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If I Can't Have Love, I Want Artpop Talk
131 Plays3 years ago
Hear Ye, Hear Ye….. This week we will introduce Queen Lila, aka Queen Halsey, in our discussion of the film and album “If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power.” Get ready to talk about all things Madonna and Child, Lilith, stories of creation and death, and the horrors and power of childbirth.
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Transcript
Introduction: Pop Music Meets Art History
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello, hello, and welcome to Art Pop Talk. I'm Gianna. And I'm Bianca. Bianca, how does one make the Tudors or Game of Thrones even spicier? I feel like you throw in some pop music and you throw in some art history and you get a little bit of magic in the mix. Yay! I think you're right.
Halsey's New Album and Film
00:00:25
Speaker
Not only could you not be anymore right, but neither could our girl, the one and only, the queen, Halsey. Today, we are talking about Halsey's fourth album, If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power. We're going through the album itself and the cover art that took the art history buffs by storm. And lastly, we're diving into the 50-minute film project that was exclusively released in select IMAX theaters in tandem with the album.
00:00:51
Speaker
If I can't have love, I want an art pop talk. Hello, everybody. Hello, sister. Hello, beautiful sea star. Beautiful sea star. You do look so beautiful today. How are you? I do not look beautiful today. You do. This is my haven't left the apartment look this morning, but
00:01:20
Speaker
I like it. Your face is so dewy. That might just be sweat. I don't know. I'm broke. So I keep the air conditioning down. Like, you know, not a reasonable temperature. I do not go below 74 degrees. Yeah, mine's at like 77. Yeah. But it's probably a little cooler here than it is in okay.
00:01:43
Speaker
a little bit but Bianca I'm about to see you very soon and I feel as though yeah it'll be a little bit chilly up there I know I'm so excited Gianna is coming here in two days and I just I it feels so weird that we're recording and then like by the time the episode is out you're gonna be here we're gonna be hanging out oh yeah
00:02:08
Speaker
Well, there was a lot of fun things happen in the art world this week.
Kanye West's Name Change and Album Controversy
00:02:14
Speaker
I feel like they were just a bunch of different little art news stories, including the Tiffany ad with Beyonce, Jay-Z, and a surprise Basquiat in Tiffany Blue. Yes, that was odd, a little bit too convenient if you ask me. You all know how I love a good conspiracy theory, and I think this just might be that. Diet Prada had a pretty good
00:02:38
Speaker
post about it and on Instagram we were talking to Culture Quota a little bit about it too. There were lots of lots of new music also lately. I know we're gonna get into it with Halsey today but there was also the new Lord album. Gianna I don't know if you listened to that and then of course
00:02:54
Speaker
Kanye's album that came out and the whole, the whole shebang that unfolded over the weekend with his new album. I have actually not heard that much about Kanye's album if I'm being honest. Oh really? The only thing that I've heard about Kanye is that he's trying to legally change his name to Ye. To Ye. Oh fuck. Oh yeah.
00:03:19
Speaker
Either one. Why? You can tell Gianna is not a yay fan. I'm not a yay fan. Oh my God, that is so funny. Well, Kim showed up in a wedding dress and he had a lot of really problematic people. Oh, that was real? Yes. Wait, that was real. What do you mean? I don't know. I thought that was a fever dream I had.
00:03:48
Speaker
Oh my god. Okay, so what- Too much happening with ladies in pop culture this week. It just meshes all together. Wow, I totally let everybody down with that commentary. I'm not gonna cut any of that. I'm gonna leave it all in. That's fine. It's wrong. I don't know. I really didn't think that was like real or I thought it was like a flashback.
00:04:18
Speaker
We can talk about it later. Well, I was not watching that. I was watching the Bob Ross documentary on Netflix. Oh my gosh.
00:04:31
Speaker
We have two very different forms of media intake. Oh no, not only was I watching the Bob Ross documentary, but then I was watching a Lincoln documentary with David. Oh my god, of course, that that makes sense. That's what we did over the weekend. So yeah, yeah, there was a lot of intake this
00:04:52
Speaker
past week and therefore I just couldn't keep up with it all. I haven't listened to Lord's album but I did watch Anthony Mason's little cultural special interview with her and it was a good interview so I will have to listen to that but I will have much time to listen to things and
00:05:10
Speaker
catch up on the, you know, celebrity goss on the plane and in
Nirvana Album Cover Lawsuit
00:05:14
Speaker
the airport. Totally. While I think everybody's in love with me while I'm at the airport because of my god complex. So yeah. Yeah. For sure. Okay. Well, we really had to kind of go through what we wanted to talk about for art news today, but I am excited about the segment. Should we get into it? Yes, I am so intrigued. All right. So for today's art news,
00:05:42
Speaker
Keeping in line with today's music theme, today's art news is about Nirvana's Nevermind album, Cover Art.
00:05:51
Speaker
So, looking at an article from the Hollywood Reporter, they write that, quote, Spencer Elden filed a lawsuit in California federal court against Nirvana, Universal Music Group, Warner's Records, Music Mogul, David Geffen, and band members, even the late Kurt Cobain, via his estate and three individuals who oversee it, including his widow, Courtney Love.
00:06:15
Speaker
the photographer and others so he is suing a bunch of people. Elden alleges the image depicts him quote like a sex worker, grabbing for a dollar bill that is positioned dangling from a fish hook in front of his nude body with his penis explicitly displayed.
