As summer winds down, I thought I’d throw up a few videos by artists I can always rely on. Two of them–Björk and St. Vincent–have albums coming out next month. Jill Scott is the third artist featured here, and The Light of the Sun has been in personal rotation this summer. I’d include Rihanna’s Avril-sampling “Cheers (Drink to That),” but Rihanna slants her eyes at the 3:11 mark, bringing to mind Miley’s racial insensitivity incident, so I can’t endorse it without a lot more context.
St. Vincent
“Cruel” Mercy Me
Directed by Terri Timely
Jill Scott
“Hear My Call” The Light of the Sun
Co-directed by Jill Scott
Björk
“Crystalline” Biophilia
Directed by Michel Gondry
Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Samantha (Kim Cattrall), and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) are strong, invincible, etc.; image courtesy of nydailynews.com
Last Saturday, I checked one major item off a list of things I need to complete within the next month. This coincided with a dear friend’s birthday eve. When the damning reviews of Sex and the City 2 rolled in earlier this summer, we said we’d watch it together when it came out on DVD so we could get drunk and yell at the screen in private. Drink and yell we did, because sweet Southern breakfast the sequel is terrible.
I was a fan of the show. While certainly critical of its racial myopia and its reliance on the credit card to buy female empowerment, I still pull out the DVDs I inherited from a former roommate when I want some questionable sartorial choices and effervescent dialogue. I’m interested in how the show spun off into a successful film franchise, as well as the show’s massive global success, particularly in countries like Korea. I saw the first movie in the theaters with two girlfriends, finding it mildly entertaining until I was five minutes from my house on the ride home and felt like I was cheated. News of a sequel seemed completely unnecessary, even if I think the argument about the double standard between unsympathetic film representations of male and female members of Generation X has traction.
So, how is the sequel so off base? Apart from the racism you already know about that I’ll elaborate upon below, it suffers from a terrible script. Writer-director-executive producer Michael Patrick King knows how to capitalize on the show’s glamor but penning dialogue was never his strongest suit. The sub-vaudevillian puns always get in the way. Part of what made Sex and the City resonant with its core audience was that its predominantly female writing incorporated personal experiences and insights into Carrie and the gang’s storylines and conversations. They effused the girls’ snappy banter with buoyancy. Their scenes together now are down-right airless, their chemistry residing somewhere between non-existent and downright acrimonious. My take is that the other three girls simply cannot stand Carrie any longer. Our whimsical protagonist’s self-involvement and flair for dramatic projection grated on me many times during the series. I always cite the scene in the first episode of the sixth season where Miranda intimates to Carrie that she is still in love with Steve, the father of her son, and her “friend” runs away mid-conversation because a guy she likes may see her in a fashionista’s idea of schlubby attire, but I could recall further back. A weak spot of the series toward the end of its run was that Carrie was intended to be represented as blameless and even somehow noble when she often acted reprehensibly. Now she’s married to that rich bastard I never liked and is upset that he wants to stay in their magnificently appointed apartment and eat expensive takeout and curl up on the couch. Things come to ahead when he installs a flat-screen television inches away from their bed. I would’ve tickled him with glee. She apparently is so disgusted by the gesture that she has to run to Abu Dhabi.
The other girls have problems people just don’t have. Samantha is getting older and thus developing a dependence on hormone supplements. Miranda has a mean boss (played with Texan swagger by comedian Ron White) and incurs guilt from her thankless husband and son, who take for granted that her 60-hour work weeks keep the lights on. So she quits her job and gets A NEW JOB A BETTER JOB by the end of the movie. Charlotte’s problems are the most poignant. She’s clearly suffering from the end of postpartum depression but will admit it to no one. This, like Carrie’s and Big’s decision not to have children, could have created an interesting character arc. She gets one half-decent scene with Miranda where they vent about motherhood, but it is marred by clueless nattering about how they don’t know how mothers without outside help manage. But most of the script sets up really stupid scenarios, like when her daughter ruins a vintage Valentino skirt that her mother is wearing for some reason while icing cupcakes in a crowded kitchen. Oh, and I’m pretty sure King wrote the buxom nanny as Irish in the script so Samantha could land the “Erin Go Braless” joke. Blarney.
