Lil Nas X’s “Montero” and Shame as the Ultimate Gay Sin
This article was originally given as a paper at the Palace Residency in Gorzanów Poland in July 2021. A limited number of readability edits have been made to the version which appears here. Images shown in the accompanying presentation have been inserted throughout, however I have marked the timing of the different slides below.
The 2020–2021 period, characterised by the widespread social, economic and cultural upheaval of the Covid-19 pandemic, has also seen increased awareness of sexuality, gender expression, racism and other social issues. This period resulted in a boom of individuals “coming out” and expressing a more authentic presentation of their identity, for a number of different reasons. Interaction, performative identity and digital spaces became interdependent in new ways and as online spaces became the primary platform for communication for many, new levels of choice and agency in how to present and perform the self have become possible.
Into this environment came Lil Nas X’s song “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)”, and the accompanying clip which premiered on YouTube on 26 March 2021. With clear themes of shame, the difficulty of self-acceptance, and the pressure of being perceived, the clip also quickly provoked controversy amongst conservative commentators for its seeming “promotion” of homosexuality. The very clear leitmotif of the clip appears to be the idea that if the gays are going to Hell, they — we — might as well enjoy it, which is understandable as a message given the context and the artist’s body of work, as well as making for a very enjoyable viewing experience rife with humour and sensuality. However, further examination of the clip reveals more complex layers of meaning interacting with the super-text of judgement on homosexuality. This paper will demonstrate how in Montero, Lil Nas X and co-director Tuino Muina in fact posit shame of the self as the ultimate gay sin, and inauthenticity as the demon of homosexuality.
Significant in decoding this work is that Lil Nas X himself plays every character in the clip, with varying degrees of makeup obscuring his features. [Fig. 1] The primary characters in the film are a representation of the artist himself as a young man (portrayed by Nas X with long, flowing hair),[Fig. 2] the guards who haul him in front of a baying crowd, [Fig. 3] the crowd members themselves, [Fig. 4] and two demonic figures — first the snake that tempts the young Nas X in an Edenic garden, and then a clearly Satanic figure who appears in the final act of the clip [Fig. 5]. Additional representations of Lil Nas X’s face appear throughout the clip, in both the natural and built environments depicted. [Figures 6 and 7].
The supertext interpretation (in contrast to the subtext) of the clip bears outlining briefly here. In the narrative of the clip, a representation of homosexuality as the older or more experienced Nas seduces the young, “virginal” Nas in the Garden of Eden [Fig. 8]. Nas then transitions through two spaces on his way to Hell, and his degree of agency and how this changes from scene to scene is significant. First, Nas is dragged before a panel of judges (also played by the artist himself) and a roaring crowd, and apparently condemned to Hell [Fig. 9]. In this scene, Nas struggles against his chains and captors and appears to briefly plead his case to the unfeeling jury [Fig. 10].
Next, the colour palette of the clip and the demeanour of Nas begin to change, as he briefly encounters an angel, [Fig. 11] but then deliberately grips a pole which rises up to meet him from the depths of a towering inferno [Fig. 12]. Nas then performs a controlled descent via pole dance to Hell [Fig. 13]. During this scene, the artist’s engagement in his own fate appears to shift significantly, and at a certain point it becomes clear that the artist is in control of his actions and his surroundings. [Fig. 14]
Finally, Nas enters the throne room of Satan himself (again, played by the artist), appears to seduce him with a lap dance, and finally kills him and claims his throne. [Fig. 15] The clear super-text message, as outlined in interviews by the artist, is that if he is to be condemned for his sexuality, he “might as well own it”. The supertext of the clip is one of a journey from shame to self-acceptance, which fits neatly with Nas’ journey as a public figure after coming out as gay on 30 June 2019.
