Everything
The homophobes, puritans and online trolls are at it again this time targeting British singer Sam Smith for, checks notes, being too sexy in the music video for their new song ‘I’m Not Here To Make Friends’, the first track from their new album Gloria which comes out next week.
Because sex, sex appeal or sexuality has never ever been represented in a music video before apparently. Hope someone tells Janet Jackson that. And Cher. And Beyoncé. And Billy Idol. And Prince. And Britney Spears. The Rolling Stones. Madonna. Rihanna. Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Queen. The Divinyls. INXS.
You get the picture.
What’s allegedly upset the holier than thou online brigade is Smith – who is queer and non-binary – performing in a corset with nipple pasties amongst other camp and frothy outfits. Quell horreur.
Joining those who need to get outside and touch grass were conservative media pundits who claimed that the music video was “unhealthy for society.”
You know what’s unhealthy for society? Cigarettes. Climate change. Capitalist systems built to protect the wealth of a very few while enshrining poverty.
However, taken into context of the many, many other artists mentioned above Smith’s video is actually pretty…tame? They dance around, wears some leather.
I just watched that Sam Smith video, I don't know what the world's coming to, it wasn't like this in my day. pic.twitter.com/xqklV5HU8M
— twitch.tv/Limmy (@DaftLimmy) January 29, 2023
But for the increasingly vocal minority spewing vitriol at any kind of LGBTQI+ representation of any form, it’s too much and have accused the video and Smith of being hyper-sexualised and normalising pornography.
Perhaps the crux of it comes down to the fact that in the video Smith is being unapologetically queer. In fact, that’s the most prevalent garbage take with some incels even going so far as to query how alleged sex trafficker and self-admitting sexual assaulter Andrew Tate can be in jail while Sam Smith is free to perform in women’s clothing in a music video.
Never too much ✨ pic.twitter.com/ANKVPEvoXV
— SAM SMITH (@samsmith) January 29, 2023
The increasingly open hostility towards LGBTQI+ people and in particular the trans and non-binary community has become a political and cultural scratch post for conservatives attempting to whip up hysteria and rewind the clock on individual freedoms.
But perhaps the most cutting part of all this is that some of the attacks on Smith are coming from within their own community, (mostly) gay cis men who are more concerned about abs and calorie counting just openly body shaming Smith for their outfit and the fact they don’t feel the need to devote every waking hour in the gym.