Following an introduction that lets us know how the girls met in a very gentrified version of 1980s New York, the movie begins at the saddest gay wedding I’ve ever seen. Carrie and Charlotte’s accessories gay best friends Stanford and Anthony hated each other during the show. But now they’re supposedly the only two middle-aged queens left on the island and Stanford has to sacrifice Anthony’s infidelity to get his white wedding. Liza Minnelli officiates for some reason, and then launches into a creaky rendition of Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies.” Frankly, this scene was why I wanted to see the movie. I love Ms. Minnelli but the whole production strives so hard to seem young and contemporary that it feels manic and desperate. This is beneath the talent who immortalized Sally Bowles and Lucille Austero. Let’s watch her get results with the Pet Shop Boys and say no more.
The movie, as you all know by now, becomes unforgivable in Abu Dhabi. At a movie premiere, publicist Samantha is given the opportunity to potentially take on a Middle Eastern hotelier as a client. He invites her and a few guests to stay in one of his luxurious estates. Miranda attempts to be sensitive to the particularities of Muslim culture and instruct the girls on how to behave. Carrie is forgiven for condescending toward her servant and gawking at Muslim women eating French fries in a food court. But King somehow forgets in his effort to throw Samantha (and Parker’s off-screen nemesis Kim Catrall) under the bus by forgetting that she’s a successful public relations professional and instead represents her as a horny, ugly American. She is an insensitive wreck after customs confiscates her anti-aging supplements. And when she finally finds a (white) business magnate to get her motor running, she has reckless disregard for social decorum.
Again, the franchise has always had a shaky grasp on addressing racial issues. In the first movie, Carrie takes on an assistant named Louise (Jennifer Hudson), which was clearly meant to quell charges against the show for only representing white ladies in a notable diverse metropolitan area. I’m pretty sure that Louise from St. Louis who loves Louis Vuitton (nuanced characterization!) is a figment of Carrie’s imagination, like the martian who hovers by Fred Flintstone’s ear. We only see Louise in relation to Carrie and she never has a scene with any of the other girls. I recently had a conversation with my friend Curran where we discussed how it was weird that the movies’ soundtracks primarily consist of female R&B singers of color like Hudson, Alicia Keys, and Leona Lewis, but none of this is reflected in the show’s casting choices. Again, women of color provide the girls with merely peripheral intrigue.
Carrie and Louise without the rest of the girls. Coincidence?; image courtesy of nypost.com
Catrall endured similar expenses against her dignity during later seasons and the first film. But this movie is nothing but a two-and-a-half-hour pie job. It’s an exercise in vilifying Samantha for being insecure about aging, suspecting that Charlotte’s husband might be cheating on her, and wearing a dress better than Miley Cyrus did on a red carpet event. Thus why I reference a Yoko Ono song in the post’s title. While Samantha isn’t put a brave face to eclipse her true feelings about her lover’s affair, like Ono is in the song, Kim Cattrall is putting a brave face as the franchise’s key players destroy her character’s memory.
I find it especially sad that the battle is waged against someone who I once considered my favorite character. While I identify most closely with type-A alpha nerd Miranda, I always understood why she was friends with Samantha. I believe Miranda could relate to Samantha’s professional drive and negotiating a bullish business world as a successful women. Thus I believe Samantha would have her dossier prepared and would have been on her best behavior in Abu Dhabi, if only for the sake of business. And while Parker gets top billing and producer credit, Cattrall was always a comedienne brave enough to mine sexuality of its humor, abject terror, and occasional splendor. Though it is lost in syndication, Cattrall gave City much of its sex. She is also the most loyal friend of the group, though I think both character and actress are proving themselves masochists by enduring their disdain. It’s time to get out from under the bus.
Recently, I rewatched Gwen Stefani’s “What You Waiting For?” during a workday lull.
I remember when this song came out, which was her debut single as a solo artist, I was surprisingly into it. I’ve never been a huge fan of Stefani’s work. I liked that she took pride in her athletic body, though has kept her physique slim since she played Jean Harlow in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator. Her music is fine and at times feminist-friendly (though she of course denies being one, even when she’s on the cover of BUST Magazine). She tends to whine about boys, though.
