1
00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:04,080
Speaker 1: Trigger warning. This podcast involves discussions of child sexual abuse

2
00:00:04,200 --> 00:00:11,399
Speaker 1: and pedophilia. Listener discretion is advised. Vladimir Nabokov once said this,

3
00:00:12,320 --> 00:00:15,120
Speaker 1: for me, a work of fiction exists only in so

4
00:00:15,320 --> 00:00:17,720
Speaker 1: far as it affords me what I shall bluntly call

5
00:00:17,880 --> 00:00:22,080
Speaker 1: aesthetic bliss. That is a sense of being somehow somewhere

6
00:00:22,320 --> 00:00:26,600
Speaker 1: connected with other states of being where art, curiosity, tenderness, kindness,

7
00:00:26,640 --> 00:00:30,360
Speaker 1: ecstasy is the norm. There are not many such books,

8
00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:37,520
Speaker 1: and estatic bliss means different things to different people. Let

9
00:00:37,520 --> 00:00:40,879
Speaker 1: me tell you a tale of two different yet similar

10
00:00:40,960 --> 00:00:45,920
Speaker 1: stories from British tabloid newspaper The Daily Mail. The first

11
00:00:46,200 --> 00:00:50,680
Speaker 1: is a story about a perfume called oh Lola by

12
00:00:50,720 --> 00:00:54,520
Speaker 1: Mark Jacobs. Top notes are raspberry, pear and strawberry. Little

13
00:00:54,600 --> 00:00:58,760
Speaker 1: notes are a piony, magnolia and psycholoman. Bass notes are vanilla,

14
00:00:58,840 --> 00:01:02,520
Speaker 1: sandalwood and tongue a bean. Their spokesperson was a seventeen

15
00:01:02,600 --> 00:01:05,919
Speaker 1: year old Dakota Fanning posing in a sheer white dress

16
00:01:06,080 --> 00:01:08,840
Speaker 1: holding a plastic rose near her crotch. Here's how The

17
00:01:08,880 --> 00:01:11,440
Speaker 1: Daily Mail described this photo shoot in two thousand ten.

18
00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:16,559
Speaker 1: The background is similarly a juvenile. It's monotone pastel pink,

19
00:01:16,640 --> 00:01:20,199
Speaker 1: compounding the innocence of the composition. But when a large

20
00:01:20,200 --> 00:01:23,720
Speaker 1: bottle of the scent featuring its signature rose top has

21
00:01:23,720 --> 00:01:27,640
Speaker 1: been placed provocatively in between the young Starlett's legs, the

22
00:01:27,680 --> 00:01:31,279
Speaker 1: teenager clutches it as she tilts back lasciviously and stares

23
00:01:31,319 --> 00:01:34,959
Speaker 1: intendedly into the camera. New Yorker Jacobs admits that his

24
00:01:35,040 --> 00:01:37,720
Speaker 1: intention wants to betray the young woman. As a reboot

25
00:01:37,760 --> 00:01:42,960
Speaker 1: of the tragic character and Vladimir Nabakov's novel Lolita, which

26
00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:46,280
Speaker 1: tells the story of a young girl's sexual relationship with

27
00:01:46,319 --> 00:01:50,680
Speaker 1: a much older man who becomes her stepfather. Thank you,

28
00:01:50,760 --> 00:01:54,640
Speaker 1: Daily Mail, that is certainly one way to describe that book.

29
00:01:54,880 --> 00:01:56,920
Speaker 1: Maybe you remember this ad I had a photo for

30
00:01:56,960 --> 00:02:00,000
Speaker 1: a minute hanging in my room in high school. Maybe

31
00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:03,280
Speaker 1: you don't, but you remember a similar image in advertising

32
00:02:03,320 --> 00:02:07,040
Speaker 1: throughout the years. This ad was eventually banned by Britain's

33
00:02:07,080 --> 00:02:12,720
Speaker 1: Advertising Standards Authority for sexualizing a child. Then Dakoda Fanning's

34
00:02:12,760 --> 00:02:16,959
Speaker 1: younger sister l start in another Lolita themed fragrance commercial

35
00:02:17,240 --> 00:02:21,520
Speaker 1: for a French scent called Lolita lamp Pica in at

36
00:02:21,560 --> 00:02:25,720
Speaker 1: age fourteen, and again the criticism was Swift. The ad

37
00:02:25,760 --> 00:02:28,120
Speaker 1: is a three minute video. The features l Fanning as

38
00:02:28,160 --> 00:02:30,280
Speaker 1: a forest nymph who we see in a series of

39
00:02:30,280 --> 00:02:33,520
Speaker 1: shots where she's chewing on her thumbnail, looking at the camera,

40
00:02:33,720 --> 00:02:39,079
Speaker 1: and then she falls in love with a deer right.

41
00:02:41,080 --> 00:02:44,480
Speaker 1: Or maybe you remember an Aldo campaign from the early tenths,

42
00:02:44,760 --> 00:02:48,120
Speaker 1: but a pale teenager in heart shaped sunglasses licking a

43
00:02:48,160 --> 00:02:51,480
Speaker 1: popsicle in an attempt to sell you shoes. Maybe you're

44
00:02:51,560 --> 00:02:53,520
Speaker 1: a little older than I am, and you remember the

45
00:02:53,639 --> 00:02:58,480
Speaker 1: famously controversial perfume scent Loves Babysoft from nineteen seventy four,

46
00:02:58,680 --> 00:03:01,880
Speaker 1: which ran with images of young white girls clutching teddy

47
00:03:01,880 --> 00:03:06,600
Speaker 1: bears wearing pink lipstick with the tagline because innocence is

48
00:03:06,680 --> 00:03:11,320
Speaker 1: sexier than you think. If you've never seen those adds before,

49
00:03:11,560 --> 00:03:14,440
Speaker 1: it's worth a google. They will ruin your life. Or

50
00:03:14,480 --> 00:03:18,320
Speaker 1: maybe you remember the Lolita inspired imagery that's appeared in

51
00:03:18,440 --> 00:03:22,680
Speaker 1: advertising or pop music or movies over the last sixty

52
00:03:22,760 --> 00:03:28,000
Speaker 1: five plus years. This hyperfeminine, young sexualized image has been

53
00:03:28,120 --> 00:03:32,639
Speaker 1: used to move product before Nabukov's novel and certainly after it.

54
00:03:33,120 --> 00:03:37,320
Speaker 1: In these contexts, Lolita is completely divorced from a novel

55
00:03:37,400 --> 00:03:40,680
Speaker 1: that is narrated by a child sex abuser. Its implications

56
00:03:40,720 --> 00:03:44,080
Speaker 1: are too entice to sell, to convince the viewer that

57
00:03:44,160 --> 00:03:47,360
Speaker 1: the underage are consenting. And this is the story of

58
00:03:47,440 --> 00:03:51,600
Speaker 1: advertising before Lolita was published, and certainly after it was

59
00:03:51,600 --> 00:03:57,680
Speaker 1: published in but the misinterpretations surrounding Vladimir Nabukhov's character Dolores

60
00:03:57,760 --> 00:04:03,280
Speaker 1: Hayes has ingratiated itself seamlessly into advertising culture, over and

61
00:04:03,400 --> 00:04:06,760
Speaker 1: over and over. Let's give the Daily Mail another shot.

62
00:04:07,000 --> 00:04:11,680
Speaker 1: Here's a story from trying to educate her. Bradley Cooper

63
00:04:11,800 --> 00:04:15,560
Speaker 1: thirty eight reads Lolita to Suki Waterhouse twenty one as

64
00:04:15,560 --> 00:04:19,440
Speaker 1: she sprawls across him in Parisian Park. Attached to this

65
00:04:19,560 --> 00:04:22,760
Speaker 1: article are a number of paparazzi photos of the actress

66
00:04:22,760 --> 00:04:26,560
Speaker 1: and model. Suki Waterhouse are climbing across Bradley Cooper and

67
00:04:26,640 --> 00:04:29,640
Speaker 1: reading a copy of Lolita, a book whose front cover

68
00:04:29,720 --> 00:04:34,040
Speaker 1: blurb from writer Martin Amis reads comedy, subversive yet divine.

69
00:04:34,400 --> 00:04:37,280
Speaker 1: In one shot, he lays in her lap, her hair

70
00:04:37,360 --> 00:04:40,599
Speaker 1: is pulled up and she's wearing very youthful overalls, and

71
00:04:40,839 --> 00:04:43,520
Speaker 1: he reads to her. And in another he points at

72
00:04:43,520 --> 00:04:45,480
Speaker 1: the back cover of the book and talks to her.

73
00:04:45,720 --> 00:04:47,560
Speaker 1: Not to be clear, they're both adults at this time,

74
00:04:47,680 --> 00:04:50,719
Speaker 1: and their relationship lasts for around two years, ending in

75
00:04:51,839 --> 00:04:54,000
Speaker 1: But even the tone of how this article is written

76
00:04:54,240 --> 00:04:57,800
Speaker 1: sums up so much of the dissonance that surrounds this

77
00:04:57,880 --> 00:05:00,400
Speaker 1: book and its legacy. So I want to to share

78
00:05:00,480 --> 00:05:03,640
Speaker 1: some of it here. Lolita was published in nineteen fifty

79
00:05:03,720 --> 00:05:07,320
Speaker 1: five by a French pornographic press and deemed so obscene

80
00:05:07,400 --> 00:05:11,440
Speaker 1: it was banned in countries including England, South Africa and Argentina.

81
00:05:12,160 --> 00:05:16,760
Speaker 1: But despite its scandalous content, today Vladimir nabucovs Lolita is

82
00:05:16,760 --> 00:05:20,280
Speaker 1: a fixture of many literature syllabuses, and was dubbed one

83
00:05:20,320 --> 00:05:23,600
Speaker 1: of the Time magazines one hundred best twentieth century English

84
00:05:23,760 --> 00:05:28,479
Speaker 1: language novels. So perhaps that explains why Bradley Cooper wanted

85
00:05:28,520 --> 00:05:32,120
Speaker 1: to share the classic with his much younger girlfriend, Suki Waterhouse.

86
00:05:33,440 --> 00:05:35,880
Speaker 1: The thirty eight year old was seen reading from a

87
00:05:35,880 --> 00:05:38,240
Speaker 1: well thumbed copy of the book as he reclined in

88
00:05:38,279 --> 00:05:42,599
Speaker 1: a Paroisian park. Suki sprawled across him. She listened intently

89
00:05:42,640 --> 00:05:46,159
Speaker 1: as he read, although at times looked amused as Bradley

90
00:05:46,200 --> 00:05:49,960
Speaker 1: brought certain passages to her attention. After a while the

91
00:05:49,960 --> 00:05:53,160
Speaker 1: British born star decided to sit on Bradley's lap and

92
00:05:53,200 --> 00:05:56,640
Speaker 1: then between his legs as he continued to read Okay,

93
00:05:56,680 --> 00:05:58,880
Speaker 1: We're gonna skip ahead a little bit in the article,

94
00:05:59,120 --> 00:06:03,680
Speaker 1: it continues quote. Wanting to capture the romantic moment in France,

95
00:06:03,800 --> 00:06:06,440
Speaker 1: the Silver Linings actor took out his mobile phone to

96
00:06:06,480 --> 00:06:09,800
Speaker 1: take a quick snap. Lifting up his sunglasses, he smiled

97
00:06:09,839 --> 00:06:12,760
Speaker 1: at the camera while Suki put her own sunglasses down

98
00:06:12,800 --> 00:06:15,039
Speaker 1: and tied her hair up as she pulled her best

99
00:06:15,160 --> 00:06:18,440
Speaker 1: model pose for the picture. Their seventeen year h gap

100
00:06:18,480 --> 00:06:21,839
Speaker 1: comes as a surprise after Bratley previously you declared that

101
00:06:21,920 --> 00:06:24,440
Speaker 1: he was too old to date his Silver Linings play,

102
00:06:24,520 --> 00:06:27,520
Speaker 1: but co star Jennifer Lawrence, who at twenty two was

103
00:06:27,600 --> 00:06:31,279
Speaker 1: a year older than Suki. He said earlier this year

104
00:06:31,279 --> 00:06:34,880
Speaker 1: regarding Jennifer even didn't happen. By now, it's never gonna happen.

105
00:06:35,240 --> 00:06:39,840
Speaker 1: I could literally be her father. Speaking about his love life,

106
00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:42,640
Speaker 1: he once said, I look for a girl that is fun,

107
00:06:42,960 --> 00:06:46,200
Speaker 1: a free spirit. I'm a romantic yea, so she would

108
00:06:46,279 --> 00:06:48,840
Speaker 1: need to put up with a little you know, gogglelled.

109
00:06:49,520 --> 00:06:54,400
Speaker 1: I can be soppy. Thank you. Daily Mail Journalism is

110
00:06:54,440 --> 00:06:58,960
Speaker 1: alive and well, now, seriously, Cooper said an interviews in

111
00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:02,720
Speaker 1: the past, Lolita is one of his favorite books, and

112
00:07:02,880 --> 00:07:07,359
Speaker 1: it just makes you ask on what grounds. Some suggested

113
00:07:07,440 --> 00:07:10,120
Speaker 1: at the time that Cooper was poking fun at the

114
00:07:10,160 --> 00:07:12,480
Speaker 1: media coverage that the age gap in his and water

115
00:07:12,520 --> 00:07:15,840
Speaker 1: Houses relationship had produced, but given the seriousness with which

116
00:07:15,840 --> 00:07:18,480
Speaker 1: he said an actor almost two years older than Suki

117
00:07:18,520 --> 00:07:20,880
Speaker 1: Waterhouse was too young for him, that's kind of a

118
00:07:20,920 --> 00:07:23,200
Speaker 1: tough game of forty chess for me to put together.

119
00:07:23,480 --> 00:07:26,640
Speaker 1: And yet there are still comments on this Daily Mail

120
00:07:26,640 --> 00:07:30,240
Speaker 1: piece that talked down to Suki Waterhouse. One of the

121
00:07:30,280 --> 00:07:33,080
Speaker 1: comments at the time reads, quote, it doesn't look right

122
00:07:33,080 --> 00:07:35,680
Speaker 1: to me. She looks about thirteen and he can do

123
00:07:35,760 --> 00:07:41,080
Speaker 1: better than that. Unquote. So the Lolita aesthetic is everywhere.

124
00:07:41,280 --> 00:07:44,200
Speaker 1: I mean, this Bradley Cooper Suki Waterhouse story is from

125
00:07:44,200 --> 00:07:47,840
Speaker 1: the past eight years and uses Lolita as this wink

126
00:07:47,920 --> 00:07:50,400
Speaker 1: and nod signifier, as if to say, yeah, we know

127
00:07:50,480 --> 00:07:52,720
Speaker 1: what this looks like. But what it looks like is

128
00:07:52,960 --> 00:07:56,760
Speaker 1: much more aligned with the advertising aesthetic of Lolita than

129
00:07:56,800 --> 00:07:59,680
Speaker 1: the events of the actual book. I mean, Nabucco's book

130
00:07:59,720 --> 00:08:02,440
Speaker 1: is not a fun read in the park by any stretch.

131
00:08:02,480 --> 00:08:06,360
Speaker 1: Of the imagination. I shuddered to think what their takeaway

132
00:08:06,360 --> 00:08:08,760
Speaker 1: from the actual book that day in Paris was, What

133
00:08:08,840 --> 00:08:11,360
Speaker 1: a sentence. Today we're going to look at a slice

134
00:08:11,360 --> 00:08:14,400
Speaker 1: of Dolores Hayes's life and legacy on the cover of

135
00:08:14,440 --> 00:08:19,600
Speaker 1: the book, chronicling her abuse in advertising and in popular music.

