Video: BIIANCO, ‘That’s What Friends Are For’

on
0
BIIANCO (Photo by Scott Fleishman)

The visual for BIIANCO’s throbbing little electropop ditty “That’s What Friends Are For” — and it’s more than just a music video — could be titled “Rise of the Toxic Exes.” Of course, the point is that they eventually fall, too.

Not simply the video embedded below, “That’s What Friends Are For” is an interactive video survival game. You can play via BIIANCO’s website here. Hint: Don’t make any bad choices.

In the narrative, four pals are enjoying a night in when their former partners intrude.

“I kept picturing my friends’ and my exes as zombies, infected by this horrible disease that makes you treat people you ‘love’ like crap,” says BIIANCO, noting that: “All quotes used in the game were actually said to the actors by various exes.”

Directed by Scott Fleishman (Machine Gun Kelly, SZA) and shot by Daria Roundtree, the game (coded by Matthew Goral) required the filming of eight different scenarios to cover all the possible outcomes in the narrative. Portraying the zombies are Gustavo Gomez (“The Walking Dead”), Davi Santos (“Power Rangers”) and Jenah Doucette (“America’s Next Top Model”), who are joined by Alita LaShae, Chelsea Debo, Elyse Cizek and Erin Hinojos.

BIIANCO posits “That’s What Friends Are For” as a reminder that one should not have to conform to a binary world. She says: “Here I am — a cis, pansexual woman and producer — in a field that is dominated by 95% men. I possess traits and interests that have been unfairly delegated to men throughout history like synths, EQ, motorcycles, drum pads, video games, dating women, etc. I have always encompassed a myriad of masculinity and femininity and it naturally translated to my presenting appearance — blending menswear with ornate fake nails or working on my motorcycle in lingerie.

“I — like many women — also have had personal experiences dating toxic men who were endlessly threatened by my masculine sides and really pressured me to move away from it. And I almost succumbed to that pressure before waking up and getting out. So, continuing to challenge these binarisms in my fashion and appearance is a way of me reclaiming my identity back from toxic masculinity.”

||| Watch: The video for “That’s What Friends Are For”

||| Previously: “Teeth Bared” Quarantunes/“Chlorine,” “Rice Crispies”