Hanging out at my locker before class, I reflect on the earlier events of the night...
While in line to buy beer at a show at Dinwoodie Lounge, here at the University, I apparently started dancing like a music video ho. All in good humour I'm sure. When all of a sudden from my left I hear "What a fucking dirty ho". Next thing I know I'm slapping this dude across the face and cursing at him. I wasn't really sure who said it, I wasn't really sure it was about me, but I turned around in the direction I heard it from and started assulting a random man. How does this fit in with this week's class? Well, I'm going to interpret this man's actions as a product of pop culture. Rap video's for example show girls dancing provocatively and are subsequently referred to as hos/bitches/whores. I'd like to examine the contradictions I see between how I reacted to his behaviour and how in some ways, I perpetuate it.
In our discussion regarding Bell Hook's piece "Postmodern Blackness", we started talking about popular rap music and how we react to it as feminists. I personally think of the music as tongue in cheek. I listen to rap music alot and think it's pretty funny for the most part, but then when I have the comments directed at me personally I get physical. So, how sweet is it of me to think it's funny when it's about "women" and semi far removed from myself, but then freak out when it's directed personally at me? One of the many contradictions I find within myself. We spoke of contradictions as well, and I think it's so odd how our culture is consumed with "finding ourselves". I think contradictions within us are actually quite positive because they allow for slipperiness, but I think the undecided can also produce a "docile body". We should not feel we need to make a decision about everything but take a stance when we need to.
4 comments:
Hey Dude!
First, I will warn that this is unlikely to be one of my cleverest responses as both I and my immune system are currently distracted by the cold that has lodged itself in my sinus tract. I will try my hardest to be coherent, but promise nothing. Okay brain, here we go...
I was drawn in this week by your discussion of identities, the slipperiness of those identities, and the idea that we can never really have a stable identity. In the din of liberal individualism, it is clearly not surprising that we should fight so hard for neat, coherent selves. Like good little modern subjects, we come up with hopelessly inadequate, categorical definitions of who we are. And then postmodernism comes along and tells us our identities are always in flux and we are always becoming and “beware of Identity Politics”. I, personally, jumped right on the postmodern bandwagon and cruised around for a bit feeling all intellectual and superior in my enlightened state before I stumbled upon the problem of political action. If we can’t pin ourselves down and nothing is “true” in an absolute or ultimate sense, how do we get anything done? How can we claim anything? I think you answered this beautifully in your blog. We have to be open to the multiplicity and contradictory nature of our identities, but that doesn’t mean we should never proclaim an identity in the name of a cause. We can still use identities when we need them, but we don’t need to allow them to constrain our possibilities. We can define our identities; they don’t have to and should not define us.
My head feels fuzzy… I’m gonna go crawl back into bed…
Hey Erin,
What an exciting life you lead, throwing punches, ok slaps, over rightfully insulting comments! Gals like us are an interesting contradiction; we sing along and get our “groove on” to the misogynistic and often violent lyrics of rappers like 50 cent, yet are extremely offended when others equate us to his music video “ho’s”. For myself, rap music provides a life perspective unfamiliar to my own suburban middle class lifestyle. The last time I saw a drug deal or a violent gang brawl occur was… let me think… never. I live off Whyte Avenue but the pretty boy bar fights and burning telephone booths, seen primarily during the Stanley cup finals, fail to compare to the poverty and violence observed in the ghettos of Harlem and Los Angeles daily. I guess rap music makes me feel, deep down, a little bit “rebellious” when really I am University student ultimately concerned about getting that little piece of paper after four years. My life revolves around dead lines, papers, text books, and the occasional night out; where, for a few hours, I can be wild and crazy just like 50 cent! However, when someone challenges this new found persona, equates me to the “slutty” girls in the music video I am brought back to reality and realize I am no black gangster, but rather a Friday night phony.
Kelly Mac.
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