“‘I feel more like a woman, somehow,’ she says, surprised.” This Billie Eilish asserts of going blonde in her much talked-about British Vogue cover story. But what, one might ask, is surprising about feeling more “womanly” when a girl is literally embodying all the twentieth century tropes of what that has always represented? Blonde, blue-eyed, pale, a bit curvy and, obviously, some big tits.
Like a fellow Los Angeles-born icon of a generation, Billie is doing full Marilyn Monroe drag here. As so many before her have. Including the most famous Mother of Reinvention, Madonna, who did a sendup of Monroe (among other times throughout her career) for her Oscars performance of “Sooner or Later” in 1991. Of course, the people at British Vogue (better known as Most Aryan Vogue) want to be specific with who Billie is really paying homage to by insisting, “…she is indulging a fantasy by embracing a ‘classic, old-timey pin-up’ look inspired by Betty Brosmer, Horst’s illusionist beauty shots and the stockinged models of Elmer Batters.” Oh God, please don’t say “old-timey.” It’s so fucking reductive and, naturally, anything can be called “old-timey” when placed in a context with Eilish, who remains a zygote despite her “mature” new look and sound (though it doesn’t really apply to the sound, as her voice has always been that of a sultry lounge singer’s). Alas, despite her freedom-fighting ways, we haven’t progressed beyond the point where “mature” automatically has to equate with form-fitting, skin-baring attire.
And now, suddenly, the most “progressive” girl of the moment has decided to do something she knew would shock more than anything: play it “normal.” Eilish was quick to anticipate the backlash against her wanting to go all-out “femme,” but that’s not really what the issue is, so much as her saying one thing and indicating another with her actions. If what she wanted to do all along was bare dem titties and chalk it up to, “We should all just do what makes us feel good,” then there was never a need to bother with posturing about concealing her body from judgment with oversized, shapeless clothing that rendered her, among other reasons, the twenty-first century ideal of a sexless pop star. And perhaps she’ll put her clothes back on again, but the “cat” has been let out of the bag now regardless.
All this commentary aims to prove, ultimately, what Billie has said the entire time: that her body is none of our business. The thing is, the second anyone becomes a public figure, everything about them becomes “public concern” (read: rife for dissection and obsession–ergo all those “articles, articles, articles” Eilish shrugs off in “Therefore I Am“). That’s just the nature of pop culture. And since its effects eventually trickle down into everything we do, there is a reason why the masses form so many opinions “about [Billie’s] opinions,” as she phrases it in the video many have enjoyed dredging up for the purposes of defending her from any “naysaying.” Entitled “Not My Responsibility,” it’s an interlude from her short-lived Where Do We Go? World Tour. As she starts to undress and deliver a voiceover in a lascivious tone that adds irony to what she’s saying, she concludes with, “Is my value based only on your perception? Or is your opinion of me…not my responsibility?” This, of course, negates ever so slightly her sentiments in “Your Power,” in which she describes an awareness of what being famous means in terms of every single action becoming interpretable by fans and haters alike. It isn’t just about the abuse men inflict on young women in ways both physical and psychological, but about anyone in a position of power knowing that their every maneuver “means something.” And the action of Billie playing dress up as a “‘fuck me’ blow-up doll” is sure to have a large number of fans formerly happy to plod around in shapeless garb and multicolored hair thinking twice about “being okay” with their own image. The “leverage” here could also easily provide a field day for Republicans who might tout, “See, even Billie realized it was time to ‘act like a lady’—to ‘be normal,’ because it’s time to grow up” (granted, Republicans can’t really form coherent sentences like that).
But again, as Billie has said, she’s allowed to do what she wants. Even if that statement is a classic declaration stemming from white privilege. Thus, to heighten that effect, going blonde (to match her blue eyes) and adopting the heteronormative look of a curvaceous pinup doesn’t exactly jive with her statement about how we should all do what makes us feel good—for a lot of her non-white, non-blonde fans aren’t going to “feel good” that they can’t emulate her Aryan aesthetic now. So, in short, it’s kind of made the people who were counting on her for some consistency with regard to messaging to, well, not feel all that good. ‘Cause now, here they are with their dicks in the wind and all this “sustainable clothing” of Billie’s they bought from H&M suddenly rendered anachronistic in a time of Eilish that can now be called: The Era of Disrobement.
Once more, because Madonna is the prototype for every pop star that has come after her—no matter how “different” and “avant-garde” they’re all heralded—this smacks of what happened to fans and manufacturers after Madonna decided to rebrand her image post-Like A Virgin. For the True Blue era, she opted to shore her locks, go platinum blonde (hence, one can’t begin to reiterate how “been done” this is to Billie) and shed all the “junk jewelry” that was once synonymous with her image. This included the rubber bracelets and crucifixes that her downtown friend and fashion designer/stylist, Maripol, cashed in on while M was at the first height of her fame. Creating an official line of the jewelry, her cash cow was all at once gone when Madonna sensed it was time for a new transformation that would prevent her from becoming stale or pigeonholed. Eilish, too, clearly does not want to be put into any box—Gen Z ilk, most especially, never do. But she, possibly more than any other pop star before her, has unwittingly been marked with the “body positive” stamp. So long as, according to detractors in this regard, it’s not the kind of body positivity where she’s actually showing her body. But this is Billie’s time to declare, “I’m not your little girl” (in addition to other isms that smack of Britney Spears on her third album, Britney—namely, “I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman” and “Overprotected,” via the lyric, “Say hello to the girl that I am/You’re gonna have to see through my perspective”).
