Return-Path: sendmail 5.67/UCSD-2.2-sun Thu, 5 Aug 93 23:47:31 -0700 for /usr/lib/sendmail -oc -odq -oi -fsocgrad-relay socgrad-list Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1993 23:33:14 -0700 (PDT) From: J Paschel Subject: Re: What Baudrillard didn't say (fwd) To: socgrad@ucsd.edu > Excerpts from "WHY WOMEN CAN'T ROCK" (by Everett True) - 'Melody Maker' Sept '92 *** Talk of Rock and roll as false consciousness deleted *** > Where do women fit into all this? Quite simply, they don't > As soon as any strong, vital rock woman comes along, she's immediately margin- > alised, made safe by being classified in a varity of 'outsider' roles. Thus you > have: > Your 'witches': Courtney Love, Lydia Lunch, Slits, Siouxsie... > Your man-haters/ball-busters: PJ Harvey, Sinead O'Connor, Babes in Toyland, > Breeders, Bikini Kill... > Your poetesses, made impotent by their very art: Polly Harvey again, Patti SmithKristin Hersh, Bjork... > Your 'hags': PJ yet again, Courtney even, Sinead surprisingly, anyone who wears > combat boots... > Your madwomen: Sinead, Courtney, Cranes, Bjork... > And so on... Everett...you're missing your own point here. The women on this list only share one real thing in common with me. By and large, they bore me to tears. I could easily construct just such an arbitrary group of popular male rock and roll figures and proceed to put them in categories just as those detailed above...let's see Your warlocks: Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper, GG Allin Women haters: Ice T, Sir mix a lot, Robert Plant Your poets: Kurt Cobain, Pete Townsend, Michael Stipe You get the picture...perhaps my 10 second itemization might not be as cutely thought out, but, then again, I don't write for MM. The point is that now your gender argument has fallen on it's face. Though I wouldn't agree with this, perhaps a better way of phrasing your argument might be that all major rock and roll figures are made safe by marginalizing them to the role of the outsider > It doesn't matter if any of the above may or not be creative. What matters is > the way they're perceived/marketed. > So why bother fighting all that? > Rock is a firmly patriarchal form of expression, all the way down the line; the > fans, the critics, the money-holders, the musicians. It's far too gone now for > any change. Of course, rock likes to give the illusion of change. That's what > it's all about. So it lets in the odd half-dozen or so female movers and shakers-Madonna, Susan Silver (Soundgarden's manageress). the odd Maker stringer. > Illusion of change is all it is, though. Rest assured, it would never allow any-thing more. > And now it's a rotten, tired, middle-aged medium made completely unthreatening > in its omniscience by the tired, middle-aged MEN who grew up with it. It's as > dead as the MEN who created it. And just as turgid. > Women can'trock. The rules don't allow it." This all sounds like some fancy reworking of the classic "corporate rock sucks" argument. I see nothing really new here. Jarrett bigstar@u.washington.edu