00:06:34
Speaker
He also claims he had a quote, reasonable expectation that the images depicting him would remain private and maintains his legal guardian didn't sign a release authorizing the use of the images. So according to this article, there's a guy named Brian Sullivan, an entertainment litigation partner at early Sullivan. And he said that the suit is ridiculous. And that even if there wasn't a written agreement, which he doubts, Elden claims are weak.
00:07:04
Speaker
Quote, I think it is highly unlikely that the record company would use a photograph for an album cover without verifying the existence of a release signed by the parents, he says. But if there is no release, it does not mean he has claims for child pornography. As to the right of privacy, you can waive it by your actions or by your parents' actions in allowing him to be photographed.
00:07:27
Speaker
Another entertainment litigator with experience and invasion of privacy and right of publicity matters says, quote, there are plethora of defenses to this suit.
00:07:37
Speaker
He notes, quote, I think what will be most troubling for any judge will be the amount of time that has elapsed since the photo was published. The fact that kids' parents did this knowingly more or less, but they knew the naked baby was being photographed, and numerous times that the plaintiff himself embraced the photo and sought publicity for himself.
00:08:00
Speaker
So Bianca,
Image Control in Social Media Age
00:08:02
Speaker
because this is a legal art issue, let's channel our inner Elle Woods and discuss. Why now? Why this album?
00:08:15
Speaker
We have talked about the use of pornography or sexually explicit images in art and, you know, on the podcast, but this is different because what we are looking at isn't a sexually explicit image, as the article suggests, to a normal person. However, what it sounds like what we will be questioning the most is just the issue of privacy.
00:08:36
Speaker
Yeah, I was reading a bunch of different articles about this case and every single article seems to focus on a different interesting characteristic.
00:08:48
Speaker
of what's happening here. So I guess kind of the overarching question that I had after reading more about it was in the age of social media, I mean, do any of us have complete control over our own image? And as we've talked about before, I think in our art and the internet episode where we talked about TikTok, when you
00:09:12
Speaker
agreed to sign up on some of those social media apps, and you click that little terms and conditions button, then you, in a lot of times, in a lot of circumstances, are giving away all of your rights to anything that you have posted on the site. So this is obviously different because when Elden was photographed, it was not necessarily in the age of social media, but clearly this is a really iconic album.
00:09:42
Speaker
It definitely has an online presence, different kinds of followings on the internet. Its visual presence has grown over the years, clearly. So that was just an interesting question, like, do any of us have control over our own image? But what I thought was also really interesting is that Eldon, like you said, Gianna, participated in that spread of his own image in association with the cover. So there's an article that read, quote,
00:10:10
Speaker
In the decades that followed, Mr. Elden appeared to celebrate his part in the classic cover, recreating the moment for the album's 10th, 17th, 20th, and 25th anniversaries, though he's not naked, but he's posted these images on his social media account
00:10:28
Speaker
associating himself with the album cover, kind of recreating it in the water as well. So it's just, it's interesting to me that in this example in particular, there's what four instances that we've seen of him
00:10:42
Speaker
in relative recent years kind of recreating. And I had this thought, I guess, obviously he's a baby in the photo. But I had no idea who the baby was until this article came out. So I'm just curious.
00:10:59
Speaker
I don't know, like how much damage did he, I don't know if damage is the right word, but like how much did he contribute in that spread of him being associated with that child, with the baby figure? Because otherwise, I would have no idea who he is, you know what I mean? Maybe this is common knowledge for Nirvana fans, they know who the baby is, like they've always known. Maybe I'm just not privy to that kind of information.
00:11:27
Speaker
Then in an interview in 2016 with the New York Post, he was 25 years old at the time and he said, quote, it's cool, but weird to be a part of something so important that I don't even remember. Now, apparently he's claiming that he has suffered, quote, permanent harm because of his association with the album, including emotional distress and a lifelong loss of income earning capacity. So that's another.
00:11:56
Speaker
interesting component, I read an article that said something like his parents were paid $200 to take the photo. And so I feel I don't know, it's like, how can I be the judge of how someone is feeling about the way that their image has been perceived and used over the time, but
00:12:15
Speaker
I don't know, this quote, a lifelong loss of income earning capacity. Well, that's not necessarily, I mean, it sucks. But at the same time, it's like, you did sign this, or your parents did sign this paper, they received $200 for it. Maybe at the time, they didn't know what that would amount to. And I think there's definitely an issue of kind of, I think corporations and industry taking advantage of people in that way. But at the same time, they also did
00:12:44
Speaker
sign those rights away. And it's I hate saying this, but it's I don't know. I don't know if I feel like it's kind of like a sorry about your situation.
00:12:51
Speaker
Last thing before, if you have anything to add, I also didn't love the way that he talks about him being equated to a sex worker. I just want to say there's nothing wrong with being a sex worker. I know that in the photo, he's a child, like he is a baby. So I totally get that, but it's just, personally, I don't think the baby looks like a sex worker, but I don't think of babies as being sex workers, but there's also nothing wrong with adults, conceptually, being sex workers, you know?
