Lana Del Rey

the sense I get is that LDR-the-performer wants you to believe this is real while LDR-the-author wants you to know how screwed up it is.

I don't know how you can possibly parse this kind of dichotomy in a productive way but fwiw, I'm not convinced that is true.

i understand why you would read it that way. she repeats video games over and over (and it's the title of the song). that seems to code culturally as a guy that is immature, neglectful, etc, so a critical voice interpolating and making the critique explicit through repetition.

but i think there's an equally valid interpretation that she reads this as a moment of intimacy. "and you say get over here / and play a video game" could be read as an invitation to join him (i don't get a sense of explicit rejection by the video game player), and i think that reading makes even more sense syntactical sense than the alternative. "go play a video game," doesn't have an obvious negative interpretation. "this is my idea of fun / playing video games" - actually equates her own agency + enjoyment with playing video games. i don't even see the other way of reading that line -- that her idea of fun (watching friends fall in and out of Old Pauls) is just as alienating and passive as watching her boyfriend play video games? maybe...

Perhaps replace "LDR-the-performer" with "LDR-the-character". I feel that the character "means it" as much as a character in a book or a tv show or film does.

no, i understood what you meant. i'm just pushing against the notion that there's necessarily a critical voice w/ more distance than the character

there's of course our own critical voice as listeners + i do believe texts include multiple levels of meaning (cf. Derrida)

just being bad isn't interesting.

But she wasn't "just bad." She was human, which WAS interesting imo.

more that it can't be taken only as literal - the sense I get is that LDR-the-performer wants you to believe this is real while LDR-the-author wants you to know how screwed up it is.

i'm a big fan of "lady in satan" -- i don't think ldr's performance here was nearly as good as that album, really, but i can see ways in which it achieves a kind of beauty that i also hear in lady in satan.

contenderizer re 'dripping pig-blood carrie style' i dunno if you were actually referring to it or not but in case not; here's one of the photos from Q mag's latest issue!
http://www.theprophetblog.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Lana-Del-Rey-Q-Magazine-Carrie-2.jpg

It's not so much playing video games that has a negative interpretation as:

"I tell you all the time: heaven is a place on earth where you tell me all the things you wanna do."

This line is too revealing, I think, not to imply the critical voice.

edit that last post variously: is = are, it's = its, etc.

contenderizer re 'dripping pig-blood carrie style' i dunno if you were actually referring to it or not but in case not; here's one of the photos from Q mag's latest issue!

DAMN! no, i pulled that out of the air. holy shit.

i would agree if i didn't think LDR was attempting to arouse explicitly sexual interest. thing is, genuine erotic allure generally doesn't allow for that kind of ambiguity. regardless of whatever art-games the author might be playing, the core of the "sexy" must read as 100% real in order to function properly.

This proposition strikes me as both unfounded and incorrect.

IME such ambiguity generates erotic allure.

In fact a lot of romantic and/or sexual yearning is built around the ultimate unknowability of the object's feelings and intentions, whereas transparency encourages familiarity which encourages boredom.

i dunno. if vulnerability is sexy, then any erotica appeal based on vulnerability must seem "real" in some sense in order to generate the frisson. and if ambiguity is the point of appeal, then the ambiguity must seem real. if it's intelligence, then the intelligence must seem real, etc.

and maybe "real" is the wrong word. maybe i just mean that the siren song must be erotically convincing on some level. i'd argue that, as erotica, on a strictly sexual level, the battered desperation of the narrator of "video games" is and is supposed to be erotically convincing.

maybe i'm wrong though.

Number 7 in Pazz/Jop

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, January 17, 2012 8:14 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

kinda fun to have that announced the day everyone's running "critics EVISCERATE lana del rey" headlines

1st "erotica" = "erotic"

*sigh*

"I tell you all the time: heaven is a place on earth where you tell me all the things you wanna do."

seems very sincere to me actually! where are you reading critical distance into this line?

it reminds me of the scene in High Fidelity where the ex complains to John Cusack that he never talks about what he wants to do + his future anymore

anyway, "carrie" would have been a much better SNL look than "whooping cough"

i dunno. if vulnerability is sexy, then any erotica appeal based on vulnerability must seem "real" in some sense in order to generate the frisson. and if ambiguity is the point of appeal, then the ambiguity must seem real. if it's intelligence, then the intelligence must seem real, etc.

and maybe "real" is the wrong word. maybe i just mean that the siren song must be erotically convincing on some level. i'd argue that, as erotica, on a strictly sexual level, the battered desperation of the narrator of "video games" is and is supposed to be erotically convincing.

I think you're applying a fairly rigid framework for the operation of desire here.

Vulnerability isn't sexy as some kind of standalone concept such that the more purely it is presented the more enticing it is. The things we find erotic are always performances or articulations, weaving together a host of ideas and resemblances and implications and relationships and assumptions (on the part of the audience).

To determine objectively whether something was "erotically convincing" you'd need to exhaustively define that articulation first.

