Bella Thorne’s “Shake It” Music Video Continues a Vital Collaboration With Abella Danger

One of the many ways we may recognize a true artist is by their taking of a muse. In writing to his assistant and lover Camille Claudel, an accomplished sculptor in her own right, the artist Auguste Rodin said, “I can’t go another day without seeing you. Atrocious madness, it’s the end, I won’t be able to work anymore.” His words captured the intimacy and desperation of this unique dynamic, in which one party can derive inspiration only from the other’s nurturing, whether romantic or sexual or emotional. In the twentieth century and beyond, academics interrogated the concept and freed it from a context of male objectification; these days, Greta Gerwig and her muse, Saoirse Ronan, regard one another more like collaborators than looker and looked-upon.

All of which has brought us to the creative synthesis between Bella Thorne and Abella Danger, a shotgun marriage of the images and personae they’ve cultivated for themselves both individually and as a unit. In this instance, the metaphor of matrimony is taken literally, as Thorne’s new self-directed music video for her latest sprechgesang dance-rap track “Shake It” sees her calling the classic “I object!” during the vows at a ceremony between Danger and her would-be groom. Of course, Thorne’s objection takes the form of an earnestly declared “that’s my bitch!”, after which their runaway-bride routine brings them back to an LA mansion space for a newlywed twerk-off. Either way, it’s the most revealing demonstration yet of a long-running simpatico spirit joining the two, last explored in Thorne’s PornHub-released short film Her and Him. That one cast Danger as half of a couple in turmoil, a man’s wildest fantasy and worst nightmare. Thorne has now inserted herself into the relationships with Danger that she shows onscreen, and from the look of it, wedded bliss couldn’t be sweeter.

These two women have struck up a productive partnership based in no small part on the opposing forms of legitimacy they confer on each other, linked to the backgrounds inextricable from their respective celebrity. Thorne came up as a Disney Channel princess alongside Zendaya on Shake It Up!, a past cheekily alluded to by the suggestive title of “Shake It” on this new song. Danger rose through the ranks of porn to the top of the top, revered in the upcoming adult-biz-set drama Pleasure as a “Spiegler girl,” boasting the industry’s top representation and highest-profile gigs. There’s something taboo about this cross-pollination between the innocence attendant to kiddie TV and the illicit sexuality of hardcore, but that clash serves a greater purpose as well.

Thorne came under fire last year for opening an account on the cam site OnlyFans, upending the algorithm with her immediate deluge of subscriptions and encroaching on the livelihoods of actual sex workers in the process. Experienced users of the site resented her as a lightweight dabbler capitalizing on a line of work she wouldn’t really engage in (Thorne will post the occasional risqué photo of herself, but never nudes) to up her own reputation as the A-list’s resident bad girl. The tacit approval afforded by Danger’s presence serves as PR rehabilitation, casting Thorne as a supportive member of the community who’s truly “about that life,” as the porn-world idiom for commitment goes. Even if the association with Danger doesn’t extend beyond pantomiming playful ass-eating for the camera, she still exudes a street cred that all in her direct vicinity can inhale.

In hitching herself to Thorne’s career, Danger has plenty to gain as well. Even the world’s most famous porn actresses end up somewhat penned-in by their own niche, known far and wide while denied the benchmarks of recognition and acclaim that mainstream talents can attain. For them, any dent to be made in the public consciousness — a guest arc on Entourage, a cameo in Piranha 3D, this — means potentially expanding the fanbase, an imperative no doubt appealing to Danger’s behind-the-scenes decision-maker Mark Spiegler. Coverage of the video already suggests that she’s reaching people she never would have otherwise, with celeb-gossip sites identifying her as a doppelgänger for Thorne’s ex first and a pornographic performer second, if at all. Without turning her back on porn, she can start to transcend the ghettoizing effect of her own stardom.

The question is whether the Thorne-Danger symbiosis runs deeper than a simple mutual opportunism, with both women playing props in the unending shows of each other’s lives. In the “Shake It” video, they may wiggle their respective behinds in unison, but they occupy markedly different roles. For all their attempted blurring of cultural lines, they each stop just short of a significant (yet telling) boundary that places them in distinct spheres. Danger figures prominently into the loose narrative of the video, her body consists of several graven objects before which the lens worshipfully cowers, and yet she doesn’t have any spoken lines. And though the video ends with the gals ripping each other’s shirts open, the concluding shot sees Danger with her breasts pixelated as Thorne covers hers with her hands. It’s clear what they’re each getting out of this, but that clarity also clouds our sight of the point at which the transactional exchange ends and the earnest bond between souls in harmony begins. As is the Bella Thorne way, we’re left guessing, kept in the dark — right where she likes us.

Charles Bramesco (@intothecrevassse) is a film and television critic living in Brooklyn. In addition to Decider, his work has also appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Newsweek, Nylon, Vulture, The A.V. Club, Vox, and plenty of other semi-reputable publications. His favorite film is Boogie Nights.