00:13:19
Speaker
That was also just like a little thing was like, okay, it's not a negative thing, but I understand that you're also a baby here. Yes, Bianca, I agree. And one thing that I am a little bit unclear about is I'm confused about his parents' relationship to the band and how like, why now? Why this baby? Like, really, like why Elden? So I'm a little bit unclear as to that connection as well. I mean, did the band like,
00:13:48
Speaker
have a bunch of babies lined up and they wanted to pick which one they thought was like the cutest or was it just like oh they knew this family and they it was a spur of the moment thing so that kind of story of how the image was taken i'm a little bit interested in and maybe as this lawsuit kind of proceeds maybe we'll get more information
00:14:05
Speaker
I agree with what you said about Elden's explanation and the cringiness of how he feels exploited as a sex worker. But on the flip side too, it's an image of you and you are allowed to feel about it how you want to feel about it because it was out of your control as a child.
00:14:32
Speaker
And I get that. And also, I think to be also devil's advocate about him recreating the image too, I think that also isn't completely white and black. I think when you're part of something so significant, there is this pressure to also participate in it and also
00:14:53
Speaker
You cannot understand the full extent of your trauma and how you feel about something till really later on in your life and maybe that active participation was part of how he feels now and how it is detrimental to his possible mental health and
00:15:09
Speaker
And I get all that and I respect all that, but I also highly doubt that there wasn't anything that was signed. Obviously we only know what we know and we're hearing from both sides. It is kind of fascinating that we don't have this like proof yet. We just have these like litigators on
00:15:26
Speaker
you know both sides saying that probably something was signed but it's like okay where's the thing. So this is very interesting and I'll be fascinated to see what the what the result is but I agree with a lot of what you said. I think he is allowed to feel about it how he wants to feel about it but I think it is a little bit sorry about yeah like there are a lot of opportunities where people you know sell
00:15:52
Speaker
their image or sell a work of art or something for an amount of money and then that has a net growth income in the future and i'm sorry that you your parents didn't maybe put that into their contract but i don't know right right yeah i i definitely feel like there's a
00:16:10
Speaker
a sense of exploitation where the big guy on top can just offer a minuscule amount to someone. And it's just, they're not necessarily divulging the extent of that information. I'm not doubting that that happens in many cases.
00:16:28
Speaker
This is this will be, you know, interesting to see what the verdict of this case is, how that actually affects artwork and photographers moving forward. I mean, what's going to start happening to photography contracts, and I don't doubt that those have been significantly complicated in the age of
00:16:47
Speaker
kind of surveillance and social media and things like that. And well, this is an example that got me thinking about larger topics. I remember this one time there was a really good NPR episode that I was listening to about I believe it was David Bowie and how he was
00:17:03
Speaker
kind of groundbreaking in the ways in which he established his contract to make sure that he had monetization of his artwork long term. So instead of getting a lump son of money upfront, he chose to get like smaller payments for the indefinite future and how that kind of paved a lot of the way artists do financing and monetization of their own artwork. So that could even open up a larger conversation for us. But this was definitely a very interesting art news story.
00:17:33
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Well, I think we should take a little break. And when we get back, we're going to be talking about Halsey's new album.
00:18:13
Speaker
and we're back and ready to get into today's art pop talk. We'll start off with Bianca giving us some art historical background on a specific version of the Madonna and Child and how the iconic piece of religious imagery is used in pop culture and now specifically in Halsey's cover of If I Can't Have Love I Want Power for her fourth album and it's unveiling at the Met.
00:18:43
Speaker
Then I will discuss my thoughts and some of the concepts expressed in the If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power short film. And we'll use this time to discuss other iconic religious female figures, mythological figures that Halsey explores such as Lilith. I think I should also just give a spoiler disclaimer for the second half.
Halsey's Artistic Inspirations
00:19:04
Speaker
Because this is an early release and if you don't want to keep paying multiple times to go see this film, I think hearing some of the concepts will better help prepare you and you'll have a better understanding going into the film that way.
00:19:23
Speaker
because it is a little bit fast-paced but you know if you don't like spoilers to each their own everyone likes to experience things differently so do with that what you will but we will be discussing the film in the second half so Bianca are you ready to get into the Madonna of it all?
00:19:39
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. I love a good celebrity at an art museum. So very excited. On July 7th, Halsey released her latest album cover on Instagram. And at the same time, she released a 13 minute video, you know, on YouTube. And the video is her kind of walking through the Renaissance halls at the Met.
00:20:02
Speaker
and it's just it's so beautiful like it's literally just Halsey in this garb which we'll talk about just kind of staring at the camera then staring at the art she's walking around barefoot at the Met and
00:20:18
Speaker
it's just it's really like the way she walks is so beautiful like she's just so effortless i was like oh i wish i looked like that walking walking through the halls of the met um but yeah she she's walking around the the renaissance wing and she she stops at these like images and paintings like a sculpture
00:20:41
Speaker
that depict the Madonna and child. And then at the end of the video, she is seen at the foot of the stairs and the Met and there's this big kind of red cloth over this what
00:20:57
Speaker
what we know is like a painting or an image. And she walks up to it and she rips the curtain down and unveils her album cover. When it's unveiled, what we're left with is this like really monumentally scaled photograph of Halsey, which was photographed by Lucas Garrido. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that name correctly, but the photograph captures Halsey seated on this
00:21:24
Speaker
enormous golden throne which is very clearly reminiscent of Game of Thrones and the throne of swords like the architecture and it the build of the throne itself just I don't know to me it clearly looks like Game of Thrones which is interesting and kind of like pinpointing a very particular aesthetic right so she seated on this throne and she's wearing a blue dress like this very elaborate beautiful crown her
00:21:54
Speaker
wavy brown hair is down and one of her breasts is exposed and then she's holding this infant on her lap which is the infant is looking directly out at us the viewer and Halsey is kind of in a three-quarter portrait turn where her gaze is actually looking away she's not looking at us but the child is which is
00:22:15
Speaker
Pretty interesting. It's also interesting to see this infant who is not hers, right? So as we'll get to that throughout the video where she's walking through the Met, Halsey's actually pregnant herself. And then Gianna will talk about that later on in the video as well.