In depicting the experience of judgement by these external forces, Montero employs Biblical imagery in the scene where Nas is judged at a Colosseum-like structure, bringing echoes of the persecution of the early Christians at the hands of the Romans, which is an interpretation that many modern-day Evangelicals would probably not enjoy, but which is nonetheless apt. The scene appears at surface-level to be the clearest depiction of the public outrage Nas has been subject to at every turn, even before he began making open statements about his sexuality. In inserting the young, Black body into the country music scene with his cover of Old Town Road, inserting the “Yee-haw” aesthetic into rap music, Nas has been queering and problematising mainstream spaces since long before Montero.[Fig. 16] The level of vitriol that has been directed at the artist since the release of this clip and subsequent live performances of the track have reached a new level however, where the experience can hardly feel any different from being torn apart by lions in front of a braying crowd whilst an uncaring elite lies in judgement at a distant remove.
However, the idea of the interaction between public perception and the artist’s self image being the thesis of the clip is problematised by the use of the artist himself to depict every character in the clip, including not only Satan, but also the crowd evidently calling for his condemnation. In using the artist’s own image to portray the judgemental figures in the clip, Nas externalises his own feelings of shame and implies that his fear is not of shame from others, but rather his own shame. Using this interpretation, a subtext for the clip emerges, where we can read Nas criticising his own shame rather than the approbation of the public. This interpretation is also borne out by the lyrics, and the artist’s own commentary on the clip, where Nas discusses the idea of sexual intimacy when neither partner is willing to publicly acknowledge the relationship or sexual connection. This reference deliberately echoes the private vs public dynamic of queer intimacy as explored in the 2017 movie Call Me By Your Name, [Fig. 17] which the artist has mentioned inspired him in the writing of the song.
Biblical references can also be found at this deeper level of interpretation of the clip. For example, the obvious depictions of sin are present, with the clip beginning with the moment of the Fall from the Garden of Eden. A neat circularity occurs with the Original Sin of sexuality — or of knowledge, depending on your theological interpretation — being mediated through “self-knowledge”, that is, through Nas’ exploration of his own body through the avatar of the snake. [Fig. 18] Nas also uses this dual representation of the self to critique the notion of corrupted virginhood. The Nas that the viewer meets at the beginning of the clip is a representation of “youth” which conflates both the feminine and masculine ideals of pastoral purity, with the long flowing locks connoting virginal girlhood, as well as the casual pose and guitar playing typically used in such depictions [Fig. 19]. The snake which seduces Nas alludes to masturbation or the discovery of one’s own body as the origin of Original Sin, which Nas has chosen to depict using implied fellatio of the Virgin-Nas by Snake Nas [Fig. 20].
The deepest layer of Biblical meaning, which also supports the notion that the central theme of the clip is the relationship with the self rather than with external figures, may be viewed through the lens of the Biblical Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon). The Song of Songs, a book of the Old Testament of the Bible, is a mystical poem to desire, faith and the relationship between the self and the divine. It contains surprisingly sexual language and esoteric imagery and has been long debated by Biblical scholars and historians given its anachronistic appearance in the surrounding text of the Bible. It has however provided a framework for sensual imagery and exploration within. A Biblical or spiritual setting, which has led to a rich vein of sensual works exploring the relationship between the divine, the self and sexuality.
I wanna sell what you’re buyin’
I wanna feel on your ass in Hawaii
I want that jet lag from fuckin’ and flyin’
Shoot a child in your mouth while I’m ridin’
Oh, oh, oh, why me?
A sign of the times every time that I speak
A dime and a nine, it was mine every week
What a time, an incline, God was shinin’ on me
Now I can’t leave
And now I’m actin’ hella elite
Never want the niggas that’s in my league
I wanna fuck the ones I envy, I envy
Denzel Michael-akil Baptiste / David Biral /
Omer Fedi / Montero Lamar Hill /
Rosario Peter Lenzo Iv, Montero, 2021
Beloved
2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth;
for your love is better than wine.
3 Your oils have a pleasing fragrance.
Your name is oil poured out,
therefore the virgins love you.
4 Take me away with you.
Let us hurry.
The king has brought me into his rooms.…
I sat down under his shadow with great delight,
his fruit was sweet to my taste.
4 He brought me to the banquet hall.
His banner over me is love.
5 Strengthen me with raisins,
refresh me with apples;
For I am faint with love.
6 His left hand is under my head.
His right hand embraces me.
Songs 1:2–4, 2:3–6.
