How critique of a pop record highlights misogyny in the worlds of medicine and music.
“I’m giving myself two more years to be sick” says Ashley Frangipane in a video posted to their socials back in June, during which Ashley (or singer-songwriter Halsey, as they’re more popularly known), dons an oversized black beanie and a frail physique.
In between flashes of ache and sighs of pain, the award-winning artist is seen massaging their calves with deep discomfort. “I’m having a rebirth,” she tells someone out of frame.
This is just one video released from a select few documenting Halsey’s health over the past two years. Swiping across the clips of the Instagram post; announcing their first day of treatment; teary-eyed scenes of IV drips, body monitors, and hospital rooms; and a notes app entry entitled ‘the f***ing end of the world’ are images that shock the singer’s devoted fan base and millions of listeners.
“I’m lucky to be alive,” reads the caption. The post, which tags organisations associated with Lupus and Leukaemia Research, announces Halsey’s fifth studio album The Great Impersonator, and its first single, ‘The End.’
Taken aback by the response to their initial post, Halsey took to Instagram to provide more information.
Opening up on her health, Halsey told fans that she had been “diagnosed with Lupus SLE and then a rare T-cell lymphoproliferative disorder” which are currently being managed in some capacity.
The ‘Without Me’ singer went on to say “After two years, I’m feeling better and I’m more grateful than ever to have music to turn to.”
During this time Halsey kept their growing health issues under wraps. And why shouldn’t she? Society and the media have never been one to respect the private lives of women in the public eye, especially pop stars – dare we mention Britney, or even the latest discourse surrounding rising star phenomenon Chappell Roan’s pleas for privacy?
In many ways Halsey’s new album is a fine and assured way to control the narrative, to have her voice heard on the matters that have affected her throughout her life, avoiding as much background noise as possible.
Criticism around Halsey (who uses she/they pronouns) and their latest release has been divisive. The internet’s reaction to the backlash is spotlighting the misogyny that pervades the music industry, as well as the same sexist attitudes that are causing deep concern for women and female-presenting individuals receiving (or trying to receive) medical care.
The title of Halsey’s fifth studio album, ‘The Great Impersonator’ nods to medical phrase ‘The Great Imitator’, which describes conditions with nonspecific symptoms often leading to an array of misdiagnoses and thus difficulty in treatment.
The nickname has been applied to diseases such as Lupus, Lymphoma, and Endometriosis, a condition the American singer has spoken openly about since their diagnosis in 2016.
This, topped with the explicit lyrical content of its initial rollout single such as: “every couple of years now, a doctor says I’m sick” and “could you pick me up at 8? / ‘Cause my treatment starts today”, provides a clear insight into what subjects to expect from Halsey’s latest musical endeavour.
In many respects ‘The End’ is the perfect place to start.
In fact, throughout the 18-track hodgepodge of influence that is Halsey’s new record, they consistently refuse to shy away from the harrowing reality of chronic illness and the contemplation of their own mortality, which notably occurred after the birth of her son in 2021, the separation from the child’s father, as well as being dropped by her label.
Interestingly however, it is in Halsey’s attempt to lean into such uncomfortable life experiences, the refusal to self-censor, the refusal to tone ‘it’ down to a more digestible size for those fortunate enough to find the music unrelatable, that finds Halsey being put in hot water by some music critics.
Pitchfork contributor and freelance writer Shaad D’Souza reduces the conceptual nature and marketing rollout of The Great Impersonator as a “great idea for a series of Instagram posts”, rejecting Halsey’s journey of emotional turmoil as “designed to position [her] as a tortured, singular artist”; a relishing in their “self-ascribed” “martyrdom”.
However, Youtuber and self-proclaimed ‘internet’s busiest music nerd’ Anthony Fantano (@theneedledrop), struggles to hide his displeasure throughout his video review.
From the offset, Fantano’s mockingly enthusiastic and yet disgruntled facial expression tells you everything he thinks about the record, but that doesn’t stop Fantano, much like D’Souza, from lamenting his disappointment with the album concepts follow through. After all The Great Impersonator positioned itself as a multi-genre-and-influence record, with Halsey ‘impersonating’ a different music legend on each song, and an accompanying visually compelling social media campaign in which Halsey toys with the idea that at times she “felt like a professional Halsey impersonator“.
