Norman Fucking Rockwell and the Male Gaze
Lana Del Rey and Lizzo (Universal Music and Atlantic Recording Company)
“I miss Long Beach and I miss you, babe,” Lana Del Rey croons, a pastel-painted American Dream dripping from her lips as she begs her lover not to leave. This direct address is not alone on Del Rey’s most recent album, Norman Fucking Rockwell!—in fact, the only song from the record that forgoes the use of the second-person is a cover, “Doin’ Time,” notable mostly for its reclamation of Bradley Nowell’s flagrant misogyny—and in many ways this motif of “you” feels most significant on an album overflowing with them. The assumedly male object addressed throughout is almost always in power: he is capable of breaking Del Rey’s heart on “Fuck it I love you”; his immature tendencies torment her on the album’s title track; on “hope is a dangerous thing…” he ignores the singer’s histrionics and assumes she is doing better than she lets on.
Men are no strangers to Lana Del Rey’s world—the singer has, since her fully-formed arrival in 2012, wrapped her muted magnificence around tales of the plight, pain, and pleasure of male interaction. “Video Games,” Del Rey’s breakthrough single, portrayed domesticity as supposedly blissful subservience, reveling in big kisses and big arms while submitting to borderline rape fantasies. The men in Lana Del Rey’s music are powerful beings whose desires, more often than not, come before those of women.
Lana Del Rey’s nostalgia-soaked hymns to domesticity and womanhood have long walked a fine line between satire and adoration, with the artist’s persona inseparable from the very real woman at the center of her music. Norman Fucking Rockwell!, released two weeks ago, marks something of a departure for Lana Del Rey—although it still absolutely centers the men in the singer’s life, it seems somewhat more aware of the intricacies of interpersonal relationships, more willing to recognize a “man child” when it stands in front of her.
Lana Del Rey’s use of “you” in Norman Fucking Rockwell! reconfigures members of her audience as potential subjects rather than third-person objects. The direct address throughout the album, and throughout Del Rey’s discography, brings into focus the men who, for better or worse, have inserted themselves into the singer’s life (real or imagined). In these narratives the distinction between audience and performer blurs; the life Lana Del Rey lives is inextricable from those of the people whom she addresses. In addressing her listening audience and the men in her narratives simultaneously, Lana Del Rey encourages those listeners to identify with the powerful, often toxic, men who dominate Del Rey’s stories. Although her dual address never explicitly fuses her two audiences, Lana Del Rey implicates her listeners in the singer’s knotty view of femininity.
Norman Fucking Rockwell! was released into a world increasingly saturated with women-led pop music. Lizzo and Cardi B are selling out stadiums and Beyoncé continues to be, well, Beyoncé. Billie Eilish is redefining our image of a pop star at the age of 17 while men seem to be playing catch up behind her. Although we are far from an equal playing field (or even one in which men in power don’t abuse their station to exclude women and groom minors), we are slowly moving away from the explicit exclusionism that has defined pop music for its entire existence.
Each of these is a positive development—it is absolutely essential that women and non-binary people are encouraged to stand atop the platforms from which they have so long been pushed off. However, often missing from the conversation about women’s increasing successes on the largest stages are discussions concerning the consumption of their art.
Lizzo’s motive behind a body-loving anthem like “Good As Hell,” for example, is clear enough to suss at a distance: self-love coupled with (because cynicism is necessary) desire for commercial appeal. (Interestingly, and importantly, the “you” addressed in Lizzo’s music is presumably not a man: here, women and non-binary individuals are given not only a confidence-building anthem, but also subjecthood.) But an audience’s motivation to consume this art is a bit murkier: is there some amount of objectification inherent to hearing a woman talk so freely about her body? Have we truly progressed past the damaging misogyny that requires music like Lizzo’s to exist in the first place?
Much has already been said of Lizzo allowing her music to be used in a Weight Watchers commercial: nearly anything can be commodified if you squint hard enough. But how should we interact with this art? Where do we draw the line between female empowerment and the male gaze? Obviously, there is no easy answer—it is the responsibility of any conscientious music-listener to seek out music created by people with a wide range of identities, to further this push towards equity.
My friends told me about an awkward moment in the Made in America festival that quite literally spotlights this conflict between production and consumption. During her set, Lizzo began twerking, leaving the cameraman apparently unsure whether to focus the camera on Lizzo’s body, thus displaying her on the jumbotron, or point away.
Lizzo’s twerking is, first and foremost, a defiant act of femininity, a declaration of her own body as powerful and capable and—most importantly—not an object. However, when a man operating a camera zooms in on Lizzo’s body is he undermining that protest? Objectification, obviously, originates with the consumer, but it is unclear what to make of focusing a camera on a woman’s body, thus allowing a subversive act to be widely consumed by an audience capable of both appreciation and objectification.
The answer becomes even less clear when discussing the music of a singer like Lana Del Rey, an artist whose artistic intentions are often much more elusive. Music that aspires for subservience can be an act of satire, a running commentary on what we expect of women in the 21st century. Regardless of whether Del Rey intends this critique, however, it is impossible to ignore that hers is on some level male-centric music, music that addresses a male “you” whenever given a chance (except, unsurprisingly, on the song written by a man).
Lana Del Rey’s music can serve as female empowerment owing to the simple fact that it is hugely popular music made by a woman. However, the consumption of this music that jockeys for male affection—music that celebrates the male gaze much more than it does any independent femininity—must affect the extent to which this empowerment is possible. While Del Rey provides a model for women succeeding in a system pushing against them, her music and how it may be consumed complicate that model: is it an inherently anti-feminist act to consume music that so proudly proclaims anti-feminist ideals?
Especially when considering the current moment of “stan” culture in which Lana Del Rey and other superstars are fawned and obsessed over (to the extent that their fans proudly wear the stalker/fan portmanteau from an Eminem song about a parasocial relationship), do we truly value women artists for themselves, or is our consumption of their art just a more palatable form of objectification?
Clearly, women and non-binary artists deserve, and regularly receive, praise that extends beyond any attempts at voyeurism. However, it is counterproductive to assume that the consumption of this art is inherently edifying. In a 1996 essay published in The Wire magazine, Simon Reynolds posited that part of hip hop’s near-universal appeal is in its “realness,” in part its ability to expose the atrocities of “late capitalist economic instability, institutionalized racism, and increased surveillance and harassment of youth by the police.”
Lizzo rarely converses with these issues in the same way that gangster rap, for example, does; offered in Cuz I Love You is not an unrelenting worldview of violence and oppression, but instead a self-love-lined escape route. Allowing this music to exist is essential; allowing women to produce it is equally important. However, we (men in particular) cannot simply swaddle ourselves in the knowledge that this music is being made—we must constantly evaluate the intent and impact of our listening.