Lana and the LGBTQ+ Issue...

[Veinsineon 78,616]

I am gay

and I do not care if Lana acknowledge me/gays or not

Being gay is just a tiny part of me

like the fact I have blue eyes

so... I live fine without anyone's thoughts about me being gay or whatever

p.s

thought yes... no gay couples in Love video was huge let down

!!!

[GeminiLanaFan 49,899]

I'm gay and a bit older and I don't know how I feel about her acknowledging her LGBT+ fanbase. 
It's cool when singers are supporting that part of the fanbase (like Taylor does) and I love that there are role models for younger LGBT fans out there. It's not always easy, being different, and to have someone say you have every right to be who you are and to have them fully support you makes all the difference in the world. 
However, I always have «concerns» or ask myself if the artist is authentic when he/she releases a song that is specifically targeted towards LGBT fans. I can't help but ask if the feelings are sincere of if it is just a cheap ploy to make profit out of us (like so many clothing companies do in May). 
As for Lana, one of the things I love about her is that she doesn't do anything like the rest of female singers. As I said, I am a bit older and I'm much at ease with my sexuality and orientation, so I am more into living my life and telling my story... And I identify so strongly with Lana's narrative in her songs that I don't feel the need to have a «gay song» specifically. As for her mentioning her «gay fans» in interviews, I don't know why she seems to dodge the question. Maybe she doesn't want to say something stupid and out of the place (it"s hard saying anything these days on any subject without being criticized) ans be criticized for it afterwards. 

[trayertrash 7,218]

Ask anyone outside of the queer community about her and they'll say her music is for "basic white girls" This is largely due to the cultural shift in music, style and aesthetics that took place among women after her music was released. The idea of her music being specifically for sad depressed girls is so common that even in metal spaces, where people don't know that I'm a fan, I get told to listen to her because I can't handle "real music" (which is due to a whole other level of misogyny and shit but that's a whole other conversation) Every reference I've seen towards her in tv shows is based around the idea that her music is for sad, lonely, depressed, teen girls / young adults. It just makes sense that she would mention women and girls if that's the main view of her fan base. Plus, as far as we know, Lana isn't queer in any sense. She may view her music as a representation for women's experiences and her wanting to acknowledge that, especially as a woman, isn't wrong. As YUNGATA mentioned, there is this thing that happens in the media, especially in the pop music scene, where women's contributions to pop fan bases is ignored completely. Hell, I've had someone on here ask me why I'm a member of this forum because I'm not a gay man, as if I can't be an active fan on here? They always questioned if I was queer enough to be a pop fan, which... sjlkfdg I'm neither cisgender nor heterosexual and that shouldn't determine if you fucking like a pop singer or not lol.  Anyway, yeah, Lana could be more vocal about queer stuff, but not at the cost of ignoring other folks in the fan base. Like I get it, I really do. I get why people want this mentioned. I want it mentioned more, especially since I'm part of a demographic that's nearly never acknowledged by anyone. But it's still partly coming down to some of y'all wanting Lana, a woman, to mention men before women... which..... *sigh* 

[Foxglove 2,266]

remember back in 2012 when the mainstream media was trashing LDR, like totally tearing her apart every chance they got to make fun of her, and us gays recognized she was a singularly special talent that needed to be recognized and honored?????  then Ultraviolence came out and people were calling her unhinged and crazy bc she stuck to her style, but us gays swooned bc we connected so hard to what she was putting out.  who knows more about loneliness than gays?  who strives harder for fleeting moments of happiness, knowing they will eventually be let down, than gays??  who knows more about being crushed by shitty toxic men than gays????  no one, that's who.  gays are more Lana than even Lana is Lana.

 

i dont need Lana to make any grand statement acknowledging gay issues.  she is a gay icon because her content is extremely relatable to gays.  however, i would love if the good sis would actually educate herself about any of the zillion issues going on in the world that don't exclusively center wealthy straight cis white women.  or like, stop going to homophobic church.  its like, you can be a witch or you can be a christian.  the christians killed witches.  it doesnt make sense to be both, unless your whole shtick is collapsing logic, but Lana "doesnt relate" to that even a little bit bc she is less deep than she wants to seem like she is.

 

i think Lana sees herself as the "bad girl" abandoned by god or whatever, just like gays are constantly told as we are excluded from traditional religious/spiritual practice and leadership positions and places of authority, but at the same time, she desperately wants to be back in god's good graces. and she knows, bc she is still allowed in the club by virtue of being a straight cis lady, she can just ignore all the fucked up shit and play into the Madonna/Whore dichotomy instead of actually shooting it down and opening the doors to heaven for everyone.  Catholics are so fucked up bc they believe they are inherently evil and deserve eternal torture and suffering.  So maybe Lana sees her "suffering" as some kind of Holy Touch From The Left Hand Of God instead of questioning the framework behind the entire system that makes her so fucked up about everything.

