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Tag: Culled Culture

  • Eric: Change Comes From Within (Even If You’re Without A Puppet-y Shell)

    Eric: Change Comes From Within (Even If You’re Without A Puppet-y Shell)

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    Set during the time and place everyone loves to romanticize—New York City in the 1980s—Abi Morgan’s Eric isn’t your typical kidnapping story. But then, nor is Morgan your typical screenwriter, having showcased a wide range of genres and styles over the years, something that is best elucidated by the fact that she is the writer of both The Iron Lady starring Meryl Streep and Shame starring Michael Fassbender. Eric probably falls more in the same column as the latter, even if not as overtly “seedy.” Still, it does explore a certain underworld (often literally) of New York, one that, in this case, involves a network of homeless people intertwined with the proverbial “hustle” aboveground. 

    The hustle in question is centered around a nightclub called The Lux, which just so happens to be right near the Andersons’ apartment. A place where Vincent (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Cassie (Gaby Hoffman, coming out of her intermittent retirement to remind us of her aphorism, “I really love my job, but I don’t want to do it that often”) live in the antithesis of wedded bliss. Their nine-year-old son, Edgar (Ivan Morris Howe), to his dismay, lives with them, too, and is daily subjected to their toxic fighting. 

    This constant exposure to the kinds of “adult fare” he shouldn’t be hearing is just one of the many reasons for Edgar’s obvious precociousness. In addition to his father quizzing him on who said quotes like, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” A chestnut penned by none other than Leo Tolstoy. And it also serves as the crux of the series’ message, which is why use of the Tolstoyism is established in the first episode. Even if, in many moments, there are other themes that shine through. Like, for example, the racism inherent in police handlings of missing children reports. Or a white boy being so taken with a Black man and his graffiti that he would rather descend into the depths of hell than spend another second in his cush abode. And it is cush. After all, rent was much more affordable for a two-income household in 1985, regardless of neighborhood. Even if it’s hard to tell what neighborhood the Andersons live in. For the entire aesthetic of Eric is intended to make the environs as vague as possible, a mere “sketch” of what New York is “supposed to” look like. On the one hand, there are Times Square-ish sensibilities to it, while on the other, there are Brooklyn-ish qualities as well. 

    The seemingly deliberate genericness of what constitutes “80s New York” is, in part, a result of filming the majority of the show in Budapest. As director Lucy Forbes said, “There was never going to be an option to shoot the whole thing in New York because it’s so expensive.” A statement that seems ripe with bittersweet irony considering how many films of the 80s were made guerilla-style and on the cheap (e.g., Susan Seidelman’s Smithereens).” She then added, “So it was about choosing the right place to go, and Budapest has lots of very good studio space that is cost effective and has an amazing crew.” Granted, not so amazing that they could turn back the clock and make New York look like New York again, but hey, you can’t have everything.

    Instead, you have to search for little fragments of what used to make the city itself by going to other milieus, including none other than New Jersey. On seeking a bit of 80s New York in the Garden State, executive producer Lucy Dyke noted, “It’s hard because you’re searching for a 1980s New York that just doesn’t exist anymore. New York is such a completely different place now, so we went all over the world searching for that.” The aesthetic result is, accordingly, something that feels decidedly Eastern Europe meets Montreal (where, on a side note, Scream VI filmed for its “New York” premise). This in addition to sharing an overall aesthetic similarity to Stranger Things—also a Netflix series, and also set in the 80s. And, perhaps most similar of all, involving the disappearance of a preteen boy. 

    Except that in Edgar’s situation, the disappearance is voluntary. Because, after reaching a threshold for the discord he can tolerate between his parents, he decides to follow one of the many homeless people in the area down into the bowels of the subway (in this regard, there is a certain Beauty and the Beast [the 1987 TV series] vibe to Eric). That’s how desperate he is to escape the toxicity. Of course, his parents won’t realize that until the end of the series, when it hits them that their constant bickering was what drove him away, preferring to brave the mean streets of New York rather than continue to sit inside listening to his father spew bilious rhetoric. For example, telling Cassie, “Don’t smother the boy” when she simply gives her son a hug. He then continues to spout his toxic masculinity by complaining that maybe he wouldn’t be so “grumpy” if it hadn’t been “weeks” since he got “laid.” 

    To make matters worse, Vincent fuels his already choleric temperament with a steady stream of alcohol to help fortify his inherent belligerence. A rage that has long been deep-seated, largely thanks to the cold environment he grew up in, courtesy of his rich real estate “development” father, Robert Anderson (John Doman), who matches the same level of emotional coldness as Vincent’s mother, Anne (Phoebe Nicholls). With Robert representing the rash of Trumpian-type “developers” reigning over 80s New York (and determining its future of homogeneity), it’s no wonder Vincent wants to go in the totally opposite direction, career-wise. Hence, starting his own Sesame Street-esque kids’ show called Good Day Sunshine Although the show has been an “institution” on TV for the past ten years, Vincent’s partner and collaborator, Lennie Wilson (Dan Fogler), insists they need to make changes to the show in order to make up for the recent dip in viewership. The suggestion from the suits is to “broaden appeal,” to “bridge the gap” between preschoolers and elementary school kids. All of this is polite white speak for: let’s get a more ethnic puppet. 

    It is Edgar, however, who already has a bright idea for the show’s newest cast member. A blue and white furry creature (channeling Sully from Monsters, Inc.) that has a markedly curmudgeonly personality. His name? Why, Eric, of course. Alas, Vincent isn’t really paying attention to Edgar’s “pitch” until it’s too late. Taking for granted, as so many parents do, that their children will always keep trying to be heard by them. But there’s only so many times and ways a child can shout from the mountaintops to actually be listened to by their parents. And Edgar is done trying. 

    Thus, Detective Michael Ledroit (McKinley Belcher III) is given his entrée into the narrative. His own storyline designed to reflect that specific era in New York. To that end, it is here that Eric starts to verge slightly into AHS: NYC territory (mainly with its closeted-gay-cop-dealing-with-the-gradual-death-of-a-lover-who-has-AIDS element)—except actually watchable. Mainly because, more than a “nostalgia trip” (with shades of Twin Peaks in addition to Stranger Things), Eric, through all its bleakness, manages to stick to its core point: “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” Least of all Vincent, who grows increasingly surly and unreachable as he drives the few people who were once close to him away in the aftermath of Edgar’s disappearance. 

    In both Vincent and Edgar’s—father and son’s—situations, one is a product of their environment. Eric posits, then, that the only way to really change is to remove yourself from the environment that’s turning you rotten on the inside. Even if the real problem lies within the environment itself (a.k.a. the person supposedly “in charge” that’s, er, puppeteering all that negativity).

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • No Daylight for the Scheming: Night and the City

    No Daylight for the Scheming: Night and the City

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    While the U.S. was riding “high” off the post-war economic boom in 1950, some Americans chose to stay behind in Europe (though most are aware that the United Kingdom considers itself its own thing). Seeing an opportunity to be had where others didn’t…or, more to the point, seeing a market to be hustled. That’s certainly the case for Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark) in Jules Dassin’s Night and the City. Adapted by Jo Eisinger from Gerald Kersh’s 1938 novel of the same name, the film, in typical Hollywood (by way of London) fashion, sanitizes certain aspects of the source material—including the fact that Harry is a pimp in addition to a con man. 

    What’s more, the book focuses on the post-Great Depression angle, while the film version clearly intends to offer a more modern take on things in the wake of WWII. Eisinger also plays up the presence of Harry’s “girlfriend type,” the virtuously-named Mary (Gene Tierney), who lives with him in a cramped abode. One that Mary often spends days and nights at a time waiting for Harry to return to. At the beginning of the story, he’s just returned from a three-day disappearance into the London underworld, having returned with the “scheme of the week”: “one pill the size of a baby’s fingernail—dropped into the tank of your motorcar, it triples your mileage!” The pill in question is something he lights on fire to demonstrate how it works to Mary so she’ll “invest” the three hundred quid he needs to get it off the ground. Of course, this isn’t the first time he’s asked Mary for a bit of “scratch” to help give his various schemes some wings (or at least some legs)—indeed, one gets the sense that he’s only really with her because he relies on her to loosen the purse strings (she also happens to have a title: duchess). But this is one scheme she puts her foot down on. 

    When Harry retorts to her firm “no”, “You’ve got the money. You know you’ve got it,” Mary tells him in earnest, “…not for a mad, get-rich-quick scheme. The money’s there for the day you come to your senses… A grocer’s, a tobacco shop—anything done in the light of day.” But that’s the thing about Harry: he’s a sleazy creature of the night. Someone who can’t stop fantasizing about money, power, glory—that’s grabbed the “American way”: quickly and with brass balls. He doesn’t want to be some middling grocer or tobacconist, and he says as much to Mary when he declares, “I wanna be somebody.” Mary tries to subdue this notion by placating, “Oh darling, you’re so unhappy. Always running, always in the sweat… Don’t you see? It isn’t important just to be somebody. The important thing is to be with somebody. Somebody who wants nothing better than to live and work by your side…quietly, peacefully.” But Harry has by now become a wall of impenetrability, his wheels still turning about how to get the dough, to furnish the next scheme. For him, it’s like a drug—a fix he can’t live without: plotting. “Dreaming” to the point of sheer delusion, a practice that’s long been the hallmark of the American mindset. For it is a nation (even still) conditioned to believe that anything is possible. That everyone can be “destined for greatness.” Of course, by the same token, if “everyone” is destined for it, then no one is. 

    Harry also suffers the misfortune of operating in a country and city that favors an established “pedigree” over the American-sanctioned idea of being able to get your foot in the door with nothing more than gumption and confidence. “Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps,” as it were. In London, however, you’re only as good as the name and legacy you were born under. Which is part of why fewer and fewer people are buying what Harry is selling. Even his own “special lady,” who continues to stay with him despite the overt romantic interest expressed by her fellow American neighbor, Adam Dunne (Hugh Marlowe). It is he who laments the most over how much Mary is suffering for her commitment to a man who only really cares about his own end game—and who will stop at nothing to strong-arm his way to the top. Indeed, it’s Adam who tells her of Harry’s fatal flaw, “[He’s] an artist without an art…that’s something that can make a man very unhappy, Mary, groping for the right lever, the means with which to express himself.”

    And, because this was over a decade before Andy Warhol would come along to declare business as “the best art” (like the non-artist he was), there wasn’t much in the way of “appreciation” for Harry’s rabid “head for business.” One that leads him to try competing with the “lord of London wrestling,” Kristo (Herbert Lom). While at one of his matches, Harry overhears a disagreement between him and his Greek father, Gregorius the Great (Stanislaus Zbyszko), over what constitutes “real” wrestling, Harry clocks his “in” to start his own brand of promoting via the wrestling game with Gregorius on his side. After all, Kristo isn’t going to come after his own father (though that would be very Greek of him). 

    As Harry keeps begging and borrowing to get the cash he needs for his “startup” business, he continues to alienate more and more people. Or rather, make more and more enemies. Including his own employer, of sorts, Phil Nosseross (Francis L. Sullivan), the owner of the Silver Fox nightclub. Harry’s role “within the enterprise” is to direct big-spending clientele to the club using one his many con man tricks of the trade. But that line of work has become beyond odious to him, and he sees wrestling promotion as his ticket to “being somebody” as he always wanted to. Even if it means going along with a bit of seduction from his wife, Helen (Googie Withers), who has her own “climbing the ladder” machinations at play, too. Both characters represent the tragedy of how capitalism’s alluring promises inculcate so many with this false ideal of “ascension”—particularly in the United States. 

    By the end, Mary is the one still convinced of Harry’s greatness (for, as they say, “Love is blind”), warbling, “You could’ve been anything, anything. You had brains, ambition. You worked harder than any ten men. But the wrong things. Always the wrong things.” It is here that the underlying message of Eisinger’s script is one that suits the American agenda: have ambition, sure, but only the “right” kind. The kind that reflects one’s innate sense of their own “place” in the proverbial food chain. The same goes for UK living. After all, it’s no coincidence that both countries have so often been politically aligned throughout the twentieth century and beyond. Especially in terms of being designed to keep the “born poor” person perennially down at heel.

    With Night and the City, Dassin and Eisinger reaffirm the idea that to have “light ambition” is fine—nay, is what makes you a “productive member of society”—but that to try “reaching for the stars” will only send one right back down into the gutter. A place where, as Wilde once noted, you can still look at the stars, just not touch them. No longer bothering to try reaching at all. Humbled by social realism, as it were.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • “360” Featuring Robyn and Yung Lean Continues to Showcase Charli XCX’s Commitment to the Art of the Remix

    “360” Featuring Robyn and Yung Lean Continues to Showcase Charli XCX’s Commitment to the Art of the Remix

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    A collaboration between Charli XCX and Robyn and Charli XCX and Yung Lean, respectively, has seemed like a long time coming. That said, perhaps Charli XCX saw fit to kill two birds with one stone by offering a remix of “360” that features both artists on it. Charli’s nods to Robyn have been steadfast in recent years, showing her love (song allusion intended) most recently by sampling “Cobrastyle” (from Robyn’s 2005 self-titled album) for “Speed Drive” on the Barbie Soundtrack. 

    As for her connection to Yung Lean, it should be fairly obvious that the two share certain similar “Tumblrcore” sensibilities. Put these three together in the blender that is the “360” remix and the result is actually more disjointed than one would expect. Yet, somehow, it works. And maybe part of the discordant cohesion stems from both Robyn and Yung Lean being Swedes. After all, it’s no secret that solid gold pop/dance music just naturally courses through the veins of the Swedish. So no wonder Yung Lean flexes, “We put this shit together so carelessly.” While other musicians might not want to make that assertion based on how it might open their song up to more than just light criticism for being “sloppy,” here the braggadocio works in favor of the song’s overall “charmingly arrogant” aura. 

    Besides, if anyone can back up the right to be arrogant about their music, it’s Robyn. Which is exactly why she self-referentially touts, “​​Killin’ this shit since 1994/Got everybody in the club dancing on their own.” Charli, too, has been in the music game long enough to have earned some of her bratty hauteur, which commences in the very first line of the remix with, “They-they-they all wanna sound like me.” And yes, based on the recent shade thrown at Camila Cabello for effectively imitating Charli’s “hyperpop” sound for her C,XOXO “era,” it would seem the internet is well-aware of XCX’s influence and saturation into the mainstream that once kept her boxed out (that is, until she decided to do a parody of being mainstream with Crash). At the very least, though, Camila seems to know better than to release C,XOXO before Brat, with the former coming out three weeks after the latter. 

    Not that it would faze Charli either way, whose confidence level reaches another peak in “360” when she sings, “Me and Lean and Robyn, we don’t even have to practice/We got many hits, get you feeling nostalgic.” To be sure, Charli hits like “Boom Clap,” “I Love It, “Fancy” and “1999” (the most nostalgic of all) always get the crowds in a frenzy. Needless to say, if Robyn and/or Yung Lean ever did join her onstage for the version of “360,” it would cause all-out mayhem in the audience. Even more than if Addison Rae decided to cameo for the remix version of “Von Dutch.” Both remixes, by the way, are made to sound like altogether entirely different songs (with “360” remaining faithful only to the original backing music). 

    While remixes of the past might have only added in an extra verse from the new person appearing on it (e.g., the Left Eye version of “No Scrubs” [which should have been the “normal” version to begin with] or Ariana Grande’s ill-advised decision to include Mariah Carey on the remix for “yes, and?”), Charli has set a gold-standard precedent for making entirely new tracks through her remixes (hear also: “Welcome to My Island”). While others might be content to provide a few barely noticeable tweaks, Charli treats the remix with the same reverence that Madonna’s remixers usually do (including the likes of William Orbit, Victor Calderone, Tracy Young, Stuart Price, Junior Vasquez, Paul Oakenfold, etc.). And that is the mark of someone who truly cares about dance music. 

    Not that there was ever any doubt in the minds of Charli fans that she wasn’t hopelessly devoted to the genre. A genre she single-handedly helped reinvent at the dawn of the 2010s and continues to perfect as the 2020s forge ahead, filled with plenty of events that would make it otherwise difficult to even conceive of dancing without a bit of encouragement to do so from her music. 

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • The Three Instances of Monoculture in 2023 Were Helmed By White Women: Taylor, Barbie and Britney

    The Three Instances of Monoculture in 2023 Were Helmed By White Women: Taylor, Barbie and Britney

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    As the halfway mark of 2024 occurs, further reflection on where society was this time last year can’t help but come to mind (and, for a start, there was no Israel-Hamas war yet at play). At this moment in 2023, the world (and the United States in particular) was waiting for Barbie to arrive in theaters, in addition to the masses being obsessed with the Eras Tour that Taylor Swift had embarked upon in March (another thing that also still hasn’t changed in ’24). That said, it was already shaping up to be the summer of white women—in theaters and at stadiums. But then, when mid-July approached, Britney Spears entered the ring as well (to quote “Circus,” “All eyes on me in the center of the ring”).

    The announcement of a release date for her much-anticipated memoir, The Woman In Me (a nod to her 2001 single, “I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman”—hence, re-releasing Crossroads as the only attempt at promoting the book on Spears’ part), was given on July 11th. It would go on to sell over two million copies by January 2024 (just a little over two months after it came out on October 24, 2023). So it was that the dominance of Taylor, Barbie and Britney signaled the continued reign of the white woman over pop culture. Thus, it was simultaneously shocking and not surprising at all that Time’s 2023 “Person of the Year” was Taylor Swift (gracing three different “Taylor’s versions” of the cover). Even though, by that time, the Israel-Hamas war had commenced, and many were outraged that Palestinians or journalists risking their lives in Gaza to document the horrors weren’t chosen instead.

    But hey, if America has taught the world anything, it’s that “candy” is the best distraction from reality. That said, the accompanying Time article on Taylor Swift was written by Sam Lansky, who asserted, ​​“She’s the last monoculture left in our stratified world.” This free and blithe admission of Swift’s “supremacy”—or whatever other superlative you want to attach to it—came at a time when, theoretically, it had never been less acceptable—in the media—to be white. And yet, 2023 was, for all intents and purposes, the Year of the White…women. With society having clearly pivoted toward the donna bianca as a more acceptable source for reverence than the white man.

    Of course, don’t get it twisted, the white man is still very much the one with all the power. Or, as Bland White Executive in Barbie puts it, “We’re doing [patriarchy] well. We just hide it better now.” If banning abortion in fourteen states in 2023 was a way of “hiding” it at all. In any case, white feminism has remained the most tried-and-true, effective method for promising the masses that “something” is being done about the patriarchy. Rest assured, however, it’s not. All that’s really being “permitted” to happen is for white women to work within that system and profit from it themselves. Because, as it is said, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

    Even the sacrificial lamb that is Britney Spears has found herself to be a beneficiary of this system. And yes, she “deserves to” profit from it after being abused for decades on end while her father, Jamie Spears, acted like her pimp as he whored her out against her will, making millions for himself and the rest of the Spears family members on the payroll during her needless, highly corrupt conservatorship. It was only after essentially “boycotting” the forced labor she was made to endure (namely, by walking out on the televised announcement of a second Las Vegas residency called Britney: Domination) that more people jumped on the #FreeBritney bandwagon. Because what “sensible” woman wouldn’t want to make more money if she could? Unless, of course, she wasn’t getting any of that money at all. Yet Spears has, to be fair, vowed never to be part of the specific system that caused so much exploitation in her life: the music industry.

    Instead, she pivoted toward the literary world in 2023 with the release of her much-dissected memoir. Immediately selling 1.1 million copies (this includes all formats) in its first week of release, Spears’ book was able to quickly claim the title of “highest-selling celebrity memoir in history.” Though, of course, if Swift ever decides to release one, it’s probably game over for Spears on that front.

    And, speaking of Britney and Taylor in the same sentence, three weeks after The Woman In Me’s release, Spears happened to post a side-to-side photo comparison of herself with Swift in 2003 and 2008, respectively, as she praised Swift’s success that year with the reflection, “This is way back when but kinda cool… During my Oops Tour, I got a knock at my door. My good friend at the time was the assistant to my manager who was trying to become a manager himself. There was a knock, and then he said, ‘I have a girl named Taylor who wants to come in and sing for you.’ I was like of course!!! He walks in, and she sings a beautiful song with her guitar. I was like wow wow she’s unbelievable!!! We took a picture, and she then became the most iconic pop woman of our generation. Kinda cool she plays stadiums, and I prefer her videos over movies any day. She’s stunning!!! Girl crush.”

