Music Video
The music video, directed by Mary Lambert, starts off with Jackson fighting with her parents because she wants to move out of the house. Her father is deadset against it. She then leaves the house and is greeted, in her driveway by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Jellybean Johnson, and Jerome Benton. They take her to a concert hall to perform, on her first gig, her single "Control" where she shows that she wants to be "the one in control". The video version of the song is different from the album version. The nine-minute video was made available on the iTunes Store on April 27, 2007. Ja'net Dubois, who co-starred on Good Times with Jackson in the 1970s, plays her mother in the video. Paula Abdul choreographed the video.
The live footage was recorded at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. Both Lambert and producer Sharon Oreck recall it as a difficult and trying experience; Oreck said in 2011 that it was her "worst nightmare" of the many videos she had produced. The crowd, which had been told that they would see Janet Jackson perform, had expected a free concert. "Instead we gave them 50 takes of Janet lip-synching 'Control,'" said Oreck.
At the time, Janet Jackson was in the midst of firing her father, Joe Jackson, from his position as her manager. Oreck said he was bitter and taking it out on everybody else. He told Oreck that he would not let Janet sit on the trapeze she is seen being lowered onto the stage in unless there was $1 million of liability insurance coverage on her. She told the record company, which responded "Don't tell him anything, but don't tell him no, because we don't say no to Joe Jackson." This evasiveness did not work, and he became even angrier and threatened her with violence. Finally Lambert told A&M she and Oreck would quit the video unless they told Joe Jackson his daughter was insured.
The situation got worse later in the shoot. A&M told Lambert they wanted more white people visible in the audience. There were a few scattered throughout, and under the guise of simple repositioning she began having them sit further forward. Eventually the crowd as a whole figured out what was really happening, and grew angry. Lambert told the record company representative that she absolutely could not go on due to the potential for violence, and he went out and explained things to the crowd, which calmed down enough to complete the video.
Read more about this topic: Control (Janet Jackson Song)
Famous quotes containing the words music and/or video:
“If you really believe music is dangerous, you should let it go in one ear and out the other.”
—José Bergamín (1895–1983)
“We attempt to remember our collective American childhood, the way it was, but what we often remember is a combination of real past, pieces reshaped by bitterness and love, and, of course, the video past—the portrayals of family life on such television programs as “Leave it to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” and all the rest.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)