It Makes Sense in Context ...we think.
"Genghis Khan" is a 2016 song and video
written, produced and performed by Swedish indie pop trio Miike Snow and distributed by Atlantic Records. The song is a catchy pop number about jealousy and ambivalence in a romantic relationship. The video, however, is a four-minute homoerotic tribute to Tuxedo and Martini spy movies.
Not to be confused with Dschinghis Khan or the titular Genghis Khan himself.
Tropes:
- Affectionate Parody: Of campy 60s Spy Fiction, most notably the ''Bond' films from that era.
- Anti-Villain: The unnamed supervillain protagonist... possibly. The audience never sees him actually attempt anything evil on-screen, asides from putting off the murder of the secret agent he's fallen in love with.
- Bald of Evil: The Villain Protagonist is bald, and remains so, even after getting together with the secret agent.
- Camp: The video is deliberately loaded with it, in keeping with the style of the 60s spy movies its parodying.
- Concept Video: The video is a tribute to martini-flavored Spy Fiction, where the villain falls in love with the secret agent and can't seem to kill him.
- Dance of Romance: What the secret agent and the villain do halfway through the music video.
- Dating Catwoman: The music video, unusually for the trope, is shown from the villain's point of view.
- Foe Romantic Subtext: It's not too obvious at first, but gets increasingly more obvious by the half-way mark. After leaving the agent in the bunker overnight while the villain spends time with his picturesque family, he can't get the agent off his mind. The following day, he rushes to his lair to use the laser to banish the thought of him from his mind; only to realize that he can't bring himself to do it, and he instead releases them and tells the guards to stand down. Then they both realize that they're in love with each other before retiring to a peaceful domestic life together.
- Lyrics/Video Mismatch: The video and lyrics are both about complicated feelings around a romantic relationship, but the narrator of the song is concerned with feeling jealousy toward his female partner while not necessarily wanting a stronger commitment, while the video is about the protagonist accepting his homosexuality and beginning a relationship with his former enemy.
- No Name Given: None of the characters are named in the music video, but are obvious Expies of characters seen in 60s spy films.
- Non-Indicative Name: Neither the song lyrics, nor the video have anything to do with Mongolian warlords. Genghis Khan is used as an odd metaphor for obsessive jealousy.
- Obviously Evil: How do we know that the protagonist is a supervillain, and not just a respectable government operative dealing with a troublesome saboteur? Because he's completely bald, has a metal prosthetic nose, struts around in a military-style jacket with a High Collar of Doom, has a lair staffed by identically dressed minions, and attempts to execute people in high-tech, but inefficient ways, involving lasers.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Literally. The supervillain has the secret agent Strapped to an Operating Table with a giant laser pointed at him ready to fire at the push of a button. Then the clock strikes 5:00 and he immediately drops everything and goes home for the day, leaving the secret agent there until the next morning, trapping him in his evil lair, much to his annoyance (and secretly, his relief).
- Red Right Hand: The supervillain's prosthetic metal nose, in classic Bond villain tradition.
- Retired Monster: The supervillain appears to retire from villainy after getting together with the secret agent, since his wife appears to have taken over his lair in The Stinger.
- The Stinger: The supervillain's (ex-)wife is shown in the supervillain's lair, dressed in supervillain attire of her own, jealously spying on the two lovers through a monitor.
- Straight Gay: The supervillain protagonist. He can be a bit flamboyant in a Large Ham sort of way but he's not at all feminine. The secret agent as well.
- Tuxedo and Martini: The secret agent.
- Villain Love Song: Basically the entire music video is the villain Dating Catwoman from his perspective.
- Villain Protagonist: The supervillain is the POV character of the video.
- Waxing Lyrical: The video ends with the Supervillain's wife speaking out the chorus of the song while ominously looking at a video of her ex-husband and his new lover.I get a little bit Genghis Khan, and I want you to get it on with nobody else but me.
- Woman Scorned: The supervillain's wife did not take the breakup well, and is a supervillain herself by the end, obsessed with her now ex-husband.
