I have been really into Tegan & Sara lately (in particular their fifth album, The Con), and I have always had a soft spot for Hayley Williams (Paramore).  So when I stumbled across this interview over at autostraddle it was a match made in heaven (there is also a fascinating bit about Lady Gaga at the link, which I’m sure I’ll address sooner or later).  Enjoy!

Last week I was absent for very exciting reasons.  First, my mom came out to visit and then my partner and I headed over to Lyons, Colorado for Planet Bluegrass’s 20th Folks Festival.  And it folked my socks off.  Old favorites were there, like Ani DiFranco and Jenny Lewis, and I found some new favorites, too, such as Girlyman and Dala.  Consider the following to be souvenirs I brought back for you!

Ani DiFranco - Her new stuff keeps getting better.  Which is astonishing.  Check out this sweet folk ditty (sorry about the poor visuals, but the sound is great and this vid is from the festival!):

Jenny Lewis - Jenny had me at Rilo Kiley, and her solo stuff continues to win me over.  She played Silver Lining at the Folks Festival, but this clip is from a different performance:

New favorites after the jump!

The following is a cross post from Electric Emily over at Jukebox Heroines – be sure to check out all the other great music-based info she’s got at her blog!  If you are interested in cross posting or guest posting at feministhemes.com, please send your ideas to ms.wizzle@feministhemes.com.

Lady Gaga was on Larry King on June 1st, 2010. I just watched it, and once again, female artists have to defend themselves for their art, presentation, and politics.

Larry King asked if Gaga was a feminist, she said:

“Yes. Yes I am. I am a feminist. Does this settle the ongoing debate once and for all?”

Why is it so hard for people to believe that Gaga is a feminist? I have a few thoughts on the matter.

Is it because she is a pop-star, and somehow we have obscured pop music/stardom with instant sell-out status, misogyny, and manufactured faux empowerment?

That isn’t to say that there is some of that in music, and that pop music, like every other music genre has issues with gender, race, class, looks, etc, but presuming this of pop music limits one from experiencing some amazing talent. Just because you can dance to is, and it is accessible to the majority of people don’t make it lesser than. Pop music has a long-standing tradition of being seen as feminine, and as “of the body,” which is seen as less artistically sound and worthy than the masculine, “of the mind” rock or indie music scenes.

Is it because Lady Gaga is an attractive woman and hence, could never be a feminist, because you know, feminists are ugly, fat, hairy, bra-burners!

Ha, you know that one. All the myths associated with feminism, I’ve heard them all before! They never seem to go away. Let’s run them down: feminists are only women, they are not attractive (ugly), hate men (perhaps because their ugliness denies them a suitable mate), hate children, are lesbians, angry, don’t wear make-up, witches, choose career over family, cock-blockers, want to rule over men….did I get them all?  These myths serve in separating women from each other, and deter women from joining a movement that is about social, political and economic equality for not just women, but all.There is nothing wrong with that, except that it challenges a system of inequality in our culture that continues to keep women in a second class status. Challenging that is dangerous. Therefore these myths exist to maintain the status quo and silence any opposition.  And why would a beautiful woman want to get involved with any of that? She apparently has everything right? Oh, how wrong that assumption is, and Lady Gaga isn’t fooled by those myths. She smashes them with a sequined, flame-engulfed hammer.

You could say Gaga even makes fun of the whole bra-burner myth via her fabulous spark-bra. Read the rest of this entry »

As an anti-Twilight-ruining-classic-mythology tribute, here are a bunch of my favorite werewolf-respecting videos.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll

TV on the Radio - Wolf Like Me

Michael Jackson - Thriller (Ok, so it’s more about zombies, but it’s classic.)

And finally, to remedy the damage done to your brain by Twilight, go watch Ginger Snaps.

I feel better now.  How about you?

Sady Doyle has an awesome post up at The Awl regarding the Rivers Cuomo of our adolescent angst.  Weezer was kind of a big deal to those of us who were teens in the 90s, especially those that considered our selves “different,” “alternative,” “artsy,” or generally non-jock (although I certainly knew quite a few members of the swim team who were big fans).  Weezer was for the self-declared geeks who enjoyed seeing rock stars wearing grampa sweaters and Buddy Holly glasses, because it gave us a little validation for doing it ourselves.