 

(by "gays" here i mean ALL LGBTQ+ people, and by ALL LGBTQ+ people, i mean anyone who is non-cis and/or non-hetero, heretofore known as "the sacred Legybtian people").  The world will know peace when men are allowed to love each other, when the Legybtians re-rise to our Sacred Council, when the Feminine is recognized as the Divine Source of All Life and Beauty instead of demeaned.  Until then, we're stuck with listening to Honeymoon on repeat

 

You know, sometimes i think god is playing a little game with us, looking down from heaven laughing, trying to see how much we can take.  the way things go, it's like a joke.  i'm tired, i'm so fucking tired.

 

thank you for attending my seminar

[WilshireBoulevard 5,421]

I do have an inkling that she's lowkey homophobic. Just recently that interview where she faced a "lightning round" of questions from a gay.... she seemed visibly uncomfortable by him. She is a white christian woman obsessed with the "golden age" of America, not much else to expect from her.

 

I think he was more uncomfortable because that guy was weird as hell and trying to be friends with a celebrity that went there for a professional interview and ended up having some randomer try and get her to be his hag. Win Edwards very much presents himself as not straight and she adores him.

remember back in 2012 when the mainstream media was trashing LDR, like totally tearing her apart every chance they got to make fun of her, and us gays recognized she was a singularly special talent that needed to be recognized and honored?????  then Ultraviolence came out and people were calling her unhinged and crazy bc she stuck to her style, but us gays swooned bc we connected so hard to what she was putting out.  who knows more about loneliness than gays?  who strives harder for fleeting moments of happiness, knowing they will eventually be let down, than gays??  who knows more about being crushed by shitty toxic men than gays????  no one, that's who.  gays are more Lana than even Lana is Lana.

 

I don't know if this is a fair way to frame it. I'm not trying to diminish the impact gay people have had on her career but it's very shortsighted to assume they're the only reason she's successful. A lot, and I mean a lot of the lana fans I know in real life are straight teenage girls. Her music appeals to them a lot too, including ultraviolence.

[Foxglove 2,266]

I don't know if this is a fair way to frame it. I'm not trying to diminish the impact gay people have had on her career but it's very shortsighted to assume they're the only reason she's successful. A lot, and I mean a lot of the lana fans I know in real life are straight teenage girls. Her music appeals to them a lot too, including ultraviolence.

i agree, and dont mean to frame it as "gays are the only reason lana is successful" or that no one else can relate.  i am simply saying that her content is extremely relatable to a lot of gays, even at a time when the "mainstream" take was that LDR was a joke.  obviously plenty of people of various backgrounds and stories and identities saw her talent and related.  i dont mean to pit anyone above anyone else, but this thread is about LGBTQ+ issues, which are rarely centered in any conversation.

[WilshireBoulevard 5,421]

i agree, and dont mean to frame it as "gays are the only reason lana is successful" or that no one else can relate.  i am simply saying that her content is extremely relatable to a lot of gays, even at a time when the "mainstream" take was that LDR was a joke.  obviously plenty of people of various backgrounds and stories and identities saw her talent and related.  i dont mean to pit anyone above anyone else, but this thread is about LGBTQ+ issues, which are rarely centered in any conversation.

 

I know, but what I'm offering is a counterpoint. I don't think Lana should do anything more than maybe go to a church that is openly positive about LGBT people, less for her fans and more because that would be the right thing to do. I don't think she has an issue with gay people at all. I don't think she's obligated to acknowledge gay people in her fanbase either. I think it's easy to get caught up in lanaboard culture calling everyone gay, and as someone who's bi I think it's cool that there's that very open culture on here, but as a woman I get a bit :/ when I see people say that gays made her career or she should use a gay couple for a mv or write a song for her fanbase (not saying that you said that but I've definitely seen people seriously say that on her). I def agree with YUNGATA, women get pushed out of the picture, straight or not, and I just get a bit :/ when people try to push Lana out of the Lana picture too. 

 

edit to add that it's almost laughably cliche to point out that what teenage girls like gets made fun of (see twilight, taylor swift). Pretty much the only media that doesn't get torn to shreds is what's adored by straight white men.

