It was the letter read ‘round the world. On May 21, 2020, seemingly apropos of nothing other than an extremely odd and roundabout way to announce her album release and upcoming book(s) of poetry, Lana Del Rey, pretentiously fonting the letter in Courier New to give it a typewriter effect, told the world with her opening paragraph, “Question for the culture: Now that Doja Cat, Ariana, Camila, Cardi B, Kehlani and Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé have had number ones with songs about being sexy, wearing no clothes, fucking, cheating etc–can I please go back to singing about being embodied, feeling beautiful by being in love even if the relationship is not perfect, or dancing for money–or whatever I want–without being crucified or saying that I’m glamorizing abuse?”
From there, the letter continued to delve into her perceived slights and particular beefs with being misunderstood in an age of cancel culture and one that most assuredly does not have room for any “he hit me and it felt like a kiss” sentiments in the #MeToo era, or even in the era that The Crystals song of the same name was released. While Del Rey has pivoted away from her more youthful preoccupation with abusive relationships as of 2017’s Lust For Life (when she decided it was best to get on the political bandwagon post-Trump being elected), these were and remain the songs that have established her as a music icon. From the drama of “Born to Die” to the desperation of “Shades of Cool,” Del Rey is no stranger to romanticizing relationships she knows are bad for her, especially if they’re with older and/or addicted to a substance men. In many regards, this is what has sustained her tween-ish and twink fanbase: for who can understand the passion and penchant for ruin behind such types of relationships better than youths? When you still have it within you to give that much of a damn about love, and haven’t yet been rendered completely cynical by the disappointment of the loss of your first great one.
These fans, however, are powerless against the likes of the Barbz and the Beyhive, who, among others, have been sure to make it known to Del Rey that she’s being, well, a spoiled little asshole, and that she simply could have announced the arrival of her album and book without this non sequitur bombast that reads exactly like an essay she would write at Fordham (a private school that costs a fuck ton in the Bronx, so one supposes that’s where Del Rey thinks she got her “hood” credibility). And even if society hadn’t long ago decided against taking the plight of the white girl seriously, Del Rey still would have come under fire regardless. For the letter smacks of the self-victimization that poor little rich girls are known for. All in the process of proving the power of being a rich girl in the announcement that she’s now being published on Simon & Schuster instead of, as originally declared, self-publishing her poetry books, which are sure to be better off sung as songs to mitigate some of the faux pretension. So much for being just “a simple singer,” as she once called herself. No, she wants the glory of being a Ginsberg or Kerouac type, just two of the many white males she idolizes. Even so, she’s been adamant that she’ll still be making “reparations” to Native Americans with some of the proceeds from the book…maybe just for that offensive moment in the “Ride” video when she donned a headdress fit for a chief. Alternately known as a war bonnet, Del Rey might want to put it on again (now that the damage of appropriation has already been done), because this is one war that’s not going to die out anytime soon. At least not until people jump up her asshole again when the new record comes out. And, of course, music will always be Del Rey’s saving grace from a “persona” (the one she’s been insistent she doesn’t have) that hasn’t worked out in the best of ways over the years.
Before Del Rey herself was forced to respond after the firestorm of comments and condemnations, the die-hard defendants of Del Rey and everything she does were quick to make the racist slant worse by essentially saying that those who were offended by it had no reading comprehension. A.k.a. blacks is illiterate. But honestly, there can be no misinterpreting the deliberateness with which she chose to name these particular women. Whom she’s now claiming are her “favorite people”–honey, save for Ariana, don’t none of them know or care about you (and Doja, the one who “defended” you, is apparently into white supremacist shit herself). The opening sentences are cannon fodder that spell out with the residual smoke, “Since these ratchet black whores (apart from my “affirmative action” callouts of Ari and Camila) can sing about fucking and cheating and liking cads, can’t I do the same without being judged?” The answer is: no woman can, nor ever will be able to. No matter how much she narcissistically thinks she paved the way for them to do so. The only one who can make that claim among white women is Madonna.
