True story.

[asimplechord]

J and I were sitting in the living room the other morning, caffeinating ourselves, randomly channel surfing until we hit MetalMania on VH1. We watched for a bit while we talked about Books and Movies and Other Important Stuff.

Then she looked at me and waved at the tv and said that 80s and 90s glam rockers would probably be sources for tons of fodder with respect to gender role-playing and entertainment. If anyone were interested.

Why, yes. Indeed. I pointed her at the pile of books near the top of Mount To-Be-Read.

Actually, it'd been a while since I watched some of the "classic" videos they showed, and I'm still sorting out some of the stuff that bothered me and why, but here's what I'm thinking about.

1) the motif in the credits, which included silhouettes of a bikini-clad woman

2) the men in the videos, when they crawled around on the floor, did it in a playful way; somehow it came off as submissive (or completely sexual) when women did it

3) in two hours, a single female rock artist's video aired

I'm trying to figure out why these things should bother me more than, say, listening to the lyrics of Lying Is the Most Fun... or I Write Sins Not Tragedies, songs that basically call the women Ryan Ross wrote them about whores.

Shouldn't modern misogyny bother me more than decade-old sexism?

Thoughts?

Comments

[ariadne1.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to figure out why these things should bother me more than, say, listening to the lyrics of Lying Is the Most Fun... or I Write Sins Not Tragedies, songs that basically call the women Ryan Ross wrote them about whores.

Shouldn't modern misogyny bother me more than decade-old sexism?

It may be that the difference you seek is already contained in your words: the conscious misogyny of an individual artist (or perhaps even the targeted specific hatred of individual women by an individual) is less bothersome than the unexamined sexism of an entire culture. Seems to me hegemony's more bothersome than an individual person-in-pain-and-angry-about-it, on the misogyny/sexism scale.

[asimplechord.livejournal.com]

I can't figure out if it's getting any better, though. I mean, yes, popular music has lots of female artists nowadays, and there are some hard rock and punk bands with women members. But overwhelmingly, the content of videos for those women seems to suggest that sexuality is still the top consideration for success, not talent. Look at one success story: yeah, Gwen Stefani can poke fun at it now, but No Doubt sort of used her in skimpy clothes and bright makeup to become successful. If she's doing it deliberately and consciously is it OK? When does it just become sexism and exploitation?

Dunno. Thinking about this is making my brain hurt.

I'm trying to decide if some of my distaste for rap stems from similar reasoning: a lot of the rap/hip hop culture (and yes, I know I'm lumping two vastly different things together when I use that slash) strikes me as extremely sexist on the surface. Maybe if I listened more carefully I'd hear something else?

eta: I think I should qualify, also, that I'm thinking about mainstream American bands. Maybe it's just us, and it's better on the European or Asian scene?

[ariadne1.livejournal.com]

Considering the reaction of Europeans to the Clinton/Lewinsky thing (something like, "Our politicians have been doing that for thousands of years; when are you Americans going to grow up?"), I'd say it's probably worse here than in Europe - our prudishness generally results in sexploitation on a cultural scale.

No idea about Asia, though... entirely outside my realm of experience and/or knowledge and/or understanding. The only thing I know for sure, and this is from a hazy memory of a documentary watched several years ago, at least, is that in Japan young female pop stars are engineered based on "cuteness" - that musical ability isn't necessary at all. They're selected by photo and then taught to sing.

Not sure if the males are selected the same way.

*shakes head* Now my brain hurts too.

[asimplechord.livejournal.com]

Man, don't even get me started on the idiocy of that scandal. I mean, clearly some people think that the ability to govern the country is related to who the president is screwing, right?

[asimplechord.livejournal.com]

You know, the more I think about this, the more I realize why I don't actually watch videos any more, and just listen instead.