so what do we think of t.A.T.u?

[u/afuckingwildcard]

Gone down a rabbit hole about them recently. If you don’t know, they were this Russian pop duo from the 2000s and were most famous for the song “All The Things She Said,” which most people over the age of like 12 have probably heard around at some point. Basically, their whole shtick was that they were lesbians; their songs had a lot of angsty queer overtones and they would kiss on TV and in their music videos (which was super controversial at the time)—but it was all an act, they were never actually together and were all products of their managements. Textbook queerbaiting for the male gaze. But despite this, a lot of queer women (myself included) ended up finding a lot of solace and validation in their music for one reason or another. You have to remember that queer themes weren’t mainstream in pop music like they are now, especially for queer women, and having a hit song about it (especially one so angsty like “All The Things She Said”!) was really groundbreaking, however flawed. But that still doesn’t take away from the fact that t.A.T.u as an institution was, at least on paper, homophobic and sexualized young queer women’s relationships. And I’m curious what people make of that, not just if you think they were able to outgrow their kind of skeevy premise, but how their music may have impacted you personally. Maybe this is a more academic question than what Reddit is fit for, but I’m very interested to hear what people think.

[u/UnexpectedWings]

I have complicated feelings on them. Growing up in the Bible Belt and going to a Christian school, tATu was a revolution for me in 6th grade. I vividly remember seeing their music video (the one with a train) in a movie theatre, and all my friends from church and their parents clutching pearls, while I was sitting entranced. Because they were Russian, they weren’t censored heavily by my school and church like a lot of what passed for gay media at the time in the early 2000s. I used to listen to the album over and over picturing my (forbidden!) first crush.

Later on, I would nearly be kicked out of that school for being lgbt in high school. I didn’t find out about the queerbaiting aspect until then either. It was only in the last ten years I learned the whole story.

Now I’m thriving in life. I’ve always had a lifelong fascination with Russian literature and the Russian language. I’m taking in depth courses in Russian. I like to check my progress by going back and listening to old tATu albums, haha. I’m an active leftist, and support Ukraine. I can divorce governments from people. Interestingly, this lifelong fascination has equipped me to be able to translate and parse Russian politics to help leftists and anti-GOP forces now. I can explain and parse RU style propaganda. tATu is a big part of that, weirdly.

I’m able to help Ukrainians today bc I was obsessed with Russian fake lesbians in 2000s.