Gwen Stefani as Jean Harlow; image courtesy of movies.yahoo.com
But hummina does she take a page from distant relative Madonna and graft racial signifiers on her somewhat de-ethnicized Italian American body. In her career, she has appropriated from South Asian and Latina cultures, and also juxtaposed her bleached blondeness against African American masculinity. I also believe that she’s directly responsible for the glamourous pan-ethnic white tomboy Black-Eyed Peas’ hook girl Fergie perpetuates. Miley Cyrus recently appropriated the chola during a performance on the Much Music Awards. With Love. Angel. Music. Baby., she brought the Harajuku Girls into her supposedly post-racial bricolage. I didn’t realize the Orientalism going on until I sang the single at a karaoke bar and discovered the seemingly celebratory line about these young Japanese women possessing amazing style. I didn’t see a problem with it until she assembled a quartet of wordless minions.
Fergie; image courtesy of fanpop.com
These girls got my back . . . because I put them in a subordinant position; image courtesy of virginmedia.com
That said, I do find the music video interesting. I like how the clip seems to poke fun at the music industry’s willingness to shower its talent with millions of dollars in order to maximize their product’s market potential by showing Stefani go to a retreat to fight writer’s block that’s funded by unseen manager Jimmy (Iovine). I like how it also situates this culture in a specifically West Coast milieu, as Los Angeles has long profiteered off spiritualism from chi chi new age feelgooderies (for more on the subject of how this may dovetail into the emergence of priv-lit, I highly recommend reading Joshunda Sanders and Diana Barnes-Brown’s Bitcharticle on the subject).
But I wonder what it means that Stefani casts herself as the heroine of Alice In Wonderland in her unconscious in the Francis Lawrence-directed clip. Is the music industry a hallucinatory simply a place that preys upon and infantilizes female artists? I also wonder how the music video relates to Tim Burton’s recent attempt to adapt the story. Assuredly, the clip does more interesting and potentially progressive things with the source material than the misogynistic music video for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “Don’t Come Around Here No More.” But I wonder if there’s more going on through the looking glass.
Lady Gaga and Beyoncé; image courtesy of buzzworthy.mtv.com
Recently Logan Hill contributed a piece for Vulture on the invigoration of music video production on the Internet following a dry spell for the medium on television. Of course, folks have noted this as YouTube, Vimeo, Vevo, and a host of other clip-sharing sites became ubiquitous alongside MTV’s continued programming choices to inundate their audience with reality shows. The network recently took “Music Television” out of its logo. For a moment, it seemed like DVD collections like Palm Pictures’ Directors Label series would step in and make music videos more available to the public, but clearly the Internet has won, even invigorating the careers of Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry.
While I don’t see this move as little more than a shift indicative of how we consume media, I would also like to point out that many of these headline-grabbing Internet sensation music videos are notable for another reason. The scandal and celebrity associated with these big-budget clips center on female pop stars. In the past year, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Christina Aguilera, Miley Cyrus, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, Shakira, Janelle Monáe, Erykah Badu, and M.I.A. have made garnered attention and controversy with clips inundated with sexual and/or violent imagery that might not fly on post-network television but keep the blogoshere typing, Tweeting, and uploading. Alongside those artists, fringe acts like Peaches, Yo! Majesty, and Gossip — all peopled by queer musicians — have garnered some recognition for their work.
Screen shot from music video for Rihanna's "Rude Boy"; image courtesy of accesshollywood.com
On the surface, the presence female pop stars have in reviving the music video format also recalls MTV’s nascence. Many note that the first clip the network aired was The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star.” But Pat Benatar’s “You Better Run” followed it, along with a whole host of female pop stars who battled rock acts and hair metal bands for programming supremacy. The Go-Go’s, Cyndi Lauper, Tina Turner, Madonna, Janet Jackson, and Eurythmics’ lead singer Annie Lennox all catapulted to stardom during the network’s infancy, as art rock acts like Kate Bush also received some stateside recognition.
