It’s not feminist or whatever to talk about women’s looks in the present climate, especially when famous women already have enough scrutiny on a daily basis from trolls such as myself. But ’tis the tradeoff for being a star. No? I think so. I think money and endless travel is a nice cushion to the blow of any criticism from, well, anyone. Not that I’ll ever know. But any who, all that aside, I’m trying to hint that maybe Lana Del Rey hasn’t been looking her best lately. Her most femme. Nor her most svelte. It’s not that there’s anything to be ashamed of in this assessment, it’s just that, well, it’s a far cry from the Lana of yore. And most especially a far cry from the Lizzy Grant iteration, where being all wispy and blonde and shit was the norm. Maybe that’s the thing about getting older though, you really can’t bring yourself to care as much about your appearance.
Jack Antonoff’s ex, Lena Dunham, was never worried about such a triviality at any age. And though no man likes to admit to vanity, maybe Dunham’s “comfortableness with being herself” was a petite factor in the eventual termination of their togetherness. In the most simultaneously self-pitying and self-aggrandizing essay ever written about having a hysterectomy (which, contrary to the article’s suggestion, does not necessarily relieve Dunham’s much talked about endometriosis)–and in Vogue, of all places, which has seemed quite content to let all all creative control go off the rails of late–Dunham wrote of her five-year relationship, “My beautiful partner, who has seen me through so much pain with compassion and care, has to be away for work, and I can feel us growing slowly apart, since life is so determined to display its full complexity right now. I am surly and distant. I offer nothing.” In that case, Antonoff clearly has a type, and maybe he wanted at least a more ethereal surly and distant bitch in the form of LDR (that is, before trying his hand at Lorde, because he believes in a truly all-immersive producer/musician relationship). Someone who could, at the very least, channel a non-gender specific look while also being slightly more, shall we say, talented.
While Del Rey isn’t one for spouting bullshit about her physical setbacks (probably because she doesn’t have any, especially not back brokenness from too much sex now that she seems to be embodying a more sexless persona for the incarnation du jour), she is one for exploring loss and loneliness in her music. Whereas Dunham would prefer to do it in a ceaseless essay about her so-called constant isolation post-breakup with Antonoff that would likely even have David Foster Wallace telling her to scale the fuck back on word count. Yet oversharing was something Antonoff had grown used to from Dunham before the neurotic duo “amicably” split back in January (Jesus, people are so “amicable” nowadays ever since Gwyneth touted “conscious uncoupling”).
Clearly, based on enduring Dunham’s psychosis alone, Antonoff gravitates naturally toward big dick energy in a female, having created all of his most acclaimed work with women who are powerhouses in the arena of pop, including Taylor Swift, Lorde and St. Vincent. His innate effeteness and ability to let feminine energy take its rightful place in the spotlight has served him well, made him a rich man many times over. And in between “intellectually stimulating” women–though Antonoff wrote rumors of being with Lorde off as “dumb heteronormative gossip” (it’s the evolved, feminist thing to say as a man in such times)–he also found time to capitalize on the perks of being a hot shit producer by showing his affections for model Carlotta Kohl (who said her 2018 dream was “women ruling the world,” which probably titillated Antonoff to no end) after the announcement of ending things with Dunham.
While Antonoff and Del Rey share merely a professional dynamic (so it’s believed), Del Rey’s re-creation of a certain homage to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito in Twins speaks to the power Antonoff has over a woman despite himself being background. And it’s just, like, et tu Lana? You have to become genderless as well? You, once the most throwback pinup, sex kitten, Daddy-loving, down to glamorize and fetishize shitty relationships girl there ever was (apart from Winehouse)? What is happening in this world? Antonoff, that’s what.
Lena and Lana. The connection is clear. Antonoff must turn every woman in his orbit into aesthetic granola. To boot, this photo is an actual image of the transference of gender roles in the twenty-first century, with Antonoff looking like a scandalized elderly gecko and Lana looking like she’ll fuck your boyfriend after she fucks you.
