‘Not the Only’ is a cute and fun pop anthem that celebrates diversity in relationships. I wrote the song late 2018 in L.A with my friends Ari (King Ellenoir) and Andrew (Furze). It’s a candy lensed look into open or poly relationships. It’s kind of a little party for my queer friends and fam in lockdown!
I find art and pop culture that only gives us cis-hetero relationship experiences to look at so bore core, so I wanted to design a narrative where female and femme sexuality can thrive without centring masculinity and also throw in some symbolic death the patriarchy to boot.
When I am making music and art, I like to create a whole world that is visual and often surreal. A world where this wild impossible fantasy has life and seems tangible, but eerily reflects a slanted view on society and my life experience.
It is a bit of a form of escapism for me to be honest, I am drawn to the chemistry created between the sound and the visual in the telling of the story. I do not know if everyone is like this, but for me, there is beauty in the synergy between the song and the visual that dances with it.
The dynamic of a strong video and cool song really hits differently. Of course, it is not always achievable as a self-hustling D.I.Y artist to have the privilege to make both or either, so I feel grateful to have had the opportunity to pull such a strong team together to create this.
The video concept for ‘Not The Only’ came about because I wanted to form a real-life girl gang of creatives that reflected how I wanted to be as a little girl growing up. I wanted a diverse representation of fierce femmes to play the heroes of the story.
I am obsessed with all the amazing women in my life and community, so I wanted to make a little film with all my badass femme friends playing overtly stylised versions of my imaginary teen idols.
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The video tells a twisted queer revenge fantasy about two super femme babes and their gang of bossed-up women. The women conspire to kill off their two loser boyfriends, steal their money and run off to be completely fulfilled, sexually satisfied, successful and powerful without them.
I am inspired by visual art and film, particularly art that is hyper-stylized, camp, and obscure. When we were making this video, I was deeply inspired by the visual artists, Nadia Lee Cohen, Cindy Sherman and Petra Collins along with cult classic films like Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Wild at Heart, True Romance, Gummo and Blue Velvet. Anything with lots of glittering darkness, that is twisted and beautiful.
I wanted to engage a lot of innovative and predominantly female creatives to help me bring the vision to life. I had been chatting with Ben Strunin (Director) and Cathy Cole (Producer) about the concept since it was born and once we had it mapped out everything just fell together quite naturally.
Most of the cast and crew are my friends, and the others came from a callout on Instagram. I linked up with a great production team, exceptional stylist and visionary Ntombi Moyo, fabulous hair and makeup team Rah Nikolaidis, Dion Marc and Agata Saka and my dynamic cast of baddies to create this shimmering but arcane utopian queer femme love story.
We filmed ‘Not The Only’ across 4 locations in Victoria over two days on barely any sleep. We shot in Mount Eliza, a run-down 70’s creepy beach shack that was owned by Cathy’s family at Smith’s beach in Phillip Island, an open field in Phillip Island and one of the cast member’s quirky share houses in suburban Melbourne.
I feel so incredibly grateful for the outstanding team of creatives who put every bit of their energy, hard work and passion into the making of this video. There was so much thought and effort went into every creative detail.
The choice to have women killing their boyfriends in this clip was one I made with intention. I wanted to illustrate a world where reality is skewed. Where the violence towards women, that society is so numb to witnessing, is flipped and reversed. It is a revenge dreamscape that also highlights the reality of disproportionate gender-based and intimate partner violence we cannot ignore.
It is interesting to me that the only people who have asked me why I made the choice to kill men in the ‘Not The Only’ video, or expressed any discomfort with my art, are cis-het men. If you are asking the question, is it because you are uncomfortable with seeing the violence that is typically perpetrated towards women and femme presenting folks being perpetrated towards men? For the sake of art? Please ask yourself why. We have become so desensitised to violence against women and devastatingly it is one of the most persistent issues for women and girls globally.
Gender-based violence happens across all races, class levels and ethnic backgrounds. However women of colour and trans women bear the brunt of it with much higher rates and disproportionate impact.
According to the World Health Organisation, one in three women have experienced violence at the hands of an intimate partner and 38% of murders against women are committed by their partners. And this is just interpersonal partner violence, without even looking at how many women die at the hands of men who are not their lovers, partners, or husbands.
The #MeToo movement most certainly marked a shift in visibility and acknowledgment of the issues of gender-based violence. It has been a very important step towards the beginning of breaking the silence so many women have carried for so long. But the movement plays out and impacts victims and survivors differently across cultural contexts.
The discourse around the #MeToo movement in the white Western/colonial culture tends to frame society as in the ‘after’ of #MeToo as if we have made substantial progress in making space for survivors of sexual violence to speak their stories.
It needs to be noted that for some women in non-Western/colonial cultures, coming forward with their stories makes them extremely unsafe and vulnerable to threat. Women of colour and trans women not only experience gender-based violence at a much higher rate than white cis women but often do not report what happens to them.
There are so many societal and cultural barriers in place that can prevent disadvantaged groups from accessing support services. It is important to acknowledge that the conversations around the #MeToo movement in western/colonial society often doesn’t recognise how unsafe it is for women of some cultural backgrounds to come forward and talk about their stories of sexual violence. In its very essence, the movement itself bears privilege.
Gender based violence is vast and universal. It is a global trauma, commonplace and takes so many different forms. It can be triggering for women who have long been subjugated by such an imbalance of power, who have been wearing this wound for way too long, to have it suddenly thrust into the spotlight as a very “on brand” topic.
Sure, we have acknowledged the generational and systematic oppression and abuse of women that continues today. However, we are still living in a world where the President of the U.S.A openly admits to grabbing women by the pussy and encourages other men to do the same, with no consequence.
We still have a disproportionate number of women being murdered at the hands of men. We still have millions of examples where women encounter direct misogynistic microaggressions daily. To the point where even the most politically outspoken are so exhausted, they are forced to pick their battles and roll with the rest.
To those of you who say not all men, I say too many men.
I am tired of men policing our bodies, centring themselves in our stories, taking up space and shoving their toxic masculinity down our throats. I am exhausted of the patriarchy silencing us, raping us, and killing us.
I am in a privileged enough position to go relatively unscathed and dodge criminalisation or death for speaking my mind through my art. So, for now, I am making art where the cis-het man plays the bitch.
Check out Clairy Browne’s official music video for ‘Not The Only’:
Clairy Browne released her single, ‘Not The Only’, in August 2021.
