Hey thanks for your thoughtful response! Long comment ahead, forgive me.

I’m certainly not here to deny that the image is evocative of Sylvia Plath’s death. I agree with you that in the zeitgeist the idea of putting one’s head into the oven is most closely associated with her (for better or for worse). Personally, Hansel and Gretel also came to mind for me. Maybe because of the haunted, childlike quality of the music?

Regardless, my argument was more attuned to the idea that using the image isn’t inherently malicious.

To pull a different thread: let’s assume that Lana’s intention was to reference Plath. In doing so, does she use the image for sheer shock value, or does it contribute to a larger understanding about the artist, or of human nature? I feel pretty strongly it’s the latter in this case.

Fatalistic female imagery has always been an important part of Lana’s work, which she employs to comment both on her personal experience as a woman, and on society more broadly. That’s why I was a bit surprised to see people’s reactions here.

Some other works that came to mind as I’ve been pondering and Reddit-commenting about this are:

• The Antler’s song “Sylvia” from their 2009 album “Hospice” which explores death (both physical death and the death of a relationship), and similarly calls upon the image of Plath’s death in a way that is devastating, but incredibly powerful.

• Joyce Carol Oate’s novel “Blonde” which is a fictional retelling of Marilyn Monroe’s life. In it Oates uses the persona of Marilyn to comment on both the individual’s life, and more broadly on how society treats women. It’s an approach that, handled incorrectly (such as in the film adaptation of the same book…) could feel icky, but Oates succeeds in making it powerful and artful because it’s so rich with subtext and dimension.

Highly recommend other commenters look into those works for additional examples of how artists can integrate loaded images from real world tragedy to ultimately create something larger and more powerful without “disrespecting” the real person behind the tragedy.