The cast of Beverly Hills Teens (Jett is the one with the blonde palm tree and guitar, Switchboard is behind her in the jacuzzi wearing sunglasses and a pink bow); image courtesy of wikimedia.org
The other night at a mutual friend’s party, Alex of Pink Army played me a portion of an episode of the animated children’s program Beverly Hills Teens. It aired on syndication and was brought to American kids by DiC, who anticipated the allure of rich teens romping through Beverly Hills before Aaron Spelling by a few years. Apparently it only had one season in the can (1987-1988) but the 65 episodes were re-ran for some time. Five of these episodes are available in full to curious or nostalgic types on YouTube. Other friends at the party remembered it as well, serving as either a lead-in to Jem or following Duck Tales in the after-school line-up. Somehow it was not on my radar. Maybe it was because I was watching Out of This World instead.
Make no mistake: this show is really dumb. Hokey writing, predictable storylines, broadly-written stock characters, and so forth. Basically, each episode focuses on teen queens Larke Tanner and Bianca Dupree. Anyone who’s watched Gossip Girl or read an Archie comic can guess how any plot goes down. Snobby blue-blood brunette Dupree covets something of golden girl Tanner’s (her popularity, modeling career, or boyfriend Troy) and doesn’t get it.
Like Betty and Veronica and Larke and Bianca, Blair and Serena are blonde vs. brunette frenemies
The considerable supporting cast also brings to mind the Archie universe or the coterie of folks inhabiting the CW’s version of the UES. All-American Troy is Archie Andrews or Nate Archibald. Preppy Pierce Thorndyke III (love that name) is Reggie Mantle III or Chuck Bass. Token African American character Shanelle Spencer suggests a shallow notion of inclusiveness in the same way that Chuck Clayton, Nancy Woods, or Blair’s attendants of color do. Rocker Gig and surfer Radley provide some slacker cool in the wake of Jughead Jones’s insouciance that predates the hipster appeal of Dan Humphrey. You get it.
Gossip Girl: what happens when Archie Andrews meets Aaron Spelling, Stephanie Savage, and Josh Schwartz; image courtesy of feministe.us
However, I don’t want to write off this formulaic children’s cartoon without mentioning two characters that are completely in line with my research: rock chick Jett and nerdy informant Switchboard. Valley girl Jett may be Gig’s girlfriend, but they also play guitars in an outfit together. In fact, Jett sings the theme song. I suppose she could be somewhere between Jenny Humphrey and Josie McCoy, a satellite in the Archie universe.
Rachel Leigh Cook in the middle as the live-action version of Josie McCoy, flanked by drummer Melody Valentine (Tara Reid) and bassist Valerie Brown (Rosario Dawson); image courtesy of premiere.com
The character I relate to is Switchboard, a friend of Jett’s. The name’s great, for a start. And while she’s cast as a geek (glasses on!), her idiosyncratic, period-indicative fashion sense would be prescient for how hipster girls dress now. As a journalist who always has the scoop on everything that’s going on in this stratified world, it only lends to her credibility. And while she’s got a strange obsession with the boring popular girls, something tells me that she’d later channel that energy into something more subversive once she went to RISD or Mills College. Basically, I think this girl later goes on to launch Artforum‘s Web site. There’s no clear precursor to her in the Archie universe, but I think she may very well be Gossip Girl, if it isn’t Chuck.
It’s now clear that geeks have a tremendous amount of cultural sway, as books like Benjamin Nugent’s American Nerd: The Story of My People and the rise of Tina Fey suggest. I’d argue there’s a whole lot of whiteness going on with this construction of geek, as the characterization of classed whiteness offered by Stuff White People Like and the fascination with blipsters may also evince. That said, as a white girl geek, I’m still interested in cataloging those moment when nerdy girls and women exist in media culture, no matter how small or problematic. In honor of friend and fellow geek Catherine, who came to feminism through riot grrrl as a teenage outcast and gave me Nugent’s book for my 25th birthday, I’ll leave you with Lisa Loeb’s “Stay.” Catherine texted me yesterday that she was watching this video and discovered that Ms. Loeb (an Ivy League-educated Texan) designed her own eyewear collection. Naturally.
B driving Gaga toward another item on her rap sheet; image courtesy of focusonstyle.com
I guess I should care about Lady Gaga and Beyoncé’s nine-minute music video for “Telephone.” Gaga created the concept with director Jonas Åkerlund. Gaga and B are lesbian partners on the run. But . . . ugh. Okay, I’ll briefly outline my thoughts.
1. Since Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” many pop stars have attempted to make lengthy, elaborate, concept music videos work. I can do without all of them, including “Thriller.” Yes, it’s one of the most popular music videos of all time. But I think Jackson’s transformation and the dance routines could stand alone without the slasher movie date night plot, although it’s worth it for his intimation that he’s “not like other guys.”
2. The lesbian jailbird subplot seems subversive but it doesn’t play out that way to me. Most of the actresses are normatively feminine, which plays into the long-standing heterosexual male fandom of the women in prison film genre that the video is hailing. In addition, they’re ornamental, meant to bolster Gaga’s edgy pop star image. If you need any further evidence, witness the “butch” that makes out on (not with) Lady Gaga in the prison yard.
