Lisa Simpson « Feminist Music Geek

Posts Tagged ‘Lisa Simpson

Jun

Lisa Simpson, saxophone player

Lisa Simpson; image courtesy of wikimedia.org

Recently, my partner got season nine of The Simpsons on DVD. Perhaps suggesting our age, this was the last season either of us watched in its entirety upon original broadcast. We’ve caught episodes from season ten on in syndication, and I marvel at how the show has maximized high definition’s potential. We also saw The Simpsons Movie, which was more remarkable for the assuredly bombed woman who sang loudly to herself, yelled at Maggie for being a “cunt,” and called us “asshats” for telling her to be quiet before being escorted out of the theater. But for both of us, the ongoing series peaked 13 seasons earlier. The show may be sporadically hilarious and subversive, but like many successful television shows that go on for too long, it has also exhausted premises, developed a frantic tone, got further away from the family’s class struggles and feelings of mediocrity that made the show especially poignant in the early seasons, and dispensed with much carefully-crafted character development.

This last point seems especially true of Marge and Lisa Simpson to me. The show was never especially savvy with what to do with the tower-coiffed matriarch, who has dumbed down considerably in my estimation. The show’s predominantly male, Ivy League alum writing staff admit as such in several episode commentaries, noting that they rarely provided her with friends, struggled with ideas for a character so doggedly sensible, and sometimes relied upon female personnel to give her character development and narrative action (ex: season seven’s “Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield” was written by Jennifer Crittenden).

But the family’s spiky-haired middle child prodigy was always the show’s center for me growing up. What’s more, Lisa episodes were penned by male writers and rank among the best of the series for me, though they tend to focus more on her relationship with Homer than with Marge. Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein’s “Lisa Vs. Malibu Stacy” is my absolute favorite, but it’s in rich company with Jon Vitti’s “Lisa’s Substitute,” Dan Greaney’s “Summer of 4 Ft. 2,” Mike Scully’s “Lisa’s Rival,” Greg Daniels’s Emmy-winning “Lisa’s Wedding,” and David S. Cohen’s “Lisa the Vegetarian” (note: Oakley and Weinstein were show runners from seasons 7 and 8 and were replaced by Scully for 9-12 to develop the animated series Mission Hill; Greg Daniels went on to co-create King of the Hill and adapted the American version of The Office). So you’ll excuse me if I get snotty and say that Lisa has no business lip-syncing Ke$ha’s butt-stupid “Tik Tok.”

Much of why these episodes work so brilliantly, apart from the writing, is to do with the animators and animation directors working in accord with voice actress Yeardley Smith, whose distinct performance captures so much nuance around the heartache, loneliness, and ironic detachment that often comes from being the kid sister of a popular kid and is too smart for her surroundings. As creator Matt Groening often points out, Lisa is the only character he envisioned leaving Springfield. He and many other show personnel counter this by claiming her as the show’s tragic character whose ideas and actions are often thwarted or go unnoticed. Several smart girls can relate.

However, while I have noticed a slight lapse in Lisa’s all-too-precious perspicacity as the series has gone on, I recognize that she’s still a smart girl committed to change. To echo Jonathan Gray’s claims in Watching The Simpsons, Lisa remains the longest-running feminist character on television.

One thing I especially like about Lisa is her interest in music. Assuredly, she’s motivated in many other areas, including environmentalism, writing, and film-making, among others. But I always delighted in seeing Lisa strut out of Mr. Largo’s band practice while belting out a saxophone riff, as the director clearly doesn’t know what to do with free-thinking talent who have exceeded his teaching abilities. She has also used her musical aptitude toward political change, rallying her father Homer and his co-workers with her acoustic guitar and an impassioned protest anthem when they staged a strike at the power plant for better health benefits.

