Is the Viral “Red Dress” Music Video a Sociological Experiment? Performance Art? Or Something Else?

Before it set itself on fire, HBO’s Game of Thrones res­onat­ed deeply with con­tem­po­rary moral­i­ty, becom­ing the most meme-wor­thy of shows, for good or ill, online. Few scenes in the show’s run — per­haps not even the Red Wed­ding or the nau­se­at­ing finale — elicit­ed as much gut-lev­el reac­tion as Cer­sei Lannister’s naked walk of shame in the Sea­son 5 finale, a scene all the more res­o­nant as it hap­pened to be based on real events.

In 1483, one of King Edward IV’s many mis­tress­es, Jane Shore, was marched through London’s streets by his broth­er Richard III, “while crowds of peo­ple watched, yelling and sham­ing her. She wasn’t total­ly naked,” notes Men­tal Floss, “but by the stan­dards of the day, she might as well have been,” wear­ing noth­ing but a kir­tle, a “thin shift of linen meant to be worn only as an under­gar­ment.”

What are the stan­dards of our day? And what is the pun­ish­ment for vio­lat­ing them? Sarah Brand seemed to be ask­ing these ques­tions when she post­ed “Red Dress,” a music video show­cas­ing her less than stel­lar singing tal­ents inside Oxford’s North Gate Church. In less than a month, the video has gar­nered well over half a mil­lion views, “impres­sive for a musi­cian with hard­ly any social media foot­print or fan base,” Kate Fowler writes at Newsweek.

“It takes only a few sec­onds,” Fowler gen­er­ous­ly remarks, “to real­ize that Brand may not have the voice of an angel.” Or, as one clever com­menter put it, “She is actu­al­ly hit­ting all the notes… only of oth­er songs. And at ran­dom.” Is she ludi­crous­ly un-self-aware, an heiress with delu­sions of grandeur, a sad casu­al­ty of celebri­ty cul­ture, forc­ing her­self into a role that doesn’t fit? Or does she know exact­ly what she’s doing…

The judg­ments of medieval mobs have noth­ing on the inter­net, Brand sug­gests. “Red Dress” presents what she calls “a cin­e­mat­ic, holis­tic por­tray­al of judg­ment,” one that includes inter­net sham­ing in its cal­cu­la­tions. Giv­en the amount of online ran­cor and ridicule her video pro­voked, it “did what it set out to do,” she tells the BBC. And giv­en that Brand is cur­rent­ly com­plet­ing a master’s degree in soci­ol­o­gy at Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty, many won­der if the project is a soci­o­log­i­cal exper­i­ment for cred­it. She isn’t say­ing.

Jane Shore’s walk end­ed with years locked in prison. Brand offered her­self up for the scorn and hatred of the mobs. No one is point­ing a pike at her back. She paid for the priv­i­lege of hav­ing peo­ple laugh at her, and she’s espe­cial­ly enjoy­ing “some very, very wit­ty com­ments” (like those above). She’s also very much aware that she is “no pro­fes­sion­al singer.”

The style in which I sing the song was impor­tant because it reflect­ed the sto­ry. The vocals don’t seem to quite fit, they seem out of place and they make peo­ple uncom­fort­able… and the video is this out­sider doing things dif­fer­ent­ly and caus­ing dis­com­fort and elic­it­ing all this judge­ment.

All of this is vol­un­tary per­for­mance art, in a sense, though Brand has shown pre­vi­ous aspi­ra­tions on social media to become a singer, and per­haps faced sim­i­lar ridicule invol­un­tar­i­ly. “Part of what this project deals with,” she says, is judg­ment “over­all as a cen­tral theme.” She cred­its her­self as the direc­tor, pro­duc­er, chore­o­g­ra­ph­er, and edi­tor and made every cre­ative deci­sion, to the bemuse­ment of the actors, crew, and stu­dio musi­cians. Yet choos­ing to endure the gaunt­let does not make the gaunt­let less real, she sug­gests.

The shame rained down on Shore was part misog­y­ny, part pent-up rage over injus­tice direct­ed at a hat­ed bet­ter. When any­one can pre­tend (or pre­tend to pre­tend) to be a celebri­ty with a few hun­dred bucks for cin­e­matog­ra­phy and audio pro­duc­tion, the bound­aries between our “bet­ters” and our­selves get fuzzy. When young women are expect­ed to become brands, to live up to celebri­ty lev­els of online pol­ish for social recog­ni­tion, self-expres­sion, or employ­ment, the lines between choice and com­pul­sion blur. With whom do we iden­ti­fy in scenes of pub­lic sham­ing?

Brand is coy in her sum­ma­tion. “Judg­men­tal behav­ior does hurt the world,” she says, “and that is what I’m try­ing to bring to light with this project.” Judge for your­self in the video above and the … inter­est­ing… lyrics to “Red Dress” below.

Came to church to praise all love
Sit­ting, com­ing for some­one else
It didn’t stew well for me
But I said it was a lover’s deed

Didn’t trust my own feels
Let some­one else behind my wheel
Said it was love dri­ving me
But the only one who should steer is me

Cuz what they saw

They see me in a red dress
Hop­ping on the dev­il fest
Think­ing of lust
As they judge in dis­gust
What are you doing here?

They see me in a red dress
Hop­ping on the dev­il fest
Think­ing of lust
As I judge in dis­gust
What am I doing here?

Let­tin’ some­one else steer

I saw a love, pre­cious and fine
Thought I should do any­thing for time 
Time to change the hearts and minds
Of peo­ple not like me in break or stride

Shouldn’t be me, try­ing to change
Thought I’d be some­thing if I remained 
It just ain’t me singing of sins
Watch­ing exclu­sion get­ting its wins

Cuz what they saw

They see me in a red dress
Hop­ping on the dev­il fest
Think­ing of lust
As they judge in dis­gust
What are you doing here?

They see me in a red dress
Hop­ping on the dev­il fest
Think­ing of lust
As I judge in dis­gust
What am I doing here?

Let­tin’ some­one else steer

Came to church 
To praise love
Com­ing for
Some­one else

But all the eyes
Judg­ing in dis­guise
They don’t see me
Just the lies

They see me in a red dress
No dif­fer­ent from the rest
Start­ing to trust
As they join in a rush
What are we doing here?

They see me in a red dress
No dif­fer­ent from the rest
Start­ing to trust
As I lose my dis­gust
What am I doing here?

Strik­ing the fear

They see me in a red dress

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Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness