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A terrible thing happened today, in that the Italian edition of Vanity Fair released their issue featuring Maneskin on the cover (for Pride!) with an accompanying interview, and the contents are very !!! in terms of new canon and it was very hard for me to focus on work today lolol
Let us dive down.
*
So, we can debate whether the decision to put the band on the cover of the pride issue was a solid one, but honestly I'm not even gonna bother with this question but just enjoy the gift we've been given.
First of all, there are some STUNNING photos from this issue. Here's my favorite one:
But here's the actual cover, and here are two more stunning photos.
(God, I truly feel like I'm back in grade school and tearing out posters of your favorite artists from magazines and collecting them is a thing lol)
After you've seen those, you can go read this amateur translation of the interview itself: three tweets, read the whole thread.
The translation here isn't great (which is not to the detriment of the fans who did the lord's work by providing it) and I've read a few more sources for the individual quotes and a full translation in Russian, so I feel like I have a good handle on what the original Italian said, even in the spots that are patchy in the version I linked.
1. Look I have to SCREAM about Damiano first. SCREAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.
I am SO PROUD of myself for predicting this EXACT DYNAMIC where growing up in the band with Victoria has CHANGED all these straight dudes who otherwise would have been very different sort of allies to women. And similarly, you can tell how important it is that, having these opinions, Vic gets so much support and back up from the boys while she's dealing with sexism.
I was telling a friend about how... there's this thing with men who are at the top of the privilege pyramid (straight, part of the dominant ethnic group, cis, ablebodied, etc) where they can understand that sexism and patriarchy exist, because they've seen the data and they respect women and listen to their experiences, and they know this shit is pervasive, but they conceptualize it as something that women can minimize or even overcome if they just individually try hard enough.
Like, it's the men who think that if only women were taught to be more aggressive in seeking a salary that would minimize the wage gap, or that girls should be smart and not take chances while they're out and that'll minimize sexual assault, or other stuff like that. Very well meaning things that are grounded in the understanding that sexism is pervasive and enormous and very real.
But then there's the next stage that happens, and I've seen it in a weird way happen to straight men in the entertainment industry especially (Billie Eilish's brother Phineas is an example of this) where for whatever reason they get an intimate, everyday, sustained look at how women go through life, especially women they're not dating, and it drills home for them how impossible it is for a single woman's actions to negate the patriarchy. And then things move from "we just have to teach women to be more assertive" to "wait, apparently if we do that women are just going to be penalized for being assertive, so uh the world is fucked up and we have to change the patriarchy!"
Which to me is the highest level of ally a dude can be lol. But it's depressing that it so often takes literal YEARS of observing very closely the life of a woman who has a very specific relationship to you to create that effect (not always of course! But it's a whole phenomenon).
Anyway, I'm very glad frontman Damiano David has ascended to that level lolololol
2. The fact that this other Italian singer pointed out in the press the hypocrisy of Damiano being praised for breaking gender stereotypes with his nudity and his heels while she was criticized for wearing too little, and Damiano literally BROUGHT UP THAT QUOTE and was like "YES, she's right! DOWN WITH PATRIARCHY AND DOUBLE STANDARDS!"
I CAAAAANT lolol
Also EVERYTHING HE SAID ABOUT VICTORIA. EVERYTHING.
The fact that SHE WASN'T THE ONE TO TALK ABOUT SEXISM IN THIS INTERVIEW. That it was DAMIANO who was like "you know what's fucked up? THE SYSTEMIC OPRESSION OF WOMEN" while Victoria just talked about her own life and sexuality, I CANT lolol
The fact that he didn't just list ONE THING in which he's privileged over Victoria and every other woman, but that he went ON AND ON about all the different things! How much sex he has, how assertive he is, how his professionalism is never questioned no matter what he wears but Victoria's is questioned constantly, how this thing is SYSTEMIC... I just can't. I CANNOT.
I know it's a little awkward with the translation, but I also love that he ends it by saying that like, HAVING SAID ALL OF THAT, and explained very thoroughly HOW privileged he is and how minor his issues are by comparison, he's still not OK with fans touching him in weird ways without his consent because consent should apply in all directions.
3. My favorite part of this, is how if you watch their interviews from even 2018, you can see that THEY DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THIS YET.