Having recently watched season nine’s “Lisa’s Sax” (written by past and current show runner Al Jean), I was touched while relearning the origins of how Lisa came to the jazzy woodwind instrument. Unable to afford admission into a ritzy private day care for their accelerated toddler, Marge wracks her brain for a way to encourage her daughter. Homer ends up forking over money he was saving for a new air conditioner when a chance visit to a music store presents Lisa with her artistic calling. I think it was a wise investment.

Mar

Covered: Joanna Newsom’s “Have One on Me”

By Alyx Vesey 8 Comments

Cover to Have One on Me (Drag City, 2010); image courtesy of seajellyexhibit.blogspot.com

As I’ve mentioned earlier, I’ve long been on the fence about Joanna Newsom. I remember playing “Bridges and Balloons” from The Milk-Eyed Mender once when I was still at KVRX. Her name had been bandied about in hushed, reverent tones by fellow deejays and I had to find out who was causing this kind of fuss. Upon first listen, I promptly thought to myself, “what is this art school pixie nattering on about? Is this some Nell shit? More like Joanna Nuisance.” Immediately after the song finished, a female listener called to thank me for playing the song, espousing its beauty with complete sincerity. Yeesh. Point taken, sister. I took a little more time with Ys, but wasn’t converted.

My flippancy might seem unjustified given my professed adoration for Björk, and I recognize that. Bottom line: I respected that Newsom was a rare talent, but I didn’t get her appeal. In theory, I’m down with Lisa Simpson playing a harp, but actual listening didn’t beget actual enjoyment.

So when I found out Newsom’s long-awaited follow-up would be a triple album, I was like “ho boy, that’s going to be a lot of obscure words and ululating.”

It is, but in a great way.

I’ve since spent the last week listening to her new album, Have One on Me and feel like I need to check back in with Ys. For smart criticism on Have One on Me, I’ll gladly refer you to reviews from Ann Powers, Jonah Weiner, and Mark Richardson. Oscillating almost exclusively between it and Dessa’s A Badly Broken Code, that’s a lot of time with two smart women’s words. It was a week well spent and has carried over into this one. I’m certain that these two albums are the ones I’ll treasure from this year.

One reason I was able to warm up to Have One on Me is because it’s “accessible,” at least comparatively speaking. Some might interpret this as a taming of Newsom’s sound. Her voice is more controlled. Her arrangements, though spare in a way that recalls The Milk-Eyed Mender, are approachable and gorgeous. They even suggest a pop sensibility that gestures toward a potential connection between her and Carole King and Joni Mitchell’s work in the early 70s. I think all of this does a service to what are ultimately straightforward songs about the complexities of adult relationships. She’s not accessible so much as she is direct.

In addition, I think my attitudes toward pretension have changed since I last considered Newsom. I’ve spent some quality time with Kate Bush and Elizabeth Fraser, post-punk’s grand-mères of affectation. Song cycles about drowning? Lyrics pieced together out of gibberish, abstruse terminology, random words, and antiquated names? Hello.

These considerations have prompted me to stretch back toward Mitchell. They’ve led me to reconsider favorites like Björk, PJ Harvey, and Neko Case. I celebrate contemporary artists like Bat For Lashes, Fever Ray, Antony Hegarty, and Julianna Barwick with renewed vigor. I even volley contradictory opinions about Lady Gaga. In fact, after Newsom I should revisit Patti Smith and Tori Amos to see if my opinions of them have changed. I might want to see who this Amanda Palmer person is all about too.

I’m interested in how these artists use pretension for two reasons. For one, I like the effrontery of female musicians whose work seems to bellow, “I’m an artist with a capital A. My music is really important and great. If I need my work to be excessively florid, doggedly conceptual, or sonically challenging, then you can deal. If there was room for prog rock, there’s room for me too. In fact, I am prog rock. No, I have eaten prog rock, along with the book Roan Press published that exalts my genius.”

