In Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film A Clockwork Orange, it’s the intoxicating tall glasses of questionably-laced milk that muster Alex and his fellow droogs for “a bit of the old ultra-violence.” Unprovoked physical abuse is elevated to a form of high art by the accompanying classical music, carried out by the handsome, young, and otherwise sensitive protagonist. The term has resurfaced as the title of Lana Del Rey’s much-anticipated second album, as well as one of its songs. With lyrics such as “he hit me and it felt like a kiss” it is easy to see why the message could be accused of glorifying physical abuse against women.
The glamourisation of sexual violence has reached its tipping point in popular culture. Erotic tastes are no longer subversive: Fifty Shades of Gray is tucked in many a respectable middle-aged woman’s bedside drawer, and Rihanna sings about S&M on the radio. There’s no harm in a bit of kink between consenting adults, and it’s a positive sign that the diversity of sexual preferences is being acknowledged by mainstream culture. What can be dangerous, and send out a sinister message, is those depictions which do not represent an image of consent, and can appear to legitimize physical abuse. They seem to be blind to the very real presence of violence for millions of women around the world.
But rather than being the kind of sensational marketing tactic for which Lana is often attacked, in an interview with Fader she claims that the lyrics are more autobiographical—her taste is for “hardcore love”. Lyrics from her first album Born To Die also reflect this, “Ride” in particular reads like a melancholy search for home, love, and belonging: “I was in the winter of my life, and the men I met along the road were my only summer.” What emerges is a deep emotional need for validation and security. The need for love is universal, and when the ability for self-love is lacking, security is sought from exterior sources. As Lana puts it: “to seek safety in other people.”
There is very little in contemporary culture that encourages women to love themselves—even less to love each other. Notions of “pampering” operate on the idea that self-care involves pruning your body to become physically acceptable. Love becomes a reward for being beautiful, successful, for pleasing your lover(s). In a fraught, complex, and busy world, these three demands are impossible to meet simultaneously, and require a degree of sacrifice and self-fragmentation. It is this kind of sacrifice that women in the “post-feminist” age often suffer from: the choice between a social life and an exercise routine, between a career and a rich family life. Those who navigate these meshes seem to harness some goddess-like strength, and yet often look more exhausted than loved.
This conflict of selfhood is well detailed in Del Rey’s lyrics: her “chameleon soul” with “no fixed personality” manifests in her various public personas. Following the revelation of her transformation from the innocuous Lizzy Grant to the enigmatic Lana, the media viciously attacked her constructed image as fake, as if female identity were a fixed and unbending state. As if women have not had to become adept at shape-shifting in order to survive. Let’s not forget that during the “shattering” of the glass ceiling (whose shards remain spectacularly intact) in the 1980s, part of success at work involved “power dressing” to emulate male colleagues. The attacks epitomise the vicissitudes of mainstream media: women must be immaculate as images without acknowledging the dishonesty of surface appearance. They must be everything at once: masculine and feminine, independent and vulnerable, successful and popular—all while presenting a unified, unconflicted and pleasing appearance.
The post-feminism myth functions on the premise that now women have access to careers, financial independence, and sexual liberty, their battles have been won. Del Rey has rejected the notion of feminism, failing to see its relevance. Her idea of a true feminist is “a woman who feels free enough to do whatever she wants.” What such rejections fail to take account of is that even if some battles have been won, the war for women outside the western world rages on. There are still plenty of women who lack the freedom to do whatever they want.
And yet, if Lana embodies the post-feminist western woman, why is she so sad? Why does she not declare along with fellow divas like Beyoncé that women “run the world”? In a recent interview with the Guardian, Lana said she wished she was already dead. While her melancholy femme-fatale persona has been embraced by the media; there is obvious unease about her self-destructive tendencies, which fail to fit the self-contained and unified image expected of her. If Lana, who is successful, Lana who is beautiful, and Lana who is loved by many fans and according to her lyrics—a vast array of lovers—does not feel it, then the fault lies with a culture that insists she should.
The psychoanalyst Erich Fromm discussed in his 1957 book The Art of Loving that under the tutelage of capitalism, identity has become a commodity that we sell to each other in order to greedily pursue the finite “resource” of love. But rather than seeing love as an object to be obtained or exchanged, he revitalizes it as a verb, an action. Love is generated by enacting it with others. According to Fromm, those who have been deprived of love early on are the hungriest for it, often unable to love themselves—and like Lana, seek it through others or by cultivating an image of desirability.
Returning to her lyrics: it is counterproductive to attack Lana Del Rey for vocalizing what is the sad reflection of a common experience for countless women. Rather than believe the post-feminist myth which has failed us, we should instead re-focus our agenda on the cultivation of self-love, and love for women threatened by violence for whom the lines “This is ultraviolence. ... I can hear sirens, sirens” is a daily reality.
This piece first appeared on newstatesman.com.