I'm writing in English, which is strange in itself since I really love my own language, Finnish, and since I detest the power position that the English language has in global communucation... but I'd get way too many complaints from American friends if I didn't write in a language comprehensible to them.

May 25, 2010

What counts as uncomfortable?


A couple of months ago we had some friends over for dinner, non of them mormons. After dinner we decided to amuse ourselves with Eurovision song contest "worst bits" from the last couple of years. Worst or best... after that we looked up a youtube video on Boney M, who all the Europeans knew but none of the Americans. And then a friend of ours showed a video from last year, Lady Gaga's "Telephone" (with Beyoncé). We're all so ancient that hardly anyone knew about it beforehand... but we were watching the video and everyone was probably a bit in a shock except for the guy who introduced it.

After watching it J, a woman, just bluntly said: That's just porn! And the two other women in the group, D and myself, started laughing because we'd been thinking about the same thing but hadn't wanted to express it. D said: I though I was just so old that I shouldn't say anything...

The funny thing is, Lady Gaga is sometimes marketed as empowering - in fact, this video ends with her and Beyoncé killing a bunch of people in a restaurant because Beyoncé's boyfriend is so annoying. Sure, getting rid of annoying boyfriends can be empowering, but really is it empowering to be dancing in your bra and knickers? Is it empowering for women to take charge of your own sexuality and use it for your advance? Maybe... But I can't help wondering if it doesn't kick back, since although you might feel like a subject doing your burlesque dance or similar, the people watching still objectify you.

Oh, V who showed the video mentioned that this is just normal MTV-style now... really goes to show I'm old. But what kind of image of how a woman should be do the younger generation get? Scary...

Two cool links that go with this story, one of them a song from the '70's feminists in Finland (in Finnish) and another one an Onion-story that I hope everyone will enjoy.

7 comments:

  1. Surullista oikeasti on, että lady gaga on täällä ja varmasti monessa muussa paikassa jo 8-10 v tyttöjen "lemppari" - varmasti vanhempien innoittamana, mutta...

    Jo lukioaikana musta suurin osa MTV:stä oli ihan hirveetä, en edes uskalla ajatella mitä se on nyt.

    Mirja

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  2. Very cool song. Kiitos linkistä!

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  3. We used to have MTV on quite a bit still about 8-10 years ago, the Swedish or British MTV. But after that it's gradually gone so bad, we just can't do it anymore. Not that it was completely clean ten years ago either... But a lot of it was just good music. I don't think it's just age, music videos are plain porn nowadays. It makes me really sad because I'm actually the kind of person who'd like to have something like MTV on occasionally and just enjoy it with the kids too and not get completely alienated from this world :D

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  4. You've asked a complicated question here. Clearly, Lady Gaga and Beyoncé intended to objectify themselves through the video. That's just kind of what's expected of all popular musicians these days, both male and female.

    I think there is a lot of truth to the idea of empowering yourself by not wearing clothing, though - especially for women (who are generally taught that everyone wants to see their bodies but they shouldn't show them or else they'll be a slut). I think it's an important and empowering process to become comfortable enough with your own body and sexuality that you can wear little clothing in public without worrying about how others will define you because of it. This doesn't mean we should make a habit out of wearing skimpy clothing, or that we shouldn't be sensitive to other people's desire to NOT see us wearing skimpy clothing.

    My experience has been that there are a lot of women who are extremely uncomfortable and self-conscious about their own bodies (partly because they don't look or move like Lady Gaga...). It's fine for someone to prefer more clothes over less clothes, if that's what they're into, but I have known women who are a step beyond that - women who allow their discomfort with their own bodies or sexuality to define their actions.

    For example, I have known women who love sun-tanning or swimming in their private backyards, but wouldn't dream of stepping into their front yard or going to a public pool because they would be terribly uncomfortable with anyone seeing them in a swim suit.

    I have also known women who, if they go to a public gym and discover that they've forgotten to bring the t-shirt they usually wear over the tight athletic undershirt they usually wear, will turn around and go home rather than just working out anyway - even if half the women there are wearing the same thing or less.

    Or a woman who buys a dress or shirt but never gets around to wearing it anywhere because she's worried about what people will think if she wears it.

    All these examples, I think, are cases where learning to be comfortable wearing less could empower a woman.

    Is there kickback? Will people objectify you, even if you aren't trying to objectify yourself? Yes, probably. But I think part of that empowering process is learning to be comfortable doing what you want anyway.

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  5. Good point, Reuben. In fact, after writing this post I suddenly came to think about a hundred complications - for instance the fact that lady gagaaa doesn't actually perform for heterosexual men, mostly girls and gays. So she's not actually making people sweat in lust, she's giving a role model and/or a model of a "modern woman".

    As to your point, I think lady Gaagaa with her body doesn't make anyone feel better about theirs. Also, she clearly ties dressing in skimpy clothes to overt sexuality. So in fact, in this case she's only reinforcing the "skimpy clothes=slut" idea. I guess her point is that it's ok to be slut, and that's where it backfires. You can probably see how.

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  6. I've probably always been the old soul, but I've never ever (even 20 years ago) seen anything on MTV that I've liked.

    On burlesque there's a great columb in Helsingin Sanomat. http://www.hs.fi/viihde/artikkeli/Se+on+strippaamista+urpot/1135256047211

    I think she really makes a point there about how odd it is that burlesque is seen as a form of feminism. I don't want to be telling people what they can and can't do and if someone feels like they need to take of their clothes to be able to express themselves more freely then go ahead, but I don't see anything feminist in it.

    I think Virpi Salmi is right on when she says that "you can't wiggle yourself out of the too tight corset of womanhood by demonstrating your naked body and begging for applause."

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  7. oh and one thing came to my mind as well... the old truth that nudity for finns is such a different thing than it is in some other cultures. haven't we seen it all already? in a very unsexual way, in the sauna.

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