intimate partner violence « Feminist Music Geek

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Jan

Paradise Titty rock and make me not feel so bad about “Rocket Queen”

Paradise Titty (from left to right): Bassist Deb Norris, guitarist Beth Puorro, guitarist Emily Marks, vocalist Kitty Shearer, drummer Lori Glidden; image courtesy of myspace.com/paradise titty

I went to go see Paradise Titty at Stubbs’ last night. I went because a) the all-female Guns N’ Roses cover band is comprised of some Girls Rock Camp Austin personnel — including co-ordinator Emily Marks womanning Slash’s duties, b) I’ve missed their first few shows, and c) I’m fascinated by women performing in cock rock cover bands (see also Lez Zeppelin and AC/DShe). There seems to be a spirit of reclamation behind it, there’s a lot of inherent gender drag and play, and the bands tend to cultivate considerable followings with feminists and/or queer folks (particularly lesbians), which tends to be a reflection on the band members. Also it’s nice to have it affirmed that some of the ladies you know have killer chops.

(Note: After reading this post, Kristen at Act Your Age asked the “yeah, but what about the show” question. Ah, right. I shall answer here. The band sounded great and were really in sync, though I singled out drummer Lori Glidden’s command of her kit. I was surprised that lead singer Kitty Shearer, who possesses a rich tonal quality, sounded very little like Axl Rose. Likewise, save for Marks’s dexterous and faithfully Slash-like guitar playing, Paradise Titty sounded less like a cover band and more like a rock band covering Guns N’ Roses — even when covering GNR’s version of Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” While I know the outfit’s M.O. is to cover another band’s material, the show made me wonder what their original material might sound like.)

I’m not particularly familiar with Guns N’ Roses’ music. I have a cursory awareness of the singles, some of the music videos, and Chinese Democracy. I know that one of their songs contains racial epithets and homophobic language and that they were fond of heroin and alcohol. Much of my low opinion of Rose is informed by his Charles Manson obsession and violent behavior toward former partners like Stephanie Seymour and Erin Everly (the daughter of musician Don Everly and muse behind ”Sweet Child O’ Mine”). Oh, and that Slash is an awesome guitarist. Beyond that, I have spent much of my life abiding by the gendered belief that Guns N’ Roses were a band my stepbrothers liked (specifically a band Darren liked; Daniel has long been more of a Red Hot Chili Peppers fan).

So I was really interested in how a group of women would approach the band’s repertoire. I became especially curious after attending a Wax Fax trivia night and finding out that a) the original cover for GNR’s debut Appetite for Destruction was artist Robert Williams’s disturbing piece of same name and b) that said album contains the closing number “Rocket Queen,” which incorporates the recorded sounds of some girl getting fucked by Rose in the studio.

Robert Williams's "Appetite for Destruction," later to be the rejected cover for Guns N' Roses' debut album; image courtesy of arrestedmotion.com

Now, I’m not entirely clear of the situation or Adriana Smith, the pseudo-credited instrumentalist in question. Apparently she dated drummer Steve Adler and had sex with Rose to make him jealous. I’ve also heard that Smith was brought in to dance for a harmonica player that the band worked with. Regardless, this is all very icky to me. If fucking Rose is the prize or a means to an end, it’s icky. If this woman was getting passed around, it’s icky. If she was proud of being passed around and becoming studio spectacle, it’s icky. And if she didn’t know her impromptu “performance” would turn her voiced pleasure into a disembodied instrument, that’s all kinds of icky.

Having not seen Paradise Titty before, I was very pleased with how the ladies handle the song. They basically play it straight-ahead without the fuck sounds, though I’m sure we’d all oblige if the band wanted to take the song to a Vagina Monologues place during performance.

