Lana Del Ray's Ride

I have only recently come across Lana Del Ray and that is only due to the Feminist backlash to her being named GQ's Woman of the Year and being the only winner to be nude on the cover. Coincidentally, she was the only woman. It's fairly obvious that her value to GQ was for her body rather than her career as a talented musician; a situation which isn't exactly abnormal in the music industry. Today, for the first time, I have actually watched one of Del Ray's music videos: Ride. I came across whilst researching the backlash to No Doubt's newest video for my piece of Victoria Secret's cultural appropriation of the Plains Indian' warbonnet which is frequently used as a cultural signifier for the entire Native Peoples, First Nations, Metis and Inuit of North America. The reductive use of the warbonnet as a cultural signifier is, simply, racist so I was disappointed to see yet another female singer using the Plains Indian warbonnet as part of their sexualised eroticisation of abuse.

Lana Del Ray's video is beautifully deconstructed here and here. There is very little I can add to these deconstructions except to say how incredibly depressing and distressing I find the eroticisation of sexual abuse and the forced prostitution of women's bodies. It is that same old "the child is responsible for their own abuse and continuing self-harm as an adult" with no contextualisation whatsoever of how the adult woman came to be in trapped in self-destructive behaviour. The video features Del Ray as a "wild child" who "believes in the country American used to be". Manifest Destiny anyone? The whole issue racism exhibited by Del Ray running about being "crazy" in a Plains Indian warbonnet aside, the video is an incredibly disturbing tribute to the sexual abuse of a young woman at the hands of many men, most of whom are old enough to be her father. It is both racist and misogynist and Del Ray is far too talented for this type of shit.