"Mad About You" (Video): Pure, Uncensored Belinda Porn

They did it to Soft Cell, and they did it to Frankie Goes To Hollywood, but for some inexplicable reason, MTV decided not to ban the video for Belinda Carlisle's "Mad About You," although they very well could have. In fact, the network had the courage to air it smack in the middle of the day (!). So was she nude? Was she topless? Oh no, nothing quite so coarse and vulgar. No, in this particular video, Belinda Carlisle was just really, insanely, outrageously hot.

I mean H-O-T-T-T-T-T. Like "call the fire department" hot. Like "I need to jump into a pit of lava to cool myself down" hot. I'm talkin' ooh la la, "send the children out of the room" hot. This video is obscene. This video is inappropriate for males under the age of 18. It is NSFW. Basically, the video for "Mad About You" is three minutes and forty-one seconds of pure, undiluted, unfiltered Belinda Porn. It is the Jolt Cola of Belinda videos.



I'm not sure if anyone behind making of the video intended it to be as such. After all, Belinda was the recording artist, and usually the recording artist is featured in the video. It just so happens that this particular recording artist, at this particular time in her life, was radiating Chernobyl levels of hotness. This video is like a love letter to that unexpected hotness. The camera roams around her figure like an art historian would roam around Michelangelo's David. Here is the Renaissance Ideal, the Ultimate Human Form ... wearing a baggy turtleneck sweater and hoop earrings.

Rarely, and I mean rarely, has a music video so successfully projected a specific image of an artist. Say I'm the marketing guy behind this clip. Here are some of the "key words" I've scribbled down in the proposal: Beach; Romance; Los Angeles; All Grown Up; California; Carefree; Palm Trees; Yuppie Husband; Convertible; Jogging; Hotness. This isn't just a video, it's a lifestyle. It plays like an advertisement for Southern California: "Where you can drive your car to the beach every day and dance awkwardly in the sand with Belinda Carlisle." Of course, an image is often just that: an image. Disturbingly enough, Belinda's life during this period may have actually been as enjoyable as it appears to be in this video, which makes me a little sick, but I can console myself with the thought that her enjoyment would last about fifteen seconds. From Lips Unsealed:

The "Mad About You" video, directed by Leslie Lieberman, was a fun, romantic postcard that fit with the song. We shot it in Santa Monica's Ocean Park, overlooking the beach and on the sand itself. I wore a black cocktail dress, swept my hair back, and put on a pair of sunglasses. It was simple and classy and felt to me like it fit the song.

My favorite part was that Morgan played my dreamy love interest. He didn't want me kissing anyone else.

Fine with me. I didn't want to kiss anyone else.

Awwwwww. Just wait you two, the headaches would be right around the corner.

See, the problem with establishing such an appealing new image ... is that one has to maintain that appealing new image. Ah, but in this clip, none of those concerns seem to even be on Belinda's radar screen. In this clip, there's nary a problem to be found. She's got Morgan, she's got a cute new look, she's got a catchy new single ... to paraphrase Gershwin, who could ask for anything more? The American public is often wrong about a variety of things, but sometimes, I think it can pick up on the synergy between the life of an artist and the song she's singing. Some great performers can slip inside a persona and sell a lyric that has nothing to do with their immediate circumstances, but it seems to me that Belinda rarely needed to take such measures, or "fake" her art, as there always seemed to be some cosmic unity between her biography and her material. In other words, this video is real, y'all. A little narcissistic, a little hedonistic, perhaps, but real. The "Mad About You" video captures Belinda at the absolute peak of her "Belinda-ness," if you will. She is healthy, "sober," married to Mr. Hollywood Royalty, launching a brand new solo career where she's the star ... it is all right here, forever preserved in amber, permanently sealed in carbonite.

And she doesn't even know how hot she is. Which is hot! She's cavorting around in front of the camera like it's no big deal! My fellow YouTube commentators can hardly handle it either:

Goddamn she's so HOT. In the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy..Spirit. Amen

I was a metalhead by the end of the decade, but Belinda was hot as fuck!

I'm not usually one for blondes but... Jesus! She's living proof that God is a man.

I call it "Southern Cal Silky" hair

This is my woman fo sho

her face is what every women out there is getting plastic surgery to achieve

The nose that Latoya is still trying to achieve.

I'd let her fart in my Corvette.

Does anyone here think she farts? I don't. And even if she did I'm sure they would be the kind that makes your mouth water for more.

I give this song 5 lines of Coke 5/5

Less Coke,more Go Go's.

First thing I like is she is genuine and not putting on an act. She is incredibly bubbly and youthful. Fun.Extremely attractive because she has the whole package.
Although I wonder how much of that bubbly energy wasn't chemically induced.

I wish she would have come to me for sex therapy to treat her drug addiction. even if she didn't get better, I would have!!

