The use of the word ‘psycho’ in the title situates this video as an explicit response to the hetero-normative, misogynist ‘psycho girlfriend’ stereotype. Translating the specific paradigm of her rage to a female or non-binary sexual partner wouldn’t quite work, and I do wonder what different dynamics would emerge if the ethnicities of the male partners were more variable in the videos. In ‘Sweet but Psycho’, Max’s revenge seems to be on men generally, perhaps a symbol for the patriarchy. So a woman reclaims power, exclusively against men, through ownership of the very ‘psycho’ stereotypes which try to hold her down – right? Of the three archetypal Romantic madwomen identified by Elaine Showalter in The Female Malady: Women, Madness and English Culture, 1830-198 0, Max chooses to employ ‘the violent Lucia symbolising violence against men’. The three videos star Max as a ‘crazy girlfriend/ex’ figure who wreakes stylised, violent revenge on the (exclusively male and White, notably) boyfriends/exes/bosses who have wronged her. For ‘people’, read ‘women’, here – or, rather, a White, straight woman. Max herself claims the prior of ‘Sweet but Psycho’, ‘ think I’m actually calling them psycho, but then it’s a deeper meaning’. Leaving a ream of male critics and journalists to debate the intricacies of Max’s portrayals is short-sighted of the music criticism community I hope to offer a more invested voice to the conversation. However, could the effect ultimately just be a reproduction of old misogynist tropes, changing nothing and possibly even fuelling the faithful old fire of patriarchy?Īs someone who identifies as a woman and who has at times been disabled by mental illness, this question is personal and political to me, as all feminism should be. The persona that Max cultivates in these three videos is so overdone that it could be a cynical deconstruction of the ‘crazy’ stereotype, rather than a reinforcement of it. Ava Max (born Amanda Ava Koci), the Albanian-American pop singer who shot to stardom following the 2018 release of her hit single, ‘Sweet but Psycho’, capitalises on a heavily lip-glossed and lycra-ed image of the crazy ex-girlfriend in this single, as well as in ‘Torn’ and ‘Who’s Laughing Now’ (2020). She’s ‘sweet but psycho’, ‘torn’, ‘pushed to the edge’. CW: mental illness, mentions of gaslighting, violence.