Another Day, Another Awful Lana Del Rey Caption
Lana Del Rey just released possibly the best music video along with the worst comment of her career
Lana Del Rey continues to outdo herself with truly astounding levels of ineptitude.
Yet again, the artist created a fiasco for herself by posting an out-of-touch and unnecessary Instagram comment arguing just how not racist she actually is. The caption accompanied the release of the cover art and tracklist for her upcoming album, Chemtrails Over the Country Club.
The comment appeared to be a reaction to a previous post she made that was also widely panned. In this first post, Lana questioned whether there was a place in feminism for "women who look like" her, while comparing her persona to a number of artists — all of whom (except Ariana Grande) were Black. Naturally, the caption was torn apart.
Now, Lana has used her album release announcement to argue that she isn't racist, but it just made everything even worse. In her latest caption, Lana cited one of the oldest "I'm not racist" captions in the book, mentioning that she has friends of color and has been "inclusive without even trying to" throughout her whole career. Worst of all, she mentioned that she's dated "rappers," seemingly using "rappers" as a synonym for Black or person of color. (It's worth mentioning the fact that the rappers she's dated have included G-Eazy).
The comment is just deeply off in so many ways. If she'd read literally one of the millions of anti-racist resources that circulated this summer, she might've understood why arguing that you're not racist because you have friends that are POC is a terrible argument. She might've understood that she's centering herself and weaponizing her white womanhood like a regular Karen. She might have understood why her comment – "Before you make comments again about a WOC/POC issue, I'm not the one storming the capital [sic], I'm literally changing the world by putting my life and thoughts and love out there on the table 24 seven. Respect it" – is just a little bit nauseating.
She might've realized that all we wanted from her was a poetic statement about pollution or the sadness of country club living. Her last album, Norman F**king Rockwell, was a critically adored musical marvel, and Lana really could've had a great year if she'd only just stood back and let it happen.
But over the past few years, she's continued to commit one faux pas after another, from dating a cop to slamming a journalist for a not-so-bad review to not wearing a mask. This new caption brings this to new heights and has all her fans more embarrassed than ever.
Is Lana just stupid, or is she actually a covert white supremacist? It's hard to say. But as a former Lana stan, I know I'm not alone in wondering how I could've supported and revered someone who has such a poor grasp of culture and who is so incapable of reading the room.
Looking back, the signs were all there. Early on, Lana was accused of being a culture vulture and of capitalizing on Black culture. And Lana never claimed to be someone we should look up to — she constantly told us she is "crazy" and praised abusive men in her songs and glamorized depression for an entire generation. Yet she managed to create a career that enchanted millions and arguably inspired its own subculture. You have to wonder what a whole generation of teens would have become without her seductive influence.
One thing is for sure: Lana's Instagram caption, a Walt Whitman quote that reads "Do I contradict myself? Very well. I am large — I contain multitudes" is eerily true and applicable to her. How can someone create something with the cultural depth and sensitivity of Norman F**king Rockwell and then also write a caption like this? The contradictions are endless, and they're getting increasingly exhausting.
For a long time, many Lana fans have clung to the explanations of people like Lana's friend James Franco, who once wrote, "Lana lives in her art, and when she comes down to earth for interviews, it gets messy, because she isn't made for this earth. She is made to live in the world she creates. She is one who has been so disappointed by life, she had to create her own world. Just let her live in it."
We've tried, but she keeps interrupting our world with her own disjointed commentary.
It seems that this era is as messy as whatever 2021 already is. To cap it off, Lana has brought back one of her most controversial quotes of all time. On Twitter and Instagram, she posted fancams that contained videos and photos from many of her past eras, and the Instagram video ended with a quick screenshot of the caption "I wish I were dead already" — a quote that garnered Lana criticism from Frances Bean Cobain, among many others.
Wishing you were dead is not an uncommon sentiment among artists, and musicians and suicidal thoughts are never a joke and should not be criticized, but for Lana to bring this old controversial quote out of the woodwork at this time of so much death — for her to broadcast it like a mantra — just feels tasteless and out-of-touch, but that's a whole other conversation.
All in all, it's clear Lana is an unstable person who needs help and that she's not really someone that we should look up to or expect to guide us into a new era. It's just hard to reconcile that with the fact that her music is so damn good and that she has had such a strong influence on the minds of so many people and so many artists.
And it's also a shame that she can't be a proper ally or at least keep her mouth shut about issues regarding race, or that she can't at least have a PR person proofread her captions before she sends them out into the world. And it's also a shame that this writer spent several years of her life following her and looking for clues in her every caption and Tweet and who, in spite of it all, can't stop listening to her music. The whole thing is as tragic and depressing as...an average Lana Del Rey song.
Speaking of Lana Del Rey songs, the star just released her album's title track, which is, of course, annoyingly brilliant. She also released a mind-bogglingly stunning music video.
Is it possible to pretend that Lana the genius musician is totally different from Lana the clueless caption-writer? Probably not, but one can dream. Anyway, Chemtrails is out March 19th.