$layyyter Murders Misogyny with “CANNIBALISM!”

Vegas Showgirl Mystique Run Amok

I have instant mad respect for any woman who embodies a Vegas showgirl persona and nails it. In her “CANNIBALISM!” video, $layyyter murders misogyny by successfully cloaking herself in full Vegas showgirl mystique, then using it to gain instant access to the male brain. Literally.

I have a thing for Vegas showgirls. Always have. Not camp 90s train wreck showgirls like Nomi Malone, but real Vegas showgirls from back in the day who wore (and werked) the spectacularly designed Vegas showgirl stage costumes of the era. These amazing costumes had elaborate headdresses that towered over the audience, revealing body suits with nude cores that left little to the imagination, high heels, dramatically colored feathers and boas, and copious amounts of rhinestones and sequins that reflected stage lights and shimmered dazzlingly, even when the showgirls stood still. 

Second wave feminism cast the Vegas showgirl archetype in a bad light, dismissing it as a relic from a bygone era, a symbol of female objectification by the predatory male gaze. But that take ignores the undeniable fact that Vegas showgirls wielded POWER: not just over straight men’s libidos, but also over the cultural imagination.

I don’t know what it is about those Vegas showgirls that resonates so deeply with me (ahem). What I do know is that in the mid-70s my step-grandma lived in Vegas, and through the course of a brief summer visit, and by spontaneous queer boy osmosis, I must have absorbed some of that Vegas showgirl energy. The result? A lifelong fascination with the Vegas showgirl mystique.

A Sketchy $layyyter Trajectory

$layyyter is one of many pop girlies out there right now who are creating their own lanes on the autobahn of pop music. One upside to the streaming era is the democratization of popular music. Artists can create, promote and distribute their music in ways that were unheard of before YouTube and Tiktok. And listeners have access to a vast array of music artists they’d never otherwise know about were it not for the likes of Spotify.

The first $layyyter video I watched was “Erotic Electronic,” and it blew my mind. Not since Madonna went balls out for her Sex book in 1992 have I seen a pop singer present herself using the visual language of a sex worker. Granted, $layyyter only hints at her public nudity in this video, and I’m pretty sure the effect is achieved using smoke, mirrors, and editing software, but it’s one hell of an effect!

“Erotic Electronic” was the third single off Starfucker, her second album, which was released a month later in Sept 2023. Starfucker was exactly what the title implies: a sharp and satirical meditation on vanity, celebrity, and Hollywood drug/party culture. $layyyter sang her stories over moody synths baked into tracks that were built on a foundation of techno and electro-clash. The imagery used to promote Starfucker harkened back to the 1980s, just like the synths on the record, and $layyyter also cited the films Basic Instinct, Blue Velvet and Body Double as “visual and lyrical references.”

Throughout her Starfucker cycle, $layyyter presented herself in ways that the album’s themes called for. Luckily, she wasn’t inhibited by the constraints of the era she was mining to make her point. $layyyter’s persona was hyper-sexualized for Starfucker, which tracked with the world she created, explored and presented for listeners & viewers. Leaning heavily into this hyper-sexualized version of herself as the object of her music’s drama, $layyyter didn’t ask for permission or apologize for having the audacity to show us what the stories she was singing actually looked like.

Over the next couple years, each of $layyyter’s releases was higher profile, and more intense, than what preceded it. Here’s an admittedly sketchy sketch of $layyyter’s recent trajectory:

• She releases a well-received cover of Lady Gaga’s “Monster” on Spotify;
• The Gaga herself goes gaga over a video $layyyter posts on Tiktok lip syncing Gaga’s song “Brooklyn Nights.” Gaga comments that she “loves” it;
• She releases a hard techno track (“No Comma”) which takes Starfucker‘s themes to the next fucked up but logical level of intensity;
• She then drops “Attention,” a collaboration with Kesha and Rose Gray, with whom she embarks on the Tits Out Tour 2025 ($layyyter and Gray trade off opening slots for the headliners, Kesha and the Scissor Sisters);
• Still not done (will she ever be?), $layyyter releases “Beat Up Chanel$” in August 2025 as the lead single off her upcoming third album. On the same day, Columbia Records announces they’ve signed her.

Whew! What a run! But wait, there’s more…

Next, she releases “CANNIBALISM!” and it’s at this point that I lose my ever loving mind. I fall in love with $layyyter for (1) being the badass artist she is, and (2) for hitting me right in my Vegas showgirl P-spot. Before I focus on the visuals, watch the video!

Just a heads up: $layyyter relies on retro horror movie imagery (think Psycho, Rob Zombie’s aesthetic, and the Saw franchise) in the video. It’s a little gory, but it’s also loaded with symbolism, serves a thematic purpose, and is worth checking out. So check it out! You’ll live!

