While the music industry has been a historically male-dominated world, we’ve been seeing an influx of talented women taking over the alternative and pop charts. Names like Doja Cat, Ariana Grande, and Billie Eilish no doubt come to mind but surprisingly few adults (lets say anyone older than Gen-Z) are familiar with Melanie Martinez.
The multi-hyphenate sleeping giant is backed by Atlantic Records and released a 90-minute film written and directed by Martinez to complement her sophomore album K-12 in September 2019. This came four years after her 2015 debut album, Crybaby, which has garnered over 2 billion streams worldwide, hit #1 on the Billboard Alternative Album’s Chart, and gone on to become platinum-certified.
K-12, which debuted in select theatres across the U.S. on September 5th, 2019, garnered over 30 million views in less than a month. That mon th Martinez’ already substantial YouTube following gained another 100,000 subscribers and hit 7.95 M subs. By September 2020, a year after the release of the full-length film on Youtube (now only available in individual music video format) and since embarking on a US tour, she reached 11.4M subscribers.
One spokesperson from Atlantic Records, the same label representing major artists like Lizzo and Bruno Mars, was truly correct to say that the growth in views and fans for Martinez is expected to grow almost exponentially. What the article failed to talk about was the elephant in the room her fans are well aware of: Melanie Martinez was publicly accused of sexual assault by former friend Timothy Heller in late 2017.
This was no small news, and the story got picked up by media giants like Billboard, Variety, and CNN. Melanie Martinez was officially cancelled and essentially went into Taylor Swift-style hiding for the next year.
Imagine a major publication like Rolling Stones not mentioning something like that. Somehow, this has not come up in any interview Martinez has conducted recently — probably a condition on getting an interview with her at all.
While the point of this article is not to go into the particulars of the allegations, fan investigations, or even the relationship between Martinez and Heller, it is important to note that Melanie has largely been informally acquitted by the internet at large. The allegations have never been brought to court.
In 2021, this is almost unthinkable.
Activist Taran Burke began using the phrase “Me Too” in 2006 to describe the pervasiveness of sexual abuse women often experience. Today there’s no single leader or face of what has become the #MeToo movement or the #BelieveWomen movement that followed.
Cancel culture is the governing body of the social world and one of the most powerful factors aiding the #MeToo movement. In one tweet, TikTok, IG story, status, etc., women have the power to share their experiences of sexual harassment and violence — and be heard. When someone is publicly exposed for wrongdoing in this day and age, especially sexual misconduct, the internet is typically swift in its punishment.
Names that get connected to crimes like these typically disappear into oblivion or live on in infamy after their public ridicule. Brett Kavanaugh might be on the supreme court and Harvey Weinstein might be connected to some of the greatest films of all time, but that’s about all they have going for them at this point.
In a major contrast, Melanie is doing better than ever. In September 2020, the singer released her “After School” EP and has since grown to 12.9M subscribers on Youtube.
So how did Melanie Martinez, the now 26-year-old woman who famously made her start being coached by Christina Aguilera on ‘The Voice’, do the unthinkable? What makes her special enough to survive a canceling and get the rarest commodity on the internet these days: amnesty?
Women speaking out is accepted, encouraged, and usually does well on various platform algorithms. When Timothy Heller first made her accusations on Twitter, the reaction came quickly. Heller went from just under 5k to over 70k followers on Instagram in a weekend. Following a Twitter statement and the release of one song responding to the accusations (that remains on YouTube and Souncloud but is still un-streamable on Spotify and Apple Music to to this day), Martinez disabled all comments on her Instagram and YouTube and did not make an appearance online or anywhere else for over a year.
The idea that women can be bad, that women can be just as manipulative, narcissistic, or destructive as any man is accepted these days. Society has seemingly come to terms with the idea that some when act badly because some people act badly. The swift, sharp reaction to Melanie definitely showcases that.
Most online and in-court debate regarding assault and harassment allegations is based on the difference between believing and knowing — the fact that no one will know definitely what happened between two people, but trying to get as close as possible. Believing is not enough, you have to know without doubts.
So, in the face of serious allegations and a silent Melanie, what was left of her fan base went to work deep-diving through both women's social media accounts to accrue evidence in the form of tags, photos, and subtle shade.