Like in 2018 they're still laughing about Damiano, who is 19, being groped by older fans and how uncomfortable that makes him sometimes. Like, that's still a joke they all share on camera! In 2018, every time Vic gets asked (because she's always gonna get asked, forever) why she started playing bass, they all laugh at her for being "bad at guitar" and the story about the teacher who gave her an easier instrument instead, and it's just friendly teasing, and they don't realize yet what the media narratives are going to become.
And it's just FASCINATING to see that by 2021 they are SO MUCH WISER, and so much ANGRIER and have so many guards up because they've learned how this shit works.
4. OK, I'm done screaming about that, which means we can move on to screaming about Damiano and Victoria's comments on the necessity of therapy and mental health.
Mostly this is colored for me by this amazing interview with all of them that contains MANY GEMS but also Victoria talking about having a panic attack before a show and how the guys helped calm her down and Damiano saying he's "still in therapy".
I TRULY CANNOT WITH THE WHOLE "therapy is not for 'crazy people', it's for everyone and it's good for you" thing. Look IDK what the current status of how therapy is seen in Italy is, but personally I literally was not allowed to see a therapist as a teenager after a very traumatic event because my mom thought it was "for insane people" to see a psychologist so like. Seeing him say this so openly when they have such a large young audience MEANS A LOT TO ME OK.
5. OK ETHAN. MY GOD.
OK so the other day I found this amazing EARLY EARLY interview with them (a few months after winning X Factor) that had a 17 year old Ethan being asked by the host about his hair.
The host basically makes a big deal of how Ethan's hair is so long and it must be such a hassle and so much work to maintain and Ethan is like "I mean no more work than any woman with long hair does???"
And the hosts then conclude Ethan must be different from all the women they know because he's a guy and he's 17 and he probably doesn't really invest in his hair at all (which, if you've seen Ethan's hair you know how UTTERLY UNKEMPT it always is lololol)
Anyway, I was really amazed that even back then Ethan's response was literally just to point out the sexism of his hair being a big deal when women have this kind of hair and it's expected.
So then in this Vanity Fair thing where he talks about having long hair and PLAYING WITH BARBIES as a kid and how his extended family didn't approve and AUGH. I love that if anyone in the group is wearing pink head to toe it's probably Ethan.
Also, in the "completely unfounded" category, in the end when they all give their usual bullshit answers to the "are you single?" question (except Damiano who is like I AM FIANLLY FREE!!! I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ANYMORE I JUST WANT TO STOP HIDING MY GIRLFRIEND!!! lolol) and Ethan is ~married to his music for the 20 years he's been on this earth~ lol coupled with the fact that he's not "putting a label" on his sexuality, a friend suggested that that Ethan might be somewhere on the asexual spectrum and I am choosing to embrace this completely random and made up fanon lolol
I mean I know they're all ninjas at hiding relationships, but watching their tour vlogs you can easily see Damiano plausibly flirting with people (even though he absolutely wasn't since he's been in a relationship more or less since X Factor), you can see Victoria and Thomas going out clubbing together and potentially hooking up with people, but Ethan is just SO NOT INTO ANY OF THAT lol
Like, I really enjoy the relationship Ethan and Damiano have, where I think Ethan looks up to Damiano in many ways, because Damiano is just so charismatic and confident and his style choices set the tone for what Ethan can also get away with, and Damiano in turn treats Ethan sometimes like a little brother, and sometimes like a dude who's just so level and calm and solid, while Damiano is generally all over the place, that Damiano feeds off of and relies on that stability.
Anyway, the point is it's very clear they share a lot of the same interests - they both work out a lot, they both play with their appearance in similar ways (Ethan is usually the one wearing heels like Damiano), and now I'm enjoying imagining Ethan and Damiano basically staying in during times on tour when Vic and Thomas were going out and hooking up lolol
Like I really enjoy the thought of 17 year old Thomas and 19 year old Damiano sitting up in bed playing cards or watching something and smoking cigs and just chilling and turning in early and Vic and Thomas being like, half asleep the next day lol
ANYWAY, someone please write me that fic!
6. I have very little to say about Victoria and Thomas in this, sadly lolol with Victoria, I feel like she didn't say anything new really? Also she's basically their one justification for being on that cover, lol, as the only person in the band who actually identifies as LGBTQ+. I love that she talks about being bi and the process of finding her confidence, and suffering from anxiety. Like she's talked about all of that before, so it's just not new, but it's still great.
Thomas as usual is the token straight dude who's just there to support everyone and have a good time lol though I love that he's the only one who mentioned a recent tragic incident in Italy related to racism, and that they all so explicitly tie racism and sexism together as things they're working against.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this screaming, please join us next time.
comments on Dreamwidth
Let us dive down.
