So, Ariana Dropped the brand-new track 'God Is A Woman'off of her upcoming album 'Sweetener' just the other day, and with it came a rather fantastic music video. That said, the video does have usasking a whole lot of questions...

'YOU'VE GOT TO WATCHARI'S 'GOD IS A WOMAN' VIDEO HERE FIRST:'

The 'God Is A Woman' music video features Ariana as a literal goddess getting intimate with a hurricane, a whole lot of incredible symbolism, a Madonna voice-over, an entire history of God imagined as a woman and… a screaming beaver interlude?

Don't get us wrong - we are in LOVE with the new music video, it really is fantastic in both concept and execution and is worth deconstructing in its entirety.But the interlude is definitelyrather strange.

You definitely need to check it out for yourself above before you join us down this rabbit (gopher) hole.

Fantastic right? But also... the gopher..marmot (?)part IS quite confusing.

Well, on that note - lets start from the top. Given that they're puppets, they could represent a number of animals. We've heard beaver, gopher, marmot,meerkat (c'mon have you SEEN a meerkat) and more suggestions as to what they could be. We, however, are placing our bets on them being marmots, as they're too big for gophers, the desert setting makes more sense - and marmots have been known to scream.

Now that that's out of the way lets get to the matter at hand. Dear Ariana Grande, what do the marmots MEAN???

Okay well – we (by crowd-sourcing the office) have somesuggestions as towhat themarmots may mean:
1) The marmots scream – Ariana was on 'Scream Queens'. Boom. Game, set AND match Ari.

2)Some are suggesting this is a clever way of preventing people from downloading the song directly from YouTube, given that the middle of the song has a pretty abrupt and loud scream from the gopher. This is good.. but too rational, where's the flavour?

3) Let’s say for a moment they’re not gophers.. or marmots.. and are in fact beavers. Beavers are a symbol of Canada. Just before the beavers scream an eagle can be heard. Eagles are a symbol of the USA. Canada -> USA? Justin Bieber? Drake? OPEN YOUR EYES PEOPLE!

4) Beavers, hear this, make dams. 'DAMN.' Was Kendrick Lamar’s no. 1 chart topping album. Kendrick Lamar features on Sweetener, calling it now!

5) If we are still assuming it’s a beaver – the beaver is synonymous with the female anatomy. This is pretty strong… but we need to think DEEPER.

6) There’s lots of purple flowers on the floor around the gophers. Purple flowers traditionally represent royalty and accomplishment. Ariana is the QUEEN. She’s worked a lot with Nicki Minaj who’s literally releasing an album titled 'QUEEN'. There’s definitely something here... okay we’ll get back to you on this one.

7) Purple flowers ROUND 2. Purple > Royalty > Queen. The marmots are screaming. 'SCREAM QUEENS' is getting a new series. YES! Calling this too!

8)They’re not marmots – they’re groundhogs! In 'Groundhog Day' Bill Murray experiences the same day over and over again. She’s suggesting women have experienced the same maltreatment from the patriachyover and over again and the scream showthat they’ve reached breaking point.

9) They represent men – in the dark, in the ground, in the desert?Maybe. Not sure about this one. The flowers are feminism blooming? Gophers are mass female anger towards the patriarchy?

10)Perhaps it’s a literal representation of Ariana’s reaction to hegemonic masculinity- highlightedand exemplified throughout the video through her critique ofthe normalisation of that if there is a god, itsform is assumed to be male.

11)Maybe she’s just a fan of marmots?

12) 12 is the number of marmots in the video, AND the final point inthis list. Coincidence? Yes.

Is Ariana Grande the new Salvador Dali – the new Queen of surrealism? Will we ever get answers? Is this all just a strange pop music dream we’re collectively having? WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN ARI? We appreciate any suggestions – PLEASE.

TBH – does anyone else remember the time Ariana Grande shot rockets from her bra in the ‘Break Free’ music video? Are we just going to let this one slide too? Why is everyone else ignoring the marmots??? She can’t keep getting away with this!

Back to our regularly scheduled sane programming - check out 8 acts we LOVED at Lovebox Festival 2018!

Words by Alex Beach
'(Acknowledgements: Andrew McClure & any of the rest of the MTV UK team who went full conspiracy mode with us)'