3. I love Gaga’s yellow dye job, which I first saw at the Grammys. As if her platinum blonde tresses and black eyebrows weren’t enough to reveal the hair color of conventional white femininity to be unnatural, she takes its fakeness to a more lurid extreme.
4. Also, Gaga’s telephone headdress is pretty sweet.
5. I think all the product placements speak for themselves.
6. Supposedly, Gaga and Beyoncé are in a romantic relationship here. And this is somewhat interesting in terms of Beyoncé’s career trajectory, as there was a rumor several years back that she was considering starring in a screen adaptation of Sarah Waters’s Sapphic Victorian romance Tipping the Velvet. But they don’t seem like a couple to me. There’s no shared intimacy, no easy rapport. In fact, apart from them joining hands at the end of the video in a clear homage to Thelma and Louise, they really don’t interact at all. Oh, except when Beyoncé feeds Gaga or chauffeurs her criminal girlfriend to their next crime seat. B may sit behind the wheel, but she’s driving Miss Gaga.
7. Also, Beyoncé looks like a real girl doll here. A real girl doll abiding by white people’s notions of what “good” hair looks like and what make-up palettes are flattering. She moves like a robot too. In fairness, both pop stars do, but I still think that B is following Gaga’s lead.
8. I’m not sure about what to do with Gaga and sandwich-making. Perhaps it’s getting at the grotesqueries of processed foods like Wonder Bread and condiments. Perhaps it’s a commentary on the soul-deadening routinization of feminized domestic labor, thus why she’s situated in what looks like a prison kitchen.
9. Thinking back on processed foods, note that Gaga and B’s mass murder takes place at a diner. For one, the diner is a site of fetishized Americana and thus a symbol they might be attempting to destroy (or at least reconfigure, as evidenced by Gaga’s stars and stripes hippie chick get-up). But also notice also that B is Gaga’s decoy and that B snares a black man with her feminine wiles. This man, like many other patrons of color, is killed because the perpetrators slipped poison in his food. Note the racial connotations of what was on his plate too: biscuits, gravy, grits. In other words, highly caloric Southern cooking that often gets associated with particular African American communities, perhaps of which Houstonians like Beyoncé might associate.
Apparently this saga will continue. Let’s hope Beyoncé makes Gaga her driver in the next installment.
Wait, some of you might be thinking. Who is Robin Tunney?
Robin Tunney; image courtesy of tvdramas.about.com
I think Tunney was slated to be a star when she started cropping up in movies in the 1990s. While stardom didn’t happen for her, she’s had steady work, currently starring on The Mentalist, a CBS procedural. She was supposed to co-write a book on feminism with her friend Liz Phair, with whom she worked on the movie Cherish. I’m still waiting for that last one.
For many in my age group, we know her from back-to-back appearances in Empire Records and The Craft. As both movies were slumber party staples in my friend group, featured teen girl characters, and were accompanied by popular soundtracks, I knew I’d need to revisit them.
Empire Records came out in 1995 and developed a bit of a cult following, despite poor reviews and a dismal box office performance. It also instilled a personal desire to work at a record store, particularly an indie fighting to stay that way. At 13, it looked so cool and fun to “work” all day at such a place with hip teens and twentysomethings.
Well, maybe not them specifically, as the characters in Empire Records aren’t believeable as people so much as underwritten Generation X versions of cool kids dreamt up by a team of movie executives: there’s Joe, the anti-establishment boomer-era owner (Anthony LaPaglia); Lucas, the Zen-like hipster (Rory Cochrane); A.J., the sensitive artist in love with the unattainable Corey (Johnny Whitworth); Corey, the wholesome speed freak perfectionist (Liv Tyler); Gina, Corey’s slutty best friend who wants to be in a band (Renée Zellweger); Mark, the stoner (Ethan Embry); Berko, the rocker who clocks in between gigs (Coyote Shivers, who was married to Tyler’s legendary mother Bebe Buell at the time); and Debra, the rebel girl accountant who shaves her head after attempting suicide (Tunney).
Oh, they are so selling out; image courtesy of chartrigger.blogspot.com
The writing is the movie’s biggest problem, though I’ll never understand why casting directors thought someone as boring as Tyler would ever be a huge star (I’d ask this question again later in the decade when Katie Holmes started landing movie roles). The motivations of the characters, though meant to be read as young and madcap, are childish and inconsistent. The boys pine after girls, eat pizza, get high, and glue quarters to the floor. The girls pine after has-been teen idols doing in-stores, alternate between loving and hating each other, and get together with the boys who pine after them. Both sexes deliver such profound lines like “If I can love her in that skirt, than this must really be it” and “I went to rock and roll heaven, and I wasn’t on the guest list.”
That second line is the answer given to a question about bandaged wrists. It’s delivered to withering effect by Debra, potentially the movie’s most interesting character. She’s not glamourous like her female co-workers or sophomoric like her male colleagues. She also seems to have gone through real pain, deeper than the surface angst used to promote OK Soda and perhaps closer to the actual pain brought on by parental neglect and low self-esteem. In the early 1990s, these and other issues were particularly relevant to young girls, some of whom would form or discover riot grrl and queercore and develop their own queer and/or feminist identities. We only get a sense of Debra’s absent mother, resistent intellect, boredom with men, feelings of inadequacy, and the hope for something better.
