am sure the video will do. However, no clear message is being portrayed except that a naked alien lady cannot decide what cosmic costume to wear. I guess one woman’s art is another man’s trash, because this video seems to have nothing but shock value to me.

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