She actually makes that horrible eighties dance moves attractive.

And Darby puked

Did that just say IRS records, or am I just hallucinating because it's April 15th?

How cool is Belinda Carlisle? Cool enough to have Andy Taylor sitting in her back yard to rip off a screaming guitar solo when she requires it. That's how cool.

I was born in 1990, and even though the 80s tend to have a connotation of being cheesy and superficial, I think this is a fantastic example of a perfect pop video. Fashion-wise, Belinda is such an inspiration, even today. She looks so sexy even though she's wearing a black baggy turtleneck thing for half of the video. Why is it that nowadays Rihanna, Christina Aguilera, Lady Gaga, and Katy Perry can't seem to get through a performance without prancing around in their panties and a pair of boots?

Exactly! Whatever happened to the good ol' days, when women dressed tastefully in music videos ... and saved all the depravity for the tour bus? And what's with the obsession over Belinda's farts? Various YouTube viewers have struggled to come up with suitable reference points for her hotness, comparing her with everyone from - get a load of these names - Edie Sedgewick, Lee Remick, and Grace Kelly (old-fashioned glamour) to Michelle Pfeiffer, Reese Witherspoon, and Elizabeth Banks (slightly more contemporary beauties). And guess freakin' what? None of those comparisons do her justice. Imagine if Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn absconded to Paris together and conceived a secret love child, and you might, might be getting somewhere near the ballpark. Allow me, if I may, to break down the distinct varieties of hotness:

1) 0:01 - The black cocktail dress. Normally not my thing, but I'm going for it here. The sunglasses are also a nice touch.

2) 0:14 - The black turtleneck sweater. On paper, this should have been a disaster, but she pulls it off like no woman has before or since. She's wearing a turtleneck sweater ... at the beach! The attractiveness of this situation defies the laws of physics, but as everyone knows, Belinda can bend the fabric of space and time.

3) 0:16 - Some sort of ... long-sleeve black dress with white buttons down the front? Hold on, I think it's actually a blouse-and-sweatpants combination. I have no idea what to call this thing. Note that this is Belinda's third outfit in the video (fourth if you count the brief shot with the jean jacket - also hot) and only 16 seconds have passed. At the 0:30 mark, she stands in front of a mirror, with the blouse ... oh God I can't even say it ... the blouse ... unbuttoned. She's showing us her bra. Like it's nothing. Like it's just a normal day in the world of Morgan and Belinda. "Hold on honey, let me button this up, yes, I love you too."

4) 0:34 - Another outfit that is also black, but I think it's actually a different outfit. It's like a V-neck blouse/black skirt deal? She grabs a record and starts gyrating against her reflection in the glass. Gyrating!

5) 0:48 - Now she's at some flower market in a floral-print shirt (or dress)? She's in like ten different places at once!

6) 1:00 - Now she's in a studio, with a solid beige background, wearing what may be the same black turtleneck sweater she's wearing on the beach, or possibly an entirely different black turtleneck sweater (you've seen one black turtleneck sweater, you've seen them all). Occasionally the image of palm trees and typically dense L.A. traffic is superimposed onto her angelic face.

7) 1:28 - And now we come to the most terrifying outfit of all: the light green shoulder-less flower-print summer dress. This is seriously not cool, people. We need a parental advisory sticker on these scenes. Of course, that's quickly interrupted with more shots of Belinda showing the world her bra. There is no rest. The flower-print dress comes back with a vengeance at 2:40, where she and Morgan start dancing in front of us. Dancing! Stay on that couch, Morgan. It's not nice to show off.

And ... we're safe. I think that's it. Other amusing bits not related to her attire:

• 1:54 - First cameo: Charlotte Caffey, back-up singer and former bandmate, fresh out of rehab and glad to be along for the wacky Belinda solo career ride.
• 2:08 - Second cameo: Duran Duran's Andy Taylor, who not only played the guitar solo in the studio, but showed up to mime the guitar solo in the video! This thing had "hit" written all over it.
• 2:29 - Belinda leans over the side of a convertible and begins to serenade the camera like she wants to have its baby. At 2:34 she leans back and appears to be ... fellating the air?
• She may have acquired an entirely new look, but she clearly has not acquired any new dancing skills. Her moves range from clutching her shoulders while making an X with her arms, to spinning a little, to jogging very slowly. I just wonder what Austin Powers-style directions they gave her. "Look like you're grooving with the music, Belinda! Let your instincts take you over, baby! Yes! Yes!"
• Every so often, the video switches to this grainy, green-tinted film stock. The "Mad About You" video is going avant-garde on us! Either that, or even the film stock agreed that Belinda was so hot, it decided, independently of the director, to tone down the clarity in a noble effort to spare the delicate eyes of sensitive viewers.