00:22:33
Speaker
Clearly this is reminiscent of depictions of the Virgin Mary and it's made even more explicit when you watch her walk through the Met and kind of like make all these different stops and then to have that unveiling. We've talked about this quite a bit but something falling into that lineage, like there's contemporary artists
00:22:54
Speaker
who are inserting themselves into that line. So I think what Halsey is doing here and what she did with the video is definitely make her mark as this kind of virgin-esque contemporary figure.
00:23:10
Speaker
On Instagram, the artist wrote, it was very important to me that the cover art conveyed the sentiment of my journey over the past few months, the dichotomy of the Madonna and the horror. This cover image celebrates pregnant and postpartum bodies as something beautiful to be admired. We have a long way to go with eradicating the social stigma around bodies and breastfeeding.
00:23:35
Speaker
And in recent years, we've seen quite a few artists kind of utilize museums in this way, which is pretty interesting. In January, FKA twigs debuted Don't Judge Me, which prominently featured Kara Walker's Sculptural Fountain, which is on view at the Tate Modern. And then of course, in 2018, we had Beyonce and Jay-Z do the Ape Shit video at the Louvre, which is like such a stunning video.
00:24:03
Speaker
Before we recorded, Gianna and I were also just talking about Cardi B in the Rumors music video and how just amazing it is to actually see a pregnant body be celebrated in that way and be put on such a display in that way.
00:24:20
Speaker
On Instagram, Halsey also noted that quote, the idea that me as a sexual being and my body as a vessel and gift to my child are two concepts that can coexist peacefully and powerfully. Halsey's look throughout the med gala was designed by Schiaparelli, and I read an article that wrote
00:24:41
Speaker
quote, the look successfully symbolized the notion that women maintain full control of both their pride in their style and the strength in their presence while they embrace motherhood. So I wanted to talk about her look in the Met
00:24:59
Speaker
video in particular because I think it's pretty noteworthy that in most of the depictions of Madonna, as we know them art historically but also particularly in the ones that she stops in the video, though that she stops that in the video, Madonna is most often shown in red and blue.
00:25:22
Speaker
and as we'll get into an album cover Halsey is wearing a blue dress but it's not necessarily Madonna-esque that we see in the album cover but whenever she's walking through the halls of the Met she has this kind of orange cloth this golden cloth that's draped over part of her body but also over her head
00:25:43
Speaker
kind of in the head coverings that we might see in Madonna. And then she has this silver plated kind of bodysuit that just covers a little bit of her breasts and then actually exposes a lot of her pregnant belly. So I thought this was an interesting way for Halsey to walk
00:26:04
Speaker
through the space because she's associating herself with Madonna and Child. Clearly she is exhibiting her body as a body that is with Child, but instead of reckoning with the idea of divine light in many Renaissance paintings, what we actually see is a ray of light that is meant to symbolize
00:26:30
Speaker
the Virgin Mary being impregnated by the light of God. That's how visually that idea of conception is rendered. So Halsey doesn't necessarily have a halo on and she's not wearing red and blue. She's not necessarily that traditional Madonna figure or Virgin Mary figure, but she does have like an interesting choice of this gold cloth and the cloth and the gilded bodysuit, I don't know, kind of
00:26:58
Speaker
bring forth that dichotomy that she's talking about, this idea of the virgin and then the whore. I'm not saying that the bodysuit in any way makes her look like a whore, but I think that's the imagery that she's kind of trying to evoke here. And then that golden cloth for me kind of takes the place of a halo in a way. I think that
00:27:16
Speaker
The gold does play on that idea of the divine light, but it is draped over her head. So instead of being in red and blue, she has this kind of divine or heavenly or godly, like golden fabric that's covering her head as she walks through the gallery space.
00:27:35
Speaker
The cover art of Halsey's album very strikingly resembles a piece called Virgin and Child surrounded by angels by Jean Fouquet and this is known as the Melindiptic.
00:27:51
Speaker
This Madonna is seated on a throne. It is very detailed. It clearly has like a sense of jewels or pearls on the throne. It's definitely not as probably elaborate as Halsey's is, but it is very detailed and it is golden as well. And then we see a very like statuesque, very
00:28:15
Speaker
stone-colored, kind of marble-colored image of a Madonna figure with theoretically the Christ child being seated on her knee. She is wearing a blue dress that is absolutely relatable to Halsey's. Even the the cut of the bodice is fitted in this kind of like square shape that leaves one
00:28:42
Speaker
breast exposed. So this is shown in Halsey's album cover as well as this rendition of the Madonna. This image actually isn't in the collection of The Met, but it is at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp.
