Synopsis

Hole perform "Violet" amid a deliberately damaged vision of old-fashioned entertainment. Courtney Love appears both as a ballerina and as a pole dancer in a 1920s-style club, while young dancers perform on a theater stage. The video repeatedly cuts between innocence and sexualized spectacle, with the band framed in rough, faux-aged footage that slips out of sync with the music. The contrast turns the performance into an unsettling commentary on female exploitation, power, and the blurred line between display and degradation.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video was filmed in late 1994 and released in 1995 as "Violet" became a single from *Live Through This*.

• It was the first Hole video to feature bassist Melissa Auf der Maur, who had joined the band after Kristen Pfaff's death.

• The women appearing as strippers were actual employees of Los Angeles' Jumbo's Clown Room, selected by Courtney Love. Love had worked at the club in the 1980s.

• Love said the video's imagery was influenced by acid flashbacks and old film stock. Its silent-film and early-talkie look was created through faux-aged images and deliberately imperfect synchronization.

• The video sets ballet against strip-club performance to challenge the way music videos often glamorized or placed half-naked women on a pedestal. The club scenes are presented as threatening and exploitative rather than erotic.

• "Violet" was written by Love and Eric Erlandson in 1991, several years before its appearance on *Live Through This*.

• In 2021, *Slant Magazine* ranked the "Violet" video No. 25 on its list of the greatest music videos of all time.