But what really makes their version work for me is that powerhouse Shearer seems to turn herself into the rocket queen, (note: she could also be singing to her rocket queen like Rose did; in doing so, she takes the song to a new, queerly sexy place). It also seems to honor the subject of the song, as Axl wrote it for a female acquaintance who wanted to start a band called Rocket Queen. Remember that a key reason why Heart are so beloved by generations of women and girls is because Ann Wilson was all about taking the subject position. I’ll take a deep-throated belter claiming her space in rock over just about anything else any day. So much the better when she’s got a great band backing her. I can’t wait to see and hear this one develop.

Sep

Joan Holloway’s “magnificent” parlor game

By Alyx Vesey 6 Comments

Note: Today’s post on Mad Men absolutely contains spoilers. In order to set up the particular scene that will take focus, I had to contextualize other key developments in a character’s life at this point in the series. If you’re not there yet, perhaps you’ll get to it. Keep this post in mind when you do.

Joan Holloway's parlor games; image courtesy of filmschoolrejects.com

Two musical moments for women in as many weeks? Oh, Mad Men. You are the gift that keeps on giving. Last week, I wrote about a scene involving Peggy Olson. Today, I will consider a key scene for office manager Joan Holloway (note: as she married Dr. Greg Harris, she’s now Joan Harris; however, I will refer to her as “Holloway”). And both involve music! Delightful.

Last Sunday, at her husband’s urging, Holloway broke out an accordian and sang “C’est Magnifique” from Cole Porter’s Can-Can to entertain guests for a dinner party they were holding at home. This scene is in sharp juxtaposition with Holloway’s current situation which, as with everything in Mad Men, is hardly magnificent.

That this scene happens at a dinner party is crucial. Older than Olson by a few years, Holloway is in her early 30s and potentially informed by what Noel Murray might call hostess feminism, where wives define themselves as masters of the art of entertaining — cooking, entertainment, hospitality, charming conversation – in order to impress the work associates of their professional, commanding husbands. If we recall from season two, Holloway is transfixed by Jacqueline Kennedy giving a televised tour of the White House. Her preoccupation with being the great and immaculately turned-out woman behind the great man may also speak to her status as the office sex symbol and why she seems the most shaken when Marilyn Monroe dies.

Hostess feminism seems the most applicable term for Holloway in last week’s episode, wherein she holds a dinner party for her husband’s boss. In our current iteration of feminism (or, ugh, post-feminism), some may argue that playing hostess has been reclaimed as progressive, being fluent in Emily Post as a formidable skill-set, and women throw homefront soirées because they want to, not because society has ordained that they be relegated to the domestic. I get this logic, but don’t think it’s that simple here.

Of course, women opting out of the workforce to be wives and mothers is not inherently bad. Feminism is about choice (though, it must also be noted, opting out of the workforce is also about means). Mothers are key players in our society, in that they keep the species alive and, if they do a good job, contribute kind, well-adjusted, and productive people.

It just seems that being a wife and mother wouldn’t be fulfilling to a professional woman like Holloway. Even when conforming to traditional office gender politics, it’s always under the guise of professional decorum (witness how she handles the humiliating run-in with nemesis Jane, Don Draper’s twentysomething former assistant and the new Mrs. Roger Sterling, who Holloway counts as an ex). She clearly possesses more institutional knowledge of Sterling Cooper than almost anyone. We even got an all-too-brief sense for Joan’s knack for television advertising in a season two episode, a knack the boys unfortunately overlooked. They couldn’t get past the cheesecake to see the burgeoning mad woman.

So, Joan’s decision to throw all of her interests into the domestic – strongly implied by her “maturing” age and that may be running out of time – is a little disconcerting, as she herself seems to realize. It doesn’t seem like she wants this life so much as she’s internalized that this is what’s she’s supposed to want. It’s what’s expected — and if you ever need a dark mirror image of how unfulfilling these roles can be to the women who occupy but don’t connect with them, look no further than Mrs. Mommy’s Time Out herself, Betty Draper.