    So yes, for the “legendary Miss Britney Spears” to bow down to fellow millennial Swift (and mind you, bowing isn’t as easy as it used to be for “geriatric millennials” like Spears), it truly is a testament to how much power she’s managed to amass in the years since Spears was omnipresent…both on and off the radio. Indeed, after that photo of Swift and Spears was taken in 2008 at the MTV VMAs, Spears seemed to have forgotten ever meeting her at all…until now. Because power (read: fame and fortune) is the only thing that even the most “good-hearted” of women really respond to. And Swift is nothing if not powerful.

    Hell, all-powerful, if her ability to work outside the limitations of the WGA and SAG strikes for the release of her concert film was an indication. And yes, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour was met with plenty of unprecedented presale demand at the online box office. The kind of demand that only Barbie could invoke just months before. Indeed, perhaps the only other blanca to briefly topple Taylor’s dominance in 2023, during the “Summer of Swift,” was none other than Barbie, de facto Greta Gerwig. To be sure, Swift and Gerwig profited immensely from railing against the patriarchy that summer…while simultaneously elevating the system that keeps it in place. All as they “bit the hand that fed them.”

    Except that the hand hasn’t really been bitten at all. Quite the opposite, actually, as Swift and Gerwig have made the men who run their label and studio, respectively, extremely rich(er)—thereby further contributing to the continued success of the very system they’re decrying…even if only in theory as opposed to in practice. Swift herself appears to be aware of this, albeit on a faint level. This much seemed clear when she told Time, “[Women have] been taught that…girlhood, feelings, love, breakups, analyzing those feelings, talking about them nonstop, glitter, sequins!… We’ve been taught that those feelings are more frivolous than the things that stereotypically gendered men gravitate toward, right?” The interviewer, Lansky, agrees. Because obviously, Swift is going somewhere with this. And the point she wants to make about girlhood/womanhood “suddenly” being more commodifiable (as if it wasn’t already from the moment Madonna burst onto the scene and her Maripol-styled look went on sale at Macy’s in the Madonnaland section) is this: “What has existed since the dawn of time? A patriarchal society. What fuels a patriarchal society? Money, flow of revenue, the economy. So…if we’re going to look at this in the most cynical way possible, feminine ideas becoming lucrative means that more female art will get made. It’s extremely heartening.”

    That’s one word for it. Of course, another word is suspect. Extremely suspect. For when we take a look at that “female art” (and, by the way, why is Swift the only one who gets a pass on saying “female” these days?), it remains not only decidedly white, but decidedly patriarchal as well. Because, in the end, constantly failing the Bechdel test in “female art” doesn’t exactly do much to “smash the patriarchy,” instead reinforcing it by placing all this weight on male attention and approval.

    Gerwig, too, has her own sins to atone for when it comes to fortifying the very system she condemns. It can be no wonder, then, that both women are so laudatory of one another (as Spears is of Swift), with Swift commenting of Barbie, “To make a fun, entertaining blast of a movie with that commentary, I cannot imagine how hard that was, and Greta made it look so easy.” Likewise, Gerwig has gushed of Swift, “I’m just a sucker for a gal who is good with words, and she is the best with them.” At the very least, she doesn’t extrapolate entire lyrics from songs of the 60s and 70s like her “Snow on the Beach” collaborator, Lana Del Rey. Which probably makes Swift worthier of Gerwig’s assessment that she’s “Bruce Springsteen meets Loretta Lynn meets Bob Dylan.” Though Swift would more likely prefer to see herself as a composite of Joni Mitchell and Shania Twain. Again, more peak examples of white female hegemony. Though, in Mitchell’s defense, the content of her songwriting tends to get more political than the extent of “You Need to Calm Down,” “The Man” and “Only the Young.” As they did for supposed LDR foil Joan Baez.

    Some would argue the sixties were simply a “more political time,” therefore gave rise to more political influence in music. But honestly, “the times,” as they are, couldn’t be more fraught with political, let’s say, “intrigue.” And yet, people have never seemed more terrified of asserting themselves in any way that might be deemed political. That Swift, knowing the extent of her power at this juncture, and still staying silent on a matter like the genocide in Palestine, is still choosing silence tells one everything they need to know about “power” in the twenty-first century. Because “speaking now” would also open her up to being “cancelable.” Something Swift insists, in the abovementioned Time article, she nearly was by Kimye back in 2016, when Kardashian released select recordings of Swift’s conversation with Kanye about the lyrics he intended to use for “Famous.” (As The Tortured Poets Department later taught us, she still had more bad blood with Kim to air via the oh so subtly titled “thanK you aIMee.”)

    Many were surprised by Swift returning to this moment that happened “so long ago” (because seven years ago is practically a century in the pop culture cycle). But it makes sense. Swift can at last freely kick Ye while he’s down after that series of anti-Semitic rants that genuinely did get him canceled (until the inevitable reanimation years from now à la John Galliano). She can rail against Ye and Kardashian for being total twats as though to complete the job of white martyrdom that was already started by Ye at the 2009 VMAs. Where the illustrious rivalry between the two first began, positioning Ye as “the bullying black demon” and Taylor as “the innocent white girl.” It didn’t feel like a coincidence to dredge up this old racist stereotype as Barack Obama entered his second term, and it would become increasingly clear that America wasn’t really all that “down” with a Black president—hence, the about-face on the political spectrum that transpired with the 2016 election.

    With Donald Trump and Joe Biden (Obama’s vice president or not) taking control (sort of) in the years that followed Obama’s presidency, the notion of monoculture did start to revive itself, even as the nation became increasingly divided. And it crested in 2023 with three white women. One of whom has been part of monoculture since the late 90s.

    And whereas Spears’ career nearly was taken away from her by the sexist machinations of Justin Timberlake as he played into the time-honored trope of painting a woman as a whore when he wanted to discredit her, Swift was never in any real danger of losing favor with her fans. Though she insists that, after Kardashian released the misleading aspects of the recorded conversation, “My career was taken away from me.” An odd statement to make considering that she went on to release Reputation soon after, another multimillion-selling success. In fact, this is something Lansky himself calls out in the article, remarking that “when Reputation’s lead single ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ reached No. 1 on the charts, or when the album sold 1.3 million albums in the first week, second only to 1989, she did not look like someone whose career had died. She looked like a superstar who was mining her personal experience as successfully as ever. I am tempted to say this. But then I think, ‘Who am I to challenge it, if that’s how she felt?’ The point is: she felt canceled. She felt as if her career had been taken from her. Something in her had been lost, and she was grieving it.” When, however, are women of color in the mainstream (or in general) ever allowed that same luxury?

    The white women taking centerstage right now are aware that their jig could be up at any moment, if things ever actually do change in terms of what constitutes what Swift deems “female art.” For there lingers around this art an inherent mea culpa for taking up so much space in an already highly competitive niche: making a (very handsome) living off music, writing or film (the first and third categories both overlapping with writing at the center of the Venn diagram). Thus, it’s not a coincidence that Lana Del Rey finally apologized (if only in lyrical format) for what she now perceives as her greatest Achilles’ heel—her skin tone—singing in “Grandfather Please Stand on the Shoulders of My Father While He’s Deep-Sea Fishing,” “A fallible deity wrapped up in white/I’m folk, I’m jazz, I’m blue, I’m green/Regrettably also a white woman.”

    This lyric arrived three years after being called a Karen in the wake of her “question for the culture,” short haircut with blonde highlights and a weight gain that many on the internet refused to ignore. Because, Lana Del Rey or not, there’s nothing the masses despise more than a middle-aged white woman. That said, Swift might be due for her own reckoning with the public upon reaching Del Rey’s age, while Spears has continued to insist that she’s twelve years old (and sometimes younger). Though that, of course, has more to do with the mental schism caused by her hyper-sexualization at such an early age and the according mindfuck that comes with going from “Lolita-inspired sex goddess” to “forty-something.” Better known as: the pop culture equivalent of “crypt keeper,” even to this day. And, at present, that’s largely thanks to the supposedly woke generation called Z, as TikTok and its youth-seeking/-sucking/-centric trends brainwash their minds into even more warped forms of ageism than those who came before them.

    What’s more, Gerwig, who turned forty in August, has intuited that the sun is setting on her own “time in the spotlight” as an actress. Ergo, an overt pivot to writer-director that she commenced in 2017, with the largely autobiographical Lady Bird. Set in her native city of Sacramento, Gerwig appeared to start taking up the mantle from the only other majorly famous white woman from that town (unless you count Molly Ringwald), Joan Didion. In fact, Gerwig wields Didion’s shade-throwing statement, “Anyone who talks about California hedonism has never spent a Christmas in Sacramento” as the opening title card for Lady Bird. With that in mind, it once again speaks to the idea that, so long as a white girl can troll herself—have a sense of humor about her “blandness” and the bland place she came from—she is beyond reproach. Beyond “too much” self-questioning.

    And while Spears spent about two hundred and eighty-eight pages “self-questioning” (or at least self-examining) in her memoir, she’s never much bothered with being “political.” She’s enjoyed the privilege of her white womanhood that way. In truth, mocking Timberlake in The Woman In Me for his blaccent and general white-boy-posing-as-a-Black-man antics (think: Seth Green in Can’t Hardly Wait or Jamie Kennedy in Malibu’s Most Wanted) in the late 90s and early 00s belies the reality that she’s guilty of her own appropriations, flirting with Asian and Indian cultures throughout the early 00s like a persona—in much the same way Madonna did during her Ray of Light era. Spears also had an especial fetish for hip hop culture, donning her baggy jeans and Timablands to fit the mold, or trying to emulate Snoop Dogg’s look in 2004’s “Outrageous” video.

    After shifting to the “hip hop sound” that grew increasingly popular in the 00s, Spears’ work with The Neptunes on her third album, Britney, evidently paved the way for working with R. Kelly on In the Zone. Specifically, on the aforementioned “Outrageous.” And yes, it was outrageous for Spears—or any other woman, really—to work with Kelly after 2002, when video evidence of his already well-known sexual abuse of underage women came to light, making it glaringly public that he was a depraved asshole. Alas, Spears’ taste in men rivals only Eva Braun’s on the shittiness factor. But, as it is said, a girl’s father sets the tone for the future men she’ll gravitate toward.

    It was only after being oppressed to the most extreme degree by patriarchy that Spears finally became an unwitting benchmark for feminism, where once she was accused of setting it back decades with her scantily-clad style and “we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes” politics. Not to mention her “I Was Born to Make You Happy”/“I’m A Slave 4 U” rhetoric. With the advent Swift and Gerwig, who were both, like Spears, forced to operate (a.k.a. “play the game”) within a male-dominated system in order to succeed, they’ve appeared to take Spears’ apolitical, pandering-to-the-male-gaze form of monoculture and transformed it into something more “palatably feminist” for the later twenty-first century.

    Ironically, however, all three women are classifiable as “holdovers” from the toxic (no Britney pun intended) 00s, filled with its unmistakable brand of misogyny that was so clearly internalized and radiated back by the women who came up during that era (famous or otherwise). That the most noticeable three instances of monoculture in 2023 were embodied by such women doesn’t exactly scream “harbinger of change!” And, halfway through ’24, that remains apparent. Because, ultimately, all monoculture seeks to comfort and uphold the status quo we’ve known since cognizance. No matter how bad, phony or low-key buttressing of white men the messaging behind it truly is.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Mondo Bullshittio #49: Attempting to Sue Madonna For Being “Pornographic”

    Mondo Bullshittio #49: Attempting to Sue Madonna For Being “Pornographic”

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    In a series called Mondo Bullshittio, let’s talk about some of the most glaring hypocrisies and faux pas in pop culture…and all that it affects.

    If one was under the misguided assumption that the collective population has been far too desensitized since the days when, for example, “Justify My Love” was causing enough of a stir to get banned from airplay on MTV, rest easy: being scandalized by Madonna’s sexuality is still alive and well. Or so the latest lawsuit stemming from The Celebration Tour would have one believe. While fans might have thought that the fresh complaint would stop at being related to her tardiness (a long-standing trait of Madonna’s when it comes to arriving onstage any “earlier” than ten p.m.), the most recent disgruntled concertgoer has upped the ante by centering his grievance on the pop singer’s penchant for exhibiting “pornography without warning.” If this causes a bit of a laugh (as it should), that’s likely because, if Madonna’s various reinventions throughout her career have all shared one thing in common, it’s this: sexually provocative content. 

    As a rebuttal, some might point out that now fabled period during the early years of her marriage to Guy Ritchie when Madonna was cosplaying a “staid” English country housewife, complete with serving as the cover star of Good Housekeeping and writing a series of children’s books (which were met with the narrow-minded response that the woman who wrote Sex shouldn’t be “permitted” to tell children’s stories). But even during that period, her always radiating sexuality was present in videos like 2003’s “Hollywood” (which itself was a nod to the Erotica era at the end when she’s hitchhiking), 2003’s art installation collab with Steven Klein, X-STaTIC PRO=CeSS, locking lips with Britney and Christina at the 2003 VMAs, 2005’s “Hung Up,” featuring a moment (in both video and live performance form) where Madonna writhes in orgiastic ecstasy with her then current cabal of dancers, and pretty much any of the visuals (picture or video) for her 2008 Hard Candy album. Not so coincidentally, 2008 would mark the year of her divorce from Ritchie. 

    All of which is to say that Madonna has never really tried to suppress her sexuality for the sake of catering to other people’s comfort levels. Even when she “put her clothes back on” for the Bedtime Stories/Something to Remember era, it wasn’t as though her lingerie didn’t still peer out (very much so in the “Take A Bow” video, for instance). What’s more, M’s predilection for skin-baring has only seemed to amplify in the years when our patriarchal society would expect/“demand” that she “cover up” (the MDNA Tour comes to mind). The Celebration Tour proved no exception to the rule, with an entire segment of the show featuring Madonna clad in nothing but a red silk slip with black lace embellishments.

    This ensemble, appropriately, was worn during the Act II portion of the show that most likely caused “offense” to the plaintiff (whose name is quite public but will not be mentioned here). During this part of the concert, Madonna sings her most notoriously sexy songs, including “Erotica,” “Justify My Love,” “Hung Up” a.k.a. “Hung Up on Tokischa” (a select performance of which allowed Tokischa the chance to join Madonna onstage at Madison Square Garden to engage in one of their numerous public besos since meeting one another). 

    Many of the headlines about the lawsuit are sure to include not only the phrase “sued by fan” (a label that doesn’t really befit someone who claimed to be surprised by Madonna’s sexual “escapades” onstage), but also “sued by a male fan.” In fact, the lawsuit against Madonna for her tardiness at Barclays was also brought against her by two male fans. And, you know, not to stereotype, but one can presume said fans are gay. Which makes this look like, well, the worst kind of cunty queen behavior. Not to mention rooted in a particular kind of gay male misogyny. After all, the fan in question was seemingly most affronted by being “forced to watch topless women on stage simulating sex acts.”

    First of all, “forced”? Please. Secondly, it’s interesting that “topless” (a.k.a. wearing flesh-colored clothing) women should be called out by a man. Not usually a problem for most straight men—which is what leads one to believe the plaintiff is gay or gay-adjacent. What’s more, Madonna actually did have a topless dancer open her concert (and appear topless repeatedly thereafter) during 1993’s The Girlie Show. A tour that, even more than Blond Ambition, touted Madonna’s “pornographic” brand. And, speaking of Blond Ambition, one ought to bear in mind that Madonna actually did “simulate sex acts” by way of her illustrious masturbation sequence at the end of “Like A Virgin.” A performance so controversial it almost got her arrested in “the fascist state of Toronto,” as immortalized in Truth or Dare.

    A replica of the bed she performed that very act of self-love on was, appropriately (or inappropriately, to some), displayed in all its full glory at the opening of Act II, as Madonna performed the same arm-centric choreography fans would recognize from the “Papa Don’t Preach” of Blond Ambition. With this bed serving as the “harbinger” of what “sexual hijinks” were yet to, er, come, Madonna did technically give more than enough of a hint to anyone who might not be expecting “pornography.” And yes, maybe this plaintiff has never actually seen any real pornography in order to understand that The Celebration Tour was not that.

    Then again, these are times fraught with “highly sensitive” (read: performatively fragile) people. In addition to extremely sue-happy ones, often seeking to make a fast buck from someone they view as having plenty to spare. Alas, one imagines that this plaintiff really didn’t think his accusation through. For Madonna’s lawyers have ample evidence to support her lifelong commitment to being a “pornographer.” Ergo, it being no surprise when she flaunts such “porno predilections” onstage.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Weyes Blood’s “Andromeda” Video Mirrors the Wistful, Leap-of-Faith Themes of the Song

    Weyes Blood’s “Andromeda” Video Mirrors the Wistful, Leap-of-Faith Themes of the Song

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    Not one to let a divine album like Titanic Rising fall into the forgotten category just because it’s been five years since its release, Weyes Blood has brought the record back to life (for fifth anniversary purposes) by releasing a video for “Andromeda.” Co-directed by Weyes (a.k.a. Natalie Mering), Ambar Navarro and Colton Stock, the three-pronged storyline follows the chanteuse as a mere mortal roaming the desert, an astronaut in space and some kind of “Queen of the Galaxy” riding an asteroid headed straight for Earth.

    As her desert self plods along aimlessly through the abyss of the landscape, she keeps trying to find some sign of life, putting her hand over her forehead in that way that serves as the universal symbol for: “looking for someone (or something).” Then, all at once, she sees that sign of life she was looking for: smoke billowing from an opening in a rock. Not quite a cave exactly, but a chasm. Briefly hopeful, Weyes Blood runs to the source of the smoke as the lyrics, “We all want something new/But can’t seem to follow through/Something’s better than nothing/Or so that I thought” play in the background (in a way, it’s kind of like the inverse sentiment behind the Spice Girls belting out, “Too much of something is bad enough/But something’s coming over me to make me wonder/Too much of nothing is just as tough”). These are fitting emotions for Weyes Blood to express based on her explanation of the song as a deep dive into the meaning, particularly for women, of that abstract concept known as “true love.” 

    As she told The Believer when Titanic Rising first came out, “True love in ‘Andromeda’ is kind of like this abstract thing to a woman who has accumulated a lot of negative experiences, and maybe not had a lot of support otherwise… There are a lot of wounds that a woman accumulates… That’s really hard to bring into a relationship—that is a total relationship killer. It’s a lot to ask somebody, of a man especially, to be like, ‘Can you please draw me out of my hardened shell and make me soft again?’ ‘Andromeda’ is a bit like that.”

    Not one to miss out on a bit of ironic humor with regard to the song’s wistfully romantic aura, it’s no coincidence that the word/name Andromeda applies to the Greek myth about the daughter of King Cepheus, ruler of Aethiopia, and husband to Cassiopeia. The latter, like Andromeda, also has a constellation named in her honor, even though it was Cassiopeia’s fault that Andromeda ended up needing to be sacrificed to Poseidon after claiming that she and her daughter were, like, way hotter than the sea nymphs known as the Nereids. Not one to take kindly to any shit-talking about daughters of the sea, Poseidon sent a sea monster (Cetus) to wreak havoc on the coast until Cepheus consulted his oracle and was told that the only way to stop the madness was to sacrifice Andromeda to the monster.

    Thus, she ended up bound to a rock in the middle of the sea, ostensibly doomed until she was saved by Perseus (a.k.a. Hercules’ great-grandfather), who happened to be flying by on Pegasus with the head of Medusa in his hand. And so, a germinal precursor to the conventional fairy tale was born. Not to mention loose inspiration for the reason why the “Queen of the Galaxy” version of Weyes Blood is set against the backdrop of brightly-burning white stars (or “balls of gas,” as Pumbaa would point out). 

    In the same abovementioned interview, Weyes Blood also added, “The Greek myth is that [Andromeda] is tied to a rock and she’s going to get ravaged by this sea monster and this guy has to come save her. There’s this hope to be saved, and it’s just a little too much to ask of people.” (*cough cough* modern men “experiencing their own masculinity crisis”). Or at least people of the current epoch, who are put-upon if you so much as try to actually talk to them on the phone. WB then continued, “Ultimately, at the end of the song, it’s like, you eventually just have to believe it’s real to make it real. It’s a lot to ask of the universe for something to just show up and blow your mind.” And yet, the minds of mere mortals were blown all the time before the advent of the internet tended to dull all sense of wonder once the initial novelty wore off. 