More to the point, when pretension is used in the service of songs about female experiences, it seems as though there’s potential for the mundane yet particular realities of being female to contain artistry, fantasy, and perhaps even transcendence. In Newsom’s case, as the record is teeming with reflections on motherhood, the pressures of couplehood between creative people, and the struggle for women to maintain autonomy as they mature, the pretensions feel earned.

That said, my threshold for pretension is slanted by my gendered purview. Newsom stretches odes to break-ups, possible abortions, empty rooms, and the West Coast well past the three-minute mark here and I listen. When it’s Decemberists’ leader Colin Meloy, I want to stab him so he’ll quit singing or reaching for his thesaurus. “Forty-winking in the belfry,” indeed.

Of course, while I may approve of female pretension, I also have to check it. Here’s where Annabel Mehran’s album cover seems necessary to consider. Newsom is draped across a chaise, suggesting an archetype in portraiture known as the Odalisque. Strewn about her are knickknacks from a decadent bohemian lifestyle — shawls, rugs, lamps, pelts, stuffed animals, antiques, a peacock.

To me, the image composition most clearly brings to mind Henri Rousseau‘s “The Dream.” Erté may also be an influence, as Newsom is fashioned a bit like his “Scandinavian Queen.” The political implications of these artists’ styles, and their respective involvement with Post-Impressionism and Art Deco should not be overlooked, particularly with regard to race. The former was notorious for its problematic, first-world fetishization of its own notions of primitivism. The latter poached quite a bit from Japanese woodcuts, thus perpetuating Orientalism. Indeed, when you juxtapose Newsom’s alabaster complexion against her exotic surroundings, the racial implications of female pretense become troubling. Who is afforded the time to ruminate? Who gets to lie in repose?

Henri Rousseau's "The Dream"; image courtesy of wikimedia.org

With that said, the cover, like the contents of the album, are beautiful, troubling, and revealing. They demand considerable examination and they’re getting it from at least one listener.

Nov

Debbie Harry, Joan Jett, and Cyndi Lauper get the Mattel treatment

By Alyx Vesey 4 Comments

Joan Jett, Cyndi Lauper, and Debbie Harry as dolls; image courtesy of southern4life.blogspot.com

Attention holiday shoppers, ’80s nostalgists, and feminist music geeks! Debbie Harry, Joan Jett, and Cyndi Lauper went Barbie for Mattel’s Ladies of the ’80s collection. Apparently this was announced late last month, but I didn’t hear about it until checking Caryn Rose‘s Twitter feed last night.

So, as with most things, I’m a bit ambivalent about this collection. For one, it’s hard for me to imagine pre-pubescent playing with these dolls. Furthermore, with the collection’s bent toward ’80s nostalgia, there’s a good chance that girls today don’t know who these rockin’ ladies are (though I hope today’s parents are exposing their children to this music — I know many of the campers at GRCA this summer knew who Debbie, Joan, and Cyndi were when I taught the music history workshops with my friend Kristen).

I also take issue with how the women’s features have been homogenized to look more like Barbie. While this seems appropriate for Harry, as she has delicate features and was very slender during her days with Blondie, I’d appreciate it if Lauper was curvier and maintained her multi-colored mane. Jett’s costuming is fine, but I’d like her mullet to be more pronounced. Also, get the lady a leather jacket, please. And maybe the rest of The Runaways to reunite with her.

There’s also the issue of price. After a quick glance at Barbie’s Web site, it looks as though the average price for a doll is around $20. While hardly inexpensive for some folks, the retail value of the Ladies of the ’80s collection is $35 a rocker chick. Imagine how the price would go up if they decided to create and market ’80s-era girl bands, like The Go-Gos.

Let’s not overlook race either. It looks as though Mattel only considered white women when selecting the female pop stars that best defined the era. Where’s Janet Jackson or Tina Turner, to name but two examples? Also, I’d like an expansion of the collection to include male musical artists. How about starting with Michael Jackson and Prince?

