Demonic or unafraid of the uncomfortable? - My interpretation of Sofia Isella's artistic approach to world issues

         Political issues—specifically, misogyny—are all over music. Sofia Isella, a rising alternative-pop singer, cleverly accentuates a far-left standpoint through her lyrics and appearance.

         I went to Isella’s Seattle show on the You’ll Understand, Dick Tour this April knowing nothing except the hooks of her three most popular songs – “The Doll People”, “Everybody Supports Women”, and “Hot Gum”. But it was easier to become obsessed with her when all I could do was perceive her and her words.

Isella performing at Boston Calling this May

         Isella uses artwork to portray a far-left political stance. Her lyrics are deep, high-quality poetry put to music. Topics include analyses of the double standards of sex, misogyny, religion, and society in general. A summarizing caption from "Sex Concept" that Isella used on a recent Instagram post is, “The concept of sx is stronger than the concept of gd”.  I think that the intentional mangling of the words “sex” and “God” in this caption has a specific purpose. People, when discussing sex or sexual harassment online, often censor words like “rape” so their videos don’t get banned, as the media’s means of protection for others peace of mind. Yet, users don’t have to replace the word “God” even though the mention of God could have a similar effect on people of different religious beliefs. If this meaning is the intended interpretation of this word-mangling, I think Isella kind of has a point – is the concept of sex more powerful to society than the concept of God? Why else would people be so scared of it?

Thus, Isella pushes people into meaningful discomfort with her work.

         The singer has a monologue in every show where she talks about how as a young teenager, she was told to keep politics out of her music. When Roe v. Wade was overturned, however, a switch flipped in her. “Everything is political,” she explains. This realization led most notably to her song “Us and Pigs”, which discusses where the political angles of God and sex come together,

Pump us full of sperm, put us in a barn

Us and pigs on a Mississippi farm

In nine months, we’ll have a kid you won’t care about

And if the kid’s not white, straight and male, we guarantee a living hell

Murder in the name of a loving God

         She elaborates on sex just as scathingly in “The Doll People”,

We are art you can f**k

Drink the dolls, legs spread like butter

We are wife, wh**re, mistress, maid, mother

The beauty and the buyer take the screaming one because

A woman who doesn’t want it is much hotter than one that does

         Her rage is stunningly contagious.

         Another interesting way she conveys her thoughts on the double standards of sex is through her appearance. Sofia Isella is stunning, yet one of her most gut-wrenching songs, “Unattractive”, focuses on the opposite. She opens the track with and orients it around the idea, “You make me want to be desperately and completely unattractive”. In other songs, she leans the other way with, “I’m flirting with a boy that I think wants to murder me” (“Cacao and Cocaine”), “The girl he’s dreaming/I’ll bend him over backward, give him something to believe in” (“Sex Concept”), and “He’s a keeper, he’s a believer/he’s on the ground on his knees in a theater” (“Hot Gum”).

The I'm camera . EP cover

         Aside from how it’s displayed with her words, her sexuality is conveyed in juxtaposing ways both online and onstage. Her promotional videos – when they’re not clips from music videos or album photo shoots – are often sultry and on-brand to how many teenagers film thirst traps. But official visuals often portray her covered in dirt or grime, sometimes topless and with her hair slicked over her face. In concerts, she switches from wearing baggy clothing to revealing tank tops back to baggy clothing, even pulling her pants off during one song to reveal boxers. Meanwhile, her TikTok video reposts are a mostly even mix of thirsty fan edits of herself and political or religious think-pieces.

Isella performing at the Troubadour during the You'll Understand, Dick Tour

         Audience members are left mildly confused by this combination of portrayals. It almost reads as a refusal to be boxed into a category, except that her song’s messages make her intended category obvious.

         The categoric image interwoven through this combination of contradictory lyrical and stylistic statements is what many women feel like today: filthy but trying to embrace ourselves and recognize our power. We dream of a world in which we can show and enjoy our bodies without being objectified and one where we can speak our minds without being called dramatic. There’s a difference between being thirsted over and being belittled, and between communicating your thoughts and being disrespectful. It’s the same difference between the edits Isella reposts of herself, and the men who DMed her at seventeen, prompting her to write a viral unreleased track going, “There are forty-year-old men in my DMs… saying, ‘I’m not a creep, I’m not sick/do you want a picture of my (dick)?’” It's also the difference between polite debate and the people who have called her demonic for how she uses art to express her opinions.

But if she shows anything in her responses to backlash, it's that there's a reason people are listening to her. In her poem “A Penis from Ohio”, she responds to angry men bluntly but eloquently, “Do you want me to talk about abuse like I’m talking about sex?" Sofia Isella uses the pain people want her to sugarcoat to instead create emotional bonds between women. Fans connect over such experiences, and her audience has grown quickly as she’s toured this year. She hit one million Instagram followers shortly after her show I attended in early April and has already doubled that. She’s been onstage with Halsey and Paris Paloma and recently announced an opening slot for Florence + the Machine’s upcoming arena tour. People are getting used to hearing Isella’s name.

Stream I’m camera on all platforms now.