    As for the Earth-bound Weyes Blood in the video, the being she pulls from the “smoky hole” is cloaked in black and, in fact, seems to look a lot like Death himself. An interpretation that would make sense within the context of earthly creatures’ time being up if they keep going the way they are. Such imagery is, at times, seemingly in stark contrast to lyrics like, “Love is calling/It’s time to let it through/Find a love that will make you/I dare you to try.” The notion of love “making” a person, as though they’re being carved out of clay, might come across as more than slightly old-fashioned. Or, worse than that, adhering to the trite, Dean Martin-sanctioned adage, “You’re nobody till somebody loves you.” But as Weyes Blood says, you’ll never find anything resembling so-called true love that will make you “somebody” unless you at least take a risk on “putting yourself out there.”

    By the same token, she keeps presenting the dichotomies of that ideal, having also remarked to The Believer, “…I’m married to my independence. I’m truly in love with my lack of attachment. For me, pursuing love—I don’t know to explain it. It’s almost like, needing an intimacy, needing a sense of love, but knowing that no one person is ever going to fulfill that blown out ideal that you’ve positioned yourself to believe in. Movie love. But I do think that there’s things that you can do if you want the movie love. Building the bedroom, making the milk and cookies or whatever. You can manifest it.” Ergo, her declarative chorus in “Andromeda.” 

    Beyond the “leap of faith” chorus, however, there are signs of her, let’s say, “cautious optimism” about love, as exemplified in another verse that goes, “Treat me right I’m still a good man’s daughter/Let me in if I break/And be quiet if I shatter.” To the point of being a “good man’s daughter,” WB also mentioned to The Believer, “[My dad] was very much a man of love and integrity. He made me feel very safe, so I wasn’t really prepared for the reality of the world, and men. I was taken advantage of, and manipulated, and had to walk around with some baggage.” So sure, obviously that would make a girl rather skittish about matters of the heart.

    As for the elemental motifs throughout the video—particularly when the “Queen of the Galaxy” crashes into Earth on an asteroid—it all goes back to Weyes Blood’s overarching message about climate change on the album. After all, she didn’t call it Titanic Rising for nothing. In another interview to promote the record when it first came out, she told Flood magazine, “The Titanic is a very symbolic tragedy of the hubris of man [there goes her “Greek myths mode” again], thinking we can conquer nature. It’s ironic that the Titanic would crash into an iceberg and sink, and now the icebergs are melting and sinking the third class of the world. They’re going to suffer at the expense of our wealth.” 

    Thus, there is a certain layered meaning to many of the lyrics on “Andromeda.” This includes, “Gettin’ tired of looking/You know that I hate the game/Don’t wanna waste any more time/You know I been holdin’ out.” On the one hand, it’s about the quest to find love. Yet, on the other, it applies so clearly to the way in which most residents of Earth have come to hate this game called capitalism, knowing full well it’s a dead-end road leading straight to a bad neighborhood where the outcome is certain death. And that, yes, all of us have been “holdin’ out” on what we’re capable of in order to effect any real change to avoid that proverbial neighborhood. The one we actually wouldn’t have to avoid if it weren’t for capitalism.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Inside Out As Anti-San Francisco Movie

    Inside Out As Anti-San Francisco Movie

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    With the imminent release of Inside Out 2, revisiting the original film is only natural. As it is to note that, long before the blatant anti-San Francisco campaign that rolled out at full force after the pandemic, Inside Out was throwing major shade at the place once called “the Paris of the West” (this as a means of alluring people to it at a time when it was still developing as an urban epicenter). Considering that Pixar’s headquarters are in Emeryville (effectively an “extension” of San Francisco), it comes as no surprise that the movie would take place there. What is perhaps something of a surprise is the number of moments in the film that seek to denigrate rather than elevate the city. But you know what they say: it’s always your own kind that ends up selling you down the river (if one will pardon the rooted-in-slavery expression).

    As “alpha emotion” Joy (Amy Poehler) spends the first few minutes of Inside Out detailing the inner workings of Riley Andersen’s (Kaitlyn Dias) mind, it doesn’t take long before her vision of the eleven-year-old’s happy, idyllic existence in Minnesota is shattered. In fact, the Andersen family’s unexpected move to San Francisco is already happening within the eight-minute mark of the movie, with the title “Inside Out” only appearing just as the Andersens approach the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s upon seeing it from the backseat of the car that, from Riley’s mind, Joy shouts, “Hey look! The Golden Gate Bridge! Isn’t that great? It’s not made out of solid gold like we thought, which is kind of a disappointment, but still…”

    The next recognizable landmark as the car continues toward their new house is the Ferry Building, with Fear (Bill Hader) remarking to Joy as they pass it, “I sure am glad you told me earthquakes are a myth, Joy. Otherwise I’d be terrified right now.” Joy replies, “Uh, yeah.” So already, there is this overt mood of disdain for the city, further fueled by a preteen’s inherent mistrust of the things they’re not familiar with. Any brief “romance” period with the town via the Golden Gate Bridge and the Ferry Building seems to quickly wear off by the third scene in the city, during which Riley and her parents are caught in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the famed part of Lombard Street known as “the crookedest street in the world.”

    To further emphasize that San Francisco must be a miserable place, it is only Anger (Lewis Black) who chimes in at the sound of incessantly blaring horns and belligerent screaming to say, “These are my kind of people.” Of course, Anger’s vaguely positive tune, along with Disgust’s (Mindy Kaling) and Fear’s (Sadness [Phyllis Smith] was already firmly not into this to begin with), changes instantly when the car pulls up in front of a “dilapidated” townhouse. That’s right, the family is about to move into a townhouse that would fetch millions of dollars in any San Francisco neighborhood, regardless of being in a “dingy alley” or not. And yet, Riley is acting as though it’s the worst place in the world. “Too young,” or whatever, to understand “appreciating property values.” Especially since it seems like Mr. Andersen (Kyle MacLachlan) and Mrs. Andersen (Diane Lane) actually bought the place instead of renting. No matter to Riley, who has apparently been too sheltered for most of her sanitized life to have ever seen a dead mouse. This being one of her first sights upon entering the spacious abode. 

    But spaciousness doesn’t matter if her room isn’t “conventionally structured,” instead situated in more of an “attic” position—this being a clear machination on the writers’ part designed to give Riley some “poor little scullery maid” cachet. Despite Joy’s best intentions to keep Riley in a positive mood in the face of her “undesirable” living conditions, they’re met with another decidedly “San Francisco-style” setback when Joy tries to distract Riley with the idea of going to lunch. Flashing the image of the pizza place (Yeast of Eden) she saw on the car ride over, Joy plants the seed in Riley’s mind that she’s just hungry. That’s the real reason why she’s irritable. Or worse still, sad. 

    Thus, to be presented with, apparently, a decidedly San Francisco approach to pizza—a.k.a. the appearance of broccoli on it—is the last straw for Riley, who is now officially out of any will to put on rose-colored glasses about this move. Because yes, in addition to having poor taste in housing (or rather, poor taste in understanding what good housing is), she also has a gauche Minnesotan palate that can’t accept anything “unconventional” on a pizza. Alas, considering that broccoli has held a lifelong negative association for her (thanks to Disgust), seeing it on her pizza is “too much” for her. Her mom doesn’t help Riley’s outlook on the “tragedy” either, shrugging, “What kind of pizza place only serves one kind of pizza? Must be a San Francisco thing, huh?”

    Even Joy—who usually refuses to see the negative side of anything—has to agree, demanding, “Who puts broccoli on pizza?” Anger then snarls, “Congratulations San Francisco, you’ve ruined pizza! First the Hawaiians, and now you.” Obviously, it’s a pointed comment not just on the supposedly inferior pizza San Francisco has to offer, but also on the generally “chichi” (ergo, overpriced) fare residents are subjected to in the wake of gentrification on steroids.

    And, speaking of that, Mr. Andersen’s fraught phone call about needing to find investors before they have to start laying people off smacks of being the kind of odious “tech guy” (one will refrain from saying “tech bro”) that SF has become irrevocably synonymous with. Hence, yet another unfavorable impression of the city in terms of “the man it’s making her father become”—absent, distant and impatient. Worse still, an ungrateful gentrifier.

    Riley’s anxiety levels are further sent into overdrive by the effect the move is having on her parents’ relationship, which is becoming…tense. Something she never saw between them before. But, again, her lily-livered, privileged existence seems to make her more prone to such sensitivity over very little. Including the sound of noisy cars that also cast “ominous” shadows on her wall from outside the window. Fear’s response to it is a terrified, nonsensical wondering as to whether it might be a bear. “There are no bears in San Francisco,” Disgust balks at Fear (though that’s not really true, thanks to the increased presence of black bears leaving their natural habitat). Anger chimes in, “I saw a really hairy guy. He looked like a bear.” Somehow, that feels like a “subtle” nod to the Castro…for those who get it. 

    Naturally, though, the Emeryville-based Pixar team isn’t counting on the average audience being “in the know” about San Francisco…apart from embracing the tired stereotypes about it as a place of “horrors” (a.k.a. real life), a place to avoid. And, soon enough, a place to run away from. For, without Joy and Sadness—the “alphas” of the emotional “headquarters”—Anger, Fear and Disgust try their best to fill the void where leadership is. The result, expectedly, is all-out emotional dysregulation, with Riley giving in to the whim of assuming that going back to Minnesota without telling her parents is the best way to find happiness again. Luckily, Joy and Sadness make it back to headquarters in time to correct the situation, with Joy allowing Sadness, at last, to take the reins (as she should have from the start of this move). 

    When Riley returns from her botched attempt at running away, she finally admits to her parents, “I miss Minnesota.” The funny thing, of course, is that if she had stayed in said state, she likely would have tried to move to California anyway after graduating from high school. Minnesotans are always seeking warmer weather, which, of course, exists literally anywhere else except Minnesota. And Midwesterners in general are always seeking “freakier” pastures (see: Chappell Roan). But since Minnesota represents “home” to her, and her home isn’t a place she yet associates with oppression and conservative values, San Francisco is pretty much the last place she would want to be. As such, Anger is so fed up with the “antithetical” ways of life in “The Golden City” that he finally snaps and calls it “San Fran Stink Town” as he takes the wheel on “reasoning” by planting the idea in Riley’s head that they should just take a bus back to Minnesota. Which, of course, Riley can’t go through with. 

    At the end of Inside Out, it isn’t that Riley has “warmed” to SF, per se, so much as surrendered to the reality that he who controls the purse strings (i.e., one’s parents) controls your living situation. Even so, perhaps in Inside Out 2, Riley will have come to understand the value, as a “too cool for everything” teen, of living in a more sophisticated metropolis (though the naysayers will keep mentioning homeless people as a reason it’s not) than whatever bumfuck town in Minnesota she crawled out of. Maybe Bloomington (home to the Mall of America), like Inside Out’s director and co-writer, Pete Docter.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Nelly Furtado, Tove Lo and SG Lewis Want You To Know That It Hurts So Good When “Love Bites”

    Nelly Furtado, Tove Lo and SG Lewis Want You To Know That It Hurts So Good When “Love Bites”

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    Of all the collaborative duos one might have anticipated to come together in 2024, Nelly Furtado and Tove Lo probably weren’t on anyone’s bingo card. Sure, SG Lewis is in the mix too, but he often is whenever Tove Lo appears (hear: Dirt Femme’s “Call On Me” and “Pineapple Slice”). As for Furtado, “Love Bites” marks the first single from her forthcoming seventh album, which is promised to have plenty of “club bangers.” It would seem “Love Bites” is among them, with an opening beat that immediately reels the listener in as Tove Lo urges, “Go ahead, go ahead now.” And with that instruction, we’re off on an escapist journey. 

    Escapism is, in fact, the keyword for Furtado right now, for, as she explained of creating new music this time around, “I realized how much people like to dance and escape to my music. It’s the healthiest vice you can have, and I love the opportunity to write music that lets people escape more than anything.” “Love Bites” is no exception to Furtado’s rule. And in the accompanying “visualizer” (which looks like a pretty legit music video that even has a director—Gemma Warren—attached…but who knows, maybe they’ll make a “real” one later), Nelly and Tove appear at ease against a vibrant red backdrop as they lounge on a couch and the top of a car, respectively, before then standing up in the next scenes (these ones contrasted by black backdrops) to bump and grind against each other. 

    Oozing with sensuality, Furtado delivers the first verse, “​​And I can tell it from your mouth that you’re/Real good at working with your mouth and you’re/Not really tryna fuck with my mind and/Good at pretending that you could be mine.” Because, as Dua Lipa points out on Radical Optimism’s “Illusion,” “I really like the way you’re movin’/Yeah, I just wanna dance with the illusion.” In other words, it’s easier to be attracted to the, let’s say, two-dimensional persona presented by someone you initially encounter on a dance floor than it is to be by whoever they really are behind that false projection. Thus, as Lewis ramps up the beat, it reaches its climaxing crescendo when Tove Lo sings the chorus, “I want your body all mine/Boy, you’re looking too fine/The way your love bites/Got me dreamin’ ‘bout that/Time left your mark on my mind/Give me more of that kind/The way your love bites/Got me dreamin’ ’bout ‘cha.” Yes, it’s definitely the perfect song to soundtrack any sexually-charged vampire movie. 

    As for the phrasing of “about you” into “‘bout ‘cha,” well, it speaks perhaps to Furtado’s continued devotion to 00s musical and language sensibilities. After all, one can’t think of “‘cha” without tying it to The Pussycat Dolls 2004 hit, “Don’t Cha.” As for Furtado’s own musical evolution since her album supremacy (Whoa, Nelly!, Folklore [that’s right, Furtado named her album that before Taylor] and Loose) in the early and mid-00s, it’s clear she’s waited a bit longer this time to release another record because she wants to return to the eclectic, pulsing sounds that made her stand out from the herd in the first place. Tove and SG are the perfect pair to help reintroduce her to a new decade (with Furtado’s last album, The Ride, released in 2017), complementing her naturally dance-oriented style with their own more direct “Eurodance” one. 

    Furtado lends more depth to the average “sweaty dance track,” however, with her unique brand of lyricism continuing in the second verse, “And I can tell it from the signs you show/That you just wanna put me on your wall/So we gonna keep riding this whole wave/Because I know it’s written on each page/Help me, I can’t tame me, you can try/Connect me with your eyes/Can’t even hold me too tight.” This idea of being out of control and untameable yet also wanting someone who will make it seem worthwhile to be “tamed” matches the musical dichotomies presented in the single as well. Elsewhere, Furtado channels “Justify My Love” imagery and sensuality by demanding, “Call me/Taste me/Want me/Need me” as Tove Lo chants, “Go ahead, go ahead now” in between each command.

    The visuals intensify (including Tove Lo writhing more bombastically on the floors of the various backdrops) as the song continues—which, again, gives it a more outright music video feel as opposed to just a “visualizer” one. Complete with Tove Lo and Furtado styled in clothes that can best be described as futuristic yet sophisticated “clubwear.” In short, they’re grown enough now not to be fuckin’ with cheap fare of the Forever 21 variety. And yet, “Love Bites” is the kind of track designed to prove that just because a woman grows older, it doesn’t mean her club-connected spirit dies out. Quite the contrary, as a matter of fact. Kylie Minogue also proved that recently with “Padam Padam,” a song that features lyrics that, once upon a time, no fifty-something woman would have been “allowed” to sing without being laughed at mercilessly (and yes, singers like Minogue and Furtado have Madonna to thank for enduring the most vitriol as she blazed a trail for them by continuing to say such things well past the “accepted period” of her youth). 

    As “Love Bites” comes to a close, Furtado brings it back to the 00s again by declaring the names of the featured artists, sensually telling us, “SG Lewis” before Tove Lo delivers an “oh-oh-oh” type utterance that provides the perfect lead-in for Furtado to then say, “Tove Lo.” It smacks of what Missy Elliott did for the end of 2001’s “Lady Marmalade.” Indeed, Elliott came out of the woodwork to comment favorably on Furtado’s live performance of “Get Ur Freak On” for NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert. It wasn’t totally random, though—Furtado jumped on a remix of “Get Ur Freak On” when it was initially released. Thus, to bring it back now seemed an exercise in reminding people of her diverse musical prowess. Elliott tended to agree, praising, “Those who remember this know this remix was fye. Still izzzzzz. You did dat @NellyFurtado.” With “Love Bites,” she’s also brought a new kind of “fye” to the 2020s that’s been sorely lacking.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • The Patrick Bateman-ness of a Pitbull String Arrangement Playing During A Sex Scene in a Carriage

    The Patrick Bateman-ness of a Pitbull String Arrangement Playing During A Sex Scene in a Carriage

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    By now, most everyone (who’s interested) has gotten through the first four episodes of Bridgerton’s third season (with the latter half to be released in mid-June). Which is exactly why, among the most talked about moments, a particular carriage ride in the final minutes of episode four, “Old Friends,” has set tongues wagging (no sexual innuendo intended). But perhaps more distracting than the “steamy,” tailored-to-the-Regency-era sex scene is the noticeable string arrangement (courtesy of Archer Marsh) of Pitbull’s “Give Me Everything.” 

    For those who were hardly expecting that particular “needle drop,” showrunner Jess Brownell explained, “I listened to a lot of slower romantic songs, but none of them felt like they had the right impact and the right build and the right crescendo. And that Pitbull song has so many builds within it that it just, I think, kind of nails the dynamic that’s happening in the scene.” Spoken like someone with true Patrick Bateman musical sensibilities. For, in addition to Ed Sheeran, there’s no doubt in one’s mind that the modern version of Bateman would tout the musical brilliance of Pitbull. Particularly as a finance bro prone to club outings (probably continuing to frequent underground/illegal ones during the lockdowns of the pandemic). 

    One might argue that 80s Bateman could also easily get on board with string quartet versions of his favorite hits from that era, especially Genesis’ “Follow You Follow Me” (the book version of Bateman was much more interested in talking about Genesis and Phil Collins than Huey Lewis and the News). If presented as a bro of the 2010s, Bateman would have an effortless discourse to provide about the lyrical and musical merits of Pitbull, particularly his breakthrough album, Planet Pit (his sixth, released in 2011). Although it spawned a number of hits (as Bateman would be sure to inform you), “Give Me Everything” was the obvious standout, not to mention his first ever single to chart at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 (where, granted, it only had the stamina to remain for one week before being knocked off by LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem”). 

    Thus, Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton), channels some major Bateman energy (not just because he’s rich and white) as Pitbull provides the soundtrack to his finger-banging session with Pen (Nicola Coughlan)—because viewers know damn well that wouldn’t have been her pick for a semi-consummation of their romance. In truth, one sees Penelope as more of a Billie Eilish type, but the string arrangement of “Happier Than Ever” was already played in episode three, “Forces of Nature,” when she’s on the dance floor with Lord Debling (Sam Phillips). That is, after taking his hand when he asks for it instead of listening to what Colin might be about burst forth with. For his pent-up sexual ardor for her has been bubbling to the surface ever since she asked him for a “pity kiss” during the conclusion of episode two, “How Bright the Moon.” And it is at the beginning of the following episode, “Forces of Nature,” that we see the same scene play out in a more “fantasy-like” way, with the intended assumption meant to be that Penelope is the one having a wet dream about it. But no, as viewers soon find out, it’s Colin that can’t stop having certain “nocturnal thoughts” (and perhaps emissions) about the kiss. Even though, theoretically, he wasn’t the one who wanted it. Turns out, all he needed was that tactile nudge to realize his long-dormant feelings. 

    The type of feelings that, per season three’s music supervisor, Justin Kamps, can only truly be captured by pop music. As Kamps himself said, “Pop music can have so much drama and romance. What the show does is heighten these kind[s] of everyday feelings of romance that people have throughout their lives. And it’s fun to hear a song that you’ve had a connection with in your own life transposed into this string quartet version that is playing with and affecting the characters’ lives throughout the show. I just think that’s a really fun juxtaposition for people and combination of bringing their own emotions into the story each season.” In other words, some viewers need just a touch more modernity to be able to relate to this era, not to mention the well-to-do characters who have the increasingly nonexistent luxury of obsessing over love. Or rather, false ideals of it. As Penelope’s mother, Lady Featherington (Polly Walker), tells her, “Oh do not tell me you’re holding out for love. Ugh! This is the very reason why I discouraged you from reading! Love is make-believe. It’s only in your storybooks. Do you know what is romantic? Security!”