136
00:08:20,160 --> 00:08:51,640
Speaker 1: This is low lead to podcast. Welcome back everyone. This

137
00:08:51,880 --> 00:08:54,480
Speaker 1: is a little lead up podcast. I'm your host, Jamie

138
00:08:54,520 --> 00:08:56,800
Speaker 1: waft Us, and today we're going to be looking at

139
00:08:56,880 --> 00:08:59,640
Speaker 1: some of the aesthetics of how Dolores has been presented

140
00:08:59,679 --> 00:09:03,160
Speaker 1: to us outside of direct adaptations. There's a ton of

141
00:09:03,200 --> 00:09:06,640
Speaker 1: conflicting terms to describe the aesthetic and touching on here,

142
00:09:06,800 --> 00:09:10,160
Speaker 1: so I'm going to use the nymphete aesthetic or nymphet

143
00:09:10,240 --> 00:09:13,480
Speaker 1: culture to make things consistent. These terms are taken from

144
00:09:13,640 --> 00:09:18,240
Speaker 1: online communities revolving around Dolores Hayes themselves and are defined

145
00:09:18,280 --> 00:09:22,760
Speaker 1: as such by the Aesthetics Wiki Quote. Nymphete is an

146
00:09:22,760 --> 00:09:27,040
Speaker 1: aesthetic based on a novel written by Vladimir Nabokov Lolita,

147
00:09:27,160 --> 00:09:30,559
Speaker 1: published in nineteen fifty five, and it's movie adaptations from

148
00:09:30,679 --> 00:09:33,760
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two and nineteen ninety seven. Nymphete is a

149
00:09:33,760 --> 00:09:37,319
Speaker 1: young girl who is attractive and sexually mature, but still

150
00:09:37,360 --> 00:09:41,280
Speaker 1: has childlike behavior and innocence unquote. Now, there's a lot

151
00:09:41,320 --> 00:09:44,640
Speaker 1: to unpack in that definition alone, and we will do

152
00:09:44,679 --> 00:09:48,240
Speaker 1: so in this episode. So, like everything with Lolita, there

153
00:09:48,320 --> 00:09:50,959
Speaker 1: is a wide range of things at play here. You're

154
00:09:50,960 --> 00:09:53,280
Speaker 1: going to be hearing about some of the most egregious

155
00:09:53,320 --> 00:09:57,200
Speaker 1: and harmful over sexualizations of Dolores Hayes of old time.

156
00:09:57,320 --> 00:09:59,280
Speaker 1: But at the top of this episode, I wanted to

157
00:09:59,320 --> 00:10:02,480
Speaker 1: make a quick note I unfortunately do not have the

158
00:10:02,520 --> 00:10:06,800
Speaker 1: capacity to address every single visual influence that Lolita by

159
00:10:06,880 --> 00:10:09,560
Speaker 1: Nabokov has had. I know, in particular, there is a

160
00:10:09,600 --> 00:10:12,959
Speaker 1: fairly large discussion about how Lolita has influenced a lot

161
00:10:13,000 --> 00:10:16,360
Speaker 1: of popular anime and manga, but it quickly became a

162
00:10:16,440 --> 00:10:19,480
Speaker 1: topic that was too large for me to possibly cover.

163
00:10:19,679 --> 00:10:21,800
Speaker 1: So I'm going to link to some resources I used

164
00:10:21,840 --> 00:10:26,240
Speaker 1: below if that's the history you're interested in exploring. I

165
00:10:26,320 --> 00:10:29,880
Speaker 1: want to untangle a couple of commonly conflated terms when

166
00:10:29,880 --> 00:10:33,680
Speaker 1: it comes to the Lolita aesthetic culture, because it does

167
00:10:33,840 --> 00:10:36,679
Speaker 1: get pretty confusing. So the three terms I want to

168
00:10:36,760 --> 00:10:42,480
Speaker 1: untangle here are Lolita fashion, wally con, and the Lolita

169
00:10:42,679 --> 00:10:46,400
Speaker 1: or nym fete aesthetic. Okay, we're getting in the weeds here. First,

170
00:10:46,600 --> 00:10:50,560
Speaker 1: there is Lolita fashion. This is a Japanese fashion movement

171
00:10:50,600 --> 00:10:53,960
Speaker 1: that began in the late seventies that has nothing to

172
00:10:54,040 --> 00:10:57,120
Speaker 1: do with the Nabakoff book. Although it is honestly really

173
00:10:57,120 --> 00:11:00,240
Speaker 1: hard to figure out why it's called Lolita fashion, could

174
00:11:00,280 --> 00:11:02,559
Speaker 1: not find a straight answer on that, but the community

175
00:11:02,679 --> 00:11:06,480
Speaker 1: in Lolita fashion pretty unanimously agrees that it is a

176
00:11:06,520 --> 00:11:11,120
Speaker 1: fashion movement unto itself, so it's confusing. But Lolita fashion,

177
00:11:11,360 --> 00:11:14,520
Speaker 1: which consists of wide skirted dresses with lace and bows,

178
00:11:14,760 --> 00:11:17,760
Speaker 1: are not related to Lolita buying a buck off, so

179
00:11:17,800 --> 00:11:20,679
Speaker 1: we're not going to be discussing it in the episode. Second,

180
00:11:20,960 --> 00:11:24,079
Speaker 1: there is the term lolly con, a term that pops

181
00:11:24,160 --> 00:11:27,760
Speaker 1: up very often around anime and manga. This does have

182
00:11:27,920 --> 00:11:30,640
Speaker 1: to deal with Lolita buying a buck off and borrows

183
00:11:30,720 --> 00:11:34,920
Speaker 1: Dolores Hayes's nickname from Humbert to describe the following phenomenon.

184
00:11:35,160 --> 00:11:38,520
Speaker 1: According to the paper lolly Con and its Effects on

185
00:11:38,640 --> 00:11:43,840
Speaker 1: Japanese Society, written by Jamie Rpan, Natalie Padilla, and Elizabeth Chandler,

186
00:11:44,040 --> 00:11:49,280
Speaker 1: Lolllykon is quote a Japanese portmanteau of the phrase lolita complex.

187
00:11:49,600 --> 00:11:53,000
Speaker 1: In Japan, the term describes an attraction to underage girls

188
00:11:53,200 --> 00:11:57,040
Speaker 1: or an individual with such an attraction unquote, and a

189
00:11:57,200 --> 00:11:59,560
Speaker 1: history of lolllycon could be an episode all its own,

190
00:11:59,679 --> 00:12:02,280
Speaker 1: but all let to say the term is connected to

191
00:12:02,480 --> 00:12:06,400
Speaker 1: the bulk of Lolita. Finally, the concern of this episode

192
00:12:06,760 --> 00:12:09,880
Speaker 1: is the Lolita aesthetic. And when I say that, I

193
00:12:09,920 --> 00:12:14,000
Speaker 1: mean the visual culture surrounding Lolita that is primarily pulled

194
00:12:14,040 --> 00:12:17,560
Speaker 1: from the movie adaptations by Stanley Kubrick in Adrian Line,

195
00:12:17,679 --> 00:12:21,040
Speaker 1: as well as a lot of nineties pop culture. I know,

196
00:12:21,120 --> 00:12:23,640
Speaker 1: pulling apart these three terms is kind of in the weeds.

197
00:12:23,840 --> 00:12:27,480
Speaker 1: I'll let TikTok user Nerdy Mixed Pan break this down

198
00:12:27,520 --> 00:12:30,400
Speaker 1: for you. People were confused by what I meant when

199
00:12:30,440 --> 00:12:32,640
Speaker 1: I said lolly in my last videos. Let me explain.

200
00:12:32,840 --> 00:12:34,880
Speaker 1: There are three different things that can be associated with

201
00:12:34,880 --> 00:12:37,920
Speaker 1: the shortened version lolly. There is Lolita fashion, which has

202
00:12:37,960 --> 00:12:40,880
Speaker 1: nothing to do with anything I was discussing. There's Lolli Khan,

203
00:12:41,280 --> 00:12:44,120
Speaker 1: which is what I was discussing. Then there is Lolita

204
00:12:44,160 --> 00:12:47,280
Speaker 1: the book, which is about a pedophile sexually assaulting a

205
00:12:47,320 --> 00:12:50,600
Speaker 1: twelve year old and kidnapping her, which the term Lolly

206
00:12:50,679 --> 00:12:53,840
Speaker 1: Khan came from. So that should tell you what Lolly

207
00:12:53,920 --> 00:12:58,600
Speaker 1: Cohn is. So hopefully that cleared up any confusion. Lolita

208
00:12:58,640 --> 00:13:03,160
Speaker 1: fashion has nothing to do with the Lolita book nor Lollycon,

209
00:13:03,360 --> 00:13:06,880
Speaker 1: although people try to synonymize all three, but that's incorrect.

210
00:13:07,600 --> 00:13:13,280
Speaker 1: Lolita Fashion, Lolly Con, Lolita aesthetics all different things. The

211
00:13:13,320 --> 00:13:16,200
Speaker 1: way I'm using the word aesthetic here is as defined

212
00:13:16,320 --> 00:13:20,960
Speaker 1: by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which says aesthetic is

213
00:13:21,040 --> 00:13:24,439
Speaker 1: to designate, among other things, a kind of object, a

214
00:13:24,520 --> 00:13:27,839
Speaker 1: kind of judgment, a kind of attitude, a kind of experience,

215
00:13:28,080 --> 00:13:31,280
Speaker 1: and a kind of value. Or, as concisely summarized by

216
00:13:31,320 --> 00:13:35,400
Speaker 1: American philosopher Ariana Grande, it's a mood, it's a vibe,

217
00:13:35,679 --> 00:13:39,040
Speaker 1: it's a look, it's a match. So let's start at

218
00:13:39,080 --> 00:13:43,760
Speaker 1: the beginning of Lolita marketing, the cover of the book itself. Now,

219
00:13:43,800 --> 00:13:46,959
Speaker 1: if you have ever owned a popular printing of Lolita,

220
00:13:47,040 --> 00:13:50,120
Speaker 1: you can probably guess what the most obvious problem is here.

221
00:13:50,360 --> 00:13:53,120
Speaker 1: It's far more likely that you will find a young

222
00:13:53,200 --> 00:13:56,360
Speaker 1: adult woman licking a lollipop on the cover than an

223
00:13:56,400 --> 00:14:02,600
Speaker 1: attempt to depict Nabokov's abused protagonist. There's disembodied legs, lingerie

224
00:14:02,720 --> 00:14:07,280
Speaker 1: and actual child pornography. Sometimes there's illustrations of Dolores and

225
00:14:07,400 --> 00:14:10,240
Speaker 1: Humbert that make them not just seem consenting, but that

226
00:14:10,360 --> 00:14:13,080
Speaker 1: Dolores is much older than the twelve year old in

227
00:14:13,080 --> 00:14:15,760
Speaker 1: the book. But the problem is going even deeper than

228
00:14:16,080 --> 00:14:18,920
Speaker 1: inaccurate representation on the cover, and it goes all the

229
00:14:18,960 --> 00:14:21,880
Speaker 1: way back to Nabokov's wishes back when the book was

230
00:14:21,960 --> 00:14:25,680
Speaker 1: first published, back when he was negotiating his American cover

231
00:14:25,840 --> 00:14:29,640
Speaker 1: for Lolita in Night. Here's what he suggested for a cover.

232
00:14:30,520 --> 00:14:33,040
Speaker 1: I have just received the five designs, and I quite

233
00:14:33,040 --> 00:14:35,440
Speaker 1: agree with you that none of them is satisfactory. I

234
00:14:35,480 --> 00:14:39,920
Speaker 1: want pure colors, melting clouds, accurately drawn details, a sunburst

235
00:14:39,960 --> 00:14:42,840
Speaker 1: above a receding road with a light reflected in furrows

236
00:14:42,840 --> 00:14:46,960
Speaker 1: and ruts after rain, and no girls. If we cannot

237
00:14:47,000 --> 00:14:49,840
Speaker 1: find that kind of artistic and virile painting, let us

238
00:14:49,880 --> 00:14:54,240
Speaker 1: settle for an immaculate white jacket with Lolita in bold

239
00:14:54,360 --> 00:14:58,640
Speaker 1: black lettering. So this was written to his publisher Walter Minton,

240
00:14:58,840 --> 00:15:01,640
Speaker 1: and Minton would risk BacT this. The book would eventually

241
00:15:01,680 --> 00:15:04,840
Speaker 1: be published with just black text on a white book.

242
00:15:05,040 --> 00:15:10,040
Speaker 1: Nabokov was notorious for giving his unfiltered opinion on covers

243
00:15:10,200 --> 00:15:13,280
Speaker 1: and being very precise in his demands. He even ended

244
00:15:13,320 --> 00:15:16,080
Speaker 1: up letting his son Dmitri illustrate a few just to

245
00:15:16,160 --> 00:15:20,680
Speaker 1: avoid the assumptions and misfires of other illustrators of the day. Ever,

246
00:15:21,000 --> 00:15:26,000
Speaker 1: a judgey author king he eviscerated attempts that seemed to

247
00:15:26,400 --> 00:15:31,040
Speaker 1: age Dolores Hayes up and used some questionable language to

248
00:15:31,080 --> 00:15:33,920
Speaker 1: say so. He refers to a nineteen fifty nine Swedish

249
00:15:33,960 --> 00:15:39,120
Speaker 1: cover of Lolita as a horrible young whore. Yikes. And

250
00:15:39,320 --> 00:15:42,080
Speaker 1: here's what Nabokov had to say about a Turkish edition

251
00:15:42,120 --> 00:15:45,880
Speaker 1: of Lolita that depicted a very aged up girl embracing

252
00:15:45,960 --> 00:15:50,080
Speaker 1: Humbert Humbert also in ninety nine, I am not sure

253
00:15:50,200 --> 00:15:54,400
Speaker 1: who is older. As Lolita became more and more popular,

254
00:15:54,680 --> 00:15:58,200
Speaker 1: it became impossible for the author to oversee every cover,

255
00:15:58,400 --> 00:16:01,160
Speaker 1: and he eventually became a little resigned to the fact

256
00:16:01,240 --> 00:16:05,520
Speaker 1: that publishers are always, always, always going to push to

257
00:16:05,560 --> 00:16:08,200
Speaker 1: have a girl or woman on the cover, regardless of

258
00:16:08,200 --> 00:16:11,160
Speaker 1: whether it has anything to do with Dolores Hayes. In

259
00:16:11,200 --> 00:16:14,320
Speaker 1: the nine documentary The book of pulls a copy of

260
00:16:14,400 --> 00:16:17,120
Speaker 1: Lolita off the shelf from his personal library with a

261
00:16:17,240 --> 00:16:21,160
Speaker 1: girl on the cover, and he says this, this is

262
00:16:21,240 --> 00:16:27,320
Speaker 1: beautiful as a Dutch edition, isn't it nice? Beautifully done

263
00:16:28,240 --> 00:16:33,080
Speaker 1: on the point of view of an artistic version, I

264
00:16:33,080 --> 00:16:39,200
Speaker 1: think it's absolutely shouting Dutch. That's his real voice. Oh

265
00:16:39,200 --> 00:16:41,360
Speaker 1: my God. And by the end of the book of

266
00:16:41,440 --> 00:16:43,800
Speaker 1: his life he had no choice but to be resigned

267
00:16:43,880 --> 00:16:47,400
Speaker 1: to the injustice that culture had done to Dolores Hayes.

268
00:16:47,560 --> 00:16:49,640
Speaker 1: But he was salty about it until the very end,

269
00:16:49,800 --> 00:16:52,120
Speaker 1: saying this in a letter to a colleague the year

270
00:16:52,160 --> 00:16:55,760
Speaker 1: before his death. The pictures by Ovenden of that young

271
00:16:55,920 --> 00:16:59,320
Speaker 1: sea cow posing as my Lolita are of course preposterous,

272
00:16:59,640 --> 00:17:02,240
Speaker 1: yet was nothing much I can do about it. Recently

273
00:17:02,280 --> 00:17:04,840
Speaker 1: I was shown an advert in an American rag offering

274
00:17:04,880 --> 00:17:08,680
Speaker 1: a life sized Lolita doll with French and Greek apertures.

275
00:17:09,440 --> 00:17:12,480
Speaker 1: Salty indeed, so back when he was doing the first

276
00:17:12,520 --> 00:17:16,960
Speaker 1: American edition in Bok's wish for text in lieu of

277
00:17:17,000 --> 00:17:19,679
Speaker 1: a girl was done by Minton out of respect for

278
00:17:19,760 --> 00:17:23,240
Speaker 1: the Bokov's wishes, But as editions continued throughout the remainder

279
00:17:23,280 --> 00:17:26,359
Speaker 1: of Nabokov's life, and after his death in nineteen seventy seven,

280
00:17:26,520 --> 00:17:30,280
Speaker 1: the concern became more, well, how are we going to

281
00:17:30,359 --> 00:17:33,920
Speaker 1: sell this book. I've owned a few of these editions

282
00:17:33,920 --> 00:17:37,320
Speaker 1: over the years, and none of them would have passed

283
00:17:37,440 --> 00:17:41,240
Speaker 1: the Nabokov snuff test. My first copy was the fiftieth

284
00:17:41,280 --> 00:17:44,199
Speaker 1: anniversary edition, which came out in two thousand five. It

285
00:17:44,320 --> 00:17:47,639
Speaker 1: was designed by the renowned book cover artist John Gall,

286
00:17:47,920 --> 00:17:51,160
Speaker 1: who teaches book design and colleges and said he would

287
00:17:51,280 --> 00:17:55,360
Speaker 1: never assign Lolita to his graphic design students. You might

288
00:17:55,400 --> 00:17:58,280
Speaker 1: have seen it before. It consists of a tight shot

289
00:17:58,400 --> 00:18:01,320
Speaker 1: of a young white woman's bisy acted pink lips, the

290
00:18:01,440 --> 00:18:04,880
Speaker 1: text Lolita in cursive, and the name of the author.