An additional layer to Joan’s domestic unrest is with whom she’s chosen to make her life. Her husband, a doctor at St. Luke’s, has proven himself to be far from the great man any woman can stand behind. Last season, we witnessed him raping his intended in Don Draper’s office — an act of violence he probably dismisses as kinky rough play. In this ugly moment, we see Joan’s eye glaze over the legs of a chair as she’s ground further and further into the floor. It doesn’t get much lower on the corporate rung for this office manager than this. In addition to his brutish behavior, he may have scarce professional resources, as indicated by a botched operation he kept from his wife mentioned in passing by one of his colleagues that may result in him getting passed over her residency. In short, this horrible guy she committed her life to might be more of an albatross than she anticipated.

Which brings us to her impromptu performance of “C’est Magnifique.” Though coming from a musical written by an American, after having read Kelley Conway’s piece on the chanteuse réaliste and Phil Powrie’s piece on the role the accordian has played in French cinema in cultivating a national identity, it’s hard for me not to look for links between Holloway’s and Fréhel’s sexualized, economically marginal position. The big difference, however, is in delivery. Where Fréhel celebrates being raunchy, Holloway’s performance is professional, efficient, and unflappable.

It’s also what might be called pointedly empty. Part of this can be attributed to Holloway’s disembodied vocal performance. While it sounds like the voice pushing through actress Christina Hendricks’s mouth is her own, she is also clearly dubbed, her vocal take recorded in some unseen studio some time ago. Thus, there’s a clear break between singer and actor, even if the speaking voice and singing voice seem to match up.

This disembodiedness has an edge to it. Holloway recognizes the cruel irony of the seemingly lovely-dovey lyrics. She may also see a bit of herself in La Môme Pistache, Can-Can‘s protagonist. Both women now just how tragic love can be when it turns out to be a lie. My hope is that the character who is working through these issues on AMC this season is proactive in trying to find a viable solution. I’d hate for her to become as hollow as her maiden name implies.

May

All over “All Over Me”

By Alyx Vesey 4 Comments

Sometimes a movie just finds you right when you wanna see it. I felt this way the other night watching Alex Sichel’s only movie, 1997′s All Over Me. Five minutes into this poignant story (written by Alex’s sister Sylvia) about a young girl coming out, crushing on her friend, learning about homophobia, finding love, and thrashing on her guitar, I was hooked.

It didn’t hurt that the movie makes good use of Babes in Toyland and Sleater-Kinney.

I originally put this one in my Netflix queue because Leisha Hailey is in it. She has hot pink hair and plays in a band led by Helium’s Mary Timony called Coochie Pop. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I love her. I met her once when a friend was building her house in Marfa and she was as nice as I was paralyzed with awe. I think I was about 11 when I heard “You Suck,” a song she recorded as one-half of The Murmurs. I also really like their cover to the theme for H.R. Pufnstuf from the ultra-90s alterna compilation Saturday Morning: Cartoons’ Greatest Hits. They were two girls with Manic Panic hair, acoustic guitars, and helium voices that swore a lot, often in harmony.

How can you not love her?; film still of Leisha Hailey's Lucy

And, then there’s all the other stuff she’s done. The Yoplait ads that a lot of people have slammed but that she and I argue are super-queer (especially this one). Her electro project Uh Huh Her (taken from the PJ Harvey album of same name). She was also consistently my favorite part of The L Word, playing sarcastic, loyal, proudly bisexual wordsmith and deejay Alice Pieszecki.

Anyway, Hailey’s the love interest in this one. And does she ever meet cute with the movie’s protagonist. They exchange flirtatious glances in a guitar store. Hearts.

The story itself focuses on Claude (not Claudette, even though that’s her given name), a fifteen-year-old, working class baby dyke who loves knee-length shorts, her guitar, and her best friend Ellen (played by be-credded Imitation of Christ impresario Tara Subkoff) who is in serious denial about her friend’s true feelings (and possibly her own).