    Unless, of course, a girl makes the mistake of being courted by Bateman (like Evelyn Richards), who has plenty of “security” to offer in bank account form, but not so much when it comes to physical safety. However, if a girl happens to be a sucker for a guy who gives pseudointellectual discourses about pop music, then Bateman is certainly irresistible. Just as Colin is to many of the women of “the ton” when he returns from his travels suddenly looking more comfortable in his own skin (in short, like more of a fuckboy). And who knows? Maybe part of the reason he does is because he went on an anonymous killing spree while abroad. However, one thing audiences can be sure of is that Colin picked up a few sexual tricks on his travels (repeatedly emphasized by his visits to the brothel—another Bateman-y maneuver—and the threesomes he has while there). Knowledge he seems all too keen to share with Penelope in the back of that carriage. A scene that, when one examines it, possesses all the incongruity of Patrick Bateman boning two sex workers to the tune of Phil Collins’ “Sussudio” while filming it (and also finding plenty of time to stare at himself in the mirror [and flex his arm muscle], just as Gaston from Beauty and the Beast would). 

    The decision to play “Give Me Everything,” however, was not taken lightly, with the composer of season three’s score, Kris Bowers commenting, “The melody, the way that it was shaped was trying to mirror the push and pull of their relationship, the timidity of whether or not they actually want to move forward with this on either side as they both play with this idea of what it would be like to possibly explore a romantic connection. So the melody has that type of ‘two steps forward, one step back’ kind of feeling to it.” In which case, one tends to wonder why Olivia Rodrigo’s “1 step forward, 3 steps back” wasn’t simply used instead. Not “melodically aligned” with the vision, one supposes. Even if it perhaps wasn’t the best idea to align that vision with someone as, well, rapey as Pitbull. Or at least that’s how he comes across in many of his lyrics. Which, again, would undeniably speak to his appeal to Bateman. Among such lyrics being, “The night is young, and if you shave/I’ll give you some of this mighty tongue” (from one of his first big hits, 2004’s “Culo”),” “I like that when you fight back” (from 2007’s “The Anthem”) and “She say she won’t, but I bet she will (from “Timber” featuring, of all people, Kesha). 

    Fortunately for Bridgerton “romantics,” no such “untoward” sentiments are present in “Give Me Everything.” Unless one rightfully counts the line, “Think about it, ’cause if you slip/I’m gon’ fall on top of your girl, hahahaha.” Or reads the subtext of what might happen should the “sexy” someone “grabbed” not necessarily want to give everything tonight. Nonetheless, the supposed reflection of Colin and Penelope’s relationship, in addition to the fraught, urgent opportunity presented to them in the carriage, is meant to be “tailor-made” for “Give Me Everything.” After all, Penelope essentially expresses the sentiments of the chorus in Julia Quinn’s Romancing Mr. Bridgerton when it is written: “Tomorrow would be awful, knowing that he would find some other woman with whom to laugh and joke and even marry. But today… Today was hers.” Or tonight, in this scenario. And oh, how they both give almost everything. It’s a wonder Colin doesn’t just outright deliver the lyrics as part of his love soliloquy to her, insisting, “Tonight. I want all of you tonight. Give me everything tonight. For all we know, we might not get tomorrow. Let’s do it tonight.” Cries of the world’s imminent demise is, indeed, perfect for “virtue-shattering.”

    As for Pitbull’s reaction to the unexpected, Bateman-esque song choice, well, he responded with something Bret Easton Ellis himself could have penned from the perspective of Bateman: “This again shows the world how music is the international language that transcends over boundaries[,] more so how a hit song can remain timeless.” And with that, “Give Me Everything” was, thanks to Bridgerton, declared timeless. Though definitely not as timeless as, say, “Hip to Be Square.”

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Camila Cabello Gets Pussy Blocked By Lil Nas X in “He Knows” Video

    Camila Cabello Gets Pussy Blocked By Lil Nas X in “He Knows” Video

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    As the C,XOXO rollout keeps on truckin’, Camila Cabello continues to pull out the stops (one can’t necessarily say “all the stops”) by offering up yet another single with a feature on it. This time, Lil Nas X subs in where Playboi Carti was on “I Luv It.” The potentially ominous-sounding single, “He Knows,” is accordingly much more flirtatious and tongue-in-cheek. After all, this is “Montero” we’re talking about, the man who performs nude choreo in a prison setting, co-designs Satan shoes and gives lap dances to the devil. Of course things are going to be, shall we say, mischievous when he’s involved. And the video for “He Knows” proves no exception to the Lil Nas X rule. 

    With an opening that samples from Ojerime’s 2020 song, “Give It Up 2 Me” (which itself sounds like a sample of The Bucketheads’ ‘The Bomb! [These Sounds Fall Into My Mind]”), the playful tone of “He Knows” is made immediately apparent. Yet, more than just playful (and often taunting), the song radiates a sweltering quality that’s ripe for the dance floor. As such, it’s no surprise that Cabello takes us to that very location, trading out the “chillin’ at home” and occasional outdoor setting in “I Luv It” for a club one in “He Knows.” Not just any club either, but one that looks as though it was plucked straight out of the 00s (Lindsay Lohan’s “Rumors” video comes to mind). As Cabello descends a staircase and casually saunters into the fray with her crew in tow, she sizes up the clientele, eventually casting her discerning glance on one “boo” in particular as she takes a shot with her friends. 

    Director Onda then immediately cuts to the two of them writhing against each other on the dance floor as the lyrics, “She’s a provocateur/Dance floor connoisseur/Shit week, so Friday for sure/Tell the girls we’re takin’ a detour/Give him hell, yeah/Give these boys hell, yeah/Shе does it well, ah-yeah/I do it mysеlf, ah-yeah” punctuate the hyper-sexual scene. In the next moment, Cabello finds herself on the center of the floor as several backup dancers behind her join in to match the choreo she serves for the verse, “Cigarette, candy necklace on my hips/Butterfly that’s on my wrist/Put your hands on me like this.”

    If those lyrics sound filled with Lana Del Rey-inspired keywords and imagery, it’s probably no coincidence that Cabello shoved her way onto the Coachella main stage to join LDR in a rendition of “I Luv It” during the latter’s headlining performance in April. Indeed, it’s a shame “He Knows” wasn’t out at the time, as it’s a single that’s far more within Del Rey’s wheelhouse, complete with the chorus: “I think he knows (make me lose my mind)/When I play with him like that/When I say it to him like that/Have my way with him like that/I think he knows (make me lose my mind)…/That he’s comin’ right back.” Dripping with such “daddy” vibes, it would have made for a much less awkward onstage collaboration. 

    In any case, Lil Nas X is also well-suited to the sentiments as he appears on the scene with vampiric blue eyes aglow in the darkness of the club. Using those eyes to zero in on Cabello dancing with the man she thinks she has “wrapped around [her] pinky finger,” Lil Nas X interrupts their sexual grinding to, er, insert himself. He then delivers the lascivious lyrics, “He drippin’ down on my bustier like ice cream/While Ashanti playin’ in the AMG/Let it rain on me/He fuckin’ up my headboard, so I’m on my knees like, ‘Dear Lord, please pray for me’/Save the grace for me.” Around the same time, a very deliberate shot of a mannequin dressed exactly like the man both CC and LNX are pursuing is revealed, perched in an industrial-looking space. One in which Cabello and Lil Nas X appear in individually before ending up there together. 

    Before that moment, however, Cabello, after being bested by LNX, turns on her heel and stalks off in angered disbelief. Not just over the fact that Lil Nas X could pussy block her so rudely, but that she didn’t account for the potential bisexuality of this “little snack.” (Or Lil Nas X is just that alluring to all genders, regardless of their usual sexual preferences.) Back in the “secret part” of the club where the mannequin is, Cabello and LNX get into a catfight that ends up knocking over the “model” and dislodging one of its arms. Cabello turns her head toward it and shouts, “Oh my god, he’s—” Lil Nas X cuts in, “He’s bald?” Cabello sighs exasperatedly and corrects, “He’s plastic.” (To be fair, so are most people in Miami.) Lil Nas is still hung up on the bald thing, replying, “But he’s also bald.” Realizing the man they were fighting for wasn’t actually that “fire,” the two then join forces on the floor and in the weird alternate dimension room. The dance scenes get trippier and blurrier before we finally see them outside together at the valet stand. 

    As they wait, Lil Nas X declares, “Let’s promise to never fight over a boy again.” “Pinky promise?” Cabello asks. “Pinky promise,” LNX assures. But you can’t trust no twink not to pussy block again and again, nor, for that matter, someone as “ho is life” as Cabello’s “alter ego,” “C.” This much is confirmed when the same guy (as emphasized by his signature jacket) they were fighting over appears next to them to wait for his own car. The two both flash flirty lookie-loos at him as they bite down on the very pinkies they promised not to betray each other with to the point where blood is pouring out of their mouths. So much for friendship solidarity. And yes, it would seem Cabello is making a larger statement about how much harder it is for women “these days” to lock down a man (Cabello’s supposedly straight ex, Shawn Mendes, comes to mind), what with sexual fluidity being increasingly and endlessly chic. 

    Or, as Lil Nas X, warns, “On the real, I’ma take his soul (all that)/I’ma take him from his hoes (okay)/On the real, I think he knows.” Thus, Cabello’s intended “I’m in control,” empowered statement for “He Knows” is totally undermined by what LNX contributes to it sonically and visually.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Furiosa: She Found Love in a Hopeless Place

    Furiosa: She Found Love in a Hopeless Place

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    If there’s any movie/film franchise that’s more relevant to the moment, it’s Mad Max. Or, in this case, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Released almost exactly nine years after Mad Max: Fury Road, Furiosa serves as a prequel to the events in that film, detailing how its heroine (or anti-heroine, if you prefer) came to be in her current situation, searching endlessly for redemption. Even if most other people’s concern in The Wasteland is mere survival. As a History Man narrates, that’s all a person is reduced to when there’s nothing left and the social contract has been irrevocably broken. And yes, the usual soundbites commence the movie, giving viewers the indication that civilization collapsed due to, among other causes that are completely believable (especially at this juncture), war (both “general” and nuclear), ecocide and oil shortages. 

    Returning to New South Wales for filming (whereas Fury Road’s backdrop came courtesy of Namibia), just as it was for 1981’s Mad Max 2, director and Mad Max co-creator (along with Byron Kennedy, RIP) George Miller opens the Furiosa story with an overhead shot of a barely detectable green strip of land in the midst of an otherwise barren landscape. This, of course, is The Green Place that The Five Wives of Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) speak of so hopefully in Fury Road. When Max (Tom Hardy) asks Furiosa, “How do you know this place even exists?” she solemnly replies, “I was born there.” Max then rightly asks, “So why’d you leave?” It is in this next piece of dialogue that the premise for the prequel is set up as Furiosa states, “I didn’t. I was taken as a child. Stolen.”

    So it is that we see how she was stolen and who stole her: a gaggle of goons from a gang known as the Horde of the Biker Warlord Dementus. Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) initially seems like a man who is more or at least as powerful as Immortan Joe, for the goons that happen upon The Green Place and snatch Furiosa (after we see her snatching a peach from a tree—in a moment that has decided “Eve in the Garden of Eden” overtones) are extremely eager to please him with this discovery. Not just of a geographical location that possesses “copious bounty,” but of a young girl who isn’t riddled with health issues from malnourishment. Furiosa (played at this age by Alyla Browne) endures the kidnapping with the aplomb and cool-headedness we’re used to seeing her with as an adult, trained from an early age, it appears, to expect such a scenario, even if she was sheltered by the idyllic cushion of The Green Place. Besides, she knows her mother, Mary Jo Bassa (Charlee Fraser), is quietly and doggedly pursuing her, picking off the members of Dementus’ gang that have stolen her until only one remains. That one, unfortunately, manages to get back to the “base camp” and tell Dementus about this place of “abundance” as Furiosa is paraded as being a product of that environment. 

    Hanging back to watch and wait from afar, Mary Jo knows that Furiosa will never give up the secret of where The Green Place is. She’s been conditioned far too well for that, knowing that to trust anyone outside of The Green Place, let alone this pack of war-mongering men, is the last thing that would be beneficial to her. No, instead, she bides her time, waiting for the moment when Mary Jo will appear to rescue her. When she does, Mary Jo makes the mistake of believing a misogynistic woman when she tells her she won’t tell a soul that Mary Jo has reclaimed Furiosa. Two seconds later, the woman is doing just that, alerting the proverbial media to Mary Jo and Furiosa’s escape, giving Dementus and his gang plenty of notice to catch up to them—which of course they do. Although Mary Jo tries to give Furiosa a fighting chance by telling her to take the motorbike and go off on her own to get back home, she can’t bring herself to leave her mother behind. Especially after she hears shots fired in the distance. Though her mother was the one shooting the gun, she ends up being captured and mounted, Jesus-style, to a tree, with Dementus burning her feet like she’s a witch. 

    When Dementus sees that Furiosa has come back to watch the “fun,” he promises her that he’ll let her mother live if she tells him where the place of abundance is. Furiosa says nothing (also likely aware that Dementus isn’t exactly the “man of his word” type and would probably kill Mary Jo regardless of her giving him the location of The Green Place). Forced, instead, to watch her mother’s torturous death. In the days that follow, Dementus’ History Man (George Shevtsov) advises Furiosa to make herself invaluable to Dementus rather than playing the sullen, bereaved part she’s fallen into. But Furiosa knows that by sheer virtue of not being a mutant, she’s less likely to be fucked with. And it’s true, Dementus sees her as something of a “special creature.” One he seems “affectionate” toward (or as affectionate as someone like him can be). If for no other reason than because he does know she’s liable to be “useful” to him somewhere down the line. And in a post-apocalyptic world, being useful is the name of the game more than ever. 

    As Furiosa, who has remained in a mute state ever since being captured, watches Dementus in diabolical, erratic action, she appears to be processing all the information she can glean in order to know how to proceed next. Calculating what the best move will be (like Elizabeth Harmon in The Queen’s Gambit—another Anya Taylor-Joy project). At one point in their odyssey, Dementus and his gang see red smoke shot in the sky by a flare gun. They approach the source to find one of Immortan Joe’s War Boys prattling on about The Citadel. When he speaks of it as a place with everything one could need, Dementus presumes it to be The Green Place that Furiosa hailed from. Thus, he gets the War Boy to take them to The Citadel, where he rolls in with big dick-swinging energy, assuming he can just take over the place by telling the maltreated masses that they have a choice—that they don’t have to follow an abusive leader and can choose him instead. He who insists he’ll give them as much food and water as they want. It’s a scene that feels familiar in terms of how political leaders bulldoze their way into power with promises of being “better” or “different” from a previous “ruler,” only to end up being more or equally cruel and incompetent. 

    But Dementus was very much overestimating his clout when he arbitrarily showed up on Immortan Joe’s turf, with The Citadel being the only so-called port in the storm of The Wasteland besides Gastown and The Bullet Farm. As such, there’s no way Immortan Joe would ever let it go—especially with so many War Boys willing to die in a fight to defend his reign over it (in many ways, they’re like Islamic extremist suicide bombers). 

    Taken aback by the counter-ambush against him and his crew, Dementus is totally unprepared when most of his gang is killed off. Unwilling to accept a powerless state, however, Dementus gathers a new gang of men together and hatches a plan to take over Gastown as leverage to negotiate with Immortan Joe for more rations. Allowed into The Citadel for these negotiations, Immortan Joe catches sight of Furiosa in the background of Dementus’ crew, demanding that she becomes part of their trade deal. So it is that Furiosa’s path is detached from Dementus’ (at least for a while). But that hardly means she’s free of nefarious men who are obsessed with her. 

    After being placed in Immortan Joe’s “special area” for wives, one of his sons, Rictus (Nathan Jones), becomes fascinated with her in a way that pretty much screams “pedophile.” As though anticipating a scuffle with him or some other creep that might try to do something to her, Furiosa shaves her head but refashions the hair back on it as a wig, of sorts. This way, when Rictus ends up pulling on her hair after demanding to know what the tattooed constellation on her arm means (it’s a map back to The Green Place), the whole thing comes right off and she’s able to run like hell into the night. As far as Rictus can tell once he manages to catch up to the place he saw her escape, Furiosa has “disappeared.” In reality, she’s merely clinging perilously to the bottom of a platform until she can scurry back up again when no one is around (granted, Miller never deals with actually showing how she managed to fully escape undetected). 

    A number of years pass (as the “wig” that has fallen on an ever-changing tree branch indicates) until Furiosa grows into a young woman (allowing Anya Taylor-Joy her time to shine). Only she’s posing as a War Boy so that she can not only learn how to tinker with and build one of the War Rigs, but as a means to plan her escape from The Citadel. Taking notice of the main commander of the War Boys, Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke, in his most commercial role yet since Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir), Furiosa clocks him as the one to watch. Or watch out for. After all, he’s clearly the sharpest tool in the shed, therefore the person most likely to catch on to her scheme. Which is to conceal a motorcycle and enough rations for her journey back to The Green Place on the War Rig for the next ride to Gastown. On the way, the rig is attacked (in the manner and style viewers grew accustomed to seeing nonstop throughout Fury Road) by Dementus’ band of followers, who manage to exterminate all the War Boys tasked with defending the rig. Jack and Furiosa, as the only survivors, are left to kill the remaining gang members. In the midst of the brutal battle, Furiosa’s true gender is revealed to Jack. 

    Despite how well the two have worked together to overcome the enemy, Furiosa still aims a gun at Jack and tells him to pull over. Alas, her gun is empty and Jack tosses her out of the vehicle. Left in the middle of nowhere (which is the crux of what The Wasteland is except for The Citadel), Furiosa resigns herself to walking. Just as she does, Jack returns to invite her to join him in rebuilding his battalion. This, of course, is a running theme throughout the Mad Max universe: rebuilding again and again, even though civilization—life—itself has broken down entirely. With that in mind, there comes a point when Dementus name-checks Darwin, and how showing weakness isn’t an option in a non-society such as this. Although the Darwinism element was always implied in the Mad Max movies, it’s never been so explicitly called out. 

    And yet, even in the face of survival being the sole concern—for there is little time to occupy one’s mind with anything else—Furiosa can’t help finding love in a hopeless place. For it’s apparent that her dynamic with Jack is one ever-shifting toward a romantic rather than platonic love (the latter variety seeming to be what she has with Max in Fury Road). With this part of Furiosa’s backstory offered up by Miller, it becomes mildly heartening to know that, no matter how bad or apocalyptic life gets, this innate human craving can’t be stamped out any more than the innate need to survive. Alas, it becomes immediately disheartening to know that anyone who finds out about such love—such hope—in a hopeless place will become enraged by another person having it as a result of their own jealousy. Their own desire to keep watching the world burn. Dementus is just one such exemplar of that asshole trope. 

    And so, when he catches and captures Jack and Furiosa in their bid to escape together back to The Green Place, he tells them that they “break his heart” for being foolish enough to have such hope. It is his job, he feels, to remind them that “there is no hope” in this world. That hate is what drives everything in conditions such as these. Thus, Dementus orders Jack’s slow, cruel murder while Furiosa is bound to the back of a rig, unable to do anything to prevent losing the only man she’ll ever love (like that). Dementus obviously has no idea who he’s dealing with though, and that he’s only fueling the flames of her burning for revenge. 

    In the final act, when she finally gets him alone and defenseless, Furiosa screams at Dementus to give her mother back, to give her childhood back (cue Taylor Swift singing, “Give me back my girlhood/It was mine first”). Dementus is unmoved, saying that his own family and childhood were ripped from him as well (this is where a shrink would spout that “hurt people hurt people”). He also goads her attempt at finding “peace” or “redemption” by killing him, reminding her that even after he’s dead, it still won’t bring Jack or her mother back. He tells her she’ll never find peace, and that the two of them are the same: dead already. Ghosts haunting The Wasteland in search of more and more pain just so they can feel something. Could that be, in the end, why Furiosa succumbed to the emotional dangers of falling in love? Knowing full well that it could only conclude in tragedy. That it was endlessly naive to imagine returning to The Green Place at all, let alone with Jack. 