Note: I’d recommend watching director Allan Moyle’s far-superior Times Square. Rest assured that the tale of two girl runaways falling in love amidst downtown New York’s early-80s squalor will get its due on this blog.
It’s weird that slashed wrists bridge Tunney’s two major performances to date. Clearly suicide, perhaps most unfortunately personified by Kurt Cobain, was on young people’s minds at the time. I’d hedge that this has more to do with class frustration, racial injustice, conflicted feelings about sexual orientation, coming out to unsupportive families and communities, dysfunctional home lives, and a lack of any real support system. I’d also add that it’s an on-going problem.
Absent mothers also connect Debra and Sarah, the latter of whom lost her mother during childbirth. As The Craft was originally pitched as “Carrie meets Clueless,” it seems necessary to point out that these movies feature girls with compromised mother-daughter relationships. Carrie’s mother is a crazed witch. Cher Horowitz, like so many other fairytale heroines before her, lost her mother at an early age and has only an idealized memory of her. Sarah has similar baggage, along with the additional burden of being responsible for her mother’s death. Oh, and carrying on the ability to perform witchcraft. That’s a hell of a lot for any teenage girl to shoulder, especially when she’s moving to Los Angeles with her family.
A heartening aspect of The Craft , no doubt motivated by how successful Clueless was, is the presence of girlfriends. Sarah meets shy Bonnie (played by Neve Campbell) and becomes friends with a trio of Goth girls. Two other movies came out in 1996 that focused on girl gangs – Girls Town and Foxfire. For a more nuanced analysis of these two movies and their depictions of homosociality and developing feminist politics, I highly recommend checking out my friend Kristen’s thesis Revenge, Girl Style.
The Craft entertains the progressive potential of girl friendship, particularly for outcasts. There are also hints at the queer possibilities of homosocial bonding and witchcraft. It even contains racially charged moments, particularly when Rochelle (played by Rachel True), the coven’s lone African American member, casts a spell on Laura Lizzie (Christine Taylor), a popular blonde who is on the swim team with her. After enduring Lizzie’s racist comments about her hair, Rochelle turns her bald, thus rebelling against normative, white-centric notions of feminine beauty.
But these suggestions are sidelined. Because what the movie is really about is the battle between Tunney’s kind-hearted Sarah and Fairuza Balk’s destructive ringleader Nancy, who is jealous of her frenemy’s natural aptitude for witchcraft. It should also be noted that Nancy is working-class and coded as queer. The movie makes a considerable effort to undo her queerness, putting men in between her and Sarah, whether they be ex-boyfriends or Manon, the supernatural male figure that the girls worship. The movie ends with Nancy trying to kill Sarah, resulting in a showdown that tears the group apart, causes Sarah to move, and leads to Nancy being institutionalized. The final shot is of Nancy in a straight-jacket trying to fly out of a padded cell. The movie’s message: we are the weirdos, mister. Just don’t expect us to stay friends or keep a hold of our sanity. So much for sisterhood.
Nancy's farewell; image courtesy of channel4.com
Sisterhood is often lacking in movies, but is emphasized to market teen movies, if only to tap in to the girl market. But much of this was eclipsed in story development to make way for more lucrative prospects, none more pronounced at the time than the soundtrack. A considerable number of American teen movies in the 1990s featured a soundtrack, many boasting songs by alternative rock artists. Unlike The Craft and Empire Records, and more in line with All Over Me, Girls Town and Foxfire paid particular attention toward showcasing female artists, particularly those closely associated with hip hop and the then-waning riot grrrl movement. Scholars like Jeff Smith and Mary Celeste Kearney have addressed this in their work, theorizing that the soundtrack served as a way to cultivate potential audience markets and a source of textual identification for fans.
While female artists are present on the soundtracks to Empire Records and The Craft, they’re not the focus, perhaps out of fear of alienating a broader audience. This might further explain why The Craft soundtrackfeatures covers of popular songs from lesser-known acts. Our Lady Peace contributes a version of The Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows,” Heather Nova covers Peter Gabriel’s “I Have the Touch,” and Letters To Cleo take on The Cars’ “Dangerous Type,” a tactic they’d repeat when covering Cheap Trick’s “I Want You To Want Me” for 10 Things I Hate About You at the end of the decade. And let’s not forget the double-nostalgia of former Psychelic Furs’ front man Richard Butler covering The Smiths’ “How Soon Is Now” with his post-Furs project Love Spit Love.
Cover to "The Craft" soundtrack (Sony, 1996); image courtesy of thesoundtracktoyourlife.co.uk
A major problem both of these movies share, and is evident in other titles of this period and in the Brat Pack movies of the 1980s, is the need to broadly define its characters as members of a generation, rather than as complex young people with particular problems oftentimes informed by their identities. And while ennui and an ironic fluency in popular culture were markers for Gen X, these young adults were more than just sneering (white) kids in flannel, combat boots, and barettes. At least off-camera.
