I am saddened by the backlash against Lana Del Rey. I am sick of this kind of horror at a woman laid bare—and sick of the fear and disgust that arises when we discover a woman is less than perfect. This kind of thing has been going on for a long time. There’s a famous poem, “The Lady’s Dressing Room,” written in 1732, in which the satirist Jonathan Swift describes sneaking into a woman’s inner chamber to watch her undress and take off her makeup. He’s shocked by what he finds: Beneath her “Lace, Brocades, and Tissues,” lie “oyl,” “wrinkles,” “sweat,” “ear-wax,” and “hair.” The whole poem reads as strip tease meets a horror story. At the end, the woman takes a shit, and the voyeur nearly passes out. It’s a hilarious—and also very disturbing poem—and in some ways, it’s a metaphor for what everyone wants to do with Lana these days—that is, peel back the layers and pick her apart in order to uncover the fact that she’s pretending.
Really great piece here.
INTERWEB
Lana Del Rey: The Irony Lady
