“All the Things She Said”: t.A.T.u.’s Problematic Legacy Explained | Them

To this day, the phrase “all the things she said” shoots me back in time to 2002. At that point, “gay” was still used extensively as a slur (before Hilary Duff told us not to), as were “lesbian” and “queer.” Yet despite the casual homophobia of the era, you could also turn on the radio and hear the Russian pop duo t.A.T.u. sing in accented English to “her” instead of “him,” or flip on MTV and watch them cling to each other in the rain, draw each other closer, and kiss. 

For many, the group’s hit single was the sole piece of media they’d encountered that presented same-sex attraction not as a problem, but as an achingly yearning love story. “All the Things She Said” was everywhere in a way that seemed normal, which implicitly meant that the queer sexuality expressed within the song was as well, despite our culture’s insistence that such desire was inappropriate, even immoral. Or that was one reaction, at least; some critics at the time viewed t.A.T.u.’s sudden ubiquity with more scrutiny. As one writer asked at the time, “What are they really selling?”

After releasing their first record, 200 Po Vstrechnoy, in Russia in 2001, t.A.T.u. hit the English speaking world with 200 km/h in the Wrong Lane in December of 2002. A few months before, the band had dropped “All The Things She Said,” alongside its instantly controversial video. Critics were split on the group’s techno and trance-heavy sound — The Guardian gave 200 km/h four out of five stars, Rolling Stone only two — but the real buzz around t.A.T.u. centered on their “star-crossed lesbian lovers” image. 

Though it wasn’t unheard of to see girls kiss girls in mainstream American culture (see the infamous 2003 MTV Video Music Awards kiss between Britney Spears, Madonna, and Christina Aguilera), actual gay people, not to mention trans or other non-cisgender identities, were largely viewed as an aberration. The U.S. was years away from a presidential election in which same-sex marriage likely helped keep George W. Bush in office against John Kerry. So to many listeners, t.A.T.u. wasn’t just about seeing girls kiss; they were protecting and cherishing their love against an intensely disapproving world. And they would go on to do so on stages all over the world, including the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest, where they represented Russia.