Well, my hands are shaking. I feel incredibly sick. I have just cried four times in a row.
What in the hell is wrong with me?
Now that it's faded after a fifth quick spurt of crying, I feel almost embarrassed. I think my rational mind is reasserting itself. The desire for obliteration seems ludicrous, but not entirely. I think my brother might have heard me cry.
Here I am, in the house, surrounded by sleeping family and my life is worthless. Here is my face in the mirror - hideous. I look bewildered, stupid face.
Every time I think about how many tablets might be too much, my stupid fucking eyes cry. I make little creaking noises, and the blurring gives way to sniffing. Then snot and nausea. WHY THE FUCK CAN'T I EVEN CRY FREELY? Nausea hijacks my grief, truncating it every time. The soggy tissue is pathetic - not quite useless.
Whatever the hell it is strikes whenever my nearest and dearest are all asleep. They should fucking microchip me.
Guilt over TL stops me from really being able to make it happen. I tried to convince a friend not to kill himself via MSN - ultimately I succeeded somehow - but as I was bringing out all my usual quasi-jokey, quasi-desperate persuasion methods, he remarked that he couldn't hang around 'for other people's reasons.' He expressed self-loathing in between apologising to me - and I could see it was sincere - and mentioned that he was 'feeling selfish tonight.'
Ever since then, I've really found myself wondering whether it really is so worthwhile and humanitarian trying to persuade people of the value of life over death. It shook my certainty in a way I've never experienced before.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Thursday, October 07, 2010
Sexism and self-education
As a feminist/womanist, you get used to endless questions. Most feminist and womanist bloggers write, read and interact with their minds and fingers ready and primed to filter and/or delete, because of these endless questions. Quite often, seemingly-naive questioners will reveal themselves to be toxic arseholes bit by bit, in a manner that somewhat recalls, now that I think about it, TV-drama serial-killers sending bits of paraphernalia to their victims/potential victims/the police/all of the above. All too often, the person who says 'What's wrong with thinking/believing/saying X?' does not mean ''What's wrong with thinking/believing/saying X?' What they mean is: 'Hey, I think X. What is your problem? Why aren't you treating my opinion with the respect it deserves?!' All too often, these nuances of meaning become gradually more apparent, as I was saying, until they are deleted and/or blocked. Occasionally, you get a person who DOES mean what they're saying, but still turns out to be a toxic arsehole anyway, and even more rarely, you get a person who means it AND genuinely engages with the other point of view.
The way the process typically goes is as follows:
- Commenter pops up on a feminist/womanist blog and asks a question to feminist/womanist blogger/commenter.
- Feminist/womanist blogger/commenter responds.
(Often, a Q may not be clearly addressed to anyone in particular, so several respondents may weigh in).
This usually repeats at least twice, possibly more, and depends on the patience level of respondents and the blog author.
- Once respondents' patience is wearing thin, they will urge the questioner to go educate themselves. This frequently results in a flurry of questions about how to do that. Respondents provide links, which are very often ignored, and questioner continues to ask questions, OR:
- Questioner will simply ignore links and keep on asking - I have seen this so often, I swear that it now raises my blood pressure in Pavlovian fashion upon glimpsing it again.
Once this show of disrespect has been sufficiently extended, the questioner will usually end up being deleted, blocked and/or ignored.
Now there may be some of you out there who, even after reading this description of how it happens all too frequently, are fool enough to ask: But what's so wrong with that? Isn't it flattering for feminists/womanists, to be treated like an expert on a subject?
To which I have to respond by figuratively looking you in the eye, and asking: Have you been in the world much? Watched the news? Do you read blogs, Private Eye, newspapers? Let's take this little thing that you might have heard of - now what was it called - 'climate change.' It's also known as 'global warming' and 'AGW'. If you exist in a state of about-average wakefulness (i.e., you're not given to chronic blackouts or narcolepsy), you'll be aware that a majority of scientists believe that it's happening, that it is down to humans and that we need to do something about it. Now, I don't give a shit what your personal stance on it is (unless you're a hardcore fruitcake of the still-disputing-that-most-scientists-believe-it's-happening variety...). You will have received this basic knowledge through the news. Now tell me, what was the response of most national governments to this knowledge? Did madness break out? Were presidents and prime ministers touring the country and writing to the press, crying that SOMETHING MUST BE DONE?
No. No, they were not. If, as I assume, you are a fairly average person, not massively political, you probably responded in similarly muted fashion. Cue some stuff about recycling and less car journeys and green products. Thus, despite a MASSIVE EXPERT CONSENSUS, the global reaction was mostly something along the lines of:
'What? You - What? Really? Melting? Flooding? Us? Omigod. Shit. Fuck... ahhhh, hell.'
Just goes to show what you think about experts. To use another example: hunger and poverty in Africa. You know it's happening, right? You know that it's still pretty bloody serious in parts of Africa. Does this send you, screaming and militant, to devote your life to building huts and raising money for water filtration and Fairtrade farming? As Michael Kyle says: 'Ah... Nah'. We will always ignore or filter out what someone's saying, even if they're an expert and at times, especially if they're an expert, if we've already made our own minds up.
I really urge you, even if you've blanked out by this point and have little or no will to continue reading, to read this brilliant post by a disabled feminist: 'Go educate yourself (please)'. Hopefully by now, you comprehend how massively disrespectful it is to keep harassing someone after they've told you to find out for yourself. Some feminists and womanists have had it happen so often that they now move to refusing the role of educator instantly. While I can accept that men may feel intimidated by feminism and think it's something they aren't allowed to be part of - surely no-one's actually going to stop you getting feminist texts from the library? Women aren't really going to leap from your screen and strangle you for attempting to read things online either, are they?
I've been tremendously lucky in that I've never really had to deal with this that much. On Pickled Politics, however, there is one commenter who's just pulled a questioner on me after having done it once before. He seems like an OK chap as far as I know, but he asked the question which prompted this post. The thread in question was in response to an article about Dr. Mitu Khurana, who is fighting to protect her five-year-old twin daughters from a murderous husband and in-laws - PLEASE read the article (if not the comments) and sign the petition. The commenter in question, Ravi Naik, wrote in response to me:
To which I just thought... How the bloody hell should I know? Why should I know, given that I don't live in India?
Now if your response to my reaction was along the lines of 'Why don't you know?' and/or 'You should know,' then congratulations. You are a joke, and you have your very own square on the anti-feminist bingo board under "You should..." I would also turn the questions back onto you, and ask: do you know? If so, why not? Is the calculated murder of female children, whether in the womb or after birth, a subject of worth only to a select minority, mostly-female, here and in India? Why is it so? Why does the exercising of women's right to abortion in America draw vocal and violent protests from (usually) godbags, but this issue doesn't? Furthermore: what is it that I'm expected to know? Sex ratios in India? The individual psychology of mothers-in-law like Mitu Khurana's?
Ultimately, I do know to some extent - and how I found out is no secret (as the above link indicates), hell, I even link to an Indian feminist blog and one which campaigns against female foeticide up above ^
The matter of why I should know this is separate, however. There is such an easy answer: why should I know about this topic? Because I am interested in it. The minute you ask a question about something, you are expressing interest. If that wasn't your intention, then either think before you speak or type, or shut the hell up, listen/read, and learn. Even better, do both. It is not the asking of a question in itself which is troublesome. What is troublesome, is the assumption that you can - nay, SHOULD - keep asking, and get answers, because it is your RIGHT. Why, on the Internet of all places, where nothing is sacred and everyone is hidden, would you have more of an entitlement to an answer than in the 'real' world? Would you be more inclined to give your bank details to an e-mail scammer than your wallet to a mugger? No, because the fear of violence and the lack of possibilities for concealment keep you in check in the latter scenario. Interestingly enough, questioners may themselves resort to abuse and threats of violence after being deleted and/or ignored - which I think says a lot about the mentality and masculinity of questioners.
Note I didn't say 'maleness,' I said 'masculinity.' Questioners often reveal their masculinity very quickly through their assumptions of superiority over those they are asking for information - how paradoxical is that? They claim to be seeking help, yet they often ignore that help when it is given. This subsequently suggests that what they really want is attention and to provoke - it's no wonder that we must then be constantly alert for trolling. Scholars of masculinity and male feminist allies have pointed out how contradictory masculinity is, and the behaviour I'm describing is a perfect example of that. What it also brings to mind is the behaviour of a spoilt child, whether at home crying for Mummy until she's ready to tear her hair out, or in the classroom, driving the teacher insane. Which is when I stopped, and realised that I had to write this post.
Sure, there's the more apparent sexism (or racism, or homophobia, or transphobia, or ablism!) that is demonstrated through the assertion of the 'right' of white men (for it is usually they!) to be endlessly showered with attention and appreciation in spaces which are supposed to be kept safe for women, transwomen, non-white people, queers/homosexuals and the disabled, and in areas that have nothing to do with them. The very notion that it's 'OK' to ask a member of any or all of these groups to explain what they believe and what they experience for you without bothering to do even a little of your own research, and not only that, but expect them to do so in a way that doesn't offend you personally, is laden with privilege. If you really believe that that is your 'right' or 'entitlement,' then you are a massive, arrogant, dickwad and you can fuck right off. It's funny how even the most 'libertarian' of white males can develop a very bad reaction to being told that they ought to do some work of their own accord.
Yet for the men among you who have been reading this so far, and are feeling relatively confident that you don't behave in the manner, I've just described, consider this: the repeated posing of questions to feminists/womanists is sexist and disrespectful in itself, because it projects your expectations of femininity onto a bunch of women you don't know and ultimately becomes a subtle way of trying to put women 'back in their place'. If, as I'm assuming, you're relatively liberal/lefty-leaning socially and fairly politicised - how often do you go onto politics blogs and start asking the commenters there (for example) why the Labour party is historically considered 'left-wing' or not, or why the Conservatives are generally considered 'right-wing'? Have you gone out of your way to get people to explain to you in full (for example) why opposing wars is generally seen as a left-wing thing?
Unless you inform yourself on EVERY LITTLE POINT by bothering other commenters, then it is absolutely unacceptable to do that on feminist blogs. So feminism is large and diverse - so fucking what? The leftist movement's hardly homogeneous. The key difference in the two settings, which makes all the difference, is that politics blogs, whether left- or right-leaning, are seen as 'male' territory. Politics has always been overwhelmingly regarded as the domain of the male - which is why even I sound like I'm separating out feminist blogs and politics blogs. Despite being political, feminist blogs don't duplicate the style of most politics blogs and thus are not really regarded as such by the 'blokeosphere'. Hence the cynical gender-aware observer will be unsurprised to see feminist issues being mocked, ignored and trivialised even on supposedly 'liberal' sites. Politics blogs are an exercise in hyper-masculinity, with a frankly pathetic show of macho piss and pyrotechnics in the comments. Anyone who dares to show ignorance of the basic context of a particular situation will usually be ignored, and sometimes also mocked - and men have the nerve to claim that feminist/womanist bloggers treat them harshly! Men venturing onto feminist/womanist blogs, however, are well aware that most of the commenters are women. Women are feminine, they don't DO that hyper-macho rude thing! Women are mothers and nurses and carers and primary school teachers, don't you know?! They're there to pat you and tell you you're a big boy and make everything better. Answering your questions and doing your work for you - that's their JOB.
And so, with this embedded deep in their psyche through mere socialisation, men set out on feminist blogs to behave in a way they wouldn't dare demonstrate in front of other men. Even the most well-meaning of my male readers may have made this mistake already, because of socialisation. If you find yourself thinking or even hoping that feminists/womanists are going to be patient with you and entertain your dumb ass when you know that commenters on political blogs wouldn't - well, then, you deserve all the flaming, deleting and banning you get. So you cast women in supporting roles in your head because you're a heterosexual male - so what? Our spaces are for us, not you. That name on the screen is not your mother, your sister or primary school teacher. She wouldn't do it for you, and you shouldn't even be expecting her to. Take yourself over to here to get some feminism 101, and here for some womanism 101, use Google and libraries. As for asking questions, it's not verboten, but if you really want to be a feminist/womanist ally and demonstrate basic respect for women, you can't really go wrong with the following formula:
a) STFU, pay attention and read/listen. More than likely, you will get the answer to what you were wondering about if you just read what feminist and womanist bloggers are saying on a regular basis. Once you find a blogger whose style you like, check out their blogroll. Most have reading lists, or you could always ask them or their commenters for suggestions politely - that's perfectly fine. If you know somebody in your personal life who is a feminist or womanist and who wouldn't mind dealing with your Qs, you can approach them, but remember that ultimately, if you're interested, it's your job to find things out for yourself.
b) Stop and think. If you're thinking of asking a question, is it really necessary, or will a bit of patience and/or research or reflection do the job for you?
c) If you must ask a question, do so as politely and respectfully as possible. You may still get flamed, which you'll just have to live with. We feminists and womanists come under constant attack and have absolutely no obligation or relation to you. You have to earn our attention and trust.
Ultimately, if a man can't do that much - and it really isn't that much - then he is a sexist twat. THIS is what challenging privilege is all about - realising that the world does NOT revolve around you, confronting that fact head-on with people who have been harmed by the privilege that attaches to your body and accepting that their reality is equally valid with humility and respect. It's an ongoing process of course, but really, if you can't be bothered to make the effort to act like a full human, there's no reason why anyone should be bothered to treat you like one.
The way the process typically goes is as follows:
- Commenter pops up on a feminist/womanist blog and asks a question to feminist/womanist blogger/commenter.
- Feminist/womanist blogger/commenter responds.
(Often, a Q may not be clearly addressed to anyone in particular, so several respondents may weigh in).
This usually repeats at least twice, possibly more, and depends on the patience level of respondents and the blog author.
