While “Lola” might be on the borderline of the generation we’ve come to call Z, her birth year of 1996 makes her amply attuned to the mantras and causes of the successors to the millennial spotlight. Yet, regardless of what generation a famous person’s child is part of, they’re never too good to use the connections and clout that come with such fortune of circumstance. Thus, it’s no surprise that Lola would jump at an opportunity to work again with Stella McCartney (a.k.a. one of her mother’s best friends) on her latest installment of a long-standing adidas campaign.
Not one to let the perks of nepotism stop with just her, Lourdes also enlisted the help of one of her own friends, Anna Pollack, to film the concept, which comes across a lot like Madonna’s “Welcome to the World of Madame X,” an album teaser for 2019’s Madame X with similarly self-serious voiceovers. And yes, there are many “like mother, like daughter” qualities throughout the forty-five second promotion. Though little reference is actually made to the clothes apart from wearing them. And yet, at the same time, the prattling on about the “future” and the environment all relates to how McCartney is making these pieces for adidas out of upcycled plastic waste. Partially upcycled, mind you. Can’t be charging triple digits for complete pieces of literal garbage.
Anyway, the ad starts out with Lola in a New York dance studio (again, how very Madonna) doing some stretches before showing off more involved maneuvers. “The Earth doesn’t stop moving, so we don’t either.” We then get a “Ray of Light” treatment in the form of speeded up collage-like images of New York as a girl on her bike rides through the streets, a girl gets ready in her room, a guy rides on an elevator–and then we go back to Lola in the dance studio moving with a furor.
The frenetic pace is meant to match up with the “poignant” voiceover, “Whether it’s rushing to work [bitch please, when have you ever had to rush to work?], going out, standing on the subway, cars speeding to and fro, consuming, amusing. We must understand our role, our power, our strength. When we go out into the beyond. When we move outside our perimeter, we understand our connection. To the planet. Environment. To one another. So while we skip, hop, jump, sway, slide, bend, snap, we are planting our feet in the ground. Growing seeds of our own. Seeds for growth. So when challenges arise, we do not back down. We push forward. Together. Consciously.”
The ad then concludes with the title card: READY FOR THE WORLD. For it to what, consume us with its too long dormant vitriol? A vitriol that has clearly started to manifest as large swathes of the planet–not just California–are being consumed by flames. No, of course not, Lola wants to send the message that her generation is ready for the world to take on a new outlook, one that is “greener,” more environmentally ethical. Oh dear. If even rich people like ya ma can’t make such a thing happen, what makes a girl believe a new generation of richies can really stop the machine that keeps the fossil fuels churning? And besides, how does anyone from Gen Z ever think they’re going to top the millennial message helmed by Recycle Rex?
To play up the whole “let’s lick our own assholes by trying to lick the environment’s” angle, portions of the ad were shot in the wetlands outside of the city. Protections on such lands are always tenuous despite their touted ability to “trap pollutants, capture stormwater runoff, sequester carbon dioxide, moderate storm surges, provide habitat for local and migratory birds, fish and other wildlife, and create a unique opportunity for New Yorkers to observe wildlife and to undertake other quiet, contemplative recreation.” Mhmmmm, ‘cause New Yorkers are nothing if not “quiet” and “contemplative.”
Anyway, it’s the same old fucking song Gen Z likes to sing. While Billie Eilish actually sings it, Greta Thunberg gets belligerent, delivering a stink eye like she’s been possessed by a demon, and maybe she has–a lot of weird folkloric shit goes down in Sweden. It’s not a bad song to sing, no, but it is hypocritical as Gen Z continues to relish all the “benefits” that come with pillaging the Earth. Like wearing “fashionable” clothes (which always require mass manufacturing and packaging, no matter how many sustainable materials they’re made out of) or generally engaging in the capitalist behavior that none of us can avoid, no matter how much we decry it. As Mark Fisher said, “It is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism.” It is rooted in everything we do, an infestation that no amount of Gen Z pluckiness or a “can-do” attitude can mitigate. Sure, there are small measures each of us can take to vaguely obfuscate the scourge that we are upon the Earth, but unless the system of capitalism falls, the Earth will never repair. Destined to only worsen until the next Ice Age or asteroid hits to wipe us out. And, if we’re being honest, the world of fame that both Lourdes and Madonna inhabit is pretty goddamn reliant on capitalism.
But still, Lourdes was instructed well by her baby boomer mother. Indoctrinated with the belief that she, as a public figure, has a social responsibility to put forth messages of positivity and hope. This ad, indeed, is the sort of video interlude one could easily find filling a gap between songs in one of Madonna’s live shows. And yet, all we’re really seeing is the promotion of another product. Capitalism evolving to cater to the tastes of Gen Z needing to believe they’re somehow doing their part to help the environment, when the only help to it would have been that they were never born.
