Thread by @postclassics

THREAD TIME: That’s right, @LilNasX’s #MONTERO is still number one on the charts and in our hearts. Let’s talk about it’s incredible engagement with ancient narratives and the transformative power of alternative and queer #headcanons reclaiming the past.

Nas X creates a sort of world halfway between the Garden of Eden and the classical ruins, what people view as origins of western society. He starts with the familiar Garden of Eden story, but instead of Eve being tempted, it’s him, and he’s the serpent too.

Then we get to the scene that launched a thousand classics blog post; as he’s being seduced by the serpent, the camera zooms on the other side of the tree, which has a quote from Plato etched into it.

My rough translation of this little snippet from Aristophanes’ speech in the symposium is “and so, after the natural form was cut in two, each half yearning...” (it’s not a complete sentence)

He’s telling a story about how humans were originally these globes with double every part, some male-male, some male-female, some female-female. These beings were so powerful, the gods feared their revolt, so they split them, dooming them to search for their love and other half

Fun fact: it’s also the only classical Athenian passage that even acknowledges the possibility of lesbianism.

I won’t break down the symbolism more, lots of articles have done that already, I’m interested in what this means for reclamations of the past.

time.com/5951024/lil-na…

Just as there are two sides to the tree, biblical and queer Greek, loads of fans have turned to the Greek past to find their queer ancestors. The Christian past may reject them, but the classical one accepts them. We don’t need “Adam and Steve:” we have “Patrochilles.”

Tumblr and social media groups have given space for fans to create new worlds with new stories in their adopted cultural tradition. Lil Nas X does the same, his world “MONTERO” (also his first name) is in his mind where he can create new stories. It’s literally a “head canon.”

Our threads recently have discussed about moving away from asserting the “accuracy” of these new narratives—it’s hard to accept, but the past was awful, even for queer folks (more later), but it can provide a means to transform cultural narratives and subvert expectations.

Lil Nas X would never say his new world is how the past was. It’s better than the actual past. It’s a world where he can recreate himself a million times over and kill the devil.

There is a long tradition of adapting the past to your new circumstances and creating new art, it’s called “classical reception” and it’s been done for thousands of years and is happening all over the world. It can be unifying or even liberating.

Saying “We don’t have to be who we’ve been, because we can be better” is powerful. #MONTERO has shaken the music world. It’s directly confronted the oppressors of queer people by daring to imagine something that causes them terror.

Our headcanons don’t have to align with the actual past to be profound. Perhaps they are powerful because we are able to create something totally our own.

—Γ

I actually wrote an article for the @thedailybeast with @candidamoss about this if you want to know more about Lil Nas X and Satan!

thedailybeast.com/did-satan-even…