291
00:18:05,160 --> 00:18:06,919
Speaker 1: This is the one I had taken from me by

292
00:18:06,960 --> 00:18:10,480
Speaker 1: a gym teacher in seventh grade, and as critic Ellen Pifer,

293
00:18:10,680 --> 00:18:13,639
Speaker 1: author of Nabokov in the novel, put in an essay,

294
00:18:13,840 --> 00:18:16,359
Speaker 1: it looks kind of like this, the close up of

295
00:18:16,359 --> 00:18:19,560
Speaker 1: a woman's enticing mouth, her full lips hinting at another

296
00:18:19,960 --> 00:18:26,120
Speaker 1: nether set of labia. Okay, So, John Gall is definitely

297
00:18:26,200 --> 00:18:30,160
Speaker 1: breaking Nabokov's rules. Here there is a girl on the cover.

298
00:18:30,520 --> 00:18:34,800
Speaker 1: It suggests eroticism. It's softly lit, certainly more of a

299
00:18:34,840 --> 00:18:39,560
Speaker 1: reflection of Lolita than Dolores, though not the worst offender

300
00:18:39,600 --> 00:18:42,960
Speaker 1: by a long shot. This cover definitely frames Dolores as

301
00:18:43,000 --> 00:18:46,440
Speaker 1: a willing participant, but gall defended his choices in two

302
00:18:46,480 --> 00:18:50,040
Speaker 1: thousand thirteen. I completely agree with Nabokov on what I

303
00:18:50,080 --> 00:18:53,560
Speaker 1: think is his main point no little Girls. On the

304
00:18:53,560 --> 00:18:56,560
Speaker 1: other hand, his description of what he would like reads

305
00:18:56,600 --> 00:18:59,280
Speaker 1: beautifully but would be a complete yawner of a cover.

306
00:18:59,800 --> 00:19:02,240
Speaker 1: It is so non specific that it could be the

307
00:19:02,280 --> 00:19:05,360
Speaker 1: cover of almost any novel ever written. To this day,

308
00:19:05,520 --> 00:19:09,600
Speaker 1: people remain pretty split on this cover, and honestly, from

309
00:19:09,640 --> 00:19:13,400
Speaker 1: the vantage point when this episode being released, I don't

310
00:19:13,400 --> 00:19:15,720
Speaker 1: think it really holds up very well, and I've seen

311
00:19:15,840 --> 00:19:19,680
Speaker 1: a number of people in the Lolita podcast discord lamenting

312
00:19:19,760 --> 00:19:22,439
Speaker 1: the lack of covers that are widely available for not

313
00:19:22,520 --> 00:19:27,800
Speaker 1: looking so Vassiline lens romantic cover that isn't so romantic,

314
00:19:27,840 --> 00:19:31,320
Speaker 1: It's just kind of ugly. Is the second copy of Lolita.

315
00:19:31,400 --> 00:19:33,960
Speaker 1: I ever owned, this one from when I was in college.

316
00:19:34,280 --> 00:19:38,840
Speaker 1: It's the annotated Lolita with annotations from Nabukov's former student

317
00:19:38,920 --> 00:19:43,000
Speaker 1: Alfred A. Powell. Published in It has a very nineties

318
00:19:43,119 --> 00:19:46,480
Speaker 1: triangle pattern with some text, not the sunsets that in

319
00:19:46,520 --> 00:19:49,880
Speaker 1: a Bulkhov describes, but Goal says that these designs don't

320
00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:53,040
Speaker 1: endure for a reason. He says this, there are two

321
00:19:53,080 --> 00:19:56,600
Speaker 1: directions for this cover. Either you take the title head

322
00:19:56,640 --> 00:20:00,399
Speaker 1: on and go with some representation of Lolita, or don't,

323
00:20:01,040 --> 00:20:04,000
Speaker 1: but be careful. The land of metaphor is filled with

324
00:20:04,040 --> 00:20:08,040
Speaker 1: furrows and ruts and roads going off in the distance. Okay,

325
00:20:08,080 --> 00:20:10,399
Speaker 1: I still think we can do better than adult lips

326
00:20:10,400 --> 00:20:12,680
Speaker 1: on the cover, but I will grant him that last part.

327
00:20:12,760 --> 00:20:15,359
Speaker 1: There's a lot of very specific ways to get a

328
00:20:15,400 --> 00:20:18,320
Speaker 1: cover of Lolita wrong. This may come as a surprise,

329
00:20:18,359 --> 00:20:22,200
Speaker 1: but the covers of Lolita have been much discussed over

330
00:20:22,240 --> 00:20:24,479
Speaker 1: the years. In fact, they were the subject of an

331
00:20:24,600 --> 00:20:27,600
Speaker 1: entire book, which, by the way, has a green cover

332
00:20:27,960 --> 00:20:30,560
Speaker 1: and the text of the no girls in a book

333
00:20:30,560 --> 00:20:33,520
Speaker 1: of quote in the background. This book is called Lolita

334
00:20:33,720 --> 00:20:35,960
Speaker 1: the Story of a Cover Girl, and it was published

335
00:20:36,000 --> 00:20:39,639
Speaker 1: in two thousand thirteen, edited by John Bertram and Urie Loving.

336
00:20:39,840 --> 00:20:42,959
Speaker 1: It contains a lot of really fascinating insight, not just

337
00:20:43,080 --> 00:20:46,240
Speaker 1: into book design, but around what consumers expect in a

338
00:20:46,359 --> 00:20:49,320
Speaker 1: cover of Lolita, and like most media inspired by in

339
00:20:49,359 --> 00:20:51,720
Speaker 1: a book of book, tend to be reflective of the

340
00:20:51,800 --> 00:20:54,760
Speaker 1: time and place that they're released into, and this extends

341
00:20:54,800 --> 00:20:58,520
Speaker 1: beyond the influence of the movie adaptations, although boy were

342
00:20:58,560 --> 00:21:01,879
Speaker 1: those influential. Even Aaron A. Bulk Off was photographed in

343
00:21:01,960 --> 00:21:05,080
Speaker 1: heart shaped sunglasses at one point. The attempts at the

344
00:21:05,160 --> 00:21:09,040
Speaker 1: perfect cover tend to fall into a few distinct categories.

345
00:21:09,240 --> 00:21:11,880
Speaker 1: According to a study of past covers of Lolita done

346
00:21:11,920 --> 00:21:16,000
Speaker 1: in by diater E. Zimmer, here's the breakdown of what

347
00:21:16,080 --> 00:21:19,800
Speaker 1: appears on two hundred and ten covers of Lolita, ranging

348
00:21:19,880 --> 00:21:25,120
Speaker 1: from forty countries from ninety five to one hundred Sixteen

349
00:21:25,200 --> 00:21:28,639
Speaker 1: of them have some kind of depiction of the character Lolita,

350
00:21:29,119 --> 00:21:34,000
Speaker 1: and maybe arguably in a few cases, Dolores sixty nine

351
00:21:34,040 --> 00:21:38,720
Speaker 1: are described as anatomic yes sixty nine, Please don't tweet

352
00:21:38,760 --> 00:21:40,720
Speaker 1: at me for a week about this. I fucking no

353
00:21:41,119 --> 00:21:44,240
Speaker 1: sixty nine. The word anatomic is used by Zimmer to

354
00:21:44,400 --> 00:21:48,320
Speaker 1: mean cropped images of bodies instead of full figures, and

355
00:21:48,520 --> 00:21:53,280
Speaker 1: coming in last place is simple text representations of the

356
00:21:53,280 --> 00:21:57,440
Speaker 1: title Lolita, with only forty nine covers, My most recent

357
00:21:57,480 --> 00:21:59,800
Speaker 1: copy of Lolita was passed along to me by my

358
00:21:59,800 --> 00:22:02,119
Speaker 1: friend and Alex, who I think picked it up at

359
00:22:02,160 --> 00:22:04,600
Speaker 1: a yard sale while I was working on these series.

360
00:22:04,760 --> 00:22:09,880
Speaker 1: It was published in nineteen seventy three in London, it appears,

361
00:22:10,080 --> 00:22:14,440
Speaker 1: and it features a blonde model in her twenties I'm guessing,

362
00:22:14,560 --> 00:22:19,040
Speaker 1: wearing a white page boy hat, licking an orange popsicle seductively.

363
00:22:19,680 --> 00:22:22,400
Speaker 1: And I guess this would fall into the Lolita imagery

364
00:22:22,440 --> 00:22:25,600
Speaker 1: category of this study, one of those hundred sixteen, and

365
00:22:25,760 --> 00:22:29,320
Speaker 1: I regret to report, while a terrible cover, it's not

366
00:22:29,359 --> 00:22:31,400
Speaker 1: even one of the worst. I just noticed there's an

367
00:22:31,400 --> 00:22:35,280
Speaker 1: inscription in this um on the front. Okay, so Alex

368
00:22:35,320 --> 00:22:38,760
Speaker 1: paid five dollars for this, and it says this this

369
00:22:38,840 --> 00:22:41,520
Speaker 1: book is the property of Oh, this is boring. This

370
00:22:41,840 --> 00:22:47,720
Speaker 1: book is the property of Lewis h Well not anymore.

371
00:22:47,920 --> 00:22:51,359
Speaker 1: Let's move on. So okay, one hundred and sixteen out

372
00:22:51,359 --> 00:22:55,640
Speaker 1: of two hundred ten Lolita covers feature a loan image

373
00:22:55,720 --> 00:22:59,520
Speaker 1: of Lolita. Twenty two of them feature Lolita and Humbert.

374
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:03,920
Speaker 1: Out of these are movie times from the movie starring Jaring,

375
00:23:03,960 --> 00:23:07,560
Speaker 1: the Irons and Dominique Swain, and only nine feature Humbert

376
00:23:07,600 --> 00:23:10,840
Speaker 1: Humbert alone. And in case you were assuming the worst. Yes,

377
00:23:11,080 --> 00:23:15,440
Speaker 1: eight of these depict Lolita wearing underwear and seventeen depict

378
00:23:15,480 --> 00:23:19,280
Speaker 1: her as nude. So the book of was a right

379
00:23:19,440 --> 00:23:22,960
Speaker 1: to be defensive and piste off about this, But there's

380
00:23:22,960 --> 00:23:26,359
Speaker 1: more to it than cover designers with creepy ideas. These

381
00:23:26,359 --> 00:23:30,320
Speaker 1: designers were often very limited by what the marketing department wanted,

382
00:23:30,560 --> 00:23:36,080
Speaker 1: often oversimplification or over sexualization to reach the widest audience possible,

383
00:23:36,280 --> 00:23:38,600
Speaker 1: not to mention that the book designing gig doesn't always

384
00:23:38,640 --> 00:23:41,280
Speaker 1: pay well enough to give time for designers to read

385
00:23:41,359 --> 00:23:44,280
Speaker 1: the entire book that they're illustrating. The cover of. We

386
00:23:44,359 --> 00:23:48,000
Speaker 1: can make the off hand assumption that John Gall personally

387
00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:51,920
Speaker 1: thought that the bisected lips cover was the best possible

388
00:23:51,960 --> 00:23:54,960
Speaker 1: representation of a Lolita book cover in two thousand five,

389
00:23:55,040 --> 00:23:57,600
Speaker 1: but think again. Here's what he says, from my very

390
00:23:57,640 --> 00:24:00,639
Speaker 1: first attempt at designing a cover for Lolita, I attempted

391
00:24:00,640 --> 00:24:04,240
Speaker 1: a typographic solution. After this was shot down, I made

392
00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:05,840
Speaker 1: the decision to see if there was a way to

393
00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:10,399
Speaker 1: reinterpret the typography. So John Gall did try to do

394
00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:13,600
Speaker 1: closer to what Nabokov wanted, but wasn't allowed to buy

395
00:24:13,640 --> 00:24:17,000
Speaker 1: the publisher. Gal mentions that no matter what's on the cover.

396
00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:21,120
Speaker 1: Lolita will reliably sell about fifty thou copies a year,

397
00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:23,439
Speaker 1: and that seems to be true. And if that figure

398
00:24:23,680 --> 00:24:27,639
Speaker 1: is so relatively steady, why aren't publishers comfortable with letting

399
00:24:27,640 --> 00:24:30,880
Speaker 1: cover artists go their own way. Another element that modern

400
00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:34,520
Speaker 1: readers and Jamie's get frustrated with as much as or

401
00:24:34,680 --> 00:24:38,920
Speaker 1: more often than the actual pictorial depictions of Lolita are

402
00:24:38,960 --> 00:24:41,960
Speaker 1: the press quotes chosen for the covers of the book,

403
00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:44,679
Speaker 1: which is even further out of the control of a

404
00:24:44,720 --> 00:24:49,040
Speaker 1: cover's illustrator. Consider the quote we see most often on

405
00:24:49,119 --> 00:24:52,560
Speaker 1: the cover of Lolita from a Vanity Fair writer called

406
00:24:52,640 --> 00:24:57,639
Speaker 1: Gregor von Rossouri, who declares Lolita quote the only convincing

407
00:24:57,720 --> 00:25:01,199
Speaker 1: love story of the century. On quote. Of all the

408
00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:05,520
Speaker 1: many deeply offensive cover interpretations over the years, the inclusion

409
00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:09,880
Speaker 1: of this quote, I think does the greatest demonstrable harm

410
00:25:10,040 --> 00:25:12,960
Speaker 1: in sending out all the wrong information about what the

411
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:15,719
Speaker 1: book is actually about. And maybe it sounds weird to

412
00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:18,440
Speaker 1: get into the weeds on the cover of a book,

413
00:25:18,520 --> 00:25:22,240
Speaker 1: but people famously judge books by them. Covers our art

414
00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:26,720
Speaker 1: in many cases, but their primary function is marketing, communicating

415
00:25:26,800 --> 00:25:29,280
Speaker 1: what the publisher feels is going to make someone by

416
00:25:29,359 --> 00:25:33,960
Speaker 1: Lolita over some YouTuber's poetry book. They communicate era and

417
00:25:34,160 --> 00:25:37,240
Speaker 1: values in much the same way that movie and musical

418
00:25:37,280 --> 00:25:41,680
Speaker 1: adaptations of Lolita, however terrible, communicate the time and place

419
00:25:41,720 --> 00:25:44,760
Speaker 1: they're being released in. Dieter Zimmer writes an essay in

420
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:48,120
Speaker 1: Lolita The Story of a Cover Girl about the history

421
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:51,320
Speaker 1: of Lolita covers in Russia and what they say about

422
00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:54,439
Speaker 1: Russian culture or culture in the USS are depending on

423
00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:57,160
Speaker 1: what you're you're talking about, and analyzes what they said

424
00:25:57,200 --> 00:26:00,600
Speaker 1: about where public opinion was in the Russia the eighties

425
00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:05,760
Speaker 1: and nineties. Unlike in the US, the Jeremy Irons starring

426
00:26:05,880 --> 00:26:09,800
Speaker 1: Adrian Line movie adaptation was a huge hit there, and

427
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:13,840
Speaker 1: there's a ton of romantically illustrated tie in additions to

428
00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:16,800
Speaker 1: the movie. In Russia, there's also a lot of use

429
00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:20,880
Speaker 1: of classic erotic paintings, mostly unrelated to the text of Lolita,

430
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:24,639
Speaker 1: and there is one horrific cover with child pornography on

431
00:26:24,680 --> 00:26:29,280
Speaker 1: the back cover from when Moscow was experiencing an influx

432
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:33,320
Speaker 1: of child sex trafficking. Cover design may seem benign, but

433
00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:36,040
Speaker 1: it does tell us something about where and when it's

434
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:42,239
Speaker 1: being released into I personally prefer typographical covers because with

435
00:26:42,400 --> 00:26:45,520
Speaker 1: material this sensitive, in my mind, it's just too easy

436
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:48,800
Speaker 1: to get it wrong. More often than not, these covers

437
00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:53,200
Speaker 1: are sexualizing the victim of child sex abuse. But there's

438
00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:56,520
Speaker 1: examples that miss the point that also skew pretty silly.

439
00:26:56,680 --> 00:26:59,919
Speaker 1: There's one of like the Venus Demilo for some reason.

