Shackles and the Bubble

On loops that hold us, and the privilege that looks the other way

Alice Merton in run away girl “visualizer”

“So I cut the shackles and changed my name.
And I shed my past like skin on a snake.”

The song, run away girl by Alice Merton tricks you at first. The beat skips, her voice lifts, it sounds like freedom. But once you listen to the lyrics carefully and hear the crack in her voice under that fake cheer, you can’t unhear it.

The “visualizer,” which should have simply been called the “music video,” refuses to let you miss it. For three minutes and fifty seconds, the same short clip loops until it is burned into your eyes. Merton, in loose white clothes, runs across a dirt field. Arms wide, a skip in her step, a quick turn, then back again. And cut. Back to the start. Over and over.

Her cuffs are stained. The dirt sticks. The field is barren, with scrub trees, maybe a lake in the distance, maybe nothing. She is running, but she is not moving. The image is cheer painted over entrapment.

“But I came so far to get lost at sea
Oh, where the hell am I supposed to be?”

Watching her stuck in that loop, I felt the urge to look at my own life. I thought about how far I’ve come, sitting in my air-conditioned condo, streaming this video over high-speed Internet on a high-tech flat panel screen, bluetooth headphones on, a fancy drink in my hand. I live in a bubble. And in that bubble it is easy to forget the reality of most people on Earth.

Driving through small towns, I used to ask myself, why do people live here? Some are content. But some would leave if they could. The thing is, Mustafa, those who want out are often stuck. They did not have access to the resources you had.

Not all shackles are external. I used to look at brilliant minds moving nowhere and wonder, why can’t they just…? Not everyone is raised with the same confidence. Trauma and fear can run deep.

You might have been handed this life on a gold platter, or you might have worked hard to get here. Either way, if you are sharing this bubble with me, you were probably never trapped. Not everyone is as lucky, and not everyone who works hard breaks their loop.

Not everyone sheds the dirt off their cuffs.

…and Merton gets it.

“…the signs light up, ‘This way to gold’
But I’m attached to my worst enemy
Oh, who the hell am I supposed to be?”