- Once respondents' patience is wearing thin, they will urge the questioner to go educate themselves. This frequently results in a flurry of questions about how to do that. Respondents provide links, which are very often ignored, and questioner continues to ask questions, OR:
- Questioner will simply ignore links and keep on asking - I have seen this so often, I swear that it now raises my blood pressure in Pavlovian fashion upon glimpsing it again.
Once this show of disrespect has been sufficiently extended, the questioner will usually end up being deleted, blocked and/or ignored.
Now there may be some of you out there who, even after reading this description of how it happens all too frequently, are fool enough to ask: But what's so wrong with that? Isn't it flattering for feminists/womanists, to be treated like an expert on a subject?
To which I have to respond by figuratively looking you in the eye, and asking: Have you been in the world much? Watched the news? Do you read blogs, Private Eye, newspapers? Let's take this little thing that you might have heard of - now what was it called - 'climate change.' It's also known as 'global warming' and 'AGW'. If you exist in a state of about-average wakefulness (i.e., you're not given to chronic blackouts or narcolepsy), you'll be aware that a majority of scientists believe that it's happening, that it is down to humans and that we need to do something about it. Now, I don't give a shit what your personal stance on it is (unless you're a hardcore fruitcake of the still-disputing-that-most-scientists-believe-it's-happening variety...). You will have received this basic knowledge through the news. Now tell me, what was the response of most national governments to this knowledge? Did madness break out? Were presidents and prime ministers touring the country and writing to the press, crying that SOMETHING MUST BE DONE?
No. No, they were not. If, as I assume, you are a fairly average person, not massively political, you probably responded in similarly muted fashion. Cue some stuff about recycling and less car journeys and green products. Thus, despite a MASSIVE EXPERT CONSENSUS, the global reaction was mostly something along the lines of:
'What? You - What? Really? Melting? Flooding? Us? Omigod. Shit. Fuck... ahhhh, hell.'
Just goes to show what you think about experts. To use another example: hunger and poverty in Africa. You know it's happening, right? You know that it's still pretty bloody serious in parts of Africa. Does this send you, screaming and militant, to devote your life to building huts and raising money for water filtration and Fairtrade farming? As Michael Kyle says: 'Ah... Nah'. We will always ignore or filter out what someone's saying, even if they're an expert and at times, especially if they're an expert, if we've already made our own minds up.
I really urge you, even if you've blanked out by this point and have little or no will to continue reading, to read this brilliant post by a disabled feminist: 'Go educate yourself (please)'. Hopefully by now, you comprehend how massively disrespectful it is to keep harassing someone after they've told you to find out for yourself. Some feminists and womanists have had it happen so often that they now move to refusing the role of educator instantly. While I can accept that men may feel intimidated by feminism and think it's something they aren't allowed to be part of - surely no-one's actually going to stop you getting feminist texts from the library? Women aren't really going to leap from your screen and strangle you for attempting to read things online either, are they?
I've been tremendously lucky in that I've never really had to deal with this that much. On Pickled Politics, however, there is one commenter who's just pulled a questioner on me after having done it once before. He seems like an OK chap as far as I know, but he asked the question which prompted this post. The thread in question was in response to an article about Dr. Mitu Khurana, who is fighting to protect her five-year-old twin daughters from a murderous husband and in-laws - PLEASE read the article (if not the comments) and sign the petition. The commenter in question, Ravi Naik, wrote in response to me:
[...] in my mind, I am wondering what sort of grandparents want to harm their own flesh and blood? Is this an exception or the rule in Indian society?
To which I just thought... How the bloody hell should I know? Why should I know, given that I don't live in India?
Now if your response to my reaction was along the lines of 'Why don't you know?' and/or 'You should know,' then congratulations. You are a joke, and you have your very own square on the anti-feminist bingo board under "You should..." I would also turn the questions back onto you, and ask: do you know? If so, why not? Is the calculated murder of female children, whether in the womb or after birth, a subject of worth only to a select minority, mostly-female, here and in India? Why is it so? Why does the exercising of women's right to abortion in America draw vocal and violent protests from (usually) godbags, but this issue doesn't? Furthermore: what is it that I'm expected to know? Sex ratios in India? The individual psychology of mothers-in-law like Mitu Khurana's?
Ultimately, I do know to some extent - and how I found out is no secret (as the above link indicates), hell, I even link to an Indian feminist blog and one which campaigns against female foeticide up above ^
The matter of why I should know this is separate, however. There is such an easy answer: why should I know about this topic? Because I am interested in it. The minute you ask a question about something, you are expressing interest. If that wasn't your intention, then either think before you speak or type, or shut the hell up, listen/read, and learn. Even better, do both. It is not the asking of a question in itself which is troublesome. What is troublesome, is the assumption that you can - nay, SHOULD - keep asking, and get answers, because it is your RIGHT. Why, on the Internet of all places, where nothing is sacred and everyone is hidden, would you have more of an entitlement to an answer than in the 'real' world? Would you be more inclined to give your bank details to an e-mail scammer than your wallet to a mugger? No, because the fear of violence and the lack of possibilities for concealment keep you in check in the latter scenario. Interestingly enough, questioners may themselves resort to abuse and threats of violence after being deleted and/or ignored - which I think says a lot about the mentality and masculinity of questioners.
Note I didn't say 'maleness,' I said 'masculinity.' Questioners often reveal their masculinity very quickly through their assumptions of superiority over those they are asking for information - how paradoxical is that? They claim to be seeking help, yet they often ignore that help when it is given. This subsequently suggests that what they really want is attention and to provoke - it's no wonder that we must then be constantly alert for trolling. Scholars of masculinity and male feminist allies have pointed out how contradictory masculinity is, and the behaviour I'm describing is a perfect example of that. What it also brings to mind is the behaviour of a spoilt child, whether at home crying for Mummy until she's ready to tear her hair out, or in the classroom, driving the teacher insane. Which is when I stopped, and realised that I had to write this post.
Sure, there's the more apparent sexism (or racism, or homophobia, or transphobia, or ablism!) that is demonstrated through the assertion of the 'right' of white men (for it is usually they!) to be endlessly showered with attention and appreciation in spaces which are supposed to be kept safe for women, transwomen, non-white people, queers/homosexuals and the disabled, and in areas that have nothing to do with them. The very notion that it's 'OK' to ask a member of any or all of these groups to explain what they believe and what they experience for you without bothering to do even a little of your own research, and not only that, but expect them to do so in a way that doesn't offend you personally, is laden with privilege. If you really believe that that is your 'right' or 'entitlement,' then you are a massive, arrogant, dickwad and you can fuck right off. It's funny how even the most 'libertarian' of white males can develop a very bad reaction to being told that they ought to do some work of their own accord.
Yet for the men among you who have been reading this so far, and are feeling relatively confident that you don't behave in the manner, I've just described, consider this: the repeated posing of questions to feminists/womanists is sexist and disrespectful in itself, because it projects your expectations of femininity onto a bunch of women you don't know and ultimately becomes a subtle way of trying to put women 'back in their place'. If, as I'm assuming, you're relatively liberal/lefty-leaning socially and fairly politicised - how often do you go onto politics blogs and start asking the commenters there (for example) why the Labour party is historically considered 'left-wing' or not, or why the Conservatives are generally considered 'right-wing'? Have you gone out of your way to get people to explain to you in full (for example) why opposing wars is generally seen as a left-wing thing?
Unless you inform yourself on EVERY LITTLE POINT by bothering other commenters, then it is absolutely unacceptable to do that on feminist blogs. So feminism is large and diverse - so fucking what? The leftist movement's hardly homogeneous. The key difference in the two settings, which makes all the difference, is that politics blogs, whether left- or right-leaning, are seen as 'male' territory. Politics has always been overwhelmingly regarded as the domain of the male - which is why even I sound like I'm separating out feminist blogs and politics blogs. Despite being political, feminist blogs don't duplicate the style of most politics blogs and thus are not really regarded as such by the 'blokeosphere'. Hence the cynical gender-aware observer will be unsurprised to see feminist issues being mocked, ignored and trivialised even on supposedly 'liberal' sites. Politics blogs are an exercise in hyper-masculinity, with a frankly pathetic show of macho piss and pyrotechnics in the comments. Anyone who dares to show ignorance of the basic context of a particular situation will usually be ignored, and sometimes also mocked - and men have the nerve to claim that feminist/womanist bloggers treat them harshly! Men venturing onto feminist/womanist blogs, however, are well aware that most of the commenters are women. Women are feminine, they don't DO that hyper-macho rude thing! Women are mothers and nurses and carers and primary school teachers, don't you know?! They're there to pat you and tell you you're a big boy and make everything better. Answering your questions and doing your work for you - that's their JOB.
And so, with this embedded deep in their psyche through mere socialisation, men set out on feminist blogs to behave in a way they wouldn't dare demonstrate in front of other men. Even the most well-meaning of my male readers may have made this mistake already, because of socialisation. If you find yourself thinking or even hoping that feminists/womanists are going to be patient with you and entertain your dumb ass when you know that commenters on political blogs wouldn't - well, then, you deserve all the flaming, deleting and banning you get. So you cast women in supporting roles in your head because you're a heterosexual male - so what? Our spaces are for us, not you. That name on the screen is not your mother, your sister or primary school teacher. She wouldn't do it for you, and you shouldn't even be expecting her to. Take yourself over to here to get some feminism 101, and here for some womanism 101, use Google and libraries. As for asking questions, it's not verboten, but if you really want to be a feminist/womanist ally and demonstrate basic respect for women, you can't really go wrong with the following formula:
a) STFU, pay attention and read/listen. More than likely, you will get the answer to what you were wondering about if you just read what feminist and womanist bloggers are saying on a regular basis. Once you find a blogger whose style you like, check out their blogroll. Most have reading lists, or you could always ask them or their commenters for suggestions politely - that's perfectly fine. If you know somebody in your personal life who is a feminist or womanist and who wouldn't mind dealing with your Qs, you can approach them, but remember that ultimately, if you're interested, it's your job to find things out for yourself.
b) Stop and think. If you're thinking of asking a question, is it really necessary, or will a bit of patience and/or research or reflection do the job for you?
c) If you must ask a question, do so as politely and respectfully as possible. You may still get flamed, which you'll just have to live with. We feminists and womanists come under constant attack and have absolutely no obligation or relation to you. You have to earn our attention and trust.
Ultimately, if a man can't do that much - and it really isn't that much - then he is a sexist twat. THIS is what challenging privilege is all about - realising that the world does NOT revolve around you, confronting that fact head-on with people who have been harmed by the privilege that attaches to your body and accepting that their reality is equally valid with humility and respect. It's an ongoing process of course, but really, if you can't be bothered to make the effort to act like a full human, there's no reason why anyone should be bothered to treat you like one.
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
I love them
You know what? I have been thinking about doing this in bed BEFORE I SLEEP, and you know what, I'm just going to go ahead and do it.
That's right, I'm going to make a list of 10 (non-Hindi) female artists that I love! In no particular order, despite the numbers.
1) Janelle Monáe
2) Charlotte Hatherley
3) Jill Scott
4) Róisín Murphy
5) Bat For Lashes
6) Santigold
7) M.I.A
8) Nellie McKay
9) Amy Winehouse
10) Mariah Carey (OH YES I DID)
An honourable mention to Missy Elliott, and I'm sure there are others that I'm forgetting/not arsed to mention here! I strongly suspect that an utterly fangirl post will be forthcoming on Janelle Monáe at some point, I love love LOVE her.
That's right, I'm going to make a list of 10 (non-Hindi) female artists that I love! In no particular order, despite the numbers.
1) Janelle Monáe
2) Charlotte Hatherley
3) Jill Scott
4) Róisín Murphy
5) Bat For Lashes
6) Santigold
7) M.I.A
8) Nellie McKay
9) Amy Winehouse
10) Mariah Carey (OH YES I DID)
An honourable mention to Missy Elliott, and I'm sure there are others that I'm forgetting/not arsed to mention here! I strongly suspect that an utterly fangirl post will be forthcoming on Janelle Monáe at some point, I love love LOVE her.
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
That 10:10 video...
My attention was drawn to this via a piece on Pickled Politics by Rumbold. The tone of it, veering ever-so-slightly into Daily Mail-wailing territory, primed me for disagreement. Yet I adore Rumbold, and like many, find him to be really rather sane most of the time. Certainly, when you consider that he identifies as a 'classical liberal' (otherwise known as libertarian), he's punching way above his weight in the 'sane and humane' stakes. In short, before watching the 10:10 video he mentions, I was intrigued by both his claim that the video depicts 'two children murdered for refusing to back the 10:10 environmental campaign' and the slight note of shrieky moral condemnation with which he made it. I mean sheesh, it's just a video, right? No children were actually harmed, and maybe, just maybe, there would be a vein of wicked South Park-style humour to it?
So, I gave it a watch.
Wow, just wow. Just via the comments on other blogs, I saw that plenty of people were pissed at this video for the whole exploding-children element (though hello, they explode adults as well, and that's not any better!). I agree, it's incredibly distasteful, but really - who gives a shit?!
It's easy, way too easy to reach for the moral condemnation here. As I said, they depicted children being blown up, they didn't actually do it. What is most objectionable about this video is the fact that, as a friend put it, it is an EPIC FAIL. There are so many layers of fail here; let's begin with the most recent. As Rumbold mentions, 10:10 tried to use the hackneyed 'it's just a joke!' defence. The thing is, jokes are about humour, right? Humour is supposed to be funny, right? Being the smug smartarse ex-lit student that I am, I thought perhaps there might be some clever-clever ironic shit in there that, even if it didn't justify the exploding humans, might at least justify 10:10's claim of 'just kiddin', guv'.