*
So, we can debate whether the decision to put the band on the cover of the pride issue was a solid one, but honestly I'm not even gonna bother with this question but just enjoy the gift we've been given.
First of all, there are some STUNNING photos from this issue. Here's my favorite one:
But here's the actual cover, and here are two more stunning photos.
(God, I truly feel like I'm back in grade school and tearing out posters of your favorite artists from magazines and collecting them is a thing lol)
After you've seen those, you can go read this amateur translation of the interview itself: three tweets, read the whole thread.
The translation here isn't great (which is not to the detriment of the fans who did the lord's work by providing it) and I've read a few more sources for the individual quotes and a full translation in Russian, so I feel like I have a good handle on what the original Italian said, even in the spots that are patchy in the version I linked.
1. Look I have to SCREAM about Damiano first. SCREAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.
I am SO PROUD of myself for predicting this EXACT DYNAMIC where growing up in the band with Victoria has CHANGED all these straight dudes who otherwise would have been very different sort of allies to women. And similarly, you can tell how important it is that, having these opinions, Vic gets so much support and back up from the boys while she's dealing with sexism.
I was telling a friend about how... there's this thing with men who are at the top of the privilege pyramid (straight, part of the dominant ethnic group, cis, ablebodied, etc) where they can understand that sexism and patriarchy exist, because they've seen the data and they respect women and listen to their experiences, and they know this shit is pervasive, but they conceptualize it as something that women can minimize or even overcome if they just individually try hard enough.
Like, it's the men who think that if only women were taught to be more aggressive in seeking a salary that would minimize the wage gap, or that girls should be smart and not take chances while they're out and that'll minimize sexual assault, or other stuff like that. Very well meaning things that are grounded in the understanding that sexism is pervasive and enormous and very real.
But then there's the next stage that happens, and I've seen it in a weird way happen to straight men in the entertainment industry especially (Billie Eilish's brother Phineas is an example of this) where for whatever reason they get an intimate, everyday, sustained look at how women go through life, especially women they're not dating, and it drills home for them how impossible it is for a single woman's actions to negate the patriarchy. And then things move from "we just have to teach women to be more assertive" to "wait, apparently if we do that women are just going to be penalized for being assertive, so uh the world is fucked up and we have to change the patriarchy!"
Which to me is the highest level of ally a dude can be lol. But it's depressing that it so often takes literal YEARS of observing very closely the life of a woman who has a very specific relationship to you to create that effect (not always of course! But it's a whole phenomenon).
Anyway, I'm very glad frontman Damiano David has ascended to that level lolololol
2. The fact that this other Italian singer pointed out in the press the hypocrisy of Damiano being praised for breaking gender stereotypes with his nudity and his heels while she was criticized for wearing too little, and Damiano literally BROUGHT UP THAT QUOTE and was like "YES, she's right! DOWN WITH PATRIARCHY AND DOUBLE STANDARDS!"
I CAAAAANT lolol
Also EVERYTHING HE SAID ABOUT VICTORIA. EVERYTHING.
The fact that SHE WASN'T THE ONE TO TALK ABOUT SEXISM IN THIS INTERVIEW. That it was DAMIANO who was like "you know what's fucked up? THE SYSTEMIC OPRESSION OF WOMEN" while Victoria just talked about her own life and sexuality, I CANT lolol
The fact that he didn't just list ONE THING in which he's privileged over Victoria and every other woman, but that he went ON AND ON about all the different things! How much sex he has, how assertive he is, how his professionalism is never questioned no matter what he wears but Victoria's is questioned constantly, how this thing is SYSTEMIC... I just can't. I CANNOT.
I know it's a little awkward with the translation, but I also love that he ends it by saying that like, HAVING SAID ALL OF THAT, and explained very thoroughly HOW privileged he is and how minor his issues are by comparison, he's still not OK with fans touching him in weird ways without his consent because consent should apply in all directions.
3. My favorite part of this, is how if you watch their interviews from even 2018, you can see that THEY DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THIS YET.
Like in 2018 they're still laughing about Damiano, who is 19, being groped by older fans and how uncomfortable that makes him sometimes. Like, that's still a joke they all share on camera! In 2018, every time Vic gets asked (because she's always gonna get asked, forever) why she started playing bass, they all laugh at her for being "bad at guitar" and the story about the teacher who gave her an easier instrument instead, and it's just friendly teasing, and they don't realize yet what the media narratives are going to become.