And finally, there’s the issue of turning these women into dolls at all. Now, I was never much of a doll enthusiast as a girl. I understand that feminist and doll collector are not mutually exclusive identity markers (after all, “Lisa Vs. Malibu Stacy“ is my favorite Simpsons episode). Still, it’s hard for me to see the collection and not think of how this group of punk-y women and their individual contributions to popular music challenged how women could look and sound in media culture are being normalized and exploited for corporate gains.

But, as Erica Rand points out in her wonderful book, Barbie’s Queer Accessories, the cultural limitations of the doll are defined by the collector, not the corporation.

Here’s hoping that some collectors use their imaginations to maximize these doll’s progressive or even transgressive potential. With any luck, the dolls will have formed a band, cured cancer, come out, gone bald, or dyed green in some homes by the end of the holiday season.

Oct

Gleeful about mash-ups

By Alyx Vesey 2 Comments

The girls of Glee are walking on sunshine; image courtesy of static.tvguide.com

Dammit, Glee. Quit hogging the posts!

I don’t intend to catalogue all of the events of “Vitamin D” (which ended with a double doozy — I know I’m gonna love Sue, the blythely devious cheerleading coach played with aplomb by Jane Lynch, mixing it up with the glee club; I don’t feel similarly about Emma’s impending nuptuals). I will say, though, that I liked Kurt’s alliance with the girls and Rachel’s alliance with pregnant cheerleader Quinn (who is dating Finn, Rachel’s crush). I also happen to think kids who abuse pep pills are funny. Ask Lisa Simpson. Or Jessie Spano.

What I will highlight briefly is that I thought the show’s use of mash-ups were interesting and fun. I highly doubt that kids these days are stringing together Usher with Bon Jovi for strongly-regulated school competitions (my killjoy hunch is that Ohio, much like Texas, has a regulatory body that rules what songs are acceptable or legal to perform). However, that this increasingly ubiquitous format has become so mainstream that no one really seems to care if Danger Mouse pairs Jay-Z with The Beatles or Girl Talk combines Notorious B.I.G. with Elton John speaks to how drastically the way we hear music has changed over this decade.

Or does it? Because the other interesting thing tonight’s made-for-TV mash-ups made clear to me is how similar this is to a time-honored musical tradition: the medley. That the songs just happen to be from different artists opens up the suggestion that popular music is in constant dialogue with itself, contending generic conventions and its attendant identity baggage along the way.

As tonight’s episode was a battle of the sexes, I will keep in character and side with the girls. While I usually do this anyway, I think their mash-up was way better than the boys strained Danny-Zucco-by-way-of-The Strokes routine to Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life” and Usher’s ”Confessions,” which just played too faux macho and triumphant. Also, I think I heard a bit of AutoTune doctoring with Finn’s solo, which is an automatic dq. You better bring it next week, fellas.

I think the girls totally brought it. Mercedes’s selection is Beyoncé’s “Halo,” perhaps an essentializing choice for the show’s lone African American character, but a lovely ballad nonetheless. It is paired with female-led band Katrina and The Waves’s “Walking on Sunshine,” a zippy new wave ode to urgent, addictive sexual ecstacy. I even like the mismatched yellow dresses fine. Initially, they brought bridesmaids to mind instead of girl groups. But I reconsidered after thinking about how the wardrobes may reflect each girl’s personality. Also, I wonder if the sunny color, which alludes to both songs, is a conscious choice to provide contrast to the myriad of dreary social and economic issues that Rachel hilariously rattles off to the judges prior to the girls’ performance. I wouldn’t put it past these girls, and don’t it feel good?

