The other day I discovered that Mitski is literally a het Harrie and I was so disappointed
It’s easy to picture Styles in the studio with the producers, in need of the words for another groovy rock song, going, “Well, what could I sing about that’s the most Rock ‘n’ Roll?” It feels like lazy writing, and a missed opportunity. Imagine how impactful it would’ve been if Styles employed the sound of music that once symbolized revolution to present words that are, in turn, new and revelatory to young listeners today.
Mitski always has a way of stepping outside of herself to observe herself reacting to things, as a Japanese- American who feels neither Japanese nor American, neither pretty nor ugly. She takes Harry’s image as it is presented, but observes him also as a persona and finds that he can’t quite step out of this stage persona. He has come to believe this construct to be himself (an ironic and meta observation).
It’s interesting, now, to listen to Styles sing words that he himself has written, in comparison to One Direction’s hits concocted by outside experts; to watch the idol prop up his own idols inherited from a long lineage of rock music. It’s especially interesting because, as I sit here dissecting the female ideals and stereotypes portrayed in Styles’s music, I’ve been projecting onto him our cultural ideals of the cute, popular boy in school; the Mick Jagger–inspired, charismatic rocker; the solo sensation recently graduated from boy-band stardom. He’s likely aware of his audience perceiving him thus, and because he’s spent so many of his formative years being an ideal, it could very well be that the way his audience perceives him is, in turn, how he truly perceives himself. Perhaps these projections put upon him have since become an authentic and natural part of him, and all of his words, even the ideals he projects onto others in his songs, are as real to him as his body.
She might have a crush on him, but she also looks at him coolly as a phenomenon of pop culture, as she does.
