These two songs are part of series of songs by the music artist Sia called 1000 Forms of Fear.
Chandelier
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vjPBrBU-TM
Elastic Heart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWZGAExj-es
Meaning in art is highly based on individual interpretation. The only requirement to be a correct interpretation is that you must be able to convincingly prove your perspective on any given piece with only that piece.
I found this subject online today and I had to write about it for various reasons. First I want to start out by saying the "Elastic Heart" music video is an amazing piece of art that's tackling a difficult subject. Internal struggles are hard to display on screen, in song, or in dance because they are so personal and people often misinterpret it because they're coming from a different experience than the artist who made it. This is basically why I think there is an uproar about Sia's latest video, "Elastic Heart." In this video you have 28 year old man and a 12 year old girl in flesh colored outfits interpretative dancing in a cage. Feel free to widen your eyes at this point because the gut reaction is, "Whoa, hang on now, is this going to be about child abuse?" This is a valid fear since 98% of music videos are about romantic (or a better word cupidic) relationships with dances and symbols to match. If you add the age gap and then the creep-o-meter shoots off the charts. As a society, we universally oppose pedophilia and child abuse in every respect and are willing to go to arms over it if even a wiff of it is present. I mean, even convicts are rumored to beat up fellow inmates for pedo-related crimes as a form of justice. This is all a valid interpretation of "Elastic Heart", except for the fact that it's wrong.
I wasn't nearly as disturbed as some people were by Sia's choices in this video. While some interpreted the cage as a giant bird cage I saw a tiger cage and many of the first dance moves were feline in nature and supported that interpretation. Thanks to these images, when I first watched the video, I already viewed the dancers as representing something other than the people they actually were. While some parts can be interpreted as pedophilia, I feel like this is disproven with the fact that its the little girl who in charge of most of the video. Throughout the video she is far more energetic and aggressive than the exhausted and torn up grown man she's chasing around the cage. On top of that there was no inappropriate touching, gyrations, or anything similar to the more "sexy" dance videos we're used to seeing. The reason why I think people are missing the point here, I believe, is because of two major fallacies: one, all buff men are sex objects; two, all little blonde girls are vulnerable and defenseless. I've never seen a buff grown man get beat around so much by a little girl as I did in this video. She scratches, hits, kicks, and scares him into corners. Her face is often turned downward which in most art is an interpretation of determined control, not tilted back, which is a more vulnerable and weaker pose. She even openly laughs in his face at points. However, they are still a grown man and a little girl in minimal nude clothing dancing in a cage. Again, I can see the other point, but I highly doubt Sia was going for that.
Remember, this exact same little girl character in this exact same costume represented addiction in the last video, "Chandelier." In that video, she was the embodiment of what happens inside someone when they are addicted to something that is typically socially acceptable. Sia had revealed in an interview that she has had her own struggles with wanting to be a fun party girl who is accepted while dealing with the realities alcoholism. Since the little girl is the exact same in "Elastic Heart" and both songs are meant to be in a series, we can safely interpret her as that same struggle or more specifically alcoholism itself. Sia tweeted after the released of "Elastic Heart" that Shia LaBeouf and Maddie Ziegler were playing two parts of the same person. If that is the case, then we can consider dirty, buff, glove wearing Shia as the persona that has been fighting to get away from his past, but is still drawn to it as alcoholics also deal with lifetime attractions to alcohol. I think its the acting "drawn to" factor that set off most pedophilia antennas, but lets be honest that in a culture that accepts homosexuality you would get the same feeling if it was acted as well by a grown woman. If you took out the "drawn to" factor all together, you'd be lying about how powerful addiction really is and it wouldn't be as strong of a video. In short; good art makes comfortable men uncomfortable, and uncomfortable men comfortable. This qualifies.
