Lil Nas X - Heaven and Hell and Call me by your name

 Remember Old Town Road? Remember Lil Nas X from that hit?

Yes, we all do.

Did you know that Lil Nas X is an openly gay man?

I didn't, but I found out when a lovely lesbian friend of mine told me "The new Little Nas X Video is ICONIC"

But she couldn't prepare me... for how gay it was.

And I LOVED EVERY SECOND

EVERY FRAME

Iconic. That's the word. This is Iconic.

She could not have prepared me anyway, for how revolutionary a video like this. For such a mainstream rapper to talk about gay love and sex so openly. For a deconstruction on the oppressive force Christianity has been on the lgbtq+ community for decades, centuries even.

And he did it in style.

"In life, we hide the parts of ourselves that we don't want the world to see." Lil Nas X tells me, "We lock them away. We tell them no. We banish them."

Yes we do man, it's fucked up.

"But not here... welcome to Montero."

Hmm?

Of course we start out in idealized heaven, or at least a garden of Eden. with Nas X doing bro shit, sitting under a tree - relaxing. And then a serpentine creature pops out from under the non metaphorical apple tree to tempt him.

Oh really? Might there be meaning to this?

And then they make out. Gay alien Nas X making out with aquaman getup Nas X, and I go "alright. This is great."

Then he's on trial wearing full Hunger Games meets Ruby Rhod, and I'm just 💋💖 👌

Next he gets knocked out by a buttplug.

Really, he does, go pause the image! It's a buttplug!

As he passes on, looking to the heavens, he instead takes a pole in hand and strips down to hell. Gyrating along the way. Struts into the kingdom of the fallen in heels, before giving Satan himself a lap dance.

Then he of course takes the only logical course of action from there: He murders Satan, stealing his crown.

💣 I C O N I C 💣

But anyway...

I really enjoyed displaying Eden as alien, otherworldly. Not idealistic paradise. An alien unattainable place. I suppose if I want to go all high school English class and analyze the video, Nas X is saying that Paradise is an unattainable goal. Through that logic, we can see that he - using iconography of the snake - is saying that within himself he saw the alienness of a perfect churchly lifestyle. Yet he might as well be an alien in that world, and just to the lyrics of the song, he decided to live in sin. Chilling with his friends.

It's clear that in his past, there were times when he tried to banish things about himself. Unwanted desires, and then at some point he 'fell to temptation' and found it was more familiar than anything. He walks into a colosseum with a smile, dawned in pink while the judgmental parts of himself all in blue press their verdict. These are both striking colors, but also the symbols in our culture of femininity and masculinity, and while being gay is not inherently feminine, femininity and therefor pink is thrust onto gay men as an insult. Whether they enjoy femininity or not.

Judging him is blueness, masculinity. Which are still parts of himself, but they cannot banish what is "pink" We may want to banish the truths about ourselves if others will judge us for being them, if we judge ourselves. But we can never banish what is part of us.

Nas X, tempted by the snake - which is himself as an alien, and then he knows the snake. Then he falls, and accepts the temptation. But instead of taking on shame, he does it with passion, with thigh high boots and fishnets. Accepting what was once a taboo as his identity. Himself, acting in the truest notion.

Then he dances with the devil, dances for the devil. But he does not do this simply for pleasure. By taking Satan off guard, he is able to assassinate the king of hell - taking his horns. Realizing a destiny as the fallen angel of Montero.

And one must beg the question: Who was Satan really? Because in the world of Montero, taking the crown was the most powerful, holy thing he could have done. That Montero could have done for himself.

The video has received an extreme backlash for it's blatant homoerotic imagery, it's usage of satanic themes to tell a story. Of course the backlash is primarily from those who follow the Christian faith. Many voices say "A good church would have never made a gay man feel this way." When that is not the point. The point of Montero, Lil Nas X's real legal name and identity, is that he has decided to go against that path because nonmatter what good Christians preached, he found it useless to his happiness, as he was left out of the equation. The damage is done and Christians should see the pain and the pleasure of self discovery in a homophobic world. Christians need to take up the mantle of pro gay, anti homophobic. They need to be loud for the queer community if they want us to be saved by their god.

But for many of us, we find dancing with the devil much more enticing. Why not? Satan gave Eve knowledge. God punished her for it. Maybe an ancient religion from two thousand years ago, one that has been retranslated and re-contextualized so many times that the original texts barely have meaning anymore, doesn't have all the answers,

Personally, as a member of the LGBTQ+ community myself, I find this wonderful. Let them know that we will dance with the devil if it means we get to be who we are. Satan has no power over us, we're just gay. We are just becoming who we are, we aren't deviant - those who are deviant are those who follow the steps of a devilish way are those who preach homophobic words. Words from a bible that might kind of say something about having gay sex - but the line "thou shalt not lie with another man" has also been translated as "thou shalt not lie with a child." And that line is in a section of the bible that bars the consumption of shrimp.