Viewed in this vein, the interaction of the various manifestations of Nas play out the call and response of a Song of Songs-like interplay between the divine, temptation, the corporeal, the visceral, of shame, secrecy and desire. The clear phallic imagery used to portray the interactions between Virgin-Nas and Temptation-Nas [Fig. 21] takes on new grandeur and significance as we see desire of the self elevated to the level of desire of divine self-knowledge.
Now the object of desire is the self, which is a cause for both shame and celebration. The key relationship which must end in Approbation is externalised, as guilt and censure play out in Memory-Palace style tour through shame. [Fig. 22]. Consciousness free-falls through the ivory tower representing the edifice of the self, the constructed public person leading from basest feelings to highest self. Leave the garden of Eden to experience the long night of the soul in the Garden of Gethsemane and confront the ultimate temptation, that of giving in to shame and sublimating choice, and to confront the devil within. Nas grips the choice deliberately and takes control. The camera places the viewer in the position of the tempted and the temptation [Fig. 23], forming a doubling of the viewer with the doubling of Nas himself. The inverted crucifix shape Nas forms [Fig. 24] carries the double meaning of the martyrdom of St Peter, one of the truest disciples of Christ, as well as symbolising in much of pop culture anti-Christian sentiment. Here Nas uses his body to enact the two selves assigned to him — a saviour and an anti-Christ — and performs this using his body to transmit the message of the double meaning written by others on the black gay body.
Finally, with the knowing smile of self-actualisation [Fig. 25], having fallen through Dante’s Circles of Hell, the artist approaches the the fires of shame burning in the pit beneath. Here Nas confronts the final demon within, that of shame, and seduces him, taking his place, bringing the circularity of the relationship between the self and the divine to a position of sublime union, a goal which is expressed in the Song of Songs as well as many — if not most — other religious texts.
The framing of this sequence is significant here [Fig. 26]. The panels of flames lighting up the negative space behind the framing device of the throne subvert the typical enthroned Virgin and Child framed with a window device providing a view to an idealised city, and also uses the same pyramidal composition for the main figural group also common to such devotional images. Again, deliberate use of religious imagery can suggest subversion, but equally imbue the esoteric images with religious sentiment and grandeur.
The version of Nas who has been on the interior journey of understanding his own complex feelings of shame — about his sexuality and about his relationship with himself — now seduces the more mature Nas figure [Fig. 27], who could be seen as the internalised representation of the external understanding of the artist in pop culture. The more mature Nas figure seems curiously disengaged throughout, representing the artist battling with his own inner demons — literally and resisting temptation. Ultimately, one version of Nas wins out [Fig. 28]— the one who has been tempted, has fallen, has chosen to take control of his fate and his own bodily representation — but in taking the position of the Satanic Nas, the clip indicates that these versions of the self collapse into one another, eliding the separation between an internally performed self and outward image. The reunification of the self and the conquering of inner shame represents the triumph of the clip.
In Montero, Lil Nas X and director Tuino Muina have created an extraordinary visual text which incorporates a wealth of Biblical imagery to explore the relationship between the self and the divine. Reaching beneath the supertext of the clip reveals a rich and complex commentary on the relationship of the self to shame, ultimately ending on a triumphant moment for the artist and audience.
A coda on other visual references, new to this paper for Medium publication.
The clip also includes other, more contemporary cultural references, such as the much-discussed visual quotation of fka. twigs’ “Cellophane” clip, but also to Travis Scott’s “goosebumps”, featuring Kendrick Lamar. The Scott comparison is more straightforward and also much less controversial. At the end of Scott and Lamar’s clip, both artists are depicted against a backdrop redolent of a Biblical hellscape, with mountains of flame. At the end of goosebumps, Scott slumps onto a demonic throne and sprouts dark wings, appearing to accept with resignation his cultural role, perhaps, as a villain. Though less triumphant than Nas’ final pose at the end of Montero, the latter could be seen as a clear visual quotation given that goosebumps premiered on 14 April 2017. This visual reference to accepting one’s fate as Ruler of the Damned was not made first by Scott, but is certainly repeated in the same visual terms by Nas.
