Though nobody seems to have taken Kanye West up on his offer to sue him over his new video clip for Famous (yet), the rapper has definitely kicked up a right shitstorm with the max-controversial NSFW vid.
As well as reportedly pissing of Taylor Swift and only somewhat rankling George W. Bush, Yeezy’s new music video has left Girls creator and star Lena Dunham feeling sick to her stomach.
In a lengthy Facebook post, the writer, actress and equality advocate slammed Famous as “one of the more disturbing ‘artistic’ efforts in recent memory”.
“I can’t watch it … if it feels informed and inspired by the aspects of our culture that make women feel unsafe even in their own beds, in their own bodies,” Dunham said of the clip, which features wax versions of West, plus his wife Kim Kardashian, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Donald Trump, George W. Bush, Bill Cosby, Chris Brown and more naked in a bed together.
“Let’s break it down: at the same time [Stanford rapist] Brock Turner is getting off with a light tap for raping an unconscious woman and photographing her breasts for a group chat … As assaults are Periscoped across the web and girls commit suicide after being exposed in ways they never imagined… While Bill Cosby’s crimes are still being uncovered and understood as traumas for the women he assaulted but also massive bruises to our national consciousness … Now I have to see the prone, unconscious, waxy bodies of famous women, twisted like they’ve been drugged and chucked aside at a rager?” Dunham continued.
“I’m sure that Bill Cosby doll being in the bed alongside Donald Trump is some kind of statement, that I’m probably being trolled on a super high level. I know that there’s a hipper or cooler reaction to have than the one I’m currently having.
“But guess what? I don’t have a hip cool reaction, because seeing a woman I love like Taylor Swift (fuck that one hurt to look at, I couldn’t look), a woman I admire like Rihanna or Anna [Wintour], reduced to a pair of waxy breasts made by some special effects guy in the Valley, it makes me feel sad and unsafe and worried for the teenage girls who watch this and may not understand that grainy roving camera as the stuff of snuff films.”
Speaking to Vanity Fair about the Famous video, Ye says the clip was “a comment on fame”, and “not in support or anti any of [the people in the video]”.
However, the fact that Swift & co are (convincingly) depicted in the nude without their consent does feel an awful lot like exploitation.
While most of the celebrities to inadvertently star in Kanye’s latest are yet to officially comment, Chris Brown seems to be pretty chill with the whole thing, taking to Instagram to say: “Why I gotta have the plumbers butt/crack showing WAX figure? This nigga KANYE CRAZY, talented, but crazy.”
The NSFW video is currently only available in full via Tidal, but you can watch most of it here below, followed by Dunham’s full post.
https://twitter.com/Undagrounds/status/746566059562508288