That isn't even diving into the deep meaning of a black male rapper being the man to speak these words within a genre traditionally overtaken by a male gaze that would admire female bodies the way that Montero is admiring himself.

And honestly, I love this for Lil Nas X.

Fuck yeah Montero. Let's go queer history, textbooks better keep up. 

Ari Aster likes to make movies about Trauma

SPOILER WARNING for Hereditary and for Midsommar. I will be talking about big plot elements in both films so consider yourself warned

Personally, my horror backlog is kinda long.

People keep telling me that Midsommar is a lot like the Wicker Man (the 1973 one), and that Hereditary is a lot like the new Rosemary’s Baby. And while I understand the comparisons, I do think it is unfair to say either is a clone. Midsommar is close, but close is not a clone. I would say Midsommar was inspired by the OG Wicker Man more than anything. Even if they were purely spiritual successors, I don't think that discredits either. Sometimes it’s worth going through old plots, themes, and twists just to rehash the horror to a new generation of audience.

However, it’s notable the ways that Midsommar struck me in ways that other horror has not, not even Hereditary. After days of meditating on that sinking gut feeling I held within me, I realized so much of what Midsommar was about touched on my own personal traumas. Therefore, I propose a theory: A person’s direct reaction to a horror film is directly correlated to the horror of their life.

Sounds simple right?

Well, without any actual statistics to back this up - I just want to note that in my personal life when it comes to these films I have noticed a trend. People who are more frightened, well, not frightened - unsettled, that's the word, by Hereditary tend to have come from some kind of cycle of generational familial abuse or trauma. And people who are more unsettled by Midsommar are more impacted by EITHER grief or heartbreak. The difference of the horror for Midsommar for me, was that the horror of Midsommar communicated grief more clearly, more shockingly. Because the death and loss there was horrific, tragic, heart wrenching. And well directed. Those first twenty minutes hit me harder than the first hour of the Last of Us. That being said, I know Hereditary is also about grief, but the situations of grief are different.

Hereditary was about grieving for a complicated relationship.

Midsommar is about being cut off from your support network by drastic loss of life.

Both wrap up the horror based on those experiences.

And that is what Ari Aster wanted right? Hereditary is about inheriting generational curses  - in the shape of an ancient persian demon that your grandma worshipped in a cult she was the matriarch of. Also! Even in death she’s trying to play cards with the demons possessing your children.

And Midsommar is about watching your shitty ex burn in a giant fire dressed like a bear because he didn’t have the decent respect to break up with you after your whole family died leaving you alone in this world in a horrific murder suicide.

Right?

Well, let me just say straight off, between the two, Midsommar hit closer to home for me. Although not for the reasons I think Ari Aster would expect - I’ve been through a dragging relationship where the breakup was shitty and a long time coming. I've cried in a Denny's parking lot after breaking up before he had the decency to order a last meal with me. I've been there. And he has claimed in interviews that Midsommar was a breakup movie to him, which is fair. We all know why Dani is sucked into a cult, the one support network she has left in her life is an asshole. Many people cheered his death, smiling with Dani.

But when I saw the ending scene, I only thought "Oh no hun that's not how you get over him."

Maybe that's because I live in the bible belt, and I have several friends who had to escape various kinds of cults. But i’ve also experienced the dramatic loss of a parent, violently, terribly, suddenly. The kind of tragedy that freezes you in time for several months, that drains every ounce of creative energy from your soul. When you become a husk of yourself, becoming a weight on all your relationships because everything you carry is so heavy that most people would rather cut you off than have the ability and want to make room to help with even a fraction of the load.

Speaking from experience: Grief changes you, especially when it’s sudden and violent, but also when it’s slow, withering. I once had a friend who, after we discussed it, realized that she and I had very similar trauma. Even though her parental loss was from cancer, and mine was from a deadly assault. In both cases a loved one’s life violently wrenched from the daily norm, for me the memory of my father hooked up to machines pumping air into his lungs, the bandages around his head, the bag of his blood going through dilation. All that imagery is seared into my mind. For her, that was several years of watching her father wither away. Baring through chemotherapy until his body became a skeleton.

That shapes you in ways you can’t truly understand until years after.

And Hereditary and Midsommar dig deep into those wounds.