The Imagery: Where to Begin?

How about at the beginning? The video begins in black and white, presenting $layyyter as Head Woman In Charge for what we’re about to see. Her baseball cap (industry code for Director) is emblazoned with the words “Cut Throat City Veteran,” and she’s engaging in manly behavior like smoking a pipe and reading a newspaper. $layyyter is out of girl drag here. Discuss.

White men of a certain age are lined up outside a dive strip club, being greeted by a very large and masculine looking drag queen (Chandler Burton, owning every shot they’re in) who sports a full beard, hairy chest and aggressive demeanor. These men aren’t in Kansas anymore, and they’re about to fall down a very deep, dark and terrifying rabbit hole. They don’t seem to realize they’re walking into a Near Dark situation, and frankly, I’m looking forward to it.

Also, this video has effectively instilled in me a deep fear of creepy, human-sized rabbits that look like they’re waiting to devour me.

The party is underway, and the talent is seducing the men (and us) with their gorgeous, seductive burlesque. Frankie Ficticious and Emma Vauxdevil serve seduction and power, and while they do have an edge, they’re also just fabulous and harmless-looking enough for us (and the men) to let our guard down. Shots of Frankie & Emma are intercut/interrupted by a shot of Chandler the masc drag queen dancing for the camera. Chandler’s aping obviously female-coded dance moves of seduction (preening for the camera, removing a lace glove with their teeth, even the camera angle codes Chandler female). Which emphasizes the artifice of the objectified female persona, according to me.

Then those fans in front of the camera part to reveal $layyyter in all her Vegas showgirl glory!

Now, I understand that TECHNICALLY she’s not dressed like the kind of Vegas showgirl I described a few paragraphs back. What’s she’s wearing actually looks like a belly dancing costume to me. Plus, she’s go-go dancing, not doing the measured, one-step-at-a-time Vegas showgirl walk.

But those sequins! That fall! Those rhinestones! That metallic fringe! $layyyter is giving us Vegas showgirl ENERGY, honey!

The double exposure effect used in the image on the left transports me immediately to a Tarantino movie that doesn’t exist (yet): It’s set in Vegas in the early 1970s. She’s one of several characters in overlapping stories. She’s a single working mom who dances for money so she can buy nice things for her precocious daughter, and she’s realizing in real time that she needs to ditch her overbearing boyfriend before he fucks up her and her daughter’s lives, which is an inevitability if she stays. But she’s involved with the other adult characters in some kind of heist and can’t leave until it’s done. Things go wrong and get bloody, or course, but she survives the ordeal intact, utilizing her feminine wiles, unconditional love for her daughter, and true grit to get her through the experience in one piece.

The way $layyyter is lit while dancing with the black background is perfection. It produces that golden 1970s hue, and while you wouldn’t necessarily want to be there because it probably stinks a little (trust me, it was a sweaty decade), she looks ah-mazing and fabulous.

Check out this gorgeous photo of her in Vogue serving full Vegas showgirl glamour. I fall in love with her when I view this photo. And my ardor for her when I’m gazing upon it confuses me. I’m a queer man. I’m not objectifying her sexually. I don’t want to be her. I just fall into the glamour vibe, I guess. I’m seduced. I can’t help it. I love that Vegas showgirl. 

But it’s not all glamour and sheen in the world of “CANNIBALISM!” The men who paid to get in seem to lack any sense of joy, happiness or appreciation at the sight of the beautiful women performing for them. In fact, they appear to be growing more demanding and hostile. The men are starting to turn…and this is a dynamic that many women (and I’m sure quite a few queer men) have experienced firsthand. But so are the women (starting to turn, I mean). Pretty soon, the horror imagery moves in and doesn’t let up.

We begin to see the females in this video, still decked out in “Hey! Look at me! I’m objectified!” garb, but the tone of their appearance shifts. $layyyter’s in a darkened motel room interacting with one of the patrons, who is bound to a chair. He’s become a captive audience, and doesn’t look too happy about it. Emma Vauxdevil produces a very long sword and proceeds to swallow the entire blade like the magnificent pro that she is. Suddenly (and quite effortlessly) the women show us their edges, which are sharp, dangerous, and possibly lethal.

$layyyter employs symbols of female objectification throughout the video, first to seduce and then to creep out. She’s sporting bunny ears (a clear Playboy reference) in the caps above; early on, we see her in a dressing room wearing some Sherry Moon Zombie get up that Sailor Moons the singer with long ponytails, bright thigh high stockings, and the cutesie micro-mini/short-shorts she’s got on; and, circling back, she expertly works that metallic gold fringe costume she’s wearing as she dances the night away while apparently overseeing the carnage. These men are finding out that the women they came to objectify, exploit and have their way with are more formidable creatures than they could have imagined.

