Back in December 2019, Harry Styles released his gem of a sophomore album, “Fine Line,” becoming extremely vulnerable and free throughout the record. On the album, Styles released his summer single, “Watermelon Sugar,” which recently became his first-ever #1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Styles dropped a music video on the beach full of ’70s vintage vibes, beautiful people, and of course, lots of watermelons. What I would do to be one of those beautiful people, ugh. When first hearing it, one may think the song is just a fun summer single, but the music video provides so much insight into the lyrics.
The “Watermelon Sugar” video opens up with a black screen and the words, “THIS VIDEO IS DEDICATED TO TOUCHING,” and that is when my soul left my body. The music opens to Styles sporting an orange crochet top and bright blue retro sunglasses, as he walks to sit down at a table while holding a plate full of watermelons. He begins singing and caressing the edge of the watermelon with his beautiful fingers painted pink, and I have never wanted to be a piece of fruit more in my entire life.
The video continues on, featuring a lot of women of different sizes, races and ethnicities. The refreshing part was all of the diversity included in the video. Styles was very open on his views of feminism in his 2019 Rolling Stone interview, where he said, “People think that if you say ‘I’m a feminist,’ it means you think men should burn in hell and women should trample on their necks. No, you think women should be equal.”
Styles explains that he doesn’t want a lot of credit for being a feminist, as he says the views are pretty straightforward — it’s all about equality. Harry, please stay the same forever.
As if it couldn’t get any better, one of the models featured in the video, Ephrata, took to her Instagram live to explain her experience on set.
She stated that Harry was told to touch her hair and he said, “Wait, wait, wait, pause. Can I even touch your hair?” She said that Harry was very big on consent throughout the whole video and that the models even started calling him “consent king.” There’s a part of the video where two women kiss Harry’s cheek, one being Ephrata (I will forever be jealous of you), and she said she felt like she needed to ask him if that was okay. He joked with her and returned the nickname by calling her “consent queen.” Literally, chef’s kiss.
“Watermelon Sugar” is a song that makes you want to live your best life in a high waisted bikini, dancing on the beach…but back in the ’70s, please! I truly appreciated the wholesome fun of the video, but also loved Styles’ way of incorporating his own freedom through his sense of style and the diversity of the models in the music video. “Watermelon Sugar” truly is the song of the summer, and Styles deserves all the hype.