Show Me Love (in a super-long post)

Weeks 4 & 5 – Girls and Popular Cutlure(s) 9/23/09

In the chapter in RED, I found the girls stories very honest and open. In the first essay, the 14 year old, Sarah, who loves Stephen Colbert (I do too, though not as enthusiastically as she expresses) speaks of how she has her own “truthiness” and doesn’t care what other people think. I wish more teenage girls could have had that philosophy; I wish I could have had that philosophy in high school. I love that she goes against the grain, mentioning that people who conform to what MTV says is cool tend to lack imagination. I think that not enough emphasis is put on girls to be original, to be creative or explore new territories. I feel that there is still so much ridicule and so many consequences for being unsuccessful that girls are afraid to try anything new. I even find myself hesitating, now, as a senior in college, to try new things because I do not want to receive any sort of a back-lash from colleagues or co-workers or friends.

The next story, written by Kali, the “emo” girl, brought me back to how harsh high school and middle school can be. I still can’t believe that people openly taunt other people in the hallways or class or the gym. I hate that people are stereotyped into such definitive groups, and no other place in America so exemplifies prejudice and preconceptions as the high school. Kali states it beautifully with, “The high school social hierarchy is the perfect evil recipe, preparing kids for lifetimes of intolerance and fearing anyone who’s not like them” (214). A lot of issues the world faces today as far as race, stereotyping, intolerance, ignorance, and prejudice could be dissolved if they were tackled at the adolescent level. You cannot change a person once they are who they are, you have to open there eyes before they become what they’re going to be. On a side note, I think one could have an entire class just based on internet mediums such as facebook and MySpace and how they affect (mostly negatively) girls’ feelings of social acceptance/ridicule.

The next three essays were very good, but I didn’t connect to them like I did with the first two. The Johnny Depp essay I fully agree with- I admire him so much as an actor, and I am astounded by his performances. I too, have a dream to work with him some day, although I can hardly say I’ve seen all of his movies or have any sort of “obsession”. In Play I just thought, “My God, I need to listen to more music.” The author, Olive, seems so free-spirited and musically educated that I have to admit I’m a little jealous. Finally, Saskia talks about her problem with television. I have to agree that I believe it simultaneously connects and distances people, and that it has become an inadequate substitute for human interaction. What struck me about this article was the end, where she stated that she never did anything about the tv, but expected people to read her mind. I know I felt this way as a teenager, and I’m sure almost everyone has at least a moment where they wonder, “how can you NOT know what I’m thinking?!” I hope that more girls get the courage to do something about the things they dislike, and if someone cannot tell something is bother them, that they find a way to communicate that effectively.

In the pdf. “Just a girl?” the author points out that even though female rock performers, like Gwen Stefani, re-define what “girl” is in their songs, their commercial popularity and gender performances “potentially furthers the notion that within patriarchal society women acquire attention, approval, and authority to the degree that they are willing to act like children. These performances turn the idea of girlhood into sarcasm, while simultaneously remaining sexy and passive. That author makes an important point of emphasizing that the majority of female rock performances emphasize strictly white girlhood, and white women’s viewpoints and voices. Until this article, I had never heard of Riot Grrrls, or at least not known any bands associated with them. I think it’s a really cool concept- women making, distributing, producing, and ultimately taking full control of their music, specifically in the rock genre. Even though the author criticizes their nostalgic album covers as infantilizing women, the concept itself seems groundbreaking. Looking at Japanese women, such as Cibo Matto, in this genre of music, it’s easy to see that they have an even more difficult time overcoming racial stereotypes and ideals of femininity. Shonen Knife and Yoko Ono have fought against these particular stereotypes, especially within US discourse of Asia and Asians. Forgive me if I’m going on a tangent, but this is the first article I’ve seen in any of women’s studies classes that even mentions Barbie dolls. Can we talk about those soon? So many little girls play with them and look up to them and I feel like it’s one of the most, one of the earliest, significant conditioning practices for young girls, in which they start to feel like they have to have long, straight hair, blue eyes, a handsome man, and a convertible to be worthwhile. I don’t know if I’ll ever buy my kids Barbie dolls.

I chose to read chapter 4, “Screening Queer Girls,” since I’m so interested in film. This was a very interesting chapter, indeed. I never realized how little media there was to represent queer girls, and that queer girls must compromise and alter the popular images and films that are so prevalent in order to relate to them. Many, as Susan Driver points out, imagine themselves in the male role, in order to get any viewing pleasure out of the film. Queer characters are always a passing thought it popular films, a “running joke.” I never realized that people can be hurt by this lack of representation- that many queer girls feel as though they’re not important enough to be represented, otherwise there would be more queer media. An in-depth analysis of queer girl films, including Show Me Love, All Over Me, True Adventure, and But I’m a Cheerleader and the responses from teenage girls makes me wonder why there aren’t more movies out there representing queer girls and their desires. They all sound like wonderful movies, re-defining queer stereotypes and pushing the limits of heteronormativity. This chapter really opened my eyes to the deficit that exists in the representation of queer girls in the media.

Chapter 7, “Your Music Changed My Life” was really insightful, because I never realized how versatile music could be. As opposed to just sitting and watching a queer movie, one can actually contribute to queer culture, for instance by dancing to a song or going to a concert “…they are able to position themselves more fully as knowers and doers.” Once again, the issue of race comes into play. Although there are few mediums in which queer girls are represented, there are even less in which queer minorities are included. Hip-hop being one exception, it’s troublesome to me that race and sexual orientation have not been more intertwined in the media. If sexism and racism go hand in hand, why wouldn’t their counterparts also? Why wouldn’t feminism and inclusiveness be more closely tied?

The Riot grrrls movement sounded pretty groundbreaking to me, as the author says they push the limits of patriarchy, come up with their own feminist ethos, and break out of their middle-class, white molds. Also, music provides a much larger sense of connection, and it is much more subtle than sitting down and watching a movie about lesbians. Some girls in small, narrow-minded towns found their only connection to queer subculture through music and the internet. It seems to me like music gives queer girls something to belong to that is bigger than them, something to identify with when they’re having trouble identifying with anything else. AS far as the healing power of music goes, I think nearly everyone can relate to that. Wasn’t it Aristotle who said music was a higher philosophy of emotions or something along those lines? I would dive into this chapter more, but I feel like my post is already so verbose. I think what’s important to take from this chapter is that music gives a medium to which queer girls can relate, can share, can express their thoughts and feelings, and can become connected.