440
00:27:00,119 --> 00:27:04,280
Speaker 1: There's a cover that's a bad photoshop of Tobakov reading

441
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:07,040
Speaker 1: a butterfly like it's a book. But there is one

442
00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:10,520
Speaker 1: cover that is mentioned a lot as a favorite by

443
00:27:10,520 --> 00:27:13,520
Speaker 1: other book cover artists throughout Lolita, the story of a

444
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:17,600
Speaker 1: cover girl that includes a representation of Lolita, or as

445
00:27:17,600 --> 00:27:22,080
Speaker 1: they describe it, Dolores. This cover is by designer Megan Wilson,

446
00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:25,280
Speaker 1: who is an icon in the book designer community as

447
00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:27,879
Speaker 1: one of the most prolific women in the profession, and

448
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:31,520
Speaker 1: she's actually also done other Novakov book designs. Her Lolita

449
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:35,960
Speaker 1: cover came out in from Vintage International and is a

450
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:39,119
Speaker 1: black and white photograph of a young girl's legs, not

451
00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:43,040
Speaker 1: an adults. The girl is wearing late nineteen forties schoolgirls

452
00:27:43,080 --> 00:27:46,439
Speaker 1: shoes with her knees crossed. I will let Lolita a

453
00:27:46,440 --> 00:27:50,240
Speaker 1: story of a cover girl. Essayist Peter Mendelssohn describe his

454
00:27:50,359 --> 00:27:54,040
Speaker 1: experience looking at this cover for the first time. When

455
00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:57,120
Speaker 1: I first encountered this edition, I assumed are supposed Lolita's

456
00:27:57,160 --> 00:28:00,639
Speaker 1: pose was flirtatious. She seems locked in some sort of

457
00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:05,600
Speaker 1: stylized sexual demurle. However, as time passed and my reading

458
00:28:05,600 --> 00:28:08,480
Speaker 1: of the text evolved, I began to factor in the dark,

459
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:12,200
Speaker 1: ominous lighting, and the gaze of the photographer became threatening.

460
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:15,760
Speaker 1: The pose of the subject one of discomfiture. The knee

461
00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:18,880
Speaker 1: crosses protectively. What seemed to me at first has come

462
00:28:18,960 --> 00:28:23,520
Speaker 1: hither has evolved into please don't so far for many

463
00:28:23,600 --> 00:28:29,080
Speaker 1: prominent cover designers. Megan Wilson's work successfully communicates the nauseating

464
00:28:29,160 --> 00:28:33,040
Speaker 1: feeling of reading the book itself, but like Mendelssohn mentioned,

465
00:28:33,320 --> 00:28:36,960
Speaker 1: it's pretty open to interpretation, and taking in the image

466
00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:40,480
Speaker 1: of a young girl's crossed legs at face value can

467
00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:44,840
Speaker 1: lead to harm and misinterpretation. There's a number of international

468
00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 1: editions that came out after Megan Wilson cover that are

469
00:28:49,080 --> 00:28:52,800
Speaker 1: clearly playing copycat like hers. They're all black and white

470
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 1: photos of a young girl's cross legs wearing Mary Jane's

471
00:28:56,600 --> 00:29:00,560
Speaker 1: but these rip off covers from Croatia, Taiwan, Oland, and

472
00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:03,480
Speaker 1: Paris pose the young girl in a way that is

473
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:09,000
Speaker 1: very frankly sexual and inviting, not anxious, and somewhat ambiguous

474
00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:12,520
Speaker 1: like Wilson's. That is to say, these other cover artists

475
00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:16,240
Speaker 1: or other marketing departments saw a pair of legs on

476
00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:19,400
Speaker 1: Wilson's cover and assumed that they were there to entice

477
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:21,920
Speaker 1: the reader. I will link these images in the description.

478
00:29:22,120 --> 00:29:24,880
Speaker 1: The whole thing looks like a very depressing game of

479
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:28,680
Speaker 1: telephone and the book of frequently admitted that he was

480
00:29:28,720 --> 00:29:32,800
Speaker 1: a creature of aesthetics. He was a synesthesiac, or a

481
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:36,480
Speaker 1: person who associated numbers and sounds with colors, who believed

482
00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:39,400
Speaker 1: that reading a book should feel like witnessing a painting

483
00:29:39,560 --> 00:29:41,480
Speaker 1: by the third or fourth time you read it. He

484
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:45,440
Speaker 1: could write in three languages, but said he quote thinks

485
00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:50,560
Speaker 1: in images. Most tellingly, he says this, we think in images,

486
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:54,600
Speaker 1: not in words. And then in the last interview he

487
00:29:54,680 --> 00:29:59,960
Speaker 1: ever gave images are mute. Yet presently the silent cinema

488
00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:06,000
Speaker 1: to talk, and I recognize its language, the language of images.

489
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:09,120
Speaker 1: So what I'm saying is I would give up my

490
00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:15,120
Speaker 1: life savings to know what Nabokov thought of Lana del Rey. Yeah,

491
00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:29,600
Speaker 1: book covers have been over the years one of the

492
00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:35,160
Speaker 1: most powerful communicators of public misinterpretations of Dolores Hayes. In many,

493
00:30:35,280 --> 00:30:39,200
Speaker 1: she is sexualized, she looks older, she is inviting the

494
00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:42,320
Speaker 1: reader to look at her. These images spoke louder than

495
00:30:42,320 --> 00:30:45,840
Speaker 1: the text itself for many, and trickled into popular music

496
00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:50,560
Speaker 1: and onto the Internet, particularly one artist who exists where

497
00:30:50,560 --> 00:30:54,200
Speaker 1: these points meet. In two thousand and twelve, Lolita culture

498
00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:59,000
Speaker 1: began to migrate to a visually driven, almost entirely pictorial

499
00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:02,520
Speaker 1: microbe bogging site. Oh my god, I haven't said the

500
00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:05,520
Speaker 1: word micro blogging out loud in at least eight years.

501
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:09,840
Speaker 1: A micro blogging site called tumbler in the early two

502
00:31:09,840 --> 00:31:12,320
Speaker 1: thousand in tents now in the book of As He

503
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:15,760
Speaker 1: Just Told You is the aesthetics guy, so I think

504
00:31:15,800 --> 00:31:18,880
Speaker 1: that this would have honestly been his platform over good Reads.

505
00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:26,240
Speaker 1: Lolita themed tumblers exploded, and then a musician named Lana

506
00:31:26,360 --> 00:31:31,080
Speaker 1: del Rey comes on the scene, and this escalates nymphet

507
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:36,440
Speaker 1: culture online in a completely unprecedented way. Fun little look

508
00:31:36,480 --> 00:31:39,400
Speaker 1: at the production of this show. I cannot use any

509
00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:41,640
Speaker 1: copyrighted music here, so I had a bunch of my

510
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:46,280
Speaker 1: friends read pop lyrics like their verse poetry. Oh elegant solution,

511
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:49,520
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. I don't think it's an overstatement

512
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:52,040
Speaker 1: to say that Lana del Rey at present is the

513
00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 1: pop cultural gatekeeper of Lolita musical imagery. But that's not

514
00:31:56,480 --> 00:31:59,120
Speaker 1: to say that Lolita and the Bulk of weren't commonly

515
00:31:59,160 --> 00:32:02,480
Speaker 1: referred to in mu before Lana got big. Lolita has

516
00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:06,720
Speaker 1: been referenced in countless songs over the years, and many

517
00:32:06,840 --> 00:32:09,320
Speaker 1: artists seem to get the point of the book, while

518
00:32:09,440 --> 00:32:14,120
Speaker 1: many absolutely do not. There's this song called Lolita from

519
00:32:14,160 --> 00:32:19,160
Speaker 1: pop duo The Veronicas from So Illegal. No evil is

520
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:22,440
Speaker 1: seen with these eyes. I won't tell if you won't,

521
00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:26,360
Speaker 1: and I will if you want. Nothing is sacred, don't

522
00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:29,920
Speaker 1: care if it's wrong, Very forbid and lovey. It's a

523
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:32,400
Speaker 1: no for me. This song was written by the two

524
00:32:32,400 --> 00:32:34,920
Speaker 1: members of the band, who are twins, as well as

525
00:32:34,960 --> 00:32:39,320
Speaker 1: two other songwriters. One of The Veronica's, Jessica Oregli, also

526
00:32:39,760 --> 00:32:44,560
Speaker 1: said the following about the Nabokov inspired song. Quote to us,

527
00:32:44,760 --> 00:32:48,000
Speaker 1: Lolita is about power play. It's the power play between

528
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:50,959
Speaker 1: genders and age groups, as well as people's perception of

529
00:32:50,960 --> 00:32:54,640
Speaker 1: taboo boundaries, what is acceptable and what a Lolita is.

530
00:32:55,080 --> 00:32:57,760
Speaker 1: She's a badass and she's on a mission. She wants

531
00:32:57,800 --> 00:33:00,840
Speaker 1: to destroy something, either her own option of what's right

532
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:04,080
Speaker 1: and wrong or everyone else's. She wants to prove something

533
00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:09,600
Speaker 1: to herself unquote okay then. French singer Elise has a

534
00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:12,880
Speaker 1: song called Wa Lolita that came out into thousand when

535
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:15,840
Speaker 1: she was only sixteen after she appeared on a TV

536
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:19,120
Speaker 1: talent show. The lyrics are written by French musician my

537
00:33:19,240 --> 00:33:24,200
Speaker 1: Lean Farmer, and these lyrics are translated on Google. My

538
00:33:24,320 --> 00:33:27,880
Speaker 1: name is Lolita low or Lola more of the same.

539
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:31,600
Speaker 1: My name is Lolita. When I dream of wolves is Lola?

540
00:33:31,640 --> 00:33:35,200
Speaker 1: Who bleeds? When fork my tongue, I have there a

541
00:33:35,280 --> 00:33:39,400
Speaker 1: giggle as crazy as a phenomenon. This song is accompanied

542
00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:43,600
Speaker 1: by a baffling music video, especially if you don't speak French.

543
00:33:44,080 --> 00:33:47,600
Speaker 1: Miley Cyrus references Lolita in her Can't Be Teamed album,

544
00:33:47,800 --> 00:33:51,080
Speaker 1: which was released when she was seventeen and first breaking

545
00:33:51,080 --> 00:33:54,320
Speaker 1: out of that squeaky clean Disney image. In the song

546
00:33:54,520 --> 00:33:58,640
Speaker 1: Permanent December, she sings, I met a boy in every city,

547
00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:01,120
Speaker 1: no one kept me amused, but don't call me a

548
00:34:01,120 --> 00:34:04,200
Speaker 1: Lolita because I don't let them through, because I'm saving

549
00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:07,480
Speaker 1: all my loving for someone, and it's you. This song

550
00:34:07,520 --> 00:34:11,400
Speaker 1: was written in collaboration with Cyrus and two male producers.

551
00:34:12,280 --> 00:34:15,640
Speaker 1: There is the nineteen eighties seven Celine Dion song called

552
00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:19,359
Speaker 1: Lolita parentheses too Young to Love, which is written by

553
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:22,960
Speaker 1: two guys in their forties. Celine Dion is nineteen when

554
00:34:22,960 --> 00:34:26,359
Speaker 1: the song comes out, but Selene loved this song and

555
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:29,640
Speaker 1: said she sang it to her manager and future husband,

556
00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:35,200
Speaker 1: Renee Angeliu, saying this at the time quote the first

557
00:34:35,200 --> 00:34:37,680
Speaker 1: time I sang the words to Lolita, I was in

558
00:34:37,719 --> 00:34:41,080
Speaker 1: front of Renee, and I sang it to arouse him. Unquote.

559
00:34:41,560 --> 00:34:44,600
Speaker 1: Selena Renee would eventually be married for over twenty years,

560
00:34:44,640 --> 00:34:47,000
Speaker 1: all the way up until his death. But they met

561
00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:49,880
Speaker 1: when she was twelve years old and he was thirty eight.

562
00:34:50,360 --> 00:34:53,840
Speaker 1: Here are some of the lyrics she's talking about. You

563
00:34:53,920 --> 00:34:56,279
Speaker 1: say I'm too young to live with a man. I

564
00:34:56,360 --> 00:34:59,200
Speaker 1: tell you I don't care. I don't care, and then

565
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:02,799
Speaker 1: the chorus Lolita is not too young to love, is

566
00:35:02,840 --> 00:35:06,200
Speaker 1: not too young to give when desire devoured her body

567
00:35:06,400 --> 00:35:09,200
Speaker 1: down to her finger tips. Never too young to love,

568
00:35:09,600 --> 00:35:15,080
Speaker 1: Never too young to give. American Electronica singer songwriter Emily

569
00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:18,360
Speaker 1: Autumn sings about Lolita back in OH six in a

570
00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:22,239
Speaker 1: way that I found to be completely unique and haunting.

571
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:27,680
Speaker 1: She sings from Dolores's perspective, saying this, I don't mind

572
00:35:27,719 --> 00:35:31,000
Speaker 1: telling you my life was ended by your hand, the

573
00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:34,280
Speaker 1: kind of murder where nobody dies. But I don't suppose

574
00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:37,960
Speaker 1: you'd understand. If I am Lolita, then you are a

575
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:40,759
Speaker 1: criminal and you should be killed by an army of

576
00:35:40,800 --> 00:35:44,240
Speaker 1: little girls. The law won't arrest you, the world won't

577
00:35:44,239 --> 00:35:48,000
Speaker 1: detest you. You never did anything any man wouldn't do.

578
00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:51,680
Speaker 1: This song is pretty bad as then there's a lot

579
00:35:51,719 --> 00:35:55,560
Speaker 1: of early Fiona Apple, who was a music industry darling

580
00:35:55,640 --> 00:35:59,440
Speaker 1: from her debut and was also constantly compared to Lolita

581
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:02,360
Speaker 1: in her early career while she was still a teenager,

582
00:36:02,760 --> 00:36:06,560
Speaker 1: and to be clear, not do Laura's Hayes. Kristin Iverson,

583
00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:09,600
Speaker 1: a writer at Nylon, summed up this era of Fiona

584
00:36:09,640 --> 00:36:13,400
Speaker 1: Apple music and her piece men explain Fiona Apple to me,

585
00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:18,040
Speaker 1: speaking particularly about when an eighteen year old Fiona sang

586
00:36:18,080 --> 00:36:20,520
Speaker 1: songs about love and pain she wrote when she was

587
00:36:20,560 --> 00:36:25,440
Speaker 1: even younger, most famously in the song Criminal. Iverson says this,

588
00:36:25,880 --> 00:36:29,360
Speaker 1: quote criminal went viral before that term meant anything, and

589
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:33,600
Speaker 1: it's blatantly seductive. Imagery of a hyper attentuated Apple lolling

590
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:35,920
Speaker 1: around a rec room with an anonymous group of men

591
00:36:35,960 --> 00:36:38,680
Speaker 1: and women guaranteed that it would be a focal point

592
00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:41,160
Speaker 1: for the kind of critics who love to apply the

593
00:36:41,239 --> 00:36:45,680
Speaker 1: name Lolita to any young woman whose sexuality threatens them

594
00:36:45,719 --> 00:36:49,480
Speaker 1: more than that, though, employing the Lolita trope a very

595
00:36:49,480 --> 00:36:53,400
Speaker 1: different thing than understanding what Lolita is actually about is

596
00:36:53,440 --> 00:36:56,520
Speaker 1: an easy way of dismissing a woman, calling her out

597
00:36:56,800 --> 00:37:00,640
Speaker 1: for being not just childish, but a child Because to

598
00:37:00,680 --> 00:37:03,360
Speaker 1: be a Lolita is to be a schoolgirl, a cipher,

599
00:37:03,640 --> 00:37:06,919
Speaker 1: an object whose value is in its pliancy, And when

600
00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:10,640
Speaker 1: a Lolida becomes inconvenient, well, then the narrative arc of

601
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:14,960
Speaker 1: a Lolita is clear. She dies unquote. Irison goes on

602
00:37:15,040 --> 00:37:17,799
Speaker 1: to say in this same piece quote it is wrong

603
00:37:17,880 --> 00:37:21,560
Speaker 1: to compare Apple to Lolita. But still, the insults leveled

604
00:37:21,560 --> 00:37:24,920
Speaker 1: at Apple for her honesty about celebrity culture sound like

605
00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:27,319
Speaker 1: those that would have been thrown at Dolores Hayes if

606
00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:31,560
Speaker 1: she'd complained about being kidnapped and raped. How insufferable could

607
00:37:31,600 --> 00:37:34,480
Speaker 1: one girl be? Didn't she know how lucky she was

608
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:38,680
Speaker 1: to get to travel around the country. Unquote even more complicated,

609
00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:43,000
Speaker 1: Apple was constantly compared to Lolita, the image to imply

610
00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:47,359
Speaker 1: a sexual knowingness and seduction, all while having a very

611
00:37:47,440 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 1: tragic critical commonality with Dolores Hayes. Funa. Apple was raped

612
00:37:53,719 --> 00:37:56,360
Speaker 1: when she was twelve years old near her parents apartment

613
00:37:56,360 --> 00:38:00,239
Speaker 1: building in New York, an event that understandably traumatized her

614
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:04,000
Speaker 1: for long long after, and images and ideas of which

615
00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:06,960
Speaker 1: came up in her early work and still in her

616
00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:10,760
Speaker 1: most recent album. Fiona was not shy about talking about

617
00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:13,480
Speaker 1: this event while she was a teen performer, and still

618
00:38:13,520 --> 00:38:16,840
Speaker 1: the Lolita comparisons were pushed upon her at the exact

619
00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:20,359
Speaker 1: same moment in her career. It's no wonder she had

620
00:38:20,400 --> 00:38:22,799
Speaker 1: such disdain for the commercial culture she was made to

621
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:27,000
Speaker 1: operate inside of in those early years. Unlike Dolores, Fiona

622
00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:29,680
Speaker 1: was able to state what happened to her over and

623
00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:32,359
Speaker 1: over and over, and while it resonated with a lot

624
00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:36,920
Speaker 1: of listeners, particularly survivors of sexual trauma and teen girls,

625
00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:40,520
Speaker 1: the culture at large in the commercial creeps making money

626
00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:43,720
Speaker 1: off of her image just viewed this as a selling point.

