As Charli XCX mentions in her hit song, Girl, so confusing, “Sometimes it feels a bit awkward” (Charli XCX, 0:42) to navigate relationships in the public eye. Charli, an A-list celebrity and artist with multiple platinum songs, too has experienced the issues that often come with girlhood and friendship. With the original release of her 2024 album, brat, she brought a so-called “brat summer,” displaying her vulnerable side; one of the most notable songs on said album being Girl, so confusing. When the song was released along with the rest of the brat album, there was an eruption on social media regarding who Charli was writing about. Fans threw many names into the ring, but the majority of the public speculated that the song was written about New Zealand singer Lorde. Lorde, at first, hadn’t known that Girl, so confusing could have been about her until the public began to tag and mention her in posts that discussed the song and her history with Charli. The vast amount of public discussion and pressure from fans then led Lorde and Charli to drop a remix of the song. Susan Sontag’s statements, following the ideas of interpretation and how perception can vary from person to person, mention that “interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art” (Sontag 4). The interpretation of the two artists’ complicated relationship drew together; they not only cleared any rumors through the release of their remix, but they also brought the world the perspective of two female artists who face as many difficulties in relationships as the public does. While fans were right to question the two artists’ history together, the many different interpretations of Charli’s song blew the original and more deeply emotional meaning of Charli’s words completely out of proportion.
The expanse of the heated online debates about who Girl, so confusing was referring to spanned months, as fans discussed Charli’s list of celebrity feuds; the response to the original version of the song threw many hints as to who she could have been talking about. In Lorde’s ABC iView interview, her interviewer, Zan Rowe, asks her what it was like “to see the reaction which my reaction would have been mirrored millions of times around the world,” (Rowe, ABC iView 1:40) trying to make sense out of Charli’s words. Charli throws many hints in the second verse of Girl, so confusing, stating that “I think we’re totally different, but opposites do attract. Maybe we’re so meant to be, just you and me” (Charli XCX, 1:40). Lorde and Charli have been compared many, many times–the two artists both have huge presences in pop culture, releasing hit songs (such as Charli XCX’s I Love It and Lorde’s Royals), creating worldwide movements and trends (brat summer, or the summer of 2024, brought forth a widespread repetition of Charli’s music for several months) and left the internet feral for more songs, albums, and EPs. The over-comparison of the pair within this text “is often prompted not by piety toward the troublesome text (which may conceal an aggression), but by an open aggressiveness, an overt contempt for appearances” (Sontag 4), giving the public an opportunity to misconstrue their relationship. This not only fueled Charli to compete with Lorde, but it prompted her to release her feelings into Girl, so confusing to make sense of her emotions and try to understand Lorde’s sentiments about her.
Lorde, contrarily, had been so completely oblivious to Charli’s sentiments, being rather surprised when the internet pointed their fingers at her when discussing the hit brat song (Lorde, ABC iView 0:11). The public’s interpretation not only created such an uproar that Lorde became conscious of it, but this “interpretation thus presupposes a discrepancy between the clear meaning of the text and the demands of (later) readers” (Sontag 3). The debate that follows the original text’s release is a direct result of the manifest content controlling the public narrative. ‘Manifest content’ “digs behind the text, to find a sub-text which is the true one” (Sontag 4). Lorde, however, was withdrawn from her anxieties with this attention due to the burden of hurting someone she admires as a friend. She took her somewhat of a ‘shout-out’ to heart, mentioning that “when someone sees you in that way and is moved by you in that way, y’know… that is, that is an act of love, and it really did change the course of my life” (Lorde, ABC iView 3:30). Artists themselves understand how important and intentional their lyrics are, and Lorde understood that it was imperative that she retained what Charli alluded to and articulate it well. The two artists then made a deliberate, conscious decision to collaborate, releasing an additional piece that really helped them “work it out on the remix” (Lorde, Girl, so confusing, 1:30). They merged their styles and genres and truly bit into what makes and breaks female friendships–from rivalry and jealousy to love and camaraderie. The two coordinate throughout the song, building layers of trust and background information to the two’s brief quarrel. One of Lorde’s final remarks in Girl, so confusing, was relief, denoting that “I’m glad I know how you feel, ‘cause I ride for you Charli” (Lorde, Girl, so confusing 2:30), reinforcing her admiration for the English singer’s presence in her life.
Charli XCX and Lorde are only two victims of the idea of miscommunications and the internet ruining female friendships. These types of tiffs have occurred since the beginning of time, and the complicated nature of these situations demonstrate how much pressure women, especially women in the public eye, face from the public, whose views “demonstrate a dissatisfaction (conscious or unconscious) with the work, a wish to replace it by something else” (Sontag 6). Sontag’s ideas, such as understanding how interpretations can be skewed and misunderstood, flow with their circumstance in perfect tandem. While analyzing Charli and Lorde, Against Interpretation manufactures the perfect amount of background knowledge in order to truly comprehend the text, as her opinions throughout her essay analyze many aspects of interpretations, dating back years. These types of female friendships often have a bountiful amount of pressure placed upon them, the toxicity that comes with living as a woman in contemporary society growing further and amplifying the already alarming rates of mental health issues in teens and young women. The positive aspects of Girl, so confusing, however, show the public how to perceive situations like this, specifically through open conversation between two parties in order to work out any confusion. Looking into the future, moving forward is possible for any pair, but the true key to having open dialogue is having undiluted, two-sided communication. Not only did the lack of communication between the two of them leave everything to lose and nothing to gain, worsening the gap between the pair exponentially, but it also drew the narrative for the public to run wild, giving them the ammo to unleash a magazine of theories and hypotheses to uncover whatever ‘secrets’ they deem as worthy, preparing to misinterpret the true meaning by reading too far in between the lines.