Ariana Grande‘s new music video for Petal has sparked concern from fans after it showcased her alarmingly thin frame.
The video follows an aspiring performer named Pepper, who undergoes several personality and image overhauls in response to negative feedback from casting bosses.
After several failed auditions, Pepper eventually snaps and slays the bosses with a chainsaw after they brand her ‘inauthentic’ and claim to have preferred her as she was at the start.
In a twist, it’s then revealed Pepper is in fact a famous movie star who was filming the story of an actress who is driven to madness by rejection and critique.
The striking video is a social commentary on Ariana’s complicated relationship with fame and the scrutiny she’s faced over the years, with Ariana doubling down on this point when she announced a break from the limelight after ‘endless, ongoing public scrutiny’.
Yet Ariana, who is a self-confessed horror film fanatic, also paid homage to a number of film scenes and characters, notably those including women who have been driven to madness while trying to live up to impossible standards.
So what are the symbolic moments in Petal? The Daily Mail reveals all.
All the symbolism in Ariana Grande’s Petal as she pays homage to women driven to madness by impossible standards in dark music video (right, Sissy Spacek in 1976’s Carrie)
Pepper’s Hollywood star and The Substance references
Petal opens on a blank star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame that has cracked slightly allowing a single daisy to grow.
With each failed audition the flower begins to wilt, until the end when Pepper leaves the movie studios as an accomplished actress, when the flower is restored to full health.
The scene mirrors that of The Substance, in which Demi Moore stars as ageing actress Elisabeth Sparkle, who injects herself with a cell-replicating substance that helps her create a younger, better version of herself, after being shut out of Hollywood.
Elisabeth’s star becomes dirtier and disregarded as time goes on in a metaphor for how her career fades with age.
There is another reference to The Substance in Petal, when Pepper responds to a casting advert to try and crack Hollywood, much like when Elisabeth’s alter-ego Sue responds to an advert to become ‘the next Elisabeth Sparkle’.
Meanwhile, the cruel casting bosses in Petal resemble ruthless agent Harvey (Dennis Quaid) in the body horror film.
Petal opens on a blank star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame that has cracked slightly allowing a single daisy to grow, much like Elisabeth Sparkle’s abandoned star in The Substance
There is another reference to The Substance in Petal, when Pepper responds to a casting advert to try and crack Hollywood
The cruel casting bosses in Petal resemble ruthless agent Harvey in the body horror film
While Ariana has not commented publicly on The Substance she has spoken in depth about the focus of image in Hollywood.
She told Vogue in 2023: ‘Being exposed to so many voices at a young age, and especially when people have things to say about your appearance at a young age, it’s really hard to know what’s worth hearing or not. When you’re 17, you don’t really know that yet.’
Ariana went on to confess she had a ‘ton’ of lip filler and Botox over the years, tearing up as she recalled: ‘I stopped in 2018 because I felt too much.
‘I just felt like hiding, you know? Didn’t expect to get emotional.
‘For a long time, beauty was about hiding for me, and now I feel like maybe it’s not. Ever since I stopped getting fillers and Botox, I know for me, it was just like, “Oh, I just want to see my well-earned cry lines and smile lines.”
‘I hope my smile lines get deeper and deeper and I laugh more and more. Ageing can be such a beautiful thing. Now, might I get a facelift in 10 years? Might, yeah!
‘These are just thoughts that I feel like we should be able to discuss when we’re talking about beauty secrets. F*** it, let’s lay it all out there.’
Pepper becomes Grease’s ‘sexy Sandy’
At the start of Petal, Pepper arrives for her audition in a modest yellow top and white midi skirt, reminiscent of Olivia Newton John’s first look as Sandy in Grease
After receiving the feedback that she’s ‘homely, boring and nothing special’, Pepper transforms into ‘sexy Sandy’ channeling the character’s bad girl transformation
At the start of Petal, Pepper arrives for her audition in a modest yellow top and white midi skirt, reminiscent of Olivia Newton John’s first look as Sandy in Grease.
Yet after receiving the feedback that she’s ‘homely, boring and nothing special’, Pepper transforms into ‘sexy Sandy’ channeling the character’s bad girl transformation in a black Bardot top and skintight trousers.
In Grease, Sandy opted to change despite Danny insisting he’d ditch his biker persona and become a jock to be with her, and many fans have since insisted it’s sexist that she was the one who had to change.
For years it’s been claimed that Grease promotes a sexist representation of women but the argument gained speed in the wake of the #MeToo movement, which increased awareness of the representation of women in media.
Many noted that Sandy shouldn’t have felt the need to change her image from the so-called ‘girl-next-door’, despite the film heavily implying she and Danny would never be together if she’d kept her look and demeanour the same.
Olivia later hit back at these claims, saying: ‘It’s a movie. It’s a story from the 50s where things were different.’
Pepper snaps like Pearl
Petal appears to be heavily influenced by Pearl, which stars Mia Goth (right) as a young woman on the brink of madness who pursues stardom to escape her monotonous life
Several scenes in Petal mirror Pearl, such as the lines of young women waiting to audition for roles, the manic eyes of a performer desperate to please, and of course the killing scenes
Petal appears to be heavily influenced by Pearl, which stars Mia Goth as a young woman on the brink of madness who pursues stardom in a desperate attempt to escape the drudgery, isolation and lovelessness of life on her parents’ farm.
In Pearl, the titular character tries in vain to make it as a star before giving into her murderous tendencies and going on a rampant killing spree.
Several scenes in Petal mirror Pearl, such as the lines of young women waiting to audition for roles, the manic eyes of a performer desperate to please, and of course the killing scenes.
The death scene itself also pays tribute to Kill Bill in a homage to Uma Thurman’s complicated antiheroine The Bride.
While as Pepper emerges covered in blood there is a striking resemblance to Sissy Spacek in Carrie, a teenager who is driven to murder after being mercilessly bullied by her peers and abused by her mother.
Ariana has previously expressed her love of the 1976 horror film, saying it influenced a sketch she starred in on Saturday Night Live earlier this year.
The skit reimagined Macaulay Culkin’s Home Alone as Kevin pulling off murderous pranks rather than playful ones, with SNL’s film unit director Mike Diva revealing Ariana said: ‘I want as much blood as possible. I wanna look like Carrie at the end of this thing!’
The death scene itself also pays tribute to Kill Bill in a homage to Uma Thurman’s complicated antiheroine The Bride (right)
As Pepper emerges covered in blood there is a striking resemblance to Sissy Spacek in Carrie, a teenager who is driven to murder after being mercilessly bullied by her peers
Ariana previously revealed that Petal allowed her to tap into her ‘unfiltered rage’.
She told Apple Music: ‘It pulls from many different parts of myself and yet, at the same time, it is very experimental and different for me.
‘I wrote from a place that I don’t usually, which was like an unfiltered rage that I think we all feel sometimes.
‘I usually am too shy to tap into that. This time, I didn’t filter as much as I usually do. I usually do a lot of rewrites and make things a little kinder. This time, I didn’t.’
She also described Petal as being ‘full of life’ and ‘growing through the cracks of something cold and hard and challenging’.
Ariana added: ‘It’s a little feral. It’s definitely from a place I’ve been maybe too shy or polite to tap into before. This kind of just feels like, “F**k it.”‘
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