627
00:38:44,239 --> 00:38:48,440
Speaker 1: Fiona Apple is a fascinating case study of connecting to

628
00:38:48,520 --> 00:38:53,560
Speaker 1: Dolores Hayes while being presented to us as Lolita. And

629
00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:56,719
Speaker 1: as we've discussed in past episodes, every boomer band on

630
00:38:56,760 --> 00:38:59,280
Speaker 1: the face of the planet that my uncle's listened to

631
00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:03,360
Speaker 1: have some weird ode to having sex with an underage

632
00:39:03,440 --> 00:39:06,120
Speaker 1: or barely legal girl. It's just it's all of them.

633
00:39:06,160 --> 00:39:09,080
Speaker 1: Here's a short list. The Beatles with the song I

634
00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:13,280
Speaker 1: Saw Her Standing There, the Rolling Stones with stray Cat blues,

635
00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:17,200
Speaker 1: the Police don't stand so close to Me kiss in

636
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:21,080
Speaker 1: the song Christine sixteen, Wonder what That's about, the song

637
00:39:21,239 --> 00:39:24,520
Speaker 1: My Sharona. The list goes on. We don't have time.

638
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:28,120
Speaker 1: So Lolita references are not new to music, but both

639
00:39:28,160 --> 00:39:33,320
Speaker 1: aesthetically and in the sheer volume of lyrical references. Lana

640
00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:36,960
Speaker 1: del Rey is the Queen. Laana del Rey is the

641
00:39:37,080 --> 00:39:40,640
Speaker 1: stage name for a singer songwriter Lizzy Grant, who became

642
00:39:40,680 --> 00:39:45,040
Speaker 1: famous in her mid twenties and references Lolita explicitly and

643
00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:49,800
Speaker 1: heavily in her breakout album Born to Die. She uses

644
00:39:49,840 --> 00:39:53,799
Speaker 1: references to the book and to classic Americana imagery from

645
00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:59,520
Speaker 1: the nineteen forties and fifties. Think Them fatale imagery, popsicle stands, beaches,

646
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:04,239
Speaker 1: American flags posed dramatically behind lyrics about pain. I mean

647
00:40:04,239 --> 00:40:06,120
Speaker 1: to be honest, I was pretty into it when it

648
00:40:06,120 --> 00:40:09,040
Speaker 1: first came out. And in these images and lyrics, Lana

649
00:40:09,120 --> 00:40:12,759
Speaker 1: sort of casts herself as Lalita in spite of being

650
00:40:12,800 --> 00:40:16,160
Speaker 1: well into her twenties. It's a deliberate artistic choice that

651
00:40:16,239 --> 00:40:19,280
Speaker 1: she's making. But not all female pop stars are lucky

652
00:40:19,360 --> 00:40:23,080
Speaker 1: enough to say that the lolitification of their image was

653
00:40:23,200 --> 00:40:26,120
Speaker 1: quite as voluntary. On the other end of Lana, there's

654
00:40:26,160 --> 00:40:28,640
Speaker 1: young artists in the music industry were asked to grow

655
00:40:28,719 --> 00:40:32,279
Speaker 1: up way too quickly in order to move product. I'm

656
00:40:32,280 --> 00:40:36,280
Speaker 1: talking about the Disney and Nickelodeon pipeline that yielded stars

657
00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:39,400
Speaker 1: like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera starting as kids on

658
00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:43,840
Speaker 1: The Mickey Mouse Club into increasingly sexualized commercial pop stars

659
00:40:43,880 --> 00:40:47,240
Speaker 1: when they became teenagers. The same pipeline that took Miley

660
00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:50,840
Speaker 1: Cyrus from Hannah Montana to straddling a wrecking ball. You

661
00:40:50,920 --> 00:40:53,160
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about, And this doesn't make the

662
00:40:53,200 --> 00:40:56,440
Speaker 1: work of these artists less valuable. I'm mentioning it to

663
00:40:56,560 --> 00:40:59,040
Speaker 1: reinforce that we're not out of the woods and taking

664
00:40:59,120 --> 00:41:03,440
Speaker 1: child stars of any gender in monetizing and exploiting their

665
00:41:03,520 --> 00:41:06,279
Speaker 1: coming of age. I'm going to give three examples of

666
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:09,040
Speaker 1: pop stars that sort of lead up to Laana del

667
00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:12,480
Speaker 1: Rey here. They're all very different and complicated and warrant

668
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:17,400
Speaker 1: longer discussion, but just to contextualize the loliticization effect that

669
00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:20,880
Speaker 1: the music industry and the entertainment industry tends to have

670
00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:24,520
Speaker 1: specifically on young girls. Put a pen in Laana, she

671
00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:28,480
Speaker 1: will be back soon. One of the most iconic images

672
00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:32,239
Speaker 1: that is invoked when talking about how lolita culture has

673
00:41:32,360 --> 00:41:35,480
Speaker 1: cropped up in mainstream media is a photo of Britney

674
00:41:35,560 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 1: Spears on the cover of Rolling Stone in at age seventeen.

675
00:41:40,480 --> 00:41:43,480
Speaker 1: You have probably seen this photo before. She has posed

676
00:41:43,480 --> 00:41:45,719
Speaker 1: in a bra and panties and she's talking on the

677
00:41:45,719 --> 00:41:49,879
Speaker 1: phone while holding a Teletubby's doll. It's po for all

678
00:41:49,880 --> 00:41:54,080
Speaker 1: my Teletubbies heads out there. The intent is very clearly

679
00:41:54,160 --> 00:41:57,640
Speaker 1: to juxtapose the fact that Britney Spears is still a

680
00:41:57,840 --> 00:42:02,560
Speaker 1: child with the fact that she is coming of age sexually.

681
00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:06,560
Speaker 1: The cover says Brittney Spears inside the heart, Mind and

682
00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:11,080
Speaker 1: Bedroom of a teen dream. Inside this issue were pictures

683
00:42:11,120 --> 00:42:14,480
Speaker 1: of seventeen year old Brittany in lingerie in a bedroom

684
00:42:14,520 --> 00:42:17,680
Speaker 1: full of porcelain dolls. A photo of Brittany wearing skimpy

685
00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:21,239
Speaker 1: shorts with the word baby in rhinestones while holding a

686
00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:24,000
Speaker 1: pink bike that seems to be for someone much younger

687
00:42:24,040 --> 00:42:27,279
Speaker 1: than seventeen. There's another photo of Brittany in a tube top,

688
00:42:27,440 --> 00:42:30,680
Speaker 1: jumping around in a room full of childhood participation trophies,

689
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:33,120
Speaker 1: along with a girl who appears to be maybe ten

690
00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:37,640
Speaker 1: years old. These photos, interestingly enough, are no longer included

691
00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:41,560
Speaker 1: in the archived version of this article on Rolling Stones's website.

692
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:43,640
Speaker 1: When you go back to look at this interview now,

693
00:42:43,760 --> 00:42:46,200
Speaker 1: all the Rolling Stone website shows you is a very

694
00:42:46,280 --> 00:42:50,880
Speaker 1: wholesome headshot of a seventeen year old Brittany nice Try.

695
00:42:51,480 --> 00:42:55,680
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone reflected on this iconic cover and attempted to

696
00:42:55,800 --> 00:43:00,760
Speaker 1: explain the photo shoots theme with photographer Dave la Chapelle.

697
00:43:00,880 --> 00:43:04,640
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone writes this, Spears and La Chapelle both said

698
00:43:04,640 --> 00:43:07,080
Speaker 1: they knew the photo would cause a bit of commotion,

699
00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:09,880
Speaker 1: but they figured it was worth it. I said to her,

700
00:43:10,040 --> 00:43:12,400
Speaker 1: you don't want to be buttoned up like Debbie Gibson.

701
00:43:12,719 --> 00:43:16,359
Speaker 1: La Chapelle recalls, I said, let's push it further and

702
00:43:16,400 --> 00:43:19,520
Speaker 1: do this whole little Leita thing. She got it. She

703
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:23,360
Speaker 1: knew it would get people talking and excited. Spears proved

704
00:43:23,480 --> 00:43:25,840
Speaker 1: even then that she was going to take charge of

705
00:43:25,920 --> 00:43:29,080
Speaker 1: crafting her own image. One night, while they were shooting

706
00:43:29,239 --> 00:43:33,080
Speaker 1: La Chapelle, says, Spears manager Larry Rudolph walked in at

707
00:43:33,080 --> 00:43:36,040
Speaker 1: two am to find her posing in her bra and panties.

708
00:43:36,440 --> 00:43:40,279
Speaker 1: Rudolph demanded to know what was going on. Brittney said, yeah,

709
00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:43,600
Speaker 1: I don't feel comfortable, says the photographer. At first I

710
00:43:43,640 --> 00:43:47,080
Speaker 1: felt betrayed, but as soon as Larry walked out, Brittany said,

711
00:43:47,160 --> 00:43:50,480
Speaker 1: locked the door and unbuttoned her shirt wide open. Now

712
00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:53,120
Speaker 1: I can't say for sure how Britney Spears felt about

713
00:43:53,120 --> 00:43:55,439
Speaker 1: this at the time or now, and I would never

714
00:43:55,480 --> 00:43:59,200
Speaker 1: want to assume. However, this quote from Dave la Chapelle

715
00:43:59,320 --> 00:44:01,680
Speaker 1: hits me as a bit of a deflection. In nine,

716
00:44:02,640 --> 00:44:06,040
Speaker 1: La Chapelle was a twenty five year old fashioned photographer

717
00:44:06,160 --> 00:44:09,840
Speaker 1: most famous for shooting adult female celebrities in the nude.

718
00:44:09,920 --> 00:44:12,480
Speaker 1: A year after this photo, La Chapelle would take the

719
00:44:12,760 --> 00:44:16,360
Speaker 1: iconic photo of a nineteen year old Paris Hilton, wearing

720
00:44:16,440 --> 00:44:18,920
Speaker 1: nothing but a mesh top, flipping the camera off in

721
00:44:18,960 --> 00:44:22,280
Speaker 1: the middle of her grandmother's ornate living room. Also referenced

722
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:25,520
Speaker 1: in this quote is Larry Rudolph Spears, as longtime manager

723
00:44:25,600 --> 00:44:28,000
Speaker 1: who has been with her since childhood. They're just not

724
00:44:28,280 --> 00:44:32,040
Speaker 1: two people whose opinions on how amenable a seventeen year

725
00:44:32,040 --> 00:44:35,279
Speaker 1: old girl was to a very exploitative photo shoot that

726
00:44:35,520 --> 00:44:39,720
Speaker 1: I trust pretty Spears says this later in her career

727
00:44:39,760 --> 00:44:44,320
Speaker 1: to in Style in two thousand thirteen, In this business,

728
00:44:44,560 --> 00:44:47,839
Speaker 1: you make a deal with the devil. Another pop star

729
00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:51,400
Speaker 1: I feel very strongly about, whose initial marketing and tragic

730
00:44:51,440 --> 00:44:55,160
Speaker 1: details of her too short life reflect lowly to aesthetics

731
00:44:55,160 --> 00:44:58,279
Speaker 1: and patterns is Oh Yeah, the nineties R and B

732
00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:02,320
Speaker 1: pop singer whose career toge story intersects directly with sexual

733
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:05,520
Speaker 1: abuse as a child. From the very beginning of her career,

734
00:45:05,640 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 1: Aliyah was discovered by former musician R Kelly, who, as

735
00:45:09,719 --> 00:45:13,520
Speaker 1: of this recording, has been convicted of eighteen counts of kidnapping,

736
00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:18,880
Speaker 1: force labor, child sexual exploitation, child pornography, production, and obstruction

737
00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:22,080
Speaker 1: of justice. These abuses were the subject of a docuseries

738
00:45:22,120 --> 00:45:25,279
Speaker 1: called Surviving R Kelly which I would recommend if you're

739
00:45:25,280 --> 00:45:28,960
Speaker 1: seeking out the full horrifying context of what I'm talking

740
00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:32,719
Speaker 1: about here. Aliyah tragically died in a plane crash at

741
00:45:32,760 --> 00:45:35,279
Speaker 1: only twenty two years old back in two thousand and one,

742
00:45:35,440 --> 00:45:38,080
Speaker 1: but she was first introduced to R. Kelly around the

743
00:45:38,080 --> 00:45:40,880
Speaker 1: age of twelve by her uncle, who at that time

744
00:45:41,160 --> 00:45:44,839
Speaker 1: was Kelly's manager. Kelly became Aliah's mentor and wrote all

745
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:48,080
Speaker 1: the songs for and produced her first record, which was

746
00:45:48,120 --> 00:45:50,880
Speaker 1: released when she was fourteen years old. The album was

747
00:45:50,960 --> 00:45:53,799
Speaker 1: called Age Ain't Nothing but a Number, and it was

748
00:45:53,840 --> 00:45:57,480
Speaker 1: a huge hit, going platinum twice. The title track was

749
00:45:57,560 --> 00:46:00,600
Speaker 1: written by R. Kelly and produced by R. Kelly and

750
00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:03,520
Speaker 1: is about an underage girl who wants to date an

751
00:46:03,520 --> 00:46:06,560
Speaker 1: older man. You may have heard it before, but here

752
00:46:06,560 --> 00:46:09,399
Speaker 1: are some lyrics. Take my hand and come with me.

753
00:46:09,800 --> 00:46:13,120
Speaker 1: Let me show you to ecstasy. Boy, be brave, don't

754
00:46:13,120 --> 00:46:15,920
Speaker 1: be afraid, because tonight we're going to go all the way.

755
00:46:16,080 --> 00:46:17,960
Speaker 1: Don't need to be bold. Got to let you know

756
00:46:18,120 --> 00:46:20,040
Speaker 1: I got a thing for you and I can't let

757
00:46:20,040 --> 00:46:24,120
Speaker 1: go my age Ain't nothing but a number Robert Kelly's

758
00:46:24,160 --> 00:46:27,600
Speaker 1: words sung out of Aliyah's mouth around the time of

759
00:46:27,600 --> 00:46:31,120
Speaker 1: this song's release, there were rumors that Kelly and Aliyah

760
00:46:31,320 --> 00:46:34,640
Speaker 1: had secretly married when she was just fifteen and he

761
00:46:34,719 --> 00:46:38,000
Speaker 1: was seven. It was later revealed that Kelly had illegally

762
00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:42,319
Speaker 1: married her in August when she was fifteen, something that

763
00:46:42,360 --> 00:46:45,759
Speaker 1: required false documents about her age to accomplish this, as

764
00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:48,719
Speaker 1: she was not old enough to legally marry without her

765
00:46:48,760 --> 00:46:53,160
Speaker 1: parents consent. Demetrius Smith, R Kelly's former tour manager, admitted

766
00:46:53,239 --> 00:46:57,000
Speaker 1: in on Surviving R. Kelly that he helped falsify these

767
00:46:57,040 --> 00:47:01,200
Speaker 1: documents and that Aliyah looked quote worried and scared unquote

768
00:47:01,280 --> 00:47:04,360
Speaker 1: during the Shotgun wedding, all while being marketed as the

769
00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:09,239
Speaker 1: young girl enticing older men. Aaliyah was encouraged to downplay

770
00:47:09,280 --> 00:47:13,280
Speaker 1: her relationship with Kelly, even after they've been illegally married.