Thus, I watched for the funny and good fuckin' Lard, there was not a punchline in sight. Oh look, two kids aren't bothered about 10:10! Oh, 'no pressure'! Oh, now they've been blown to a bloody pulp? What's this? You're going to do the same thing twice more, but with adults? Fuck off. I was feeling distinctly cheated at the end, thinking 'So that was it?!'. I even asked the aforementioned friend to watch it (a man who knows shit about comedy, being an Armando Iannucci aficionado and the guy who introduced me to Arrested Development) and he didn't find it funny either. Look, I've watched Nighty Night. I've connected with my inner capacity for sick humour, even though South Park pisses me off at times with its clever-cleverness. Ironically, the only thing that I found funny was the fact that this was directed by Richard Curtis, effectively confirming the frequent charge that he has nary an idea what genuinely worthwhile, intelligent humour looks like.
What made me even more angry about the video was the fact that it's so fucking dumb. You can see that it's trying really hard to be funny, in an it's-the-age-of-realistic-video-games-and-we-must-get-everyone's-attention-somehow! way. The thing is, I can't help thinking that the only people who would find humour in such a repetitive, laboured piece of poo, are the kind of people who frequent Cif and will immediately start mentioning 'overpopulation' whenever anything remotely climate-change-related appears. Anyone else will just watch the video, waiting for something to happen. It's completely backfired, because instead of making 10:10 look nonchalant and cool and happening as is quite clearly the intention (hence why almost eeeeeveryone wants to be on their team and it's only ever a couple of people being asploded) it just makes Richard Curtis and 10:10 look desperate, albeit for different reasons. You get the impression that he's having some kind of later-life crisis, needing to prove that he is still relevant and 'edgy': 'Look! Look! I'm still funny, and I've always been, biatches!' Um, no, sorry, Rich. Interestingly, my instincts appear to have been spot-on as to the film-makers' aims, according to Wikipedia:
10:10 have made themselves look tragic and incompetent; so attention-needy that when Richard Curtis batted his lashes at them, they dropped their dignity and went: 'Yes! We WILL accept your pitch, and endorse the finished product too! Whee, look at us, we're 10:10! LOOK AT US!!!' Whether they got swept up in the excitement of having RICHARD! CURTIS! on board and just lost their critical faculties, didn't really watch the finished product before putting it online, couldn't bring themselves to tell him it was shit at the last minute, OR actually did think it was funny - it's not good.
They've let the side down. If left-leaning people are supposed to be good at anything, it's comedy. How many funny right-wingers can you honestly think of, compared to lefty/liberal types?! Not only have 10:10 reinforced the stereotype of environmentalists (and anyone else who gives a shit about injustice) being branded 'humourless,' but the video is additionally humourless in that it's not funny. 'No Pressure' - goddamn, what a punchline! My sides are splitting! They've also harmed their campaign, for a number of reasons:
- What is seeing people exploding going to make most folk think of? Terrorism. Yes, that's right, this video is ideal fuel for all those people who love ranting about 'liberal fascists' 'eco-terrorists' and so forth. It may also even be a power-up to those who go on about how 'the Left' is 'in bed with Islamists' for all I know... It certainly makes environmentalists, and by definition, all Lefties, look like dehumanised authoritarians. Given that climate scientists have been constantly constructed as such, especially during the fucking 'Climategate' scandal, you wouldn't have thought it could have got much worse.
- As I was saying before, the video is dumb. The whole point of environmentalism is that it works alongside science. 'We,' the people who accept that climate change is a reality that needs to be managed ASAP, are supposed to be all about the science. The truth and the knowledge. If you're not good at shock tactics, if it's evident that shock tactics make little difference to the climate debate in the UK (mercifully, 'Climategate' had little impact on most people beyond deniers, if I remember correct, though I dread to think what might've happened in the toxic media-sphere of the US) and are constantly employed by deniers - why go there? It merely affirms that the truth is not enough (which we all know anyway!) and fuels the denier assertions that action on climate change is about power and control, not protecting our future.
- Shock tactics, when not harnessed to a very clear objective, are naturally going to fail. The reason that wingnuts have historically employed them so successfully, is because they use them in the service of emotive arguments and for short-term gain. Climate change is so intangible, incomprehensible and long-term for most people, that shock tactics only alienate them. The worst thing about this video is its massive communication fail. What the fuck is the point of it? What is its message? Could you tell me? Funnily enough, I found myself primarily wondering how it was in the video that 10:10 - or the green movement, or whoever was supposed to be responsible - managed to get explosive inside so many different people to detonate. Nothing else was really interesting enough to engage me... When Peter Crouch is the most noteworthy thing about your video, you know you're in trouble.
The tragic thing is that from what I've seen, as someone who's signed up to 10:10's website, they are actually bold, dynamic and direct in their activism. Their Lighter Later campaign, for example, makes sense on various levels - even if you know absolutely jackshit about climate change, you can surely see the value of having more daylight - happier people (more serotonin production!), less money spent on electricity, it's easy to support and implement AND it's a way to combat climate change! This video makes them look like a bunch of idiotic, posturing posh-kid students with no practical focus, trying to show off and look cool. They are not operating in a vacuum, and unfair though it is, unfortunately their actions reflect badly on ALL such campaigns, not just their own. Let's hope they learn from this fiasco, and not let such a monumentally massive PR cock-up happen again...
So, I gave it a watch.
Wow, just wow. Just via the comments on other blogs, I saw that plenty of people were pissed at this video for the whole exploding-children element (though hello, they explode adults as well, and that's not any better!). I agree, it's incredibly distasteful, but really - who gives a shit?!
It's easy, way too easy to reach for the moral condemnation here. As I said, they depicted children being blown up, they didn't actually do it. What is most objectionable about this video is the fact that, as a friend put it, it is an EPIC FAIL. There are so many layers of fail here; let's begin with the most recent. As Rumbold mentions, 10:10 tried to use the hackneyed 'it's just a joke!' defence. The thing is, jokes are about humour, right? Humour is supposed to be funny, right? Being the smug smartarse ex-lit student that I am, I thought perhaps there might be some clever-clever ironic shit in there that, even if it didn't justify the exploding humans, might at least justify 10:10's claim of 'just kiddin', guv'.
Thus, I watched for the funny and good fuckin' Lard, there was not a punchline in sight. Oh look, two kids aren't bothered about 10:10! Oh, 'no pressure'! Oh, now they've been blown to a bloody pulp? What's this? You're going to do the same thing twice more, but with adults? Fuck off. I was feeling distinctly cheated at the end, thinking 'So that was it?!'. I even asked the aforementioned friend to watch it (a man who knows shit about comedy, being an Armando Iannucci aficionado and the guy who introduced me to Arrested Development) and he didn't find it funny either. Look, I've watched Nighty Night. I've connected with my inner capacity for sick humour, even though South Park pisses me off at times with its clever-cleverness. Ironically, the only thing that I found funny was the fact that this was directed by Richard Curtis, effectively confirming the frequent charge that he has nary an idea what genuinely worthwhile, intelligent humour looks like.
What made me even more angry about the video was the fact that it's so fucking dumb. You can see that it's trying really hard to be funny, in an it's-the-age-of-realistic-video-games-and-we-must-get-everyone's-attention-somehow! way. The thing is, I can't help thinking that the only people who would find humour in such a repetitive, laboured piece of poo, are the kind of people who frequent Cif and will immediately start mentioning 'overpopulation' whenever anything remotely climate-change-related appears. Anyone else will just watch the video, waiting for something to happen. It's completely backfired, because instead of making 10:10 look nonchalant and cool and happening as is quite clearly the intention (hence why almost eeeeeveryone wants to be on their team and it's only ever a couple of people being asploded) it just makes Richard Curtis and 10:10 look desperate, albeit for different reasons. You get the impression that he's having some kind of later-life crisis, needing to prove that he is still relevant and 'edgy': 'Look! Look! I'm still funny, and I've always been, biatches!' Um, no, sorry, Rich. Interestingly, my instincts appear to have been spot-on as to the film-makers' aims, according to Wikipedia:
The film's makers said that they viewed No Pressure as "a funny and satirical tongue-in-cheek little film in the over-the-top style of Monty Python or South Park". Before its release, it was described as "attention-grabbing" and "pretty edgy."
10:10 have made themselves look tragic and incompetent; so attention-needy that when Richard Curtis batted his lashes at them, they dropped their dignity and went: 'Yes! We WILL accept your pitch, and endorse the finished product too! Whee, look at us, we're 10:10! LOOK AT US!!!' Whether they got swept up in the excitement of having RICHARD! CURTIS! on board and just lost their critical faculties, didn't really watch the finished product before putting it online, couldn't bring themselves to tell him it was shit at the last minute, OR actually did think it was funny - it's not good.
They've let the side down. If left-leaning people are supposed to be good at anything, it's comedy. How many funny right-wingers can you honestly think of, compared to lefty/liberal types?! Not only have 10:10 reinforced the stereotype of environmentalists (and anyone else who gives a shit about injustice) being branded 'humourless,' but the video is additionally humourless in that it's not funny. 'No Pressure' - goddamn, what a punchline! My sides are splitting! They've also harmed their campaign, for a number of reasons:
- What is seeing people exploding going to make most folk think of? Terrorism. Yes, that's right, this video is ideal fuel for all those people who love ranting about 'liberal fascists' 'eco-terrorists' and so forth. It may also even be a power-up to those who go on about how 'the Left' is 'in bed with Islamists' for all I know... It certainly makes environmentalists, and by definition, all Lefties, look like dehumanised authoritarians. Given that climate scientists have been constantly constructed as such, especially during the fucking 'Climategate' scandal, you wouldn't have thought it could have got much worse.
- As I was saying before, the video is dumb. The whole point of environmentalism is that it works alongside science. 'We,' the people who accept that climate change is a reality that needs to be managed ASAP, are supposed to be all about the science. The truth and the knowledge. If you're not good at shock tactics, if it's evident that shock tactics make little difference to the climate debate in the UK (mercifully, 'Climategate' had little impact on most people beyond deniers, if I remember correct, though I dread to think what might've happened in the toxic media-sphere of the US) and are constantly employed by deniers - why go there? It merely affirms that the truth is not enough (which we all know anyway!) and fuels the denier assertions that action on climate change is about power and control, not protecting our future.
- Shock tactics, when not harnessed to a very clear objective, are naturally going to fail. The reason that wingnuts have historically employed them so successfully, is because they use them in the service of emotive arguments and for short-term gain. Climate change is so intangible, incomprehensible and long-term for most people, that shock tactics only alienate them. The worst thing about this video is its massive communication fail. What the fuck is the point of it? What is its message? Could you tell me? Funnily enough, I found myself primarily wondering how it was in the video that 10:10 - or the green movement, or whoever was supposed to be responsible - managed to get explosive inside so many different people to detonate. Nothing else was really interesting enough to engage me... When Peter Crouch is the most noteworthy thing about your video, you know you're in trouble.
The tragic thing is that from what I've seen, as someone who's signed up to 10:10's website, they are actually bold, dynamic and direct in their activism. Their Lighter Later campaign, for example, makes sense on various levels - even if you know absolutely jackshit about climate change, you can surely see the value of having more daylight - happier people (more serotonin production!), less money spent on electricity, it's easy to support and implement AND it's a way to combat climate change! This video makes them look like a bunch of idiotic, posturing posh-kid students with no practical focus, trying to show off and look cool. They are not operating in a vacuum, and unfair though it is, unfortunately their actions reflect badly on ALL such campaigns, not just their own. Let's hope they learn from this fiasco, and not let such a monumentally massive PR cock-up happen again...
Saturday, October 02, 2010
Me and Charlotte Hatherley
I've had a bloody busy summer, as is amply evidenced by the glaring lack of posts here. At times I would have what seemed like a worthwhile idea, then either change my mind or forget what I was thinking of blogging. After the intensity of my Master's dissertation, which I submitted in late August, I kept myself busy with a plentiful supply of temporary work right up until the 25th of September. Since then, due to our lack of a kitchen and my desperate need for a break from EVERYTHING, I put job-hunting on the back-burner for a little while to rest and (this second part was not intentional, but I've found myself having little choice in the matter) face up to various personal issues that the imminent onset of Full-On Adulthood has re-woken. My deep rooted sense of insecurity and absolute worthlessness has re-emerged with a vengeance in the last few days, likely due to several factors (facing the void of the future, not getting a job I was led to believe I had a really good chance of getting, no temporary jobs and the lack of kitchen, which looks set to extend beyond the initial week to two whole weeks). Some of my closest friends have also had major emotional dramas of their own to contend with recently, which isn't particularly good; the impact of such things always reverberates across all of a person's relationships to some extent.
To summarise: EMO! I am more than a wee touch emo at the moment. As I have come to realise though, emo cannot be resolved, only managed. So how the hell to do that? What could I use to leach the figurative impurities from my system? Music was an obvious, but welcome, possibility. Yet there's something about music which many have remarked before - it really escapes our control and might not have the effect it's supposed to have, or that you want. For example, as a teenager, I was always under the impression that listening to critically-acclaimed, stereotypically-angsty music such as Radiohead, or the Smiths, or the Cure or whatever else, whilst upset, was some kind of a therapeutic process. The music would draw out one's emotions in a manner both healing and culturally elegant, surely? The fact that my ex-boyfriend really went in for critically-acclaimed music (of the above list, Radiohead in particular), made me certain that the use of miserabilist music to treat sadness was an experience that I absolutely had to try at some point.
Unfortunately, as my ex went through his lengthy periods of misery, gorging himself on Ryan Adams in particular, my theory fell apart. From what I could see, the music provided him with a sort of reflection of his depression to wallow in. There was nothing therapeutic about the experience of listening to it - and indeed, I began to wonder what listening to a record apparently rejected as 'too depressing' by Adams's record company was doing to my then-boyfriend. Was it a way of validating his unhappiness, measuring it against a greater one (apparently Adams's girlfriend had died of cancer)? Or was it only making things worse, making him feel like his wasn't a real sadness, against the artist's? Whatever the point, it was a self-indulgent experience which didn't really help my ex to overcome his issues. Being young and foolish, I was the lifebuoy, pouring all my energies into keeping him 'on the surface' as it were. I tried the misery-music route, and it only made me feel frustrated and irritated.