That's not even mentioning the topic of generational trauma. And while I can’t say that’s something my family is drenched in, I have also had that taste. It's been ever-present in the experiences of my family even if I was relatively unscathed. Not just that I’ve helped my partner through some rough generational trauma. But it’s sympathy there. But the Empathy I felt to the main character of Midsommar rushed me through my Grief again five years after it was over and I was reliving those same demons again. Sorry Paimon, the burning bear boyfriend movie kicked me in the gut harder.

But it does bare mentioning, the narrative of tragedy and grief is a diverse one, but also one that we all have felt our lives touched by somehow. A car wreck where a newly engaged couple is severed before saying "until death do us part." A miscarriage for a child that two lovers just picked names for. A bright young woman, friendlier than can be, drowned in a freak accident. Complex stories of human life. And while none of those are movies are ones Ari Aster has touched (at least not yet), I gotta give the man credit for capturing these nuanced stories in a snapshot.

By the way all of those examples come from stories that someone I know had experienced and been shaped and molded by. Grief is a stab wound all of us experience at some point. The trauma of grief is something we all know in some way, at some point. And it's an easy nerve to pinch.

And yet... what really struck me is that after watching Midsommar, when doing heavy research into how other critics and people reacted to the film - like you do - I found that a lot of people… didn’t feel that the movie was about grief. Hell, Ari Aster didn’t feel the movie was about grief. Despite Florence Pugh putting on this brilliant example of what it’s like to become grief in the years after loosing everything… people rooted for Dani killing her boyfriend in the end like this was a black comedy.

Which is fine, people can interpret a movie however they want but HOW

Well, I know how, many people aren’t traumatized by their father’s violent death.

Did I see myself in Dani? Absolutely. I was her for several years. I still carry that piece of myself. I am no longer who I was before my father was murdered. And Ari Aster, a man who has never met me, captured my experience in a bottle and smashed me on the head with it.

Anyway, Hereditary. You know what freaked me out most about Hereditary? The fact that the grandmother was still ever present in the lives of of her daughter. I felt that because I lost a grandmother a while back and while she never was abusive to me, she certainly was abusive to one of her children - my aunt. And this woman has not lived with her mother since high school and yet her mother is in every deep conversation. Even now that my grandmother is dead this woman is still wrapped in her net.

Trauma runs deep. From abuse, from breakups, and especially, from grief. It's trauma, pretty horrific right?

And often horror is not about what is grotesque, but what is traumatic to the psyche. And sometimes it’s hard to get in touch with that essence without a little individual life experience for fuel. Yet - it seems to have touched the kind of audience who are attracted to these movies. Perhaps this is because those who are familiar with tragedy become attracted to the horror genre. Or perhaps that's because grief touches everyone, or that trauma touches everyone.

I suppose what i'm saying is, I'm impressed. Way to dig into my soul with a rusty shovel man. Your movies are simultaneously like therapy and antitherapy. How do you do it?

The subtle art of only being somewhat overweight

Something that has been on my mind lately is how Tess Holiday, model and author of "The Not So Subtle Art of Being a Fat Girl," has been all over my Facebook feed. She has been getting a lot of attention for just openly being happy about her size, and how goals to loose weight are just not her priority. I do believe she doesn't care about the concept of "health" as a priority in her life either. Her common mantra is being "unapologetic" with her fatness in order to love the skin you are in and I think that's a good cause. So I plan to articulate how I support that, and I want to deconstruct a lot of the argument's that are anti fat positivism.

I want to preface this with the fact that I haven't read the book, reading is a very stressful activity for me but it is on the infinite list of books to read.  However, I feel I have the authority to talk about this subject because #1 I have (because of reason #2 as well) taken a course on fat stigma in society, which was quite a crash course in fat studies. and #2 I am overweight and while I am not obese (well, by some definitions, such as BMI, I qualify as obese), and because of that I have lived life as a fat person. Not just a fat person, a fat person who is denied having that label. "Oh honey, you aren't fat! You're gorgeous." As if the very expression of my anxieties when it comes to my health should be silenced because that would also admit that I am a damned fat person. Which equals an ugly person, and since the womanly goal in this world is to be beautiful that just isn't allowed.

I live in this world, where even if I were to care about my health (which I do), expressing that I am fat is an admittance into something. And it is important that we understand that.

Now lets direct our attention toward the common arguments against fat positivism.

We all know it, and to some extent - it sounds reasonable.

"Why are you putting unhealthy standards on a pedestal? Won't you just inspire people to be....

Unhealthy?"

