Claire wrote:heist wrote:Claire wrote:
ok heres another thoguht i have about cellophane
theres literally nothing interesting to me about a woman on a stripper pole ?? lmao. like its not innovative. it's clearly done for and by a male gaze. you can try and debate me that its empowering LMAO but look for example at the 45 second mark of the video the poses being made here. that shits not empowering lmao. thats for the male gaze im not empowered by males looking at my body males looking at my body is a literally huge problem lmao.
i cant get excited about it. its not like visually even that interesting to me lmao. its the whole video. a woman on a stripper pole. she gets a glimpse of a generic contemporary interpretation of heaven. like cool. im not sure what it has to do with the songs story. which is 'please love me' pick me shit tbh. and imean no offense with that lmao like i get it i've FELT that way, i came in like a wrecking ball and all that shit and its PRETTY but it isnt like interesting. lmao. she's on a stripper pole presenting herself as a sexual object for someone who doesnt want her.
artists steal motifs all the time? thats part of art? you steal shit? it sucks seeing a man steal from a woman again like we see in all of art history but literally what does it even represent in the cellophane video? nas's video takes the motif and incorporates it into a much larger AND MUCH MORE INTERESTING story.
nas's stripper pole IS however empowering. it shoots up into his hand like it's thors hammer.
this is what artists do. they steal shit from each other and improve on it and work on it and maybe they did the director dude dirty but sounds to me like they tried to get him involved because they knew what tehy wanted to do for the video and for one reason or another it didnt work out. it doesnt matter. marcel duchamp can write 'she has a fat ass' under the mona lisa and thats his art now. if you wanna make a shot for shot remake ill pause and say ok maybe this art is plagiarized but literally just borrowing a motif like this is just what artists do.
Bad take claire
cellophane and its video are not "please love me pick me shit" it's more about the way the press / the public eye affected her and pattinson's relationship and her realizing that nothing she could ever do would be enough to stop the barrage of racist attacks she was receiving because she was dating him, like it's not just why don't you love me it's Why don't you say anything about your racist fans who are calling me a monkey every day
also i feel like its reductive to say that a stripper pole can be suddenly empowering only when it's in a man's hands? not that i think twigs is using the stripper pole as an empowering thing, to me it seems more of a comment on the way she was forced to perform femininity for the press / robert pattinson's fans, then the moment where she ascends to heaven and destroys that figure of herself seems like a moment of ego death where she steps away from the relationship / this image of herself to begin to create something new
you can like nas's video but twigs's song/video are definitely not generic
and yes artists steal shit / reference all the time but it feels different when cellophane was snubbed at the grammys for that video + old town road won (which lets be honest is not grammy deserving video, it was just super viral) and the fact that nas's team approached the director for cellophane and didn't hire him but still went ahead and basically remade his work in many ways is super sus
man its hard to get any of that story though without literally being told about it though. if you dont know this artist you dont know anything about what this story is about- so my interpretation only be based on what im seeing and the lyrics im hearing. it absolutely does sound like a person begging to be loved- pick me shit. which isnt necessarily like a diss its a universal feeling. but its not innovative. its pretty. and like i shouldnt have to know an artists backstory to know what theyre telling me. the work should speak for itself and this one just didnt. whereas compared to the nas video i know exactly what hes trying to tell me (yes im goin to hell for bein gay and im gonna have a blast doing it).
i've bolded what you said that's extra convincing here i dont have anything to respond to it with aside from like i get i see it now and thanks for explaining it that way. i dont see any... like i dont see her being
forced to perform the femininity in the video i just see her like DOING it without any context. (of course were all forced to perform feminity on a daily basis but were not SEEING that part of it in this video.)
the fallon performance is prettier. like shes just doin ballet on a pole in the fallon performance. that's not like super male gaze shit the way its presented in the video. that's just ballet. and maybe that difference is in part because the video has a male director.
man im ready to say the grammys need to just die fuckin racist ass award show just rewards people for making money really.
anyway i'm really glad were having this discussion cause the song stuck in my head today is absolutely ccellophane lmao.
yeeeeeeah i kinda get that its not really that legible on first read tho and definitely agree re the video being on the more male gazey side