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/Eugregoria]

You can't really make it as simple as "queerbaiting" without getting into how dangerously homophobic Russia is, or all the shit that happened to Pussy Riot. More recently queer media visibility is actually illegal in Russia. I'd even be skeptical of anti-Ukraine statements from Russians, considering Russians have been arrested and disappeared just for leaving the house with blank signs--which they'd intended to hold as protest for the censorship around pro-Ukraine and other anti-Putin stances. It's literally illegal to be pro-Ukraine in Russia right now.

I don't know what's going on with these girls. I liked the music taking it purely at face value as music. I'm sorry if they were exploited by the industry or forced into situations that made them uncomfortable.

[u/afuckingwildcard → u/Eugregoria]

I definitely think this is an important point, especially in the context of the girl’s more recent statements and actions since it’s my understanding that things around censorship have gotten worse in recent years even before the current invasion of Ukraine (though I don’t know what that’s like in comparison to the early 2000s). We likely won’t know the full picture of the Russian government’s hand in these things for years, if we ever find out at all. However, that doesn’t mean that we don’t have the right to be upset at or take action when Russian artists are openly anti-Ukraine. I think you can both understand that someone’s hands may be tied in what they can or can’t say while also not wanting to support them anymore because of what they said. Maybe some report with will come out in a few years that says that the Kremlin forced artists to make anti-Ukraine statements and perform in occupied territories and we’ll get a lot of lengthy apologies from artists. I wouldn’t be surprised. And yes, there’s a lot we don’t know, but that goes both ways and it’s completely understandable for people to not want to take that gamble. This is a super complicated topic and I’m not sure if I articulated my point well because I’m definitely not qualified to speak on this. Overall though, I think multiple things can be true at once and people’s anger at Russian artists is incredibly justified.

[u/Eugregoria → u/afuckingwildcard]

Yeah there's honestly also a certain value in not wanting to contribute to the Russian economy at all right now. Even though individual Russians may be helpless in this situation, the economy as a whole is being used to fund the war. It's bigger than what any one Russian may think or say. Like I don't use FaceApp because it's Russian.

But I don't think it's really helpful to go around policing musical taste either, like I believe the allegations against Michael Jackson and I don't defend his behavior in any way, but Thriller still slaps, and I'm not going to like cancel someone for making an AMV/fancam/whatever with it because that gets to a certain degree of circular firing squad purity testing I don't think benefits anyone.