Rita Ora Faces Heat from LGBTQIA+ Community.

The LGBTQIA+ community are outraged at the "harmful" lyrics in pop singer Rita Ora’s new song ‘Girls.’

‘Girls’ was slammed by the LGBTQIA+ community for containing "harmful" lyrics, such as “Red wine, I just wanna kiss girls” and rapper Cardi B’s verse, “I steal your bitch, have her down with the scissor.” The new song features the influential artists, Rita Ora, Cardi B, Charlie XCX, and Bebe Rexha.

Papatoetoe resident Aram Wu, 30, believes the song is “problematic.” As an active member of the community, Wu fights for equal rights and treatment of LGBTQIA+ people. Like others, Wu disagrees with the messages shared in ‘Girls.’

“It’s not about romance; it’s purely about the sexualization of the bisexual body.”

In the song, Rita Ora announced her “50/50” sexuality. However, critics of the song observed that the song was written by men. “Rita Ora didn’t write it herself, so how true and authentic can it be to her journey?" Wu says. "It is actually quite problematic."

Aram Wu commented on the stereotypes enforced in ‘Girls.’

“Society is built around bisexual invisibility, this idea of either ‘choose a side,’ or ‘you’re greedy,’ or ‘you’re just experimenting.’” Wu believes a song with lyrics reenforcing these stereotypes could be harmful.

President of Out@AUT Jennifer Daruwalla, 20, says that Rita Ora’s influence over her younger audience is dangerous, even if it wasn’t meant to be harmful. “It might not have been her intention to be harmful, but it was the execution. And in the end, that’s the only thing that matters.”

Jennifer Daruwalla mentioned how in heterosexual music there is an emphasis of romance and love. However, representation of LGBTQIA+ people in music tends to be sexualised, with references to “one night only” experiences. “The song narrows bisexuality to drinks, weed and sex,” said Darawalla.

The artists featured on ‘Girls’ all have a large following of mostly young women. “When you have this platform, it’s an influence," Darawalla continues. "It shapes what people think sexuality is, because they may be very susceptible to any influence.” Rita Ora has an online following of 14.7 million followers, Cardi B has 42.4 million followers, Charli Xcx has 4.2 million followers, and Bebe Rexa has 7.9 million. That is a large collective audience for a song that may be promoting a harmful stereotype.

One of the featured artists on ‘Girls,’ Cardi B has a controversial past with saying extremely degrading comments made about the LGBTQIA+ community. In a since deleted tweet, Cardi B commented, “If my man cheat on me. I'ma get him drunk and let a tranny rape him.”

Daruwalla commented saying that having Cardi B featuring on ‘Girls’ is conflicting, due to her past homophobic comments.

“The fact that people look at Cardi B as a LGBTQIA+ icon now is so contradictory."

University student Katie Cosmann, 20, says that labelling ‘Girls’ as a LGBTQIA+ anthem is misleading. “Rita Ora claiming that she wants the song to become a bisexual anthem suggests that the song would accurately represent bisexuality, but it consists of lyrics undermining a romantic and/or sexual relationship.”

Cosmann is glad that Rita Ora has since apologised and says that when moving forward listeners need to realise that the portrayed hook-up culture is not representative of all LGBTQIA+ individuals. “I think that it is super important to acknowledge that one song sung by one woman will not be able to encompass the experiences of everyone within a whole sexual orientation.”

Artists have spoken up against ‘Girls,’ such as singer and LGBTQIA+ activist Hayley Kiyoko who addressed the harmful lyrics in ‘Girls’ in an Instagram post saying, “I don’t need to drink wine to kiss girls; I’ve loved women my entire life.”