It’s part of a wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation being proposed around the country - per CNN, at the start of 2021, lawmakers in 14 states were pushing legislation aimed at restricting the rights of LGBTQ+ people, and particularly trans kids and teens.
On March 29, Arkansas passed a bill that will ban hormone treatment for trans youth in the state. His parody of hell invites marginalized queer and trans people to drop their fears and be their fullest selves in this life. He rejects the notion that hell is a place to fear at all. With one Satanic lap dance, he refuses to repress who he is for the sake of Christian comfort or out of fear of retribution. Lil Nas X is not saying, “LGBTQ+ people are going to hell,” rather, he is reimagining the relationship between perceived sin and punishment. To that, Lil Nas X said, if I am going to hell for being myself, I will gladly do so and make that sh*t gay.īy offering a version of hell that is erotic and that embraces queerness, Lil Nas X undermines the darker visions of hell used to scare LGBTQ+ people into straightness. It tells us, incessantly, that if we choose to live authentically as queer people, we will literally go to hell. Lil Nas X said, if I am going to hell for being myself, I will gladly do so and make that sh*t gay. Kristi Noem of South Dakota claimed on Twitter that the video’s imagery was emblematic of the “ fight for our nation’s soul.” It was too ironic: Huge swaths of Christianity suggests that queers will go to hell, yet Christians are angry when a queer person accepts that, moves in, and decorates. Critics suggested the video promoted satanism, and Gov. Others, including celebrities and politicians, condemned the work as sacrilegious, especially the depiction of hell as a site for liberated queerness. In response to the video, many lauded Lil Nas X for his brave and potentially transformative depiction of the relationship between Christianity and queer identity. All 666 of the limited edition “Satan Shoes,” supposedly containing a drop of human blood, sold out in under a minute.
Alongside the video, the rap singer-songwriter and man-about-Twitter released an exclusive sneaker in partnership with the art collective MSCHF. The video, released on March 26, received both praise and backlash on social media for its transgressive depiction of Christian heaven and hell, filtered through queer identity: Lil Nas X reenacts the biblical fall of man (playing the role of Eve, not Adam), dies and (briefly) ascends to heaven, and then chooses to descend to hell - where he gives Satan a lap dance in thigh high stiletto boots. Vary praised the video, calling it monumental “to see a 21-year-old gay man express his sexuality on exactly the same terms - and at the same level of fame, success and media attention - his straight counterparts have enjoyed for decades.Are you even a celebrity if you’re not stirring things up? With his new hit single "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)" - and its accompanying video - Lil Nas X is making people talk. so i hope u are mad, stay mad, feel the same anger you teach us to have towards ourselves.ĭespite the haters, Lil Nas X’s “Montero” video has also been met with love and support from the LGBTQ+ community. 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.” “I spent my entire teenage years hating myself because of the shit y’all preached would happen to me because I was gay,” Lil Nas X wrote.
“I know we promised to never come out publicly, I know we promised to never be ‘that’ type of gay person, I know we promised to die with the secret, but this will open doors for many other queer people to simply exist,” he wrote.ĭrawing upon that letter, Lil Nas X tweeted at the critics to “stay mad.” When the music video was released, Lil Nas X penned a heartfelt note to his younger self, in which he described his coming out journey. me sliding down a cgi pole isn’t what’s destroying society. There is a mass shooting every week that our government does nothing to stop. “Me sliding down a CGI pole isn’t what’s destroying society.” “There is a mass shooting every week that our government does nothing to stop,” Lil Nas X wrote. Lil Nas X kept the comebacks coming in response to another since-deleted tweet, which claimed that Lil Nas X’s display of his sexuality is “destroying society.”
i am not gonna spend my entire career trying to cater to your children. i made the decision to create the music video.