And it's just FASCINATING to see that by 2021 they are SO MUCH WISER, and so much ANGRIER and have so many guards up because they've learned how this shit works.
4. OK, I'm done screaming about that, which means we can move on to screaming about Damiano and Victoria's comments on the necessity of therapy and mental health.
Mostly this is colored for me by this amazing interview with all of them that contains MANY GEMS but also Victoria talking about having a panic attack before a show and how the guys helped calm her down and Damiano saying he's "still in therapy".
Click to viewI TRULY CANNOT WITH THE WHOLE "therapy is not for 'crazy people', it's for everyone and it's good for you" thing. Look IDK what the current status of how therapy is seen in Italy is, but personally I literally was not allowed to see a therapist as a teenager after a very traumatic event because my mom thought it was "for insane people" to see a psychologist so like. Seeing him say this so openly when they have such a large young audience MEANS A LOT TO ME OK.
5. OK ETHAN. MY GOD.
OK so the other day I found this amazing EARLY EARLY interview with them (a few months after winning X Factor) that had a 17 year old Ethan being asked by the host about his hair.
The host basically makes a big deal of how Ethan's hair is so long and it must be such a hassle and so much work to maintain and Ethan is like "I mean no more work than any woman with long hair does???"
And the hosts then conclude Ethan must be different from all the women they know because he's a guy and he's 17 and he probably doesn't really invest in his hair at all (which, if you've seen Ethan's hair you know how UTTERLY UNKEMPT it always is lololol)
Anyway, I was really amazed that even back then Ethan's response was literally just to point out the sexism of his hair being a big deal when women have this kind of hair and it's expected.
So then in this Vanity Fair thing where he talks about having long hair and PLAYING WITH BARBIES as a kid and how his extended family didn't approve and AUGH. I love that if anyone in the group is wearing pink head to toe it's probably Ethan.
Also, in the "completely unfounded" category, in the end when they all give their usual bullshit answers to the "are you single?" question (except Damiano who is like I AM FIANLLY FREE!!! I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ANYMORE I JUST WANT TO STOP HIDING MY GIRLFRIEND!!! lolol) and Ethan is ~married to his music for the 20 years he's been on this earth~ lol coupled with the fact that he's not "putting a label" on his sexuality, a friend suggested that that Ethan might be somewhere on the asexual spectrum and I am choosing to embrace this completely random and made up fanon lolol
I mean I know they're all ninjas at hiding relationships, but watching their tour vlogs you can easily see Damiano plausibly flirting with people (even though he absolutely wasn't since he's been in a relationship more or less since X Factor), you can see Victoria and Thomas going out clubbing together and potentially hooking up with people, but Ethan is just SO NOT INTO ANY OF THAT lol
Like, I really enjoy the relationship Ethan and Damiano have, where I think Ethan looks up to Damiano in many ways, because Damiano is just so charismatic and confident and his style choices set the tone for what Ethan can also get away with, and Damiano in turn treats Ethan sometimes like a little brother, and sometimes like a dude who's just so level and calm and solid, while Damiano is generally all over the place, that Damiano feeds off of and relies on that stability.
Anyway, the point is it's very clear they share a lot of the same interests - they both work out a lot, they both play with their appearance in similar ways (Ethan is usually the one wearing heels like Damiano), and now I'm enjoying imagining Ethan and Damiano basically staying in during times on tour when Vic and Thomas were going out and hooking up lolol
Like I really enjoy the thought of 17 year old Thomas and 19 year old Damiano sitting up in bed playing cards or watching something and smoking cigs and just chilling and turning in early and Vic and Thomas being like, half asleep the next day lol
ANYWAY, someone please write me that fic!
6. I have very little to say about Victoria and Thomas in this, sadly lolol with Victoria, I feel like she didn't say anything new really? Also she's basically their one justification for being on that cover, lol, as the only person in the band who actually identifies as LGBTQ+. I love that she talks about being bi and the process of finding her confidence, and suffering from anxiety. Like she's talked about all of that before, so it's just not new, but it's still great.
Thomas as usual is the token straight dude who's just there to support everyone and have a good time lol though I love that he's the only one who mentioned a recent tragic incident in Italy related to racism, and that they all so explicitly tie racism and sexism together as things they're working against.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this screaming, please join us next time.
comments on Dreamwidth