771
00:47:13,440 --> 00:47:16,520
Speaker 1: In Vibe magazine in nineteen ninety four, Aliah says she

772
00:47:16,600 --> 00:47:19,640
Speaker 1: and Kelly would quote go watch a movie unquote, and

773
00:47:19,920 --> 00:47:23,120
Speaker 1: go eat and then quote come back and work unquote,

774
00:47:23,280 --> 00:47:27,279
Speaker 1: and that their relationship was rather close. These rumors that

775
00:47:27,520 --> 00:47:31,560
Speaker 1: dogged this incredibly talented fifteen year old artist affected her

776
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:35,200
Speaker 1: professionally at the time, especially after Vibe confirmed that the

777
00:47:35,200 --> 00:47:39,840
Speaker 1: wedding had happened in January Aaliyah reportedly filed to have

778
00:47:39,960 --> 00:47:43,800
Speaker 1: this marriage and knowlled in late nine when she was sixteen,

779
00:47:43,960 --> 00:47:47,279
Speaker 1: and cut off all relations with Kelly and refused to

780
00:47:47,320 --> 00:47:50,560
Speaker 1: discuss the rumors publicly all the way up until her death.

781
00:47:50,840 --> 00:47:53,120
Speaker 1: Her partner at the time of her death, Damon Dash,

782
00:47:53,280 --> 00:47:56,319
Speaker 1: told the magazine Hip Hop Motivation in twenty nineteen that

783
00:47:56,360 --> 00:47:59,080
Speaker 1: Elijah rarely spoke of R. Kelly in her private life,

784
00:47:59,120 --> 00:48:02,960
Speaker 1: only referring to him as a quote bad man unquote.

785
00:48:03,120 --> 00:48:05,560
Speaker 1: Aliah went on to make two other albums, One in

786
00:48:05,600 --> 00:48:08,640
Speaker 1: a Million and Aliyah before her death, and they're so

787
00:48:08,719 --> 00:48:12,560
Speaker 1: good and her place in music history is deservedly secured

788
00:48:12,760 --> 00:48:14,799
Speaker 1: in spite of how soon we lost her back in

789
00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:18,399
Speaker 1: August two one. And this is of course a much

790
00:48:18,560 --> 00:48:21,239
Speaker 1: more complicated topic and story that I'm going to be

791
00:48:21,280 --> 00:48:25,320
Speaker 1: linking resources to in the description, as Kelly's abuse of girls,

792
00:48:25,400 --> 00:48:29,720
Speaker 1: specifically black girls, ranges far beyond Aliyah. This also connects

793
00:48:29,719 --> 00:48:32,000
Speaker 1: to the fact that we as a culture do not

794
00:48:32,200 --> 00:48:35,719
Speaker 1: prioritize protecting black and brown girls as we need to.

795
00:48:36,080 --> 00:48:38,640
Speaker 1: As we've discussed on the show before, Black, brown and

796
00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:41,520
Speaker 1: Indigenous girls and women are far more likely to be

797
00:48:41,600 --> 00:48:45,360
Speaker 1: sexually assaulted than white girls and women, far less likely

798
00:48:45,560 --> 00:48:48,359
Speaker 1: to be covered in the media and more likely to

799
00:48:48,440 --> 00:48:51,520
Speaker 1: be over sexualized in popular media. The point I want

800
00:48:51,520 --> 00:48:54,800
Speaker 1: to make here is that Aliyah's treatment by r Kelly

801
00:48:55,000 --> 00:48:58,359
Speaker 1: was happening more or less in public. Everyone knew that

802
00:48:58,520 --> 00:49:01,480
Speaker 1: age ain't nothing but a number. Weren't Aliah's words, they

803
00:49:01,480 --> 00:49:04,680
Speaker 1: were Robert Kelly's and so many knowing adults around her.

804
00:49:04,719 --> 00:49:07,360
Speaker 1: I did nothing to stop it, and in the nineties

805
00:49:07,560 --> 00:49:10,960
Speaker 1: this was not disqualifying from getting you onto the music charts,

806
00:49:11,239 --> 00:49:13,640
Speaker 1: and in fact, this was used as a marketing point

807
00:49:13,840 --> 00:49:17,920
Speaker 1: to initially launch Aliah's career. There are accounts called Aliyah

808
00:49:18,000 --> 00:49:21,800
Speaker 1: dot Lolita two thousand one. To this day, Dolores always

809
00:49:21,880 --> 00:49:25,560
Speaker 1: comes into the conversation when it comes to romanticizing the

810
00:49:25,600 --> 00:49:29,800
Speaker 1: relationship between an underage girl and an adult man. What's

811
00:49:29,840 --> 00:49:32,799
Speaker 1: deeply tragic on top of everything is that Aliyah isn't

812
00:49:32,880 --> 00:49:35,399
Speaker 1: here to tell us what she feels now. She never

813
00:49:35,440 --> 00:49:39,160
Speaker 1: got that chance, and resources are included to learn more

814
00:49:39,200 --> 00:49:42,080
Speaker 1: about other survivors of Kelly and how to support them.

815
00:49:42,400 --> 00:49:45,839
Speaker 1: In the description of this episode, the third pop star

816
00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:48,080
Speaker 1: I want to talk about that gets us even closer

817
00:49:48,080 --> 00:49:51,319
Speaker 1: timeline wise to where Lana del Ray comes into prominence.

818
00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:55,680
Speaker 1: Is Katie Perry, another contemporary pop star who has referenced

819
00:49:55,760 --> 00:50:02,800
Speaker 1: Nabokov's work explicitly, starting very early in her career. Yeah.

820
00:50:14,160 --> 00:50:17,880
Speaker 1: Katy Perry born Katherine Hudson was born into a family

821
00:50:17,920 --> 00:50:21,720
Speaker 1: of Pentecostal pastors and began her career in gospel music

822
00:50:21,760 --> 00:50:25,120
Speaker 1: as a teenager. She released her first gospel album at sixteen,

823
00:50:25,480 --> 00:50:28,600
Speaker 1: then changed her name when signing with Deaf Jam Records

824
00:50:28,600 --> 00:50:31,320
Speaker 1: in two thousand four. This pivoted her from gospel to

825
00:50:31,440 --> 00:50:35,000
Speaker 1: pop music hard. By two thousand seven, she was producing

826
00:50:35,080 --> 00:50:37,880
Speaker 1: hits like I Kissed a Girl and Hot and Cold

827
00:50:38,040 --> 00:50:40,360
Speaker 1: for her two thousand and eight record called One of

828
00:50:40,360 --> 00:50:43,640
Speaker 1: the Boys. On the cover of this album, Katy Perry

829
00:50:43,680 --> 00:50:46,800
Speaker 1: is laying in a suburban backyard garden and a crop

830
00:50:46,840 --> 00:50:50,120
Speaker 1: top in shorts, biting on a pair of wait for it,

831
00:50:50,400 --> 00:50:54,040
Speaker 1: dark glasses. The cover of this album is an explicit

832
00:50:54,080 --> 00:50:57,080
Speaker 1: reference to Lolita, And if that's not enough of a

833
00:50:57,160 --> 00:50:59,760
Speaker 1: reference for you, there's a line from the title track

834
00:51:00,040 --> 00:51:03,239
Speaker 1: of One of the Boys that goes like this, So

835
00:51:03,280 --> 00:51:07,120
Speaker 1: over the summer something changed. I started reading seventeen and

836
00:51:07,200 --> 00:51:11,120
Speaker 1: shading my legs, and I studied Lolita religiously, and I

837
00:51:11,200 --> 00:51:13,879
Speaker 1: walked right into school and caught you staring at me.

838
00:51:14,480 --> 00:51:18,400
Speaker 1: So you know, in context, I don't really understand these lyrics.

839
00:51:18,520 --> 00:51:21,280
Speaker 1: Katy Perry was twenty four when this album was released,

840
00:51:21,320 --> 00:51:23,760
Speaker 1: but the song One of the Boys is written about

841
00:51:23,840 --> 00:51:26,280
Speaker 1: the time when she was a teenager and very likely

842
00:51:26,360 --> 00:51:29,719
Speaker 1: did not have a nuanced understanding of Lolita buying a

843
00:51:29,760 --> 00:51:32,239
Speaker 1: book off. But then on the press tour for this album,

844
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:36,520
Speaker 1: she says this about her history with Lolita, and for

845
00:51:36,560 --> 00:51:39,560
Speaker 1: some reason, I have this obsession with Lolita, and I

846
00:51:39,560 --> 00:51:43,759
Speaker 1: think it's because she's both innocent and knows she's a

847
00:51:43,760 --> 00:51:45,719
Speaker 1: little bit of a sex kitten as well. And she

848
00:51:45,800 --> 00:51:50,600
Speaker 1: walks that line, um, and uh, you know, I think

849
00:51:50,600 --> 00:51:54,000
Speaker 1: it's boring if you're too goody two shoes and you

850
00:51:54,160 --> 00:51:57,080
Speaker 1: come out looking like a sleep here, if you're a

851
00:51:57,120 --> 00:51:59,799
Speaker 1: packer all the time, so you gotta walk that line.

852
00:52:00,440 --> 00:52:03,400
Speaker 1: Who I genuinely don't want to pass too much judgment

853
00:52:03,440 --> 00:52:06,200
Speaker 1: on this. We're all growing, I hope, And this was

854
00:52:06,239 --> 00:52:09,960
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, but yeah, this perspective was certainly

855
00:52:10,000 --> 00:52:13,840
Speaker 1: reflected in a way that Perry perpetuated the Lolita aesthetic.

856
00:52:14,000 --> 00:52:16,879
Speaker 1: In this case, I mean an adult woman presenting as

857
00:52:16,920 --> 00:52:20,640
Speaker 1: a consenting, inviting underage girl. In the case of Britney

858
00:52:20,680 --> 00:52:24,479
Speaker 1: Spears and Aaliyah, the Lolita aesthetic means an underage girl

859
00:52:24,600 --> 00:52:28,719
Speaker 1: styled to look like a consenting adult. It's complicated, but

860
00:52:28,840 --> 00:52:31,960
Speaker 1: the aesthetic looks very similar. We see themes of this

861
00:52:32,080 --> 00:52:35,920
Speaker 1: also in Perry's album Teenage Dream, released when she was

862
00:52:35,920 --> 00:52:39,279
Speaker 1: twenty five. So here we are back at Lana del Rey,

863
00:52:39,440 --> 00:52:41,440
Speaker 1: and it would take years and years to give you

864
00:52:41,520 --> 00:52:43,600
Speaker 1: the full context on what gets us to her work,

865
00:52:43,640 --> 00:52:45,880
Speaker 1: but I hope that three examples I've chosen have helped

866
00:52:46,080 --> 00:52:49,640
Speaker 1: Katy Perry and Lana del Rey make very different sounding music.

867
00:52:49,719 --> 00:52:53,960
Speaker 1: But unlike Britney Spears and Aaliyah, they are intentionally referencing

868
00:52:53,960 --> 00:52:57,720
Speaker 1: Lolita and their work in music they themselves are writing.

869
00:52:57,880 --> 00:53:00,360
Speaker 1: Britney Spears co writes some of her leader work, but

870
00:53:00,480 --> 00:53:03,239
Speaker 1: all of her early heads are written by adult men,

871
00:53:03,440 --> 00:53:07,360
Speaker 1: and as we know, are Kelly wrote Eliyah's entire first album.

872
00:53:07,560 --> 00:53:10,200
Speaker 1: Katy Perry and Laana del Rey have the benefit of

873
00:53:10,280 --> 00:53:15,280
Speaker 1: adulthood and more active collaboration in their work, and especially

874
00:53:15,280 --> 00:53:18,320
Speaker 1: now that I've been knee deep in Tumbler for several

875
00:53:18,360 --> 00:53:21,040
Speaker 1: weeks and feel like I have a pretty clear idea

876
00:53:21,280 --> 00:53:25,040
Speaker 1: that her work in romanticizing Lolita is still to this

877
00:53:25,160 --> 00:53:29,279
Speaker 1: day very impactful, and she's never really addressed it. Look,

878
00:53:29,280 --> 00:53:30,879
Speaker 1: I don't even think this is like a hot take.

879
00:53:31,040 --> 00:53:35,000
Speaker 1: I think that in these online communities especially, Lana has

880
00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:38,920
Speaker 1: done net harm with her messaging. Lana del Rey released

881
00:53:38,920 --> 00:53:41,440
Speaker 1: this music when she was my age, when she was

882
00:53:41,480 --> 00:53:44,640
Speaker 1: like in her late twenties, so it's inconceivable to me,

883
00:53:44,840 --> 00:53:48,040
Speaker 1: even with the additional pressures of the music industry, that

884
00:53:48,120 --> 00:53:50,919
Speaker 1: she was not aware what she was doing or who

885
00:53:50,920 --> 00:53:55,520
Speaker 1: her audience was. And Lana del Rey references Lovelita explicitly,

886
00:53:55,840 --> 00:54:00,319
Speaker 1: both visually and in lyrics very frequently. When discussing Born

887
00:54:00,400 --> 00:54:03,560
Speaker 1: to Die, she referred to her music as quote, Lolita

888
00:54:03,719 --> 00:54:07,000
Speaker 1: lost in the hood unquote, And to complicate things further,

889
00:54:07,239 --> 00:54:10,759
Speaker 1: she's been pretty historically resistant to identifying as a feminist

890
00:54:10,800 --> 00:54:14,840
Speaker 1: in the traditional sense, saying that her quote idea of

891
00:54:14,840 --> 00:54:17,239
Speaker 1: a true feminist is a woman who feels free enough

892
00:54:17,280 --> 00:54:19,759
Speaker 1: to do whatever she wants unquote. As recently as the

893
00:54:19,800 --> 00:54:23,080
Speaker 1: past year, she's been publicly frustrated at the suggestion that

894
00:54:23,120 --> 00:54:27,400
Speaker 1: her lyrics and aesthetics have glamorized abuse. The Lolita discussion

895
00:54:27,560 --> 00:54:30,879
Speaker 1: and the high concentration of Lolita references is a part

896
00:54:30,880 --> 00:54:33,799
Speaker 1: of why she's faced these criticisms over the years. There

897
00:54:33,840 --> 00:54:37,520
Speaker 1: are many Lana songs that use a single line or

898
00:54:37,600 --> 00:54:39,879
Speaker 1: reference to the book, but I'm just going to use

899
00:54:39,960 --> 00:54:42,759
Speaker 1: the most major examples here to save time. From her

900
00:54:43,400 --> 00:54:45,720
Speaker 1: self titled album, the song put Me in a Movie

901
00:54:45,840 --> 00:54:48,000
Speaker 1: is about a young girl who desperately wants to become

902
00:54:48,040 --> 00:54:50,719
Speaker 1: an actress, featuring the line come on, you know you

903
00:54:50,800 --> 00:54:55,120
Speaker 1: like little girls. And then from her breakout album is

904
00:54:55,200 --> 00:54:58,480
Speaker 1: Born to Die, here are the references. The song Diet

905
00:54:58,520 --> 00:55:02,040
Speaker 1: Mountain Dew is a song of about forbidden and uncertain love,

906
00:55:02,360 --> 00:55:07,879
Speaker 1: featuring this lyrical clincher baby put on heart shaped sunglasses

907
00:55:08,040 --> 00:55:10,640
Speaker 1: because we're going to take a ride. I'm not going

908
00:55:10,680 --> 00:55:13,960
Speaker 1: to listen to what the past says. I've been waiting

909
00:55:14,040 --> 00:55:17,640
Speaker 1: up all night. Then there's Off to the Races, a

910
00:55:17,719 --> 00:55:22,320
Speaker 1: song that is entirely about Lolita and Humbert. Humbert lyrics

911
00:55:22,320 --> 00:55:25,719
Speaker 1: read my old man is a bad man, but I

912
00:55:25,760 --> 00:55:28,799
Speaker 1: can't deny the way he holds my hand and he

913
00:55:28,920 --> 00:55:33,200
Speaker 1: grabs me. He has me by my heart again, implying

914
00:55:33,239 --> 00:55:37,600
Speaker 1: that Dolores is deeply infatuated and in love with Humbert,

915
00:55:37,680 --> 00:55:39,600
Speaker 1: when a close read of the book makes it pretty

916
00:55:39,600 --> 00:55:43,439
Speaker 1: clear that Dolores Hayes is crushed on Humbert ends when

917
00:55:43,440 --> 00:55:47,160
Speaker 1: the abuse begins and never returns, and a lot of

918
00:55:47,160 --> 00:55:51,360
Speaker 1: the music videos on Born to Die movie adaptation on

919
00:55:51,480 --> 00:55:55,040
Speaker 1: Lolita is visually referenced. And then and off to the races.

