Monday, December 12, 2011

The girls are not alright: the politics of Lana Del Rey

Leah McLaren thinks Lana Del Ray lacks substance.

Normally, I'd say someone was lucky if they told me they'd never read McLaren. In this case, however, it is a little sad if you haven't because you cannot begin to grasp how funny it is that she would accuse someone else of lacking in substance. Fluffiness just doesn't get any more fluffy than Leah.

But back to Lana Del Rey the new indie pop sensation whom a whole lot of people seem to hate because she may be "inauthentic". I know, as opposed to all those completely real popstars. And what, pray tell, does "authenticity" mean in an era where girls have their pubic hair ripped out by the roots in order to impress boys.

So what upsets people so much about Lana Del Ray? It's hard to tell, really, as the arguments are not exactly clear. They mostly involve imposing narratives onto her video and then shooting holes in the imagined narrative. Rather than dwell on what has been said, could I suggest that the real problem is that she has inadvertently blurted out the truth: the kids are not alright that things aren't going well for girls in this brave new world.

I'm going to post her break out video below and I'd recommend watching it full screen. Watch it several times over. It has a nice neo-noir feel about it but, and this is important, there is no narrative to the video. It does not, contrary to what a lot of people want to believe tell a story. Instead it's an impressionistic portrait of unhappiness: this is what hell in little boxes is like in 2011. This is a video that dares tell us that girls are unhappy. That, far from taking over the world, they are confused and lost.

Do you believe me? Well, watch the video then walk around looking at girls. Do they look they happy or do they look more like the girl in the video? If Lana is right, there is a big problem that no one wants to talk about out there.

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