Still from Lil Nas X's "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)" music video
If you have been on Twitter the past few weeks or so, you likely saw all of the discourse surrounding Lil Nas X's music video for his new song "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)". The title is a combination of his birth name, Montero Lamar Hill, and the popular 2017 LGBTQ+ film starring Timothee Chalamet and directed by Luca Guadagnino, "Call Me By Your Name." The song and video alike appear to represent Lil Nas X coming into his own and fully embracing who he is without the shame that others try to impose upon him.
Still From Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road" music video
Lil Nas gained immense popularity and recognition initially due to his 2019 viral country rap hit "Old Town Road." The song became well known through TikTok and to the mainstream media from there. He garnered so much mainstream success that a later version was released with renowned country singer Billy Ray Cyrus. Old Town Road spend 19 weeks on the Billboard Top 100 chart and the album that the song was featured on, Rodeo, got to #22 on the charts as well. A lot of Old Town Road's success was in part due to how family friendly it was; children loved the song and he would perform it at schools from time to time because of this. During this time, he came out as gay to the general public and from my perspective, the responses I saw were generally positive but I'm sure from Montero's perspective, he probably received a lot of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric from conservative religious people.
Collage of photos from Lil Nas X's instagram courtesy of Allure Magazine
Over the past 2 years, Lil Nas has begun to reveal more and more of his personality and sense of humor. Providing us with amazing and hilarious content through his TikTok and Twitter accounts primarily and we have loved every second of it. Well, most of us anyways. With more of his personality coming to the forefront, his content has also become less kid-friendly...because he is an adult. For most, this is not an issue and was honestly an inevitable outcome, but for conservative parents, Lil Nas simply being himself is problematic to them. This came to a peak upon the release of the music video for "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)". Along with Religious people getting angry over a music video that has not effect on their lives whatsoever, people were mad at him for being a "bad influence" on their children as if 1) Lil Nas is raising their children, not them and 2) there aren't thousands of other things on the internet alone that could "corrupt" their kids significantly more than this one music video.
Press Photo for "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)" from Lil Nas X's instagram
Press Photo for "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)" from Lil Nas X's instagram
Still from the "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)" music video
The video is a 3 minute and 10 second long video which begins with a monologue from Lil Nas stating,
"In life, we hide the parts of ourselves we don't want the world to see. We lock them away, we tell them no, we banish them...but here, we don't. Welcome to Montero."
This monologue tells you the basic premise of the video and song alike. Lil Nas previously felt as is he needed to hide his sexuality from the world in order to be more well liked, accepted, marketable, and in an ideal world, he would not feel the need to lock away that aspect of himself. The video starts with Lil Nas presumably in a Garden of Eden type setting, getting seduced by a otherworldly looking creature, then being pup on trial due to this. We can assume this character is put to death for these actions because in the next scene we see him ascending towards a heavenly being, but then a pole emerges and he grabs it, voluntarily descending straight to Hell instead. Then comes infamous scene which doesn't even last for that long where Lil Nas gives the devil a lap dance then goes behind him, snaps his neck, steals his horns and puts them onto himself now becoming the new leader of Hell.
To me, the video shows religious zealots spouting hateful speech and condemning a gay man to hell for the rest of eternity because of his sexuality, then the man reclaims his damnation by turning it into something beneficial for him. This video is filled with so much symbolism, especially when you take into consideration its short run time. Yet all of the symbols were portrayed in a pretty straightforward manner, so if you actually watched it, it would be pretty clear for you to understand what it's trying to say. So the people who watched the video and the only thing they took away from it was that Lil Nas gave the devil a lap dance...they simply intentionally ignored the nuance that the video was trying to portray. Instead of making note of the critique on Christianity the video showcases, some religious people instead accused him of going "too far" and focused only on the satan imagery alone, accusing him of satanism. Lil Nas responded to the religious outrage in a tweet that simply stated, "i spent my entire teenage years hating myself because of the shit y’all preached would happen to me because i was gay. so i hope u are mad, stay mad, feel the same anger you teach us to have towards ourselves."
One of the things that perplexed me the most, is that using Christian imagery in art is nothing new. During Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" era, Catholicism was basically the whole concept of the album with songs like "Judas" , "Bloody Mary" and the title track, "Born This Way" all serving as both introspective prices of art but as critiques of Christianity as well. I remember there being a bit of outrage but don't remember it being to the same extent. Perhaps it is just in part because of how different social media is used now compared to how it was used in 2011, only 10 years later. All I remember from that time were just a lot of YouTube conspiracy videos claiming that certain artists, including Lady Gaga of course, were devil worshipers and part of the illuminati; they would slow down songs and play them in reverse and make comments like, "see, in this part of the song she's saying, 'all hail satan' it's subliminal messaging." These videos were so fringe that it was somewhat ridiculous to believe them, but some people certainly did. And that's how I feel about all the religious people who are enraged over this video. Lil Nas seemingly shares this perspective in a recent tweet where he says, "i’m gonna be so pissed if i don’t get any illuminati conspiracy videos. i worked so hard for this."
