Pale Waves - You Don't Own Me

What this video is

Released in March 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic's second year, 'You Don't Own Me' emerged from Pale Waves' second album 'Who Am I?', which marked a deliberate sonic and visual shift toward pop-punk and emo guitar rock. The video participates in a broader early-2020s pop-punk revival trend — contemporaneous with acts like Olivia Rodrigo and Paramore reissues — while embedding a specifically feminist and…

Why it matters

A key document of the early-2020s indie pop-punk revival, demonstrating how UK alt-pop artists absorbed and re-coded early-2000s emo and pop-punk aesthetics through a contemporary feminist and queer lens. The video's dual visual structure — innocent iconography destabilized by escalating rebellion…

The director

Heather Baron-Gracie is the frontwoman of Pale Waves and a director credited on multiple Pale Waves music videos including 'You Don't Own Me', 'Television Romance', and 'There's A Honey'. Kelsi Luck co-directed 'You Don't Own Me' alongside Baron-Gracie.