This theoretical interpretation I have is supported by the fact that the little girl is in control most of the time and its all Shia can do to be in control even in the littlest sense. There's a point in the new video where Shia gets as far away as he can from Ziegler by climbing to the top of the cage. Then Ziegler seems to go to sleep. If we are to take Ziegler as alcoholism this picture is brilliant. Shia is still tempted to come closer when Ziegler appears innocently asleep, when she wakes up she even comes to him innocently before biting him. Which addiction does. Once you get away from something that's bad, looking back at it may make it seem less harmful, but get too close and it will always bite you and laugh in your face. The whole dance is basically the war between addiction, temptation, and the struggle that comes from that experience. After a few close examinations, I realized the cage could be interpreted as the boundaries an addict has to put up in their lives to keep from falling off the wagon, that doesn't mean that the temptation can't get in, it just means its harder to get out. This proven when the girl easily slips in and out of the cage as Shia, while he could leave, stays inside. The fact that she can get out of the cage at all again disproves the pedophilia theory. The alcoholism theory is further proven when Shia is carrying Zielger on his back like a heavy load and later she hits him on the head four times, changing his face from sick, to silly, to angry, to subdued, which are common personality switches alcohol can cause. Ziegler also reacts to his breath as if it stunk, which is another side affect of alcohol. I felt like the choreography showed the struggle of addiction beautifully. It was tragic and powerful to watch and I don't think people who have always felt in complete control of themselves would get it.
I can see where people would have misinterpreted this as child molestation. We are dealing with abstract concepts of desire, need, want, right, wrong, temptation, and the common and often seen interpretation of these things in the media is sexual in nature. This is why Sia is the bravest woman alive. She's willing to risk the wrong and socially despised interpretation in order to show a new perspective on a different internal struggle. Sex is talked about all of the time. The destructive internal wars of alcohol and other temptations on the other hand, are barely represented at all in art. If they are, its very blunt or poorly done. When you look at the lyrics they are even more vague and subject to interpretation. In an art form that only seems to be concerned with talking about love between two people, its easy to just jump to weird conclusions, but when you look at the lyrics from the perspective that I've spent way too much time describing, it's even more powerful than the typical cliché relationship. Remember, the center stage is all about what is going on inside a single person. Then again, my interpretation can also be completely wrong. I just know that it has more proof than the pedophilia argument.
Chandelier
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vjPBrBU-TM
Elastic Heart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWZGAExj-es
Meaning in art is highly based on individual interpretation. The only requirement to be a correct interpretation is that you must be able to convincingly prove your perspective on any given piece with only that piece.
I found this subject online today and I had to write about it for various reasons. First I want to start out by saying the "Elastic Heart" music video is an amazing piece of art that's tackling a difficult subject. Internal struggles are hard to display on screen, in song, or in dance because they are so personal and people often misinterpret it because they're coming from a different experience than the artist who made it. This is basically why I think there is an uproar about Sia's latest video, "Elastic Heart." In this video you have 28 year old man and a 12 year old girl in flesh colored outfits interpretative dancing in a cage. Feel free to widen your eyes at this point because the gut reaction is, "Whoa, hang on now, is this going to be about child abuse?" This is a valid fear since 98% of music videos are about romantic (or a better word cupidic) relationships with dances and symbols to match. If you add the age gap and then the creep-o-meter shoots off the charts. As a society, we universally oppose pedophilia and child abuse in every respect and are willing to go to arms over it if even a wiff of it is present. I mean, even convicts are rumored to beat up fellow inmates for pedo-related crimes as a form of justice. This is all a valid interpretation of "Elastic Heart", except for the fact that it's wrong.
I wasn't nearly as disturbed as some people were by Sia's choices in this video. While some interpreted the cage as a giant bird cage I saw a tiger cage and many of the first dance moves were feline in nature and supported that interpretation. Thanks to these images, when I first watched the video, I already viewed the dancers as representing something other than the people they actually were. While some parts can be interpreted as pedophilia, I feel like this is disproven with the fact that its the little girl who in charge of most of the video. Throughout the video she is far more energetic and aggressive than the exhausted and torn up grown man she's chasing around the cage. On top of that there was no inappropriate touching, gyrations, or anything similar to the more "sexy" dance videos we're used to seeing. The reason why I think people are missing the point here, I believe, is because of two major fallacies: one, all buff men are sex objects; two, all little blonde girls are vulnerable and defenseless. I've never seen a buff grown man get beat around so much by a little girl as I did in this video. She scratches, hits, kicks, and scares him into corners. Her face is often turned downward which in most art is an interpretation of determined control, not tilted back, which is a more vulnerable and weaker pose. She even openly laughs in his face at points. However, they are still a grown man and a little girl in minimal nude clothing dancing in a cage. Again, I can see the other point, but I highly doubt Sia was going for that.
