Sawyer Bailly
"I wrote a song with our name in it. It's about a guy I met last summer. 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. You see this is very scary for me, people will be angry, they will say I’m pushing an agenda. But the truth is, I am. The agenda to make people stay the fuck out of other people’s lives and stop dictating who they should be.”
This is the letter that singer Lil Nas X, who came out as gay in July 2019, penned to his fourteen-year-old self in a post to Instagram.
On March 25th, Lil Nas dropped the instantly viral video for his newest single, titled Montero (Call Me By Your Name). Sexy, deliberately provocative and unabashedly queer, the video is chock full of stripper poles, pelvic thrusts and religious imagery, culminating in the short shorts-wearing music superstar giving a leather-clad CGI Lucifer a lap dance before snapping his neck.
Needless to say, Lil Nas X was met with waves of backlash from conservative politicians and commentators alike. Critics claimed that he was pushing an agenda, promoting Satanism, exposing children to inappropriate content and all of the above. The artist, seemingly unfazed and even amused by the criticism, took to the Internet to hit back with his usual wit and humour. “Me sliding down a poll isn’t what’s destroying society,” he tweeted.
I don’t want to waste time in this post giving any more airtime to critics than they’ve already gotten. Instead, I want to talk about how monumental, important and altogether awesome this video is.
In publicly enjoying his sexuality and desires in the same way that his straight counterparts have for decades, Lil Nas has opened the door for other queer artists to do the same. Such overt and joyful expression of his identity as a queer man is one that Lil Nas’s predecessors, other gay male artists such as Elton John, George Michael and Ricky Martin, have mostly steered clear of: likely due to a fear of the hit that their career would take as a result of the homophobia of the music business and of the world. Lil Nas, a black queer man and chart-topping music superstar, falling from heaven on a stripper pole (in thigh-high leather boots no less) into Satan’s lap, is uncharted territory. It is groundbreaking. And to young queer fans and artists especially, it matters - a lot.
In Call Me By Your Name, Lil Nas makes no attempt to make his sexuality more palatable for his heterosexual fan base, nor does he attempt to make his identity fit any mould of heteronormativity. Instead, he enjoys his queerness exactly as it is - something beautiful, unique and valid in and of itself. This sends an important message: LGBTQ2S+ people do not need to change the way that they experience love and desire to fit standards based on heterosexual relationships and societal definitions of “normal.” In fact, queer love and sex simply do not need to resemble straight love and sex in any way, shape, or form to be worthy of respect and celebration. We see this as Lil Nas departs heaven, a realm in which he does not feel accepted, to a space in which he can exist unapologetically.
I’m not alone in loving the video; the haters of Montero (Call Me By Your Name) are far outweighed by millions of fans applauding the singer. Lil Nas is here, he’s queer, and this music video is changing the game (and, for what it's worth, the song is a bop). Call Me By Your Name signals new and important beginnings in the music industry, and its positive impact will be felt for years to come.
I am excited to see what’s next, not only for Lil Nas but for other queer artists with their own stories to tell, and I hope that moving forward this video helps to create spaces in which others can find strength and joy in their identity.
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