In light of this, unsurprisingly, D’Souza and Fantano gave the album a 4.8 and a one out of 10, respectively.
However, it is not the low ratings that are considerably significant here, even though in internet stan culture these ratings are revered with importance. Critics withhold the right to interpret art in their subjective view: after all, art’s subjectivity is what makes it so universally cherished.
It is worth saying that this is certainly not an argument against music criticism or even a petty rebuttal due a personal difference in opinion – I can also agree that The Great Impersonator as a concept album is muddled, its outcomes are not as cathartic as hoped, or as sonically satisfying as its visual counterparts!
But it is rather the pointed language used that is a cause of concern, both equally highlighting the arguable unconscious or conscious bias of both male critics, as well as the misogynistic claims that have historically trailed the words of Pitchfork‘s editorial and The Needle Drop’s Youtube comment section.
While misogyny in the music business is as repugnantly conspicuous as the music itself, the irony is not lost on an album that touches on Halsey’s experience of medical misogyny (“the doctor who didn’t listen to my claim”), being the recipient of similarly ignorant attitudes by its critics.
For an album concept that is heavily centred around themes of illness, it is worrying what little time (if any in Fantano’s case) its harshest critics spent acknowledging the contexts in which it was made.
Furthermore, there is a common portrayal of Halsey as trying to “conjure a sense of victimhood” as Shaad puts it, or as having “the worst case of main character syndrome” for which Fantano has received an incredible amount of censure from his viewership.
This type of language mirrors the sexism experienced by AFAB (assigned female at birth) and female-identifying medical patients by health practitioners.
The disregard of chronic illness and pain experienced by AFAB patients as ‘hysterical’ or ‘melodramatic’ is a typical indicator of medical misogyny, and is well documented to have extreme and disproportionate effects on the quality of care received when compared to AMAB (assigned male at birth) patients.
According to the Fawcett Society, statistics found that 60% of women “in the UK believe their health issues are not taken seriously” and 42% “have heard derogatory comments about a female employee’s health in the workplace”.
This is especially worrying not only considering that women make up 70% of people with chronic pain, but also because, according to Harvard, women may feel chronic pain more intensely than their male counterparts.
Despite this, women are often labelled as “too sensitive, hysterical, or as time-wasters”, with doctors more likely to provide women a psychological diagnosis than a physical one according to Medical News Today.
In Halsey’s case, 90% of cases of Lupus are made up of AFAB patients. However, men receive their diagnosis faster than women according to a study carried out in 2012.
With this in mind, there is an ironic aftertaste when witnessing these public lashings on Halsey and their art. Critics’ choice of wording, convenient lack of contextual input, and emphasis on previous bodies of work and marketing strategies feel like cop-outs to avoid the musical and lyrical content in depth.
This in itself proves the entire point of The Great Impersonator, which sets out to portray a queer, feminine-presenting person’s narrative of grief, illness and pain, as well as how society reacts to women experiencing such topics.
On top of this, Halsey’s entire discography has always reckoned with their experience as an AFAB individual: their last record, If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power, was “a concept album about the joys and horrors of pregnancy and childbirth”, with Halsey’s own journey into motherhood being an integral part of that album’s success.
Understanding the context of Halsey’s work only underlines the journey they decide to take you on, and this is vital to all of Halsey’s releases.
Whether it’s the dystopian landscape of Badlands reflecting the desolate and isolated edges of her psyche, or the reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet as a metaphor for a toxic relationship as done in Hopeless Fountain Kingdom.
To ignore the real-life terms on which Halsey’s albums are based would be, in my personal opinion, not only bad listener etiquette but also lazy journalism.
Although Pitchfork and Fantano are notorious for their harsh critique and uncompromising commentary, these scathing reviews have led to music fanatics and stans alike raising their own pitchforks across social media.
Halsey herself made a charmingly sarcastic dig towards Pitchfork on X, an additional chapter to Halsey’s ‘beef‘ with the music publication.
One fan (@manichurricane) took to X, saying: “There’s something so chilling about the fact that Halsey says ‘do you think they’d laugh at how I die’ and multiple critics have poked fun at the album.”
