CeeLo Green/Headscratchers

The video for "Fuck You" basically seems to be: guy is interested in girl. Girl isn't interested in guy because he's not rich enough. Guy keeps trying to ask her out even though she says no at least twice (and is labelled "the heartbreaker" despite not actually appearing to do anything to draw his attentions except be good-looking, let alone deliberately lead him on). Guy grows up and parades it in her face that he's now wealthy while she's mopping floors for a living. Somewhere around the middle of the third sentence, the audience should lose all sympathy for this guy. He decides to obsess over someone who doesn't reciprocate his affection for shallow reasons, and we're supposed to cheer for him?
- Yes, we are. The entire point is, he is obviously in love with her, and doing the best he can to make her happy for at least three different aspects of his life. Her response to each period, is "Yeah, you have emotional content, but he's got cold hard cash". It's entirely possible that that guy is also emotionally involved with her, but all we know is that she chose to not date him, because he doesn't have the bank. Consider this: If you told a girl she didn't have the physicality you were looking for, she'd call you a shallow prick.
  - First, you know who says "I love him/her, and I will do everything for him/her, even though they keep telling me to get lost"? Stalkers. Not saying Cee Lo is one, just that "doing his best to make her happy" when she doesn't want it is not admirable or romantic. Second, it's funny you mention guys only wanting hot girls, because do we have any actual reason to think he likes her for any reason other than her looks? Yeah, that's what I thought.
  - He's obsessed, but he's not a stalker, that's a bit extreme. He loved the girl and she wouldn't date him for any reason other then the fact that he didn't have money. Once he has money, she feels remorseful that she didn't pick him... Young love isn't very logical nor is it easy for us on the outside to understand/watch. And maybe the girl never gave a strong 'NO' each time it could have been "Well... if you had more money... I'd date you." Which in that case makes her a Manipulative Bitch. Either way, we're all speculating.
- "If I was richer, I'd still be with ya." She dumped him for a guy with more money. The video doesn't make it all that clear, but she was his girlfriend at one point and then left him.
  - Even allowing for that...okay, so now he pesters his ex and begs her to come back to him. Yeah, she's a horrible person if that's why she left him, but at that point you declare that she's a bitch and MOVE ON. The whole "but I still love you, even though you treated me like shit!" routine is pathetic.
  - That's the point; this song is where he's writing her off as a bitch and moving on.
  - Not everyone can just simply move on. There are ~~dozens~~ millions upon MILLIONS of people who still try to get back with their exes after they've dumped them despite the fact that they were treated like shit. Apparently, he really loved her (despite her being a bitch). When he finally did get over her and got "mad billzzz" (I mean money, but I just wanted to say that) he can now proudly say "Fuck you and fuck her too!"
- I had just assumed that they were different girls.
- At that stage though, what's the point? He may have the money but he's also still obsessed with her. It's never made clear that she actually dumped him for money and maybe he concocted that excuse as to why they never went out again, if they even ever went out in the first place. But honestly? If a guy was that persistent for that many years and just COULD NOT take a hint about my non wanting to be with him? I would just go out with him to shut him up. She never really does anything to him one way or another, and it's not an obligation to go out with a guy just because he likes you. Especially if he can't move on and dwells in what could've been.
- You guys DO know that the song is supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, right? I think you're reading a bit too much into it.
- Personally, I found it pretty clear that the video and the song were telling two different, but somewhat similar, stories. In the song, they're dating, and the girl leaves the guy for a richer guy, apparently motivated solely by money. In the video, the guy continually tries to impress the girl, who instead hooks up with three different guys who have money. Either way the girl is a gold digging bitch, but I'll give you that the guy is pathetic in the video. But hell, the premise of the whole thing is "This woman is terrible", NOT "This guy is awesome". It may be unsympathetic, but it does not betray it's own premise.
- Because the video misses the entire point of the song by having Cee Lo rub his money in the poor girl's face. The song focuses on the girl and he calls her out on her shit, but the whole other half of the song is also directed at the guy who's with her and it's Cee Lo's own catharsis. He knows he's pissed. He knows why he's pissed. And he has absolutely not a single point to make about it other than just casually spilling his anger and getting relief out of it. It's not 'one day I'm gonna make more money than you and I'll get her back' or 'she's gonna leave you when someone richer comes along', it's merely a 'Yeah well, fuck you'.
Are the flashbacks actually acknowledging the music?
I do agree that this song is being interpreted a little too seriously (thereby Completely Missing the Point) above, however I'll try to lay it out from a different perspective. Boy has a childhood crush on girl. Girl rejects him for other boy who has more money. Same thing happens in high school and college. Each time, it's not approached with obsession, but simply as him asking her out. Each time she declines because he doesn't have the money. So fine, he gives up on her. Then he comes back when he's rich to point out the irony, saying "if you cared about more than money, you wouldn't be stuck with no one to turn to." The entire video is shot from the singer's point of view. He labels her "The Heartbraker" because, well, she broke his heart, not to make any judgement on her. This is not an Aesop, this is not a Stalker with a Crush (he asks her out a total of 3 times over 20+ years... scary), this is just a story about the irony of the situational Gold Digger, and the singer saying "Fuck that." He isn't stalking her, he isn't judging her for anything other than breaking his heart, and he's pointing out the irony of him now having money while the very thing she rejected him for the lack of, he now has. If you're going to take the video at face value, and not extrapolate something like continued obsessive behaviour, or a background situation not known to the viewer, that's all that this video is. Of course, if you want to extrapolate the song to think that the 3 times we see him ask her out are in fact repeated every single day, that she has to get a restraining order against him, and that he eventually got his money by a prostitution ring, please feel free to condemn the depravity of such subject matter to your heart's content.
Is it common knowledge that Ceelo Green = Gnarles Barkely? Because no one told me this and when I looked it up and told people, they already knew.
- Very common. Gnarls Barkely was a musical duo, including Cee Lo Green.
  - I see. Wish someone would've told me that sooner, hahaha.