As a kid, this music video was simple and uplifting. It’s about a little girl who is laughed off stage because she is dressed like a bee and can’t really dance. She wanders around meeting more and more people who don’t really understand her. Then after reaching her lowest, she finds a place with others like herself. Recently I read a comment on the music video. There is another way you can think of it.
A little girl is laughed off stage because she is dressed like a bee and can’t really dance. She wanders around meeting more and more people who don’t understand. Then after reaching her lowest, she finds peace in killing herself. She opens a pair of heavenly gates with other people in an Elysian field like place that is filled with other people the world rejected to the point where they severed their ties with the harsh world as the music video depicts.
Personally, I think it is a bit of both. It is meant to be uplifting in that it does show the little girl eventually finding a place filled with people who accept her for who she is. I also think it is a cautionary tale about how people who are different from some sort of non-existent norm can be so marginalized by the world that they are pushed to an extreme limit where we lose them. They may find a wonderful place where they are with others of their kind, but what makes them unique leaves the world devoid of what they had to offer.
The fact that lead singer Shannon Hoon died three years later of a cocaine overdose lends credence to this interpretation. The timing of the lyrics and the lyrics themselves also point towards this as well. It’s bittersweet.
Samuel Bayer of Smells Like Teen Spirit directed the video.
Heather DeLoach played the little girl. She has done a handful of things over the years such as Camp Nowhere (1994) and The Beautician and the Beast (1997).
Jeremy Stuart edited the music video. He did a handful of music videos. I couldn’t find an entry on IMDb for him seeing as his name is rather generic.