920
00:55:55,360 --> 00:55:59,719
Speaker 1: We've got this chorus, light of my life, fire of

921
00:55:59,800 --> 00:56:03,720
Speaker 1: my loins, be a good baby, do what I want,

922
00:56:04,480 --> 00:56:08,000
Speaker 1: Light of my life, Fire of my loins. Give me

923
00:56:08,040 --> 00:56:12,040
Speaker 1: them gold coins, Give me them coins. Now, the meaning

924
00:56:12,080 --> 00:56:15,440
Speaker 1: from the book that's lost in that chorus is pretty obvious.

925
00:56:15,480 --> 00:56:18,920
Speaker 1: The gold coins that Lana is referencing is Dolores Hayes

926
00:56:19,239 --> 00:56:22,520
Speaker 1: hiding her allowance from Humbert Humbert and the books book

927
00:56:22,640 --> 00:56:25,920
Speaker 1: so that she can afford to escape his abuse, not

928
00:56:26,080 --> 00:56:30,920
Speaker 1: so she can exert this maximalist capitalism control over him.

929
00:56:31,080 --> 00:56:35,240
Speaker 1: Like Lana describes, Dolores Hayes is hiding quarters and dollars

930
00:56:35,280 --> 00:56:39,120
Speaker 1: for survival. She continues, my old man is a thief,

931
00:56:39,480 --> 00:56:41,640
Speaker 1: and I'm going to stay and pray with him till

932
00:56:41,680 --> 00:56:44,360
Speaker 1: the end. But I trust in the decision of the

933
00:56:44,440 --> 00:56:48,399
Speaker 1: Lord to watch over us, take him when he may,

934
00:56:48,440 --> 00:56:51,080
Speaker 1: if he may. I'm not afraid to say that I

935
00:56:51,239 --> 00:56:54,160
Speaker 1: die without him. Who else is going to put up

936
00:56:54,200 --> 00:56:58,439
Speaker 1: with me this way? Again, these lyrics straight very far

937
00:56:58,760 --> 00:57:01,600
Speaker 1: from what the book has taught talking about. Dolores did

938
00:57:01,680 --> 00:57:05,640
Speaker 1: say for money, up and fled, Humbert humbered tragically with

939
00:57:05,680 --> 00:57:08,920
Speaker 1: someone who ended up being another child sex abuser. The

940
00:57:09,000 --> 00:57:11,720
Speaker 1: narrative being presented in the song Off to the Races

941
00:57:12,080 --> 00:57:15,799
Speaker 1: is that Dolores would die without Humberd and that's completely

942
00:57:15,880 --> 00:57:18,800
Speaker 1: false advertising. The Dolores Hayes of the book seemed to

943
00:57:18,800 --> 00:57:21,600
Speaker 1: feel the exact opposite. Off to the Races ends with

944
00:57:21,720 --> 00:57:25,640
Speaker 1: the line you are my one true love, repeated three times,

945
00:57:26,160 --> 00:57:30,200
Speaker 1: then we're still going. On the deluxe edition of Lana

946
00:57:30,280 --> 00:57:32,920
Speaker 1: del Rey is Born to Die, there is a bonus

947
00:57:32,960 --> 00:57:37,920
Speaker 1: track that is literally named Lolita, with the chorus ha Lolita,

948
00:57:38,000 --> 00:57:40,880
Speaker 1: hey ha, lolita, Hey I know what the boys want,

949
00:57:40,960 --> 00:57:44,080
Speaker 1: I'm not going to play he lolita, hey ha, lolita,

950
00:57:44,160 --> 00:57:47,400
Speaker 1: Hey whistle all you want, but I'm not gonna say,

951
00:57:47,840 --> 00:57:51,760
Speaker 1: and a number of vague references to the imagery of

952
00:57:51,800 --> 00:57:55,000
Speaker 1: the movies and the book like this No More skipping rope,

953
00:57:55,080 --> 00:57:58,080
Speaker 1: skipping heartbeats with the boys downtown, just you and me,

954
00:57:58,200 --> 00:58:01,640
Speaker 1: feeling the heat even when the sun goes down. Laana

955
00:58:02,360 --> 00:58:06,520
Speaker 1: likes Lolita. I don't know if she likes Dolores. There

956
00:58:06,560 --> 00:58:09,000
Speaker 1: are other songs with references, but they are mainly from

957
00:58:09,160 --> 00:58:12,480
Speaker 1: leaked music that we're stolen or otherwise hacked. And I'm

958
00:58:12,520 --> 00:58:15,120
Speaker 1: not a fan of holding someone accountable for art that

959
00:58:15,160 --> 00:58:18,000
Speaker 1: they didn't choose to release. But everything I just told

960
00:58:18,040 --> 00:58:21,600
Speaker 1: you is on the record. Monetize releases by Lana del

961
00:58:21,680 --> 00:58:27,320
Speaker 1: Rey about Lolita. YouTube is overflowing with fan edits of

962
00:58:27,360 --> 00:58:31,800
Speaker 1: the Lolita movie edited with these songs in the background,

963
00:58:31,960 --> 00:58:35,000
Speaker 1: and Lana herself promoted the song Lolita with an image

964
00:58:35,000 --> 00:58:38,120
Speaker 1: of her with blonde pigtails with pink ribbons in her hair,

965
00:58:38,240 --> 00:58:41,880
Speaker 1: biting her thumbnail and looking seductively at the camera. She

966
00:58:42,040 --> 00:58:45,440
Speaker 1: is twenty four or five in this picture. Because it

967
00:58:45,560 --> 00:58:50,000
Speaker 1: is sence is sexier than you think. Laana del Rey

968
00:58:50,080 --> 00:58:54,000
Speaker 1: has been criticized extensively, most recently for comments that are

969
00:58:54,160 --> 00:58:57,200
Speaker 1: extremely tone deaf if you're being generous, and what many

970
00:58:57,240 --> 00:59:00,520
Speaker 1: perceived to be full on anti black comments as pertains

971
00:59:00,560 --> 00:59:05,640
Speaker 1: to how sexuality is presented in pop versus how she presents.

972
00:59:05,640 --> 00:59:07,920
Speaker 1: She's also been put on a blast for wearing a

973
00:59:07,960 --> 00:59:10,560
Speaker 1: mesh face mask in the middle of a global pandemic.

974
00:59:10,720 --> 00:59:14,800
Speaker 1: The list goes on, but this discussion around Lolita culture

975
00:59:14,840 --> 00:59:18,200
Speaker 1: and her music and music videos while having her music

976
00:59:18,240 --> 00:59:21,360
Speaker 1: marketed to a primarily young audience, was one of her

977
00:59:21,400 --> 00:59:25,760
Speaker 1: earliest major controversies. This, among other lyrics and themes in

978
00:59:25,800 --> 00:59:30,600
Speaker 1: her music, were often categorized as glamorizing abuse, something that

979
00:59:30,680 --> 00:59:34,360
Speaker 1: Lana continues to push back on to this day. I'm

980
00:59:34,400 --> 00:59:37,200
Speaker 1: going to share the controversial comment that she made in

981
00:59:38,160 --> 00:59:41,240
Speaker 1: that I think very rightfully got her a lot of

982
00:59:41,320 --> 00:59:44,640
Speaker 1: blowback because it kind of bundles all of the controversies

983
00:59:44,680 --> 00:59:48,840
Speaker 1: I just described into one problematic Lana del Right quote.

984
00:59:49,160 --> 00:59:53,720
Speaker 1: It says this question for the culture now that do

985
00:59:53,920 --> 01:00:00,480
Speaker 1: Jaquat and Cardi, b Arianna, Camilla, Klanni, Nicki, Mina, and

986
01:00:00,520 --> 01:00:05,200
Speaker 1: Beyonce have had number ones the songs about being sexy,

987
01:00:05,400 --> 01:00:10,760
Speaker 1: wearing no clothes, fucking, cheating, et cetera, Can I please

988
01:00:10,840 --> 01:00:15,880
Speaker 1: go back to singing about being embodied, feeling beautiful by

989
01:00:15,960 --> 01:00:20,160
Speaker 1: being in love even if the relationship is not perfect,

990
01:00:20,360 --> 01:00:24,520
Speaker 1: or dancing for money or whatever I want without being

991
01:00:24,600 --> 01:00:31,200
Speaker 1: crucified or saying I'm glamorizing abuse. So, first and most importantly,

992
01:00:31,440 --> 01:00:35,120
Speaker 1: the artists that Launa lists are majority black and brown

993
01:00:35,160 --> 01:00:40,000
Speaker 1: women who already face aggressive racist stereotyping in culture as

994
01:00:40,040 --> 01:00:43,880
Speaker 1: being overly sexual, and Lata tearing them down in favor

995
01:00:43,960 --> 01:00:46,800
Speaker 1: of bringing up an old gripe she has about glamorizing

996
01:00:46,840 --> 01:00:50,840
Speaker 1: abuse is stunning, lee tone deaf to say the least.

997
01:00:51,200 --> 01:00:53,960
Speaker 1: Then there's a lot of thoughts on feminism taken from

998
01:00:54,000 --> 01:00:59,280
Speaker 1: this fatal interview. For me, the issue of feminism is

999
01:00:59,360 --> 01:01:03,640
Speaker 1: just not an interesting concept. I'm more interested, you know,

1000
01:01:03,800 --> 01:01:09,240
Speaker 1: in Space X and Tesla what's going to happen with

1001
01:01:09,280 --> 01:01:16,240
Speaker 1: our intergalactic possibilities. Whenever people bring up feminism, I'm like, God,

1002
01:01:17,400 --> 01:01:22,280
Speaker 1: I'm just not really that interested. Wake up, feminist people.

1003
01:01:22,400 --> 01:01:27,400
Speaker 1: We need to be talking about SpaceX and Tesla. Lana

1004
01:01:27,480 --> 01:01:30,960
Speaker 1: expands on her thoughts on feminism in the comments I

1005
01:01:31,000 --> 01:01:35,480
Speaker 1: was referencing earlier, saying she's quote not not a feminist unquote,

1006
01:01:35,520 --> 01:01:38,680
Speaker 1: but wishes that feminism would make space for women who

1007
01:01:38,840 --> 01:01:42,160
Speaker 1: look like her, as if feminism hasn't served white women

1008
01:01:42,200 --> 01:01:44,920
Speaker 1: from the jump, she does argue that it should not

1009
01:01:44,960 --> 01:01:48,560
Speaker 1: be taboo to sing about abusive dynamics and a relationship

1010
01:01:49,080 --> 01:01:51,720
Speaker 1: and as it pertains to her personal life, saying about

1011
01:01:51,760 --> 01:01:54,440
Speaker 1: whatever you want, Lana Again, I've listened to her music

1012
01:01:54,480 --> 01:01:59,400
Speaker 1: when navigating shitty relationships myself. But as it pertains to Lolita,

1013
01:01:59,680 --> 01:02:02,920
Speaker 1: she's not singing about her own experience. She's using a

1014
01:02:03,000 --> 01:02:06,480
Speaker 1: famous text about abuse and turning it into something romantic

1015
01:02:06,680 --> 01:02:09,880
Speaker 1: in lyrics and in visuals. Ultimately, I am not here

1016
01:02:09,920 --> 01:02:13,280
Speaker 1: to litigate whether Laana del Ray is good for feminism

1017
01:02:13,440 --> 01:02:16,080
Speaker 1: or bad for feminism. That is one of the most

1018
01:02:16,280 --> 01:02:19,600
Speaker 1: tired pieces of discourse in the history of the Internet,

1019
01:02:19,760 --> 01:02:22,280
Speaker 1: and I have no wish to rehash it here. What

1020
01:02:22,320 --> 01:02:25,040
Speaker 1: I'm here to talk about is what Laana del Ray

1021
01:02:25,120 --> 01:02:28,800
Speaker 1: has done for the Lolita or Nymphete aesthetic, and whether

1022
01:02:28,840 --> 01:02:31,000
Speaker 1: the heavy references she makes to the book and to

1023
01:02:31,160 --> 01:02:36,200
Speaker 1: Dolores are transformative or effective in really any way. And

1024
01:02:36,240 --> 01:02:39,640
Speaker 1: then this discussion about glamorizing abuse has a lot to

1025
01:02:39,680 --> 01:02:43,120
Speaker 1: do with how Laana frames Lolita in her music, both

1026
01:02:43,200 --> 01:02:46,480
Speaker 1: lyrically and visually, and that she brought about a pretty

1027
01:02:46,520 --> 01:02:51,640
Speaker 1: significant resurgence of this Adrian Line movie aesthetic. Except at

1028
01:02:51,640 --> 01:02:54,160
Speaker 1: the time she was a twenty seven year old woman

1029
01:02:54,320 --> 01:02:57,520
Speaker 1: cosplaying as a twelve year old and given that del

1030
01:02:57,600 --> 01:03:00,240
Speaker 1: Ray would have been twelve at the time the rein

1031
01:03:00,280 --> 01:03:02,880
Speaker 1: Line movie whilst we released in nine, I mean it's

1032
01:03:02,920 --> 01:03:06,080
Speaker 1: not unlikely that it really affected her. She's mentioned many

1033
01:03:06,120 --> 01:03:09,200
Speaker 1: times in interviews that her life as a teenager involved

1034
01:03:09,240 --> 01:03:12,680
Speaker 1: growing up way too fast, drinking, and spending time with

1035
01:03:12,760 --> 01:03:14,960
Speaker 1: older men. Here's a bit of an interview she did

1036
01:03:15,040 --> 01:03:20,160
Speaker 1: with German newspaper Dzit in two thousand thirteen. D ZiT asks,

1037
01:03:20,200 --> 01:03:22,720
Speaker 1: how do you get along with feminists? A lot of

1038
01:03:22,760 --> 01:03:25,440
Speaker 1: people had a problem with your lolita look in the

1039
01:03:25,520 --> 01:03:29,760
Speaker 1: video for Ride. Del Rey responds, I don't play the

1040
01:03:29,920 --> 01:03:34,320
Speaker 1: role of a lolita. I just like the text. Lots

1041
01:03:34,360 --> 01:03:39,280
Speaker 1: of pop stars play with a lolita thing, barely wear clothes.

1042
01:03:39,440 --> 01:03:42,080
Speaker 1: It's different with me. I wish I knew how to

1043
01:03:42,120 --> 01:03:45,760
Speaker 1: explain it. It's not about being a lolita. It's more

1044
01:03:45,800 --> 01:03:51,440
Speaker 1: about an attitude, as if one was choosing polygamy, everree

1045
01:03:51,520 --> 01:03:56,000
Speaker 1: love or whatever. It's my choice. It's not about the

1046
01:03:56,080 --> 01:04:00,560
Speaker 1: woman's movement for me, and my songs aren't a comment

1047
01:04:00,720 --> 01:04:06,760
Speaker 1: on today's pop music either. Dsight asks more of a

1048
01:04:06,840 --> 01:04:11,120
Speaker 1: mix of diary and personal confession del Rey replies, let's

1049
01:04:11,160 --> 01:04:15,280
Speaker 1: take the song born to Die. The autobiographical verse is

1050
01:04:15,320 --> 01:04:19,440
Speaker 1: about not giving up on being a good person. I

1051
01:04:19,600 --> 01:04:21,840
Speaker 1: was with the man back then, I just let himself float.