Sep

Surry down and listen to Laura Nyro

By Alyx Vesey 1 Comment

Laura Nyro; image courtesy of worldofkane.blogspot.com

The late Laura Nyro, the lady for whom I devote today’s post was a real voice for women coming of age in the latter half of the 1960s, performing at such hallowed, storied festivals as the Monterrey Pop Festival. Many of her peers admired her clear voice and challenging bric-a-brac jazzy pop compositions, some of which were covered by people like The 5th Dimension. Joni Mitchell considered her one of her few female musical contemporaries. Steves as diverse as The Blues Project’s Steve Katz to composer Stephen Sondheim loved “Stoned Soul Picnic,” the former of whom argued that it should be America’s national anthem. Move over, Francis Scott Key!

Yet how come I’ve only listened to her recently, after years of only hearing her name? How come my partner, whose parents were totally of the love generation (while my mother was not), had never even heard of her? Maybe you haven’t either.

In Sheila Weller’s book Girls Like Us, the author supposes that the reasons for Nyro’s obscurity are two-fold: 1. Her music was too complicated. 2. She wasn’t pretty.

As I know Weller is critical of these reasons, please read my next sentence as being removed from being critical toward the author. These reasons are total bullshit. Her music was too complicated? I find that hard to believe — I mean, were they more complicated than Joni Mitchell’s? If Nyro had gotten started around the time of, say, a Patti Smith or a Kate Bush, I don’t think this would have been an issue for her. Because of a Laura Nyro, someone like Joanna Newsom can wield a harp for long stretches while singing abstract narratives in a voice that recalls Lisa Simpson.

By the way, while Newsom is admittedly a rad harp player, I’ve warmed from “the emperor is naked” to “yeah, fine.” Ys was good. That said, I can do a pretty mean impression of her, and will launch into it with a gentle nudge.

The second reason, while more logical in terms of how mass culture is filtered through and framed by patriarchy, makes more sense. Nyro wasn’t pretty. What is really meant by this statement is that Nyro was normal looking, with an in-between body type. She wasn’t stick-thin and built for the mini-dresses and tight jeans created with a Joni Mitchell or a Michelle Phillips in mind. She also wasn’t fat like Cass Elliot, who was often cast as the earth mother before her death (when she has since become, by turns, a tragedy or a punch line).

But Nyro wasn’t pretty? Bullshit. Just watch her sing. Hear and watch. It’s amazing what doing an activity that clearly enlivens and excites you will do to your face, especially when the activity is as of-the-body as singing. For this exercise I elect the song I’d like to consider for our national anthem, “Save the Country.” Enjoy.

May

Music Videos: Animation!

By Alyx Vesey 1 Comment

I co-chaired a panel called “Bitches Get Things Done” at the 2008 Flow Conference. At it, professional smartie Jonathan Gray made a really interesting point about how animation creates a strange and complex relationship with the body, perhaps distancing or distorting our conceptions of girl characters’ femininity and femaleness. He was specifically talking about Lisa Simpson; I keep thinking about Connie on King of the Hill, specifically in season four’s “Aisle 8A” when she gets her first period. I also keep wondering what’s going on with the common practice of female actors voicing pubescent boy characters. Hmmm.

For the purposes of this post, though, I was compelled by some animated music videos, all accompanying songs by female singer-songwriters, and how animation may create compelling relationships with the song, the voice, and the videos’ narrative. Here, we have a stop-motion music video that uses fabrics, buttons, thread, sea shells, starfish, and domestic items to tell a story, an animation music video where a girl cuts open animals to put diamonds in their hearts from her ear, and a live action-animation hybrid that tells the story of a young woman using sparrows (literally and metaphorically) as a means of travel and personal growth. Click on the artist’s name and enjoy.

Joanna Newsom
“Bridges and Balloons”
The Milk-Eyed Mender
Directed by Jovana Sarver

Tara Jane O’Neil
“A Vertiginous One”
A Ways Away
Directed by Zak Margolis

Neko Case
“Maybe Sparrow”
Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
Directed by Julie and Paul Morstad

Feminist Music Geek fan page

February 2012
S	M	T	W	T	F	S
« Jan
	1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29

Podcasts

Tumblrs

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Feminist Music Geek