Remember, this exact same little girl character in this exact same costume represented addiction in the last video, "Chandelier." In that video, she was the embodiment of what happens inside someone when they are addicted to something that is typically socially acceptable. Sia had revealed in an interview that she has had her own struggles with wanting to be a fun party girl who is accepted while dealing with the realities alcoholism. Since the little girl is the exact same in "Elastic Heart" and both songs are meant to be in a series, we can safely interpret her as that same struggle or more specifically alcoholism itself. Sia tweeted after the released of "Elastic Heart" that Shia LaBeouf and Maddie Ziegler were playing two parts of the same person. If that is the case, then we can consider dirty, buff, glove wearing Shia as the persona that has been fighting to get away from his past, but is still drawn to it as alcoholics also deal with lifetime attractions to alcohol. I think its the acting "drawn to" factor that set off most pedophilia antennas, but lets be honest that in a culture that accepts homosexuality you would get the same feeling if it was acted as well by a grown woman. If you took out the "drawn to" factor all together, you'd be lying about how powerful addiction really is and it wouldn't be as strong of a video. In short; good art makes comfortable men uncomfortable, and uncomfortable men comfortable. This qualifies.
This theoretical interpretation I have is supported by the fact that the little girl is in control most of the time and its all Shia can do to be in control even in the littlest sense. There's a point in the new video where Shia gets as far away as he can from Ziegler by climbing to the top of the cage. Then Ziegler seems to go to sleep. If we are to take Ziegler as alcoholism this picture is brilliant. Shia is still tempted to come closer when Ziegler appears innocently asleep, when she wakes up she even comes to him innocently before biting him. Which addiction does. Once you get away from something that's bad, looking back at it may make it seem less harmful, but get too close and it will always bite you and laugh in your face. The whole dance is basically the war between addiction, temptation, and the struggle that comes from that experience. After a few close examinations, I realized the cage could be interpreted as the boundaries an addict has to put up in their lives to keep from falling off the wagon, that doesn't mean that the temptation can't get in, it just means its harder to get out. This proven when the girl easily slips in and out of the cage as Shia, while he could leave, stays inside. The fact that she can get out of the cage at all again disproves the pedophilia theory. The alcoholism theory is further proven when Shia is carrying Zielger on his back like a heavy load and later she hits him on the head four times, changing his face from sick, to silly, to angry, to subdued, which are common personality switches alcohol can cause. Ziegler also reacts to his breath as if it stunk, which is another side affect of alcohol. I felt like the choreography showed the struggle of addiction beautifully. It was tragic and powerful to watch and I don't think people who have always felt in complete control of themselves would get it.
I can see where people would have misinterpreted this as child molestation. We are dealing with abstract concepts of desire, need, want, right, wrong, temptation, and the common and often seen interpretation of these things in the media is sexual in nature. This is why Sia is the bravest woman alive. She's willing to risk the wrong and socially despised interpretation in order to show a new perspective on a different internal struggle. Sex is talked about all of the time. The destructive internal wars of alcohol and other temptations on the other hand, are barely represented at all in art. If they are, its very blunt or poorly done. When you look at the lyrics they are even more vague and subject to interpretation. In an art form that only seems to be concerned with talking about love between two people, its easy to just jump to weird conclusions, but when you look at the lyrics from the perspective that I've spent way too much time describing, it's even more powerful than the typical cliché relationship. Remember, the center stage is all about what is going on inside a single person. Then again, my interpretation can also be completely wrong. I just know that it has more proof than the pedophilia argument.
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