Secretly, who doesn't love this song? I remember blaring this song on road trips growing up and nearly everyone in today's society has at least heard it before. Once you hear it, it kinda sticks with ya. Anyways, this song is really great. It's pretty obvious that this song is about California, mainly Hollywood, and it's 'fake' appearance. To begin with, we will look at the lyrics ... then we evaluate the video with the meaning of lyrics as well. First of all, in the first chorus, it talks about "steal[ing] your mind", and little girls from Sweden dreaming of "silver screen quotations". Then, it ends this chorus by stating"If you dream of these it's Californication". This song makes Hollywood and California out to be a form of a little 'cult' and even more so, it's own subculture. It shows how Hollywood has it's own little trap with "stealing your mind" and the "little girls" shows how many girls dream of Hollywood and get almost 'sucked in'. Another good line is that Hollywood "sells Californication, Pay your surgeon very well, To break the spell of aging". This really highlights the fake Hollywood world and false images it portrays. As far as selling Californication, the lyrics point out that everything about this 'subculture' is fake and materialistic.
The music video does a really good job of showing the fake attributes that this song tries to highlight. The entire music video, as you can see, is a video game with a whole bunch of ridiculous outrageous things happening.. but they all look really fun and are pretty entertaining. Isn't that what Hollywood is all about? Entertainment and fakeness? That's why this song is showing!! I first of all noticed that the characters don't have shirts on and are running around with little six packs looking like studs. Within just the first few seconds one of the characters outruns cops and a big "bonus" pops up. This itself gives a lot of images about society and suggests that California almost gives 'kudos' to rebellion, going against the norms, and acting out of sorts. The entire 'video game' music video is stinking hilarious because it is so fake and outrageous. Another thing I noticed with the 'video game' for the music video is that the main player throughout switches appearances or characters several times. Kinda showing how in California you can become whoever you want to be, once again with having lots of money and "pay[ing] your surgeons well". There are a whole bunch of hilarious situations with the players swimming against sharks and dodging them effortlessly, skateboarding and surfing in thy sky, and even riding bugs through Hollywood above all the tall buildings.
This whole song basically depicts how fake California is and the many things that are wrong with Hollywood and the many bad images they show for "little girls". It has a line of how Hollywood is changing ideals of little girls from "unicorns" to "hardcore softporn". This part of the lyrics really highlights the main points this song is trying to make. The ending of the music video is hilarious as it just says "game over" and the 'video' ends ... makes me laugh because it reminds us once again that "Californication" in Hollywood is a big fake game that will suddenly end when you don't meat its ever-changing standards.
I hope you enjoy this song and see how it relates to sociology through both the lyrics and the music video! Even if you don't see how it relates to sociology, I hope you enjoy the hilarious video..but really, I don't know how you could watch this video and not see how it relates to sociology.
ENJOY!!
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