British indie singer Paris Paloma and Georgie Cowan-Turner, the director of Paloma’s latest music video “Good Boy” (released September 19), are both soft-spoken – but you’d be a fool to mistake this for meekness. While they resist the all-too-easy descent into heterofatalism, the video’s hard-hitting take on patriarchy does not hold back. Instead, “Good Boy”’s visuals are strikingly cinematic and gorgeously gothic, drawing us into a dynamic story with carefully constructed characters (‘Patriarchy’ and ‘Everyday Woman’) played by Paloma herself, with Tom Blyth in the starring role of the ‘Good Boy’. At one point he jumps on a table and barks like a rabid dog – a comment on the dog-eat-dog mentality that Paloma unpacks in her lyrics.

The video follows Good Boy as he attempts to ingratiate himself with the other men in his office, taking careful notes on how to emulate their machismo. As he descends further into their world of misogyny, Patriarchy gleefully watches on. He has much more in common with the Everyday Woman, who he aggressively dismisses, but by submitting to the whims of the elites, Good Boy has fallen right into Patriarchy’s trap. The moral of the story becomes clear at the end, when Good Boy is pursued by actual dogs this time (terrifying Alsations), his downfall a product of his ignorance and bigotry.

 “Good Boy” is the most recent in Paloma’s canon of powerful feminist anthems. “It’s not a song about the men that I’m not afraid of, but the men that I am afraid for, the things they choose to believe, the people they choose to uplift,” she says. The partnership with Cowan-Turner came about in a relatively traditional way – via agents and through the language of treatments filled with imagery and filmic references. Many of their visual inspirations overlapped, and it was an easy choice to work together on this project. 

This isn’t Cowan-Turner’s first music video by any means, but it’s certainly the most cinematic and narrative-driven production she’s undertaken so far. It comes as her most recent short film The Generators continues its festival journey, having already been selected for Oscar- and BAFTA-qualifying festivals including Drama International Short Film Festival, Norwich Film Festival, where it won Best British Film, and Galway Film Fleadh. “I think the world’s just pure chaos,” she says. “If you can make stuff that’s really emotionally, psychologically and visually striking, that gets people talking and feeling something, that’s so important. That’s what Paris’s music does, and that’s what I aim to do with my work.”  

The song is an homage to the pain of losing friends, family members and partners to the ever-expanding manosphere. “I wrote ‘Good Boy’ about the boys and men who truly feel that uplifting patriarchy and suppressing women is what will bring them freedom, power and happiness,” Paloma says. “It could not be further from the truth.” Paloma and Cowan-Turner hope that exposing this reality might be the key to liberating us all.

Below, the pair discuss their shared vision for the “Good Boy” video, working with Tom Blyth, and their hopes for a more feminist world.

What drew you both to the other’s vision for this video?

Paris Paloma: I had some pretty strong ideas and references for the visuals and from the second I saw Georgie’s treatment, I knew she just got it.

Georgie Cowan-Turner: It was essentially the same for me, but the other way round. When I got the email, I listened to the track and loved it, and then saw Paris’s references which included the Seventh Seal, and saw that she was up for playing this…

Paris Paloma: Weirdness?

Georgie Cowan-Turner: Yeah, exactly! 

Paris Paloma: I had this idea of it being A Christmas Carol meets Macbeth with me playing an allegory of patriarchy and a man playing the ‘good boy’. The mood board had images of Catherine Hunter as the Witches in Macbeth, and No Face in Spirited Away. And then Georgie, I think you added the Mad Men references as well, and actually put in the same Catherine Hunter references independently. I also really wanted a female director because I think there’s a shorthand that you can use between women when talking about topics like this.

We both wanted to make something that didn't have to be pretty, that felt bizarre and cathartic, and really captured the narrative we were going for. We weren’t interested in a villain-victim narrative, this is a nuanced topic of what it is to be a man succumbing to patriarchy, and being betrayed by the promises of patriarchy. They’re perhaps not the architects of that system, but they become its bricklayers. I was so appreciative that Georgie didn’t simplify that nuance at all.

And then you cast Tom Blyth.

Paris Paloma: My mum watched the music video and just kept going, ‘He’s very charismatic.’

Georgie Cowan-Turner: Such a mum comment.

Classic mums. Paris, what was it like taking on your first proper acting role, working with Georgie, who’s a film director, Tom, who’s such an established actor, and the other actors in the video?