The Go-Gos' Rolling Stone cover; image courtesy of rhonabennett.wordpress.com
While the current stable of video stars seem to subvert conventional femininity by playing with camp and excess, I’m actually inclined to read many of these artists as ultimately normative. Many of the video narratives, regardless of costuming or cultural references, tend to rehash contrived narratives about young women getting rowdy in the club and letting her (hetero)sexual inhibitions run wild. I believe Badu’s “Window Seat” and M.I.A.’s “Born Free” challenge these offerings however, by either making female nudity at once mundane and endangered or by dispensing of the female pop star altogether to focus on government-sanctioned ultraviolence. Monáe’s approach might be the most refreshing as she recontextualizes rock and R&B’s cultural origins within a female body covered up in menswear that’s ready to teach you some new dance steps.
In addition, many of these musical artists are working with established male video directors. Gaga revived the career of Jonas Åkerlund, who originally made a name for himself working with Madonna. While it’s easy to read these directors as auteurs, I’m inclined to point out that some of them have established collaborative relationships with these women across several projects. This also recalls how Gondry came into the cultural lexicon. While we may now think of him as the visionary behind White Stripes videos and Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, an Icelandic pop star named Björk selected him to direct his first English-language music video after years working in France. The clip was for “Human Behaviour,” which launched both of their careers in the states.
I’d like to bring up in the current emergence of female pop stars on the Internet is that almost all of them are solo artists taking sole focus on big-budget music videos. While I don’t want to suggest that these women are not musicians, or overlook the fact that Beyoncé tours with an all-female backing band, I find it disheartening that we aren’t seeing as many images of women and girls creating video images as collaborators, whether between female artists and directors, as members of a band, or female artists who collaborate with one another. While Lady Gaga and Beyoncé have been known to work together, as have M.I.A. and Santigold, it would be nice to see more music videos with a group of women or girls as the focus.
Sasha Fierce's backing band; image courtesy of spin.com
Likewise, I also find it frustrating that so many of these big productions have to be so moneyed, most notably Lady Gaga and Beyoncé’s “Telephone.” Perhaps a new group of bands and musical artists in collaboration with one another will also make names for themselves as music videos continue to thrive on the Internet. Who says you need a big budget and an iconic pop star to make a clip for the ages?
Miley Cyrus at the 2010 Grammys; image courtesy of harpersbazaar.com
Today begins the last week of my “Tuning In” series for Bitch. This post is about Miley Cyrus, the upcoming final season of Hannah Montana, and her transition into “adult” stardom.
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.
Taylor Momsen, apparently over it; image courtesy of gofugyourself.com
So, did ya’ll know that Taylor Momsen fronts a rock band? I guess that’s why she’s always sneering each time I see her on Go Fug Yourself. All this, and Leighton Meester working toward a pop career too!
Now, I don’t want to seem snide or condescending, especially about a veteran child actress transitioning into adulthood. I don’t want to speculate that her interest in music has developed just as the once-hot teen soap she’s on is starting to cool. Who am I to suggest that the Gossip Girl star’s musical forays aren’t sincere?
Apparently Momsen’s been singing for years and fronts a band called The Pretty Wreckless. While essentially a solo project with some (male) hired-gun musicians, she is the act’s vocalist, costume designer, and primary songwriter. The group has been putting on shows and has recorded a single, “Zombie,” which has a raw sound that suggests Momsen’s listened to a lot of Courtney Love.
Momsen channels Love when fronting her band; image courtesy of buzznet.com
Momsen’s done a lot more to suggest she wants to explore music beyond adding another hyphenate, like one-time would-be pop singers Hilary Duff, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Nicole Richie, who at one point was in a band with model Josie Maran called Darling and was supposed to be working on an alternative-influenced solo project that may or may not see the light. Momsen even plays a bit of guitar as well. I’d hazard she’d do more of it if she’d bulk up. Have you seen her twiggy arms? Homegirl needs to eat all kinds of sandwiches.
But I am a still little incredulous, as I am about Momsen’s entire hipster image, which became public just as Jenny Humphreys was becoming the UES’s edgy It Girl on Gossip Girl. There’s something just way too pre-fab about all of it that makes me wonder if there’s any real difference between Momsen wears skinny jeans and when, say, the Jonas Brothers do it (or, as Jonah Weiner points out in an article Kristen sent my way, when Miley Cyrus hires producers who swipe from lesser-known songs for indie cred). After the controversial but transformative presence Rachel Zoe had in reinventing Nicole Richie’s public image, I work under the assumption that all celebrities have stylists and that Momsen’s no exception, even if she herself is interested in fashion. I can’t help but wonder if similar industrial mechanisms are at work for her and her musical aspirations.
