With her videos packed with smut and violence, surely Charli XCX’s vote would be more suited to Donald Trump than Kamala Harris? Then again…

By creammagazine, July 24, 2024

Yesterday, singer Charli XCX tweeted that ‘kamala IS brat’ in apparent support of Kamala Harris’ bid to become US president, and obviously alluding to the singer’s new album and current phase (or ‘era’ as the kids now like to call it), brat.

In regards to what ‘brat’ is, the singer says it’s “that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes. Who feels herself but maybe also has a breakdown, but kind of like parties through it.” A stupid tart, pretty much – and nothing like Kamala Harris’ carefully contrived and calculated career image.

In fact, Charli XCX’s aesthetic is so far removed from Harris’ faux-clean ‘Mamala’, I’m surprised the MP didn’t try to shut down the pop star’s silly associations.

In her music clips, Charli XCX is vulgar and violent, and nothing that the proposed leader of the free world ought to be associated with, especially while she is trying to paint such a lurid picture of her political opposition, Donald Trump.

Clearly, Charli is just riding on the coattails of a supposedly ‘right on’ politician, but all the while her smutty-femininity is better suited to the old Trump’s reputation and aesthetic. Strange that Harris should latch to an pop artist she knows nothing of. In fact, Harris probably had no idea who Charli was before that tweet but just went along for the ride because she thinks it’s cool and assumes Gen Z are deaf, dumb and blind enough to vote the same way.

At the very least, with the Charli/Kamala connection, the Trump camp have got more ammunition to add to their tarnishing of Harris’ already prickly reputation.

Antonino Tati

 

My interview with a touchier Charli XCX…

I interviewed Charli XCX a few years ago, when she had just released her catchy single Boys. The song’s release coincided with a clip that went viral within minutes: a brilliant video that featured cameo appearances by no less than 75 male peers in the entertainment industry – an intense and impressive roll call of pop stars, rock studs, actors, models, and sporting icons.

To namedrop a mere handful, there was Mark Ronson, Joe Jonas, Ty Dolla $ign, Diplo, Mac Demarco, Ezra Koenig (of Vampire Weekend), will.i.am, Wiz Khalifa, Charlie Puth, Brendon Urie  (Panic! At The Disco), Carl Barât (The Libertines), the list goes on. In short, the clip is a testosterone-fuelled free-for-all where Charli’s ‘boys’ are doing all manner of cutesy things that would ordinarily be reserved for girls in the voyeuristic medium that is music video. They’re being showered with rose petals, seen cuddling adorable puppies, pillow fighting, cradling babies, and so forth. In three minutes, the clip does a fairly good job at flipping the tradition of the heterosexist male gaze on its head.

For a young artist (she had just turned 25 the week we spoke), Charli did an impressive job in pulling together that much talent while simultaneously dismantling a huge history of sexual objectification. Ordinarily, she’d be praised as a modern-day feminist.

Fast-forward a few years and Charli is turning the sexist clock back five decades, presenting herself as an Insta-Whore in her music videos, all crotch in your face and titties out for the sake of clickbait – as if #TimesUp never even happened.

Here, she chats about supposedly breaking down stereotypes, trolling online, and the benefits of being a pop star. Just don’t go bringing up the words ‘domestic terrorism’, because sensitive Charli might freak out…

 

Hi Charli. Congratulations on a great video for ‘Boys’. How did you get all those lads together?

I basically just harassed them and annoyed them all until they said ‘yes’. They’re mostly friends of mine, or people that I’ve worked with in the past, so I basically just hit them up continuously until they agreed to do the video. That was my general strategy.

 

Was a lot of it done through Skype or Zoom?

Oh no, no, no. I was directing in the [same] room. The first stage, we shot in my house, and that was where we shot Diplo, Flume, AG Cook, and a couple of others. Then we shot in studios in LA, New York and London. Oh, and we shot at Coachella as well. I was directing the video very hands-on.

 

I can see you’re going to expand in that area of creativity. You’re born on August 2nd. Would you say you’re a typical Leo?

I don’t know. There are aspects of my personality that are Leo, for sure. Definitely, the performer aspect of who I am is a Leo stereotype. You know, obviously I perform on stage, I have crazy hair, and stuff like that, but I do also think I can be quite shy sometimes. Off-stage, I can be shy, for sure.

 

What is the best thing about being a pop star?

Getting to make music and performing on stage and doing what you love, but also just going to really great parties. And throwing really good parties as well.

 

And what’s the worst thing? What’s something that rubs you up the wrong way?

I don’t know. I think I’m pretty chill, but I definitely don’t like it when people are unnecessarily rude. I like to treat people how I like to be treated, and so I kind of expect the same from others, and it annoys me when that isn’t the case.

 

Do you find a lot of trolling happens online?

Yeah. You’re anonymous online. You can kind of say what you want and hide behind the internet, and I think that’s a very cowardly thing to do. And I would encourage people to really not pay attention to people that troll on the internet. It’s just sad that they’re spending their time even doing that when they can be doing something positive, you know?

 

 

Do you feel as an artist you have a certain responsibility to uphold? I mean do you have to behave as a positive role model all the time?