Weezer was what I listened to while I rode around my yard in circles for two hours every Saturday on our riding lawn mower.  Weezer was the little “=W=” I drew on my notebooks.  Weezer was one of the first concerts my friends and I went to only to be picked up by someone’s mom in a minivan.  Weezer was cool.

But Weezer was weird.  I mean, there was a quirkiness to the self-deprecating, kind of creepy music.  Rivers was this wiry little nerd that was cute and deep and non-threatening in most ways, but then he’d sing stuff about girls who put their make-up on the shelf when he wasn’t around and whose diaries he read and all kinds of other weird, not-so-lady-friendly junk.

I still listen to the Blue Album and Pinkerton (the new stuff never did it for me) on occasion, and ease my cognitive dissonance by telling myself that it’s all tongue-in-cheek, and after all, this guy is primarily focusing on how his ridiculous ideas about love don’t seem to be working out anyway.  But it’s nice to know that someone else sees the problems inherent in many of the messages.

Rivers Cuomo was the Michael Cera of his generation.  But he was a Michael Cera who played guitar, loud guitar, and he sang. Imagine Michael Cera in a stadium, screaming about how girls don’t like him back and it makes him sad sometimes, a guitar strapped to his hips. The power unleashed was nuclear.

And this:

“Pinkerton,” basically, is the album where Weezer got creepy. And there is a lot of creepiness to be dealt with. There is “Pink Triangle,” in which Rivers Cuomo Chases an Amy, laments, “she’s a lesbian! I thought I had found the one,” and presents the highly persuasive argument, “everyone’s a little queer, can’t she be a little straight?”

There is “Why Bother,” on which Cuomo hilariously declares that he has had two entire girlfriends, and he is never going to have one again, because we are all terrible. (Again, so that we’re keeping track of the emotion-to-age timeline: The man was twenty-six.) And then, there is “Across the Sea,” wherein… oh, God. Oh, GOD.

And this:

Rivers Cuomo is both Liz Phair and Liz Lemon. He’s the pathetic dork in the glasses who can’t get laid and has gone at least slightly bonkers over it, the one you hate to be like, but love to identify with, because it means you’re not alone in being such a reject.

I mean, that’s not some deep hidden misogyny you uncovered because you’re so paranoid/clever. Those are just the words. It’s like a musical installment of Twilight. If a friend were dating a dude who talked like this, you’d start leaving checklists of Signs That You Are In An Abusive Relationship all over her apartment.

Sady has incorporated so much awesome in her article that I can’t even explain it.  Go read it. It’s long.  Read the whole thing.  Then listen to Weezer in a new way.  Get nostalgic, get pissed, and smile fondly about the doodles on your 10th grade notebook.

Last night, I saw the most beautiful woman in the world.  I have loved Ani DiFranco since about the 9th grade.  I picked up the album Dilate at a used record shop, popped it in my walkman + car tape-deck adapter, and dove in head first.  With my mom.  Who kind of liked it, but didn’t “know about all this F%$# You business.”

Then there was the time I headed off to camp for the summer as a volunteer junior counselor and my mystery bunk-mate had an extensive Ani collection, guaranteeing me that we would be BFFs (which we are).  Ani posters have accompanied me from home to home, dorm to rental, state to state.  I’ve driven hundreds of miles to see her.  I’ve driven tens of miles to see her.  And I think I’m up to about… 7? shows now.  Last night was one of the greatest.

I’ve never fallen in love with Ani’s new material as quickly as I did last night at her show in SLC.  Like this one (which is not a video that I took, and which is not the best video quality, but listen to it for the song anyway – you won’t regret it):

I was especially impressed with the way that she introduced this song in such a conservative state.  She prefaced it with how hard it is to write political songs, since they aren’t very romantic or emotional or pretty, but that she felt it was time to get down to business.  She added that not everyone was going to agree with what she had to say in the song, but that that’s okay, and “welcome so much” to her point of view.  And (although I’m admittedly biased in her favor) I honestly liked her political stuff better than her personal stuff last night.

Ani has always tapped in poignantly to the human experience: pleasure, pain, suffering, longing, desire, dreams, hope, anger, power…  We love her because she puts to words and music what we feel.  And humans love that dark, suffering, angsty stuff.  Last night Ani was happy and busted out some love songs and celebrations of how far she’s come, her new marriage, and her new outlook on life as a mother.  It’s not what Ani fans are used to (although we’ve been slowly acclimating to it over the past few albums), but Ani’s music isn’t for us.  It’s for her.  And she has every right to celebrate her joy.  She certainly deserves it.

