Push IT (Garbage Song) - Music Video

Music Video

The video clip for "Push It" was directed by Italian photographer Andrea Giacobbe for Satellite Films/Propaganda Films. The $400,000 video was shot over four days in Los Angeles at the start of March 1998. Garbage were impressed enough by Giacobbe's show reel, in particular his previous video for Death In Vegas ("Dirt") to assign the fledgling director the project. The band thought his storyboard treatment was bizarre. "He chops up film and he talks about this kind of timelessness, which is kind of the same thing that we're doing musically. He doesn't want to set the video in any place or time. You will not know what era and what time this video is set in," Manson later explained. Giacobbe used many different film stocks to create the different styles present in the video; at various points in the narrative, the video changes from sepia tone, black and white or false-color and back.

Garbage were not particularly enamoured with the first rough cut of the video, assembled before any post-production had taken place. Vig considered that the first version "came out very flat and with not particularly flattering lighting, because almost every frame he tweaks out in the computer, so there's a lot of post-production stuff to give it that old Twilight Zone look, or Technicolor, 1970s Starsky and Hutch look. kept saying "Don't worry, this is just the canvas I'm going to paint on." Vig added that the video later had single frame details "which makes it easier to watch on repeated viewings." The band later described the video as "Fellini-esque". The first day of shooting included filming on location at a supermarket, the second day in a hospital and the third in a cemetery. One of the props on the first day, a stuffed deer mounted on wheels, broke loose and caused a minor car accident. At the hospital, Giacobbe injured himself in a fall while filming.

The "Push It" storyline begins (although the video may be an example of nonlinear narrative) with Shirley Manson shopping alongside a partner, a rotoscoped "fuzzy" man, in a supermarket. As Garbage look on, the "fuzzy" man is stalked and attacked by three antagonists disguised as nuns. After the chorus, three triplet schoolboys are seen carrying a MacGuffin briefcase and tracking Manson on a hand-held video monitor. The triplets arrive at Manson's house and give her the briefcase before attacking her new partner, a René Magritte-esque man with a lightbulb in place of his head. During the middle eighth, Manson is shown with childlike versions of "Fuzzy" and "Lightbulb man". She then leaves them behind to walk through a graveyard towards a hooded man bringing her an over-sized balloon. Throughout the duration of the video, footage of various non-related characters is shown: a masked female and a stuffed deer, two humanoid aliens conjoined by a glowing head-growth, two toddlers riding adults piggyback, two Asian businessmen fighting, a Navy Officer who alludes to a foot fetish, a naked woman emerging from glowing hospital bath and a little girl surrounded by four members of SWAT raising a toast. The hooded character is later revealed to be Manson herself, unmasking in view of a mirror before licking her own reflection. She is last seen leaving with the briefcase and her now-adult children in a Fiat 500.

The "Push It" video was nominated for eight MTV Video Music Awards. The general awards categories were Best Group Video and Best Alternative Video, while the professional categories were Breakthrough Video and Best Direction (both nominations for Andrea Giacobbe), Best Editing (for Sylvain Connat), Best Art Direction (Virginia Lee), Best Cinematography (Max Malkin) and Best Special Effects (Sébastien Caudron). It was also up for one MTV Europe Music Award for Best Video. A year later, Garbage were the leading nominee for the MVPA Music Video Awards industry event, with six nominations shared between the videos for "Push It" and "Special". Gina Monaci and Jeff Judd won the award for Best Make-Up in a Music Video for their work on "Push It". "Push It" was also nominated for Best Styling (nomination to Jennifer Elster), Best Hair (Gina Monaci and Kevin Ryan) and Best Alternative Video (to Satellite Films).

On April 6, 1998, the "Push It" video premiered in the United States, where it was a MTV exclusive for the duration of the month. The video subsequently aired worldwide from May. The "Push It" video was first made commercially available on Garbage's 2007 greatest hits DVD compilation Absolute Garbage, albeit with digital alterations obscuring the moments of partial nudity.