00:28:58
Speaker
The virgin in this painted image is believed to be a disguised portrait of Agnes Sorel, the mistress of King Charles VII, who was considered to be one of the most beautiful women of her age. This type of image in particular is known as a Virgo-Lactan, a breastfeeding depiction of the Madonna.
00:29:25
Speaker
In the 12th century, Virgo-Lactans became popular amid the surge in Marian imagery. The milk of the Virgin was often interpreted as the life-giving precursor to Christ's blood, which grants eternal life.
00:29:41
Speaker
And I took this gender and visual culture class in grad school where it was taught by a medievalist. And so throughout the course, we talked a lot about the wound on Christ's side and depictions that actually where you see people drinking blood from Christ's wound.
00:30:02
Speaker
as if it was equated to a breastfeeding mother, theoretically, the Madonna or the Virgin breastfeeding. Images like this were painted at a time when most wealthy women were able to hire wet nurses. And so the Virgin actually became more aligned as a symbol for common women. And this imagery fell out of favor in the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation and the Council of
00:30:30
Speaker
trend on the grounds of propriety. So this is a really interesting image for Halsey to rely on and I was reading an article that said in this way, quote,
00:30:42
Speaker
Halsey's own bare-breasted image recalls earlier exaltations of pregnant and postpartum bodies as something beautiful to be admired, which is what she was talking about on her Instagram caption. So this idea of Agnes Sorelle being a mistress, theoretically
00:31:04
Speaker
taking on that kind of horror connotation that Halsey is bringing up, but also being replicated or rendered in this image of the Madonna and child I think is really, really evocative and that really comes together well for the content that Halsey is trying to portray in her cover art throughout the lyrics in her album and as we'll get into the film. Yeah. Oh my gosh, I love this. I really...
00:31:30
Speaker
I like the analysis of her outfit based in the space. I think obviously Madonna and Child is very iconic. We could do a.
00:31:40
Speaker
whole thing on that. We've talked about the complexities of motherhood on the podcast before. And she's also not the first pop culture artist to do this so often. As you mentioned, even what we're starting to see with Cardi B, what we saw when Beyonce or Nicki had their pregnant bodies and how that was displayed in a very artful, nostalgic kind of way was very interesting. She's just giving us a lot, lot more with this. I also think
00:32:10
Speaker
As you mentioned.
00:32:11
Speaker
her direct inspiration and the creative crew, you could say, is direct inspiration to other kind of significant pop culture movements, such as these fictitious fantasy-like othered spaces where they're medieval-esque, but they're just, they're fake. And I'll get into that a little bit in the video too. So nostalgia is such a huge, huge thing that she's playing into.
00:32:40
Speaker
and it really comes through in the film. The last thing that I'll say too in just your example of The Virgin and The Christ Child, you mentioned the sculptural and the roundness of their bodies. When Bianca and I first saw the album cover released from Halsey and the way that their body is just
00:33:03
Speaker
perfectly portrayed like the roundness of her form and the stillness of the Christ child, allegedly. It was just so minute and so perfect and it just floored us. And there's going to be another example of this little bring up in the film as well, where it's just something about it that's so subtle that it just it pops up in in your brain. And even if you don't have
00:33:33
Speaker
a direct example to gravitate to in your head. You know that that like sculptural stillness nature, the posture of that figure, it means something. And I think that's something really incredible that Halsey and her creative crew really did a fantastic job with. Yeah, definitely. So we're going to take a little break. And when we get back, we'll be discussing the If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power film.
00:34:31
Speaker
And we're back. Welcome back, everybody. I again hope that most of you have stayed for this segment of today's episode. But before we get into the film, Bianca, I just want to know which songs were your favorite on the album so far, and I guess just your general hot takes. Even though Bianca didn't see the film, I was able to go watch it. They were showing in select theaters in Tulsa. I'd still like this part of the segment to just
00:35:01
Speaker
Be open-ended too. So tell me which ones were your favorite Yeah, well, I was able to watch as many kind of
00:35:11
Speaker
clips and videos of the film as possible like I watched the trailer there's I think a like an overall video for I'm not a woman I'm a god and I think it takes clips from the from the film so I could get like a pretty good sense of even in that like three minute video get a good sense of the storyline and the aesthetic that she's portraying just to to preface this I'm not like the the biggest Halsey fan like I definitely
00:35:39
Speaker
I really like her. I enjoy her hits on the radio and I love that she's that type of celebrity that's really engaged. I think she's a fun celebrity to look out for, but I've never really consistently listened to a ton of her albums in fall. But I was really impressed by the story that she was so easily able to
00:36:03
Speaker
to tell us with this album. Of course, we've been diving into the images of it for our pop talks purposes. But when I listened to the album, I really did get did a good sense for what she's trying to tell us here with with her song. So my favorites were probably Honey and Lighthouse. I think Lighthouse was yeah, wild as a in terms of its lyrics. Yeah.
00:36:29
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. Those were both really good. And I think even honey too. I mean, yeah, a big part of I think why this project was very interesting as well is kind of
00:36:48
Speaker
juxtaposed with other female pop culture icons that we've gotten, this project really explores not only the childbirth of it all, but the sexuality of it all, in which not only is Halsey more sexually free, but she also doesn't identify as just with she pronouns. She also goes by she and they.
00:37:11
Speaker
And I think that part of her identity isn't really specifically addressed. It's more just about the birth journey of it all. But I don't think it needs to be. But I like that we can have conversations about how there are many types of people who are able to give birth.