    If that’s the case, and an inherent sense of masochism was the reason Furiosa allowed herself to become vulnerable enough to love someone, well, then at least viewers can take comfort in knowing that our post-apocalyptic selves aren’t so different from our apocalyptic ones.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Ariana of the Spirits: Grande Goes From Feeling Haunted and Depressed on “ghostin” to Sexy and Elated on “supernatural”

    Ariana of the Spirits: Grande Goes From Feeling Haunted and Depressed on “ghostin” to Sexy and Elated on “supernatural”

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    Less than a month after Sweetener was released, Ariana Grande’s freshly-made ex-boyfriend and possible love of her life, Mac Miller, was found dead in his Studio City abode. The cause was an accidental drug overdose spurred by the pills laced with fentanyl that were sold to him. At the time of his death, Miller and Grande had only been split up for about four months, with Grande making the breakup announcement in May of 2018 just before she famously moved on to Pete Davidson. 

    The May of the previous year, however, Miller was very much there for Grande right when she got off the plane in the U.S. in the wake of the Manchester Arena bombing. A horrific terrorist attack that took place during the May 22nd date of the Dangerous Woman Tour. Through the trauma of it all, Miller would be there to support her, even if he still had plenty of his own demons to wrestle with. As Grande kept soldiering through the tour, complete with a benefit concert called One Love Manchester that found her returning to the city in June to show her support, Miller was around to offer her a shoulder to cry on (and to perform onstage with her at the One Love event). Even if that shoulder flickered in and out along with the rest of him. Because it was obvious he was still going back to his drug use security blanket, remarking at one point during a 2017 interview with W, “I’ve spent a good time very sober and now I’m just, like, living regularly.” “Living regularly” by his standards, that is. 

    A lifestyle that was no longer tenable to Grande, who dealt with a major backlash in May of 2018 not only for getting together with Davidson so soon after her breakup with Miller, but also because she was blamed by many for Miller’s DUI arrest the same month, right after the media caught wind of her new relationship. In response to a viral tweet that touted that blame, Grande replied, “I am not a babysitter or a mother and no woman should feel that they need to be. I have cared for him and tried to support his sobriety & prayed for his balance for years (and always will of course) but shaming/blaming women for a man’s inability to keep his shit together is a very major problem. Let’s please stop doing that. Of course I didn’t share about how hard or scary it was while it was happening but it was.”

    The scariness of it all was something Grande hadn’t fully processed, as 2018 eventually revealed. Having thrown herself into another relationship as a balm for the one didn’t work (something of her modus operandi [in addition to J. Lo’s]), she was forced to take stock after Miller’s death. And “ghostin” was a very clear indication of that. It became part of Grande’s undeniable “therapy” in the wake of trying to deal with both Miller’s demise and the revelation that maybe being engaged to Pete Davidson wasn’t the best idea. In fact, it was only a month after Miller’s overdose that Grande and Davidson called it quits. The relationship lasted a mere six months. But it was immortalized with the Sweetener track entitled, what else, “pete davidson.” 

    Alas, with the feelings expressed on Sweetener already feeling stale to Grande in the aftermath of all she endured, it was a little less than six months later, in February of 2019, that she had a new album out: thank u, next. Instantly acclaimed, the dissection of the album led many to immediately pinpoint the song that was most overtly about Miller: “ghostin.”

    As the eighth track, the song stands out among the other eleven as the most serious and contemplative. Besides the song that appropriately follows it, “in my head,” “ghostin” sets itself apart as the most palpable lament. Perhaps it’s for this reason that Grande places it right after the more playful “make up.” The latter is a song that reduces Grande’s “erratic” behavior to something cute and intentional—because it’s just her way of building up toward hot make up sex. “ghostin” is quick to shatter that illusion. Indeed, it was so real that, for a time, Grande didn’t want it included on the record. In fact, “ghostin” fans can only thank Taylor Swift’s favorite person, Scooter Braun, that it’s on there. For, as Grande mentioned during an interview with Zach Sang, “It was a lot. It was too much, actually. I was literally begging Scooter to take it off. And he was like, ‘You’re thinking too hard now. This is special and you should share it with everybody.’” Sure, the way she tells it, it sounds a bit pushy and like maybe she was steamrolled into sharing emotions she didn’t want to, but it’s true that “ghostin” adds a rich layer to thank u, next that wouldn’t be there without it. 

    Her candor about still being in love with someone else—a literal ghost now—is something that many can relate to. Particularly those who have chosen to move on from a person not because they fell out of love with them, but because being with them proved to be too toxic of a situation (yes, the dichotomy is real). So it is that Grande sings, “I know that it breaks your heart when I cry again/Over him/I know that it breaks your heart when I cry again/‘Stead of ghostin’ him.” But how can Grande ghost a ghost? Not only that, how can she pretend the death of someone she loved so deeply doesn’t hurt her, even if Davidson was supposed to be her “true love” at that moment in time? Of Davidson’s patience with such an unusual scenario, Grande praises, “Baby, you do it so well/You’ve been so understanding, you’ve been so good/And I’m puttin’ you through more than one ever should/And I’m hating myself ‘cause you don’t want to/Admit that it hurts you.” 

    In the end, that patience and suppression of his own emotions were not enough to weather the storm of her sadness. Of dealing with a loss so great that she had to recognize maybe there was a force majeure at play in terms of preventing her engagement with Davidson to stick. Though it seemed, at first, she was doing her best to ignore what her feelings were inherently telling her, opening the song with, “I know you hear me when I cry/I try to hold it in at night/While you’re sleeping next to me…/Look at the cards that we’ve been dealt/If you were anybody else/Probably wouldn’t last a day/Every tear’s a rain parade from hell.” And this after Grande had truly believed on Sweetener that she had “no tears left to cry.”

    Grande then gets even more raw by confessing, “Though I wish he were here instead/Don’t want that living in your head/He just comes to visit me/When I’m dreaming every now and then.” It is this lyric in particular that many have speculated to be a foil for Miller’s verse in “Cinderella” that goes, “You in my dreams, that’s why I sleep all the time.” The addition to that being “Just to hear you say I love you, just to touch you, just to leave you behind.” It’s the “just to leave you behind” line that feels retroactively ominous. As though Miller knew somehow, one way or the other, he would be the person to truly leave the relationship, even if she left him first. But in a far less literal way. Miller’s haunting quality also intensifies with another lyric toward the end of the song when he forewarns, “Well, wherever you came from, wherever you goin’/I promise I’m not far behind, yeah/So don’t you dare throw this away.” Based on “ghostin,” Grande definitely didn’t. Or couldn’t. 

    On the song that follows it, “in my head,” her reconciliation with the fact that she tried to paint Davidson in an image and light that suited her immediate needs manifests in the lines, “Painted a picture/I thought I knew you well.” This inversely mimics the lyrics on “we can’t be friends (wait for your love)” when she declares, “I don’t like how you paint me, yet I’m still here hanging.” Just as Miller is still there hanging in the corners of Grande’s mind—no matter how far recessed. His image likely elevated in the way that can only happen when someone dies, and glorification tends to be the natural reaction. 

    With the passing of one album, Positions, released in between thank u, next and Eternal Sunshine, Grande evidently had time to reassess her take on otherworldly phenomena. For while “ghostin” laments the power of the supernatural, “supernatural” reveres it. Sees it as a divine blessing. Placed on the record as the sixth track, it follows “eternal sunshine,” one of several flagrant “divorce songs” aimed at Dalton Gomez (so much for “Only wanna do it [a.k.a. get married] once, real bad/Gon’ make that shit last”). So it is that Eternal Sunshine feels structured to reveal Grande’s emotional state as it progressed from being “over” her marriage and feeling rather stifled by it to falling for, of all people, Ethan Slater (her Munchkin-playing co-star in Wicked). Which is why, after singing things like, “So I try to wipe my mind/Just so I feel less insane/Rather feel painless/I’d rather forget than know, know for sure/What we could’ve fought through behind this door/So I close it and move,” she does move—right on to the vibrant, bright tone of “supernatural.”

    If a mournful haunting was the theme of “ghostin,” then “supernatural” is all about letting the spectral take hold with joy. After mentioning the “good boy” who’s “on [her] side” in “eternal sunshine,” that “good boy” becomes the full star of “supernatural.” And yes, things get expectedly raunchy as they often do with Grande, who tells Slater, “I want you to come claim it, I do/What are you waiting for?/Yeah, I want you to name it, I do/Want you to make it yours.” Just as long as Slater doesn’t name it something like “Rebecca” à la Charlotte York in Sex and the City. Elsewhere, she lasciviously insists, “Nothin’ еlse felt this way inside me.” But in between those lyrics alluding to sexual chemistry, Grande finds time to make the lyrical theme slightly sweeter (adding a “sweetener,” if you will) via the chorus: “This love’s possessin’ me, but I don’t mind at all/It’s like supernatural/It’s takin’ over me, don’t wanna fight the fall/It’s like supernatural.”

    Thus, there’s a far more exuberant aura to the notion of supernatural forces being at play in her love life. As for Grande making her seventh album themed around Michel Gondry’s 2004 movie, eerily enough, Mac Miller cited Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as his second favorite film in a 2013 article for Complex. Of the movie’s high-up placement on his list, Miller commented, “I love Jim Carrey when he’s being serious. He killed this role. Whenever I’m talking to a girl, I always tell them to watch Eternal Sunshine. It cuts deep.” Grande would tend to agree, obviously. 

    Other themes from thank u, next crop up again on Eternal Sunshine, too—like Grande saying, “I met someone else/And we havin’ better discussions/I know they say I move on too fast/But this one gon’ last/‘Cause her name is Ari/And I’m so good with that.” A sologamist sentiment that reappears on “we can’t be friends (wait for your love)” with the lines, “So for now, it’s only me/And maybe that’s all I need.” Except, as history has shown, Grande has a tendency to be a serial monogamist rather than a comfortable-in-her-own-skin sologamist. Perhaps being perennially haunted by past relationships has something to do with that. For nothing staves off the bitter realities of an old relationship like the celestial nature of a new one.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • It’s A Weird Time to Sell Florida As a Place to Escape To As Opposed to From: Taylor Swift’s “Florida!!!”

    It’s A Weird Time to Sell Florida As a Place to Escape To As Opposed to From: Taylor Swift’s “Florida!!!”

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    For a long time, people were able to speculate that Taylor Swift was a “God-fearing” Republican. Her ties to the country music genre, paired with a staunchly apolitical nature, made it easy to opt for that assumption. Especially for the audience (mostly male) that wanted to believe Swift was their Aryan goddess. Those fantasies were shattered in 2018, when Swift made the first political statement and endorsement of her then twelve-year career. Her declaration of support for Democratic candidate Phil Bredesen in the midterm elections for Tennessee was accompanied by urging youths who hadn’t yet registered to vote to do so immediately, with Swift concluding, “So many intelligent, thoughtful, self-possessed people have turned 18 in the past two years and now have the right and privilege to make their vote count. But first you need to register, which is quick and easy to do. October 9th is the LAST DAY to register to vote in the state of TN. Go to vote.org and you can find all the info. Happy Voting!”

    It was not “happy voting” for Swift, in the end, though. Because Blackburn won that midterm election and continues to be the senator for that state as of 2024, amid the release of Swift’s eleventh album, The Tortured Poets Department. On said album, there are many songs to pick at in terms of “problematic lyrics” (not least of which is: “We would pick a decade/We wished we could live in instead of this/I’d say the 1830s but without all the racists and getting married off for the highest bid”), but one that stands out in particular is “Florida!!!” featuring Florence + the Machine (a.k.a. Florence Welch). As track number eight on the album, it falls appropriately between “Fresh Out the Slammer” and “Guilty As Sin?” Both titles evincing images of Florida in that everyone seems to be prison material and most people who live there are guilty as sin (no question mark)—not just of drug-addled misdeeds, but the crime of effectively supporting the state’s increasingly discriminatory policies. 

    Thus, for Swift to romanticize the state at a moment in its history when it has implemented among the most, let’s just say it, 1830s-inspired laws out there (Swift’s dream come true!) feels like a return to her being billable as an Aryan goddess for white supremacists. A category that Florida’s führer, Ron DeSantis, falls into based on his consistent support for extremely prejudicial legislation. “Luckily,” the U.S.’ clusterfuck of a justice system has prevented DeSantis from getting certain constitutionally-violating laws to stick (at least not entirely), including 2022’s comically named Stop Woke Act, which “banned employers from providing mandatory workplace diversity training.” A key portion of that law was blocked by a federal court of appeals earlier this year, indicating the rampant disgust for many of the laws that have passed under DeSantis’ encouragement. This includes, but is certainly not limited to, approving a measure that allows Florida residents to carry a concealed loaded firearm, supporting one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation and, of course, the notorious Don’t Say Gay law, which restricts Florida teachers from discussing gender, sex and sexuality. Such Orwellian laws are also in line with DeSantis and his Republican brethren banning trans people from using public bathrooms that affirm their identity and trying to limit the performance of drag shows under the measures proposed in the incongruously titled Protection of Children Act. 

    All of this is to say, again, it’s a weird time for Swift to be promoting Florida as a place of escape, rather than, in truth, a place people should be trying to escape from. Unless, of course, they’re white and heteronormative like Swift. To that point, Swift remarked of her “inspiration” behind the song, “I think I was coming up with this idea of like, ‘What happens when your life doesn’t fit or your choices you’ve made catch up to you and you’re surrounded by these harsh consequences and judgment, and circumstances did not lead you to where you want to be and you just want to escape from everything you’ve ever known. Is there a place you could go?’” It seems odd that the state that would jump out at her for that is fucking Florida. Because, to reiterate, Florida is where you receive said harsh consequences and judgment in the first place. And yet, with Swift having no real concept of what that would actually mean as a result of her long-standing privileged situation in life, maybe she really does have no clue that Florida offers nothing resembling “refuge.” Except, as mentioned, to people who look like her. And share her hetero “values.” 

    Nonetheless, Swift continued to prattle on about writing this tourism ad for one of the worst states, “I’m always watching like Dateline—people, you know, have these crimes that they commit. Where do they immediately skip town and go to? They go to Florida, you know?” Do they? That seems like a real “imagination” stretch on her part. Even so, she insists, “They like try to reinvent themselves, have a new identity, blend in [to reemphasize, one can only “blend in” in Florida if they possess Swift’s, er, aesthetic]. And I think when you go through a heartbreak, there’s a part of you that thinks, ‘I want a new name, I want a new life, I don’t want anyone to know where I’ve been or know me at all.’ And so that was the jumping-off point behind, ‘Where would you go to reinvent yourself and blend in? Florida.’” Oof. Absolutely not. Maybe she could have gotten away with the idea of Florida being a place for “reinvention” in the 90s, back when South Beach and Miami Beach were beacons of hedonistic gay nightlife to the point where even Madonna and Gianni Versace wanted to live there. But, at present, those days of “anything goes” acceptance are clearly long gone. 

    Even so, Swift and Welch adamantly declare, “Florida/Is one hell of a drug/Florida/Can I use you up?” Not if it doesn’t use you up first, which it definitely will. Elsewhere, they sing, “I’ve got some regrets, I’ll bury them in Florida/Tell me I’m despicable, say it’s unforgivable [it is…to champion Florida in such a way at this moment in history]/What a crash, what a rush, fuck me up, Florida.” Oh Florida will fuck people up all right—just not people like Swift. And her blithe promotion of this state as some kind of “oasis” for “starting over” is sure to help DeSantis’ cause in continuing to pass whatever dystopian laws he wants. After all, Taylor Swift still thinks it’s “the place to be” regardless.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • “2019 Me”: Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft Shares Deliberate DNA With When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?

    “2019 Me”: Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft Shares Deliberate DNA With When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?

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    In the almost three full years since Billie Eilish released her sophomore album, Happier Than Ever, the world has only gotten a little more blurry, to put it euphemistically. Or maybe, the truth is, it’s fallen into sharper focus for being what it is: the type of place that makes someone like Eilish and the generation she’s part of an anxiety-ridden ball of nerves. Someone who spent a formative part of her last year as a teenager in lockdown. But it’s not only the pandemic that gave Gen Z its warped sense of time. There are many contributing factors, though, chiefly, being affixed to a screen for so much of one’s day. It’s hard to “make memories” that way—at least ones that will prove to be lasting in a way that marks, therefore differentiates time. 

    Among the screen’s many hazards, in fact, is that it causes all of time to kind of run together, with one day not really varying from the next. The only way to tell what’s different, really, is that one is looking at “new content.” The relativity (or lack thereof) of time to Gen Z seems worth bringing up in regard to Eilish’s third album, Hit Me Hard and Soft—mainly because she’s already talking about wanting to get back to “2019 me.” In other words, the girl who brought us When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? As though that person, that “era” was from so long ago. By the same token, there are many ways in which 2019 was a lifetime ago, not least of which is because it was the last year before Miss Rona took over and altered many people’s psychological framework for good. It seems that 2020 and beyond has caused some kind of chasm in the space-time continuum, wherein everything feels absurdly accelerated—life-altering world events now seeming to happen every few weeks as opposed to every few years.

    So perhaps it’s no wonder that Eilish’s concept of time is much different from, say, a baby boomer’s. For example, Madonna didn’t want to return to her nineteen-year-old self/image until, what do you know, 2019. With Madame X, she decided it was time to return to that version of herself, the version that set the tone for who she would be for the rest of her career: the queen of reinvention. That’s why Martha Graham gave her the nickname “Madame X.” Per Madonna’s account, Graham told her, “I’m going to give you a new name: Madame X. Every day, you come to school and I don’t recognize you. Every day, you change your identity. You’re a mystery to me.”

    Being a mystery was, at one point, Eilish’s key goal in life. It was part of what kept her so isolated and afraid to make herself known or open up to new people/potential friends (like Zoe Kravitz, for example). As Eilish put it in her latest Rolling Stone interview, “I used to be so obsessed with this mysteriousness, and I think that’s one hundred percent why I didn’t make any friends, because I didn’t want anyone to know me, because I wanted everyone to think of me as this mysterious, cool person. I loved the idea of people feeling that way, but then I thought, ‘Oh, here I am sitting alone in my room, loving the feeling that everybody thinks I’m really cool, but I’m not actually getting anything out of that. I’m not enjoying anything in my life at all.’” Besides, it’s obvious that her legions of fans will continue to think she’s “cool” no matter what she does—even when she cosplays as a goy toy pinup. That Happier Than Ever-aligned shoot for British Vogue retroactively coming across as Eilish’s last grand attempt at “playing it straight.” Of appealing to a cliched “male fantasy” (to use a phrase that serves as the final track’s title on Happier Than Ever). But it seems Eilish knows better now, has decided that the only fantasy she wants to fulfill are those of the sapphic variety (which itself is still a straight male fantasy). 

    Before Eilish has her big coming out moment (you know, apart from the forced one she had on the Variety red carpet), she “reintroduces” herself with Hit Me Hard and Soft’s opening track, “Skinny.” As it’s been pointed out, “Skinny” clearly shares the same DNA as Eilish’s sleeper hit of 2023, “What Was I Made For?” Indeed, “Skinny” was conceived before “What Was I Made For?,” serving as a launching pad for the latter. On it, Eilish laments the continued weight (pun intended) that society places on people’s bodies—more specifically, whether or not people’s bodies are “thin enough” (call it her more genuine take on Beyoncé’s “Pretty Hurts”).

    Thus, Eilish melancholically sings, “People say I look happy/Just because I got skinny/But the old me is still me and maybe the real me/And I think she’s pretty.” So it is that Eilish establishes this motif of “getting back to herself,” the girl we recognized circa 2019. Eilish correspondingly noted, “This whole process has felt like I’m coming back to the girl that I was. I’ve been grieving her. I’ve been looking for her in everything, and it’s almost like she got drowned by the world and the media. I don’t remember when she went away.”

    And, speaking of drowning, that is precisely the image Eilish goes for as her cover art for Hit Me Hard and Soft (stylized in all caps on certain streaming platforms…like her first album). Considering her fear of water as a child, shooting the underwater photos was a cathartic process in many ways (and yes, water imagery appears frequently in Eilish’s work, which is somewhat surprising considering she’s a fire sign). As for the title, no, it’s not meant to usurp the millennial phrase coined by Britney, “Hit me, baby, one more time,” but rather, it was a happy accident. Per Rolling Stone, “She mistakenly thought the name of a synth in Logic Pro was called ‘Hit Me Hard and Soft.’ ‘I thought it was such a perfect encapsulation of what this album does,” she explains. ‘It’s an impossible request: You can’t be hit hard and soft. You can’t do anything hard and soft at the same time. I’m a pretty extremist person, and I really like when things are really intense physically, but I also love when things are very tender and sweet. I want two things at once. So I thought that was a really good way to describe me, and I love that it’s not possible.’” Unless, of course, the hardness and softness is delivered alternatingly—as it is throughout the record. 