Just yesterday, sadness and music and how they fit together came up with a male friend who is sometimes prone to serious depression and had been feeling quasi-suicidal. Like my ex, this friend likes to wallow in what I see as depressing music rather a lot. He used to be obsessed with Elliott Smith - who committed suicide. Currently, he loves Sparklehorse - whose singer, Mark Linkous survived an OD in 1996 (while on tour with Radiohead!) only to commit suicide earlier this year. I'm sure that some of my statements so far will have got some bristling, but I'm no musical authoritarian - I never stopped my ex listening to whatever, nor my friend, and I'm perfectly aware of the incredible power of sad music. What really intrigued me was why the use of it to manage my sadness doesn't work for me - I've tried it a few times, but it just makes me feel sort of blank. Part of the answer may lie in my pragmatism - writing this has made me realise that my notion of music as a 'cure' may seem almost clinical, compared to the romantic tendencies of some. However, I realised that there may also be a gender element to things.
Now, this will involve some avowed generalisations, but nonetheless - I've noticed that a lot of miserabilist music, and the majority of its consumers, is overwhelmingly male (and white). Think about it - all the bands/artists I mentioned above, for example, are male (and white). As I considered it further, I realised that works by these and related artists have also been established as 'authentic' emotion by mostly-male, mostly-white critics. Yet none of them did anything for me when I was sad. I would often turn to Hindi music, largely sung by women; sometimes I turn to Bat For Lashes, KT Tunstall, Etta James - it varies greatly. One artist has become my go-to: Charlotte Hatherley. The release of her second album was a pleasant shock to my system, compared to her more teenage, straightforwardly pop debut. The third album, wildly inventive, and retaining much of the emotional feel of the second album, has become an obsessive favourite. In short, it seems that feminism was at work in my mind without my even realising.
How so? Well, the fact is that pretty much all the bands that I've listed, and so many others, being male and white, project an image of sadness that is actually quite unique. This isn't any sadness, this is privileged sadness. This is sadness as coming from a person who is nonetheless lucky enough to have the time/money/support to express that sadness in recorded form, and have it given out to effectively the whole world, whether for love or money. It's 'real' sadness, 'noble' sadness, the mythical sadness of the tortured artist that everyone loves to look for and believe in, especially critics. The predecessors of these men in history were also, as far as we can see, white and male (consider that the modern-day 'tortured music artist' stereotype has been lifted from the 'tortured poet/artist' one) and therefore it is almost as if there is an expectation, a God-given right that they should be whiny or mopey over the length of a whole record (or several) and praised for it, to boot. Perhaps because it's seen as relatively abnormal for men to express emotion in our culture, when they do it in record form, other men are all over it like a rash because it's a 'safe' way for them to express their own feelings, as if by proxy. The whole 'tortured sadness' thing is also (mistakenly, in my view) associated with gravitas, creating the impression that there is something honourable about men feeling sorry for themselves, which is of course great for getting the ladies... Being overwhelmingly white and male, many critics can relate to such expressions of sadness more than I can, and thus trumpet such work as important, whilst unwittingly exposing the artificiality or 'temperedness' of it by highlighting the carefully-worked, re-edited and intricate musicianship of it.
While I don't doubt that the emotions inspiring the work are genuine (especially in the case of those who committed suicide), the fact is that it doesn't chime with my experience. As an Asian woman, the world doesn't have much time for my grief. Within Indian culture, persistent ignorance about mental illness means that depression is something that is often seen as just temporary, or even laziness, and the individual is supposed to 'get over it' without expecting too much sympathy or help from relatives. As a woman, open expression of sadness is not sexy and can lead to being viewed as tragic; there is also the fear of confirming the long-standing association of women and mental illness. Perhaps part of the reason why male brooding is so praised is precisely because, deep down, men aren't really expected to be mentally ill and/or expressive, and so when they are, it comes across as somehow revolutionary. Whereas women expressing grief is almost pedestrian; hell, the media will even play up apparent mental illness as if female grief on its own isn't enough: think of Amy Winehouse, for example, or Britney Spears. Besides all this, there is the fear of reinforcing racial stereotypes of Asian women as downtrodden, abused victims - Cinderella-types. When I am upset, I know that generally only my non-white friends will really be able to understand certain things, and even if I blog my feelings or write a poem, it's not going to receive critical appreciation and be held up as The Authentic Expression of Heartbreak, or whatever (not that I want that).
As an Asian woman, I am expected to be at the disposal of family members and doing the household chores all the time; as a partner and friend, I am often relied upon whilst knowing that I cannot similarly rely on others - or at least, not as regularly. The simple inconvenience of two people having massive issues at the same time aside, I've found that often if you're in a 'senior' position to others emotionally - giving them advice and holding them together in tough times - it's often too much of a shock for them when you fall apart, for them to really help you. Almost like seeing your dad cry, or something. In our success- and work-obsessed culture, depression is an inconvenience. Therefore, I don't have the luxury of working my grief into a potentially best-selling record - I have to find a way to manage it quick whenever it pops up again, whether it's by running from it, purging myself or even a mixture of both. I find that Radiohead, etc., don't really do sadness justice. It was funny, because my male friend defended his love of downbeat music by saying that he finds sadness to be the most beautiful and complex of emotions. You wouldn't know that from a lot of acclaimed white male artists, though. They often cover subjects that women and non-white men cover too - whether in pop, hip-hop or other musical forms - such as failed relationships, existential angst and bereavement. They just do it less directly, and with more artistry and elaboration. Considering something from a distance does not necessarily render it automatically more complex.
Which brings me back to Charlotte Hatherley. Describing her music to my friend, I explained that, even though she doesn't try to churn out indie-band pointed witticisms, or create complicated narratives or 'concept' albums, there is an overriding, unmistakable mood to her last two albums which utterly envelops me (I'm going to go on to mention tracks mostly from her second and current albums, The Deep Blue and New Worlds). She is white, and yes, hers is guitar music, but otherwise I feel like she doesn't kowtow to racially-influenced expectations of music (i.e. 'urban' music must always be by black people, whilst everything guitar-based is for white people). I mean, how many white female solo artists do you know whose key instrument is a guitar?! Pitchfork, in the first review really worthy of her work that I've ever seen, called her 'refreshingly out of step with most of her contemporaries.' Discussing her current album, New Worlds, the reviewer perceptively observes:
The first thing to note about Charlotte Hatherley is that compared to, say, Radiohead, her music is distinctly poppy. This, I suspect, is partly why she's not taken as seriously as male artists of similar talent; her songs are infectious and you often enjoy them on first listen. You don't have to give her albums several spins before having an epiphany; the music approaches you on friendly terms. Secondly, her lyrics don't, as I said, tell fancy stories or try to reinvent the love-song wheel. On the single I Want You To Know, she sings: 'Oh baby, are you sad and lonely? Well, I'm just doing fine/I want you to know.' The shudders that such a line sends down assorted music snobs' backs! Yet - and this is the principal reason I love her - there is more to her than meets the ear. The term 'deceptively clever', as employed above, is spot on. Listening to songs such as Love's Young Dream again, you notice new sounds that didn't emerge before (such as the man's whisper in the chorus, slightly unnerving); the true complexity of the music starts to become more apparent. There is a remarkable consistency of quality on the albums which means that once you exhaust the pleasure of listening to each as a whole, individual songs start to assert themselves further. And that's another reason why I love her; unlike massively-hyped bands such as, say, the XX, she doesn't do hit and miss. There's generally only one or two 'dud' tracks at most, and even then, they're not necessarily even duds but just ones that might not fit your mood at a particular time. I don't find myself bored with her. I often skip 'Siberia,' for example, but there's no denying that it's a good song.
On to the main reason why I love her so fricking much, though: she does sadness justice. If male artists make sadness boring, one-dimensional and self-indulgent, she brings it to life. Sadness in her music is multifaceted. She expresses certain elements of sadness - nostalgia, wistfulness and fear - which seem to me to be under-explored by a lot of straightforwardly miserable music and does so with subtlety that makes it feel stunningly genuine. Crucial to this is the interplay of lyrics and music - my harping on about her obviously can't do that justice. On Dawn Treader, for example, she juxtaposes fear about the future with grief for her lost childhood; the song expresses her fears about her relationship, but this is done with reference to The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third novel in C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia series:
One of the most painful and traumatic experiences of our lives is saying goodbye to childhood and forcing ourselves to grow up. This is pretty neatly demonstrated by much of the reaction (critical and public) to Toy Story 3. The past often hurts, and Charlotte Hatherley acknowledges this repeatedly in her work. She - and we think - that the Dawn Treader will come and save us, like the heroic fantasies of our childhood. However, in a Freudian twist, it is the familiar become unfamiliar - actually a 'bad ship' and a harbinger of doom. This revives the pain of lost childhood; as adults, no fantasy figures are going to come and rescue us, yet we often don't feel much more in control than we did as children. The song thus subtly but effectively communicates those pre-emptive feelings of terrible fear and loss we get when we don't know where a relationship is going, but suspect it might end badly.
Yet acknowledging the pain of the loss of childhood does not necessarily mean that CH wallows in sentimentality. In Love's Young Dream, she asks her mother frankly about the relationship between her parents before she was born:
etc.
This song gets me excited as I've realised that it is actually quite feminist - instead of trying to whitewash her parents' relationship for the sake of her own peace of mind, Hatherley tries to engage with and imagine her mother beyond her role as her mother, as a person in her own right.
I've just realised that the sense of loss in her songs is often extremely apparent, which is why I find them so visceral. Wrong Notes, the final track of New Worlds, is in some ways similar to Dawn Treader in linking the loss of the past with the uncertainty of the future. I think it is about her desire to be loved for who she is, 'warts and all' and simultaneously, her acceptance of herself as a flawed and full being:
I cried to this song without fully understanding why. The distinct mix of defiance and fear palpable even in the lyrics cited above, and notable in a lot of her music, is part of it, I think. As a woman, I relate to the overriding sense of hope greatly - many women have to 'feel the fear and do it anyway' as that famous self-help book is called; we don't have the option of shutting down with sadness as men often do, because women do most of the crucial but unpaid/underpaid and undervalued work in the world, like caring for elderly relatives! There's a bit which repeats and extends the lyrics of the second verse, which made me bawl even harder:
The images here are so strongly evocative of childhood, it's unbelievable. I never went to the seaside as a child, but even just from reading stuff like Enid Blyton, I hear the mentions of plum brandy and the sea and bright colours and think of childhood. When she talks of being held up to the light, I think of that idyllic happiness when you're a very young child, and you remember being held, talked to, loved... my stomach is getting tight even now! The song seems weird because, if you pay attention all the way through, it seems like she could be simultaneously addressing a lover and a parent, but what she's actually doing is capturing the bittersweetness of the past and the future. She hopes, as an adult, that her lover will love her honestly and fully, unconditionally as that past parent who held her on the beach as a child. (Or so I think). She asserts, almost with pride, that the wrong notes 'are part of me' and then asks, uncertainly, 'will you stay by my side?' Rather than answer this question, the song segues into an invitation: 'I'd like you to come with me -' before effectively fading to flashback, and then ends abruptly. We never know what happened next, and that only hooks me in deeper.
No version of Wrong Notes that I've found ends any differently. It's a mystery, and I would say that that neatly sums up Charlotte Hatherley's music - conveniently reflecting some well-known stereotypes of women, it seems mysterious and enigmatic/childlike and instinctive/poppy and superficial (delete as appropriate), but as in The Yellow Wallpaper (written by her namesake, a considerably more famous Charlotte!), seek and ye shall find. I certainly feel that beneath all the music, you can discern the traces of a real woman - frightened, hopeful, defiant, anxious, sexual, childlike, courageous, cautious and imaginative. It resounds with shapes and colours, she talks about a firebird, a komodo dragon, a ship, a garden... I don't know if she's a self-professed feminist, but she's said this:
How awesome is that? Instead of engaging in 'exceptional woman syndrome'-type behaviour, after having been the only woman in an otherwise all-male band for about 10 years, she's actually supporting other women. 'Exceptional woman syndrome' is where women think that they don't need other women because (in the words of Shakesville), they buy into the contradictory BS that 'it’s a meritocracy, that the quality of our work will carry us to success. Because we are different. Better.' EWS leads to women who have made it through seriously toxic environments - whether the workplace or the family - attributing it to their own super-specialness and refusing to acknowledge their debt to their female predecessors, and/or, all too often, screwing over other women who follow in their footsteps. It's the basis of marriage in India even to this day (not just India), allowing mothers-in-law to make life hell for their daughters-in-law in the guise of teaching them how to behave. In its most toxic form, EWS provides the basis for 'exceptional' women to serve as patriarchal patsies, delighting sexist men and decrying egalitarian measures by effectively going 'Sexism? What sexism? I never experienced any in _______ (insert male-dominated field)' thus making life harder for women who have experienced sexism and are seeking some female solidarity. Sarah Palin's a good example of an Exceptional Woman, but you find them everywhere - the worst kinds of hypocrites.