No. I know that responsibility sometimes comes with the territory – especially in pop music – but I didn’t get into music to be a role model. I guess, in part, I am a good role model but I also make mistakes. I’m human and I’m definitely not perfect. And I think my fans know that about me; they know I’m gonna fuck up now and again.

 

Do you get influenced by other artists, like, when you’re making a video with someone like Iggy Azalea, does a bit of her cheekiness rub off on you?

I find all the people I collaborate with inspiring. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t collaborate with them. But when it comes to my own work, I’m very much in my own bubble. I tend not to listen that much to other music when making my own because I don’t want other artists’ styles to rub off on me. I like keeping myself to myself when I’m being creative.

 

In the video for ‘Fancy’, you and Iggy play ‘Clueless’-type characters.

Well, I’m Tai and she’s Cher from Clueless.

 

Do you think there’s too much of a mean, competitive culture that goes on in high schools these days?

I haven’t been in high school for years, but I do remember feeling there was that kind of ‘mean girl’ culture. There were the cliques, the ‘cool’ kids, and the ‘not-cool’ kids. I remember at the time it was, like, the biggest thing in the world and I definitely wasn’t part of the ‘cool’ kids. I just remember feeling [as though] it was a really big deal. And as you grow older, you realise high school never ends, but also that high school actually isn’t even that important – the cliques and stuff aren’t, anyway. It’s just more important to be yourself.

 

 

About 10 minutes into our conversation, I decided to change tact and play a little word association, thinking it would lighten the load since Charli had only just gotten off a plane and was probably feeling a little jet-lagged. Already, she’d proven herself a good sport, having generously offered her time, aware of the fact I was on deadline.

The exercise seemed easy enough. On paper. I had a list of prominent names and familiar headlines that I would rattle off and she would respond with either a simple word or statement. We got off to a breezy enough start. I’d say: ‘Donald Trump’; Charli would respond with: ‘Idiot’. I’d say: Melania Trump; Charli would say: ‘Poor girl’. I’d say: ‘The recent UK election outcome’; Charli would say: ‘Not what I would have hoped’. But then things turned decidedly touchy. Still wanting to stay on point, I dared mention the words ‘local terrorism’. It was here that Charli became obviously uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t really feel comfortable talking about such huge political subjects that have such an effect on many peoples’ lives by just throwing in one word. I’m just really worried how that’s going to frame me. I’m sorry to be so particular about it but I don’t feel comfortable describing local terrorism with a one-word answer. That’s really not my style.”

When this interview initially went to press, I felt somewhat bad for having put Charli off our conversation with mention of the words ‘local terrorism’. But now that I think back to that interview, I realise it wasn’t the subject she was hesitant in commenting on, it was how it might have framed her. She literally said that.

Now, before you wonder whether I had any place in asking her to comment on the subject, just months prior, Ariana Grande – an artist of similar age and clout – had the horrific experience of terrorism taking human lives just outside the concert stadium she’d performed at in Manchester, UK. And, if Charli was sincerely offended, surely she could have just said “no comment” and had us get on with the interview.

Something tells me she’d be ready for it now, with Charli herself taking on a terrorist persona in the video clip for her 2024 single Von Dutch. In the video, the artist is seen ripping off her clothes and running amok through Paris’s Charles De Gaulle airport, looking very much the A-list terrorist herself.

The video goes on to show her harassing airport security, teasing paparazzi, freaking out passengers, chucking in-your-face leg spreads, and glorifying violence so much, it’s like she was working for al-Qaeda. 

To her, the clip might look cool. To me, it’s just plain hypocrisy. Too scared to comment on a simple word in an interview, yet a few short years later she’s playing a big-shot shit-stirrer for the sake of added clickbait.

Just like her recent praise for Kamala Harris comes across, Charli XCX is all about keeping things confusing or dumbing things down, all while fucking for the buck, in true thirteenth-wave feminist style. Her video for subsequent single 360 fared no better in the credibility stakes. In it, Charli presents a ‘what if I were in her shoes?’ scenario, swapping life with an everyday waitress. The waitress, in Charli’s makeover, serves overflowing red wine in a wet t-shirt, shaking her tits really fast like she’s working at Hooters – as if to suggest to those in menial jobs of servitude that they should just sell sex because it beats tips by far.

Perhaps the artist should rebrand herself to Charli XXX – since what she really makes is just porn and snuff.

It’s not the explicit sexuality I have a problem with – I’ve always been a champion of desensitising taboo subject matter. It’s not the forthrightness or the curse words, either – I’m all for an artist speaking their mind. It’s just that there ought to be a little more going on up there in her head than just shock value for the sake of more streams or Likes.

A female artist can be smart and sexy, sassy and sophisticated all at once if she’s got good style and taste, and a sincere mission. As Tori Amos once said to me on the subject of today’s looser female artists, “You have to wonder, why are you demeaning yourself? There’s a real difference between being desirable and being desperate.”

I’m guessing Charli XCX will keep stepping over that line until the time she settles and finds the joy in domesticity and the simpler things in life. Or she could always start up an Only Fans account when she hits 60. I’m not in a position to judge…