All around Claude, people are correcting her, trying to convince her that she likes boys, telling her to dress more feminine, putting lipstick on her. It’s particularly hurtful that the worst enforcers of heteronormativity in her life are also the two closest female presences — Ellen and her single mother, Anne (played by Ann Dowd, who plays Cookie Kelly, a similarly unsympathetic mother, in Freaks and Geeks).

It doesn’t help matters that Claude is totally in love with her best friend, who has ambivalent feelings about their relationship. Ellen seems to be aware of Claude’s attraction, and in two instances (momentary) reciprocates physically, but quickly dismisses these moments, running away from them so as to get closer to Mark, her dangerous, homophobic, possessive, violent boyfriend who may have killed a young gay man in the neighborhood. He’s played to type by Cole Hauser, who may be a lovely individual, but has a low monotone and looks like a red-headed potato and thus seems pitch-perfect to play angry young chauvinists.

When Ellen isn’t running to Mark, she’s abusing drugs and drinking. Add to that her (anorexic?) skinniness and blondeness and you have a girl trying very hard to be rebellious and subversive but who actually plays right into staid notions of straight, white, patriarchal society. And while she always reaches out to Claude in need — notedly through music, as both girls play the guitar — she is just as quick to push her away.

Meanwhile, Claude can’t really abide by straightness or patriarchy. There’s no room for her without completely destroying her spirit. Actress Alison Folland (who I thought was heart-breaking in To Die For) makes Claude both nervous and sedate, on edge but starting to make peace and embrace her lesbianism, recognizing that a life in the closet is far graver than the initial scariness of coming out.

As a result of recognizing her burgeoning sexuality, Claude starts breaking from Ellen, making a few queer friends in the process. A pleasant surprise in the movie is the presence of Wilson Cruz. He plays Jesse, who works with Claude at the neighborhood pizza parlor. As many know, he played Ricky Vasquez on My So-Called Life, one of the first and more fully realized gay teens on television. In some ways, he’s not playing too dissimilar a character here — the gay friend — but, like Ricky, is also a quiet, pensive, damaged but resilient young man. And one key way that he is not just playing the gay friend is that he is the gay friend to a young lesbian, thus promoting the idea that members of the LGBT community can be friends and allies across orientations.

Claude also gets involved with Lucy, a local musician played by Leisha Hailey. While Lucy’s age is never explicitly stated, it is revealed that she lives at home with her dad, who is often away, implying that she’s about Claude age. Claude meets Lucy at her band’s concert, blown away by her talent. Yet, she’s able to play the chivalrous dyke and buy Lucy a drink. She then goes home with her to hang out and listen to records, while Ellen camps out with Mark in Claude’s bedroom. Claude puts on one album (presumably Patti Smith’s Radio Ethiopia), and has the following emotional scene.

While I have ideological problems with Patti Smith’s gender configurations and how essentializing and normativitizing (male) rock historians can be of her work (particularly Horses), I was completely moved by this scene. By my count, there’s two things going on here: Claude is in anguish over Ellen and she is starting to confront her fear and anxiety of being gay (“Should I pursue a path so twisted? Should I crawl defeated and gifted? Should I go the length of a river?”).

Importantly, Claude isn’t galvanized after this scene or by this song (indeed, perhaps some would argue, in this movie, as she never has a big coming-out moment; the closest moments are at the end — one is implied, the other wordless). Through the rest of the movie, she struggles and evolves while learning to own and articulate her feelings for Lucy and confront the impossibly for her and Ellen to be together. Yet, Claude is becoming aware and is learning to develop and assert herself, potentially holding a guitar in one hand and Lucy’s hand in the other. No small feat for a fifteen-year-old lesbian teenager.

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Feminist Music Geek

Posts Tagged ‘intimate partner violence

Paradise Titty rock and make me not feel so bad about “Rocket Queen”

Joan Holloway’s “magnificent” parlor game

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