Plus she’s still totally righteous.

The video has been out for less than a week, bloggers are still trying to make sense of it, and I am ravenously reading the multitude of conversations that offer various interpretations, reviews, and critiques.  Here are some more posts on the Telephone video:

Deconstructing Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” Video [the atlantic]

Saying she is “always trying to convolute the idea of what a pop music video should be,” Gaga told E! that she wanted to take “the idea that America is full of young people that are inundated with information and technology and turn it into something that was more of a commentary on the kind of country that we are.”

They go on:

We shouldn’t just assume that a woman who cares so much about aesthetic and artistic value would just spew out a string of seemingly random images and product placements. To give Gaga a fair and fighting chance, we’ve deconstructed her pièce de résistance—and were rather surprised with what we came up with.

Why Lady Gaga is a Feminist – Part 3 – Telephone [jukebox heroines]

This is perhaps my favorite part of the video, Lady Gaga wrapped in crime scene tape. The symbolic messages of that are truly amazing. For one, women’s bodies as crime scenes are frighteningly true in our culture. Women are raped, abused, and sexually assaulted, literally making their bodies “crime scenes.” Their bodies are battlegrounds and this is where power and control are literally enacted upon. Gaga’s body is also a “crime scene” when it comes to crimes of sexual transgression. Her power as a woman has called into question her sexuality and gender identity, making her body and personhood a literal “crime again heteronormativity.”

Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” Video: Even Gayer Than Actual Dance Clubs [autostraddle]

Before now I’ve never really gushed over Gaga, but in terms of concept, art and film direction, costumes – this is one of the best music videos I’ve seen in a long time. And I don’t even really like the song. What she’s done here has left absolutely no doubt in my mind that Gaga will continue pushing us outside our comfort zone and challenge and change pop music and pop culture as we know it. I’m ready for it.

Heather Cassils: Lady Gaga’s Prison Yard Girlfriend [out.com] via [jezebel]

Gaga came out, and she just kind of instantly called me over, and it just happened like that. She called me over and asked me to portray her girlfriend and said, “OK, you’re going to be my prison girlfriend, and you’re going to come to me, and I’d like you to touch me inappropriately.” [Laughs] We just kind of went from there.

Also, lest we forget how weird and not-really-mainstream Gaga is, check out this video from when she performed for the Queen of England.  Apparently the woman has no fear of combining heights and grand pianos.  (Also, this song just makes me think of Elton John now.)

Lady Gaga’s new video for Telephone has set of quite the firestorm online.  Gaga appeared (pantsless) on my radar about a year ago as I noticed her being ripped apart by women-targeted fashion and gossip blogs, and the occasional feminist blog.  Over time, things seemed to improve: she developed a reputation for being subversive, outspoken, gay-friendly, and arguably feminist.  Her latest video has put a lot of us back at square one, wondering if we were kidding ourselves, if she’s messing with our heads, if this was just a fluke, if she jumped the shark, or (!!!) if it’s just a (NSFW) music video.

It appears as though this is Gaga’s (first) attempt at a Michael Jackson-esque mini-movie music video.  Other videos of hers (Paparazzi, Bad Romance) have had semblances of story lines, occasional dialogue, and extended cuts, but this one is clearly a step beyond anything that she’s done before (or yet).  My attempts to make sense of these ten minutes after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Let them eat cake!  No, wait, I mean, let them listen to Cake!  Mmm, cake…  Sorry.  *Ahem.*  If you listen to Cake, you’re probably wondering what they’re doing on a feminist blog.  If you don’t listen to Cake, you’re probably wondering the same thing.  Well, I think it’s time to play a new game I’m going to call Feminist Rorschach, in which we interpret a piece of art, music, film, television, or whatever and try to determine whether it’s feminist… or not.  And why, and in what ways, and so on.  Wanna play?

The song is called Pretty Pink Ribbon off the 2001 album Comfort Eagle.  It wasn’t released as a single and has no official music video, but I found this cool Power Rangers themed video (which is frankly more interesting than staring at the album art for three minutes).  Lyrics after the cut.