Maybe I’m just being snobby about medium and public image. While I have my doubts about Momsen’s musical pursuits, I never questioned when fellow former child actress Jena Malone released a seven-inch with Social Registry back in 2007 and continued on as the lead singer of The Shoe. Assuredly this has much to do with an appreciation of Malone’s experimental sound.
Jena Malone, in concert; image courtesy of jena-malone.info
But I’d be lying if I said my enjoyment of Malone’s music wasn’t informed by my pre-established fandom of her turns in indie-friendly fare like Cheaters, Saved, and Donnie Darko. It probably didn’t hurt matters that she has lesbian parents, legally emancipated herself as a minor for financial reasons, and appeared in public with a bald head. In short, her outsider persona matched her acting and musical choices. It seemed, to employ that ickiest of value judgements, “authentic.”
That said, I support Momsen’s right to rock out. But I’ll have to hear and see more before I call myself a fan.
Allison brings down the house, takes a bow; image taken from tunedin.com
Last week was a bit of a whirlwind (literally, a whirl of wind), so I didn’t get a chance to properly eulogize Allison Iraheta, my pick for this season’s American Idol, who I feel had more in her.
So, there’s plenty to be sad about. In my opinion, Allison simply has the best vocals in the competition. But to add to her raw talent, she’s only 17 (something I often forget when I hear her whiskey-throated voice), one of the few girls who’s had a real shot at winning (Jordin Sparks won season six at 16, Paris Bennett was 17 when she placed 5th in season five). Also, in a season as white as this one has been, Allison was one of the few people of color left in the competition (she’s of Salvadorean descent). But I also loved her unpolishedness. She wasn’t slick, was a bit loopy, and a bit of a mumbler. And she’d always roll her eyes at Ryan Seacrest — indeed, I think I would too. Oh, and she wasn’t stick-thin and didn’t slim down like some of the other contestants (Megan Joy, I’m looking at you). I appreciated that.
Allison's elimination; photo taken from New York Daily News
And the real tragedy is that she lost after killing Janis Joplin’s “Cry Baby.” And who was spared, you may ask? Danny fucking Gokey. Ugh, the worst. Apart from the fact that he sounds just like Michael Bolton, he butchered “Dream On,” the blandest song by Aerosmith, the blandest band that still endures for some reason. And if you can get through that last note, you’re made of thicker stuff than I.
I have other problems with Gokey too. If you’re watching the show, doesn’t he seem like the most self-serious, humorless, uncool, egotistical guy to you too? He cannot laugh at himself or take criticism. Seriously, anyone that concerned with having a coordinated designer pair of eyeglasses for each outfit has gotta be a jerk. He was pretty much done for me in auditions, when he seemed to using the recent death of his wife as a means with which to frame himself and set himself apart in the competition. The only joy I’ve ever really derived from his presence on the show is making his song selections be about dead wives. For example, take Motown week, when he did “Get Ready” by The Temptations. Take the opening line “Never met a girl who makes me feel the way that you do” and sub out “you’re all right” with “but you died.” Instant funny.
But, at the same time, I have high hopes for Iraheta. The AV Club’s Claire Zulkey hopes that Iraheta gets to show up Disney tween sensations like Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato and show them how to really rock without the mouse (though, sadly, still within a major label system). I do too.
My kind of prom queen, ya'll; photo taken from evilbeetgossip.com
So, we’re down to three contestants, all of whom are adult white dudes. We’ve got the inoffensive Christian hottie-next-door (Kris), the high camp rocker that I hope kisses one of his fellow competitors on stage (Adam), and the offensive Christian d-bag (Danny). At this point, I don’t really care who wins (theoretically, I’m backing Adam, but in terms of actual preference, meh). Just please don’t let Bolton Light win. Otherwise, I might have to make like Iraheta and punch him in the chest.
