Lana Del Rey - "Like an American"

Lana Del Rey is a fascinating popular figure. Aside from the overly pouty lips and voice-on-Xanax aesthetic of her music, there's a striking focus on America throughout her songs. There's the song simply titled "American"; there's the music video for "National Anthem" featuring Lana Del Rey as Jackie Kennedy and rapper A$AP Rocky as a counterintuitive black, blinged-out JFK. But most interesting is not her direct references to American political or cultural history but her obsession with the ideal of freedom she associates with the American national mythos. Her song (and particularly the music video for it) "Ride" particularly exemplifies this philosophy that she bases her musical career on. The video opens and closes with a spoken voiceover narrating her personal story as basically an untamable vixen who belongs nowhere but the open road. The entire video features the kind of Easy Rider American aesthetic - drugs, leather-clad bikers cruising along wind-in-your hair highways through gaping desert landscapes. Then the closing spoken portion of the piece includes the lines: "Live fast. Die young. Be wild. And have fun. / I believe in the country America used to be. / I believe in the person I want to become. / I believe in the freedom of the open road." Lana Del Rey presents freedom as a nostalgic concept for Americans, despite historical truths to the contrary. Yet this portrayal is somewhat accurate as American patriotism often does glorify and idealize a false past - a very narrow concept of freedom built on a foundation of oppressing others. The video becomes almost laughable then in moments when Lana Del Rey sits atop a huge motorcycle decked out in an elaborate Native American headdress, singing about freedom. The materialization and cultural appropriation at work in this moment definitely serve to undermine her overall vision. On a superficial and aesthetic level it may appeal to audiences, but that's the problematic part of Lana Del Rey's whole platform - she sends out a rather politically charged message about our country through a very superficial means. Her lyrics even don't explore the points she tries to make about "the country America used to be." Besides those statement-making moments she really just talks about the "Live fast. Die young. Be wild. And have fun" part. Being an "American," like her song titled as such says, is to "be young, be dope, be proud." "Like an American."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py_-3di1yx0