Oftentimes, they were frustrated by how little high school and a liberal arts education could get them in a job market, particularly during the late 1980s and early 1990s when the economy had yet to recover from the 1987 market crash. They were annoyed at the shrine their parents built to the 1960s, as it was clear just how empty and hollow their promises of revolution were. In some ways, they were no different than people my age or boomer hipster Paul Kinsey on Mad Men, turning to interesting records, movies, books, and TV shows, but knowing they wouldn’t make them any happier, politically mobile, or economically viable.
Michael Gladis as Paul Kinsey, proving the every generation has its hipster; image courtesy of readingunderthecovers.blogspot.com
Some of these people formed bands, often annointed with glossy but unremarkable one-word monikers: Sponge, Drill, Lustre, Cracker, Elastica, Spacehog, Dig, Hole, Belly, Hum, Bush, Toadies, Oasis . . . In a particularly cruel example of market imperative, many of these bands broke up or were without major label record deals by the end of the decade.
I still have Elastica's debut album!; image courtesy of forgottenfavorite.com
But it’s hard to convey all of this in a 90-minute movie, especially one that hopes to cash in on the wages of the very demographic these popcorn flicks were hoping to represent. Some did a decent job of conveying this generation’s ambivalence, particularly indies like Kicking and Screaming. I’d also add that Reality Bites highlights these problems, even pointing out the crass ways in which corporate America capitalizes on the very market its created. While I wish Winona Ryder’s filmmaker character Lalaina didn’t end up with Ethan Hawke’s slacker Troy, I understand why she can’t be with Michael (played by director Ben Stiller), who works for an MTV-type network that makes worm’s meat out of her documentary about her friends.
Richard Linklater’s second feature, Dazed and Confused, did a considerable job at suggesting that Generation X inherited their sense of slacker frustration (and detached nostalgia for Schoolhouse Rock and The Brady Bunch) from their parents. That Linklater cast a bunch of twentysomething unknowns like Joey Lauren Adams, Ben Affleck, Rory Cochrane, Adam Goldberg, Jason London, Matthew McConaughey, Parker Posey, and Marisa Ribisi to essentially play the teenagers and young adults who would become their parents may strengthen Robin Wood’s argumentthat Dazed is a horror film.
Some television shows also did a good job articulating the nuances of the slacker era. I’d offer up British programs like Spaced, along with MTV’s Daria and ABC’s My So-Called Life. The latter featured an angsty girl protagonist, complex teenage characters, depicted boomer parents being just as clueless and angsty as their brood, and created an immortal stoner heartthrob named Jordan Catalano (played by Jared Leto), whose band Frozen Embryos changed their name at the end of the series to perhaps the most perfect of Gen X band names: Residue.
Angela Chase (Claire Danes) with the object of her affection; image courtesy of thefbomb.org
But it’s always different for girls, and unfortunate that Tunney and many of the actresses of her generation were not given the consideration they deserved (though I love that Austin Chronicle writer Margaret Moser fancies herself as being like Balk’s character in Almost Famous). Some may attribute this to their flat delivery or lack of believability, but I’d wager that this has more to do with poor character development on the part of screenwriters and the industrial emphasis on youth than it does on the actresses. At 19, Kristen Stewart is playing the slouched-shoulder ingenue of a multi-million-dollar film franchise, its latest installment complete with a soundtrack featuring of-the-moment, indie and indie-friendly artists like Bon Iver, St. Vincent, Lykke Li, Grizzly Bear, and Thom Yorke. I only hope she has that sort of star power at 25.
Kristen Stewart at the "New Moon" premiere in Los Angeles; image courtesy of justjared.buzznet.com
Cover to 3 single (Jive, 2009); image courtesy of thehollywoodgossip.com
Maybe Britney Spears doesn’t seem like someone I’d cover here. In truth, if we have to do the bullshit either/or, good/bad preference thing, I’m totally Christina Aguilera over Britney Spears. Except for that time when “Dirrty” first came out and I was bummed out that Xtina decided to celebrate sluttiness. Then I recanted and celebrated the sluttiness too, though with weird feelings about how Aguilera selectively channeled her Ecuadorian roots by playing up the spicy Latina, only to later highlight her whiteness in subsequent reinventions.
But the music video for Britney’s new single “3″ from her second greatest hits compilation recently debuted on the Internet. Also, I have to say that I actually like Spears’s music. “Toxic” was a neat little jam. Blackout was a pretty fun, dark pop record despite and because of its context (you might remember that Britney was in the tabloids a bit in 2007). And I haven’t really listened to Circus, but the hits have been fun. The older she gets, the edgier and less kid-friendly she becomes. Sure, the producers have a hand in all of this, and perhaps there’s some unfortunate credence to Tom Ewing’s analogy between Spears and Twin Peaks hardened, debased, tragic beauty Laura Palmer. But I still like Britney. And maybe like Rihanna, another beauty with a cyborg’s voice who seems to look and sound even more edgier after her own travails, I root for her.