00:37:29
Speaker
Right. It's not just, quote unquote, women's bodies who are able to give birth. And I think that's something really important. And I think Honey does a good job of kind of not being overly explicit in that. That's not necessarily what it's about. But I think it's nice to see an album about birth play with identity in that way. I agree. The interesting thing about Honey is that that song was not in the film.
00:37:59
Speaker
So and this is all to preface to you with the experience of going to watch the film is that it was a little bit tricky because it's 50 minutes it's very short and it's very fast paced to fit in this whole narrative in that short span of time.
00:38:15
Speaker
If I had access to it on the internet, I would watch it like once just for the joy of watching it and then go back and do like a deeper analysis and watch it the second time. Basically how I also like to view art, you know, look at it for pleasure and then get down into the nitty gritty of it.
00:38:32
Speaker
So I was trying to kind of do both and one. And so that's why I also say, let me do that for you. So you can listen to this. And then if you do want to go see it, or even when it just comes out on the internet, whenever that does happen, then you don't have to have that experience. But I thought it was interesting that Honey is left out. But the film didn't end up being so much about
00:39:00
Speaker
sexual exploration with other people as it did just about birth. So we understand why it was left out, although I think it is a strong song on the album. So I would like to just break down the synopsis of the film. The trailer told us a plot line from the beginning, quote, the film is about the lifelong social labyrinth or sexuality and birth.
00:39:27
Speaker
the greatest horror stories ever told were buried with the bodies of those who died in the labyrinth." So something interesting to keep in mind is that none of the lyrics or the songs explicitly are talking about birth or address childbirth. The lyricism is entangled with things like romance, sexuality, complexities of power, and mental struggles. And I think that very much falls in line with how we kind of see pop
00:39:56
Speaker
music play out so I don't think there's much surprise there. I also think it you know just allows the listener to also connect to it in different ways as well. But if I can't have love I want power is just about an hour-long film experience set to the music of Halsey's fourth album which introduces a young pregnant woman Lila as she wrestles with the manipulative chokehold of love to ultimately discover
00:40:23
Speaker
that the ability to create life and end it unlocks the paranormal power within herm.
Themes in Halsey's Film: Power and Manipulation
00:40:30
Speaker
And this paranormal power will get into a lot at the end. That's where I see that comparison with Lilith really come into play. So that's going to be especially important.
00:40:44
Speaker
So with all this in mind, going back to the nostalgia in the film experience, and even Bianca and I were just talking about that within them songs themselves play a very important role. Bianca even introduced this conversation with the art historical nostalgia, but just taking it for also its place in music and pop culture history was interesting.
00:41:09
Speaker
But I think when you do watch this film, really pick up on that, see what other contemporary works of art of music videos that you think of. I think that's a very interesting kind of part of this experience. But first, taking a little bit of music video history into account, I think this nostalgia really traditionalizes music videos and how originally
00:41:32
Speaker
it was this plot or scene that was acted out maybe even by the actor or by the singer and it just played out while the song played over it. The artist wasn't always dancing and singing to their own music. And then with music videos in the 1980s we get the really pivotal moment with Michael Jackson's Thriller come out which was this huge big production which really paved the way for
00:41:58
Speaker
these big budget million dollar music video productions to come out into this day. Thriller is still one of the most expensive music video productions put on. And even just with that one song, Thriller, that music video was 14 minute long. And now we have this whole album spanning just 50 minutes. And we also got that with Lemonade too. And it's interesting to see all of the...
00:42:22
Speaker
The film album adaptations that are coming out so it's not even just about a music video anymore it's about these kind of feature length films that that work together exactly so i think halsey's film is like a splice of the two.
00:42:38
Speaker
She's the one acting out this plot, but it's not just one song It's it's again this whole album and kind of like Bianca's examples But you can think of recent film projects that even we've just gotten in the past year or so like black is king however that project had more familiar music video elements creating a project or formula that we are more used to the artists singing and rapping but also directing her attention to
00:43:05
Speaker
towards us. The same thing could be said for a thriller. So that is not the case for if I want love, I want power. So let me just kind of set the scene for you, the plot line for you very quickly before we get into the nitty gritty of it all. So the film starts with Lila's husband, the king found dead with these aristocratic or royal court people of sorts surrounding him.
00:43:34
Speaker
Halsey the Queen walks in and, based on all the immediate eye glares that she gets, she's already being accused of killing him. So she catches a glimpse of her reflection in a mirror while she's standing over the King's dead body, and what reflects back is an image of her
00:43:53
Speaker
but an untamed version, and that's how I would recall or recollect on this figure as an untamed version. This reflection of her appears in other instances as well, such as in a dream that also helps to foreshadow her pregnancy.
00:44:11
Speaker
Early on here, there is another foreshadowing moment as well. If you do go on YouTube and if you watch the music video that is out of I am not a woman, I'm a god as Bianca suggested, they basically tease you with clips from the film in this little short video.
00:44:32
Speaker
So if you watch that little clip, you can see that she is looking out on her balcony at something. And we don't know exactly what it is yet, but it does turn out it is alluding to her death as at the end, she is sentenced to be headed and a little bit TBL on that. We'll get to that.
