From Holly Golightly to Wonder Woman, Haley Holgate breaks down her latest music video ‘A good Feminist’
Haley Holgate’s debut single, “A Good Feminist,” delves into the complexities of womanhood. The song, featuring grungy guitar riffs and dream pop vocals, is captivating from start to finish. In this exclusive look at the music video’s creation, Haley recounts how director Lillian Harris perfectly understood her artistic vision. Together, they envisioned a tribute to iconic female characters in film and television.
From Holly Golightly to Wonder Woman, each character was carefully chosen to represent different facets of feminism. The video cleverly explores the struggles and strengths of these women, from Holly’s rejection of 1960s gender norms to Lucy Ricardo’s groundbreaking role in I Love Lucy.
Hi Happy Mag! Thank you for letting me share a little something about how the A Good Feminist music video came together.
It began when a director friend of mine put me in touch with Lillian Harris, saying she was a young, talented director that he thought would be a great match – and he was so right.
Me and Lily hit it off right away and she really saw the vision for the kind of artistic style I had envisioned.
Over the phone we bounced some ideas back and forth about the plot and I started thinking out loud about the idea of paying homage to iconic female characters in film and TV.
Lily loved the idea too, and after the call I made a huge list of all my favourite female characters. It took me a few days to cull down and think through who would serve the video best and it came down to the four that are featured.
Our main four Haleys are Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Lucy Ricardo from I Love Lucy, Elle Woods from Legally Blonde and Wonder Woman from the self-titled 2017 film.
Each of these characters were selected to represent different facets of the complexities of feminism and womanhood.
Holly Golightly is a character that rejects the expectations of 1960s gender roles; she manipulates the patriarchy by benefiting from her relationships with men while defending her independence by rejecting the advances they believe they are entitled to.
While Lucy Ricardo both enables and pushes back against the societal expectations of the 50’s, I Love Lucy was the first show to feature a visibly pregnant woman and an interracial couple, while also pioneering the multi-camera sitcom format with a live studio audience.
Elle Woods is a character who refuses to give up her hyper-femininity to be seen as strong and capable in a male-dominated field.
And finally, the 2017 film Wonder Woman represents to me the unrealistic ideal of the unwaveringly strong woman, but also highlights the impossibility of “getting feminism right” (I remember seeing dozens of articles about objectification and outdated portrayals, conversations which are barely had about male superhero movies).
Despite this, the film was the first from Marvel or DC to give a female superhero her own film and broke the record for the highest-grossing opening weekend for a film directed by a woman (which is now held by Barbie in 2023).
When thinking about the feeling I wanted to leave the viewer with, I considered how the song ends on a more serious note, saying “I want to make a difference but I’m not sure where to start/so I’ll do what I can from here and try to play/I will play my part.”
I wanted the end of the video to reflect this, and decided the way to do it was through a nod to Gloria Steinem, a key leader of second-wave feminism in the 1960’s/70’s.
We created a parallel of the iconic photo shot by Yale Joel for LIFE magazine of Steinem holding a poster that states “We shall overcome.”
Once we lined up which characters would go with each part of the song, we locked in some shooting dates and locations, and started preproduction.
Myself, Lily and our producer Zoe began sourcing dreamy Tiffany lamps, a kitchen’s worth of 1950’s appliances and lots and lots of pink stationery for our hyper-fem study hall.
A few days before the shoot I had a costume fitting with our costume designer, Rhory, who had sourced some perfect outfits for each character, mainly second-hand from thrift stores.
She’d also made the cutest “Wonder Haley” logo for my superhero moment. After the looks were locked in, I really started to get excited and couldn’t wait for the actual shooting days.
We shot the music video across two days around the Inner West of Sydney, and it was two of the most fun days of my life.
This was the first film set/shoot that I’d been involved in, and I was surrounded by an incredible team of mostly female/nonbinary queens (Lily ensured this would be the case while we were in that initial brainstorming phase) that made me feel so comfortable.
Getting to try on the looks and personalities of these different characters gave me so much confidence and I was buzzing at the end of the days.
And having the ideas brought to life and supported by such a talented and hardworking team was such a beautiful feeling.
And to have Lily as the captain of our ship was a real privilege; she was a warm, uplifting energy and gave us all a clear and positive direction.
Once the shoot was over, we spent a few weeks going back and forth between draft edits before handing it over for animations and colour grading.
We put on some final touches and here we are! I am so excited to have this out in the world; this song and music video mean so much to me.
Aside from being my debut single, it’s about a feeling that’s very close to my heart.
Lily, the team, and I have poured everything we’ve got into this video, and I am so happy to be able to finally share it with you <3