Rihanna and the Met Ball (May, 2009); image courtesy of gofugyourself.com
Like the South Park dudes, I have sympathy for Britney Jean. 1) She was raised to be a pop star, 2) she became a pop star when she was really young and probably didn’t get to grow up in a normal environment, 3) suddenly people started making fun of her for not seeming very cultured or politically aware because she spent all of her life becoming a pop star, 4) she had a headline-making break-up with some boy who later told everyone that he took her virginity, 5) she is perceived as damaged goods while his star continues to rise, 6) she makes a lot of bad personal decisions, 7) she gives birth to two boys in quick succession, 8) she suffered through post-partum depression and perhaps bipolar disorder in public, 9) people made fun of her supposedly chubby post-pregnancy body, 10) then her handlers make her over for real and magically all is well again.
I really hope that’s true. She’s 27, a cursed age for rock and pop idols. I hope she makes it to 28. And, like Carrie Brownstein, I hope she gets to make friends with fellow Southern girl Beth Ditto, who has packaged herself as a proudly fat and queer sex symbol and vocal powerhouse. It also makes me glad that I know almost fuck-all about Lady Gaga’s personal life. I’ve pro’ed and con’ed her, but I like that I know very little about her off-stage persona. I’m assuming she took a note from Britney. I’m also hoping Britney took a note from Beyoncé.
But let’s get to “3″ and its video. It’s dirty. It’s all about threesomes. And, unlike earlier Britney singles, this one doesn’t hide behind a lot of innuendo. Stuff I like about it.
1. Um, is this song already a hit at gay bars across the world? It’s about to be.
2. I kinda love how unclear (and thus potentially queerable?) the groupings are in this song. The reference to “Peter, Paul, and Mary” seems to suggest some boy-boy-girl action. In addition to loving that the stiff, pious folk trio are name-checked here, I hope that the two boys in the trio tend to each other’s needs as well as Britney’s. Based on the video, the trio could also be three ladies. While the video is totally vulnerable to the heterosexual male gaze, there is no tired two girls for every boy situation explicitly being offered up here.
2A. I hope Britney’s queer fanbase comes up with all manner of pairings and positions when they bring this song to life.
3. While I hate the slowed-down, ballad-y bridge where Britney suggests (once again) that “what we do is innocent,” nothing is meant by it, and this could just be a twosome, I like that she slyly sneaks in that it might also be fun to turn the duet into a trio or even a quartet. Britney’s grin really sells it.
4. I’ve always liked Britney’s Southern accent and her military dance moves.
Stuff that’s icky.
1. Britney’s white leotard when she’s next to the chorus line of female dancers. Her white blondeness is exacerbated by the women’s black outfits, which racialize and subordinate them alongside the pop star. I hated Ciara and Justin Timberlake’s similar music video for “Love Sex Magic,” but at least I felt like Ciara was dancing with the chorus line rather than having them orbit her.
2. Product placement. Duh, she’s a brand. But does she really have to apply her Fantasy perfume at the beginning of the video? Or, for that matter, does she have to spritz on some Curious at the beginning of the “Circus” music video? Oh, she does? It’s probably in her contract? Gross.
3. While I like that her trimmer figure hasn’t sacrificed her curves, I never really thought she had any weight to lose.
4. The “livin’ like this is the new thing” lyric is problematic because it kinda sounds like a sales pitch. Ugh. I guess a queer poly love jingle isn’t the worst thing, but still. Queer love, polyamory, and threesomes are totally not the new thing. They’ve been identities and expressions of desire probably since the beginning of time.
5. Since configuration of the threesome is deliberately ambiguous in the Diane Martel-directed clip, I wish the star played with male drag. Didn’t she seem to have butch potential when she shaved her head? Doesn’t it seem like part of her career makeover is to make her normatively feminine and sexy again? But that’s so boring. I’ve long thought that Britney’s thick neck and broad shoulders could make her a potentially good looking drag king, perhaps convincing as Mariah or her ex-boyfriend. She could at least oscillate within the butch-femme binary like Ciara did in “Like a Boy.”
So, I have two entries drafted on Almost Famous and Sonic Youth’s cameo on last night’s Gossip Girl. Now, I could finish one of them and rush it to publication for you kind, attentive readers. But, I started watching season one of Friday Night Lights this weekend and some profound race relations stuff is going down and I intend to finish disc four tonight. If you’ve watched the show, you understand. If you haven’t, then I highly recommend starting, especially if you’re like me and grew up in a rural Texas suburb.
That said, two dude-friends pointed me in an interesting direction this morning and I thought I’d write a quick post on it. Peter reminded me of one artist I forgot about and David pointed out another act I didn’t know existed (but whose work I had heard sampled on Fergie’s “Fergalicious“). Thanks, guys. That these artists were obscure female rap artists who got support from members of rap group N.W.A. should not be overlooked, especially alongside the widely-held belief that N.W.A., and the subgenre of gangsta rap that they helped pioneer, were sexist and misogynistic (and also homophobic). And I don’t want to discredit those claims, as they have considerable merit. Barring examples from Ice-T, Dr. Dre, and Eazy-E’s solo careers, and Dre’s assault on Dee Barnes while still in the group, I don’t think we have to look much further than “One Less Bitch” and “She Swallowed It” off Efil4zaggin).