00:44:51
Speaker
At this point, after the king dies and this untamed Lilith-like figure comes to her in a dream, the song titled Lilith is introduced and she's seen peeing on what I think is wheat or barley based on some research and also
00:45:08
Speaker
period movies that I've seen like the great they do this in so essentially this ancient pregnancy test can go all the way back to Egyptian history and that's if the plant sprouts or like germinates you're pregnant that is so interesting yeah and I don't know that you know if even if you pee on it if it is gonna germinate I mean who knows I didn't go that deep into it but
00:45:36
Speaker
I did find an article called history of peeing on stuff, and I will link it for you guys. So she also attends the King's funeral, and we see flashbacks of him being abusive also. And we do see little points of this interspersed throughout the film. After this funeral, Halsey is then seen out and about with her harlot friends getting drunk, acting nasty, and her behavior is being watched by the court.
00:46:05
Speaker
After she comes back to her room, she sees that the plants that she pissed on are looking a little fresh and she's like, OMG, I'm pregnant. Then at this point, the song Lighthouse is used to encapsulate her time span, kind of locked away in her tower-like-ish setting of a room and
00:46:27
Speaker
symbolizes her kind of entrapment in this society in this kingdom and you know it shows us time spans like two months, three months, five months into her pregnancy until she's ready to give birth. So before she's ready to pop there's actually this trial of sorts and it's a big moment in the film because we get quite a bit of dialogue here and there's this conversation between her and this
00:46:54
Speaker
aristocratic dude who is putting her on trial. She claims her behavior is out of mourning of the death of the king, but the court doesn't buy it and they tell her that they are going to kill her after the baby is born. So not to make a long story short, but that's essentially what happens. The only thing keeping her alive for that time span is because she is carrying a child of royal blood.
00:47:18
Speaker
Also, if the child were to be a girl, they would toss a baby in a river. But if it was going to be a boy that could be an heir to this kingdom, they'll keep it. But they will have no use for her after that. Since she is not of royal blood or royal descent. She's just the vessel. She is just the vessel.
00:47:38
Speaker
So when she is beheaded however her body kind of disappears and it was almost a little bit hard for me to tell just because the setting is a little bit dark but the film ends right after her head is chopped off and when the credits roll
00:47:55
Speaker
it shows our queen alive and walking over a lot of the dead bodies of the aristocrats in this kingdom and also her attire changes as well. It's a little bit of a splice between like the trappings of a queen and also how she was dressed as the Lilith untamed woman and so it's a little bit of this hybrid of the two. After the moment
00:48:17
Speaker
she is beheaded, we do get a glimpse of what appears to be this divine looking figure based on the golden headpiece that completely surrounds the front of this woman's face, which is Halsey, but it took me a little bit to
00:48:35
Speaker
I was like, is it Halsey? Is it not? Because the decoration on our body is so overpowering in the makeup. But it is what I'm assuming to to be Halsey. And there was something about this divine figure that just
00:48:50
Speaker
got me. Obviously, the golden headpiece framing the front of her face was very obvious in the sense that it is some halo, this is a divine. Also, it's showing up the moment after she died kind of helps bridges the gap between her body disappearing and now this figure showing up. However, what I was telling Bianca earlier was there's just a subtle gesture that she does with her body that just
00:49:19
Speaker
Harkens back to a lot of the imagery that Bianco showing us earlier When it comes to holy figures, she has this little Tilt to the side of her head. She has a little bend in her knees her hands are all the way down Her arms are all the way down to her sides But her hands are just slightly built up and it just reminded me of a very statuesque very still want one point
00:49:46
Speaker
poorly perspective, old school gold-leafed painting. And it was so subtle and so beautiful. I just really loved this figure.
00:49:57
Speaker
But I think it's so interesting that you like because she is so successfully pinpointing all of this like really amazing art historical iconography with that like two second subtle gesture, you're able to pick up on this idea that she is like creating herself as this kind of saintly figure. Yeah. Yeah. So that really that kind of ending and that little glimpse of that character
00:50:25
Speaker
really kind of turned it around for me. I was like that was very clever and very subtle and wrapped it up in such an interesting way with all of the religious iconography that we're getting and also comparatively to the child birthing of it all.
00:50:42
Speaker
That also brought in this other aspect of not only is she creating light, she's taking life away, but it's this regeneration for her own body and her soul, however you want to put a metaphor to it or however you process it. So that was a lot to kind of go through, but since a lot of you
00:51:05
Speaker
have not probably had the opportunity to see. I think it was important to give you guys a little bit of a plot line before we discuss a figure that I'm very, very interested in and very passionate about, Lilith. So who is Lilith? Why now? Why this untamed woman? Let's get into it. Why this Lilith? Why this Lilith? So Lilith is
00:51:31
Speaker
kind of a controversial figure even within Jewish folklore and that's kind of where we see her primarily come up. Lilla's name is not included in the creation story of the Torah but her name does appear in several Midrash and Midrash is an ancient commentary
00:51:50
Speaker
of Hebrew scriptures, essentially. Her symbolism, her history, and the literature are debated amongst Jewish scholars, feminists, and other intellectuals. There are multiple origin stories and mythologies for Lilith, but the most popular, maybe history or story told, views Lilith actually as the first wife of Adam, and this is before Eve.
00:52:15
Speaker
So why would Lilith be this symbol and an icon that Halsey would embody in the film? It's because she is this historical power symbol and her story of the untamed woman has been reclaimed by feminists and artists constantly. The darker aspect of life, birth and regeneration is also very major common things that a lot of feminist artists used.
