“Sometimes I trip over so he doesn’t think I’m too perfect” The Femcels

Artist Take / 9 March 2025 / By: Hollywood Superstar

The Femcels are a musical and artist duo based in London. Here is their "Artist Take" with Hollywood Superstar.

Hollywood Superstar asks The Femcels for inspiration and recommendations to increase our cultural capital. “We want to be able to talk to girls at parties” we exclaim, prostrating ourselves at Gabi and Rowan’s feet while they vape. Their hit song “He Needs Me” is about being a crazy manic pixie dream girl and a fem (cell) in 2025. He needs me, He needs me, He needs me, He needs ME. He blocked me on Snapchat. He won't text me when he skateboards.

"Sometimes I trip over so he doesn't think I'm too perfect"

Femcel No.1 Rowan (24)

Dancer, Edgar Degas (1891) Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle.

It’s at the Hamburg Kunsthalle - where I did Erasmus, and I thought I had seen into a wormhole where Edward Degas had painted weird sci-fi dogs. That is, until my boyfriend at the time ruined it. I work as an illustrator, which is already being replaced with AI. Rich people will always want to buy real paintings. Rich people will always want to buy my paintings.

Fluffy (1980) by Gloria Balsam

Fluffy is a dog who tries to run from her but she always knows it will be by her side. The song makes me feel like I’m in a musical in a parallel universe where everything is so beautiful and strange. I’m in contact with Gloria - I am going to interview her soon : 3 I can do a perfect off-pitch impression of the song, and I’m gonna sing it to her on Zoom. Singing always sounds better out of tune.

The Cuck Song by Leonard Cohen

“What really makes me sick is that everything goes on as it went before.” I’m not really a jealous person (I’m so chill), so maybe I would be susceptible to taking cuckoldry like a chump. Cucks should have rights. I read somewhere that allegedly David dobrick is a cuck, and I see that for him, it kind of humanises him. My favourite bit of the poem is where he keeps putting his full name in a line: “You just wanted to cuckold Leonard Cohen”. Then he goes: “I like that line because it’s got my name in it” he’s so funny and real.

I think you have to revel in the cuckoldry. Last year at a party my friend and I [name redacted] were standing next to a sofa of people, and we were saying how we were both flirting with someone, and that it was going well. Then we look down and the two people we were flirting with start kissing. They start lying down on the sofa, caressing each other and smooching their hearts out. It was unbelievable. We put on some cucky drake song and started jumping around and singing it to them, but they were too into it to notice.

Also, I feel like Leonard was kinda being cucked on that record (death of a ladies' man) because Phil Spector kind of ran away with his music and made sweet love to it, and Leonard had to hate it even tho it’s amazing because he fucked his girl.

Soft City (2008) by Pushwagners and Ghost World (1995)

My tutor at university showed it to me, so maybe in 2021. I think dystopia is so hard to do well, and this is a true masterpiece If you like 60s/70s style illustrations then you should buy this. My friend Barney was upset that I didn’t show him sooner and told me off for gatekeeping.

If the Femcels were in a comic, we should find god. Or go up to strangers and ask them random stuff. Ghost World (COMIC, NOT FILM, NO OFFENCE) is a good reference point. It’s so perfect. I love that half the comic is them just saying random ugly men are hot. I think that’s so real. It’s the meat and potatoes of life.

London could be a soft city. I’m on set as an extra on a Jason Statham movie. All of us are dressed in uniforms of green satin Zara and suits with powdered foundation so it feels like a slay soft city.

Buildings used to be scary because people had more hope

Femcel No.2 Gabi (24)

Shiki-Jitsu or Ritual (2000) Hideako Anno

It’s crazy how a 40-something man can know how to convey exactly what a 16-something girl can feel like around a 40-something man. Teenage-girl Gabriella feels like a dream away, but love and pop force me to remember how I felt. I think all I wanted to be was dope and cool.

As a female, I think an appeal of an anime girl is to go “she’s literally meee” when watching; they tend to have hyperbolic versions of our characteristics. The muse in Shiku-Jitsu is psychotic yet relatable; her psychosis is loveable, but the uncovering of her is too grotesque to be an animated chick. She only wears red and lives in a castle she crafted herself, an abandoned warehouse filled with red umbrellas; she’s flesh, a human flesh version of a big-boobed blue-haired character.

“Could I be an anime girl in real life?” Maybe I could if I got a boob job. The closest we ever got to being anime girls was the 2020 e-girl culture. Maybe if we locked ourselves inside for another 10 years, we would come out as animations.

Lip Kit Glosses by Kylie Jenner

Glosses is a 2018 cinematic masterpiece. Kylie Jenner. IG baddies. Convertible. LA. 3 Strikes by Terror Jr. “Literally so cute”.

As a teen, I was prone to disregard anything mainstream, but I always loved Kylie; she’s just an emo chick in a millionaire's body.

Snap Maps (2017- present)

I am a bog-standard victim of panopticism. I can’t do makeup without pretending I am in a YouTube video. My internal monologue sometimes transcends to a podcast; when I have a crush, I dream about how they view me. I would definitely live off-grid. But yeah, I fuck with snap maps, bitimojis, everyone knowing where I am. Dope.

Knockout by Lil Wayne and Niki Minaj (2010), Young Money Senile Ft Nikic, Wayne, Tyga (2014)

Damn young money senile is fire. It's a rap version of a Melanie Martinez video. Knockout is perfect song-wise, though my dream is to scream like Weezy. “Hey, barbie, can I call you Barbra” Perfect. Video-wise, maybe Senile.

Putting socks on top of ur shoes and tying it for security with another sock