Unlike most of the stories and accusations to make headlines in the wake of #MeToo, this one doesn’t involve a man. Even more complicated, it involves a multi-year friendship between two women both trying to make it in the music industry to varying success. Perhaps these are the two most important details when it comes to why people eventually came around to believing Martinez’ innocence.
The other major factor to consider in this unprecedented rebound, one not even the established Aziz Ansari could pull off, is the singer's “brand”.
No stranger to controversy, Martinez has taken plenty of heat in the past for her use of childlike themes and twisted imagery in every aspect of her work, from the visuals to the lyrics themselves.
“Melanie Martinez is like a pop star plucked from the imagination of Dr. Seus… but there’s a complexity behind her baby doll aesthetic. Her music tells tales of drug abuse, depression, and family dysfunction through the optics of a wide-eyed teenage girl.”
‘Sippy Cup’, the third single off her debut album Cry Baby, opens the chorus chorus with:
Blood still stains when the sheets are washed
Sex don’t sleep when the lights are off
Kids are still depressed when you dress them up
And syrup is still syrup in a sippy cup
Clearly no stranger to mixing childlike imagery and gore, this aesthetic choice continues into the K-12 album lyrics and visuals.
The K-12 film opens with Martinez in character as “Cry Baby” narrating “I wish my mom wasn’t passed out right now and could at least drive me to the bus stop” as we see a shot of her mother passed out, face down on her bedroom floor. The next scene takes place while “Wheels on the Bus”, the first song in both the album K-12 and the film, which plays in album order, plays in the background. The scene ends with a bloody car crash of a school bus full of kids, including Cry Baby herself.
Despite the macabre lyrics present in all her songs, Melanie Martinez continues to be a stable of the bedroom pop genre, even being listed on the Pop Rising Spotify playlist in 2016 and 2020.
In a world where even the Christmas classic “Baby It’s Cold Outside” has been deemed unsavory and in need of a remake, Melanie has normalized the inappropriate and made it a core feature of her brand.
Another core feature of Melanie's brand is her marketability to Gen-Z.
It’s important to note that producing full-length films and music videos for each song on an album creates content for the visual obsessed youth to turn into GIFs, TikToks, and Fancam compilations. In the age of the internet, accessibility is marketability. Beyond that, Martinez chooses to interject important Gen-Z hallmarks and points of conversation into the visuals accompanying her music.
One can argue that despite it’s Wes Anderson-like dystopian veneer, the K-12 film reflects reality. The cast of the film is very diverse, though it is hardly ever addressed. When it is, it’s when Melanie chooses to touch on subtleties like race relations in America. Yes, you read that right.
In the segment of the K-12 film featuring “Class Fight”, Melanie has scripted dialogue about students choosing to silently protest the pledge of allegiance by staying in their seats. In this moment, a Black boy is forced out of his seat by a teacher and the boy angrily says “You hear that? Liberty and Justice for all? That’s bullshit.”
The subtle and overt commentary continues throughout every song and scene of K-12. Martinez managers to cover mental health, sexual assault, body dysmorphia, bullying, female empowerment and police brutality all while painting it bubble-gum pink.
A veritable Gen-Z icon or spokeswoman, it’s easy to see how much of her potential audience can choose to overlook any potential wrongdoings given how connected she is to them, their youth culture, and more importantly their ideals.
Martinez has even challenged cancel culture itself in her work by turning the lens of judgement back onto the viewers, those who do the dirty work of any online cancellations. In the extended scene for “Drama Club”, two girls bury the body of another they ripped apart with words and nonchalantly decide to. go play tennis like they didn’t just hurt someone.
Perhaps above the branding and the circumstances of the allegations, it’s the fact that the gossip mill spins so fast these days that people move onto the next cancellation and no one’s really keeping score of anything.
Regardless of anyone’s personal opinion of Melanie Martinez, she’s an interesting study in the power, and sometimes lack thereof, of cancel culture in today’s society. Beyond that, I have no doubts that she will only continue to rise in popularity in the 2020s and with the Gen-Z population. Only time will tell what she does with her influence and if her dark pop sexuality has any negative repercussions on its fans.
