When it comes to bringing her esoteric (by normal people standards) costume A game, Ariana Grande is undeniably the winner in terms of mainstream pop stars. She proved this point for Halloween last year (what feels like a decade ago) when she dressed in honor of the two-part episode of The Twilight Zone entitled “Eye of the Beholder.” To fully embody one of the pig people considered “beautiful” by the State (not so alternate now, considering the current president), Ari donned an array of prosthetics that kept her from eating or drinking the entire night in her costume. Yet that’s just how committed the Floridian is to an iconic look. “Pig Person of The Twilight Zone” proved to be the rule, not the exception for how Grande relishes a getup that is not only complex but also makes a statement on the society we live in (unlike, say, Kylie Jenner dressing as Christina Aguilera in assless chaps).
Maybe her decision to adopt Dani Ardor’s (Florence Pugh) May Queen aesthetic also stemmed from the fact that twenty-seven is a celebrity age when everyone feels a little susceptible, so fraught with Grim Reaper implications as it is, and so close to death has Ari been (both with regard to losing her ex-boyfriend and close friend, Mac Miller, and being trapped in an arena amidst a terrorist attack). And Midsommar, if nothing else, is about the importance of releasing emotions. Donning her floral crown for her June 26th birthday (because of course she’s a Cancer), Grande captioned images with, “My friends and I went with a midsommar theme because help me.” Being the inherently emotional personality type that comes with the territory of Cancerness, the resonance of a film like Midsommar for Grande is difficult to overlook. As a movie that opens immediately with Dani’s loss of her sister and parents (in an extremely fucked up way), the trauma our heroine suffers is truly horrific.
That she had been dealing with the mental health issues of her sister for a while before this cataclysmic incident had already put a strain on her relationship with her boyfriend, Christian (Jack Reynor), but her fragile state upon losing her entire family further pushes their already fledgling rapport to a breaking point. Still, Christian is both too callow and passive aggressive to simply end it, feeling guilty because of the tragedy that has befallen Dani. Just when he finally musters the courage to break up with her before going on a trip to Sweden that he didn’t tell her about, he instead invites her when his other friends start talking about it in front of her.
With the awkward precedent for the trip already set, things build from uncomfortable to untenable fairly quickly once they arrive at the Hårga commune. The sight of a “ritual” of two old members of the commune jumping off a cliff to kill themselves (a tradition called ättestupa) sets everyone on edge (no pun intended). To add to the disturbing nature of it all, the man who jumps doesn’t die on contact, crying out in agony—the sounds of which his fellow commune members mimic. This, of course, foreshadows the mimicry of Dani’s own wailing later on in the film, once she has finally decided to start releasing her pain instead of suppressing it, as one is conditioned to in American culture.
Yet, as Grande’s message has solidified ever since the release of 2018’s Sweetener, stifling emotions is never worth it. The “it” in question being to make other people feel comfortable by not having to sit with your pain. But all pain is shared in the interconnectedness of humanity, which is something that the United States in particular has long tried to ignore, with, as we’ve seen, some fairly catastrophic consequences. For every time emotion is pushed down, it can only end up bubbling to the surface later on, and explosively.
Grande knows this better than anyone in the handling of her own trauma. She perhaps best boils down the intrinsic theme of Midsommar in one of her own songs from thank u, next, “fake smile,” declaring, “I can’t fake another smile/I can’t fake like I’m alright/And I won’t say I’m feeling fine/After what I been through, I can’t lie/Fuck a fake smile.” And yes, truly, why should anyone have to hide what they’re feeling? For the sake of ensuring “polite” society? We’ve all seen where that has gotten us. So yes, once again, just as with her The Twilight Zone costume, Grande has made a grand(e) comment on the culture at large with her May Queen attire. Except, of course, that she is the Emotional Queen, the ultimate advocate for self-care and encouraging one to do what’s best for their mental health.
