What a day! First day of spring, sun was shining and Beyoncé has discovered she is a feminist. Wait. What?! Beyoncé the feminist? Certainly there are any number of qualities that elevated Ms Knowles to sit at the peak of the mainstream charts on a huge pile of money, but I hardly think any one of them was feminism. Beyoncé has gyrated, booty shaken, body sculpted, botoxed and beauty routined her way to the top, all the while declaring herself to be bootylicious, and imploring someone one to put a ring on it. Yes, that old fundamental article of feminist faith: “Someone please marry me!” Ms B, Miley Cyrus, Madonna, Kylie Minogue and many other female pop stars hold fast to their feminist principles while simultaneously gallivanting about half naked, objectifying their bodies and singing about the unending desire for male attention. Is that the definition of feminism in modern music? To be patient and canny enough to let the record companies exploit you, until you’re rich and powerful enough to exploit yourself? I doubt thats what Germaine Greer and Gloria Steinem had in mind. And just to be clear, I’m not knocking the half-naked thing. I’m an average man, a very average one, and if that’s what I’m looking for, I’ll go to the full naked thing on the internet, and not have to put up with the music. Meanwhile, on the other side of the argument, we have the likes of Natalie Merchant, Liz Fraser, Aimee Mann and plenty of other female artists, making beautiful meaningful, genuinely feminine and feminist music, and who don’t have to reduce themselves to looking like stunned waxworks in a string bag. While these other aforementioned ‘artists’ are getting up like strippers and crying out for credibility, from a judgment on the music itself you can’t help concluding that it never would have happened if theyd been ugly.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 07:39:41 +0000
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