While the press has no right to hound women like Amy Winehouse and Britney as it does (and I'm NOT implying that they deserve it in any way), CH is on the whole very un-celeb as she generally keeps attention off herself and entirely on the music, which I love. It's way more interesting. I have to say that AW's behaviour does annoy me a bit - I want her to start channelling her talent back into music, but unfortunately given that her music and it would seem, her sense of self revolves a great deal around her relationships with men, that's not likely to happen any time soon. By contrast, CH provides several examples of strong womanhood - in the video for I Want You To Know, she's a boxer and in Behave, a space pilot, whilst she's penned an ode to Kim Wilde and the song Paragon is about idolising a dynamic girl called Caroline. Grey Will Fade, the title track of the first album, is about GIRL LOVE - her comforting her beloved friend Fay - I mean, maybe she is supposed to be singing with a male voice, but from the tone of the lyrics, I don't see any evidence of it. Turns out she also said this:
Do you love her yet? I'm falling in love all over again.
To summarise: EMO! I am more than a wee touch emo at the moment. As I have come to realise though, emo cannot be resolved, only managed. So how the hell to do that? What could I use to leach the figurative impurities from my system? Music was an obvious, but welcome, possibility. Yet there's something about music which many have remarked before - it really escapes our control and might not have the effect it's supposed to have, or that you want. For example, as a teenager, I was always under the impression that listening to critically-acclaimed, stereotypically-angsty music such as Radiohead, or the Smiths, or the Cure or whatever else, whilst upset, was some kind of a therapeutic process. The music would draw out one's emotions in a manner both healing and culturally elegant, surely? The fact that my ex-boyfriend really went in for critically-acclaimed music (of the above list, Radiohead in particular), made me certain that the use of miserabilist music to treat sadness was an experience that I absolutely had to try at some point.
Unfortunately, as my ex went through his lengthy periods of misery, gorging himself on Ryan Adams in particular, my theory fell apart. From what I could see, the music provided him with a sort of reflection of his depression to wallow in. There was nothing therapeutic about the experience of listening to it - and indeed, I began to wonder what listening to a record apparently rejected as 'too depressing' by Adams's record company was doing to my then-boyfriend. Was it a way of validating his unhappiness, measuring it against a greater one (apparently Adams's girlfriend had died of cancer)? Or was it only making things worse, making him feel like his wasn't a real sadness, against the artist's? Whatever the point, it was a self-indulgent experience which didn't really help my ex to overcome his issues. Being young and foolish, I was the lifebuoy, pouring all my energies into keeping him 'on the surface' as it were. I tried the misery-music route, and it only made me feel frustrated and irritated.
Just yesterday, sadness and music and how they fit together came up with a male friend who is sometimes prone to serious depression and had been feeling quasi-suicidal. Like my ex, this friend likes to wallow in what I see as depressing music rather a lot. He used to be obsessed with Elliott Smith - who committed suicide. Currently, he loves Sparklehorse - whose singer, Mark Linkous survived an OD in 1996 (while on tour with Radiohead!) only to commit suicide earlier this year. I'm sure that some of my statements so far will have got some bristling, but I'm no musical authoritarian - I never stopped my ex listening to whatever, nor my friend, and I'm perfectly aware of the incredible power of sad music. What really intrigued me was why the use of it to manage my sadness doesn't work for me - I've tried it a few times, but it just makes me feel sort of blank. Part of the answer may lie in my pragmatism - writing this has made me realise that my notion of music as a 'cure' may seem almost clinical, compared to the romantic tendencies of some. However, I realised that there may also be a gender element to things.
Now, this will involve some avowed generalisations, but nonetheless - I've noticed that a lot of miserabilist music, and the majority of its consumers, is overwhelmingly male (and white). Think about it - all the bands/artists I mentioned above, for example, are male (and white). As I considered it further, I realised that works by these and related artists have also been established as 'authentic' emotion by mostly-male, mostly-white critics. Yet none of them did anything for me when I was sad. I would often turn to Hindi music, largely sung by women; sometimes I turn to Bat For Lashes, KT Tunstall, Etta James - it varies greatly. One artist has become my go-to: Charlotte Hatherley. The release of her second album was a pleasant shock to my system, compared to her more teenage, straightforwardly pop debut. The third album, wildly inventive, and retaining much of the emotional feel of the second album, has become an obsessive favourite. In short, it seems that feminism was at work in my mind without my even realising.
How so? Well, the fact is that pretty much all the bands that I've listed, and so many others, being male and white, project an image of sadness that is actually quite unique. This isn't any sadness, this is privileged sadness. This is sadness as coming from a person who is nonetheless lucky enough to have the time/money/support to express that sadness in recorded form, and have it given out to effectively the whole world, whether for love or money. It's 'real' sadness, 'noble' sadness, the mythical sadness of the tortured artist that everyone loves to look for and believe in, especially critics. The predecessors of these men in history were also, as far as we can see, white and male (consider that the modern-day 'tortured music artist' stereotype has been lifted from the 'tortured poet/artist' one) and therefore it is almost as if there is an expectation, a God-given right that they should be whiny or mopey over the length of a whole record (or several) and praised for it, to boot. Perhaps because it's seen as relatively abnormal for men to express emotion in our culture, when they do it in record form, other men are all over it like a rash because it's a 'safe' way for them to express their own feelings, as if by proxy. The whole 'tortured sadness' thing is also (mistakenly, in my view) associated with gravitas, creating the impression that there is something honourable about men feeling sorry for themselves, which is of course great for getting the ladies... Being overwhelmingly white and male, many critics can relate to such expressions of sadness more than I can, and thus trumpet such work as important, whilst unwittingly exposing the artificiality or 'temperedness' of it by highlighting the carefully-worked, re-edited and intricate musicianship of it.
While I don't doubt that the emotions inspiring the work are genuine (especially in the case of those who committed suicide), the fact is that it doesn't chime with my experience. As an Asian woman, the world doesn't have much time for my grief. Within Indian culture, persistent ignorance about mental illness means that depression is something that is often seen as just temporary, or even laziness, and the individual is supposed to 'get over it' without expecting too much sympathy or help from relatives. As a woman, open expression of sadness is not sexy and can lead to being viewed as tragic; there is also the fear of confirming the long-standing association of women and mental illness. Perhaps part of the reason why male brooding is so praised is precisely because, deep down, men aren't really expected to be mentally ill and/or expressive, and so when they are, it comes across as somehow revolutionary. Whereas women expressing grief is almost pedestrian; hell, the media will even play up apparent mental illness as if female grief on its own isn't enough: think of Amy Winehouse, for example, or Britney Spears. Besides all this, there is the fear of reinforcing racial stereotypes of Asian women as downtrodden, abused victims - Cinderella-types. When I am upset, I know that generally only my non-white friends will really be able to understand certain things, and even if I blog my feelings or write a poem, it's not going to receive critical appreciation and be held up as The Authentic Expression of Heartbreak, or whatever (not that I want that).
As an Asian woman, I am expected to be at the disposal of family members and doing the household chores all the time; as a partner and friend, I am often relied upon whilst knowing that I cannot similarly rely on others - or at least, not as regularly. The simple inconvenience of two people having massive issues at the same time aside, I've found that often if you're in a 'senior' position to others emotionally - giving them advice and holding them together in tough times - it's often too much of a shock for them when you fall apart, for them to really help you. Almost like seeing your dad cry, or something. In our success- and work-obsessed culture, depression is an inconvenience. Therefore, I don't have the luxury of working my grief into a potentially best-selling record - I have to find a way to manage it quick whenever it pops up again, whether it's by running from it, purging myself or even a mixture of both. I find that Radiohead, etc., don't really do sadness justice. It was funny, because my male friend defended his love of downbeat music by saying that he finds sadness to be the most beautiful and complex of emotions. You wouldn't know that from a lot of acclaimed white male artists, though. They often cover subjects that women and non-white men cover too - whether in pop, hip-hop or other musical forms - such as failed relationships, existential angst and bereavement. They just do it less directly, and with more artistry and elaboration. Considering something from a distance does not necessarily render it automatically more complex.
Which brings me back to Charlotte Hatherley. Describing her music to my friend, I explained that, even though she doesn't try to churn out indie-band pointed witticisms, or create complicated narratives or 'concept' albums, there is an overriding, unmistakable mood to her last two albums which utterly envelops me (I'm going to go on to mention tracks mostly from her second and current albums, The Deep Blue and New Worlds). She is white, and yes, hers is guitar music, but otherwise I feel like she doesn't kowtow to racially-influenced expectations of music (i.e. 'urban' music must always be by black people, whilst everything guitar-based is for white people). I mean, how many white female solo artists do you know whose key instrument is a guitar?! Pitchfork, in the first review really worthy of her work that I've ever seen, called her 'refreshingly out of step with most of her contemporaries.' Discussing her current album, New Worlds, the reviewer perceptively observes:
Hatherley is [...] a deceptively clever guitarist [...] Rather than attempt to evoke a state of synesthesia in the listener, Hatherley articulates a synesthetic point of view in her lyrics. The tell-don't-show approach is typically a misstep, but it makes perfect sense here, as the album's most thrilling bits come when she's excitedly explaining sensations and epiphanies that don't fully translate outside the boundaries of her imaginative mind. The point is not to totally grasp her crackpot color-coded cosmology, but instead to relate to the feeling of rediscovering the world and opening up to new possibilities.
The primary tension, both musically and lyrically, on New Worlds is between disciplined focus and wild hair intuition. It's not a binary opposition, though, but instead a cycle that enables an artist to effectively communicate their ideas.
The first thing to note about Charlotte Hatherley is that compared to, say, Radiohead, her music is distinctly poppy. This, I suspect, is partly why she's not taken as seriously as male artists of similar talent; her songs are infectious and you often enjoy them on first listen. You don't have to give her albums several spins before having an epiphany; the music approaches you on friendly terms. Secondly, her lyrics don't, as I said, tell fancy stories or try to reinvent the love-song wheel. On the single I Want You To Know, she sings: 'Oh baby, are you sad and lonely? Well, I'm just doing fine/I want you to know.' The shudders that such a line sends down assorted music snobs' backs! Yet - and this is the principal reason I love her - there is more to her than meets the ear. The term 'deceptively clever', as employed above, is spot on. Listening to songs such as Love's Young Dream again, you notice new sounds that didn't emerge before (such as the man's whisper in the chorus, slightly unnerving); the true complexity of the music starts to become more apparent. There is a remarkable consistency of quality on the albums which means that once you exhaust the pleasure of listening to each as a whole, individual songs start to assert themselves further. And that's another reason why I love her; unlike massively-hyped bands such as, say, the XX, she doesn't do hit and miss. There's generally only one or two 'dud' tracks at most, and even then, they're not necessarily even duds but just ones that might not fit your mood at a particular time. I don't find myself bored with her. I often skip 'Siberia,' for example, but there's no denying that it's a good song.
On to the main reason why I love her so fricking much, though: she does sadness justice. If male artists make sadness boring, one-dimensional and self-indulgent, she brings it to life. Sadness in her music is multifaceted. She expresses certain elements of sadness - nostalgia, wistfulness and fear - which seem to me to be under-explored by a lot of straightforwardly miserable music and does so with subtlety that makes it feel stunningly genuine. Crucial to this is the interplay of lyrics and music - my harping on about her obviously can't do that justice. On Dawn Treader, for example, she juxtaposes fear about the future with grief for her lost childhood; the song expresses her fears about her relationship, but this is done with reference to The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third novel in C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia series:
(First verse)
In the night, I dream that it's over
On thin ice and tipping the balance, oh no...
Oh, not again...
From afar, the Dawn Treader has come
Here to save us, all into the shredder...
Oh, once again...
(Chorus)
Our one and only life
Put underneath the knife
Oh, what will happen to
The me and you I love?
One of the most painful and traumatic experiences of our lives is saying goodbye to childhood and forcing ourselves to grow up. This is pretty neatly demonstrated by much of the reaction (critical and public) to Toy Story 3. The past often hurts, and Charlotte Hatherley acknowledges this repeatedly in her work. She - and we think - that the Dawn Treader will come and save us, like the heroic fantasies of our childhood. However, in a Freudian twist, it is the familiar become unfamiliar - actually a 'bad ship' and a harbinger of doom. This revives the pain of lost childhood; as adults, no fantasy figures are going to come and rescue us, yet we often don't feel much more in control than we did as children. The song thus subtly but effectively communicates those pre-emptive feelings of terrible fear and loss we get when we don't know where a relationship is going, but suspect it might end badly.
Yet acknowledging the pain of the loss of childhood does not necessarily mean that CH wallows in sentimentality. In Love's Young Dream, she asks her mother frankly about the relationship between her parents before she was born:
(First verse)
When you were younger
Precious lover
What did he look like
Was he as beautiful as you?
How did it feel when you were together?
Did you surrender?
I can't imagine it at all -
And oh I wonder how you were
And I really wanna know about your love
Your love
Do you remember?
(Chorus)
(Love's young dream)
Back when you were -
When you really were -
Do you remember?
(Love's young dream)
Back when you were -
When you really were -
Can you understand?
(Second verse)
I don't remember a single moment
When you were happy
I can't remember it all (don't remember it at all)...
You only told me how it unfolded
All of the stories, oh many, many many, I know -
Oh, but what I really wanna know about is your love
Your love
Do you remember?
etc.
This song gets me excited as I've realised that it is actually quite feminist - instead of trying to whitewash her parents' relationship for the sake of her own peace of mind, Hatherley tries to engage with and imagine her mother beyond her role as her mother, as a person in her own right.
I've just realised that the sense of loss in her songs is often extremely apparent, which is why I find them so visceral. Wrong Notes, the final track of New Worlds, is in some ways similar to Dawn Treader in linking the loss of the past with the uncertainty of the future. I think it is about her desire to be loved for who she is, 'warts and all' and simultaneously, her acceptance of herself as a flawed and full being:
(First verse):
Running hands over keys
Up and down all the strings
Give me immediate
Sensations, waking everything -
Run your hands over me
Up and down all the strings
Give me immediate
Sensations, waking everything -
(Chorus)
But not so nice, not so nice now -
The wrong notes, are all right
And part of me, part of me, yeah
Will you stay by my side,
By my side?