Since the normal demographic to make this criticism is usually not overweight (if they are, this sentiment just becomes nuanced); I have always seen this statement as one of an outsider. Perhaps this person has loved ones who are overweight or obese, perhaps they share this sentiment or perhaps they are a hypocrite. That doesn't matter. The idea that fatness is being somehow glorified by the act of fat acceptance still seems like a stretch. The dominant cultural idea of beauty and health is and is going to be for awhile - thin. Except for the rare exception (usually as the result of a counterculture anyway), people are going to still want to be thin or thinner even if fatness is put on a stage. The vast majority of fat people would be happy having less weight. Fat acceptance really doesn't have anything to do with fat except for the fact that our society just hyperfocuses on fat to create a social order where certain body types are hated and ridiculed, dehumanized even. Fat acceptance is about a body not denoting the worth of the individual who has that body.

A supremely obese person deserves to exist, have their needs met, and be happy. Their life matters and they are valuable intrinsically. That is the essence of fat acceptance. This is rooted in an ideology that separates the individual from the body. Besides the brain that encases every human thought and emotion

Let us refocus on that connection between fatness and ugliness, after all, I know critics of this are going to pick at that. "But the issue with fat acceptance is that bodies that are literally unhealthy are glorified." I see you boo. We getting there.

My argument is that I want to be seen as beautiful not because i'm fat, but because I am worth existing. I am more than my body.

But also, fatness is not unhealthy in essence. I am a healthy person, not hyperhealthy but I subsist off a nutritious, low fat and medium carb diet. Focusing on high protein and vegetable intake. I go to the gym, I do not engage in common reckless behaviors and I have no addictions other than caffeine. My biggest sidetrack to full health is occasional tobacco indulgences, budget limitations, and some bingish drinking.

But that is just me, what about other fat people?

Well, why should their priority be health?

For all those eyerolls back there, hear me out. I truly think that this attack on fat people and their health is quite rude and intrusive. If you aren't their doctor then their health is not your business. The only other reason to care about the health of strangers is if you are studying the impact that has on a society. And that means going through academic channels and using academic lenses which require a certain amount of higher education to effectively use. So for those of you non-sociologists: Shush! - you aren't their doctor.

Furthermore, let me give you some insight. Because I am one of many many people who are overweight, or even of a normal size who have body image issues. I can very much trace this back to the obsession our society has over the body, one that has been exaggerated. Fatness is seen as indulgence, excess, taking up space. And the lense of understanding the social understating of fat as "out of control" is one I find both fascinating and personal. My main insecurities do not come from not being beautiful, although that is an aspect of fat. The main insecurity surrounds this idea of discipline.

Biologically, body shape has more to do with genetics than personal action - but we fat people know very well how the judgement of our weight, of our shape, of our habits, of our indulgences are seen with the keenist of critical eyes. One single ice cream cone doesn't equal 100 extra pounds, but when a skinny person and a fat person stand next to each together, sharing the same size cone in hand, it might as well be so.

Every action is scrutinized, and judged before the social world in a way that people outside the fat box could not know unless they've been there before. And that doesn't prevent us from getting ice cream, the shame of our bodies isn't a magical cure to whatever blockade society thinks is in the way of our minds path to the hot bod. We are aware of how we look, we are aware how we are seen.

So when we hear "Are we glorifying an unhealthy weight with fat positivity?" it sounds bonkers to us. How can something hated be glorified? All we want, is to be seen as normal. Not healthy, normal. Part of life, worthy of existence.

The jump to conclusions is not lost on us, and knowing the difference shouldn't be this hard.

However, that is not all. The thing about fat is it's not something we choose to have. It is a natural part of our bodies. Adipose tissue our ancestors used to store the extra nutrients for another day. Of course, our ancestors did not purposefully do this - it was genetics that decided when the pounds packed on. But the social understanding of fat is basically, anything not skinny. And both skinny and fat are these objective markers that are determined not by empirical measure, but word of mouth. Even the thinnest of people can relate to "Being fat" somewhere on their body.

For me, what this means is I am fat. Because I am 'just overweight enough' to not be skinny to most eyes. But not all eyes. And not fat in the way of "Discourage this person from existing"

When i proclaim I'm skinny, it is wrong. When I proclaim I'm fat, I'm corrected - "you're body is fine!" They tell me. Meaning fat is not just a state of being, it's derogatory. It's profane.

But to us, it's a fact of existence. This clash of what fatness is to society clashes with the worth of people who happen to be fat. And acceptance, shouldn't that just be recognizing that fatness is more than just medical. It's a forced aesthetic with negative consequences.