I’m just putting it out there: If you don’t watch this video, the Republicans win. Subversive drag superstar CHRISTEENE has made what is probably the most hedonistic music video OF ALL TIME, featuring golden showers, ponytail butt plugs, lots of oozing gloop, and monster-sized sex toys… and starring fashion icons (and longtime friends) Rick Owens and Michele Lamy. It’s creepy and disturbing and over the top and BEYOND FABULOUS. Now is not the time for meek little pop stars and mewling love songs. It’s all about bold statements and challenging the status quo. Which CHRISTEENE does IN SPADES.
Watch below. (via PAPER)
CHRISTEENE – BUTT MUSCLE from PJ Raval on Vimeo.
Via DAZED:
Christeene, what’s the secret to being so unapologetically, openly sexual and transgressive?
Christeene: I think it’s being vulnerable. And allowing yourself to drop those goddamn images that we’ve seen on what is sexual, what is transgressive shit and your own vulnerability mixed with your family and whatever kind of fucking sexuality that you have. No one has the same kind of sexuality. Everyone’s got their strange tastes inside their mouths and their brains, so if you allow yourself the vulnerability to release those things, that’s all the shit you need to get out there. Just find the right platform and family to do it.
Why do you think there’s such an inherent shame placed around sexuality?
Christeene: A shame? Because I live in America.
What do you mean by that?
Christeene: The Bible tells me so and…
Matt Lambert: Sexuality is being vulnerable, right? Being honest with what you’re sexually into is vulnerable, and a lot of people are incredibly afraid to be vulnerable, ever, in their lives. People like Christeene and Rick, and I try as well, that vulnerability is a part of the strength of ourselves as artists. A lot of people are terrified of that. I think revealing that sexuality as truth is really scary for a lot of people.
Christeene: But it’s also fun. And when we see “Butt Muscle”, where people are laughing and having a good time – fuck the scary, and fuck the fear and vulnerability and start to tap into the enjoyment of it and the exhilaration of it and the freedom of it.
Matt Lambert: And not just the sexuality itself, but the sexual beings that we played with are things that, for a lot of people, would feel taboo. To take those ideas and have fun with them and play with them and use comedy, hopefully demystifies those things a little bit for more people. Humanises those things a little bit for people. I hope.
“Culturally, the world is so safe and so flat right now and we need to balance that out. We’re suggesting other standards of beauty and other things that might not be so cliché” – Rick Owens
Now that Trump is in office, will you make any change to what you are already doing?
Rick Owens: Oh absolutely, I’m going to go harder and stronger. You have to keep the balance of the world. It’s our responsibility to keep that balance.
Matt Lambert: I forget the quote but Christeene had a great tweet right after Trump won that was basically that. It was about going harder. Buck the fuck up, keep doing what you’re doing, do it twice as hard.
Christeene: All the people who died last year, all these fags and all these wonderful people who build us up, I was like buck up, get your shit together. The well of souls is full. Tap into this well of souls that we have and start to harvest that shit and you got yourself a gorgeous strength. I don’t like to use all those goddamn army terms like “an army of” or “fight this”, like fuck that, but I tap into some spiritual strength and some fricking anal aura, as my dancer Silky would say, that will take you over and start to use those magical weapons.
Rick Owens: (To Christeene) I love it when you start testifying.
Matt Lambert: A lot of people want to make work that speaks to what’s going on, especially to that conservative energy in America, and now it feels like, “Let’s fucking do it now!” Now is the time to do it. If people were sitting on their ass thinking, I should make work that’s more political, or more engaged, or socially conscious, now there’s a bit of fire under their ass to do it.
Christeene: We have been provoked. We are like fire ants. Someone stepped on our pile really heavily.