    As such, for those who might have gotten too comfortable with the slow-tempo, ethereal sound of “Skinny,” Finneas phrases it best when he says, “If you’re remembering ‘What Was I Made For?’ and then you hear [it], you go, ‘Oh, okay. I understand this world.’ Then the drums come in [on “Lunch”], and it really is the kill-the-main-character-type beat. It’s like Drew Barrymore being in the first five minutes of Scream and then they kill her. You’re like, ‘They can’t kill Drew. Oh, my God, they killed Drew!’” But they do kill “Skinny” gently, with the song transitioning into “Lunch” via string arrangements that are filled with nods to “Born to Die.” Not a coincidence, surely, as Eilish never understates Lana Del Rey’s influence on her own work. This much was further solidified when the two joined forces onstage during the first weekend of Del Rey’s headlining Coachella performance. As they wrapped up a duet of “Ocean Eyes” and “Video Games” (each singer’s first single, respectively), Del Rey announced, “Voice of a generation right here.” And that generation, “ladies” and “gentlemen,” is queer as fuck. 

    Going back to the 2019 era Eilish wants to capture, it was on When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? that Eilish’s sentiment was “wish you were gay.” That wish came true for herself rather than the boy who didn’t return her affections back then. And yes, “Lunch” is sure to become a go-to at lesbian bars and clubs the world over, with Eilish leaning (her face) into vagina readily (or, as John Bender once said to Claire Standish when she asked, “Where’s your lunch?,” “You’re wearin’ it”). And, finally, on her own terms. Like Chappell Roan with The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, this creation was what got her in touch with her queerness. Eilish recounted of writing it, “That song was actually part of what helped me become who I am, to be real. I wrote some of it before even doing anything with a girl, and then wrote the rest after. I’ve been in love with girls for my whole life, but I just didn’t understand—until, last year, I realized I wanted my face in a vagina.” It’s that hunger that manifests literally and figuratively on “Lunch.” Thus, the eating metaphors abound with phrases like, “Tastes like she might be the one,” “It’s a craving, not a crush” and “Somebody write down the recipe.”

    Elsewhere, Eilish proves that “consent is sexy” to her generation, managing to slip in a nod to permission with the lyrics, “Clothes on the counter for you, try ‘em on/If I’m allowed, I’ll help you take ‘em off.” She also offers, “You need a seat? I’ll volunteer.” Flexing her financial prowess, Eilish is sure to showcase her masc/zaddy tendencies with the assurance, “I could buy her so much stuff.” While “Lunch” is a triumph in terms of Eilish “owning” who she is, there’s still that bittersweet realization that she never really wanted to “get into all that,” remarking, “I was never planning on talking about my sexuality ever, in a million years. It’s really frustrating to me that it came up.” And yet, she turned the “Variety outing” into a positive with the themes explored on this album. Indeed, it seems very pointed that the cover art should feature Eilish in front of an open door, ready to emerge from the one she’s been hiding behind. 

    Apropos of that visual, Eilish chants, “Open up the door, can you open up the door?” on “Chihiro” (the title being a reference to Spirited Away, one of the films that have majorly influenced Eilish). As Finneas delivers another uptempo backbeat, Eilish explores the theme of turning to a stranger for comfort. Especially one who seems so familiar. That much is apparent in the Spirited Away-inspired lyrics, “But there’s a part of me that recognizes you/Do you feel it too?” and “I don’t, I don’t know why I called/I don’t know you at all/I don’t know you/Not at all.” The haunting quality of the track is matched only by its bizarre danceability. Of the sort that continues on “Birds of a Feather.” 

    And not only is “Birds of a Feather” quite danceable despite its macabre language (e.g., “I want you to stay/‘Til I’m in the grave/‘Til I rot away, dead and buried/‘Til I’m in the casket you carry”—what does one expect from the girl who wrote “Everybody Dies”?), it also happens to showcase Eilish at her most Taylor Swift. That is, in terms of wielding a common phrase and making it her own (with Swift, there are many, from “bad blood” to “familiarity breeds contempt”). And yet, it doesn’t take long for the Lana influence to take over with the mention of the color “blue.” A shade that Del Rey wields more than any other in her music. In Eilish’s hands, blue is used to say, “And if I’m turnin’ blue, please don’t save me/Nothin’ left to lose without my baby.” It won’t be the last time blue is invoked on Hit Me Hard and Soft, and it reveals just how much Eilish, synesthete extraordinaire, has embraced it as her color, admitting, “Dude, what’s so interesting to me is that blue has always been my least-favorite color. Which is so stupid because my hair was blue for years. But I didn’t mean for it to be—that was an accident… But over the last couple of years, I’ve just been like, ‘Wait, blue is so who I am at my core.’” After all, blue is the warmest color, n’est-ce pas?

    She is, additionally, LDR at her core. Continuing the homage both overt and subtle (“hard and soft,” if you will) with “Wildflower,” a title that feels like another unwitting Lana reference (whose 2021 album, Blue Banisters, features a song called “Wildflower Wildfire”), as does “The Greatest,” the same title as a signature track from Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell. With “Wildflower,” the tempo slows down again and Eilish opens with another common phrase: “Things fall apart.” The song then details a haunting love triangle that thematically reminds one of Eilish’s own version of Olivia Rodrigo’s “Obsessed.” For Eilish can’t stop obsessing over the girl who used to be with the one she’s currently with, pronouncing, “But I see her in the back of my mind all the time/Like a fever, like I’m burning alive, like a sign.”

    The predilection for comparison to another person’s ex that shines through once more in the lyrics, “I’d never ask who was better/‘Cause she couldn’t be/More different from me/Happy and free in leather.” That is to say, Eilish is much more comfortable in free-flowing, cotton-based fabrics. At the three-minute-thirty-eight-second mark, it seems as though the song is ending, but, in a trend that mirrors “Happier Than Ever” (and that will come back again on “L’amour de Ma Vie”), the song reanimates with a different tincture as Eilish sings (in the tone of what comes across as a specter), “You say no one knows you so well/But every time you touch me, I just wonder how she felt/Valentine’s Day, cryin’ in the hotel/I know you didn’t mean to hurt me, so I kept it to myself.” 

    The morose aura persists on “The Greatest,” with Eilish rueing the day she grew attached to someone so emotionally distant. Hence, she provides a chorus dripping in sarcasm and self-loathing when she says, “Man, am I the greatest (greatest)/My congratulations (congratulations)/All my love and patience/All my admiration (admiration)/All the times I waited (waited)/For you to want me naked (naked)/I made it all look painless/Man, am I the greatest.” At around the three-minute-ten-second mark, Finneas helps change the nature of the song as Eilish belts out a power ballad-y interpretation of: “The greatest, the greatest, the greatest/I loved you and I still do/Just wanted passion from you/Just wanted what I gave you/I wanted and waited.” Her voice goes quiet again as she delivers an outro version of the chorus that goes, “Man, am I the greatest/God, I hate it/All my love and patience/Unappreciated/You said your heart was jaded/You couldn’t even break it/I shouldn’t have to say it/You could’ve been the greatest.” Which is exactly what Lana Del Rey once told Azealia Banks in the midst of a Twitter feud in 2018 (specifically, “u coulda been the greatest female rapper alive but u blew it”).  

    Eilish switches vocal tack on “L’Amour de Ma Vie” to more closely echo Madison Beer’s vibe, commencing the “Spinnin”-esque number with a sultry tone that assures, “I wish you the best for the rest of your life/Felt sorry for you when I looked in your eyes/But I need to confess, I told you a lie/I said you/You were the love of my life.” Needless to say, Eilish only offered that up as a consolation to the person she ended things with, not realizing they would somehow manage to hurt her more with their behavior after she tried to show them kindness. Thus, she states it the refrain, “It isn’t askin’ for a lot for an apology/For making me feel like it’d kill you if I tried to leave/You said you’d never fall in love again because of me/Then you moved on immediately.” 

    At the three-minute-thirteen-second mark, Eilish and Finneas “Happier Than Ever” it up again by bifurcating the song into two parts. Accordingly, Eilish’s vocal pitch changes as she again points out, “It isn’t askin’ a lot for an apology/For makin’ me feel like it’d kill you if I tried to leave/You said you’d never fall in love again because of me.” And here her voice becomes even more high-pitched as she repeats, “Then you moved on” as a heartbeat-like drum enters the fray and the tempo picks up, changing the sound entirely into an 80s-inspired ditty as Eilish chirps, “Ooh/You wanted to keep it/Like somethin’ you found/‘Til you didn’t need it/But you should’ve seen it/The way it went down/Wouldn’t believe it/Wanna know what I told her/With her hand on my shoulder?/You were so mediocre/And we’re so glad it’s over now.” Things get decidedly Grimes-y during the outro, with Eilish shrugging, “It’s such a pity/We’re both so pretty.”

    On the song that follows, “The Diner” (which one could argue is a sort of companion piece to “Lunch”), Finneas jars us yet again with the abrupt sonic shift into music that is decidedly carnival-like. Indeed, “The Diner” is among the most When We All Fall Asleep-type songs on the record. On the ostensible “necessity” of revisiting “the past” (even if one as fresh as 2019) for this album, Finneas commented, “When Billie talks about the era of When We All Fall Asleep, it was this theatricality and this darkness. What’s the thing that no one is as good at as Billie is? This album was an exploration of what we do best.” And that exploration is all too palpable on “The Diner.” In the Billie voice we recognize from such songs as “bury a friend,” she croons, “Don’t be afraid of me/I’m what you need/I saw you on the screens/I know we’re meant to be/You’re starrin’ in my dreams.” Ah yes, the dream (/nightmare) motif that Eilish became known for is back and better than ever, with the singer revisiting some terrifying, stalker-y themes (as present on Happier Than Ever’s “NDA”)—this time from the perspective of an actual stalker. And who would know better about that ilk than Eilish? (Even though this song is meant to be in the spirit of the fictional “dark little stories” Billie and Finneas are known for coming up with à la “Bellyache.”)

    So it is that she delivers such “Stan”-esque lines as, “I’ll go back to the diner/I’ll write another letter (I’ll write another letter)/I hope you’ll read it this time/You better.” The evocation of this “old-timey” sort of communication (including “I memorized your number/Now I call you when I please”—with Gen Z having no concept of that being the norm “back in the day”) not only speaks to the unique form of “devotion” this stalker has, but also Eilish’s own “old soul” stylings (much like, again, Lana Del Rey)…even though she once egregiously misinterpreted the meaning of “Picture to Burn.” These “old soul” inclinations are further emphasized by the fact that she and Finneas were intent on making an “album-ass album” (ah, such California parlances). Something you could actually enjoy listening to from beginning to end. This being a task that is decidedly against everything her generation represents.

    Finneas touches on that in the same Rolling Stone article, commenting, “We’re not even at ‘song’ anymore. We’re at the line from the second verse that blew up on TikTok. We’re mostly watching content in vertical that was made an hour ago—some person telling you their thoughts about something from an hour ago.” But both Eilish and Finneas come across as staunchly against adhering to that “method.” And this is precisely why Eilish refused to release any singles from the album, explaining, “I really don’t like when things are out of context. This album is like a family: I don’t want one little kid to be in the middle of the room alone.”

    And yes, it would be kind of weird for a song like “Bittersuite” to be in the middle of the proverbial room alone. Already announcing itself with an “Express Yourself” meets The Weeknd on After Hours or Dawn FM type of opening, this particular song has perhaps the most otherworldly quality of all. In addition to mimicking something that could be found on When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, Eilish conjures easy comparisons to the second song on Happier Than Ever, “I Didn’t Change My Number,” singing in the same intonation during the verse, “I’ve been havin’ dreams/You were in the foyer/I was on my knees/Outside of my body/Watchin’ from above/I see the way you want me/I wanna be the one.” The themes of feeling disconnected/dissociated are on full blast here, with Eilish further ruminating on her inability to fall in love with someone “no matter how bad I want to.”

    That revelation seems to be the direct cause of slowing everything down around the one-minute-thirty-second mark as yet another song on the album splits into two parts, with “Bittersuite” becoming as carnival-like as “The Diner” when Eilish starts to sing the chorus, “I don’t need to breathe when you look at me, all I see is green/And I think that we’re in between everything/I’ve seen/In my dream, have it once a week, can’t land on my feet/Can’t sleep, have you underneath all of my beliefs/Keep it briеf/I’ll wait in the suite/Keep me off my feet.” 

    In another surreal portion of the track, Eilish relishes becoming self-referential as she languidly utters, “We can be discrete…/L’amour de ma vie/Love so bittersweet, mm/Open up the door for me, for me.” The “discrete” line refers to “The Diner,” while “L’amour de ma vie” is a direct mention of a previous song title. What’s more, “love so bittersweet” alludes to “Bittersuite” itself and “open up the door for me” is a nod to “Chihiro.” Clearly, Eilish is feeling secure enough in her songwriting prowess to allow herself to be this meta. 

    Taking us on a few more meandering sonic journeys before ending, “Bittersuite” finally gives way to “Blue,” which has decided “Get Free” by LDR characteristics. This extends, most obviously, to Eilish paralleling the verse, “I wanna move/Out of the black (out of the black)/Into the blue (into the blue)” with “I try to live in black and white, but I’m so blue.” She then repeats phrases from previous songs on the album again, including, “Birds of a feather,” “mon amour,” “open up the door,” “I’m still overseas” and “a bird in a cage.” She even wields a phrase that Madonna took ownership of in 1986, singing, “True blue, true blue/I’m true blue.” Finneas splits the track again at around the one-minute-fifty-five-second mark, giving the second half its own separate personality as Eilish quavers, ​“You were born bluer than a butterfly/Beautiful and so deprived of oxygen/Colder than your father’s eyes/He never learned to sympathize with anyone.”

    At certain points, it sounds like Eilish is trying to drum up sympathy for a nepo baby when she subsequently intones, “You were born reachin’ for your mother’s hands/Victim of your father’s plans to rule the world/Too afraid to step outside/Paranoid and petrified of what you’ve heard.” Her soft, ethereal tone then switches to something slightly more sinister—“demonic” even—when she sings, “But they could say the same ’bout me/I sleep ’bout three hours each night/Means only twenty-one a week now, now/And I could say the same ’bout you/Born blameless, grew up famous too/Just a baby born blue now, now.” Who knows? Maybe this is her empathy song written with her beloved idol, Justin Bieber, in mind. 

    Whatever the case, “Blue” tops anything on When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? with regard to creating an alternate realm that mirrors Eilish’s rich, often morbid world. And if that was the primary objective of her debut, Hit Me Hard and Soft does it one better, with Eilish achieving the goal she set out to with this record: returning to “2019 me”—with an even spookier 2024 twist.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Two Different Emotional Approaches to the Aftermath of “Homewrecking”: Sabrina Carpenter’s “because i liked a boy” and Ariana Grande’s “yes, and?”

    Two Different Emotional Approaches to the Aftermath of “Homewrecking”: Sabrina Carpenter’s “because i liked a boy” and Ariana Grande’s “yes, and?”

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    As two pop stars often compared on a vocal level, it’s also no surprise that Sabrina Carpenter and Ariana Grande tend to have overlapping themes in their music. Indeed, Carpenter even opened for Grande on 2017’s Dangerous Woman Tour (specifically for the Brazil dates that occurred after the illustrious Manchester Arena bombing). At that time, Carpenter had only released two albums, Eyes Wide Open and Evolution (Grande herself just had three, rounded out by Dangerous Woman).

    A year after the tour (which she cherished enough to decorate her couch with an Ariana Grande pillow so as to commemorate the momentousness of the event), Carpenter would release her “companion piece albums,” Singular: Act I and Singular: Act II. This “set” would signal her full-tilt sonic transition on 2022’s Emails I Can’t Send, which saw her shift away entirely from the country twang that still occasionally came out in the years since singles like “We’ll Be the Stars.” The same kind of twang that Taylor Swift eventually chose to shed as well. But it was a more Miley Cyrus-inspired twang that Carpenter possessed—which is perhaps what helped her to win third place in The Next Miley Cyrus Project back in 2009, six years before the release of Eyes Wide Open. 

    However, many seem to have forgotten that Christina Aguilera—far more than Taylor or Miley—is Carpenter’s key musical influence. And that shines through in the vocals she’s presented over the years. Aguilera’s voice has the kind of signature pitch that Mariah Carey is frequently praised for (though, of course, MC would likely mention that she has a five-octave vocal range compared to Xtina’s four-octave one). Grande has the same octave range as Aguilera, yet is most often compared to Carey. A comparison she’s more than taken a shine to in her collaborations with “The Diva” in recent years (including working on a remix of “Oh Santa!” that she performed with Carey for Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special in 2020). The latest being a remix of “yes, and?” that’s, believe it or not, far inferior to the original. In any case, perhaps Carpenter’s comparisons to Grande (particularly in the wake of “nonsense”) ought to be flattering to the latter—after all, she’s not that much older than the blonde Pennsylvanian (a description that also applies to Aguilera), but is already being considered worthy of such an elevated “mentor status.”

    Alas, that mentorship came too late in terms of Grande providing inspiration to Carpenter on how to treat accusations of being a homewrecker. Something that was hurled at her in the wake of Olivia Rodrigo’s debut hit single, “drivers license,” in 2021. As Carpenter retells it on “because i liked a boy,” “I got death threats fillin’ up semi-trucks/Tell me who I am, guess I don’t have a choice/All because I liked a boy.” She also points out the fact that it’s all a little bit silly considering she wasn’t even dating Joshua Bassett (the ultimately gay dude who caused all this commotion) anymore when Rodrigo dropped her hit. Hence, her addition to the chorus: “And all of this for what?/When everything went down, we’d already broken up/Please tell me who I am, guess I don’t have a choice/All because I liked a boy.” And “who she is” to the Olivia fans who were scandalized by her “stealin’ from the young” (side note: Rodrigo is a mere four years younger than Carpenter) is a “homewrecker” and a “slut.” These being the labels Carpenter attaches to herself throughout the song, choosing to wear them like scarlet As (in fact, she said Easy A—not, say, The Scarlet Letter—was the vibe she was channeling for the track). 

    In contrast, after being accused of actually breaking up a home (namely, Lilly Jay’s home with Ethan Slater), Grande came at the mass of criticism and online hate with the simple and effective clapback, “yes, and?” While Carpenter chose to emulate a more Britney Spears in the “Circus” video route for the visual that accompanied “because i liked a boy,” Grande put a face to shrugging off outside contempt by paying homage to, of all things, the Paula Abdul video for “Cold Hearted.” But the nod to this Abdul video wasn’t as random as some might think, for the original sees a slew of “record company executives” arrive to effectively critique what Abdul has been working on. In the same vein, Grande labels her version of record company executives simply as “The Critics.” Inviting them into her “art space” with open arms as she proceeds to then tell them, “Now I’m so done with caring/What you think, no, I won’t hide/Underneath your own projections/Or change my most authentic life.”

    She then urges others who have been mercilessly criticized for their actions, like Carpenter, to “come on, put your lipstick on (no one can tell you nothin’)/Come on and walk this way through the fire (don’t care what’s on their mind)/And if you find yourself in a dark situation/Just turn on your light and be like/‘Yes, and?’/Say that shit with your chest, and/Be your own fuckin’ best friend.” 

    It’s a sharp departure from the much more self-pitying tack Carpenter takes with her go-to lyrics, “Tell me who I am, guess I don’t have a choice/All because I liked/I’m the hot topic on your tongue/I’m a rebound gettin’ ’round stealin’ from the young/Tell me who I am, guess I don’t have a choice/All because I liked a boy.” Elsewhere in the song, Carpenter is sure to downplay and diminish the relationship she had with Bassett as one of pure innocence (or, as she sings, “Fell so deeply into it/It was all so innocent”), as though making certain that all her detractors retroactively know that nothing “untoward” happened. Save for “cuddling on trampolines,” “bond[ing] over Black Eyed Peas” and “tryna hold you close while your heart was failing.” All platonic enough, surely. 

    Grande, conversely, wants to see to it that her detractors know she doesn’t give one goddamn what they think. To more “zen-ly” get that message across, Grande pronounces, “My tongue is sacred, I speak upon what I like/Protected, sexy, discerning with my time, my time/Your energy is yours and mine is mine/What’s mine is mine.” The reemphasis on that last line also seems to be a direct reference to Slater, who she now openly declares to be “hers.” She appears to double down on that message with another song on eternal sunshine titled “the boy is mine.” Making no apologies whatsoever for her “outrageous” behavior, Grande further goads, “My face is sitting, I don’t need no disguise/Don’t comment on my body, do not reply/Your business is yours and mine is mine/Why do you care so much whose dick I ride?/Why?” 