1052
01:04:22,520 --> 01:04:24,840
Speaker 1: We both made a decision together to lead a drug

1053
01:04:24,920 --> 01:04:29,320
Speaker 1: free life, but any more or less runaway and everything

1054
01:04:29,360 --> 01:04:32,280
Speaker 1: I could do for Himma's prey and the cars. It

1055
01:04:32,360 --> 01:04:35,920
Speaker 1: all opens up into passionate fantasy. Come and take a

1056
01:04:35,920 --> 01:04:40,000
Speaker 1: walk on the wild side, let Me kiss you, hut

1057
01:04:40,160 --> 01:04:46,520
Speaker 1: in the rain. Ultimately, it's an escape and semanticism. With

1058
01:04:46,640 --> 01:04:48,960
Speaker 1: this in mind, no matter what you feel about it,

1059
01:04:49,040 --> 01:04:52,560
Speaker 1: you can't assume that all of her music is about

1060
01:04:52,760 --> 01:04:55,600
Speaker 1: Dolora's Hayes. A lot of it, including some of the

1061
01:04:55,680 --> 01:04:58,760
Speaker 1: Lolita imagery, seems to be pulled from Lana del Rey

1062
01:04:58,960 --> 01:05:02,080
Speaker 1: or Lizzy Grants real life experiences, and it's not up

1063
01:05:02,120 --> 01:05:04,919
Speaker 1: to us to tell someone how to properly interpret their

1064
01:05:04,920 --> 01:05:08,680
Speaker 1: own life. But the times she is explicitly addressing the text,

1065
01:05:08,960 --> 01:05:12,680
Speaker 1: it's a pretty heavy rewrite of Dolores's story that implies

1066
01:05:12,800 --> 01:05:16,560
Speaker 1: the same kind of devious nous, cunning and sexual strategic

1067
01:05:16,640 --> 01:05:20,640
Speaker 1: nous that many of the adaptations falsely do. Ultimately, I

1068
01:05:20,680 --> 01:05:23,480
Speaker 1: just don't think that Laana Delray is really bringing anything

1069
01:05:23,640 --> 01:05:27,680
Speaker 1: new to the table. Unfortunately, it is mostly a reselling

1070
01:05:27,840 --> 01:05:32,520
Speaker 1: of old, harmful Lolita aesthetics. I'm not a music critic,

1071
01:05:32,600 --> 01:05:35,200
Speaker 1: but in terms of the messaging and this era of

1072
01:05:35,240 --> 01:05:39,320
Speaker 1: her work, I honestly don't see anything visually or lyrically

1073
01:05:39,360 --> 01:05:43,080
Speaker 1: from Laana that demonstrates a close reading of Nabokov's book.

1074
01:05:43,200 --> 01:05:46,480
Speaker 1: And for a pop culture figure who references Lolita more

1075
01:05:46,520 --> 01:05:49,919
Speaker 1: heavily than anyone else in the space, this is far

1076
01:05:50,040 --> 01:05:54,200
Speaker 1: from ideal. She Lizzie Grant, has very likely read the book,

1077
01:05:54,280 --> 01:05:57,800
Speaker 1: but in terms of how her Laana as Lolita is styled,

1078
01:05:58,160 --> 01:06:01,040
Speaker 1: in terms of how the Humbert gear in these songs

1079
01:06:01,160 --> 01:06:05,600
Speaker 1: is painted as a tragic, romantic pathetic man, and Lana's

1080
01:06:05,600 --> 01:06:10,680
Speaker 1: Lolita is sexually forward, very knowing, seductive, conniving. At times,

1081
01:06:10,880 --> 01:06:15,720
Speaker 1: it strikes me as being far more influenced by movie.

1082
01:06:15,960 --> 01:06:18,600
Speaker 1: There's really no influence here that couldn't be gotten from

1083
01:06:18,680 --> 01:06:21,240
Speaker 1: watching the movie for free on YouTube a couple of times,

1084
01:06:21,320 --> 01:06:23,960
Speaker 1: and watching the DVD extras and going back to those

1085
01:06:24,040 --> 01:06:27,440
Speaker 1: visuals Laana and heart shaped Glasses and all this feeds

1086
01:06:27,440 --> 01:06:30,680
Speaker 1: more into the cultural image we have of Lolita than

1087
01:06:30,720 --> 01:06:33,840
Speaker 1: it does really challenge or change it. And to be fair,

1088
01:06:34,120 --> 01:06:37,560
Speaker 1: Lana's work does not imply a happy ending coming for

1089
01:06:37,560 --> 01:06:41,800
Speaker 1: her Lolita. But the image is a twentysomething in pigtails

1090
01:06:41,840 --> 01:06:44,600
Speaker 1: and heart shaped sunglasses, not a twelve year old, not

1091
01:06:44,720 --> 01:06:46,920
Speaker 1: a fourteen year old, And of course that's an image

1092
01:06:47,000 --> 01:06:51,560
Speaker 1: that's much easier to consume innocence is sexier than you think.

1093
01:06:51,800 --> 01:06:54,720
Speaker 1: Her imagery doesn't read that different than a bad book

1094
01:06:54,760 --> 01:06:59,120
Speaker 1: cover or an ikey perfume ad all musicality aside, it

1095
01:06:59,200 --> 01:07:03,040
Speaker 1: plays right to our cultural tendency to assume Dolora's Hayes

1096
01:07:03,400 --> 01:07:06,680
Speaker 1: is much older than she actually is. So that's Lana.

1097
01:07:06,920 --> 01:07:10,680
Speaker 1: Her Lolita aesthetics are so notable because their release into

1098
01:07:10,720 --> 01:07:13,680
Speaker 1: the tens, two thousand, tens, twenty tents. What are we

1099
01:07:13,680 --> 01:07:16,040
Speaker 1: going to call that? Someone decide? Her release of Lolita

1100
01:07:16,080 --> 01:07:20,880
Speaker 1: aesthetics in the twenty tents collide with the popularity of Tumbler,

1101
01:07:20,920 --> 01:07:26,120
Speaker 1: where Lolita and nymphete blogs explode, and these blogs heavily

1102
01:07:26,240 --> 01:07:30,720
Speaker 1: feature pictures, words, and images from Laura's music. So to

1103
01:07:30,800 --> 01:07:34,360
Speaker 1: talk about this and to contextualize the effect that Laana

1104
01:07:34,400 --> 01:07:37,120
Speaker 1: del Rey had on girls who had recently picked up

1105
01:07:37,200 --> 01:07:40,320
Speaker 1: the book Lolita. I talked to video essayist and writer

1106
01:07:40,720 --> 01:07:43,560
Speaker 1: Miss Lola. She's made a number of video essays and

1107
01:07:43,600 --> 01:07:46,880
Speaker 1: reviews of Lolita's derivative works, as well as one about

1108
01:07:46,960 --> 01:07:50,440
Speaker 1: problematic Favorites and Laana del Ray. I'm linking her work below.

1109
01:07:50,560 --> 01:07:53,160
Speaker 1: It's truly great. We caught up around the holidays to

1110
01:07:53,200 --> 01:07:56,720
Speaker 1: talk about Lana's effect on her life and on Lolita

1111
01:07:56,800 --> 01:08:01,520
Speaker 1: and nymphete culture. I was a whige fan of a

1112
01:08:01,560 --> 01:08:04,120
Speaker 1: series of unfortuate events, so that's when I first heard

1113
01:08:04,160 --> 01:08:06,560
Speaker 1: about it. And then a couple of years later I

1114
01:08:06,560 --> 01:08:08,520
Speaker 1: got into Launa del Ray and I was and I

1115
01:08:08,560 --> 01:08:11,200
Speaker 1: found the old notebook where I had written down his

1116
01:08:11,200 --> 01:08:13,600
Speaker 1: book recommendations. So I was like, it's a sign I

1117
01:08:13,640 --> 01:08:16,200
Speaker 1: actually changed my name. Not a lot of people noticed,

1118
01:08:16,400 --> 01:08:18,680
Speaker 1: like basically only people in my personal life. But and

1119
01:08:18,920 --> 01:08:22,599
Speaker 1: you're free to include this of course. UM. But I

1120
01:08:22,680 --> 01:08:24,760
Speaker 1: like I when I moved away from my hometown, it

1121
01:08:24,840 --> 01:08:27,840
Speaker 1: was a pretty bad situation. UM, and I decided it

1122
01:08:27,840 --> 01:08:31,639
Speaker 1: would be positive. Like you know, sometimes when you when

1123
01:08:31,680 --> 01:08:33,280
Speaker 1: you get out of a bad situation, you kind of

1124
01:08:33,320 --> 01:08:37,360
Speaker 1: do want to metamorphos size um to take a butterfly

1125
01:08:37,479 --> 01:08:40,720
Speaker 1: metaphor so Um, I thought it would be kind of

1126
01:08:40,720 --> 01:08:43,679
Speaker 1: symbolically powerful to take like the name of a survivor

1127
01:08:44,400 --> 01:08:46,960
Speaker 1: um and to carry her name as an adult woman.

1128
01:08:47,400 --> 01:08:51,080
Speaker 1: So I wanted to ask you as well, Um, were

1129
01:08:51,120 --> 01:08:55,840
Speaker 1: you ever involved in Lolita tumbler culture? Was Was that

1130
01:08:55,920 --> 01:09:00,640
Speaker 1: ever like a space that you browsed there? There's been

1131
01:09:00,640 --> 01:09:01,800
Speaker 1: a lot of people I talked to you when I

1132
01:09:01,840 --> 01:09:05,760
Speaker 1: was researching for the initial video who discovered the book

1133
01:09:05,960 --> 01:09:08,200
Speaker 1: through that, and there were a lot of you know,

1134
01:09:08,439 --> 01:09:10,320
Speaker 1: let's put out the call. At the time, it was

1135
01:09:10,400 --> 01:09:14,000
Speaker 1: just on Facebook because I wasn't on list. Just the

1136
01:09:14,040 --> 01:09:16,559
Speaker 1: crazy thing is, I wasn't really on social media until

1137
01:09:16,840 --> 01:09:19,920
Speaker 1: I started doing my YouTube channel, and I kind of

1138
01:09:19,960 --> 01:09:22,280
Speaker 1: regret it because, um, I think, I, you know, it's

1139
01:09:22,320 --> 01:09:27,360
Speaker 1: kind of like where it's at. Yeah, I don't realized

1140
01:09:27,400 --> 01:09:30,479
Speaker 1: that these conversations were being had. I want to talk

1141
01:09:30,520 --> 01:09:33,920
Speaker 1: with you about Lana del Rey, um, because I know

1142
01:09:34,080 --> 01:09:37,880
Speaker 1: you have made a really wonderful video discussing this in

1143
01:09:37,960 --> 01:09:41,840
Speaker 1: depth about problematic faves, Laana del Ray being one of yours.

1144
01:09:41,880 --> 01:09:44,720
Speaker 1: But um, yeah, I want to talk about your experience

1145
01:09:44,800 --> 01:09:48,799
Speaker 1: in that fandom and how it kind of connects to Lolita.

1146
01:09:49,520 --> 01:09:55,280
Speaker 1: It's interesting because again her music was not the introduction

1147
01:09:55,360 --> 01:10:03,240
Speaker 1: for me, um, but it was definitely encouragement. UM that said, Um,

1148
01:10:03,479 --> 01:10:06,040
Speaker 1: it's hard because I wouldn't go so far as to

1149
01:10:06,080 --> 01:10:09,920
Speaker 1: say that it's my experience that there was any sort

1150
01:10:09,960 --> 01:10:13,200
Speaker 1: of Paris social grooming. Um. And I'm talking about this

1151
01:10:13,240 --> 01:10:15,800
Speaker 1: in a future episode about how I think the whole

1152
01:10:15,960 --> 01:10:19,080
Speaker 1: Paris social relationship thing passed right over me because I

1153
01:10:19,120 --> 01:10:22,080
Speaker 1: wasn't um so on social media. But it's a very

1154
01:10:22,080 --> 01:10:24,200
Speaker 1: big part of a lot of people's lives, and I

1155
01:10:24,320 --> 01:10:27,840
Speaker 1: think that you know, it's going to become a bigger discussion,

1156
01:10:27,920 --> 01:10:32,000
Speaker 1: this whole element of Paris social grooming, because I've definitely

1157
01:10:32,040 --> 01:10:34,160
Speaker 1: now talked to people who are like Listen, if I

1158
01:10:34,200 --> 01:10:37,360
Speaker 1: hadn't gotten in her music, I wouldn't have started romanticizing

1159
01:10:37,400 --> 01:10:40,160
Speaker 1: all of that. We'll be talking with Dolores more later

1160
01:10:40,200 --> 01:10:44,200
Speaker 1: in the series about her experience commenting on Lovelita on YouTube,

1161
01:10:44,320 --> 01:10:47,160
Speaker 1: and make sure to check out her video essays, particularly

1162
01:10:47,200 --> 01:10:50,200
Speaker 1: the video we need to talk about Lolita on her

1163
01:10:50,280 --> 01:10:53,360
Speaker 1: YouTube channel. So, Lana del Right and the online nymphet

1164
01:10:53,400 --> 01:10:57,719
Speaker 1: aesthetic exists alongside each other and have for a long time. Now. Again,

1165
01:10:57,760 --> 01:10:59,880
Speaker 1: I'm not here to tell you how to feel about

1166
01:11:00,040 --> 01:11:03,120
Speaker 1: Launa's alright, but I take issue with her perspective on

1167
01:11:03,120 --> 01:11:07,360
Speaker 1: whether she's perpetuating the misconceptions around who Dolores Hayes is.

1168
01:11:07,520 --> 01:11:09,559
Speaker 1: Part of the reason we're having this discussion at all

1169
01:11:09,680 --> 01:11:12,599
Speaker 1: is because her music is very popular and I like

1170
01:11:12,680 --> 01:11:14,479
Speaker 1: a lot of it. I mean, it's catchy as hell.

1171
01:11:14,560 --> 01:11:18,679
Speaker 1: The last album was good. The messaging is very much

1172
01:11:18,800 --> 01:11:22,479
Speaker 1: up for criticism. The problem here is that the most

1173
01:11:22,600 --> 01:11:26,599
Speaker 1: influential steward of the Lolita aesthetic in modern pop culture

1174
01:11:27,120 --> 01:11:29,799
Speaker 1: is pushing the same old false reed of the text.

1175
01:11:30,439 --> 01:11:33,160
Speaker 1: I've heard many times in her defense that Lana is

1176
01:11:33,200 --> 01:11:38,840
Speaker 1: making an almost satirical comment on Lolita, but per her interviews,

1177
01:11:38,880 --> 01:11:41,760
Speaker 1: that's not the case. I've also heard the defense that

1178
01:11:41,840 --> 01:11:45,800
Speaker 1: she is presenting Dolores as someone reclaiming their power, this

1179
01:11:45,960 --> 01:11:49,519
Speaker 1: kind of pseudo feminist message, but per her interviews, that's

1180
01:11:49,560 --> 01:11:52,920
Speaker 1: not the case. What we're left with is what's in

1181
01:11:52,960 --> 01:11:56,920
Speaker 1: the work, and none of these galaxy brain interpretations of

1182
01:11:57,040 --> 01:12:00,160
Speaker 1: Laura's early work seemed to factor into how much of

1183
01:12:00,200 --> 01:12:04,400
Speaker 1: her fan base receives her. The one contemporary cultural figure

1184
01:12:04,600 --> 01:12:07,960
Speaker 1: that is prominently figured on nymphete blogs and forums to

1185
01:12:08,000 --> 01:12:11,360
Speaker 1: this day is her. So that's a look at a

1186
01:12:11,439 --> 01:12:16,200
Speaker 1: smattering of the more influential perpetuations of Lolita imagery in

1187
01:12:16,360 --> 01:12:20,880
Speaker 1: pop culture. And the only visual influence that persists stronger

1188
01:12:20,920 --> 01:12:24,400
Speaker 1: in the history of Lolita, stronger even than heart shaped

1189
01:12:24,439 --> 01:12:28,519
Speaker 1: sunglasses and the occasional rogue Lana del Ray lyric is

1190
01:12:28,560 --> 01:12:34,080
Speaker 1: the Adrian Line movie adaptation, So we'd better take a

1191
01:12:34,080 --> 01:12:38,879
Speaker 1: look at that right next time on Lolita Podcast. Lolita

1192
01:12:38,920 --> 01:12:41,960
Speaker 1: Podcast is an I Heart radio production. It is written

1193
01:12:41,960 --> 01:12:45,599
Speaker 1: and hosted by me Jamie Loftus, produced by Sophie Lichtman,

1194
01:12:45,760 --> 01:12:49,559
Speaker 1: Bett and Wacaluso, Miles Gray, and Jack O'Brien. It is

1195
01:12:49,680 --> 01:12:53,479
Speaker 1: edited by the wonderful Isaac Taylor. Music is from Zoey Blade.

1196
01:12:53,760 --> 01:12:56,960
Speaker 1: Theme music is from Brad Diggert and My guest voices

1197
01:12:57,040 --> 01:13:01,679
Speaker 1: this week are Robert Evans, Caitlin Doronte, Melissa Losada, Oliva,

1198
01:13:01,960 --> 01:13:09,800
Speaker 1: Maggie may Fish and Daniel Goodman. See you next week.

1199
01:13:08,479 --> 01:13:08,519
Speaker 1: H