[Foxglove 2,266]

I know, but what I'm offering is a counterpoint. I don't think Lana should do anything more than maybe go to a church that is openly positive about LGBT people, less for her fans and more because that would be the right thing to do. I don't think she has an issue with gay people at all. I don't think she's obligated to acknowledge gay people in her fanbase either. I think it's easy to get caught up in lanaboard culture calling everyone gay, and as someone who's bi I think it's cool that there's that very open culture on here, but as a woman I get a bit :/ when I see people say that gays made her career or she should use a gay couple for a mv or write a song for her fanbase (not saying that you said that but I've definitely seen people seriously say that on her). I def agree with YUNGATA, women get pushed out of the picture, straight or not, and I just get a bit :/ when people try to push Lana out of the Lana picture too.

 

edit to add that it's almost laughably cliche to point out that what teenage girls like gets made fun of (see twilight, taylor swift). Pretty much the only media that doesn't get torn to shreds is what's adored by straight white men.

I mostly agree with this, and I also think its interesting that when people say "gays" theyre automatically assumed to be referring to gay men exclusively, when women comprise at least half or more than half of the LGBT community. I don't think Lana needs to do anything per se, but as a participant in Life on Earth, I have opinions about the stuff I see around me and sometimes feel an urge to share them.

 

Personally I think it's very telling that an artist with a massive gay fan base only uses straight couples to represent "love" in a video for a song called "Love". A huge part of discrimination against LGBT folks, and also a huge part of the manifestation of misogyny, is erasure, as in - if we just don't acknowledge it we can pretend it doesn't exist.

 

It comes off a little bit like erasure to hijack a topic that was in the title discussing LGBTQ issues, and make it about how gay men are forcing their voices louder than women. Like I said, so many LGBTQ people are women, so it's not me erasing women from the convo by discussing LGBTQ people. And literally the original post is ab how the voices and fandom of women and girls who are more easily able to be seen as "acceptable" in the mainstream overtake voices from LGBTQ people, that also includes women and girls. I see a lot of white/cis "feminism" centering issues that primarily affect or matter to a certain subset of people rather than acknowledging the whole. Not that that's what you're doing, but that happens a lot, and queer/gay/trans voices get ignored or erased

 

That being said, I think misogyny plays into this whole issue a ton, and I think homophobia is even rooted in misogyny, so I dont mean to downplay the importance of this

[baddisease 18,358]

But she doesn't know that she meant that to you. Lana is a cis and presumably straight woman. That's how she views the world. When she looks at her music and thinks about how people would connect to it, she's going to be seeing it through the lens of a straight cis woman. 

 

Personally my concern would be the fact she publicly attends a church that doesn't make their stance on LGBT people public knowledge- aka we can expect the worse. But- to give an example of something I saw someone write on this site- her songs and videos being "heteronormative" is simply untrue, as her songs and videos are just how she experiences or views the world as a straight and cis woman. There are plenty of artists that are LGBT themselves, or more explicitly acknowledge them, but I'm not too concerned about Lana viewing her music as relatable to girls.

 

that's true. i wish i could tell her in person what she's meant to me...

[baddisease 18,358]

remember back in 2012 when the mainstream media was trashing LDR, like totally tearing her apart every chance they got to make fun of her, and us gays recognized she was a singularly special talent that needed to be recognized and honored?????  then Ultraviolence came out and people were calling her unhinged and crazy bc she stuck to her style, but us gays swooned bc we connected so hard to what she was putting out.  who knows more about loneliness than gays?  who strives harder for fleeting moments of happiness, knowing they will eventually be let down, than gays??  who knows more about being crushed by shitty toxic men than gays????  no one, that's who.  gays are more Lana than even Lana is Lana.

 

i dont need Lana to make any grand statement acknowledging gay issues.  she is a gay icon because her content is extremely relatable to gays.  however, i would love if the good sis would actually educate herself about any of the zillion issues going on in the world that don't exclusively center wealthy straight cis white women.  or like, stop going to homophobic church.  its like, you can be a witch or you can be a christian.  the christians killed witches.  it doesnt make sense to be both, unless your whole shtick is collapsing logic, but Lana "doesnt relate" to that even a little bit bc she is less deep than she wants to seem like she is.

 

i think Lana sees herself as the "bad girl" abandoned by god or whatever, just like gays are constantly told as we are excluded from traditional religious/spiritual practice and leadership positions and places of authority, but at the same time, she desperately wants to be back in god's good graces. and she knows, bc she is still allowed in the club by virtue of being a straight cis lady, she can just ignore all the fucked up shit and play into the Madonna/Whore dichotomy instead of actually shooting it down and opening the doors to heaven for everyone.  Catholics are so fucked up bc they believe they are inherently evil and deserve eternal torture and suffering.  So maybe Lana sees her "suffering" as some kind of Holy Touch From The Left Hand Of God instead of questioning the framework behind the entire system that makes her so fucked up about everything.