Still from FKA Twigs' "Cellophane" music video
Still from Lil Nas X's "Montero (CAll Me By Your Name)" music video
Other outrage over the video that was not related to religion or being a good influence on children related to the similarities between the Montero video and the video for FKA Twigs' 2019 song "Cellophane" from the album " MAGDALENE" (that also had strong religious themes, which again, is a very common thing in art). The similarities were initially pointed out by the director of Twigs' video, Andrew Thomas Huang and fans alike. Thomas and others, posted videos and photos of side by side comparisons of certain shots in each video including: the rejection of a heavenly figure and descending from the heavens on a pole into the depths of, presumably, a hell or underworld type setting with similar color schemes. Lil Nas even had the same choreographer as Twigs, Kelly Yvonne. After Thomas posted a long Twitter thread about the situation, Lil Nas and Twigs spoke over the phone. Afterwards, he publicly posted on instagram stating that "cellophane" was a "visual masterpiece", acknowledged the similarities between their videos and gave Twigs and her team props for their hard work. Twigs in turn, posted a heartwarming message on instagram thanking Lil Nas for the conversation and his acknowledgement. She also complimented his video and thanked sex workers and strippers for, in her words, "providing the physical language to make both videos possible" which is an extremely important note to make. In the end, the credit that Twigs and her team deserved was given, which is all they wanted.
Lil Nas X's Press Photo for the "Satan Shoes"
The last bit of outrage relating to this song revolves around Lil Nas X's Nike "Satan Shoes." These shoes were made between Lil Nas and a company that specializes in Nike shoe customs. They sold 666 pairs and there is apparently a singular drop of human blood within the soles of each pair. There are 2 types of controversy surrounding the shoes: 1) religious people accusing him of Satanism yet again and 2) corporate anger. The religious discussions are pretty much the same ones that surrounded the video, so there's not much to add in that regard, but the corporate anger is a bit more interesting. Nike, being the capitalist juggernaut they are, was mad that this company was profiting over these shoes and not them. They simply capitalized off of the "Satanic Panic" by denouncing their involvement with the shoe when in reality, they would have prefered to have put the shoes out themselves so that they would profit from it instead. They have since sued the company and have also tried to prevent the orders that have already been fulfilled from getting shipped out. I don't know if they really have the power to do that, but considering how massive of a corporation they are, it wouldn't be shocking. People are allowed to make customs, but apparently it only becomes an issue if they sell over a certain amount. Nike doesn't appear to be suing Lil Nas X or his team, just the company that made the shoes and have put a temporary restraining order on the company as well, halting future sales. So to anyone who was uncertain of Nike's motives, it should now be clear that they only care about money...surprise, surprise.
Still from Lil Nas X's "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)" music video
In conclusion, artistic expression can get artists in unnecessary hot water when people who refuse to understand the nuance of their work get ahold of it. Critiquing the exclusivity of Christianity, the most prominent religion in the US, is nothing new whether that be through visual arts, performing arts, writing, or philosophy. When people refuse to understand what is being portrayed to them and look within to see if they uphold the systems the piece is critiquing, it does nothing to help the situation and they just keep perpetuating the discrimination. One of the most mind-boggling things I have discovered this past year is that The Bible originally never said anything about homosexuality, it was talking about pedophilia. I can't help but wonder how different the world would be in regards to how LGBTQ+ people are treated if that part of the Bible wasn't intentionally misconstrued. All of the Christian people who use the Bible as their basis for hate on one hand while claiming to love everyone on the other hand deserved to be critiqued by the people who they condemn, terrorize and bully on a regular basis. Most people don't wake up choosing to be apart of a marginalized group, especially if they are already apart of another one (for example Lil Nas X, a gay black man). They are simply living their lives as the people they are intended to be and don't deserve to be harassed by people who think that their existence is a sin. Their existence is not a sin, everyone is just trying to get by and live a happy life in a world that they were involuntarily thrust into.
References:
Link to the Music Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6swmTBVI83k
https://www.russh.com/lil-nas-x-new-single-montero-call-me-by-your-name-music-video/
https://www.nylon.com/entertainment/lil-nas-x-call-me-by-your-name-satanic-panic-twitter-trolls
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2021-03-31/lil-nas-x-praises-fka-twigs-after-montero-video-accused-of-copying-her-ideas
https://www.cnn.com/style/article/lil-nas-x-mschf-satan-nike-shoes/index.html
https://www.insider.com/lil-nas-x-satan-shoes-collaboration-human-blood-2021-3
