Mary J. Blige’s video for “Whole Damn Year”—from her great new album The London Sessions—features vignettes of abuse and violence. There’s a mother who cries at the memory of her partner’s assault in the presence of her daughter. There’s a bullied gay man, and there’s another woman who recalls locking herself in a bathroom to avoid being beaten by her dad.
Directed by Mike Ho and Alex Moors, the video is especially apropos for Blige, who’s spoken before about being a victim of and witness to abuse. This type of visual treatment is nothing new, of course, but it’s definitely impactful to pair stories of assault with a song about post-breakup emotional and physical reparation (Blige sings, “It took a whole damn year to repair my body”).
You can watch the video here. Even though there’s sort of a happy ending within it, an attempt to move forward, the narrative theme is that memories of abuse recur well after the incidents. MJB is having a great resurgence and I’m all in for it.
Image via screengrab
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