My summer listening this year has been dominated by two records: ‘Chaleur Humaine’ by Christine and the Queens, and ‘Boy King’ by Wild Beasts. Both engage heavily in conversations of gender, but in markedly different ways. Something has been bothering me about ‘Boy King’ for a while, and I think I’ve finally put my finger on it.
In the world of Christine and the Queens, anything is possible. At the beginning of her shows, Heloise Letissier gleefully tells the crowd “This is a free zone, you can be whoever and whatever you want”. She then launches into ‘iT’, the opening track of her album, with the chorus “I’ve won/I’m a man now/I’ve got it/I’m a man now”. She continues the theme with the joyous ‘Half Ladies’: “a breath away from changing my mind/cuz just when you thought I was still a little girl, I’m one of the guys”.
In contrast, possibilities feel rather more limited in the world of ‘Boy King’. It’s a record that feels stuck in the gender binary, which would’ve felt irrelevant even before hearing ‘Chaleur Humaine’, and now feels utterly obsolete. This is frustrating in itself, but what is worse is that, in my experience, this binary is enforced upon the listener. In this excellent article, Anna Wood makes a particularly good point: “I struggle to think of any time when I’ve been aware of my womanness in a way that wasn’t somehow related to men being in charge, or related to the pitfalls of being a woman, and I think it’s the political side of womanhood – reproductive rights, rape justice, discrimination at work – that make womanhood real.” There are moments in ‘Boy King’ where I feel threatened in a way that is exclusively linked to my ‘womanhood’. There is a line in ‘He The Colossus’ that is triggering to me; thankfully only mildly so, but triggering all the same. ‘Chaleur Humaine’ is a safe and open space to explore the fluidity of gender identity. ‘Boy King’ forces me to acknowledge my womanhood against my will.
‘Boy King’ makes me think of closed spaces. It makes me think of the boys at school who gave me permission to play in their football match (eye-roll of the century) but couldn’t see past that the fact that I was a girl and mocked me. It feels like a backwards step. Anna Wood makes another excellent point when she says: “ It’s difficult, maybe, to let go of the gender binary, but it gets easier when you start to realise it’s all made up.” ‘Chaleur Humaine’ got the memo; perhaps ‘Boy King’ did not.
I’m not sure what this realisation means for me as a fan of Wild Beasts’ work; I think it’s important to say something though. We have all been guilty of overlooking problematic aspects of art and culture, or at the least blindly consuming the work of our favourite creators without scrutinising. I have been debating whether to post this, whether there’s any worth to it in the grand scheme of things, but I’ve spoken to others about this and it does feel like there is a conversation to be had here. I would love to foster this conversation and hear other peoples’ thoughts on this!
Last words of every song in A Moon Shaped Pool by Radiohead
(via tillamookburn)
