Leslie Gore (1963)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsYJyVEUaC4&feature=related
Fiona Apple (1997)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjlE08MqeqE
Lil' Kim (2000)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuqJssfGG8U
The songs and their representations of female and sex/relationship made for a great historical contrast. As all of the songs were teen anthems, I couldn't help but try to recall a musical expression of female sexuality from my own formative years (1977-1981) I scrolled through my iPod and almost immediately ran into Debbie Harry and Blondie. Back on YouTube, I watched more videos:
1978, Heart of Glass. Sounds so disco to me today. Establishing shots of NYC, including Studio 54. Most of the video is a very tight shot of Debbie Harry's face inter-cut with shots of the band playing on a disco dance floor. Not much of a dancer but a femme fatal for sure -- white blonde hair and lip gloss veneer. Closing shots of NYC, including a hugely wide shot from a helicopter of the WTC.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXlaOsNBDkk
1980, Call me
Video is Debbie rolling around on a round bed, inter-cut with shots from a concert and some staged studio performance scenes. Distinctively '80s feel from make-up, clothes, terrible dancing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH3Q_CZy968
Blondie fits into the three break through gals featured in our assignment because she also led with relationships or sex -- as well as her sex appeal. And she was a breakthrough, moving into the punk era and early rap ventures. To me as a teenager, she was the epitome of sexy -- feminine and appealing, yet powerful and in charge. Fronting an all male band, being somewhat edgy (seems ridiculous now) in her posture towards the role a woman should play with a man when it comes to sex. From a very, very direct request for sex (call me) to her no holds barred pursuit (gonna getcha getcha getcha) of a guy, she was not my Mothers' generation of woman.
Because that's the real point of the assignment this week. How do we, society, men, women, teens, adults, people, view women? Sex? Relationships? Listening to the popular music of a generation -- seeing the mini-motion pictures that are modern music videos --- are tasty clues. And time/relevance is everything! Our on-line chat tonight started out with some of my younger classmates remarking just how dated Lil' Kim would be to the kids in their classes. Gulp.
And the question of the week is whether and how these popular explorations of sex and relationships belong in education -- or at least in the learning process for our young people. I would argue that they -- the parent-frighteningly explicit popular music songs and videos and dance moves already are part of their world and as such, part of their learning and development. Since adolescence is all about identity development, messages from all fronts will contribute to their understanding of themselves as an individual, woman, man, sexual being, etc.
Yes, sexual being. As adults we are extremely squeamish about adolescent sexuality. We make stupid decisions based on this squeamishness -- like imprisoning kids for sexting, criminalizing normal behavior, withholding sexuality education and marginalizing LGBT kids. I immediately think of the outcry over Harmful to Minors by Judith Levine -- or closer to home, discussions with the OR Dept of Health over whether to include young peoples' "right to experience pleasure" in the Adolescent Sexual Health Plan.
Which is where this week's question gets squishy for me. Yes, I believe the themes in these music videos should be discussed -- as should all the social, cultural and artistic aspects of them. Yet I really, really dislike being involved in promoting 1) in the case of Fiona Apple, what I would consider a creepy, voyeuristic view of adolescent sexuality and 2) in the case of Lil' Kim, what I would consider a "being a powerful and sexual woman means imitating a man" message.
I really enjoyed these two "shocking" female sex songs (Apple and Lil' Kim). In fact, I smiled and laughed through both of them and was even compelled to dance a couple of times. Bad language, explicit sexual references -- no problem. But.
The directorial and visual style of the Fiona Apple video is distinctive and in my opinion, beautiful. I loved the very raw camera work, intentionally bad lighting and minimalist sets. But it just felt creepy. More like kiddy porn than good sex. And evocative of that whole teenagers as sexual objects doing drugs and selling jeans. Heroin chic, I'm reminded from youTube commenters. Even if you think, as I do, that Apple's song portrays the female as powerful and making her own decisions (and feeling a little, but not so very, guilty), the video casts a very dark lens over the theme and conjures up even darker topics. And therefore, I'd likely not want to "teach" from this video. Is that fair? Is it age showing through? My own squeamishness? Forced to justify, I'd say that our attitudes about sex/sexuality are so messed up, I'd rather present beauty and wonder and avoid the darkness, since there's so much of it already out there.
That said, this was the style of the times -- all the fashionistas were going this way (Calvin Klein was not alone in this). Just like penny loafers and too tight-pedal pushers were the style from Leslie Gore's time. Just like lip gloss was the style from my time. Just because I don't get into waif-ish, too skinny, grunge, doesn't necessarily make it dark and bad. It just makes it dated. Except in the case of this video, it also feels timeless because it reads like porn.
This reminds me of a teen sexual health conference I attended. Roughly 1/4 of the attendees were young people, which is unusual for these kind of things. I attended a session about sexual pleasure which was being facilitated by someone I knew. I walked in late and found a standing room only crowd -- mostly young people. She asked people to talk about what kinds of sexual pleasure they could think of and everything was all well and good until a young person mentioned piercing and BDSM. A lot of my career is about promoting the idea that we should talk about sex with young people, normalize it, make it the wonderful, beautiful part of their development that it should be and suddenly I'm feeling very uncomfortable.
Same feeling, thinking about teaching with the Criminal video.
Even though I think many adults might find it even more shocking, I'd be much more comfortable teaching from the Lil' Kim video. No darkness here -- just explicit, powerful, female sexuality. The entire video is an object lesson in objectification, from her wardrobe, hairstyle and makeup to her lyrics to her dance moves. She made me wonder if the reason that so many young women reject feminism is because they don't believe that they have less power (at least sexually) than men do. Lil' Kim certainly feels that way. And she shatters (at least in her own expression of it) feminist concerns of female objectification because she embraces it and makes a place of power. That said, it feels a little too much like traditional representations of male sexual power to make me entirely thrilled with it.
And the comments generated exactly the kind of debates I'd love to see among young people:
- Male vs. Female sexuality: raisetheflag88 -- I am glad women like Lil Kim and Foxy Brown sing about sex, what makes them whores? Guys sing about it all the time and they are labeled "playas". Women get your sex on and don't be afraid to express what you want!!
- Censorship: YuiYumama -- I remember watching this video when I was little and my mom would be like 'eww turn that off' Shit I still dance to it now lol! I think it's a cute video
- Standards: xeno957714 -- one of the more dirty songs ive ever heard from a girl singer lol
- Race/Representation: indiegirl007 -- Yeah, I've noticed that. It isn't too appealing. it's almost like she's ashamed of her skin, and she shouldn't be. It kinda surprised me actually. A confident black woman like her, proud to be black and strong, BLEACHING her skin. Wow.
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