- Lana Del Rey torched her feminist critics Wednesday night.
- But she also riled up several other chart-toppers’ fandoms with unflattering comparisons to other female artists.
- Here’s why Lizzy Grant’s right and her critics are wrong.
Lana Del Rey announced Wednesday night in an Instagram post that she has a new album in the works. She’s releasing it on Sept. 5th.
But it was her scathing review of her feminist critics and comparisons to other female pop music icons that triggered a #LanaDelReyIsOverParty campaign on Thursday.
Question for the culture: Now that Doja Cat, Ariana, Camila, Cardi B, Kehlani and Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé have had number ones with songs about being sexy, wearing no clothes, [f***ing], cheating etc. — can I please go back to singing about being embodied, feeling beautiful by being in love even if the relationship is not perfect, or dancing for money — or whatever I want — without being crucified or saying that I’m glamorizing abuse??????
Lana Del Rey has long had a contentious relationship with music critics. The more virtue-signally among them have trashed her work for years – right up to her most recent album. They say she objectifies women and promotes abusive relationships with toxic men.
Even fellow singer Lorde has cast shade Lana’s way. She said in 2013 that Del Rey’s “shirt-tugging, desperate, ‘don’t leave me’ stuff” isn’t good for teenagers to listen to.
Then again, Lorde was a teenager at the time. Maybe she was too young and naive to understand what Del Rey was singing about.
Lana Del Rey Critics Are Clueless
But it’s not just Lorde. All of Lana Del Rey’s critics are square, stuffy scolds who don’t know what she’s writing about. Her lyrics aren’t for them anyway.
They’re objectifying her more than anyone by using her as a prop to virtue signal about themselves. They’re forcing themselves on her artwork. And it cannot be overemphasized that they don’t know what they’re talking about.
Why do they think she glamorizes abuse? Because she has a song titled “Ultraviolence?” A few years back, a writer at the Arizona State Press slammed the song for the lyrics:
He hit me and it felt like a kiss
And:
He hurt me but it felt like true love
Who did?
Jim told me that
He hit me and it felt like a kiss
Jim brought me back
Reminded me of when we were kids
Yeah, she’s singing about Jim Beam. Lana Del Rey has been in rehab for alcoholism, and she called it “the first love” of her life in an interview.
What I’d like to know is, why do “feminists” think it’s okay for a man like Stephen King to write “Misery” about his cocaine addiction (his “number one fan”), but Lana Del Rey can’t even get anyone to try to understand her lyrics.
Since When Does Art Have to Be a PSA?
So, what about her stuff that is about loving men who don’t always treat her right? Even getting a charge out of being abused?
She addresses that in her Instagram post:
I’m just a glamorous person singing about the realities of what we are all now seeing are very prevalent emotionally abusive relationships all over the world…
Let this be clear, I’m not not a feminist – but there has to be a place in feminism for women who look and act like me… the kind of women who get their own stories and voices taken away from them by stronger women or by men who hate women.
Honestly, does anyone else ever wonder why art about certain topics has to be a dry public service announcement and not a window into someone’s lived experiences?
‘But She Called Out Women of Color’
One of the biggest gripes against Lana Del Rey this morning is that she name-dropped mostly black artists. NBC reported that a white girl from England said:
Lana’s post would have been fine if she hadn’t compared herself to a group of mostly black women.
You just can’t win with the outrage mob on social media. If Lana Del Rey hadn’t mentioned any black artists, she might have been dragged for not being inclusive. That’s the most common criticism of Hollywood and shows like Saturday Night Live and Friends these days – not enough diversity.
One of the most-liked tweets on the Lana Del Rey trend Thursday morning was by Beyoncé Hub, and it joked that Del Rey looked at the charts and found them a little too N-wordy.
But listen, there was nothing about race in Lana Del Rey’s post. It was a post by a woman about women singing lyrics as women, and how the media has treated them differently.
She was judging the other artists by the content of their music videos, not the color of their skin, to paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of CCN.com.
This article was edited by Josiah Wilmoth.