My instinct has always led me to believe that the pretty pink ribbon is a reference to a particular part of the female anatomy (c’mon, sticky little kitten?).  I found other interpretations online that the song is about cancer (pink ribbons) or about a girl that’s only as good as her tight little denim.  But I’m going to stick with my interpretation, and argue for the song as a commentary on socialization, social roles and maybe even empowerment, at least potentially.  Whether the pretty pink ribbon is symbolic of the vagina (what a cliche feminist interpretation, huh?) or simply a stereotypical expression of socialized femininity/girliness, the song addresses gender differences between men and women (“Without the pretty pink ribbon / You’d end up just like me”).

Let’s get the not-so-good out of the way.  There is some blatant objectification here (“Without your tight little denim / Your virtues would all go unknown”), and some accusations of shallowness (“Without the pretty pink ribbon / You’d float down to the sea”), golddigging (“Without the sticky little kitten / Your ticket could never be free”), and so on.   There’s also the limitation of not being able to speak one’s own mind (“Without the pretty pink ribbon / You’d say just what you pleased”).  Kind of makes it sound like it’s not so great to be of the female persuasion.

On the other hand, it doesn’t sound like its so great to be a dude in this world, either.  Apparently for those whose “muscles bulge underground” (phallic reference?), there is no escape from personal demons – our culture socializes men to carry their burdens alone.  There is also less hope for healing (“Without the room that you live in / Your cancers would eat through the bone”) and less compassion (“You’d burn all these dying leaves… You would lift this steaming herd / You would kill all the sick ones / You would bury them deep in the earth”).  Here men are expected to carry out the dirty work of facing death, causing death, and cleaning up after death.

To me the song represents the social limitations imposed on those who do/can wear a pretty pink ribbon and those who don’t/cant.  There are benefits in each circumstance (free tickets, expression of virtues, and a sense of peace, hope, and healing for her; an uncensored voice, strength, and the ability to “be tough” for him), and these are not shared across the sexes.  For calling these things out, I as a feminist give the song props.  What do you think?

Lyrics below

There were two things that had me pumped up about The Wild Things: 1. Jim Henson muppets, and 2. Karen O.  I was never very attached to the story as a kid, and was pretty sure that it was going to be a hyped-up-indie-fest as a film.  However, this was also during that period that I kept going to movies expecting little and being blown away (Away We Go, Jennifer’s Body, Paper Heart, and Whip It!), so maybe that explains the mild obsession that overtook me after seeing The Wild Things last fall.  The film, the soundtrack, and the book all made their mark on me, and all have a little feminist spin in my opinion.  Let’s break it down:

The Film

Sadly this trailer doesn’t incorporate the Karen O led music that really contributes to the feel of the film, nor does it capture what, to me, was the most meaningful theme: Max’s relationship with his mother.  What? you say?  His mother?  Please, this is a story about a naughty and wild little boy. On the surface, yes, but Max’s relationship with his mom is what gave the film depth.

Max is being raised by a single mother who has a new boyfriend, which can be hard on any kid.  It’s hard even into adulthood to understand split parents, and when a newcomer steps in things become even more difficult.  Max was already a pain-in-the-butt kid, and between a fight with his older sister and the apparent intrusion of a new man into his home, he loses it.  He runs away and winds up living among the Wild Things as their king.  And each Wild Thing offers us an insight into Max’s relationship with his mom.  Carol represents the possessiveness Max feels towards her; Alexander represents how ignored he feels; Judith represents his difficult and disagreeable side; Ira represents the doting and needy part of him; and the Bull represents the stoic role our society asks us to show when we’re really experiencing pain.  K.W. on the other hand, represents Max’s mom.

K.W. is warm, loving, kind, and is more complex than the other Wild Things can understand.  She has a different level of maturity, she needs relationships outside of the group.  Carol in particular is resentful of this and alternates between loving K.W. and not knowing how to express it and loathing her in a violent and possessive way.  This is a clear reflection of how Max has treated his mother on the night he ran away.  When Carol turns on Max for letting him down as a king, it is K.W. that protects him, hiding him in her mouth.  For a moment after it is safe, K.W. wants to keep Max, but she understands that as much as she loves him, she must let him go.  Whether Max has the capacity to understand this as deeply as I see it or not, this is the turning point where he realizes he needs his mother and must return to her, hopefully with a new respect for her as a person, not just a mom.

After the jump, an analysis of the soundtrack (including an interview with Karen O.) and the book