    These are questions that Carpenter could have just as easily posed to the Livies that were out for blood in the wake of “drivers license” reigniting the many suspicions about Carpenter “stealing” Bassett away from Rodrigo (a speculation that was further propelled by Rodrigo’s “traitor” lyrics, “You’d talk to her/When we were together/Loved you at your worst/But that didn’t matter/It took you two weeks/To go off and date her/Guess you didn’t cheat/But you’re still a traitor”).

    Alas, Grande hadn’t yet released “yes, and?” to light the way for how to deal with being called a homewrecker and a slut. Marina and the Diamonds, however, had already released “Homewrecker” in 2012, gleefully touting the right approach and attitude for handling naysayers with the assertion: “And I don’t belong to anyone/They call me homewrecker, homewrecker (I’m only happy when I’m on the run)/They call me homewrecker, homewrecker (I broke a million hearts just for fun).”

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Megan Thee Stallion Keeps Up Her Snake Motif With “BOA,” A Pro-Gwen Stefani, Anti-TikTok Single

    Megan Thee Stallion Keeps Up Her Snake Motif With “BOA,” A Pro-Gwen Stefani, Anti-TikTok Single

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    Either Megan Thee Stallion is in bed with the U.S. government, or she’s genuinely sick of TikTok and the low-grade “talent” it furnishes. Whatever the case, a noticeable portion of her latest snake-themed single (following “Cobra” and “Hiss”), “BOA,” takes aim at the app with lines like, “Bitch, your time up, why is you not clockin’ out?/Doin’ shit for TikTok (yeah), bitch, I’m really hip hop” and “I ain’t need to make no TikTok/Bitch, your time up.” Alas, those quick to write people (or things) off as being practically “over” expose themselves to what Megan’s frequent cohort, Cardi B, once said on “Champagne Rosé”: “They say my time is tickin’/These hoes is optimistic.”

    What’s more, considering that Megan recently trolled the likes of Nicki Minaj on “Hiss” for, among other things (like having a sex offender husband), being the sort of territorial rapper who insists there’s no space for other women in the rap game, these lyrics feel a bit hypocritical. But who can blame Megan, really, for attacking the upstarts on TikTok who have no polish whatsoever, let alone anything resembling freestyle prowess? Thus, as though to remind “TikTokers” what the real meaning of “tick tock” is, Thee Stallion samples from Gwen Stefani’s lead single (and her first as a solo artist) from 2004’s Love. Angel. Music. Baby., “What You Waiting For?” 

    Throughout the original version of this signature song, Stefani famously chants, “Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock” in between saying such self-deprecating things as, “Take a chance you stupid ho” (a pretty standard part of any woman’s internal dialogue in a society that places all emphasis on looks and money). That’s essentially what Megan, as a devious video game character in The Curse of the Serpent Woman, is daring three teenage friends to do as they embark upon the task of (as Lana commands) playing a video game. And take a chance they do—on ignoring the very clear disclaimer at the beginning of the game that reads: “The way you die in the game is how you die in real life.” 

    Unfazed by the warning, Jayden (the player who got the game from the “dark web” in the first place) carries on, his two other friends joining him with mostly blasé interest…until the game actually gets started and the stakes are suddenly very high. Various intercut scenes of Megan in “alternate dimension”-style (a.k.a. video game-y) settings then ensue—you know, so as to be able to showcase her body-ody-ody in varying scantily-clad degrees. The most scantily-clad being perhaps when she’s wearing next to nothing…apart from a plug-looking hookup in her back while she’s set against, appropriately, a The Matrix-inspired backdrop.

    When she’s not doing that, she’s playing the “Serpent Woman” in question, killing these teenagers willy-nilly ‘cause, like Taylor said, “Don’t say I didn’t, say I didn’t warn ya.” Within the video game universe, Megan’s alter ego rides around on a giant boa constrictor, and also uses a Jafar-esque snake staff to vaporize one of the teens, searing a hole right into his stomach that almost compares to the one Helen Sharp (Godie Hawn) gets in Death Becomes Her. 

    As established at the beginning of the video, the narrative takes place in a late 90s/early 00s era (ergo, The Matrix-alluding visual), not just evidenced by the gaming equipment, but the set design of each teen’s room. The only thing missing from the girl’s room, perhaps, is a poster of someone like Enrique Iglesias. And, speaking of that last name, director Daniel Iglesias Jr. is sure to imbue the “BOA” video with plenty of slick POV shots to make the viewer occasionally feel like they’re playing the game too. Except with the benefit of not having to die the same way that these unfortunate teenage souls do. Though Jayden could have been finished off in a worse way than getting his face sat on by Megan. 

    As for the only female player/last woman standing of the trio, she’s already stopped playing the game, having grown bored enough to move on to tinkering with Snake (which was first released in 1997) on her Nokia. That doesn’t stop “Serpent Woman” from once again leaving her 0s and 1s realm long enough to approach the girl in her room and wield her boa to do what it does best: constrict. Coiling all the way around the girl’s torso and squeezing her until she explodes into bloody oblivion. 

    In short, Megan clearly isn’t hiding how much contempt she has for youths right now—particularly “TikTok teens.” But then, perhaps the underlying message is that some form of brain-draining, time-sucking apparatus—whether smartphones or video games—has existed in every era since the invention of the screen came to roost. Even so, Megan makes it apparent that TikTok appears to be the most nefarious and eye-rolling iteration to date. So it is that she directs her comment, “Bitch, your time up” not just, presumably, at Minaj (along with the lyric, “Post a picture, bitches call me mother/Now who’s sonnin’ who?,” which could be a reference to Minaj announcing, “All these bitches is my sons”), but at the app that has captured so many American hearts of a certain generation. Until now, as it faces an imminent ban.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • What Continues to Stand Out at Every Basquiat x Warhol Exhibition is How Each Artist Gleefully Exploited the Other

    What Continues to Stand Out at Every Basquiat x Warhol Exhibition is How Each Artist Gleefully Exploited the Other

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    Every so often, a museum dredges up the collaboration that occurred between Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat in 1985. Most recently, that museum was Fondation Louis Vuitton, which titled it “Basquiat x Warhol: Painting Four Hands.” Some form of this exhibit is recycled over and over, ad infinitum, in museums across the globe. For, perhaps more than any other artistic collaboration, it has sought to capture the imagination and delight of those who would like to believe that these prodigious men were something resembling “friends.” And maybe they were…or as close to friends as a young hetero Black firebrand could be with a snarky, rich, aging queen. What Warhol didn’t seem to fathom, however, is that Basquiat was actually far more cutting than he could ever be. And that shines through endlessly in the work that covered their brief collaborative period together. Complete with Basquiat’s depiction of Warhol as a banana (a spoof on his illustrious cover for The Velvet Underground) with brown spots and an enfeebled-looking Warhol trying to lift weights. If that isn’t a troll that preys on the white-haired luminary’s worst fears about himself (namely, that he was hideous and weak), nothing is.

    As someone whose art was known for critiquing the oppressive power structures and the colonialism inherent in everything, perhaps it seems slightly odd that Basquiat should go for collaborating with a person like Warhol, who consistently worked to applaud and uphold the status quo of power and capitalism in the work he did. Work that ultimately deified (as it paid homage to) those very things. Lifted it up and elevated it to “art status” (including, of course, the simple image of a Campbell’s soup can). But, like anyone who wishes to “make it” in the artistic medium of their choosing, Basquiat was as repelled as he was attracted to the Establishment. For who doesn’t want to be deemed “worthy” by the proverbial white oppressor that has conned the world for centuries into believing they are the be-all and end-all authority? The final say in what it means to “succeed.” As biographer Franklin Sirmans noted, Basquiat “saw the world in shades of gray, fearlessly juxtaposing corporate commodity structures with the social milieu he wished to enter: the predominantly white art world.”

    No one better represented the predominately white art world in New York at that moment in time than Warhol. Basquiat knew that when he approached Warhol, who was dining with art critic/Met curator Henry Geldzahler, at W.P.A. restaurant in SoHo (a joint that would also serve in footnote history as the establishment where Anthony Bourdain got his first job…and helped to “bankrupt the place in short order”). It was there that Basquiat sold the rich artist a postcard entitled, presciently enough, “Stupid Games, Bad Ideas.” For those phrases are what could be used to describe any attempt at working with an egomaniac like Warhol. Of course, who wasn’t an egomaniac in the Downtown scene of 80s New York (and New York in general)? That’s how Basquiat would also end up in the arms of Madonna circa ’82 (and yes, she has her own undeniable history of exploiting men of color). This was also the same year he became the youngest artist to show work at Documenta, a famed exhibition for contemporary artists that takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany.

    Warhol also had work in the show that year. But their inevitable collision was written on the wall regardless of that. Orbiting all the same “Downtown people,” including Debbie Harry and Paige Powell, an associate publisher at Interview magazine. Granted, Basquiat’s art dealer, Bruno Bischofberger, would provide a more formal introduction than the one at W.P.A. before Powell came along.

    It was during the Bischofberger-led introduction that Warhol, in typical fashion, snapped a Polaroid of Basquiat. According to Warhol, it was only about two hours after that meeting when Basquiat returned with a painting of the two of them he had titled “Dos Cabezas.” “Two heads” theoretically being better than one, but not necessarily when so much ideological divergence was at play.

    Nonetheless, the two forged an alliance quickly, working together (à quatre mains-style) to churn out an incredible amount of work in such a short period. Ultimately leading to their 1985 art show at 163 Mercer Street that would run from September 14th to October 19th. Advertised simply as “Warhol * Basquiat Paintings,” the just-over-a-month-long exhibit would prove to be almost as lore-filled as the hours of work that led up to it. And even back then, many regarded the Warhol/Basquiat “friendship” with more than a touch of cynicism. It was Ronnie Cutrone, a former assistant to Warhol at the Factory and a pop artist in his own right, who would remark of the duo’s symbiosis, “Jean-Michel thought he needed Andy’s fame and Andy thought he needed Jean-Michel’s new blood. Jean-Michel gave Andy a rebellious image.”

    But it’s easy to tear a hole in the “logic” of the so-called symbiosis of the dynamic based on that statement alone. For Basquiat was already plenty famous and only getting more so. Rendering Andy the parasite taking advantage of Jean-Michel’s insecurities so as to stave off some of his own. Including the horrifying idea that he might not only be truly irrelevant, but that he had nothing left to “say” as an artist.

    Watching Basquiat, a painter at the outset of his career with so much to let out, was obviously inspiring to a formerly cocooned Warhol. To boot, it brought out Warhol’s natural sense of lusty voyeurism, something that clearly emerges in the images he created (e.g., the “Jean-Michel Basquiat” silkscreen) and pictures he took of Basquiat. When Powell half-joked of Warhol’s overt “appreciation” of Basquiat (more to the point, his virile physique), “Are you starting up your gay affair again with Jean-Michel?” Warhol quickly snapped back, “Listen, I wouldn’t go to bed with him because he’s so dirty.” More than just a garden-variety level of assholeishness on Warhol’s part, it spoke to his own continued self-denial about his sexuality. Still clinging to the idea that he was asexual as opposed to gay throughout his life, Warhol was known for saying such things as, “Sex is more exciting on the screen and between the pages than between the sheets.” And sure, he’s not totally wrong. Plus, it was an attitude that clearly spared him from contracting AIDS as the disease ramped up throughout NYC and the world as the 80s forged ahead.

    The irony, of course, is that he still wouldn’t make it out of the 80s alive due, instead, to a gall bladder operation. Or rather, the arrhythmia that arose after the operation (which he didn’t want to have in the first place). In any case, his venomous comment about Basquiat’s dirtiness (whether or not it referred to the number of people he slept with) doesn’t exactly scream, “Genuine friendship!” Even if many a drag queen will tell you throwing shade is the mark of true friendship. Either way, most art enthusiasts don’t particularly care if it was “real” or not because, to them, the work that resulted is. And that’s all that matters.

    Even so, of the over eighty paintings displayed at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, it seemed that none of them ever truly expressed a unified vision. Despite Keith Haring’s insistence that the duo was having a “conversation occurring through painting, instead of words” and that, in so doing, they created a “third distinctive and unique mind.” In truth, the only really distinctive elements occurred when Basquiat “defaced” Warhol’s work with especial gravitas. This includes paintings like the “Olympics” one, an homage to the 1984 Summer Olympics that was happening the year it was created. While Warhol traced the standard colored rings logo, Basquiat added a black face to it with something like a Mickey Mouse ear attached. To be sure, Basquiat fully admitted to defacement as the name of the game for his “process” with Warhol, stating “[He] would put something very concrete or recognizable, like a newspaper headline or a product logo, and then I would sort of deface it.”

    And surely, more than just a part of him had to get off on that a little bit. Destroying the (already grafted) work of a white artist who seemed to have everything come so much more easily to him with regard to securing fame. What’s more, where Warhol enjoyed being a “spectacle,” Basquiat wanted to be taken seriously. And it was much harder for him to sidestep spectacle and “curiosity” status as a result of being a young Black artist.

    In truth, Basquiat’s “use” of Warhol felt like a way to achieve “payback” for being puppeteered all his life by the white man (hence, his insatiable desire to drop out of school). As Warhol was only too happy to do the same (exploit) under the guise of “taking him under his wing.” And yet, if we’re all being honest with ourselves, Basquiat had more talent (and, of course, originality) in his left pinkie than Warhol had in his entire body. He didn’t need anyone’s wing to be taken under. Even at that young age when one could argue his talent was still “rough-hewn.”

    And yet, were it not for his pursuit of/decision to work with Warhol, he might never have unmasked the wigged artist for the imposter he was. In so many ways, Basquiat seemed to be pulling back the curtain on the “Wizard of Oz” that was both Warhol and the art world itself (especially the New York art world). But, as Dorothy (or even Barbie) can attest, sometimes knowing the truth you always surmised can be so much worse than remaining in the dark. Especially when it ends up getting you branded as “Warhol’s mascot”—which is precisely what happened after the show initially went up. At which point, Basquiat was quick to distance himself from his “mentor.”

    Warhol, no stranger to sudden rifts with friends, likely already prepared for the unavoidable coda. But even before that point, as usual, Warhol’s patented brand of callousness (the same one that prompted him to drop Edie Sedgwick like a hot, very chic potato) would also become manifest in comments like, “Paige is upset—Jean-Michel Basquiat is really on heroin [as opposed to what? “not really” on heroin?]—and she was crying, telling me to do something, but what can do you?” and “Jean-Michel came by and said he was depressed and was going to kill himself and I laughed and said it was just because he hadn’t slept for four days.”

    Warhol’s distinct suppression of all emotion, some might argue, was due to his own traumas, particularly growing up gay at a time when it was very much not “okay” to be that. Least of all in a butch town like Pittsburgh. Even so, you didn’t see Basquiat, or Sedgwick, for that matter, acting like an automaton just because he had struggled (this includes not only being Black in America, but the institutionalization of his mother when he was ten—her own mental health haunting him for the rest of his life the same way Gladys Baker’s haunted Warhol’s beloved subject matter, Marilyn Monroe).

    One might say that Warhol was attracted to highly emotional people because it was a trait he so blatantly lacked—yet one that is most synonymous with what it means to be an artist. Inevitably, his attraction to those who wore their heart on their sleeve would end up repulsing him as much as it initially appealed to him. As though he just wanted a brief tour of emotionalism before things got too icky. Which they did anyway.

    Funnily enough, the presence of their pièce de résistance, “Ten Punching Bags (The Last Supper),” in any Basquiat x Warhol exhibit is indicative not only of how Basquiat and Warhol each served as the other’s punching bag for different reasons, but also reminds of the foreshadowing of a Jesus and Judas-like rift in the aftermath of their collaboration (except that Basquiat didn’t need anyone to kill him—he could do that all on his own). The image of the first Jesus in the row fittingly reads, “Shit Judge” on top of it. Somehow, it feels like it could just as easily apply to Basquiat’s assessment of Warhol and the rest of the hoity-toity art world. As one walks across the length of the punching bags, the increase in use of the word “judge” amplifies, eventually repeated five times as though to emphasize that Basquiat might actually be the one judging instead of allowing himself to be judged. Doing so through the insidious method of infiltrating the Establishment at the source: through Andy.

    Long after they worked together, Andy would continue to be held up as some savior-like (all goes back to The Last Supper, doesn’t it?) figure in Basquiat’s life when, in fact, it was exactly the opposite. Although exploiting Warhol with just as much gusto for his benefit, Basquiat was the one who breathed new life into the final decade of Warhol’s career. And at a time when he had all but given up on painting, save for his society portraits…something he only did for money. As he did most things. Which is not the least of what separates Basquiat from his wigged-out elder: the former was an artist, Warhol was an unapologetic capitalist.

    This is, after all, the man who had the audacity to say, “Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art.” Going on to call “good business” the “best art.” Talk about being made for 80s-era yuppiedom. Meanwhile, Basquiat grappled constantly with the guilt of becoming a millionaire. As though to self-flagellate and repent, Basquiat spent so much of his art money on the drugs that would become his undoing. As journalist Michael Shnayerson describes it in his book, BOOM: Mad Money, Mega Dealers, and the Rise of Contemporary Art, “The more money Basquiat made, the more paranoid and deeply involved with drugs he became.” As someone who saw how the other half lives all too well while wandering the streets of Downtown homeless (albeit a willing choice he made over continuing to live with his father), Basquiat knew money was, in fact, the root of all evil. Indeed, his “Third Eye” painting with Warhol gets to the heart of that matter by painting over Warhol’s banal, They Live-esque renderings of prices for chuck steak and rib roast with a man featuring the words “Third Eye” over his forehead. As, apparently, that’s what it takes to see through the glitz and glamor of capitalism, the heinous system that someone like Warhol was all for.

    This is the single-most defining reason for why the two are so diametrically opposed. Not because of their skin color, their childhood backgrounds or their artistic styles. But because one man was a true visionary with something to say and the other was a reflective cipher, repurposing advertising as art. A mirror of the post-war boom that would bolster neoliberalism as not just the “best” system, but the “only” system. That much was never made clearer than in the 80s, when these two forces would crash head-on into one another. And, soon after, watch the friendship burn. Nonetheless, there’s scarcely any mention of Basquiat (in his obituaries, and now, even his standard biographies) without referring to his relationship with Warhol. As though he cursed himself forever to be associated with this lily-hued and lily-livered man by trying to carve out a place for himself among the white spaces of the galleries. Too insecure, perhaps, to believe that Warhol was a superfluous addition to his canvases.

    In a certain sense, continuing to showcase the Warhol * Basquiat exhibit (which has since, in a sign o’ the times, become Basquiat x Warhol) repeatedly is more of a triumph for Warhol than it is for Basquiat. Even though the latter made it practically impossible for future generations not to see just how much he was trolling Warhol. At least to those who aren’t faux highbrow art fuckers. Unfortunately, most people are either that or they take things at face value. Accepting the paintings just the way they’re presented without looking beneath the surface to see the flagrant hostility.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • A Bitch and A Girl and A Mother and A Whore: Julia Fox Takes A Page From Meredith Brooks Re: the Multifaceted Nature of Being A Woman

    A Bitch and A Girl and A Mother and A Whore: Julia Fox Takes A Page From Meredith Brooks Re: the Multifaceted Nature of Being A Woman

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    In 1997, Meredith Brooks single-handedly reminded the masses that women were far more than just one convenient label (most often: “Mother”…or, worse still, “Homemaker”). That a woman could be (and is) so many things all at once, and at any given moment of the day. A multifaceted kaleidoscope of roles and according personalities that the patriarchy is constantly trying to hem in to being just one thing. Or, at best, two: wife and mother. That restrictive, “know your place” kind of thinking is, once again, starting to bubble back to the surface with the wave of conservatism that has continued to crest in America post-Trump (ergo, the emergence of terms like “tradwife” and “stay-at-home girlfriend”). 

    Thus, the time feels especially right for Julia Fox to not only release a song called “Down the Drain” (the same title as her 2023 memoir), but also an accompanying music video. As her first (and more than somewhat unexpected) music release, it seems as though Brooks’ messaging in “Bitch” must have permeated Fox’s psyche at some point (whether it was when the song actually came out in ‘97—when Fox would have been seven—or somewhere else down the line). Whenever it was that the influence clicked, Brooks is clearly all over “the chorus” (read: the majority of the song, save for one deviating verse) of “Down the Drain.” To be specific, Fox chanting, “I’m a bitch, I’m a girl, I’m a woman, I’m a whore/I’m a bitch, I’m a girl, I’m a mother, I’m a whore.”

