11 Hidden Messages You Might Have Missed In Ariana Grande's 'God Is A Woman' Video

16 July 2018, 17:30

From the 'The Creation of Adam' to Madonna, these visual references are everything...

Ariana Grande is not messing around this era. After wowing us with 'No Tears Left to Cry' in April and getting all of us hyped for Sweetener with 'The Light Is Coming' in June, the 'One Last Time' popstar has now released the album's second single 'God Is A Woman' and it is everything that we dreamed of and more. Not only is it an empowering sex jam to end all sex jams but it also has an incredible video.

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Ariana put out the 'God Is A Woman' visual shortly after dropping the single on Friday and it's early days but we think that it could be her best music video yet. As well as being stunning from start to finish, it's littered with looks and powerful visual references that have fans around the world gagging. Not to mention, the entire internet is trying to decipher and interpret what they all mean.

Watch Ariana's 'God Is A Woman' video here:

With that in mind we've gathered 11 of the hidden messages in the 'God Is A Woman' video that you may not have picked up on.

1. Ariana is the sun of her own universe.

In the opening shot of the visual, Ariana is hula-hooping a galaxy around her. On first glance it could be our own universe but a lot of fan theories have come to the conclusion that Ariana has created her own feminist utopia and she is the goddess of it. Iconic.

2. Ariana is swimming in a vagina.

This will likely go over many younger viewers' heads but Ariana is swimming in a vagina in this sequence. 'God Is A Woman' pays homage to women and sex so it's unsurprising that Ariana is celebrating the vagina in this video. The setting appears to reference Georgia O'Keefe's work in which she is believed to have used flowers as metaphors for the female anatomy.

3. Ariana pays homage to Aphrodite.

This is not a lie. Aphrodite was literally made out of the sea and the severed genitals of Uranus. This could be a bit of a reach but considering the foam and what the song is about, it's not too tenuous to imply that Ariana is referencing Aphrodite here.

4. Ariana subverts gender norms as The Thinker.

Not only is Ariana defiantly being unaffected by the misogyny of the men shouting at her in this scene ('fake', 'dumb', 'bitch') but she is also taking a historic art piece (Auguste Rodin's The Thinker) that associates intellect with men and repurposing it to honour the intelligence of women. What did she do? She DID THAT.

5. Ariana refuses to blend in.

Shamefully, women are still taught to be subservient and to blend in in so many societies today but here Ariana shows us how much power there is in standing out.

6. Ariana gives Cerberus an extra head.

Why have a three headed Cerberus when you can have a four headed Cerberus starring Ariana? Also that conical bra is a Madonna reference. The icon jumped out.

7. Ariana fingers the earth.

This isn't really in reference to anything in particular as far as we know but it's amazing and deserves mentioning.

8. Ariana references that infamous gopher vine.

In perhaps the most talked about segment of the visual, we are confronted with a group of screaming gophers. Seeing as Ariana is a social media queen, we are pretty certain that she is recreating THIS legendary vine and we're into it.

9. Ariana Grande is the she-wolf who kept Romulus and Remus alive.

Roman legend claims that Romulus and Remus were raised by a she wolf after being thrown into the River Tiber. Here Ariana recreates The Capitoline Wolf and she's keeping three boys alive instead of two because she's THAT bitch. The reference is a not so subtle reminder that men are dependent on women and a nod to the women history forgets.

10. Ariana Grande has Madonna quoting Pulp Fiction.

Okay. Maybe this is actually the most talked about section of the music video. Ariana lip-syncs along as Madonna turns Samuel L. Jackson's 'And I will strike down upon thee' Pulp Fiction speech, originally from the Bible, into a feminist manifesto. Yes. Madonna is really saying the words. To top it all off, the scene sees Ariana throw a hammer (à la Thor) into a glass ceiling. She is literally encouraging women to smash the glass ceilings that constrain them and be everything that they are capable of being.

11. Ariana Grande flips the Creation of Adam on its head.

Last but not least, Ariana adapts Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam so that it only features women and quite frankly it's never looked better.

What a video. What a song. What a popstar.