 

(by "gays" here i mean ALL LGBTQ+ people, and by ALL LGBTQ+ people, i mean anyone who is non-cis and/or non-hetero, heretofore known as "the sacred Legybtian people").  The world will know peace when men are allowed to love each other, when the Legybtians re-rise to our Sacred Council, when the Feminine is recognized as the Divine Source of All Life and Beauty instead of demeaned.  Until then, we're stuck with listening to Honeymoon on repeat

 

You know, sometimes i think god is playing a little game with us, looking down from heaven laughing, trying to see how much we can take.  the way things go, it's like a joke.  i'm tired, i'm so fucking tired.

 

thank you for attending my seminar

 

yooooooooooooooooooo that's so true. you snapped. like i said, when i transitioned Lana was the only singer I connected with. i absolutely have cried to her songs because of how relatable they were. when i was abandoned by my family, i absolutely needed her music, and specifically the song Bel Air (and the lyric "walk in the way of my soft resurrection" was like the caption of my life at that time). I love Lana and I hope she loves me back as a fan.

 

edit: i hope one day that LGBTQ people never have to feel loneliness again.

[kitschesque 9,885]

the biggest act of homophobia was dropping miss blueeyes

 

Bih I miss his looks everyday he knew her figure and aesthetic so well

[TRENCH 15,456]

did yall forget she was a lesbon in Summertime Sadness music video 

 

 

joking aside everyone here has valid points. One side it's weird how she said "if my fans are trump supporters fk them lol" but shes lowkey about any other type of fan. the Love mv would've been a great wink to her gay fanbase. But i understand that she's scared of saying something positive about the gays and then being interpreted wrong like always  

[Sugar Venom 9,659]

sorry if this turns out rambly, i’m tired lol.i tried to talk about this topic once when i was a newbie and i got yelled at :toofunny; so it’s nice to see a discussion being held now. i would so love for lana to acknowledge us specifically, unfortunately i don’t see that happening anytime soon :/ like other people have said i think she probably just doesn’t think about it, given her view as a cis straight woman. and it’s probably not that important to her bc i feel like her fans are her fans, they’re her babies, we come from all sorts of different backgrounds and she loves us all the same. i don’t think it’s a big deal to her, which i kind of appreciate. i’m so glad she doesn’t pander. with the church thing i don’t think she’s homophobic, she probably just doesn’t give much thought about it in general. idk if they have like whole anti gay sermons there in which case then she wouldn’t have an excuse but if they don’t mention it, she’s probably not even aware or chooses to “respectfully disagree” or smth. it’s probably hard for her to find places and communities where she feels safe and comfortable, so if that’s what she has with hillsong then i don’t want her to leave and be unhappy, idk.. obviously there are better more ethical (?) churches, but she’s gonna do whatever she wants so lol. i do wonder if she met her ig baddie friends there or if they introduced her to it, either way i don’t like them! skirtsandsuits personally spat in my face and called me poor

[Foxglove 2,266]

skirtsandsuits blocked me on Instagram bc I mentioned the hotel she was posing in front of makes profit for those who legally murder gays. They dgaf and I doubt Lana does either. Us LGBTs are so easy to just ignore, they've been doing it for millenniae

[California Sun 547]

This might be an unpopular take but... I actually feel like on the whole women have been pushed out many pop spaces (esp alt pop) despite being the main cohort who have historically (and contemporarily) supported the pop music industry and its artists. Sometimes I feel like women (regardless of sexual orientation) get made fun of for liking the same pop music that gay men do because it's "basic" when we like it or whatever. At a gathering recently a friend of a friend told me Charli XCX is "for gay men only" and while he sort of meant it as a joke I felt like it was quite revealing of the kind of culture women in pop spaces experience. I've heard similar sentiments from PC music fans too. While many current pop acts undeniably have huge gay male fanbases, I don't think that should be at the cost of women getting to enjoy those spaces too. I guess it just frustrates me a bit because pop music has traditionally been marketed towards women, who became the butt of jokes about it being lowbrow, only for it to be later claimed by gay culture and then become way less lowbrow and way more cool. Basically misogyny in pop is wearing me down

 

this comment is mildly problematic. pigeonholing and stereotyping gays as "arbiters of style and taste" is not really useful in a society that worships Jonathan Van Ness for his sound bites but then chastises him for admitting he has HIV. this thread, I don't believe, needs more cis-privileged white female apologists. it is undeniable that Lana Del Rey's fanbase has a huge LGBTQ population. we're not asking for her to become a global activist and intercessor on our behalf, championing LGBTQ rights, or anything like that. all we're (not even wanting or expecting just) wishing for is some form of acknowledgment from this person who we admire and support, and in my opinion we have never gotten that acknowledgment in any significant way, which i think was OP's point. (and no, letting winn edwards suck up to her does not count as LGBTQ acknowledgement). 