That said, I think this argument gets challenged by the presence Tairrie B, who was signed to Ruthless Records, who also housed N.W.A. for a time, and was mentored by Eazy-E. It gets further complicated by J.J. Fad, who originally used their initials to form the group’s name, whose debut album, Supersonic was produced by Dr. Dre, DJ Yella, and Arabian Prince’s production credits. Now, this isn’t to overlook the gendered dimensions of the mentor-protégée relationship (though it would behoove us to remember that N.W.A.’s records often contained samples of records by female artists like Lyn Collins and E.S.G.). It also isn’t to overlook Tairrie’s normative white, blonde good looks, or that her metal career further temper the waters.
Tairrie B fronting My Ruin; image courtesy of pauljorion.com
But it does emphasize the oft-overlooked presence women and girls of multiple racial and ethnic categories have always had in hip-hop and the support some men in positions of power in the game have given. It may not forgive a statement like “bitches ain’t shit but hoes and tricks” or level the playing field, but it sure as hell complicates standard conceptions of gender roles and racial norms in hip-hop’s industrial practices.
J.J. Fad, as of 2008; image courtesy of simplydopeculture.wordpress.com
Saturday fight live -- Madonna pulls Lady Gaga's hair; image courtesy of assets.nydailynews.com
So, I just wanna make sure we all saw Madonna and Lada Gaga catfight in a skit on SNL last weekend. If not . . .
This skit is interesting, though not without its problems in terms of how conceptualizes female competition. For one, while normative notions of masculinity, racial supremacy, and heterosexually accessible lesbianism are ultimately endorsed at the end of the skit, it is interesting that, for one of the few times in either pop star’s career, a queerable black man enacts agency and authority rather than being controlled by these women. For another, it addresses and challenges inter-generational power struggles between women. It also suggests that perhaps Gaga — who shares or steals Madonna’s prediliction for Marie Antoinette-informed spectacle — is a much better fit for succession of the Material Girl’s mantle than Britney.
1. The skit takes place on a fictitious house music TV program called Deep House Dish, acknowledging both pop stars’ dance club origins.
2. That program is on MTV4, a clear slight at the music network that has made both video-centric performers’ careers, while at the same time dispensing of the network’s original 24-hour music video programming schedule to make more room for reality television.
3. With their bleach-blonde hair, olive complexions, and leather get-ups, these are Italian American pop stars that believe in queerable toughness over normative pretty femininity in the cultivation of sexy.
4. As feisty as she is with her idol, I wonder if Lady Gaga will be fighting some emerging pop icon the same way Madonna is now. Where Britney kissed Madonna’s ass, Gaga is ready to kick it. Kill yr idols, indeed.
Cover of Exile in Guyville, released on Matador in 1993; image taken from The Village Voice
I’ve never been as excited and nervous about purchasing an album as I was with Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville. Of all the albums I’ve ever bought, I think I know more about it than anything. I studied the thing for nearly seven years before I bought it.
So, I was almost 10 when this album came out in 1993 and, if you know anything about it, you know it’s laden with immodest lyrics like “I’m a real cunt in spring,” “He’s got a really big tongue that rolls way out,” and, well, all of “Flower.” As an avid Rolling Stone reader, I was well-versed in this aspect of the album, because it seemed like this, along with it supposedly being an answer record to the Rolling Stones’ gritty masterpiece Exile on Main St., was of the utmost importance to male rock journalists.
Anyway, I was way nervous about getting this album and, ever the arbiter of self-control, I’d keep myself from using allowance and later paycheck money to buy it. I’d mentally smack my hand and say “Not now. You’re not ready.” If my mom knew I invested so much mental energy worrying about the explicit content of an album, she probably would have just bought the thing for me.
I finally bought Phair’s debut album on my seventeenth birthday. My friends Amy and Ryan pooled together $30 for me and I went to Barnes and Noble, determined to buy this taboo item. I took a deep breath, strolled to the music section, blithely snatched the album (along with GusGus’s This Is Normal), paid for my purchase, and ran out of the store in a flush. I went home, turned my stereo to the lowest audible volume and listened to the entire album lying on the floor, inches away from the speakers. The experience had a wrapt solemnity that others might have given the loss of their virginity. I was not the same after listening to it.
If I spent this much time mentally preparing for how my life would never be the same after hearing the album, I spent the next two years listening to it every day, learning every word, memorizing the instrumental tracks, tuning my ear to the watery guitar melodies, and poring over the Clint Eastwood/porn star sleeve art.
Sleeve art for Exile In Guyville, Part I
Sleeve art for Exile In Guyville, Part II
And I wasn’t alone in my investment in this album. I remember sharing this album with my then-boyfriend Kyle. As choir nerds, we particularly loved that the song “Flower” was a) super-dirty and b) a madrigal!
The first thing I’ll tell you that I loved about it was Phair’s voice. What Rob Sheffield referred to as “Peppermint Patty on a bad caffiene jag” in the Spin Alternative Record Guide is a pretty good description. Her voice was dry, low, and raspy. She had a perfectly average voice. It wasn’t a scream, like Courtney Love’s. It was unimpressed, garbled when she hit low notes, strained at the high notes, beyond deadpan. I’d later find out that she was inspired by lo-fi acts like The Spinanes and Tall Dwarfs (and maybe, perhaps on an unconscious level, Anna Da Silva and Gina Birch of The Raincoats or Moe Tucker from The Velvet Underground). At the time, though, it sounded like nothing else I’d ever heard. It sounded like she was right in the room with me.