The highly confected, almost saccharine quality of the colour palette and digital imagery are redolent of many recent clips, with many of Nas’ contemporaries using this same aesthetic to create a deliberately artificial space within their clips. See for example Megan Thee Stallion’s “Don’t Stop”, featuring Young Thug , and her collaboration with Cardi B on “WAP”, which was arguably the most controversial video clip and song immediately preceding Montero. Whilst both clips employ less obviously digital, “future-fantasy” imagery than Montero, the colour palette, camera movement, transition through several loosely narratively linked spaces allow for similarly stylised representations of the artists’ aesthetic choices, and I would argue that this crop of clips belong to the same visual canon, in a sense.
It’s worth noting that the clips for both “WAP” and “Don’t Stop” were directed by Colin Tilley, who has also directed clips for Nicki Minaj, Future and Tyga, among others. Tilley’s 2020 clips represent a distinction from or possibly evolution of both the grittier but still unreal landscapes, camera work and editing of Travis Scott’s earlier clips, leading the way for Lil Nas X and Muina’s Montero. However, the 2020 and beyond clips also constitute a significant departure from the stylistically surreal but semiotically empty clips of, for example, Nicki Minaj and Tyga, who have foreshadowed many of the visual/stylistic elements of the newer crop of clips but not the symbolic richness.
A lot of press, critical and fan attention has been devoted to the visual similarities of some elements of the Montero clip to the clip for FKA twigs’ 2019 song, “cellophane”, directed by Andrew Thomas Huang. Twigs, Huang and Nas have all commented on the similarities, making it clear that no negativity exists between the artists in question.
These similarities are worth exploring in detail, not out of concern for plagiarism, but because both clips convey comparable symbolic messages using similar visual references. In contrast to the late 2010s crop of clips above, the visual quotations here are not semiotically empty appropriation, but rather an interesting argument for a shared visual language of self-expression.
Twigs’ song “cellophane” and the attendant clip are believed to reference the artist’s relationship and subsequent break-up with Twilight franchise tween star Robert Pattinson, from late 2014 to 2017. The clip centres around the artist herself as she performs a pole dance, with the audience first placed as spectators to the dance, and then following twigs with the camera as she climbs Heaven-ward, meets and destroys a monster-android simulacrum of herself, and then falls chaotically to a muddy Underworld.
The visual parallels on the stages of this journey found in the Montero clip are numerous; from the central pole-dancing activity/metaphor itself, to the rejection from Heaven, and the descent.
Both clips — and the lyrical texts of the tracks — deal with feelings of shame and the difficulty of public perception. The pole dance stands in as a metaphor for being observed and exposed, as well as the physical act itself being choreographed to imply loss of control. That two groups of artists have settled on this visual metaphor seems more linked, to me, to cultural discussions of sex work and the changing perception of celebrities’ agency in controlling their own images, rather than to outright copying. The “strip club” and erotic dance has long been a stock visual for rap videos, but new in the late 2010s is artists reclaiming this arena and the attendant symbolism. It’s significant that at the head of this movement are artists like Lil Nas X, twigs, Megan Thee Stallion, and Cardi B, all of whom are artists of colour, three of whom are women, one is a gay man, and the latter of whom was formerly a sex worker. Women artists in rap and to a certain extent pop have been working to reclaim the sexualised female form for some time, however, to have so many artists from intersecting minority identities challenge the cis hetero masculine hegemony of rap by reclaiming the image of sex work is new to this current crop of artists. Viewed through this lens, the reason for twigs and Nas to have settled upon the pole dance as a visual metaphor for their clips takes on new significance as a powerful statement of ownership of women and other minority bodies.
The use of the artists themselves to portray multiple figures in each clip is also significant, again for the implications this choice carries for the meaning of both clips. Twigs’ song, with lyrics that reference others outside the relationship even as she seems to address her ex, lends itself to interpretation on a deeper level as an exploration of the artist’s relationship with herself, much like the Montero clip.
They want to see us, want to see us alone
They want to see us, want to see us apart
They want to see us, want to see us alone
They want to see us, want to see us apart
FKA Twigs, Jeff Kleinman and Michael Uzowuru, “cellophane”, 2019.
