It has been called ‘Kendrick vs Drake for bottoms’. Indeed, the pop-culture feud currently dividing the queer internet – the supposed beef between American singer-songwriters Ethel Cain and Lana Del Rey – has everyone from JFK’s grandson to Nicki Minaj giving their two cents. The saga serves as a reminder of why both artists speak to queer experiences in the first place.
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You can simply scroll past — but please don’t overlook the importance of an independent queer press.
You can simply scroll past—but please don't overlook the importance of an independent queer press.
Time is now or never.
Queer voices disappear without independent journalism to amplify them.
We document what others won't touch.
We hold power to account when it threatens our communities.
This work exists only because you choose to fund it directly.
Donate over €25/month and receive our limited-edition tote bag — a badge of resistance, a statement that you stand for fearless journalism.
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Can't donate? Sharing our work helps more than you think
A refresher for the uninitiated: on August 13, Del Rey posted a snippet of an unreleased song on Instagram; its lyrics divulged that “Ethel Cain hated my Instagram post,” before declaring that Del Rey is “the most famous girl in the Waffle House” – apparently reclaiming the title from Cain. Cain told her followers shortly after that Del Rey had blocked her on Instagram.
As for why exactly this beef was set in motion, Del Rey elaborated in the comments of a Pop Base Instagram post (of all places): she took issue with the “disturbing and graphic side-by-side images [Cain] would often put up of me next to unflattering creatures and cartoon characters making constant comments about my weight,” she wrote. (This was at least partially debunked.) “Then when I heard what she was saying behind closed doors from mutual friends and started inserting herself into my personal life,” she continued, “I was definitely disturbed.” Cain is also, as it happens, friends with Del Rey’s ex, Jack Donoghue.
It’s fascinating that the reaction from queer listeners has been so intense. Sure, both singers have a largely queer fanbase – as is par for the course for many pop artists – but the feud has transcended typical boundaries of stan wars and personal grievances. Not only do Cain and Del Rey’s twinned universes of Americanised melancholic malaise resonate greatly with queer affect, but there’s something queer-coded in the nature of the feud itself.
Cain and Del Rey, more than most artists, reckon with the feeling of alienation that comes with growing up in rural environments (Cain was homeschooled in Perry, Florida; Del Rey was raised in the village of Lake Placid, New York). In their ostensibly shared world, the landscapes are grey, the air is thick and humid, and the women are tragically fated to live a life of disillusionment. A great deal of their lyrics, when they don’t discuss shitty men, deal with feeling like you want to scream in a world that’s intent on silencing you. (As Del Rey puts it in the ‘Ride’ monologue: “I once had dreams of becoming a beautiful poet,” as though such flighty dreams are incongruent within a stubborn community.) There’s a recognisable dissonance each artist feels with their environment: being of their surroundings but never quite belonging.
There’s a similar dissonance one feels when growing up queer: feeling inexplicably (then explicably) different from family, from friends at school. Both Cain and Del Rey encapsulate not only this feeling of alienation but the frustration and suppression tied to it. Even their narratives of desperation – Del Rey’s refusal to leave her toxic lovers, the now-classic Cainian arc of running off with an older man – are a faint echo of contemporary queer experiences (the misguided Grindr download, the guy who was twice your age). The desperation, in all cases, is borne from a yearning to escape. Just as there’s a predisposition to loneliness when being raised in rural areas, there’s an inherent isolation one experiences growing up queer.
Both songwriters also share an interest in the act of submission – not as assumption of traditional gender roles, but as erotic or even trust exercise. Del Rey’s lyrics in particular frequently find her hanging on the every whim of a man, even when the relationship seemingly doesn’t serve her. (Think of ‘Ultraviolence’: “He hit me and it felt like a kiss.”) In dissolving the boundary between devotion and decimation, Del Rey finds comfort in being powerless.
Cain does too, if in a more tragic, accepting sense. The escapist arc sketched by Preacher’s Daughter, her first album, finds her whizzed across the country by an older man who then pimps her out and, eventually, cannibalises her. Though the denouement is undoubtedly tragic, it also might be seen as a radical act of submission – longing made manifest into unquestioned loyalty.
Nguyen Tan Hoang’s work – which repositions the act of bottoming as empowering – might be usefully applied here. Where queer people are used to being powerless – being forcefully outed, being kicked out of the house – bottoming allows us to opt into powerlessness. Alongside Hoang, I think, too, of FKA twigs’ ‘24hr Dog’, a song that follows twigs (herself an alleged victim of abuse), volunteering into submission – reclaiming the act and being able to enjoy it for once.
And so, we return to that campest of activities: the squabble. There’s something perversely homoerotic in the processes of miscommunication and misrecognition, as well as the fallout itself: Del Rey’s scrambling for validation in posting the snippet; Cain’s subsequent rejection, as broadcast to millions of followers. Eve Sedgwick’s theory of homosocialism goes that rivalry can often be a misplaced expression of identification and attraction. The feud is intimate, even when both are antagonised.
The act of beefing, then, is oddly queer-coded. Is it not canon queer experience to shun someone out of deep-seated insecurity or jealousy, when they should be your strongest ally? In this way, it’s tempting to draw comparisons with last year’s ‘Girl, so confusing’ saga, where two straight but queer-aligned artists (Charli XCX and Lorde respectively) worked out their differences. Comparison is the thief of joy, and it’s difficult not to read the Cain-Del Rey episode as having been incited by such on the latter’s part.
Neither Cain nor Del Rey, as of writing, have further commented on the feud. (Though, I anxiously await a ‘Preacher’s Foot’ diss track.) It’s been both warming and disconcerting to observe queer audiences’ commentary on it.
On the one hand, there’s the frankly predictable misogynistic implications that come with pitting two women artists against each other; both have had their physical appearance relentlessly scrutinised and compared over the past few days. That’s to say nothing of the transphobia endured by Cain recently and throughout her career.
On the other, it has served as a heartening reminder of why I, as a queer listener, enjoy both Del Rey and Cain’s music. Rather than retreating back to patriarchal boxes, they each redress them in their own nuanced way. The aesthetics are familiar, but the lived experience becomes resolutely queer. Perhaps that’s also why the reaction has been so intense, going beyond a petty jab or catfight. In misunderstanding, then reevaluating, each other’s words and sentiments, both Cain and Del Rey have been forced to confront the parts of themselves they tried to suppress or forget. What could be queerer than that?
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