I cried to this song without fully understanding why. The distinct mix of defiance and fear palpable even in the lyrics cited above, and notable in a lot of her music, is part of it, I think. As a woman, I relate to the overriding sense of hope greatly - many women have to 'feel the fear and do it anyway' as that famous self-help book is called; we don't have the option of shutting down with sadness as men often do, because women do most of the crucial but unpaid/underpaid and undervalued work in the world, like caring for elderly relatives! There's a bit which repeats and extends the lyrics of the second verse, which made me bawl even harder:
Hey you, yellow and powder blue
Plum brandy by the sea
Gold, red and ruby shoes
I'd like you to come with me -
Hey you, holding me up to the light
Where all the notes are bright
And there's a part of me
My darling -
The images here are so strongly evocative of childhood, it's unbelievable. I never went to the seaside as a child, but even just from reading stuff like Enid Blyton, I hear the mentions of plum brandy and the sea and bright colours and think of childhood. When she talks of being held up to the light, I think of that idyllic happiness when you're a very young child, and you remember being held, talked to, loved... my stomach is getting tight even now! The song seems weird because, if you pay attention all the way through, it seems like she could be simultaneously addressing a lover and a parent, but what she's actually doing is capturing the bittersweetness of the past and the future. She hopes, as an adult, that her lover will love her honestly and fully, unconditionally as that past parent who held her on the beach as a child. (Or so I think). She asserts, almost with pride, that the wrong notes 'are part of me' and then asks, uncertainly, 'will you stay by my side?' Rather than answer this question, the song segues into an invitation: 'I'd like you to come with me -' before effectively fading to flashback, and then ends abruptly. We never know what happened next, and that only hooks me in deeper.
No version of Wrong Notes that I've found ends any differently. It's a mystery, and I would say that that neatly sums up Charlotte Hatherley's music - conveniently reflecting some well-known stereotypes of women, it seems mysterious and enigmatic/childlike and instinctive/poppy and superficial (delete as appropriate), but as in The Yellow Wallpaper (written by her namesake, a considerably more famous Charlotte!), seek and ye shall find. I certainly feel that beneath all the music, you can discern the traces of a real woman - frightened, hopeful, defiant, anxious, sexual, childlike, courageous, cautious and imaginative. It resounds with shapes and colours, she talks about a firebird, a komodo dragon, a ship, a garden... I don't know if she's a self-professed feminist, but she's said this:
I've got a wicked band assembled, I've got two girls in it which is good because that's one thing which I've realised - I don't have to do things I don't want to anymore, I'm never going to tour without having another girl so it's cool.
How awesome is that? Instead of engaging in 'exceptional woman syndrome'-type behaviour, after having been the only woman in an otherwise all-male band for about 10 years, she's actually supporting other women. 'Exceptional woman syndrome' is where women think that they don't need other women because (in the words of Shakesville), they buy into the contradictory BS that 'it’s a meritocracy, that the quality of our work will carry us to success. Because we are different. Better.' EWS leads to women who have made it through seriously toxic environments - whether the workplace or the family - attributing it to their own super-specialness and refusing to acknowledge their debt to their female predecessors, and/or, all too often, screwing over other women who follow in their footsteps. It's the basis of marriage in India even to this day (not just India), allowing mothers-in-law to make life hell for their daughters-in-law in the guise of teaching them how to behave. In its most toxic form, EWS provides the basis for 'exceptional' women to serve as patriarchal patsies, delighting sexist men and decrying egalitarian measures by effectively going 'Sexism? What sexism? I never experienced any in _______ (insert male-dominated field)' thus making life harder for women who have experienced sexism and are seeking some female solidarity. Sarah Palin's a good example of an Exceptional Woman, but you find them everywhere - the worst kinds of hypocrites.
While the press has no right to hound women like Amy Winehouse and Britney as it does (and I'm NOT implying that they deserve it in any way), CH is on the whole very un-celeb as she generally keeps attention off herself and entirely on the music, which I love. It's way more interesting. I have to say that AW's behaviour does annoy me a bit - I want her to start channelling her talent back into music, but unfortunately given that her music and it would seem, her sense of self revolves a great deal around her relationships with men, that's not likely to happen any time soon. By contrast, CH provides several examples of strong womanhood - in the video for I Want You To Know, she's a boxer and in Behave, a space pilot, whilst she's penned an ode to Kim Wilde and the song Paragon is about idolising a dynamic girl called Caroline. Grey Will Fade, the title track of the first album, is about GIRL LOVE - her comforting her beloved friend Fay - I mean, maybe she is supposed to be singing with a male voice, but from the tone of the lyrics, I don't see any evidence of it. Turns out she also said this:
"I want people to come to this tour and see me Jen and Charley playing guitar really fucking well and see that there are lots of girls out there who can do it. I really hope people and even girls in the audience can get inspired by that."
Do you love her yet? I'm falling in love all over again.
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
Earthquake - Little Boots
I can't really think of a title for this post, hence my using the title of the song that I'm listening to RIGHT NOW. It's quite an apt song though, as part of the chorus lyrics are: ' Every little earthquake/Every little heartbreak, going unheard/Every little landslide/Catch it in my hand, I won't say a word.' I feel like this MA year, I have just been sort of burnt-out and struggling greatly to manage any sort of original/independent thought.
Yet - o cruel irony! - I recently realised that I would actually quite like to become an English lecturer. Don't confuse that with 'feel I have the right to' or 'have absolutely decided to.' I need regular routine - going out of it seems to annihilate me. Despite it being a full 12 days since I handed in the two final MA essays remaining, I have struggled to get through The Discovery of India. There is an utter failure of time management happening. Ideally, I should be sailing through, pursuing the stacks of secondary reading that have waited patiently on my desk for two months. Yet spreading through the heart of everything like a stain, is fear. Fear has destroyed me for the last three weeks or so. Where am I going wrong in building friendships? What are my career prospects? Do I have any real skills?
I never thought I would write the following, but worrying about my professional future has kept me awake at night for quite a few nights recently. The sleep deprivation hastens the spread of the stain. Seeping through everything, is the incessant chorus of questions: where is the meat of my dissertation? When will that quiet faith that my supervisor has in me, apparently unshakeable, be realised?
I need to leave my parents' home, and yet historically this is a terrible time for people in my position. Young people like myself, jobless, nearing the end of full-time education with looming icebergs of debt that would freeze anyone to the core... This only reinforces all the oldest and most noxious fears that overwhelm and engulf, like carbon monoxide, until nothing else remains. The fears of failing, of proving them right - that would make me lose a lot, maybe even all, faith in the world. It's very hard to maintain hope and remain poised when you live a concealed life, frequently fearing personal attacks from your family. When they all form a consensus and you disagree, guess who's paying? Less than an hour ago, yet another moment which should have been trivial snowballed into farce. I feel that perhaps I need to stop responding to anything but the simplest of questions.
Foolishly, I voiced my objections to being repeatedly sworn at yesterday by my brother for having the temerity to - wait for it - be in the same room as him whilst he played Nintendo Wii! As far as I could tell, he wanted my seat (swivel chair) rather than the stool he was on. For that, he thrust his middle finger in my face, called me a bitch, told me 'get the fuck out' and similar, and feigned hitting me with his controller repeatedly.
Am I wrong to be upset about that? If I had been rude to him when I came in, it might perhaps have been warranted. I'm sure I told him to shut up, or get lost, and probably swore too, in response. My tone with him is automatically sharp - the product of my second-eldest sister's influence and the long and bitter history I have with him. Yet I think I had a right to be upset at being sworn at repeatedly for no apparent reason. He swore at me again today when I mentioned that I wanted to watch something at 9 p.m., 20 minutes beforehand. Hence my complaining to my mother. She was utterly shit as usual, making the usual empty promises ' 'When he's finished his exams, I won't take anything from him.' Right, great for you, mum - how does that make any difference to now? I got rather irritated at her, and also asked her not to embroil me in any further 'situations' with my father, something she's done a lot recently. Since I am studying Indian nationalism to some extent (Gandhi and Nehru), I am reading nationalist writings and my parents (my dad in particular) seem to feel the need to tell me what to think. I don't take very well to that, especially since I have read the very words of the people they claim to know better about. Unfortunately my parents, my dad especially, don't really do 'listening' or 'calm, rational engagement.' Yesterday I was dismissed as having 'fixed views' for having pointed out that there is no evidence to support certain conspiracy theories about 1984. The sheer fucking irony, the injustice of it, stung me. I could not stop myself muttering 'Fixed opinions, me? That's rich!' though I luckily wasn't heard as my dad continued in his burst of self-important defensiveness, just like a spoilt child.
Both my father and brother are spoilt children, and my mother simply encourages it (like so many Indian women!). Having drawn the parallel angrily, I refused to say anything more and retreated upstairs, coming down for the +1hr repeat. Good fucking God, halfway through I heard my mother and brother discussing me during an ad break. I burst into the kitchen as my brother reiterated a belief he has embraced (with 0 evidence) that I have somehow destroyed the family Internet. As usual, I wasn't being listened to and I returned to my programme. I hoped it was going to end there, only to receive, 10 minutes from the end, a deputation consisting of my brother working his best 'I'm contrite, me' face and my eldest sister radiating such a powerful wave of patronising pomposity, it was all I could do to keep my eyebrows under control.
Despite my making it clear in a variety of ways that I found the proceedings utterly contemptible, my sister was not to be deterred. I had to succumb, but there was a feeling of desperation of me, which came out both verbally and non-verbally. What exactly did they want from me? The black humorist within wryly noted the mounting, ill-concealed aggression in my sister's voice as she kept telling me that my brother was sorry and that it took genuine guts to come and apologise. 'Such guts that you had to lead him here like a cow on a lead?' I thought, but didn't say. My brother's not-so-concealed aggression also increased as I failed to be a good little girl and take my cues. I had no fucking idea what I was supposed to be doing, or what exactly they wanted from me, as the issue I was directly addressing - the Internet - was apparently not the issue at hand.
Having achieved the objective (which it would seem was wrenching the all-important acknowledgement of my brother's apology from me and making me feel like I was the one in the wrong), my brother mawkishly pronounced that 'I'm prepared to be your brother if you act like my sister.' Yet the mawkishness was tempered by the hint of something vastly more sinister - what the fuck does he mean by that? That I should act more like a regular girl (i.e. my mother and to some extent, my sisters) by treating him like the centre of the universe? He also swiftly regained his composure by admonishing me for talking about 'family issues' to my friends. He claimed that he didn't care if I talked about him to my friends, but that he kept family things within the family. This was of course a most inviting bandwagon for my sister to jump on - and she did. I said that of course I was going to talk about things that concerned me to my friends, and I didn't see why I shouldn't. The fact that I didn't see the problem with that was apparently indicative of my own problems (or somesuch), she claimed. Horror swam freely through me at this point; I provided whatever acquiescence was required of me, sat rigid as she kissed me and unwillingly kissed her cheek. I then feigned desperation to watch the rest of my programme, but the horror was rife in me.
Now, tone is everything. Had they asked me to refrain from badmouthing them to my friends, I might've reacted better. Yet the way they exchanged glances, the way they talked about 'keeping it in the family,' - 'They are outsiders and they will never be your family,' and the neat détournement of my contention that I have a right to talk about my own life to my friends - all that fills me with horror. Because (bad grammar!) it is not about them fearing for their reputations - it is about control. That refrain is an eternal one, one that I have heard ever since I became a 'problem.' Another sinister remark: when I declared that my brother's assertion that I somehow broke our Internet was not based on any sort of evidence, you know what my sister said? She looked at me and said 'What is this, a court? Listen to you - 'facts' and 'evidence'. You sound like a gori!' My brother, alert to the dog-whistle, then seized the opportune moment and furthered the charge of treason by mentioning that I speak to 'outsiders'.
It just all left me appalled. My sister's tone was oh-so-reasonable, as if we live in the sort of parallel household where I can actually assert my opinions and be listened to, and dissent can be organically resolved. Bullshit - bullshit was what it all was. I had at no point asked for an apology, much less an apology for the sake of an appearance of domestic peace; what I wanted was for my parents to DO THEIR FUCKING JOB and make my brother query whether it is normal to become so aggressive whilst playing Mario Kart, and whether it is acceptable to use that language full stop, let alone with your older sister. When the horror permeated through me, however, I felt a re-emergence of one of my few 'good' fears. This particular fear urges me to do what I can to stop myself being subsumed and taken over, to protect my awkward and inconvenient views in whatever manner possible. I knew then that I would have to write about this, and I know I have to write much more about these things, because people for the most part cannot and will not, give me succour.
Yet - o cruel irony! - I recently realised that I would actually quite like to become an English lecturer. Don't confuse that with 'feel I have the right to' or 'have absolutely decided to.' I need regular routine - going out of it seems to annihilate me. Despite it being a full 12 days since I handed in the two final MA essays remaining, I have struggled to get through The Discovery of India. There is an utter failure of time management happening. Ideally, I should be sailing through, pursuing the stacks of secondary reading that have waited patiently on my desk for two months. Yet spreading through the heart of everything like a stain, is fear. Fear has destroyed me for the last three weeks or so. Where am I going wrong in building friendships? What are my career prospects? Do I have any real skills?
I never thought I would write the following, but worrying about my professional future has kept me awake at night for quite a few nights recently. The sleep deprivation hastens the spread of the stain. Seeping through everything, is the incessant chorus of questions: where is the meat of my dissertation? When will that quiet faith that my supervisor has in me, apparently unshakeable, be realised?