    Needless to say, it’s not quite as dense or complex as Brooks’ defiant declaration, “I’m a bitch, I’m a lover/I’m a child, I’m a mother/I’m a sinner, I’m a saint/I do not feel ashamed/I’m your Hell, I’m your dream/I’m nothing in between/You know you wouldn’t want it any other way.” Fox’s version of “Bitch” is one for the TikTok age—an anti-patriarchal message for those with the attention span of a gnat. Fox further distills the “Brooks message” with help from producer Ben Draghi (who also, amazingly, has a co-writing credit—because, honestly, couldn’t Fox have just written these very brief lyrics without an assist?). 

    By lending a techno-industrial feel to the sonic tincture of “Down the Drain,” Draghi separates it from the grungier, alt-rock tone Brooks opted for back when that sound was at a peak of popularity in the early to mid-90s. Along with the hippie-dippy (with a “punk” edge) music video that Brooks filmed to promote it (think: lots of florals). Fox’s own video, directed by Draghi (a real renaissance man, apparently), is wielded to make the same statement. But it’s slightly more, let’s say, “hardcore.” It all starts with Fox driving her son, Valentino, to school…to the tune of the kind of opening music that does, indeed, sound straight out of a Safdie brothers movie (as does most of “Down the Drain”). So it is that things begin “maternally” enough, with Fox glancing back lovingly at her child in the seat behind her. After dropping him off at whatever bougie school he attends (as Fox herself said, “We need him to be a nepo baby, and he needs to like own it too”), Fox receives a series of text messages that read, “Hi Julia. We have your friend Richie. Send us 1 million dollars by the end of day. Or else…” This warning includes a photo of the kidnapped “Richie” in question: Richie Shazam (who also just appeared in Charli XCX’s equally cunty “360” video along with Fox as well).

    Horrified by both his abuse and this ultimatum, Fox runs toward her car like a superhero called to action and speeds back to her apartment where she changes into multiple (dominatrix-inspired) costumes while strutting down a darkened hallway. She then descends to her “office,” where two other dominatrixes are punishing a very bad man tied to a bondage cross (positioned as an “X,” not a “T”). Summoning them to join her in her quest to find and release Richie, they leave the submissive on the cross and hightail it out of there. 

    Fox then descends still further down into the depths, suddenly appearing in a dom-approved nurse ensemble as she tortures a doctor to the verse, “Come with me, come down the drain/I’ll be sweet like sugar cane/Come get lost inside my brain/I promise that you’ll go insane/I’m a menace, not a muse/The baddest fuckin’ drug that you’ll ever use/Destiny, it’s yours to choose/Come with me, you’ll never lose.” Her role switches up yet again as she finds herself “materialized” (appearing like television static) in a boxing ring to take on the seemingly much more powerful man she ends up kicking to the ground. 

    Draghi then cuts to the next scene during which Fox essentially “teleports” to another location in a different costume (this time, an all-out superhero one in bright yellow, but still rooted in dom aesthetics—as this period in her life clearly remains influential). That location, conveniently, is where Richie is imprisoned in a cage, his hands restrained above his head. Breaking into the cage (after one of her acolytes is pawed at by a “sanctum monster”), Fox puts an ostensibly magical skull ring on his finger to “revive” him and the two—along with her fellow dom assistants—escape that bad scene. And all just in time to pick up Valentino from school again. Not bothering to change entirely out of her bright yellow superhero dominatrix outfit, Fox instead throws the same coat and hat on over it that she was wearing before. Just further proof that a woman is many things to many people throughout various moments in the day. And depending on what the “need” is from those in her life. 

    Brooks was able to highlight the inherent multifacetedness of what it is to be a woman with less “slickness” than is required of music and messaging now. That “many-sidedness” including the puzzle piece called “Mother.” And while so many people (particularly men of the husband and son variety) want to reduce the divine feminine to that one thing—that one “job title”—there is always so much more to her than just that. Before a woman ever steps into the part of “Mom,” she is her own person, has her own unique identity…one that is separate from whatever personality her children might eventually ascribe to her. Just as Fox’s own son inevitably will.

    But to any of his potential judgment, Julia might simply respond the same way she did about what inspired her to enter her “pop star era” in the first place: “I’m a firm believer in reinvention. The power to transform and become entirely new whenever you choose [is what] inspired writing this song… In this instance, I’m embodying the persona of a pop star. Never stop creating art because you never know where it will take you.” And where Fox wants to take her fans and listeners, just in time for Mother’s Day weekend, is to a place where people are forced to recognize the many conundrums and contradictions of what it is to be a woman. Particularly in an age when they’re still fed the line that they can “have it all” (you know, the way penis-packers can). This despite no one actually wanting them to. In truth, they can still only “be it all” to anyone who demands to suck some of their energy and patience from them. 

    As Brooks warned of that prismatic way of being, “Just when you think you got me figured out/The season’s already changing.” She then adds, “I think it’s cool, you do what you do/And don’t try to save me.” Let’s put “save” in quotes because that’s what men always think they’re doing with women. Maybe the better lyric is, “And don’t try to change me.” Oh would that all men could be like that—like whoever Brooks is describing when she thanks him for, in effect, tolerating her “mood swings” (a.k.a. acting as irascible and erratic as the male species). Alas, most men are, instead, as backward as Fox’s ex, Ye (formerly Kanye West). But maybe Fox more fully learned all about how not to be muzzled or stifled in any way thanks to her brief time with him. Hence, her urging to other women, “Come with me down the drain…/Come get lost inside my brain/I promise that you’ll go insane/I’m a menace, not a muse.” Brooks, on the other hand, is an undeniable muse to Fox. At least in terms of her lyrical template. 

    What’s somewhat unfortunate though—tragic even—is the fact that women, almost thirty years after “Bitch,” still have to remind people that (gasp!) they’re complex, three-dimensional humans. And, you know, not some enduring cardboard cutout of June Cleaver.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • An Ode to It Girls and Sociopathy: Charli XCX’s “360”

    An Ode to It Girls and Sociopathy: Charli XCX’s “360”

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    In Madonna’s seminal 1990 hit, “Vogue,” she talks about how Rita Hayworth “gave good face.” That’s at least eighty percent of the “job” description of being an it girl (or “internet girl,” the apparent updated version of that term). The other twenty percent seems to be a mixture of wearing over-the-top couture and being photographed at all the right parties. As a self-appointed party girl/internet obsession, Charli XCX knows all about combining the analog and digital elements of what it means to be “it.” And she pays homage to that at the beginning of her latest video, “360” (yet another single that will appear on Brat).

    Directed by ​​Aidan Zamiri, the scene opens on Charli walking down a hallway as she texts back and forth with fellow it girl Gabbriette, who chastises her for being (five hours) late to a place called Skyferrori’s (is that supposed to be a Sky Ferreira reference?) Trattoria. Traipsing into the restaurant, she’s met with the eyes of Rachel Sennott (who technically “collaborated” with Charli on Bottoms) and Chloe Cherry. It’s Rachel who tells her she can’t sing her song just yet, with Gabriette further explaining, “We have to fulfill the prophecy of finding a new, hot internet girl. That’s literally why we’re at dinner.” A little expository, but sure. Chloe Cherry then adds, “Or else our kind will cease to exist…forever.” Annoyed, Charli tries to speed up the process by suggesting, “What about…her?” as she points to the girl at the end of the table—who happens to be Julia Fox. Obviously, that’s a no go as it girls who are already it girls can’t be chosen. Charli then lands on the waitress (if that word is still permissible) and the others at the table aren’t opposed to it. 

    “What do you guys need me to do?” she asks gamely, even if nervously. Fox explains, “See, you actually need to have this, like, je ne sais quoi.” Charli affirms, “Yeah it’s, like, definitely a je ne sais quoi kind of situation.” In other words, no one wants to admit that it’s pure luck and, often, a little bit of nepo baby clout (as Paris Hilton knows from her late 90s/early 00s it girl days). Or, as Gabbriette describes it, “I would say it’s about being really hot in, like, a scary way.” Fox approves vehemently of that definition. With that “sorted,” Charli declares, “I’m gonna do my song now.” So it is that the A. G. Cook-produced notes begin and Charli delivers the manifesto, “I went my own way and I made it/I’m your favorite reference, baby/Call me Gabbriette, you’re so inspired/Ah, ah I’m tectonic, moves, I make ’em/Shock you like defibrillators/No style, I can’t relate.” Just as Sabrina Carpenter can’t relate to “desperation.” She, too, is something of an it girl at this moment, and her song, “espresso,” exudes the same kind of sociopathy that Charli and co. champion in “360.” Complete with the first proper visual from it outside of the “holding court” restaurant setting being Charli atop an elderly man on a gurney in a hospital. 

    Mounting him with her legs spread apart so that his midsection is between her thighs, other it girls soon gather around her (with Gabbriette blowing cigarette smoke right in his face) in between scenes of Charli in the gym jiggling about with a glass of red wine in hand as Sennott and Fox stand on either side of her (the former texting on her phone and the latter vaping while disinterestedly lifting a dumbbell). 

    In another cut back to the restaurant setting, Charli struts toward the table and gets on top of it so she can walk it like a runway. When she runs out of table, the waiters in the restaurant quickly scramble to provide her with more (a maneuver that smacks of this particular 1990 performance) so that she never has to worry about falling or looking foolish for not being able to continue her strut. Not that she ever would worry—because worry is a sentiment that is entirely out of the it girl’s vocabulary. She knows everything she wants will fall right into her lap not just because she’s “hot,” but because it always has before. For anything else to occur would signal some kind of cataclysm in the universe…at least in the it girl’s internet-speak-fueled mind. And when Charli wants to keep walking once the room itself ends, a waiter knocks out the wall for her so that she can. It’s just, like, the rules of what “little people” are expected to do for beautiful and rich ones. 

    The knocked-out wall leads into a room where an ordinary family sits on the couch as the likes of Richie Shazam (in a cone bra corset) and Chloe Cherry pose in the background while Charli keeps singing her song, declaring, “That city sewer slut’s the vibe/Internationally recognized/I set the tone, it’s my design/And it’s stuck in your mind/Legacy is undebated/You gon’ jump if A. G. made it/If you love it, if you hate it/I don’t fucking care what you think.” Ah, that old chestnut that only sounds authentic when Joan Jett says it via the chorus, “I don’t give a damn ‘bout my bad reputation.” 

    Charli continues to cement her own “bad reputation” as she stands before a pair of crashed cars (she is, after all, the creator of an album called Crash) in the middle of an L.A. street where who should eventually appear but none other than L.A.’s number one hater, Chloe Sevigny. A woman that some might call the original it girl if they’re not aware of Edie Sedgwick’s existence before hers (and yes, it’s almost surprising that Edie wasn’t AI-generated at some point within the context of this video—but maybe Charli decided to limit her poor taste to gyrating atop a hospitalized old man). 

    Charli and Chloe then strut down the road together as a random dumpster on fire shows up in the background. Joining their fellow it girls up ahead, the nine women stand together and throw various poses for a nonexistent camera as the fire keeps raging behind them. Perhaps an ultimate metaphor for the fact that, no matter what kind of chaos or tragedy is happening in the world, you can always count on an it girl’s vanity to totally ignore or disregard it. What’s eternally most important is how fierce she looks.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • From “I Kissed A Girl” to “Good Luck, Babe!”: Queer Yearning and Regret Gets A More Layered and Genuine Upgrade in Pop Song Form

    From “I Kissed A Girl” to “Good Luck, Babe!”: Queer Yearning and Regret Gets A More Layered and Genuine Upgrade in Pop Song Form

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    In 2008, Katy Perry caught her big break with “I Kissed A Girl” (made all the more retroactively cringe because Dr. Luke co-produced it). After years of failed attempts at trying to “crack the industry,” complete with an early iteration as a Christian singer (her first release was a gospel album called Katy Hudson), Perry found that going “in total defiance of God” was the better route when it came to attracting an audience. Hence, the lead single from her first “real” album (it’s sort of like how no one counts Lana Del Ray a.k.a. Lizzy Grant as a “real” LDR album) being “I Kissed A Girl.” Otherwise known as: the ultimate straight girl tease. 

    Although the song was widely embraced at the time (as evidenced by its chart position at number one on the Billboard Hot 100), it still didn’t go without its criticism, even then. For example, of Perry’s “cosplaying” at bicuriousness, Sal Cinquemani of Slant remarked that “its appropriation of the gay lifestyle exists for the sole purpose of garnering attention—both from Perry’s boyfriend and her audience.” In other words, her lack of “authenticity” was a major source of contention. Playing the queer card not because she genuinely felt it in her bones, but because it was “salacious” and “scandalous” (indeed, looking back, 2008 wasn’t as endlessly modern as it thought it was, election of a Black U.S. president or not). A way to garner simultaneous titillation and outrage.

    This included the Kinga Burza-directed music video, which also served as the first bona fide visual from Katy Perry as Katy Perry (not Hudson). Sure, “Ur So Gay” (clearly, Perry has a thing with homosexuality) got a music video accompaniment as well, but it was little more than Barbie and Ken dolls acting out Perry’s venomous lyrics, giving the chance for Katy Barbie to stare judgmentally at the “so gay” guy’s 00s-era social media profile, which looked like a mashup of MySpace and Facebook called, what else, “facespace.” Interspersed shots of Perry playing guitar against rough-hewn animation of a blue sky filled with puffy white clouds has the faint echo of Jill Sobule’s own surrealist, cartoony “I Kissed A Girl” video from 1995 (featuring none of other than Fabio as the hetero love interest, well-known at that time for his romance novel covers). And yes, Sobule was well-aware of Perry effectively “stealing” her song concept and making it far less genuine (not least of which was because Sobule is actually bisexual). There are even lyrics in Sobule’s single (e.g., “I kissed a girl, her lips were sweet/She was just like kissin’ me”) that Perry mirrors in lines like, “I kissed a girl and I liked it/The taste of her cherry ChapStick” and “Soft skin, red lips, so kissable.” 

    As for her inspiration, it’s been said that a little drunken “tee-hee-hee” beso with Miley Cyrus inspired it, but Perry herself has stated a few times that a teenage crush of hers did, an “older friend.” Not to mention the lore that Scarlett Johansson’s lips also inspired it. At one point, Perry insisted she had never actually kissed the girl who served as her “creative stimulator” (“I never kissed her or anything. In retrospect, she was my muse for that song”) while, at another, she said, “I did kiss her. I was totally obsessed with her. She was beautiful—porcelain skin, perfect lips.” Whatever the case, it’s clear Perry’s heart isn’t in this song, that it’s total pandering to the straight male fantasy of two women kissing. 

    Enter Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!” sixteen years later. A complex, densely layered tale of Roan enduring the kind of shit Perry probably would’ve pulled on a legitimate gay or bi girl. Granted, the person detailed in Roan’s tale really is queer, and is simply trying to deny it. Perhaps later on, she’ll even attempt likening it to “a phase,” if anyone should ever find out. Like her straight husband, who Roan prophesizes about in the verse, “When you wake up next to him in the middle of the night/With your head in your hands, you’re nothing more than his wife/And when you think about me, all of those years ago/You’re standing face to face with ‘I told you so.’” Ouch. It’s certainly not likely that Perry will have that issue, waking up next to Orlando Bloom and continuing to dress in pinup-inspired attire that harkens back to the 50s and 60s a.k.a. the height of when compulsory heterosexuality reigned supreme (to that point, it seems no coincidence that the Stonewall riots happened at the end of the 60s). 

    Attire that she also wears in the video for “I Kissed A Girl,” heavy-handed with the “symbolism” of Perry cradling a pussy cat in her arms while viewers are treated to an overhead shot of her lying “seductively” on her bed. This while she sings, “This was never the way I planned/Not my intention/I got so brave, drink in hand/Lost my discretion/It’s not what I’m used to/Just wanna try you on/I’m curious for you/Caught my attention.” The ingrained sense of internalized homophobia that Perry was raised with is rampant in these lyrics. This much is made even more glaring when Perry adds, “It’s not what/Good girls do/Not how they should behave.” Roan, too, has her own issues with being a “fallen good girl,” but she addresses them in a manner that isn’t overtly coming from a straight girl playing at queer. 

    Although Roan’s first single with a music video, “Good Hurt” (released in 2017), might have been nebulous to listeners who didn’t yet hear the official word of Roan’s queerness, “Good Luck, Babe!” leaves no room for “gray areas” (only gay ones) on the sexuality front. And it continues Roan’s tradition of queer aesthetics in her music videos (established with “Casual” and “Red Wine Supernova”). Something that would have been anathema to her during her younger years. For, just as Perry did, Roan grew up in a strict religious household. And Roan’s own austere upbringing informs many of her songs and videos. For example, when she mocks the “God Hates Fags” line with a sign on someone’s lawn in the “Red Wine Supernova” video that reads, “God Hates Magic.” Moments later, a female magician “poofs” that sign into a rose as an instantly turned-on Roan watches from afar (much to the dismay of the old neighbor woman to whom the sign belonged). Roan’s genuineness when it comes to getting across the magic and electricity of a relationship or sexual encounter with another girl in most of her songs, not just “Good Luck, Babe!,” obviously blows “I Kissed A Girl”’s minge out of the water (side note: the presence of water is also a not-so-coincidental staple in Roan’s videos, including “Die Young” [a title that has to be a nod to one of her influences, Kesha] and “Casual”). 

    And yet, it’s clear she’s still haunted by the repression and oppression of her past. Case in point, featuring a song called “After Midnight” on her debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, that opens with the lines, “My mama said, ‘Nothing good happens/When it’s late and you’re dancing alone’/She’s in my head saying, ‘It’s not attractive/Wearing that dress and red lipstick’/This is what I wanted/This is what I like/I’ve been a good girl for a long time.” Of course, we know what happens to “good girls” who keep their lid screwed on too tightly for too long: they explode. Which is what Roan did after what can be called her “clean-faced Adele” period that pervaded music videos like “Good Hurt,” “Die Young” and “Sugar High.” But once she let the influence of drag culture fully take over, so, too, did her unbridled embracement of queerness. 

    “Good Luck, Babe!” is a new apex of that embracement for Roan, who stated that the song is about “wishing good luck [regardless of being facetious] to someone who is denying fate.” And, more to the point, someone who is denying fate by denying their own sexuality. Something that Roan herself knows all about having grown up in an environment where, as she admits, she was conditioned to believe that “being gay was bad and a sin.” After her move to L.A., that perspective changed drastically (just further proof for the religious zealots that California is for pinkos and queers, and will turn everyone else into the same). 

    Having been on both sides of queer—denial and embracement—Roan speaks with a wisdom that is pure and true when she tells the erstwhile object of her affection on “Good Luck, Babe!,” “You can kiss a hundred boys in bars/Shoot another shot, try to stop the feeling/You can say it’s just the way you are/Make a new excuse, another stupid reason/Good luck, babe (well, good luck).” The “good luck,” obviously, is filled with sarcasm, for Roan knows better than anyone that to suppress your sexuality is to suppress your entire identity. It is nothing like the “I was so drunk”/“experimenting just for kicks” vibe of “I Kissed A Girl,” wherein Perry’s own ideas of compulsory heterosexuality are manifest in lyrics such as, “It felt so wrong, it felt so right/Don’t mean I’m in love tonight” and “Ain’t no big deal, it’s innocent.” 

    Incidentally, an article about Roan’s success and first album mentions Katy Perry specifically as an early influence: “She was enthralled and scandalized by the pop music of the late 00s and early 10s, such as Kesha [fun fact: Roan’s real name is Kayleigh Rose as Kesha’s is Kesha Rose], Lady Gaga and Katy Perry.” Kesha, appropriately enough (considering she was under Dr. Luke’s thumb at that time), actually appears in the “I Kissed A Girl” video among the gaggle of girls “frolicking” with Perry as rose petals and white feathers (from the requisite cliché pillow fight, duh) cascade down all around them.

    The “twist” at the end, however, is that it was seemingly just a dream, with Perry waking up next to her boyfriend in bed. Unless, in truth, it describes the exact scene Roan talks about when a queer girl keeps trying to play it straight her whole life. But, na, that just ain’t the case with Perry.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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