As the video comes to a close, we see $layyyter in a sterile white room that has what I’m guessing is a two way mirror on one wall. From the looks of it, she’s devoured part of a man’s brain, which does three things: it makes us go “Ew!”, it makes her pass out, and it makes her upchuck (not necessarily in that order). It’s messy. It’s gross. And it works. At the end of it all, with the creepy bunny looking over her shoulder and the lower half of her face smeared with blood and gore, she breaks into a satiated smile and chuckles to herself. It’s as if she’s in a state of afterglow, thinking to herself, “OMG, I can’t believe I just did that!” She knows she’s crossed a line, but she’s glad she did. Crossing that line was worth it.

So! What does a half naked woman wearing her angel (or faerie) wings backwards and eating a man’s brain represent? Anyone?

I’ll take a stab at it. It’s as if she took a bite of that toxic male mindset, to taste its sense of entitlement, its ability to absorb unearned power as its own, just so she could feel it for a few seconds. And it felt GREAT! It felt WILD!

It made her sick, though. She couldn’t keep it down because that shit ain’t healthy. Luckily, she throws it up, symbolizing the female’s rejection of toxic masculinity as an avenue to gaining or exercising power in this world. She isn’t poisoned, she doesn’t die, because she doesn’t hang on to those toxic masculine traits or inclinations. She throws it up, keeping her divine female power uncorrupted. Intact. She tasted it, she felt the rush, without becoming it. She’s okay.

A Queer Man’s Take (Because Of Course I Have One)

What does it all mean? $layyyter has stated it’s about exploring her own dark side and examining what happens when you stay inside your darkness for too long. That totally makes sense.

As a viewer, though, here’s what I see: I’m watching a woman reclaim her power. I’m watching her use the predatory male gaze (which has been weaponized against her) as a weapon against predatory men by accommodating it. I’m watching her wrest men’s domination away from them. I’m watching her turn the tables, and get out not only alive, but on top. I’m also watching her get a taste of some of that toxic masculine energy, and it tastes GOOD. If it didn’t, there wouldn’t be so many men addicted to it. But she doesn’t allow it permanent residence.

One final point to make is that the lyrics and the video’s imagery ain’t mathin’ for me. Granted, the opening lines set a tone:

He kisses me, it feels like cannibalism
Stone cold, I take what he's giving

Cannibalism is a loaded word that throws you off kilter right out the gate. It’s also totally relatable within the context of being transactional about your sex with another person. It’s like, letting someone else’s body parts inside of yours, not because you’re attracted to the person, but because you’re trading access to your body for cash or other creature comforts, is a cold, detached game. Before long, she’s checking out the DJ, hoping he flirts with her, pining away for a guy that she didn’t arrive with.

This shift into the man being at the center of the song is somewhat jarring if seen with the video imagery, which contradicts it. Some of the lyrics seem to be from the POV of a lead singer in a 1960s girl group, singing about being hung up on a complicated, misunderstood, leather-jacketed bad boy named Johnny. In the second verse she sing/speaks:

He's kinda sexy and mysterious 'bout it
Hot eyes, all my judgment is clouded,

These lyrics tell us she’s impaired by the object of her affection’s glamour; he’s using his unreadable, troubled, masculine allure (a well-known male modus operandi) to tease out her female impulses to solve his problems and take care of him . The chorus even more ardently expresses this well-intentioned but misguided 60s girl group approach to men:

Tell you I'm needin' it, think about you every night
Tell me you're needin' it, think about me all the time.
Tell you I'm needin' it, if I don't have you, I'll die...
Please, God, send me a sign.

Sung as if she’s home alone in her pink bedroom, writing poetry in her diary, begging God for a sign that it’s true love. Clearly, if the lyrics came first, then the video is meant to be their ironic counterpoint…right? Why use such powerful imagery, such bold archetypes, for lyrics that are comparatively, well…mid? 

What’s undeniable is that, through her direction, the imagery she creates to narrate the song becomes the driver of its message. The imagery and the music (which is propulsive and danceable) defines the song. The lyrics become secondary, acting as background noise in service to the visuals.

$layyyter’s economy of expression is impressive, given the weight and depth of what she’s delivering with “CANNIBALISM!” She’s created a document that illustrates where many women find themselves in this particular moment in history. Gender dynamics are transforming. Once you see that the rules are only in place to serve those they don’t apply to, the rules no longer matter. There comes a time when taking matters into your own hands is the last remaining option.

Even so, the choice is still yours. No asking for permission required.

🖋️Conjure me this: Write about a song, album, video or artist who has you in the palm of their hand. What’s so irresistible about that song/album/video/artist? Why do you respond to it the way you do?