I need to leave my parents' home, and yet historically this is a terrible time for people in my position. Young people like myself, jobless, nearing the end of full-time education with looming icebergs of debt that would freeze anyone to the core... This only reinforces all the oldest and most noxious fears that overwhelm and engulf, like carbon monoxide, until nothing else remains. The fears of failing, of proving them right - that would make me lose a lot, maybe even all, faith in the world. It's very hard to maintain hope and remain poised when you live a concealed life, frequently fearing personal attacks from your family. When they all form a consensus and you disagree, guess who's paying? Less than an hour ago, yet another moment which should have been trivial snowballed into farce. I feel that perhaps I need to stop responding to anything but the simplest of questions.
Foolishly, I voiced my objections to being repeatedly sworn at yesterday by my brother for having the temerity to - wait for it - be in the same room as him whilst he played Nintendo Wii! As far as I could tell, he wanted my seat (swivel chair) rather than the stool he was on. For that, he thrust his middle finger in my face, called me a bitch, told me 'get the fuck out' and similar, and feigned hitting me with his controller repeatedly.
Am I wrong to be upset about that? If I had been rude to him when I came in, it might perhaps have been warranted. I'm sure I told him to shut up, or get lost, and probably swore too, in response. My tone with him is automatically sharp - the product of my second-eldest sister's influence and the long and bitter history I have with him. Yet I think I had a right to be upset at being sworn at repeatedly for no apparent reason. He swore at me again today when I mentioned that I wanted to watch something at 9 p.m., 20 minutes beforehand. Hence my complaining to my mother. She was utterly shit as usual, making the usual empty promises ' 'When he's finished his exams, I won't take anything from him.' Right, great for you, mum - how does that make any difference to now? I got rather irritated at her, and also asked her not to embroil me in any further 'situations' with my father, something she's done a lot recently. Since I am studying Indian nationalism to some extent (Gandhi and Nehru), I am reading nationalist writings and my parents (my dad in particular) seem to feel the need to tell me what to think. I don't take very well to that, especially since I have read the very words of the people they claim to know better about. Unfortunately my parents, my dad especially, don't really do 'listening' or 'calm, rational engagement.' Yesterday I was dismissed as having 'fixed views' for having pointed out that there is no evidence to support certain conspiracy theories about 1984. The sheer fucking irony, the injustice of it, stung me. I could not stop myself muttering 'Fixed opinions, me? That's rich!' though I luckily wasn't heard as my dad continued in his burst of self-important defensiveness, just like a spoilt child.
Both my father and brother are spoilt children, and my mother simply encourages it (like so many Indian women!). Having drawn the parallel angrily, I refused to say anything more and retreated upstairs, coming down for the +1hr repeat. Good fucking God, halfway through I heard my mother and brother discussing me during an ad break. I burst into the kitchen as my brother reiterated a belief he has embraced (with 0 evidence) that I have somehow destroyed the family Internet. As usual, I wasn't being listened to and I returned to my programme. I hoped it was going to end there, only to receive, 10 minutes from the end, a deputation consisting of my brother working his best 'I'm contrite, me' face and my eldest sister radiating such a powerful wave of patronising pomposity, it was all I could do to keep my eyebrows under control.
Despite my making it clear in a variety of ways that I found the proceedings utterly contemptible, my sister was not to be deterred. I had to succumb, but there was a feeling of desperation of me, which came out both verbally and non-verbally. What exactly did they want from me? The black humorist within wryly noted the mounting, ill-concealed aggression in my sister's voice as she kept telling me that my brother was sorry and that it took genuine guts to come and apologise. 'Such guts that you had to lead him here like a cow on a lead?' I thought, but didn't say. My brother's not-so-concealed aggression also increased as I failed to be a good little girl and take my cues. I had no fucking idea what I was supposed to be doing, or what exactly they wanted from me, as the issue I was directly addressing - the Internet - was apparently not the issue at hand.
Having achieved the objective (which it would seem was wrenching the all-important acknowledgement of my brother's apology from me and making me feel like I was the one in the wrong), my brother mawkishly pronounced that 'I'm prepared to be your brother if you act like my sister.' Yet the mawkishness was tempered by the hint of something vastly more sinister - what the fuck does he mean by that? That I should act more like a regular girl (i.e. my mother and to some extent, my sisters) by treating him like the centre of the universe? He also swiftly regained his composure by admonishing me for talking about 'family issues' to my friends. He claimed that he didn't care if I talked about him to my friends, but that he kept family things within the family. This was of course a most inviting bandwagon for my sister to jump on - and she did. I said that of course I was going to talk about things that concerned me to my friends, and I didn't see why I shouldn't. The fact that I didn't see the problem with that was apparently indicative of my own problems (or somesuch), she claimed. Horror swam freely through me at this point; I provided whatever acquiescence was required of me, sat rigid as she kissed me and unwillingly kissed her cheek. I then feigned desperation to watch the rest of my programme, but the horror was rife in me.
Now, tone is everything. Had they asked me to refrain from badmouthing them to my friends, I might've reacted better. Yet the way they exchanged glances, the way they talked about 'keeping it in the family,' - 'They are outsiders and they will never be your family,' and the neat détournement of my contention that I have a right to talk about my own life to my friends - all that fills me with horror. Because (bad grammar!) it is not about them fearing for their reputations - it is about control. That refrain is an eternal one, one that I have heard ever since I became a 'problem.' Another sinister remark: when I declared that my brother's assertion that I somehow broke our Internet was not based on any sort of evidence, you know what my sister said? She looked at me and said 'What is this, a court? Listen to you - 'facts' and 'evidence'. You sound like a gori!' My brother, alert to the dog-whistle, then seized the opportune moment and furthered the charge of treason by mentioning that I speak to 'outsiders'.
It just all left me appalled. My sister's tone was oh-so-reasonable, as if we live in the sort of parallel household where I can actually assert my opinions and be listened to, and dissent can be organically resolved. Bullshit - bullshit was what it all was. I had at no point asked for an apology, much less an apology for the sake of an appearance of domestic peace; what I wanted was for my parents to DO THEIR FUCKING JOB and make my brother query whether it is normal to become so aggressive whilst playing Mario Kart, and whether it is acceptable to use that language full stop, let alone with your older sister. When the horror permeated through me, however, I felt a re-emergence of one of my few 'good' fears. This particular fear urges me to do what I can to stop myself being subsumed and taken over, to protect my awkward and inconvenient views in whatever manner possible. I knew then that I would have to write about this, and I know I have to write much more about these things, because people for the most part cannot and will not, give me succour.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Dear Robert Fox,
Fuck you, you white supremacist, racism-qualifying, self-important, jumped-up FUCKER.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/14/martin-mcdonagh-race-row-broadway
Excuse me while I go figuratively break some things. Apparently now being black whilst being offended at 'artistic' racism against black people is being 'racially intolerant'?! WTF.
Posting will resume (sorta) when I clear up the spattered fragments of my brain.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/14/martin-mcdonagh-race-row-broadway
Excuse me while I go figuratively break some things. Apparently now being black whilst being offended at 'artistic' racism against black people is being 'racially intolerant'?! WTF.
Posting will resume (sorta) when I clear up the spattered fragments of my brain.
Friday, January 29, 2010
The second-class status of women in India...
and elsewhere, is a subject that I always want to blog about regularly and comprehensively, but for a number of reasons, I don't. The chief among these are that other people do it far, far better and that I get SO ANGRY.
When something is a personal topic - when it cuts close enough to the bone to make you wince and panic - it's REALLY hard to write about. The problem of the personal/political thing emerges too, as this is a topic that exists beyond me and yet encompasses my life. I have only recently made peace with my past. I would say that things really turned around in a positive sense about mid-2008 - so yes, it hasn't been long.
I've had it lucky though. I'm a wet, liberal, British Asian. The regretting of my own existence that lurks inside me has damaged, and damages me, but I have been able to find heretics. People who would pull me back to some kind of objective reality just when I thought that 'tradition' would fucking sink me yet. I am certain that a woman of my opinions would go quietly insane in India and eventually kill herself or those around her, then herself. My family have accepted my rebelliousness and unfeminine behaviour in a way that others wouldn't. I CAN COMFORTABLY SAY THAT MY FAMILY WOULD NOT HONOUR-KILL ME, and horrendous though it is that I can be glad of such a thing, I am glad. They've made me cry, they've belittled me, they've made me doubt my grip on sanity - but I have managed to get space enough to see that they do, beneath it all, love me.
To all those people who remind me that it is OK to be me, and that my life is not dispensable just because I am the black sheep third daughter in a family of four children, I must just be intensely grateful for a minute - and I will be for the rest of my life.
Okay, misery memoir moment over. It's time for worthier issues than my own personal ones!
asquith, my favourite Stoke-based person (although he always spells it Sjoke - I may be missing something there?) highlighted this:
Calls for help from victims of forced marriage GOING IGNORED. Sign the petition to keep the Honour Network Helpline going, and also donate to Karma Nirvana, a charity which supports victims of 'honour'-based abuse. Despite being eye-wateringly poor, I am going to donate £20. That should leave me enough to live on for um, another 2 weeks or so... DONE! I would love to actually give them volunteering time, but seeing as I would have to move to Derby, 'tis not a realistic option.
Heresy Corner flags up some unsurprisingly barbaric treatment of a 16-year-old girl raped in Bangladesh. I commented in a fit of fury, but frankly donating time and/or money and signing petitions to support charities that work against HBV, as well as encouraging other people you know to do so, is the best anyone can do.
Walk For India's Missing Girls - a global march against female foeticide. I sadly cannot participate in this as it is taking place in Ireland, Canada, the US and India only (why not in the UK?). Still, it's March 6, 2010 so if you know anyone who lives in any of those countries/cities and who can make it, please encourage them to go while there's still time!
There is now ONE late-term abortionist left in the whole of the United States of America. And this is a nation that considers itself civilised? Fucking terrifying reading for anyone with a brain. Especially if, like me, you fear that we are slowly turning into a smaller, greyer version of America. Just look at the recent news that the rich-poor divide is wider than it was 40 years ago, and the fact that people are less in favour of helping the poor to move on up than ever:
Though - oh, yay! - good, old-fashioned British hypocrisy might stop us from morphing into self-made-men with American-style Dreams in the end:
Speaking of America, laugh (or cry?) at a tale of a Texan Christian school aiding Haiti victims by praying for them, whilst a public school 'in a poor part of town' raised over $4000! Oh God, is He merciful...
Some things to be happy about - the possibility of Andrew Wakefield being struck off. I would actually pray for that. Just don't pay too much attention to the parents who are 'standing by him' (figuratively and literally - on TV) because then you'll remember how fucking stupid great swathes of the human race are, and want to kill someone all over again. Also, the increasing anger against our globally embarrassing libel laws - I donated to Simon Singh's campaign against the BCA, and I signed this petition - and if you haven't, do the latter at least!
Now to bed, stinking and in need of a vigorous snog. :-D
When something is a personal topic - when it cuts close enough to the bone to make you wince and panic - it's REALLY hard to write about. The problem of the personal/political thing emerges too, as this is a topic that exists beyond me and yet encompasses my life. I have only recently made peace with my past. I would say that things really turned around in a positive sense about mid-2008 - so yes, it hasn't been long.
I've had it lucky though. I'm a wet, liberal, British Asian. The regretting of my own existence that lurks inside me has damaged, and damages me, but I have been able to find heretics. People who would pull me back to some kind of objective reality just when I thought that 'tradition' would fucking sink me yet. I am certain that a woman of my opinions would go quietly insane in India and eventually kill herself or those around her, then herself. My family have accepted my rebelliousness and unfeminine behaviour in a way that others wouldn't. I CAN COMFORTABLY SAY THAT MY FAMILY WOULD NOT HONOUR-KILL ME, and horrendous though it is that I can be glad of such a thing, I am glad. They've made me cry, they've belittled me, they've made me doubt my grip on sanity - but I have managed to get space enough to see that they do, beneath it all, love me.
To all those people who remind me that it is OK to be me, and that my life is not dispensable just because I am the black sheep third daughter in a family of four children, I must just be intensely grateful for a minute - and I will be for the rest of my life.
Okay, misery memoir moment over. It's time for worthier issues than my own personal ones!
asquith, my favourite Stoke-based person (although he always spells it Sjoke - I may be missing something there?) highlighted this:
Calls for help from victims of forced marriage GOING IGNORED. Sign the petition to keep the Honour Network Helpline going, and also donate to Karma Nirvana, a charity which supports victims of 'honour'-based abuse. Despite being eye-wateringly poor, I am going to donate £20. That should leave me enough to live on for um, another 2 weeks or so... DONE! I would love to actually give them volunteering time, but seeing as I would have to move to Derby, 'tis not a realistic option.
Heresy Corner flags up some unsurprisingly barbaric treatment of a 16-year-old girl raped in Bangladesh. I commented in a fit of fury, but frankly donating time and/or money and signing petitions to support charities that work against HBV, as well as encouraging other people you know to do so, is the best anyone can do.
Walk For India's Missing Girls - a global march against female foeticide. I sadly cannot participate in this as it is taking place in Ireland, Canada, the US and India only (why not in the UK?). Still, it's March 6, 2010 so if you know anyone who lives in any of those countries/cities and who can make it, please encourage them to go while there's still time!
There is now ONE late-term abortionist left in the whole of the United States of America. And this is a nation that considers itself civilised? Fucking terrifying reading for anyone with a brain. Especially if, like me, you fear that we are slowly turning into a smaller, greyer version of America. Just look at the recent news that the rich-poor divide is wider than it was 40 years ago, and the fact that people are less in favour of helping the poor to move on up than ever:
Blair's triangulation was this fabled meritocracy, a feelgood creed where we don't have to be locked in eternal struggle, we just all try our best and end up minted. This took hold – in a study about social equality conducted last year by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 69% of respondents agreed with the statement: "There is enough opportunity for virtually everyone to get on in life if they really want to. It comes down to the individual and how much you are motivated." Without that (pretty groundless) faith in mobility, many of these newly revealed, hostile attitudes to the poor – for instance, only one in five of us now believes that unemployment benefits are too low and cause hardship (53%, 16 years ago) – would be untenable.