On YouTube, Fantano’s comments section has countless remarks pointing out his blatant insensitivity. One user (@hs.1653) states “Life imitating art… you could be literally dying but some dude will still think you’re doing too much” while another (@unculturedsoup) says it is “Totally fine to dislike an album regardless of how heavy the subject matter is. Not fine to dismiss someone as being melodramatic (…) for discussing their pain and trauma.”
Meanwhile, a number of music subreddits have had a field day debating whether these criticisms are rooted in misogyny. One Reddit user (u/katdunks) wrote: “Fantano stating Halsey’s writing for this album sounded ‘narcissistic’ is my worst fear as a woman with chronic illnesses”. Another user (u/fatherjohn_mitski) says his lack of contextual research is “just bad journalism”.
It is unsurprising that the harsh words of Pitchfork and Fantano have created such a stir amongst the music community – this isn’t the first time their critique has come under fire with claims of misogyny and biased writing.
Both have distinguished reputations within the music industry, especially for favouring alternative and independent music – and although in recent years they have included a pop angle to their catalogue of work, as well as a conscious effort to diversify artists they write about – it is obvious that their critiques are catered towards a specific demographic.
This was particularly reinstated in the wake of Pitchfork’s acquisition by Conde Nast in 2015, wherein their Chief Digital Officer Fred Santarpia told The Times that it would bring “a very passionate audience of Millennial males into our roster”.
Only recently have the effects of this fully materialised when it was announced that Pitchfork was merging with GQ, which led to former Pitchfork writer Laura Snapes condemning the move, saying: “incorporating Pitchfork into a men’s magazine also cements perceptions that music is a male leisure pursuit” before listing an array of female and non-binary Pitchfork writers and editors who transformed it into “a less dude-ish place” as put by Jill Mapes; also commended by Snapes.
While Pitchfork’s changing of hands may seem irrelevant to the choice words of their writers, it would be foolish to ignore how the systemic changes of the publication may have affected the biases of its editorial team and others.
That’s not to say that Pitchfork as a publication is wholly anti-women (a considerable amount female and gender non-conforming artists have been at the helm of their ‘Best of the 2020s‘ lists), but it is only likely that the publication reflects the sexist nature of the industry it works within.
This is made clear in the parallels of the language used by these critics and the language used to disparage female pain in medical settings.
Unfortunately, medical misogyny doesn’t just stop at linguistics. Sheziya Pereira (21) told me how her pain was disregarded by her male doctor as “just period cramps” when she complained about abnormal shoulder and abdominal pain.
“It was frustrating getting told by male doctors who have never experienced period pain that that was the issue without looking further into it.”
After multiple back-and-forth appointments, Sheziya’s condition worsened with swelling on her upper leg and stomach and extreme pain. The GP’s answer was a prescription for joint cream. What was just period cramps turned out to be a splenic cyst which Sheziya had to have surgically removed.
“All that time going back to the doctor’s, my cyst could have burst and I could have died” exclaims Sheziya, who went on to tell me how differently she was treated by female doctors versus male doctors while having surgery.
“I think female doctors are more empathetic, more understanding. They were more likely to listen to you. In my experience, male doctors are more dismissive when it comes to women, especially when it comes to pain.” This comes after warnings that misogyny and racial bias in the NHS disproportionately puts patients’ lives at risk. Despite this, Sheziya, a woman of colour, views herself as “extremely lucky”.
Despite the old children’s rhyme, words can be just as damaging as sticks and stones. In this case, the domino effect of bias to language to action is deadly. It is imperative that journalists, people in the public eye, and health practitioners, are in tune with this.
Cries of “It’s not that deep” and ‘It’s just a pop-record”, drive the point home. After all, pop music, which is often met with eye rolls, is uncoincidentally dominated by women. If anything, pop music as it currently stands, is the clearest and most consumed voice of the feminine experience in a man’s world.
Perhaps listening to more female pop music would be as an effective prescription for misogyny as joint cream for a splenic cyst, but men’s inability to listen to women (pop-star or patients), and their disdain for female pain, is at the root of the misogyny in music and medicine.
In life-imitating-art fashion, the response to The Great Impersonator is reflective of such misogyny. Perhaps men could learn a thing or two from listening to women, in music, in pain, in their everyday lives, but if only that wasn’t such a hard pill to swallow.
Featured image by Halsey via Instagram.