Readers of this blog know I love me some post-punk, as there were so many interesting female artists who came out of this varied experimental reaction against punk’s formal rigidity. Evincing my Western leanings, I’m particularly keen on British post-punk. Much of the reason for this — and perhaps it suggests othering on my part, though it’s not my intention — is that these acts’ singers tended to highlight rather than downplay their accents.
While the British Invasion certainly made it acceptable for English artists to use their accents, many adopted unaccented (re: “American”) vocal styles. Some channeled affectations of the cadences, phrasing, and pronunciations of Southern Delta blues artists. I’d imagine that Scottish, Irish, and Welsh accents were not regarded as favorably, something Alan Cumming addresses when discussing a song by The Proclaimers on KCRW’s Guest DJ Project.
I’m a big fan of accents. I was never much of an actress, but I have something of a knack for mimicry. I have no real discernible accent myself, despite my Southern heritage. I suppose my accent is something of a nonregional Midwestern amalgam inherited from my mother and honed by voice lessons. My southeast Texan accent can sometimes come into play, usually when talking to another Southerner, launching into a rant, claiming something to be “real good,” or dismissing it as “stewpid.” But I’m also quite fond of how some New Yorkers refer to canines as “dawhgs,” Southern Californians snarl and flatten words, and Georgians drawl.
As a music fan, I’m especially drawn to the seemingly patrician British accent employed by many female artists associated with post-punk. As an outsider (a Yank in the UK, a Texan in the states), there’s something fascinating about the uneasy juxtaposition of women’s deadpan singing in a supposedly proper accent against throbbing bass and angular guitar cacophony. It seems to go against English sensibilities of proper decorum, thus making the vocalists sound like they’re using cultural assumptions about their national identity to subvert conventional notions of white British femininity. As many of these artists were feminist and sang about sexism, misogyny, patriarchy, gender, and sexual politics, I think the function of accents should be considered.
Admittedly, there are some shortcomings to discussing accents. Regional specificity and class position in relation to educational training inform accents. I’m also not sure how much of this is an act, as playing up the working class Cockney accent has become increasingly commonplace in popular music (see also: Blur, Lily Allen, M.I.A., The Streets). And of course, there are a panoply of notable British accents — the singular Cockney permutations of East London’s grime scene most immediately comes to mind. But I often have this “proper British” accent in my head, so today I thought I’d briefly draw attention to a few other vocalists who employ it. We may be familiar with Ana Da Silva and Gina Birch of London’s The Raincoats and Julz Sale of Leeds-based quintet Delta 5. But what about Linder Sterling of Manchester’s Ludus; Tracey Thorn, Gina Hartman, and Alice Fox of Hertferdshire’s Marine Girls; and Trish Keenan of Birmingham’s contemporary act Broadcast? Let’s listen.
Betty Friedan; image courtesy of windycitymediagroup.com
Five days ago, Chloe Angyal wrote a piece for Tiger Beatdown entitled “Miley Cyrus < Betty Friedan: On the Search for a Feminist Pop Star.” Springboarding off The Frisky’s Jessica Wakeman’s assessment that Miley Cyrus’s new single and accompanying music video for “Can’t Me Tamed” is empowering for girls, Angyal chided some critics’ need to claim female celebrities who project even the slightest sense of self-empowerment as feminist. She also called into question whether or not feminism and pop culture can ever really go together. As a fan of the site (it’s on my blogroll), I of course read it and RTed (follow me @ms_vz).
I’m right with Angyal on most of this. I had just read Rachel Fudge’s essay “Girl, Unreconstructed: Why Girl Power is Bad for Feminism” that a Girls Rock Camp Austin volunteer forwarded, so I was certainly in the right headspace. The line “It’s tempting, but ultimately misguided, to try to make feminist mountains out of girl power molehills” particularly spoke to me. Also, I was also frustrated by Wakeman’s piece, as it assumed that pop music and MTV were the portals through which all girls take their cues, thus absenting girls who don’t have access, reject these offerings, or perhaps find some middle ground. Also, I thought the clip was a blatant attempt to reinvent a girl pop star into an “adult” artist who equates edge with wearing lingerie and smudged eyeliner.
