Re-teaming with longtime directorial collaborator Hannah Lux Davis (who also brought us the scandalous for its cultural appropriativeness “7 Rings“), Ariana Grande continues to go down the path of *NSYNC territory from a sonic, lyrical and generally heteronormative standpoint with her new single. Which is somewhat distichous coming from someone who recently touted, “I like women and men” (though that’s more than Lance Bass ever bothered to do). For we have yet to see much in the way of Grande parading that liking of women (who don’t look like her) into anything as overtly sexual as her displays toward one-half of Social House in the video for “boyfriend,” another free-standing single unattached to any album (in the spirit of the tradition of how music is released now).
That Grande has not only, of late, sampled a song (for the purposes of creating “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored”) from and performed onstage with *NSYNC (minus that diva Justin Timberlake, clearly) seems all too telling of the contents of “boyfriend.” The “knockoff of the Backstreet Boys” is undoubtedly a longtime inspiration that has overtly colored her continued “R&B as rendered by white person” stylings. A category of which is nothing without its fair share of yearning, burning and repressed desire until it finally all reaches a crescendo and the two heteros in question end up, as Shaggy once phrased it, “bangin’ on the bathroom floor” (which is literally what happens by the end of “boyfriend”).
Striking that “Lucille Ball” (meets an uncomfortable Taylor Swift display in the “Delicate” video) balance between sexy and “zany,” Grande and the “platonic” object of her affection, “played by” Social House’s Mikey Foster, alternate between having murderous daydreams about taking whoever is chatting with their respective non-boyfriend/girlfriend out. At times, for Ari, that means, in the spirit of Swift’s “The Archer” pointing her bow and arrow and letting it rip, at others, for Mikey, it means ripping another man’s heart out. And, speaking of hearts, Grande continues to pay 90s homage not only to *NSYNC but also the “machine gun jubblies” of Vanessa Kensington (Elizabeth Hurley) at the beginning of 1999’s Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me as she shoots neon hearts out of her tits–one of the few things met with approval by Mikey in their fantasy game of cat and mouse.
As the millennial spokesperson when Lana Del Rey is not (Billie Eilish then getting in line as the only offering for Gen Z), Grande addresses the often vexing (when it’s not sexually arousing) phenomenon of people being so terrified to classify anything lest it actually be “locked down”–because heaven forbid a millennial should experience anything resembling a sense of permanence–least of all in romance. And though Grande frankly declares, “I’m a motherfucking trainwreck” it doesn’t mean she wants to have to hide that in order to be pursued or semi-loved by someone. Adding, “I don’t wanna be too much/But I don’t wanna miss your touch,” Grande speaks to the common fear in most of her generation that being or revealing “too much” inevitably results in the now all too common practice of ghosting. Because why deal with damaged goods that actually talks about it when you could potentially find damaged goods that doesn’t (and then still leave them anyway?). As Grande remarked of the song, “People want to feel love but don’t want to define their relationship & have trouble fully committing or trusting or allowing themselves to fully love someone. Even though they want to.”
Because to admit to having emotions is far too much of a risk in an era that is so obviously just the transitional period into the cyborg takeover. At the same time, a girl can’t help but get off just a little on withholding (a theme also present on the seventh track from thank u, next, “make up”), hence the lyric, “I can’t have what I want, but neither can you.”
With the *NSYNC vibes holding strong throughout, the track most closely resembled from the band is the foil title of “Girlfriend,” on which the quintet demands, “‘Cause if you were my girlfriend/I’d be your shining star/The one to show you where you are/Girl you should be my girlfriend.” But she ain’t. Just like Ari, who declares, “You ain’t my boyfriend.” Even if she might secretly want you to be. Because the necessity of secrecy in matters of “the crush” remain within us all long after adolescence.
What’s more, for someone who wrote an opus called “thank u, next,” a defiant anthem about moving on as quickly as possible when someone isn’t right for you/you’ve “learned enough” from them, the motif of “boyfriend” feels like a decided departure, one that urges us all to cut the shit and acknowledge our feelings. The world could be ending in 2050, after all.
