forest spirits

Sia - Elastic Heart

It is sad to see such a backlash to Sia’s beautiful music video, “Elastic Heart.” People are calling it “pedophilia” and saying it is disturbing seeing a man and a child dance together, seemingly naked, in a “sexual” manner. I think the saddest part about these allegations is how conditioned many people’s brains have become to hypersexualized music videos. When other artists perform some sort of fellatio on inanimate objects, no one is outraged because we are so overexposed to sex, but when raw human emotions and interactions come out, it obviously has to do with sex. Many people can’t see any form of body contact, whether it is modern dance or symbolism for a father embracing their child, as anything other than sexual. When I watched this video I saw these animalistic features in two people trapped in a literal and figurative cage. The girl could escape, but the man could not. After I looked up the meaning behind the video, I saw that Sia’s father had dissociative identity disorder, formerly known as multiple personality disorder, and it was something both she and he struggled with emotionally and seemingly physically. Also, Sia said herself the two dancers represent two sides of herself at war. To dismiss someones painful memories as being lecherous because of something so simple and natural as the human touch is ludicrous. Modern dance has the power to tell very emotional stories, especially so when there are two dancers present. Not all music videos are meant to be sexual. Especially this one. 

Wait a second, am I tripping balls?

Narrating People’s Lives: In the Forest! by Thomas Sanders