Her voice was very relateable, seemingly the voice of someone who had done everything right up until the point of recording and was just really tired of being the smart, good girl. One need only listen to “Canary,” a song set to “Chopsticks” about a girl who obeys all the rules, gains nothing from it, and is ready to set everything on fire because of it. At seventeen, I could totally relate.
Phair’s singing style juxtaposed nicely with her look. Now, I’m not gonna slobber all over her the way that some rock journalists at the time. Yes, she’s attractive. But, more importantly, she looked very straight-A student white girl next door — perhaps what girl studies scholar Anita Harris would label a can-do girl. Again, very relateable, as I was at the time in Chamber Choir, a member of National Honor Society, French Club, Drama Club, and other nerdy, non-controversial extra-curriculars. But I was also sexually frustrated — at once eager to experiment but nervous about going too far and yet all-too-ready to lie to my friends about what I actually had done.
I think these aspects of her sound exaggerate the blunt shock of her lyrical content which, as mentioned earlier, was pretty graphic. At the time, this lumped her in with third wave’s “do-me” feminism, an eye-rollingly glib and essentializing term that suggests that females can be empowered simply by celebrating their sexuality (absenting, of course, how normative this concept could be in terms of gender roles and sexuality, and how the ones who tend to benefit from it are middle-class white women, who don’t have the cultural baggage of being branded excessive by being too young, working class, queer, or women of color).
Thinking about Phair as a “do-me” feminist also essentializes her lyrical content to being limited to just fucking, which is not all she was doing with Exile in Guyville. As hinted at in the title, she also wrote critically about patriarchy. There are entire songs about the fallacy of male machismo (“Soap Star Joe”), wishes to reverse the double standard between men and women (“Explain It To Me”), feeling invisible (“Canary”), getting bullied by men (“Help Me, Mary,” “Johnny Sunshine”), as well as anthems dedicated to not putting up with it anymore (“6’1″”). Coming out of the male-dominated Chicago underground music scene, she had a lot to rebel against.
In addition to open feminist critiques, Phair was often elliptical in her approach to fighting patriarchy. She referenced the work of male musicians (the title itself winks at both The Rolling Stones and Urge Overkill’s song “Goodbye to Guyville”), swiping hooks, lyrics, and album concepts to reframe her work, reclaiming much of rock’s cocksure attitude for her own purposes. Sometimes she would lie — the most famous example being “Fuck and Run,” where she claims to have done just that since she was twelve. Phair would later go on to admit that this was a fabrication, which made others cry foul.
However, these sorts of lies I think are told for the sake of one big truth: that rock music’s obsession with authenticity betrays its practitioners’ desire to self-mythologize, fabricating whole identities that don’t align with their actual gender, race, class, and sexuality; that, indeed, authenticity is itself a gigantic lie. That this lie is being purported by a girl strumming a guitar into a 4-track in her bedroom makes its execution all the more stunning.
Also, focusing so extensively on the shockingly dirty lyrics from the pretty blonde lady strumming her guitar eclipses an actual discussion of her guitar-playing, which is great and contributes extensively to her sound. Her tunings, phrasings, chord structures, and harmonies have a warped quality to them at odds with the immediacy and catchiness of her music compositions.
It’s unfortunate that this album gets a lot of emphasis placed on it in relation to the other two albums that she did with Matador (though whitechocolatespaceegg was also distributed through Capitol, who she later signed with, who held a considerable stake in the company between 1996 and 1999 before owners Chris Lombardi and confirmed nice guy Gerard Cosloy bought back the label). Both Whip-Smart and (most of) whitechocolatespaceegg, in my estimation, capture Phair’s wry lyrics, idiosyncratic tunings, musical references, and indelible ways with pop hooks.
And while I found her attempted pop star turn working with the Matrix in the 2000s to be unfortunate, primarily because it seemed to take the particularities of her voice and sound out of the product, I also think it’s important to remember that, to rephrase an ESG EP title, indie cred doesn’t pay the bills. Sneering at her later work and dismissively stating that “Liz Phair sold out” absences the fact that she’s a single mom who makes music for a living. While perhaps becoming a pop star is not the answer (and certainly didn’t help Phair much financially), deriding this career move out of hand eclipses the necessary discussions that need to be had around how unfairly the commercial music industry compensates its artists, how monopolistic they have become, how difficult it is for independent labels to stay in business, and what little regard the mainstream music industry has for older female artists.
That said, her debut album lives on. Just a couple of weekends ago at a friend’s birthday party, I sang this song (courtesy of Karaoke Underground), doing back-up with my friend Karin while our friend Erik killed the lead vocals. And, of course, with the 15th anniversary re-release, folks like Shayla Thiel-Stern have done considerable reflection on what this album means to them, how it has influenced contemporary music, and how it shaped their feminist beliefs. I hope that it continues to inspire generations of girls and boys to spend hours with it, whether playing it above a whisper or at full volume.