00:52:43
Speaker
But that paired with the horrors of childbirth really pairs very well with Lilith's mythology and why it works so well for if I can't have love, I want power.
Symbolism and Artistic Growth
00:52:54
Speaker
So I'm going to insert a little bit of story time here because I'm going to read a quick passage to help connect some of the dots between Lilith and Halsey's project.
00:53:05
Speaker
The open-ended nature of the Lilith symbol has allowed different groups to use her as a destructive female symbol or a symbol of female power. Many feminists see Lilith as not only the first woman, but the first independent woman created. In the creation story, she refuses to allow Adam to dominate her and flees the garden despite the consequences. In order to retain her freedom, she must give up her children and in retaliation, she steals the seed of Adam.
00:53:33
Speaker
However, other stories portray Lilith as a demoness who kills children and takes advantage of men while they are sleeping. Other Jewish laws forbid the spilling of a man's seed with Lilith, which she takes advantage of this during masturbation and erotic dreams, and uses it to replenish her own offspring.
00:53:53
Speaker
So, there's a bunch of different mythologies and little stories about Lilith. You know, she refuses to be dominated by Adam because they were built together from the same material, the same dirt, the same earth. And when she refuses to be submissive, she goes away. God sends three angels to try to convince her to come back to Eden. And when she doesn't, they don't just
00:54:22
Speaker
Take her kids away from her these angels actually kill her kids and there's like a bunch of children so basically it's kind of vendetta vengefulness after that and
00:54:34
Speaker
she steals Adam's seeds and then it becomes this folklore where she presents herself to dreams of men and takes advantage of them and use it to replenish her own offspring time and time again. So the kind of darkness I think paired with that and the kind of reclamation of it all
00:54:54
Speaker
worked very well with Halsey. So not only the mythology of it all working very well, but specifically if we're pinpointing this aspect of Lilith and folklore appearing in a dream sequence. As I referred to that earlier foreshadowing moment where Halsey dressed up as Lilith comes to her in this dream,
00:55:15
Speaker
And it's a little bit creepy. This untamed woman comes and she actually sticks her hand in Halsey's belly. And that's probably one of the more like darker kind of creepier scenes that we get. And then she wakes up.
00:55:30
Speaker
and you see tidbits of the scene in the I am not a woman I'm a god music video where she's she's bathing and she kind of goes on with her day and the song played to that scene is Lilith so we get this dream sequence and then the next song that is played is Lilith so that was very
00:55:52
Speaker
I knew going into it when one of her songs was titled Lilla that I was going to be all about that. So that's maybe just a little bit of my bias and why I thought that was a fun kind of moment to pinpoint in today's episode since we can't talk about the whole thing.
00:56:09
Speaker
using Lilith, using Madonna, I think was very successful. Bianca, I'm very much like you in the sense that I think Halsey is an incredible person. And I did had to go a little bit into her discography and kind of look into her other
00:56:27
Speaker
Not only musical works of art, but visual works of art. And I think this followed along the same path of creating her own world, her own realm. This was just very, very much escalated. And it is exciting for her to get to this point, have a lot of creative backing from a lot of people that
00:56:45
Speaker
wanted to see this project in this moment for her come to fruition, which was which was very, very cool. I wasn't like, Oh my god, this is the best thing I've ever seen in my entire life. Like I'm gonna pay money to go see it again in IMAX. Honestly, I could have done without having to pay like
00:57:05
Speaker
$15, $20 to go see it in an IMAX theater. But it was very interesting. And at the end of the day, I'm glad that I went to go see it. And I hope that you guys do take the time to watch it eventually.
00:57:18
Speaker
On behalf of myself and the Art Pop Tarts, thank you for spending the $20 to talk about this film with us. It's really cool. And yeah, I took the album on a little run with me and I really enjoyed listening to it. And of course we love an art historical queen. Please keep bringing us all the art historical references. So I think that's
00:57:40
Speaker
like that's the most enjoyable thing for me about this is like she's just doing it so well and I really appreciate that. I agree and I mean really though I did really like the album I did really like the songs there are some good bops on there very biased but honestly like I really like the song Lilith a lot that's probably my favorite.
00:58:00
Speaker
Well, if you want us to keep spending money on visual albums, you can donate to our Buy Me a Coffee account. That link is in our link tree across our social media. It's on our website artpoptalk.com. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, happy thoughts, feel free to email us at artpoptalk at gmail.com.
00:58:24
Speaker
And we again want to let everybody know that Gianna will be flying out here this Wednesday. The fam is headed out to good old Pennsylvania for our cousin's wedding this Labor Day weekend. So in light of that, there will be no episode next Tuesday, that Labor Day week. But keep your eyes peeled because Gianna and I are going to be doing lots of new social media content
00:58:50
Speaker
You'll get a lot of new stuff from us and from our sponsors at Hungry Harvest. So have a nice, long weekend. Have a great holiday weekend. And we will talk to you in two Tuesdays. Bye, everyone. Bye. Art Pop Talk's executive producers are me, Bianca Martucci-Vinc. And me, Gianna Martucci-Vinc. Music and Sounds are by Josh Turner and Photography is by Adrian Turner.
00:59:21
Speaker
and our graphic designer is Sid Hammond.