Queen’s 1984 music video for “I Want to Break Free” is one of the most memorable and iconic moments in their career, partly due to the band’s playful and bold performances. During the video shoot, the band, dressed in quirky, stereotypically “housewife” outfits, parodied domestic life, with Freddie Mercury wearing a pink apron, John Deacon in a dress, Roger Taylor in a wig, and Brian May sporting a skirt.
The video was a sharp contrast to Queen’s usual dramatic rock image, with the band embracing humor and satire. While it became a fan favorite, it also sparked controversy, especially in the United States, where it was banned from MTV for its portrayal of cross-dressing. Despite this, the video has since become a beloved piece of rock history, representing the band’s fearless attitude toward self-expression and pushing boundaries.
The “I Want to Break Free” music video was directed by David Mallet. It was shot on March 22 and May 4, 1984 at Limehouse Studios. The atmosphere was playful and lighthearted—band members reportedly couldn’t stop laughing at each other’s costumes between takes.
The Coronation Street spoof was “suggested by Taylor’s then-girlfriend Dominique.” Recounted Roger Taylor: “We had done some really serious, epic videos in the past, and we just thought we’d have some fun. We wanted people to know that we didn’t take ourselves too seriously, that we could still laugh at ourselves. I think we proved that. I thought what character to make Fred? And I thought Liverpudlian slag is the answer.”
Mercury’s character was loosely based on Coronation Street barmaid Bet Lynch, who wants to “break free” from her life. Although Lynch was a blonde, Mercury thought he would look too silly as a blonde and chose a dark wig. He wears a black wig, pink earrings, a tight-fitting sleeveless pink top with sizable false breasts (with black bra straps showing), black leather miniskirt, thigh-high black stockings, and high-heeled shoes. No attempt was made to disguise Mercury’s then-trademark mustache, adding further to the comical effect. During rehearsals, Mercury realized that he could not walk freely in very high heels and settled on 2-inch ones. May plays a more dowdy housewife, with rollers in his hair, based loosely on Hilda Ogden. Deacon appears as a conservative old “grandma,” while Taylor plays a schoolgirl with long blonde hair who, like Mercury's character, wants a different life.
The composition was choreographed by Wayne Eagling, a friend of Mercury who had helped him with the choreography of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Eagling was then a leader of the Royal Ballet which was involved in the video. Mercury shaved his mustache in reference to Vaslav Nijinsky as the faun in the ballet L’après-midi d’un faune. The shooting took much practice, especially the conveyor rolling part. According to Eagling, despite being a natural performer on stage, Mercury could not stand performing any choreographed act himself, which is why he was mostly picked up and moved around in the ballet part of the video. The rehearsals with the Royal Ballet were organized by Eagling secretly from his superiors, something that placed him in serious trouble when discovered later.
“All around the world people laughed and they got the joke and they sort of understood it,” May said. “I remember being on the promo tour in the Midwest of America and peoples’ faces turning ashen and they would say, ‘No, we can’t play this. We can’t possibly play this. You know, it looks homosexual’.”
While the video wasn’t banned outright, the cool reception to the clip meant that one of Queen’s best songs was something of a damp squib in America – and May considers that the video damaged the band’s reputation in that country. At least, until the Bohemian Rhapsody scene in Wayne’s World.
When Queen played Rio in January 1985, Mercury’s treatment of the song didn’t go down too well. When “I Want To Break Free” was performed live, the singer would don the wig and the false breasts in a callback to the video. However, when he pulled this costume change in Rio, the crowd of 350,000 people “began tossing stones, beer cans and other missiles” at the legend.
As Queen’s interpreter Maria Caetano explained to the group: “The song is sacred in South America because we consider it a political message about the evils of dictatorships.”
Once Freddie had whipped the disguise off, the crowd were pacified and the gig remains one of Queen’s biggest audiences. In fact, it even gets a mention in the recent biopic Bohemian Rhapsody.
0 comments:
Post a Comment