 

edit: just to be clear I'm not calling Yung a cis-privileged white female, I'm calling Lana one 

[Edelgard 1,849]

I understand that it's scary for gay people to see Lana doing questionable shit like visiting homophobic churches, and I really think that it would hurt me too (when she made that stupid comment about feminism in the UV period, I was upset af). It is interesting that she never speaks up for LGBT, but then again she has only recently spoken up for women (in a kind of weird way too), so we can just assume she's not comfortable being political (and do you really want her to be your champion when you see how awkwardly she has handled the situation with Kanye) 

[Foxglove 2,266]

It's funny that being supportive of LGBTQ people is political to some people, because for me it's extremely personal and inescapable. I support the sacred LeGyBTian people because I don't believe in self hatred. I express my gay love and gender variance because I believe in honesty and self expression. To have the most personal aspects of my life deemed uncomfortably political is honestly a slap in the face. I'm gay regardless of what's going on in politics. I am forced to be political, bc politics wants to intrude into my personal life, not the other way around. A whole fucking lot of cis/straight privilege really shows in this thread (and literally everywhere else in the world as well). Hooray for everyone privileged enough to stay out of politics! Be grateful for how easy you have it by even having a choice in the matter. Some of us don't get to choose whether or not we're gonna give a fuck today

[Sofaraway 125]

lol who's to say that like young w

 

I was watching Lana's most recent interview (https://youtu.be/B3ezfOlDajM?t=68), and she was asked about why she believes her music connects with her fan base. She focused her response on her connection with young women, and I found it odd and sort of dismissive. Like many female celebrities, Lana's career has been supported by a diverse fan base but especially the LGBTQ+ community. Gay men/queer-identifying folks in particular have been some of her most vocal (and rabid) supporters, but it seems that there have been multiple instances wherein she has defined her "fans" as young (white) girls.

 

I know there's a select few male fans she always takes pics and has a special connection with, but in general it seems as if she wants to depict her supporters as one type of group, and it makes me feel a little icky. 

 

What do you guys think?

*Obviously, if I watch/read her interviews and am on this forum, I am a HUGE fan and love her, so don't read this as 

 

I was watching Lana's most recent interview (https://youtu.be/B3ezfOlDajM?t=68), and she was asked about why she believes her music connects with her fan base. She focused her response on her connection with young women, and I found it odd and sort of dismissive. Like many female celebrities, Lana's career has been supported by a diverse fan base but especially the LGBTQ+ community. Gay men/queer-identifying folks in particular have been some of her most vocal (and rabid) supporters, but it seems that there have been multiple instances wherein she has defined her "fans" as young (white) girls.

 

I know there's a select few male fans she always takes pics and has a special connection with, but in general it seems as if she wants to depict her supporters as one type of group, and it makes me feel a little icky. 

 

What do you guys think?

*Obviously, if I watch/read her interviews and am on this forum, I am a HUGE fan and love her, so don't read this as hate.

who's to say that her saying young women doesn't also mean lesbians, trans women, bi women etc. not everything has to be about gay men every second of the day. also I wouldn't read that deeply into it.

[Foxglove 2,266]

[trayertrash 7,218]

It's funny that being supportive of LGBTQ people is political to some people, because for me it's extremely personal and inescapable. I support the sacred LeGyBTian people because I don't believe in self hatred. I express my gay love and gender variance because I believe in honesty and self expression. To have the most personal aspects of my life deemed uncomfortably political is honestly a slap in the face. I'm gay regardless of what's going on in politics. I am forced to be political, bc politics wants to intrude into my personal life, not the other way around. A whole fucking lot of cis/straight privilege really shows in this thread (and literally everywhere else in the world as well). Hooray for everyone privileged enough to stay out of politics! Be grateful for how easy you have it by even having a choice in the matter. Some of us don't get to choose whether or not we're gonna give a fuck today

 

Damn, you really didn't play in this thread! 2015 political me that was bashed by dozens of people on here for speaking about these same issues (and much, much more) is SHOOK