Capsule #47 ft. Ruchira Sharma

Hello hello,

Hope you all had a nice week 🖤

Today: the sapphic/lesbian cultural revolution, featuring Chappell Roan, Reneé Rapp, MUNA, boygenius, Billie Eilish, Demi Lovato, Doja Cat, Janelle Monae, and Sophia Bush. Plus some Met Gala pre-reading for you.

Have the best weekend, and do reply if you have any thoughts!

Holly x

There’s something in the air…

In 2021, Naomi McPherson from MUNA predicted (on their now-deleted X account) “a new Sapphic/lesbian cultural revolution,” ushered in in part due to ‘Silk Chiffon,’ the band’s new song with Phoebe Bridgers. The track came out on 7th September, 2021. It was sunny (in the UK at least), and lockdown restrictions from Covid were easing (a little bit). The song is an ode to queer love (“she’s so soft like silk chiffon”), but also to feeling free: 

That sense of freedom comes up again and again. In a personal essay for Glamour magazine last week, Sophia Bush shared her coming out experience and sexual awakening. “I finally feel like I can breathe,” she said. The actress left her husband after a year of marriage, and in the process of healing fell in love with Ashlyn Harris, her now partner. They’re happy, Sophia feels free, truer to herself than ever before. And if you look around, this same sentiment is dominating the pop music scene and culture more broadly. 

Let me show you. Bar Sabrina Carpenter, I can’t think of anyone having a quicker ascendance to fame right now than Chappell Roan. Her performance at Coachella was one of the most well-received of the entire festival. Her latest single, ‘Good Luck, Babe!’, released on April 5th, already has more than 50 million streams on Spotify. This graph shows her crazy trajectory since February, with the help of some major early career moments: opening for Olivia Rodrigo, securing the NPR Tiny Desk appearance, Coachella. The graph is only two weeks old, but Roan’s monthly listeners on Spotify have already surpassed 12 million.

But of course none of this works if the art isn’t resonating. Her pop sound is addictive without being annoying, her vocals stand up against Madonna, Lady Gaga, and Gwen Stefani, and her lyrics focalise the joy of lesbianism without being coy: “She did it right there out on the deck/ Put her canine teeth in the side of my neck.”

And why be coy if you’re happy, and secure? Roan told the Guardian in 2023: 

People who might agree with this include: 

• Every member of boygenius, who closed out each show on their tour last year by making out with each other on stage, alongside support acts like MUNA

• And MUNA in their own right of course, who make queer anthems and use their podcast Gayotic to discuss pressing issues like the “bases” in queer sex

• Billie Eilish, who shared in a recent interview that she’s always loved girls, and realised that she wants “[her] face in a vagina”

• Reneé Rapp, who had the cast of The L Word introduce her at Coachella, and now jokingly looks back her songs written before coming out as a lesbian

• Doja Cat, who said she likes “anyone you can have sex with,” and closed her Coachella set with a group of female dancers covered in clay, grinding to the song ‘Wet Vagina’ 

• Janelle Monae, who made one of the best videos of all time about vaginas

We could go on. And of course we know it’s not all new; people have been gay, happy, and horny forever. But there is a shift here. The reception of sapphic art in mainstream culture hasn’t always been so celebratory. I was talking to my friend recently about Demi Lovato’s ‘Cool for the Summer,’ a 2015 song about a relationship with a high profile woman: 

While there was a lot of love for the song (peak Max Martin production), it was also met with concern (classic Demi-going-off-the-rails stuff), positioning queer relationships as a dangerous phase, plus some queerbaiting accusations. Even Halsey got annoyed. At this time, queerness in pop culture was either concerning, and a phase, or something that was only cool if it was done the proper way (deep history of public gay relationships, never mentioning trauma or secrecy).

The policing of queerbaiting feels like a very 2010s/early 2020s thing that we might be done with soon. It probably peaked in 2021, when Billie Eilish got a lot of stick for her ‘Lost Cause’ music video, in which she frolics in an apartment at a slumber party with a group of women. (Surely the bigger story here was the influence of Beyoncé’s 7/11 video?). Since then, many of her Instagram posts have garnered comments like “tired of what? Queerbaiting?”. Billie would end up being outed on a red carpet, and, by celebrity profile standard, share a pretty transparent account of exploring her sexuality.