However, I took issue with some of Angyal’s argument. Kristen at Act Your Age left a great comment outlining the lack of actual girls’ perspectives in feminist criticism. She also pointed out that pop music is still often assumed as the bad object against which punk and riot grrrl fought and superceded, a bias we confront in our work with GRCA by trying to dialog musical genres with one another in our music history workshops. But I thought I’d add a few additional concerns. Originally, I was going to post them as a comment to the article. However, it’s been nearly a week since the article was published — a lifetime in the blogosphere. Plus, I figured I could work through some of these issues here and reassert this blog as a communal space for feminist exchanges about music culture.
1. Angyal’s major critique seems to be less about who gets labeled a feminist role model and more toward who does the labeling. To me, she was lobbing her complaint at writers who want to argue the progressive powers of pop music with minimal consideration for enlightened sexism, capitalism, division of labor, corporate enterprising, branding, media saturation, and taste engineering cultivation. I say “here here.” But then I also do this sort of analysis myself. What’s more, I’d like to think I do it on both sides of the mainstream/underground divide, where the lines continue to blur. I know I don’t have the clout or name recognition of more prominent feminist bloggers, and perhaps I’ll cultivate it with time. But I’m here, and so is this blog.
I think Angyal might also be frustrated with how quick writers are to jump on Tweeting trends and topics that guarantee high SEOs. I may be projecting, as this is something that bothers me and I rebel against. Often, I find myself recalling and revisiting bygone or obscure texts to argue their historical merit or dialog them with the present. If I do write about current popular texts, I don’t have much interest in covering them quickly at the expense of evaluation time. I’m not sold on the idea that trends = cultural relevance any more than I am that Sleater-Kinney is inherently better than Nicki Minaj. While I have upon occasion covered a person or topic that was popular and got me some hits, I only did it when I felt I had critical insights to lend. Thus, it can be frustrating when I get traffic because a bunch of people were Googling Megan Fox, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Taylor Momsen, or Miley Cyrus, as has happened to Kristen. On the one hand, hits are great. But those figures are bloated and misleading and may misrepresent my work, because this blog has only sporadic concern with what’s of the moment. But when it does, I hope I treat it with a consistent critical rigor. After all, there truly is no perfect text.
2. Since there is contention between mainstream and indie culture, I’d like to point out that the matter of identifying as a feminist is just as much a concern in the underground and on the fringes of music culture as it is under the mainstream’s spotlight. As a feminist music geek who tends to root for the underdog, I’m often faced with the reality that many of the artists I love — indeed, many of the artists who pointed me toward feminism — don’t identify as feminists. Björk and PJ Harvey don’t, nor does Patti Smith. Rappers like Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, and many others don’t either, though for reasons that perhaps speak more to racial exclusion, as feminism tends to be a white women’s domain. There are many artists I like whose feminist politics I don’t have a grasp on, including forward-thinking women like Kate Bush, M.I.A., Joanna Newsom, and Janelle Monáe.
There are also artists who do identify as feminist who give me pause. Courtney Love has used feminism to validate her outspoken persona and rail against industry sexism. She has also used it to justify getting plastic surgery, an argument that I take issue with because it obscures class privilege, ingrained beauty standards, and weakens the political potential of choice. Lily Allen has employed the term at times, though her actions and behavior at times suggest that she extols the supposedly feminist virtues of being a brat. Lady Gaga is only starting to claim any identification with feminism. Even confirmed feminists like Sleater-Kinney, Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, Le Tigre, Gossip, and Yoko Ono — who I admire a great deal for their musical contributions and political convictions — should be subject to scrutiny and considered as individual feminists rather than as a monolithic representation of who a “good” feminist is.
Also, rather than considering pop music as an endpoint or part of a binary, it should be dialoged with other genres and mediums. Recently, Anna at Girls Rock Camp Houston dropped me a line asking about my thoughts on new criticism against Lady Gaga from Mark Dery and Joanna Newsom. As their criticisms questioned her supposed edginess, called out her obvious indebtedness to Madonna, and argued over a lack of musical songcraft, it immediately recalled recent sound bites from Michel Gondry, M.I.A., and Grace Jones deflating the pop star’s artistic inclinations.