Though - oh, yay! - good, old-fashioned British hypocrisy might stop us from morphing into self-made-men with American-style Dreams in the end:
The unbelievable thing is that, even in this mulch of conservatism, this belief that the poor are poor on purpose, 67% of people still think it is the government's responsibility to reduce income differences between rich and poor. As soon as you put the word "redistribution" in the question, everybody's suddenly against it.
Speaking of America, laugh (or cry?) at a tale of a Texan Christian school aiding Haiti victims by praying for them, whilst a public school 'in a poor part of town' raised over $4000! Oh God, is He merciful...
Some things to be happy about - the possibility of Andrew Wakefield being struck off. I would actually pray for that. Just don't pay too much attention to the parents who are 'standing by him' (figuratively and literally - on TV) because then you'll remember how fucking stupid great swathes of the human race are, and want to kill someone all over again. Also, the increasing anger against our globally embarrassing libel laws - I donated to Simon Singh's campaign against the BCA, and I signed this petition - and if you haven't, do the latter at least!
Now to bed, stinking and in need of a vigorous snog. :-D
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Rape culture + pornification (pt. II)
Just to address some things lingering like a bad smell from the previous post (I know, I know - shoulda done it sooner):
I got this dumbass comment from Alex:
What would Michael Kyle say? 'Ah... nah.' This is an utterly false comparison - porn is not used in the same way that other genres of film are. Most people (especially on the Internet) don't sit down and watch a snippet of oh, I dunno, Star Trek with the express aim of *ahem* 'interacting' with what's on the screen, now, do they? Even if you watch a film for the car chases, you're usually going to have some interest in the overall story. Usually when people do get to the stage of putting up their 'favourite scenes' or whatever on YouTube, it's because they've watched the film or series episode enough to be able to isolate a particular section.
Whereas people don't watch porn for the storyline, they watch it because it turns them on. Why else do mainstream porn TV channels keep promising 'more fucking' and less storylines? Because it's the SEX that people want to see! I have a tendency to pay proper attention to porn sometimes, and it is usually a terrible mistake:
'Oh my God, that man is so tanned he looks like beef jerky, and he is wearing tinted swimming-goggles - wait, are those sunglasses? And why do all the European actors wear those weird little necklaces? Haha!'
Paying attention to porn actresses' expressions (facial and verbal) tends to make me burst out laughing and completely kill my horn. The huge amount of ridiculous pouting and very obviously fake arousal usually provokes hilarity, but sometimes makes me quite depressed, that some men can be so thick (or jaded) that it gets them going. Especially common is the businesslike efficiency of so many porn actresses which, I'm sorry, often makes me think of seasoned prostitutes.
Let us not forget that the Internet has developed on the advance that porn studios discovered with DVDs: people can now slice out, tag and distribute individual scenes involving this or that actress/actor or this or that sex act, tweak the angle/lighting/whatever they want, and so there is even less need to care about the background information. You want a POV scene of Jenna Jameson masturbating? You got it! You don't need to remember that film's title and watch it until you find the right scene unless you're absolutely hell-bent on it - a quick search of a porn site will often point you in the right direction without too much fuss.
No, the only other entertainment form that porn can remotely be compared to (given the way that it is designed to be used), is gaming. It's interesting to note too how much the 'do video games cause violence?' debate mirrors the 'does porn cause rape?' debate, as the more astute among you have hopefully already realised.
This brings me to my other point: a few men (surprise!) immediately leaped on the 'you can't assert a causal link between rape and porn usage' bandwagon, both here and on PP. Erm, no - my wording maybe wasn't unambiguous enough, but I said that I know there's no evidence for it, and I don't believe it. When I said that they were linked, I meant that there is a similar attitude inherent in both. Rape, and the overwhelming majority of porn, reflect a male desire for absolute dominance, translated into a desire to totally dominate women. Just because you and I use it doesn't mean that this can be denied. I'm not going to get into the debate over whether porn can be made feminist or whatever, but I am also not going to be disingenuous and deny what goes on in most porn. It's not a coincidence that women in porn are almost always completely submissive. It's not a coincidence that porn's representations of lesbian sexuality show a form of lesbianism which is all about women wanting to be men, with the strap-on cock and the dildo and when these aren't present, the women are usually young and nubile and conventionally attractive. Just because the cock is not there doesn't mean that the cock can be forgotten! God forbid that porn should show a lesbianism that isn't all about male desire and 'manliness' (read: penises) in some way.
Morons may say (as one did in fact on Pickled Politics):
i.e. 'What about when men are getting fucked? Isn't that, like SUBVERSIVE, and also possibly feminist, because I am a scroteburst and don't understand feminism or feminists?'
Well, now. If you've got the time and the inclination, I would say head over to Bitchy Jones's blog and read a whole lot of posts, starting with the Best Of. It's certainly not for the faint-hearted though. I am just going to quote from a couple of posts: 'subs are not meant to secretly run the show. That’s a lie. If the sub is in charge you’re doing it wrong.'
As Bitchy so astutely observes, even porn which pretends to be about female domination (i.e., giving women the power of the penis) is not really, because it is aimed at satisfying male desire, just like the rest of porn. The depictions of femdom in mainstream porn are obviously going to adhere to this, but she notes it in the dominatrix industry and 'proper' BDSM femdom porn as well:
I got this dumbass comment from Alex:
But at the end of the day, porn is nothing more than a genre, and it's silly to bemoan the general pornification of society in the same way it'd be silly to bemoan its scifiification or actioncomedification.
What would Michael Kyle say? 'Ah... nah.' This is an utterly false comparison - porn is not used in the same way that other genres of film are. Most people (especially on the Internet) don't sit down and watch a snippet of oh, I dunno, Star Trek with the express aim of *ahem* 'interacting' with what's on the screen, now, do they? Even if you watch a film for the car chases, you're usually going to have some interest in the overall story. Usually when people do get to the stage of putting up their 'favourite scenes' or whatever on YouTube, it's because they've watched the film or series episode enough to be able to isolate a particular section.
Whereas people don't watch porn for the storyline, they watch it because it turns them on. Why else do mainstream porn TV channels keep promising 'more fucking' and less storylines? Because it's the SEX that people want to see! I have a tendency to pay proper attention to porn sometimes, and it is usually a terrible mistake:
'Oh my God, that man is so tanned he looks like beef jerky, and he is wearing tinted swimming-goggles - wait, are those sunglasses? And why do all the European actors wear those weird little necklaces? Haha!'
Paying attention to porn actresses' expressions (facial and verbal) tends to make me burst out laughing and completely kill my horn. The huge amount of ridiculous pouting and very obviously fake arousal usually provokes hilarity, but sometimes makes me quite depressed, that some men can be so thick (or jaded) that it gets them going. Especially common is the businesslike efficiency of so many porn actresses which, I'm sorry, often makes me think of seasoned prostitutes.
Let us not forget that the Internet has developed on the advance that porn studios discovered with DVDs: people can now slice out, tag and distribute individual scenes involving this or that actress/actor or this or that sex act, tweak the angle/lighting/whatever they want, and so there is even less need to care about the background information. You want a POV scene of Jenna Jameson masturbating? You got it! You don't need to remember that film's title and watch it until you find the right scene unless you're absolutely hell-bent on it - a quick search of a porn site will often point you in the right direction without too much fuss.
No, the only other entertainment form that porn can remotely be compared to (given the way that it is designed to be used), is gaming. It's interesting to note too how much the 'do video games cause violence?' debate mirrors the 'does porn cause rape?' debate, as the more astute among you have hopefully already realised.
This brings me to my other point: a few men (surprise!) immediately leaped on the 'you can't assert a causal link between rape and porn usage' bandwagon, both here and on PP. Erm, no - my wording maybe wasn't unambiguous enough, but I said that I know there's no evidence for it, and I don't believe it. When I said that they were linked, I meant that there is a similar attitude inherent in both. Rape, and the overwhelming majority of porn, reflect a male desire for absolute dominance, translated into a desire to totally dominate women. Just because you and I use it doesn't mean that this can be denied. I'm not going to get into the debate over whether porn can be made feminist or whatever, but I am also not going to be disingenuous and deny what goes on in most porn. It's not a coincidence that women in porn are almost always completely submissive. It's not a coincidence that porn's representations of lesbian sexuality show a form of lesbianism which is all about women wanting to be men, with the strap-on cock and the dildo and when these aren't present, the women are usually young and nubile and conventionally attractive. Just because the cock is not there doesn't mean that the cock can be forgotten! God forbid that porn should show a lesbianism that isn't all about male desire and 'manliness' (read: penises) in some way.
Morons may say (as one did in fact on Pickled Politics):
One genre omitted was the ‘Bend Over Boyfriend’ stuff which features a woman with a strapon subjecting her boyfriend / husband to some rough play.
i.e. 'What about when men are getting fucked? Isn't that, like SUBVERSIVE, and also possibly feminist, because I am a scroteburst and don't understand feminism or feminists?'
Well, now. If you've got the time and the inclination, I would say head over to Bitchy Jones's blog and read a whole lot of posts, starting with the Best Of. It's certainly not for the faint-hearted though. I am just going to quote from a couple of posts: 'subs are not meant to secretly run the show. That’s a lie. If the sub is in charge you’re doing it wrong.'
As Bitchy so astutely observes, even porn which pretends to be about female domination (i.e., giving women the power of the penis) is not really, because it is aimed at satisfying male desire, just like the rest of porn. The depictions of femdom in mainstream porn are obviously going to adhere to this, but she notes it in the dominatrix industry and 'proper' BDSM femdom porn as well:
Dominant women are beautiful. And that’s why the guy gets on his knees. That is what he worships. Her beauty.
I don’t just mean in porn – I mean the whole ’story’ of femdom runs along these lines.
It’s pretty interesting that, where men have decided to allow women to have ‘power’ for their own wanky needs, that this is the kind of power they choose to give her. The power of being desired. A completely passive power.
And I’ve told you before dominant sexuality is all about *desiring*. Dominant sexuality is active – not passive.
*Wanting* not being wanted.
*Demanding* not being demanded.
But the beautiful Amazon thing is woven into the fabric of femdom (black PVC – since you ask).
This is my major problem with porn: it's all about men. Even when they're the ones being fucked, the focus remains on satisfying male desire. I hate the way it makes me end up feeling like I have some sort of sexual split-personality disorder. You're always led to identify with the penetrator - the man, or the male-proxy lesbian - yet as a woman, you know deep down that you're supposed to be the penetratee (yup, not a word, don't care). Where the man is getting penetrated, I just find myself agreeing with Bitchy and thinking 'But I don't want to screw a man! It might turn him on, but it doesn't turn me on! And it doesn't turn her on, either, by the looks of it.' This takes me back to why feminist porn may not be possible; like Simone de Beauvoir, I fear that 'the women's effort has never been anything more than a symbolic agitation. They have gained only what men have been willing to grant; they have taken nothing, they have only received' ("Introduction" to The Second Sex (1952), p.19).
Let us not forget that the greedy hand of mainstream porn has reached into BDSM culture and taken practices which usually occur after much discussion between sexual partners, and stolen them. Your average hardcore porn video does not show the man asking the woman if she is really, truly, 100% OK with any form of auto-erotic asphyxiation, the couple establishing any safe words or limits, or anything such. In short, mainstream porn removes all the pesky 'responsible behaviour' that actually underpins any extreme sexual practices and just hands you the sexual practices on a plate. This is yet another example of heteronormativity in action. Extreme sexual practices were roundly demonised and ignored by the heterosexual majority for ages. However, now that heterosexual culture is 'bored' and needs novelty, it has 'graciously' decided to legitimize BDSM, sort of, by stealing from it. Only, conveniently enough, it ends up making BDSM look worse because it does away with the whole 'safe, sane and consensual' ethos that distinguishes it from actual rape, torture etc.! God forbid that 'vanilla' heterosexuality ever be seen as anything other than THE true and right way (because of course, y'know, the majority have vanilla heterosexual sex, so anything else is weird and probably evil). Anyone who thinks I am on that conspiracy shit wants to remember that the majority of porn users in America belong to, that's right, the bullshit party (who make it their business to argue against ALL sexual activity that isn't 'Christian') and that in the UK, you can now be prosecuted for being in possession of 'extreme porn.'
Ultimately, I'm finding that I've come full circle - I'm doing my best to stay away from Internet porn and just occasionally watching some of those cringeworthy erotica films that come on certain Sky channels late at night. These still promote female stereotypes and female sexual stereotypes enthusiastically, but at least they hold back from the violence that is implicit, and becoming increasingly explicit, in so much porn. They also often try to connect sex and love to some extent, by putting in some kind of romance. Loving couples can have good sex too, you know! While I understand that the fantasy of completely no-strings/anonymous sex is exciting - SOMETIMES - porn is OBSESSED with it, and it gets really boring.
The repetitiveness of porn is damaging, but for a critical mind, it is also revealing. Most porn consumers want to be the 'daddy' fucking girls old enough to be their daughter (eww) or they want to fuck their mums (eww), or both. All very Freudian and distinctly pathetic. It's no secret that they are largely insecure and unattractive (often, but not always, physically as well as emotionally) men, compensating themselves by being able to get their way all the time and 'have' anyone they want who wouldn't normally look twice at them. They don't want to be anyone's beloved equal, they want to be SPECIAL SNOWFLAKES, goddammit! Me, me, me! Bor-ing - and this is precisely the message we DO NOT need young male teenagers high on hormones to be embedding in their already self-centred brains.
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
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