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Performing femininity
Cinema Hearts, led by ex-beauty pageant queen Caroline Weinroth, with its pop-rock sensibility and do-it-yourself ethos creates a vision of performing femininity. Taking her experiences from pageantry, Weinroth creates an album filled with two conflicting ideas: the woman that she wants to be versus the woman that society demands her to be. Just like the title of the LP, Your Ideal, Cinema Hearts delves into the destruction that comes from creating an identity around someone you are not.
“Mirror” has all these thoughts wrapped into one. As an opener goes, this track presents the LP’s themes effortlessly. With an electric guitar and confessional lyricism, Cinema Hearts delves into the inevitable contradictions that come from pageantry. In its demands, it fixes into the resolution that she has to lead a life of charades. This embrace of others’ expectations is further realized in the track “Your Ideal,” which has a grainy, punk sound. Screaming the lyrics “my favorite woman is the one that is not real,” Weinroth fully realizes the delusion that comes from societal behavior and what comes with it. Respectability is thrown out the window, with almost a DIY sound, as if the singer is trying her hardest to grasp at something she knows is impossible to reach. This type of sound really adds to the overall performance of the entire album.
Further in the album’s tracklist, “Everyday is a Day Without You,” has a contrasting classic feel. With its more cinematic feel, there is a hopelessly romantic feel to it. Rather than the more aggressively rock deliveries of earlier parts of the record, there is a beauty in the strong belts. Yet when the electric guitar takes an instrumental break for the bridge, there is no thought that it is superfluous. Rather, it gives an edge to the ballad. “Can I Tell You I Love You” follows in a similar vein; rather than simply being a ballad, it has an ethereal quality that stands out as a break from the sound of the earlier part of the record.
When the LP ends with “Sister,” it leaves a note of bittersweetness. Clearly, the album acts as a sense of catharsis from moving on from the world of pageantry. Becoming more authentic and delving into rawer emotions in the latter half of the album, the songwriting truly shines.
Cinema Hearts clearly shows how valuable singer-songwriters are. It provides a unique perspective in its short runtime. Even in its twelve minutes, the listener understands how warped the societal expectations of women are, as well as challenging them to embrace the rougher edges to themselves. It is a solid LP that makes one excited to hear what Cinema Hearts has in store for the future.