To the point of “paving the way” for others, why isn’t Billie Eilish on the list? We know she doesn’t do “sexy,” per se, but she definitely sings about it (particularly in the final verses of “Bad Guy”). Someone who is far more believable as one of Del Rey’s “favorite” people. And we all know Beyoncé don’t fuck with her when she has Reese Witherspoon as a go-to vanilla soft serve friend. Still, Del Rey managed to get offended anew over people’s very expected reaction to her douchebag, woe-is-me commentary–one that also took outrageous responsibility for changing the way women express themselves as she remarked that she “really paved the way for other women to stop ‘putting on a happy face’ and to just be able to say whatever the hell they wanted to in their music–unlike my experience where if I even expressed a note of sadness in my first two records I was deemed literally hysterical as though it was literally the 1920s.” There is no other response to this assertion than Bitch, please. If you want to talk about the 1920s, look to Josephine Baker, yes, another black woman who dealt with far more struggle and resistance (while also being in the French Resistance) than you’ll ever fathom. Then there was Ella Fitzgerald, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday. If it’s “wrong” to quantify or compare people’s experiences when each one is different in response to what she said, Del Rey ought not to have thrown down the gauntlet in naming all those names she asked to be compared to in so doing. Indeed, the letter might have been passable if not still incredibly whiny and apropos of nothing (the bia couldn’t even be bothered to acknowledge the travesties of corona save for a “Happy Quarantining” conclusion) had she just deleted paragraph one entirely.
Del Rey’s reaction to the backlash was more disheartening still, with refusal to acknowledge how her words might be misconstrued regardless of whether, in her warped mind, she was trying to make a feminist point (though that doesn’t seem likely either as all she could shrug was, “I’m not not a feminist”). She snapped, “This is the problem with society today, not everything is about whatever you want it to be. It’s exactly the point of my post–there are certain women that culture doesn’t want to have a voice it may not have to do with race I don’t know what it has to do with. I don’t care anymore but don’t ever ever ever ever bro–call me racist because that is bullshit.” Oh really? This is the problem with society today? Not that it gives famous people a platform to say whatever the fuck they want without actually thinking it through? Sweetie, deranged head, no one is taking your voice away from you. People worship just about everything you said up until this little missive. Also, adding “bro” does not make you relatable or “hardcore” (as you would like Azealia Banks to believe), but perhaps come across as even more white than you are.
After then using the sentence, “And my last and final note on everything…”, Del Rey soon went on to post yet another Courier New fonted “letter” about her commitment to the original one, barbing (no Nicki M fanbase pun intended), “I’m sorry that the folks I can only assume are super Trump/Pence supporters or hyper liberals or flip-flopping headline grabbing critics can’t read and want to make it a race war.” So, once again, Del Rey made a completely myopic and reductive comment on anyone disagreeing with or critiquing what she said. Which remains, no matter how much she clings to it, easy to disagree with and critique. Beyond a so-called “race war” (perhaps she thinks she’s Charles Manson now), the original sentiment was a showcase of Del Rey living in a bubble that she called “making personal reparations simply for the joy of doing it.” Further iterated by the fact that she thinks there’s no place for women as “delicate” as her in the music business (cue the image of her wielding a machine gun at a helicopter), and there ought to be. First of all, she’s already made it clear she “ain’t no candle in the wind,” so it’s difficult to understand why she’s talking about her delicacy or that there is no place for such women when we’ve seen the likes of her 60s-era idols, Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell exhibit just that. What she’s really failing to talk about on this front is that in order to be seen as delicate if you’re a woman, you can’t be fat, sometimes “politely” referred to as “thick” or “big-boned.” Again, this goes back to stereotypes of black women and their own perceived “indelicacy.” In any event, if she wants to make “reparations simply for the joy of doing it,” why not keep it in her art instead of on her Instagram? One knows it’s the twenty-first century and there are no rules of decorum, but honestly shouldn’t there still be a time and place for everything, sometimes referred to as “contextually pertinent”?
