Lil Nas X Goes To Hell
Lil Nas X set the world on fire on 26th March with the release Montero (Call Me By Your Name). The video is what caught everybody's attention. There is a lot of positive feedback as well as negative ones in the overpopulated sea of this topic, but this is my take as a non Christian queer Indian.
So what happened in the video that shocked the world?
In the video, Lil Nas X kisses a snake-humanoid Satan in the Garden of Eden, gets thrown out of Heaven and pole dances all the way to Hell where he gives a flaming lap dance to the Devil, then kills him and takes his crown.
Public Reception
As expected, conservative Christians were getting upset over this. The satanic panic spread even further when the rapper, who first came to fame with Old Town Road, launched limited-edition "Satan" shoes with a drop of human blood in them. At the moment, Nike is suing MSCHF, the maker of these modified sneakers for trademark infringement.
People are accusing the rapper of “targeting kids” with sexual content. Dakota Governor Kristi Noem said Lil Nas X is corrupting the “God-given eternal soul” of American children. Conservative author Candace Owens accused the rapper of keeping Black America down. Former Lakers player Nick Young tweeted that his kids will never play Old Town Road again.
Lil Nas X isn’t staying quiet; he’s hitting back with his signature humour.
“i spent my entire teenage years hating myself because of the shit y’all preached would happen to me because i was gay,” he tweeted. “so i hope u are mad, stay mad, feel the same anger you teach us to have towards ourselves.”
This queer Indian is delighted by his comeback—
LGBTQ teenagers all over the world are at a high risk of suicide. One of the reasons is the religious teaching that if you are gay or trans, you’re going to Hell.
As my friend and LGBTQ Christian Esther Spurrill-Jones points out, a lot of Christian artists have portrayed Satan in music videos. A devout Christian herself, she believes Montero isn’t in any way against the fundamental Christian beliefs preached in the Bible. This leaves me to wonder if this negative response to Lil Nas X’s video has more to do with homophobia than religion.
“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.” — from a Lil Nas X tweet.
When I see Lil Nas X dancing in Hell, singing his heart out, I see a gay man finally embracing his queerness in a genre that is well known for its homophobia. His song is unambiguously queer, nodding to the popular LGBTQ movie Call Me By Your Name as an expression of joy.
For me, killing Satan and taking his crown is a symbol of queer triumph. It screams: “We are here, get used to it."
Despite the wins, I am aware that so much work remains. The general public attitude toward LGBTQ people in India is not good, but times are a-changin’. Hopefully, Montero is going to be the first of many more queer hip-hop songs to confront the problem.
(cover image courtesy: rollingstone.com)
Artemis Shishir (he/they) is a storyteller and a queer, transmasculine university student who lives with their family in Kolkata when not attending college in Hyderabad. He mostly writes on Medium as Artemis Shishir. He is interested in queer history and queer cinema. You can message him at artemisshishirwrites@gmail.com
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