Despite this refrain in the clip, the artist’s struggle as depicted in the clips is with a robotic version of herself that descends from heaven to meet the artist on her ascent. The artist places her platform stiletto very deliberately through the face of the apparition, destroying it, and in so doing triggers her free-fall into the depths of an earthy chamber, where cloaked figures await her and cover her with mud.
Nas makes the directorial choice, as twigs does, to subvert the struggle with the other as delineated in the song texts, with a struggle with the self — thus presenting the ultimate catharsis achieved at the end of both clips as more satisfying, given that in both clips a troubled relationship with the self is overcome. The distorted appearance of both artists when in their other-self modes reflects perhaps the self-image the artists have of themselves, or perhaps as an externalisation of how they are perceived by others — for twigs, as robotic and inscrutable, for Nas, grotesque and monstrous.
Nas’s previous clips have also referenced other key Black artists and their visual canon, which serves the purposes of both continuing the canon and taking it in new directions, as well as asserting Nas’ place in that canon. The 2020 clip for his 2019 song “Rodeo”, directed by duo Bradley and Pablo (Bradley Bell and Pablo Jones-Soler) weaves together a plethora of different visual references, including to my eye references to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” (1983), the 1998 movie Blade, starring Wesley Snipes, and Chris Brown’s “Wall to Wall” (2007), the latter of which contains many references to both former works. All of these works contain references to the supernatural and depict these using a distinctive visual style which has since been referenced in popular culture countless times. It’s important however to look deeper into these specific references however as they belong to a common thread in Nas’s visual output, that of problematising stereotypical depiction of the Black body in order to reassert control over these cultural tropes.
Beginning in popular music with Michael Jackson’s 1983 turn as a werecat/zombie in the clip for “Thriller”, casting the Black male body as “monstrous” has remained an enduring visual trope used by artists to play with the fear and othering of the Black body in cultural, social and political spheres. In the movie “Blade” for example (based on the Marvel Comics superhero of the same name), the titular antihero is a Black vampire who barely controls his urges in order to hunt down other, worse vampires; culminating in the killing of the “blood god” vampire played by white actor Stephen Dorff. “Blade”, alongside “Thriller”, established key visual tropes of the monstrous Black body as both something to be feared but something also simultaneously magnetic, and even salvific. This trope may be repeated seemingly divorced from its symbolic context, as in for example Brown’s 2007 clip for “Wall to Wall”, which whilst extremely visually similar to both “Thriller” and “Blade”, appears to carry no deeper subtext, or at least attempts to cancel out the othering of the Black body by presenting the artist in the guise of young highschool football hero, SWAT team member and vampire.
In “Rodeo”, Lil Nas X accesses these same tropes through visual quotation of “Blade” and “Thriller”, thus adding the context from the prior works to his own narrative. At the beginning fo the clip, the singer is attacked and bitten by a vampire which now, looking back through the lens of the Montero clip, is likely to have been played by Nas himself in heavy makeup and prosthetics. Under the light of the full moon, Nas then transforms into a vampire and stumbles down a darkened suburban street as suspicious figures watch and ward him off, in an echo of the suburban suspicion from the 2019 clip for “Old Town Road”, before raiding a pharmacy and presenting a set piece dance number which echoes media from “Thriller” to “Blade”. Through such repetition, Nas’ continued fascination with the depiction of the Black male body, and then the Black male queer body, juxtaposed in unfamiliar settings, becomes clear. The clip for “Rodeo” also incorporates visual quotations of the 1999 film “The Matrix”, in the form of the set, casting, costume, composition and even colour grading, in a scene at the end of the clip. “The Matrix”, directed by two trans women (Lana and Lilly Wachowski), is widely interpreted as an allegory for the trans experience, or at the very least the sensation of bodily dysphoria and social disconnection that many LGBTQIA+ individuals feel.
Viewed as part of this trajectory, in Montero Lil Nas X continues his exploration of the monstrous or villainous Black body, in so doing, reclaiming the portrayal of his own body. In the follow-up to Montero, 2021’s “Industry Baby”, Nas would continue this exploration by featuring the incarcerated Black male body, and continuing to subvert the stereotypes which bind him and his image.
