Hot Girlie Summer
The Giddy Joy of Dressing to Flout the Male Gaze
In the last few weeks, as Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour joined Taylor Swift’s Eras tour in the race to be the first tour in history to earn $1 billion in sales and Barbie (with an assist from Oppenheimer) scored the biggest box office weekend since 2019 (not to mention the biggest opening weekend ever for a movie directed by a woman), it’s become undeniable: we’re experiencing a Hot Girlie Summer.
Instead of the usual cultural touchstones of the summer being super masc action movies (your Missions Impossible, your Tops Gun) or above gender, like the Olympics, this summer’s zeitgeist is undeniably, delightfully, aggressively femme. Unsurprisingly, I am here for this. My favorite thing about it— other than the simple joy of having the things of greatest cultural importance to me validated as important by The Culture at Large— is the number of opportunities it’s created for my favorite kind of fashion: women, queer, and non-binary people dressing up to impress and delight one another, without reference to the standard ideas of what’s suitable or appealing to the male gaze. You can see examples from the Eras tour in at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, the “Beyoncé Express” en route to the Renaissance World Tour’s stop at the same stadium, and from Barbie parties around the country.
I know some people will point to the form-fitting, revealing outfits these events often feature and raise a skeptical eyebrow at my assertion in re: the male gaze, but I stand by it. If straight men feel titillated by these outfits, it’s an accidental byproduct of their overall fabulousness rather than their raison d’être. Which does, in a way, bring us back to Barbie: when fabulousness occurs within a patriarchal society, it’s hard for it to actively spite the male gaze. Barbie is everything— but part of being everything is looking like Margot Robie, or Isa Rae, or Hari Nef; polished, pretty, perfect. After all, part of what makes one feel fabulous is the thrill of attracting admiring attention, of being hot, and our understanding of hot is inevitably entangled in catering to the tastes of those in society with most power. But there is an exuberance to these looks that, even at their most alluring, is about expressive joy more than it is about perfectly performing aesthetic compliance. You might like this, a hot pink bra peeking out from a low-cut top might say to your average man, but it’s not for you, a matching definitely-too-big-to-be-tasteful hot pink bejeweled necklace pointedly elaborates. And, to me, that’s the prevailing energy of this whole summer. Masc dudes are welcome to participate, whether that means doing their Dad Stances while awaiting daughters outside a stadium…
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Or being fully Swift-pilled inside it…
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
But however much they like it, it’s not for them. It’s frothy, it’s frilly, it’s frivolous, it’s fabulous, and it’s femme as fuck. And I, for one, am loving it.
Women are My Favorite Guy
Look, I know you denizens of Dames Nation are an internet savvy bunch. Once something’s big enough to demand a Vox Explainer, many of you will already be aware of it. But, on the off-chance that even one of you has been on vacation this last week, I simply have to spread the gospel of “The Planet of the Bass,” the new song of the summer for the Terminally Online:
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Yes, this song (or at least its first 50 seconds) is both a pitch-perfect parody of 90s Eurodance hits (such as “Barbie Girl” for example!) and an earworm so delightful that you barely even mind the way it devours your brain. Or, as Biljana Electronica would put it: when the rhythm is glad, there is nothing to be sad. The song— which drops in full on Tuesday, August 15th, has already prompted two of the most important things an online phenomenon can— adorable fan art:
And joking controversy— in this case over the fact that, in the grand tradition of actual Europop, Kyle Gordon (aka DJ Crazy Town) has filmed videos featuring multiple different lip-synching models in the role of Biljana Electronica. No one likes Biljana 2— everyone wants Biljana 1 back.
In an interview with the New York Times, Gordon shared that he’s filmed a video with a third Biljana, so it’s anyone’s guess which Biljana will emerge as the ultimate victor.
That’s everything I’ve got for you today, Dames Nationals. Until next week!
XOXO/Dame Margaret
This week brought to you by: bombastic side eye, cop slide, and my rambunctious ass.
If you want to read Sophie’s beautiful thoughts on Sinéad O’Connor? Then use the button below to become a True Elite, e.g. one of our paying subscribers:
Couldn’t agree more, and ALSO the World Cup (the one where the US does well, not the men’s World Cup) going on right now just adds to your argument--it is not so much an opportunity to flout the male gaze/male (sports) attention as to again emphasize that it is entirely beside the point.
I was on vacation this past week, so thank you for the vox explainer link!