But I think that one of the things that can result in a performance seeming erotically charged is how it can exceed or go beyond the concepts which the observer brings to the table, and refuses to be limited by them (apologies for the psuedo-lacan). So an observer not really knowing how to box LDR's performance strikes me as being as capable as generating desire as the observer being able to box it squarely and neatly as "vulnerable".

agree with all that, but i'm not trying to prove my case objectively and don't think anything would be served by an exhaustive attempt to define terms and frame my argument. perhaps i am applying a rather "rigid" framework to the operation of desire, but i'm speaking more in general terms than trying to account for all cases and variations. in general, i do believe that erotic offerings must be erotically convincing on their own terms in order to "work". and i do believe that the core of LDR's erotic offering in "video games" is desperate self-negation. i don't find any fault in this, but i am a bit suspicious of attempts to excuse or deny it.

it seems to me that the best counterargument to mordy's point isn't that LDR's self-abasement is distanced gender play, but rather that we're often far too quick to pass simplistic political judgement on eroticized female submissiveness.

morelike lana del GAY amirite????

no idea why i'm getting into this but...

i don't get how you could possibly watch the video for "video games" and not see ambiguity and critical distance. after reading the first wave of responses to the video and watching it i was surprised at how much was made of her character's attitude towards her video game-playing boyfriend (which to me seemed intentionally vague and somewhat beside the point,) and how little was made of the double meaning of the song title, which if you watch the video, seems pretty obviously to be about her put-on persona and performing for the camera, she's playing video games. the emphasis on cameras in the video, the footage of sunset strip, the way her look and sound quote cliches of past pop starlets, it reeks of irony and self-consciousness. btw, you can't accuse me of giving her too much credit w/o exposing yourself as a misogynist. so yeah, i think i agree with tom e's take on it.

ps: this has no bearing on her snl performance which was definitely bad and not intentionally vulnerable or w/e.

omg that double meaning doesn't exist get out of here

idk, maybe it's too pat, but its what i thought when i first saw the video

video games = games you play with video? cute.

agree with everything karl just said. my point isn't that she lacks complexity as an artist, but rather that the erotic offering she very clearly and intentionally projects (both musically and in the "video games" video) is not similarly complex. it's quite simple, and it leans in a simple way on vulnerability and need.

even though that song is simple i do think it would be hard to sing live on t.v. unless you are REALLY good at performing live cuz its kinda like singing a capella. you have to captivate. when i hear the studio stuff by her i always wish someone who could sing was singing the songs. cuz the songs are catchy and compelling, and the right person could do them justice. someone who can really sing should cover video games immediately. someone more soulful.

i think you just disagreed w/ everything he said? xp

i'm not disagreeing, i'm distinguishing between different levels in the functioning of artistic personas.

i mean, is there any way that the voice, persona or video clearly intend to read as "not sexy"?

are the narrator's vulnerability and desperation ever clearly questioned, subverted or made to seem less than erotically alluring?

The singer also revealed that she was "trying to look smart and well turned-out, rather than 'sexy' [in the music video]. Of course I wanted to look good, but 'smart' was the primary focus."[3]

^^^ this is kind of hilarious to me and feels like her whole thing in a nutshell

I assume that by now Griel Marcus has compared this song to Betty's audition in Mulholland Drive.

kinda feel like she could work on the sexy thing along with the singing thing. if sexy is what she is aiming for. she does pitiful pretty good. and pouty. and she definitely has model looks, so, i'm sure with a good acting/singing/sexy coach she'll be the whole package in no time.

"I tell you all the time: heaven is a place on earth where you tell me all the things you wanna do."

huh, i heard it as "with" not "where" -- not a huge difference, admittedly

it's definitely "heaven is a place on earth with you"

sorry if i haven't read the entire thread, but, have we discussed that the bf in this song seems kinda lame?

are the narrator's vulnerability and desperation ever clearly questioned, subverted or made to seem less than erotically alluring?

Sorry contenderizer, I just don't understand why you think critical distance = "made to seem less than erotically alluring."

Running with the Lynch reference, I would compare the narrator of the song to the two female leads in the first half of Mulholland Drive - clearly "not real" fantasies that are also deeply alluring, and moreover, alluring as fantasies, as something that not only "is not" but also "cannot be".

it's definitely "heaven is a place on earth with you"

this slightly weakens my position, I'll admit, but not enough to make me retreat from it.

oh i don't have a dog in this discussion i was just being a lyrics pedant

the lyric that Tim heard is a better lyric, but that's not what it actually says. horseshoe otm

I often find myself mentally improving songs in this way.

Probably a Belinda Carlisle ref.

Belinda seemed to have more lively and interesting bf's

i assumed it was a belinda carlisle reference, too. i don't really get the song.

I just don't understand why you think critical distance = "made to seem less than erotically alluring."

i don't! i assume LDR knows exactly what she's playing with and that the song is delivered in character. i recognize and appreciate the sophistication of the whole. i'm only talking about the use and quality of eroticism as part of the surface appeal. on that level, the performance and video strike me as quite simple. would compare the seductive aspects to mazzy star and lynch's "dark" heroines.

the sense I get is that LDR-the-performer wants you to believe this is real while LDR-the-author wants you to know how screwed up it is

yeah this is definitely what i think, which is why all the arguments along the lines of "lana del rey is reinforcing unhelpful gender stereotypes and setting a Bad Example to young women" were so reductive. it's a great song because it conveys how much the narrator wants to believe in the relationship, to the extent that she's prepared to play a submissive or helpless role, while also conveying that the situation is fucked up.

i read the double meaning of "video games" as relating to the general out-of-body feeling of the song, as though she's seeing herself inhabit this role but despite that awareness is unable to snap herself out of it - kind of like she's unable to control her character in a video game.

^^^^^^^

Lex speaks truth.

half-baked idea alert: I don't like invoking this kind of thing but I suspect that this aspect of the song would make intuitive sense to a lot of gay people.

w/r/t sexiness, it's obvious to me that the submissiveness/passivity/helplessness that del rey plays in the song goes hand in hand with a certain idea of sexiness, and the song makes it quite clear that it's just an idea of sexiness, one that's as helpful to the narrator as the passive helplessness. whether the listener actually finds it sexy is neither here nor there.

memo to str8 dudes: just because a female performer sings and performs ideas of sexiness in her work does not mean that "does this give me a boner" should be your litmus test of whether she's any good as an artist. it's not about YOU.