Sia's Latest Video Will Make You Cry Rainbow Tears | The Odyssey Online
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Sia's Latest Video Will Make You Cry Rainbow Tears

"The Greatest" is both a tribute and powerful anthem.

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Sia's Latest Video Will Make You Cry Rainbow Tears
Daily Dot

A black screen with the hashtag #WeAreYourChildren typed in white font fades away and we see Maddie Zeigler who has appeared in other Sia videos like "Chandelier" and "Elastic Heart."

She wipes her face with rainbow-colored greasepaint, a gesture similar to this "Rest in Pride" video, and we see that she is not alone.

Ziegler is accompanied by a large sum of dancers, forty-eight to be exact.

In total, they all represent the forty-nine lives lost in the shooting at Orlando nightclub Pulse.

There's a clear, if abstract, narrative.

The dancers range from young kids to teenagers who not only represent the differences between us but the childlike joyfulness that is missing from the world now that these people are gone (who were also, someone's child).

In the beginning of the video, Ziegler summons the others from sleep and busts them from a jail call - an obvious image of liberation.

We hear Sia sing, "running out of breath, but I, oh, I got stamina".

They all dance in the halls of a dilapidated home until they arrive in a large, dark room with disco lights, probably meant to be a nightclub, where they are flirting, conversing, and going wild.

Although each one is dancing to their own beat, they somehow still remain as one mass.

While bouncing up and down with their tongues out, full of pure energy we hear Sia sing, "I'm free to be the greatest, I'm alive. I'm free to be the greatest here tonight, the greatest."

Then ...

They all fall down to the ground exposing a bullet-pierced wall behind them.

As the video ends, we hear silence and see the dancers laying on the ground for over a full minute.

Then Ziegler appears and she is crying.

Sia is not one to deny the harshest of realities that these people did have the stamina and they were still cut down.

Matt Mosely, a featured dancer in the video, says it best that "we all have lost or know someone that's lost someone from discrimination and losing the people we love, from something as simple as loving who they love, is tragic, to say the least".

While the song itself is heavy in its tone and lyrics, the video adds much more weight to its meaning.

This is what sets "The Greatest" apart from other songs written in the wake of the Orlando massacre.

It is a work of art rather than that of charity.

Author's Note: Sia teamed up with the Compton-based rap king, Kendrick Lamar on this newly released track and even though his verse was omitted from this video it is about surviving adversity and haters.


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