Ah but back to the “race war” LDR thinks she started (when it’s already been going on in America from the moment the colonizers arrived). Del Rey’s history with black folk is already one punctuated by hostility–you don’t see her coming for Taylor Swift, for example, who, by the way, has a song called “Delicate” (though Del Rey probably wishes she could use that title herself after all this). Instead preferring to target the likes of Azealia Banks (who starts beef with everyone) and, more recently, Kanye West with her infamous comment to him, “Trump becoming our president was a loss for the country but your support of him is a loss for the culture.” 1) This woman has an addiction to categorizing everything (in her pretentious fashion) as “the culture.” Are you aware that the U.S. has always been devoid of any culture apart from maligning–whether undercuttingly or overtly–black people? 2) Why not just speak out against Trump directly instead of passive aggressively? And 3) It isn’t her place to lash out at this person when we already knew without her singing it that “Kanye West is blonde and gone.”
Still, Del Rey has never been one for accepting criticism well, not seeming to understand that it’s part and parcel of what she’s paid for. Most glaringly, after bombing on SNL in 2012 with a performance of “Video Games” and “Blue Jeans” while dressed in a ball gown fit for a fading lounge singer, Del Rey insisted of the lambasting that followed (in fact, she probably hasn’t been criticized this much since that year), “I thought I looked beautiful and sang fine.” Question of that moment in time: is she shading Helen Keller now too with this shit?
It was in these early days of her career that Del Rey’s, yes, persona was centered on the glitz and “old school” style of donning ball gowns and having her acrylics always intact to complement her Priscilla beehive (which Amy immortalized with far more memorability). An obsession with being glamorous clearly still lingers after Del Rey slummed it in a New Jersey trailer park as part of the shtick that was popular at the time for those of the hipster variety. So it is that on Born to Die’s “Without You,” Del Rey demands, “Am I glamorous? Tell me, am I glamorous?” Yes darling, calm down. Sure you are. Even if no one has seen you put makeup on or make a sartorial effort in years as you instead opt for your hippie-dippy California looQue. But also, the thing about glamorous people is: they don’t usually need to go around touting that they are. As Del Rey does in her letter with, “I’m just a glamorous person.” Spoken like someone with a fetish for white trash. As it is the rich girl’s wont to fetishize such a thing (explaining certain boyfriend choices of her past, namely G-Eazy, known commodifier of blackness). Then, to accent just how unglamorous she was in the thick of all this, she puerilely posted the hashtag #fuckoff as a caption to another post featuring a split screen montage of her in the “Gods and Monsters” portion of her short film, Tropico. The point being to showcase herself defiantly as a stripper dancing for money, as though she was the first female artist to, what else, tragically glamorize this.
The go-to eye roll meets “leave her alone!” defense of people siding with Del Rey is that not everything is about race. Except when you literally make it about that from paragraph one in your pinpointing of the most successful women of color (excluding Ari’s spray tan) in the music business right now. Where was Halsey? Adele? Billie Eilish? Lorde? And, to a lesser extent because it doesn’t line up with Del Rey’s vision of success with a high chart performance, BANKS? Even Amy Winehouse, who might not be “relevant” on the charts anymore but whom Lana blatantly culled from, and who saw massive success in glamorizing a horrible relationship?
What’s worse about everything is that Del Rey genuinely can’t (nor seems to want to) see that she fucked up. It isn’t that people are averse to having a frank dialogue, but that Del Rey has taken on the weight of a chip on her shoulder she has no right to bear. And if she really thinks she does, she could have surely used her self-styled “writerly genius” to express it with less effrontery and self-involvement.
And so, to rework a phrase Del Rey once said to Azealia on Twitter, “LDR, u coulda been the greatest female singer alive but u blew it. don’t take it out on women of color. or any other women you accuse of not having your back for that matter.” On a side note: no men were crucified in the writing of her letter.
