Sia’s “Elastic Heart” Video & the Romantic Ideal
A little while back a friend of mine suggested I watch Sia’s “Elastic Heart” video starring Shia LaBeouf and Maddie Ziegler and wanted me to give my opinion of this beautiful but provocative video. This suggestion and request led to me going interpretively nuts on it, as well as a considerable amount of face-palming whilst reading through some of the comments and reactions to the video by those considering it some form of pedophilia. This controversy eventually resulted in a desire to write this article.
It is my understanding that the video has very little to do with pedophilia. This interpretation comes, as one YouTube commentator aptly put it, from the projection of these experiences onto the video. It is true that on a certain level the video can be viewed in this manner, but I feel that this is a far too simplistic and misguided interpretation. What the video is portraying is instead much deeper and is, as I will argue below, closely related to the Romantic ideal of childlike innocence and a desire, struggle and eventual inability to completely return to this state.
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