by Tyler Wheatley , Staff Reporter
On March 26, Montero Lamar Hill, also known by his stage name Lil Nas X, dropped a new song and music video called “Montero (Call Me By Your Name).” The song was first teased in July of 2020 and after eight long months of waiting the song was finally released.
The music video has faced mixed reviews and criticism mostly from religious groups. The video has a lot of biblical images and references such as Hill being in the Garden of Eden, the infamous serpent, and even Satan himself. The song’s title is a reference to the romantic coming of age movie “Call Me By Your Name” in which a 17-year-old boy and a 24-year-old man develop a romantic relationship. The main theme of the movie is “Call me by your name and I’ll call you by mine” which is like a forbidden romance. But now it’s not forbidden because he is open about his sexuality.
The music video opens with Hill saying, “In life, we hide the parts of ourselves that we don’t want the world to see and lock them away and we tell them no. We banish them but here we don’t. Welcome to Montero.” This ties into Hill finally being open about his sexuality despite the backlash.
On Instagram Hill posted a note he wrote to himself along with the project saying “Dear 14 year old Montero, i wrote a song with our name in it. It’s about a guy I met last summer. I know we promised to never come out publicly. I know we promised to never be ‘that’ type of gay person, I know we promised to die with the secret, but this will open doors for many other queer people to simply exist.”
In the video, viewers see the words “After the division the two parts of man each desiring his other half” written on a tree in Latin. The tree is represented as the tree of life and is a reference to Plato’s Symposium. The words are meant to Praise Eros who is the God of Love and Desire.
In this song, Hill appears to like the guy in the beginning but as time goes on he becomes more desperate and is more so in a lust state of mind. He proclaims, “I wanna feel on your *** in Hawaii” and “I want that jet lag from ******* and flyin’.”
In Hell, the floor has a quote that reads, “They condemn what they do not understand.” This has another connection to Hill’s homosexuality. Christians have been known to tell homosexuals to “Go to Hell” and “condemn” them for loving whom they love. In this video, Hill is embracing what anti-homosexual religious groups tell him and using it to his advantage to get attention.
However, that has caused some major controversy within Christian communities and churches.
“We are promoting Satan shoes to wear on our feet,” political commentator Candace Owen said. “We’ve got Cardi B named as woman of the year. But we’re convinced it’s white supremacy that’s keeping black America behind.”
With all the hate and criticism, Hill has received support from his fans.
“I think he’s just putting his foot down against toxic Christians and just being himself and not caring about what people think,” freshman Jade Lydia said. “He did it to stir up controversy and he did exactly that. I’m happy for him.”
All the hate means nothing to Hill who uses it as fuel for more attention and has been trolling the haters. From selling “Satan shoes” to making fake apology videos, Hill has been enjoying all the memes and tiktoks about him.
“I’m not one to judge however, I do feel like he went too far with the music video but the hate he is receiving is too much.” Cypress Sophomore Ariana Howard said. “But, I understand where people are coming from. People’s religion is not something to mess with.”
Although Hill was considered a “one-hit wonder,” it’s obvious now that he is much more than that and fans are excited to see what comes next.
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