Paris Paloma: I spent a lot of time watching Kathryn Hunter's performance of the witches [in 2021 film The Tragedy of Macbeth], and then pausing it and standing in front of my mirror trying to emulate the shapes that she was doing. I wanted to bring some physicality to the role, and I took it incredibly seriously, but it was still really daunting. There were some scenes I got really nervous about because I had to be so weird and physical and very creepy with Tom. I’ve never been so relieved as when I saw all the guys turn into dogs around me, and Tom jumped on the table and started barking. It negated any of my fear and vulnerability that I had felt earlier on in the day.

Georgie Cowan-Turner: Honestly, Paris was amazing. I really love working with instinctive people, and Paris and Tom are both ridiculously instinctive. I was thinking from the directing point of view about how we were going to get that Macbeth-ish movement, and then Paris just rocks up, gets in front of that red backdrop, and starts doing these incredible, jerky, strange, unsettling movements that we could play the camera off against. I remember Tom on the day was constantly praising her as well. I was so impressed, especially by the bit where Paris pulls Tom by the scruff of his neck.

Paris Paloma: That was not scripted. I knew that I needed to sing into his face and he was a bit too far away so I yanked him back to get him in the right position. I was like, ‘I’m so sorry!’ It felt so aggressive and really out of my depth, but he was told me to do whatever I needed to do. It made for a great shot, so…

Georgie Cowan-Turner: That was something I really admired on set. We all know there are many, many sets where consent is not part of the process, even for things like this. I think it’s so lovely when you work with actors and performers who will always ask before they do the crazy thing.

We weren’t interested in a villain-victim narrative, this is a nuanced topic of what it is to be a man succumbing to patriarchy, and being betrayed by its promises

The team behind this video is women-led, even though what we see on screen is male-dominated. What was that like to shoot and how did you manage the experience?

Paris Paloma: Suzanne, my project manager, watched the guys do a take and came to me and said, ‘it’s really crazy, the visual shorthand that women understand in men’s physicality and behaviour, and they are all pulling it off so well’. Georgie’s direction was making that happen, whether it was a bang on the table, the way that they laughed and pushed each other, even just a look in their eyes, and the proximity when Harvey was getting in my face – it’s all this shorthand that makes the hair stand up on your neck as a woman.

Georgie Cowan-Turner: There was actually some irony with Tom because I was making him play a guy who wouldn’t listen to a woman, and yet on set he was super inquisitive, always asking how I wanted him to play it. All of the guys responded so well to me instructing them.

Paris Paloma: There’s a shot that didn’t make it into the video where Georgie directed Tom and Harvey to have this alpha-male face off where they’re barking in each other’s faces, puffing their chests out and trying to get the other one to submit. That was nuts to watch.

Dogs do feature heavily in this video.

Paris Paloma: Yeah, I think all the men barking and their dog-like physicality symbolises this dropping of propriety and boundaries. I feel like so many of the men in question in this song have absolutely no concern for other people’s comfort, and it’s all part of this dog-eat-dog world.

Georgie Cowan-Turner: For me the question was also: ‘how do you translate gendered violence on screen?’. As a female director, I don’t need to replicate the violence that so many women fear. The fact that they speak through barks and that inability to formulate their emotions, formulate their rage, all of that comes through, whilst keeping the whole thing in this sort of bizarre realm. Scary bizarre. It’s how I feel if I’m on a crowded train full of football supporters. I get really nervous. You don’t know what they might do, and it can feel quite feral. I dunno, is that the right way to describe it?

Paris Paloma: Yeah definitely. It makes me think of, for example, being in the centre of London during the Tommy Robinson demonstration. You’re literally hearing grown men bark rather than speak. In ‘Good Boy’, I wanted to convey the sheer discomfort and aggression of that. I think there are a lot of men who will watch Tom's performance and feel an inkling of what it is to be a woman and be on one of those trains or be on the street amidst a Tommy Robinson demo. But also it’s an attempt to market it for what it is, which is essentially loser behaviour. Good Boy doesn’t actually look intimidating in that scene, the whole point is that he is being incredibly submissive, and his personhood is breaking down. That’s a metaphor for the breaking down of the humanity of people who pursue power and domination.  

Georgie Cowan-Turner: And just to add, I think that Paris’s performance is why it feels like that. The way you were controlling the men was so great. We didn’t have time to rehearse so I was worried these scenes could have totally failed, but I was just grinning the whole way through.

“Good Boy” is out now.