Okay, sure. Declare it. But why have white teen girls always held this power over the world—particularly over the U.S.? Why are people lapping up pull quotes from someone not even in their twenties saying, “Don’t make me not a role model because you’re turned on by me.” Something of a ridiculous statement as no one is (except men who can’t handle looking at a girl’s body without sexualizing it) making her “not a role model.” In fact, it’s quite the opposite—most are happy to laud her as one. But the thing is, should someone of her age and position even be dubbed with such a title to begin with? This, too, quickly became the issue for Spears, who never claimed or wanted to be one, but was suddenly put up on some pedestal for virgins and virtue (we would later learn just how like a virgin she was).
The article itself is written by Laura Snapes, with the featured photos taken by Craig McDean, a Madonna go-to for building on an aesthetic pantheon. And yes, the parallels to the original gangsta of pop stardom are all over these images… not only because Madonna was the first to suggest that we all wear underwear as outerwear. What’s not reminiscent of Madonna here, however, is anything resembling true depth. Or actions that back up the words. It’s but another version of the “I’m just like really really complicated and I can’t be defined” defense mechanism to allow for more unexpected, slightly hypocritical transformations in the future. Snapes, like everyone else, is also quick to appraise the sudden change in Eilish’s previously burka-esque (for an American) look, noting, “She created an instantly identifiable silhouette in capacious, rap-influenced couture that made a mystery of her body.” Well it ain’t a mystery no more. Almost as though Eilish has been waiting all this time to unleash her ultimate secret (and Christina Hendricks-influenced) weapon… or perhaps she just needed Megan Thee Stallion to release “Body” before she could release her own.
Snapes also writes, “She knows that corsets (among the most controversial garments in the history of fashion) will rile people. Although Eilish wanted to explore their beauty—the shapes, lacing, design—she was also drawn to their original restrictive function. ‘If I’m honest with you, I hate my stomach, and that’s why.’ She thinks that’s ‘shallow’”—here it’s worth interjecting that she’s essentially being paid to think it’s shallow. For even if she didn’t, she’s been relegated to the role of Gen Z body positivity promoter, hence she has to say self-effacing things of this nature. Snapes adds, “I disagree. It’s hard enough for anyone to negotiate the conflict between intellectually rejecting patriarchal beauty standards and hardwired personal frustration, let alone when you’re one of the most scrutinised teenagers in the world and your body is, as Eilish calls it, your ‘deepest insecurity.’” But if she truly is insecure about it, then why not just go whole hog with the “fuck me doll” shit and embrace the benefits of being a celebrity that allow for plastic surgery and personal trainers? For the intended message of this photoshoot about being comfortable in one’s own (unmodified) skin is still, apparently, nothing more than a myth, in the end.
Working with Alessandro Michele, the creative director for Gucci, the perhaps overly generous Italian “says that the visual references Eilish sent for the shoot chimed with the ideas that he had been working on for his own collections, ‘referencing Hollywood, a world that fascinates me a lot. She is extremely meticulous in the way she reinvents herself.’ Eilish predicts one side of the response to the shoot: ‘If you’re about body positivity, why would you wear a corset? Why wouldn’t you show your actual body?’ She raises her eyebrows. ‘My thing is that I can do whatever I want.’” Of this we’re all well-aware. And that includes her want to rebrand into a zaftig shiksa who seems to think that won’t more than slightly pervert the original “purity” (no racial pun intended) of her message. But what does it matter if “confidence is her only gospel”? If, as she has now illustriously announced, “It’s all about what makes you feel good. If you want to get surgery, go get surgery [and again, maybe she should if she’s delighting in going down this rabbit hole of becoming a normie]. If you want to wear a dress that somebody thinks that you look too big wearing, fuck it—if you feel like you look good, you look good.” Oh dear. But no sweetie, that’s just not the case. Reality can sometimes, believe it or not, be objective.
Seeming to throw more than vague shade at Miley Cyrus (a conventional pop star in terms of body type and longstanding skin-baring), Eilish continues her “complex rumination” with, “Everybody’s like, ‘You can’t make a wife out of a ho’—and it’s like, you’re attracted to that person, though. You created that person… Suddenly you’re a hypocrite if you want to show your skin, and you’re easy and you’re a slut and you’re a whore. If I am, then I’m proud. Me and all the girls are hoes, and fuck it, y’know? Let’s turn it around and be empowered in that. Showing your body and showing your skin—or not—should not take any respect away from you.” Apart from this being the least groundbreaking thing she’s ever said (for embracing “bitch” and “whore” is nothing new for women who have already had such reappropriation likened to what Black people needed to do with the N-word), it seems like more calculated obfuscations to cover her ass (though not literally in this instance) for whatever contradictory act might come next.
And while, sure, we can freely admit human beings are complicated, multifaceted and dichotomous creatures, MARINA already depicted that more eloquently in song form, as opposed to bothering with a high-fashion magazine, on 2015’s “Can’t Pin Me Down” from Froot: “You might think I’m one thing, but I am another/You can’t call my bluff, time to back off, motherfucker…/You ain’t got me sussed yet, you’re not even close/Baby, it’s the one thing that I hate the most/All these contradictions pouring out of me/Just another girl in the twenty-first century.” That Billie surely is. Even if looking decidedly twentieth century these days.
After all the talk of bodies and backlash, Snapes opts to “dramatically” conclude the article with, “‘Even permanent things can be undone,’ says Eilish, bright with optimism.” Okay, so who wants to be the one to tell Billie that even celebrities can’t come back from the dead (because this is not Death Becomes Her)?