I’m of two minds about these detractors’ comments. On the one hand, I still agree. In the year since I first posted about Gaga, I’ve essentially gathered greater nuance for the pop star while still arriving to the same conclusions. Save for a few hits (“Beautiful, Dirty, Rich,” “Bad Romance,” “Monster”), I still think her music is fairly boring and could have much more political bite than it actually does. I thought her American Idol performance of “Alejandro” was overblown. It’s also a fair point to bring up how Gaga lifts from other cultural texts, just as Madonna has throughout her career. And like Amanda Marcotte, I think there are lots of other interesting female musicians doing work we should be following. I mean, is it really a crime not to find Gaga interesting? Does Gaga have to be the female savior of pop music? Can we not look elsewhere? Also, in the cases of Newsom, M.I.A., and Jones, do we have to assume that their criticisms are just examples of female cattiness?
Yet something about these comments smacks of the idealized notion of art vs. commerce, with Gaga imitating one while supposedly embodying the latter. So, I call bullshit, because it’s not like these musicians and this video director don’t also dabble with both. Also, how would they speak of, say, Karen O, another female musician who makes femininity Marilyn Manson grotesque. Would they simply sniff that she did it before Gaga? Would they give her the point because she’s mocked art stars while also being one?
In short, feminism is tricky from all sides. It’s not one thing and it’s never perfect.
3. Finally, I follow commenter Tasha Fierce and take issue with Angyal’s supposition that Betty Friedan is an exemplar of feminism. She penned The Feminine Mystique and founded NOW. She also helped position feminism as a middle-class, college-education, white ladies’ game. She also referred to lesbian separatists as “the lavender menace,” though later recanted. Thus, just as I don’t want Miley Cyrus to be the ambassador for girl power, I don’t believe we should have one (straight, white, middle-class, adult, cisgender, able-bodied) female represent feminism. Let’s encourage discourse, even at the expense of comfort. Consider me a willing participant.
Now, we’ve looked a lot at Lisa A. Lewis’s applications of access signs and discovery signs in female-address music videos. For a quick refresher, access signs are public cultural spaces typically closed off to women and girls. A good example we haven’t brought up is Lily Allen frequenting a record store and wandering the streets of London in “LDN.” Discovery signs, by contrast, are traditionally private, feminized spaces like the home, as illustrated in most of the music video for Estelle’s “1980.”
But the reality is that most women and girls navigate both the public and private spheres, a fact that the last 40 seconds of “1980″ makes clear when the home opens up into the neighborhood for a block party. A fantastic example of a music video that showcases the negotiation of access and discovery signs is Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” So tonight, as I bundle up in my house and watch the pilot of Friday Night Lights after a long day at the office and some post-work errand-running, I thought it would be fun to showcase a couple of music videos that acknowledge the fluidity of movement in our daily lives.
Speech Debelle
“The Key” Speech Therapy
Directed by Anthony Dickenson
Sleater-Kinney
“Get Up” The Hot Rock
Directed by Miranda July
BTW, kudos to my friend Caitlin for nudging me toward Speech Debelle. Isn’t she great?
I’m helping out with Cinemakids this weekend. I’m gonna help a group of kids and pre-teens – some of whom might not have picked up a camera before tomorrow — work through the process of shooting their own movie. Exciting!
In tribute to these rad, creative beings who I’m about to meet, alongside other like-minded individuals (this is as good a moment as any to point you in the direction of I’m The Fox, an interactive ‘zine put together by alumna of GRCA), I thought I’d post this delightful performance from Capital Children’s Choir of Lily Allen’s “Chinese.”
Bonus points for picking a song from a sassy pop star about the joys and comforts derived from mother-daughter bonding and for being arranged by a lady.
So, loyal readers, I’ve had some wrenches thrown in my schedule this past week, making it more difficult for me to blog lately. Suffice it to say, getting my car back will help. I’ve got some drafts I’m working on and hope to get a brand new entry with in-depth analysis up tomorrow.
In the meantime, who doesn’t love music videos? So, from time to time when I get a little too busy, I thought I’d share a self-curated retrospective of music videos from a female director. If she were a dude, like Michel Gondry, we may call her an “auteur”. But since there’s no female equivalent in French for “author,” I thought I’d just make up a word (I’m a quarter French, so I’m sure the Académie française is cool with it). I really wished I could do this for my thesis. With a self-authored blog, fuck it. Make up some words, says the bloggess.
Oh, and in the spirit of gynocriticism, I’ll only focus on the music videos these directors have done with female artists or female-led mixed gender musical acts. Tonight, we focus on Sophie Muller, who I kept hoping would get her own Directors Label DVD. Since she’s famous and the people she works with are often also famous, embedding is tricky business. For the sake of consistency, just click on the artist’s name.