I think we’re coming out of the other side of all this. Culture more broadly is fatigued with being monitored and called out for doing the wrong thing (or not sharing evidence of doing the right thing online), and for the next generation, it’s just less of a big deal. Nearly 30% of Gen Z women identify as LGBTQ+, with bisexuality the fastest rising category. You can feel the shock factor fading away. In 2008, we had “I kissed a girl / And I liked it,” and in 2024 we have “Knee deep in the passenger seat and you're eating me out / Is it casual now?”. 

Moving on! Your Met Gala pre-reading…

Next Monday, 6th May, is the Met Gala. I know we’re likely in the loop, but just so we’re clear: this is the biggest night in the fashion calendar. Your essential info:

• The theme: This year is “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” a nod to the delicate garments on display in a new exhibition

  • That’s slightly different to the dress code, which is “The Garden of Time"… expect petals…

• Purpose: Most of us know the event as a star-studded, fashion-forward red carpet moment, but it’s also a fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute

• Ticket prices: Single tickets for the 2024 gala are rumoured to cost $75,000, with tables starting at $350,000. BUT even if you had that cash… The event is invitation only and each of the ~400 guests are approved by Vogue and Anna Wintour

• Hosts: Zendaya, Chris Hemsworth, Jennifer Lopez, Bad Bunny and Anna Wintour will serve as co-chairs of this year’s event

• Note: You can stream the Met Gala 2024 red carpet on Vogue.com, though Conde Nast Union have threatened strike action… there’s no way of hiding the empire’s wealth at this event…

Follow Capsule on Instagram as we crown the best looks of the night. I imagine the best looks will be from Rihanna and A$AP Rocky, and Zendaya, and surely Ayo Edebiri, who is rumoured to make her Met debut. I think we’ll see some deconstructed flowers, some looks made using AI-generated imagery, vintage stuff from the archives. Your usual Met Gala fare!

And finally…

Your news roundup from the Capsule universe:

• Rosalía won our Chic of the Week award this week. See why

• Dua Lipa is just like us fr… This week she said she can’t wait for the Met Gala, and thinks about Glastonbury 50% of the time

• FKA twigs revealed she’s developed a deepfake of herself to interact with fans online. The big slay here is that she made the announcement while testifying in Congress for AI regulation

• SZA did a rare (ish) interview with Dazed, in which she shares her love of gardening and her distaste for being branded only as an R&B artist

• Bella Hadid officially launched Orebella, her fragrance brand. The promo imagery looks part-AI, part Caroline Polachek 

• Little Simz is on the cover of Elle UK, wearing mainly Miu Miu, of course

• And Kristen Stewart is set to play a vampire again, this time alongside Oscar Isaac

This week, Ruchira Sharma popped into Capsule to share what’s 🔥hot🔥 and what’s not 🙅‍♀️ …

Ruchira is a freelance journalist and podcaster. She's the host the Crime + Investigation audio series Anatomy of a Stalker, which investigates what makes people stalk, and why rates are going up significantly. She's also the co-host of the weekly pop culture analysis podcast, Everything is Content.

📺 Watching: The Idea of You on Prime, plus Bella Hadid’s ‘In The Bag’ video for Vogue.

📖 Reading: This discussion between Hunter Harris (Hung Up newsletter) and Rose Dommu (Mall Goth newsletter) about Challengers.

🎧 Listening to: Radical Optimism, the new Dua Lipa album, plus the new Hovvdy album. Also the new season of Pandora Sykes’s podcast, Doing It Right. Planning to start with this episode on “languishing”.

Nina thinks that the belly button piercing is about to have a revival. Not that it went anywhere for the real fans, but with our lower rise garments and enduring interest in all things 90s/00s, there is surely about to be a surge…

If you’d like to adopt Nina or one of her friends, click here to learn more.

Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear how you’re finding Capsule - let me know here. And if you have a friend who might like it, please forward on 🥺

See you next week 💋