Live on, Liz Phair; image courtesy of NYMag.com
If you have anything to add to this series, please do. E-mail submissions to feministmusicgeek@gmail.com. Don’t worry about abiding by tired genre hierarchies. Jean Grae, Sleater-Kinney, and Kylie Minogue are equal in that regard. Remember that the personal is not only political but educational, so feel free to share any memories or recollections that you’d like in conjunction with the artist/record/concert/scene/album cover/music video that made you a feminist. Thanks!
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.
These movies are coming out in the not-too-distant future. Can’t speak to whether or not the women in them are feminist music geeks, but the trailers suggest some geekery going on, and thus peaked my interest. Also, my friend Marlene posted them on Facebook.
So, first up we have (500) Days of Summer.
Directed by Marc Webb
Okay, so the positives first.
1. I like the leads. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is amazing in Mysterious Skin. Zooey Deschanel is charming and I’ve liked her in Elf, The Good Girl, and Almost Famous.
(Note: Ugh, something tells me I’ll have to get into Almost Famous on here at some point. To be brief, I kinda can’t stand that movie anymore, but still own my VHS copy from my late teens when I loved it. Fanboyness has ruined a lot of this movie’s appeal for me, as has growing tired of Cameron Crowe’s sentimentalism as I age. But people love this movie, so let’s get in a fight later.)
Okay, back to (500) Days of Summer.
2. Zooey sings in the trailer. Have you listened to She and Him? I really enjoy her and M. Ward together. If you need an album to make breakfast to, might I recommend Volume One? Deschanel’s got a warm, grainy voice. I gave Elf and Yes Man (a family choice at the multiplex during the holidays — please don’t judge) a pass for similar reasons. She even has a band in Yes Man, and wears cute coats.
3. Summer doesn’t believe in love. Like some people don’t believe in God or, to borrow from Tom, Santa. Hmm.
4. I guess Tom gets lame and Summer has enough and that’s where the plot thickens. I like it when ladies have had enough. Ah, that reminds me. I’ll probably also need to write up something on High Fidelity.
But I’ve also got some cons.
1. As happy as I want to be about Summer invading Tom’s male geek domain in the elevator by a) interrupting his loud, melancholic reverie, b) showing musical savviness by saying she loves The Smiths and then c) singing the chorus to “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out”, I can’t help but read this as a way to objectify Summer somehow. Maybe it has something to do with her sashaying out of the elevator and the camera cutting to Tom, slack-jawed and enamored, saying “Holy . . .”
1A. I’m sure some will bristle at the inclusion of The Smiths, or at least one of their more popular tunes, in a non-indie indie picture (Fox Searchlight, ya’ll). Perhaps they’ll get all territorial or offer up a more obscure song that could’ve been used. Personally, I don’t care. For one, Fox Searchlight has to appeal to a broad audience. For another, that particular song might mean a great deal to someone involved in the picture. For another, I just don’t care that much about The Smiths. Nothing personal. They just don’t do it for me. I tried liking them for four years (two years in high school, two years in college) and it didn’t click. However, I do love Schneider TM’s cover of said song.
2. Tom’s wonderment of Summer, combined with seeing her everywhere and claiming to want her back after the break-up kinda creeps me out. It doesn’t read as romantic so much as obsessive and predatory. But maybe that’s just the trailer.
3. This movie reads a little too closely as a template for romantic comedies co-starring the Manic Pixie Dream Girl (rarely is she the lead). Sad sack guy falls hard for madcap gal and is forever transformed by her, even though she really gets no character development (unless you think quirky dancing or being a fan of The Shins is development). Here’s hoping Summer gets some interiority.
4. Does this couple seem a little too white, middle-class, and straight to you? As I mentioned elsewhere, I think there’s room for progressive heterosexual romance in media, but there’s something a little too normative about this particular configuration. Again, maybe it’s just the preview.
On that tack, I like that Paper Heart is about an interracial couple. Better yet, the actors, Michael Cera and Charlyne Yi, might have some actual romantic history, thus blurring the line between documentary and feature.
Directed by Nicholas Jasenovec
Lots of pros:
1. Charlyne Yi co-wrote the screenplay.
2. Yi is multiracial and also kind of frumpy by Hollywood’s insane beauty standards. I like that the movie stars a “regular-looking” woman of color. One that co-wrote the script? Even better!
3. Dude, Yi is a musician and helped score the movie. Maybe she’ll play some songs!
4. Yi is 12 years older than Cera. Blah-dow.
5. “Charlyne Yi” the character doesn’t believe in love. While of course this gets tested, I like that she’s skeptical and unsentimental about it, and am curious as to how her feelings will develop.
6. Why hello, Bill Haverchuck. Yes, I see you, Ken Miller.
7. I want to be friends with the girl who says that love is buying someone hot wings at Applebee’s. She’s wise.
I may be jumping the gun by conceptualizing Paper Heart as a romantic comedy with, about, and for music geeks, but something tells me that it is and that this will be, if not a good movie, at least an interesting one.
My big ick with both of these movies is that they seem pretty cute. I’m pretty cute-averse, as a rule. I always have been. But maybe these movies won’t cross the line. We’ll see.
