BABY GAGA OHLALA

Yesterday, the Ms. Magazine blog published a short article called "No Comment: Baby Gaga" about the parody of Lady Gaga's music video for the song "Telephone" featuring 3 (or 4?) year old Keira as Lady Gaga.  Ms. called the video "near-child pornography" & accused it of "sexualizing little girls."  & just in case we didn't know how feminists felt about the video, they even provided a link to another blog post by a woman named Melissa, who apparently used to work in criminal investigation (which means she has seen a lot of child porn?), & is "very, very white hot mad" about Baby Gaga.  Of this video that she says "blurs the lines of taboo" & "reeks" of child porn, this is what she saw: "A sexualized and disturbing forced performance done by a very small child wearing handcuffs, sexually provocative clothing and heavy make-up."  Here's what I saw:

I would preface my response to the video & the backlash against it by saying, loudly & proudly, that I very much consider myself a feminist.  I am queer, radical, third wave, pro-sex & education... & most definitely a  feminist. 

To be honest, I mostly thought the video was cute.  Both Keira & the little boys (who no one mentions) are adorable with their little toy phones.  & they are wearing more clothes than the Coppertone girl, & even most of the dance costumes I wore for recitals as a child.  If I were going to get into a feminist tizzy about anything, it would be the adult women dancing in the background. But then again, they are wearing more clothes than Lady Gaga herself usually wears, & feminists still seem to find her a mostly good mixed bag, if Ms. is to be believed.

While the media exploitation of children has been an issue for a long time (re: Gary Coleman, Macaulay Culkin, or JonBenet Ramsey), I think the bigger issue illustrated by the reaction to this video is our culture of Pedophile Panic.  From extensive study, James Kincaid has traced this Pedophile Panic back to the middle of the 19th century: 

"Anglo-American culture conjured childhood innocence, defining it as a desireless subjectivity, at the same time as it constructed a new ideal of the sexually desirable object.  The two had identical attributes--softness, cuteness, docility, passivity--& this simultaneous cultural invention has presented us with a wicked psychosocial problem ever since.  We relish our erotic attraction to children... but we also find that attraction abhorrent... So we project that eroticized desire outward, creating a monster to hate, hunt down, & punish" (Levine 27).

Kincaid goes on to say that:

"We are instructed  by our cultural heritage to crave that which is forbidden, a crisis we face by not facing it, by writing self-righteous doublespeak that demands both lavish public spectacle and constant guilt-denying projections onto scapegoats" (Kincaid 20-21).

 The scapegoat & monster in this case is the creator of the video, who Melissa accuses of perpetuating child pornography, & Keira's mother, who is accused of prematurely sexualizing her daughter to the detriment of her self-confidence & psychological health.  But who is really hurt by this video?  Psychological studies have shown that "the trauma of youngersters' sex[uality]...often comes not from the sex itself but from adults going bananas over it" (Levine 60). & these adults are definitely going bananas.  B-A-N-A-N-A-S. Furthermore,

"projecting sexual menace onto a cardboard monster and pouring money & energy into vanquishing him distract adults from teaching children the subtle skills of loving with both trust & discrimination" (44).  

Accusing the creators of a viral internet video of somehow deviously sexualizing a little girl to the degree of child pornography certainly isn't helping Keira or the boys in the video learn how to be ethical, safe, & happily/healthfully sexual beings in a culture that does present a number of serious challenges to people of all genders and orientations.  No one even seems to think it necessary or desirable to ask Keira what she thinks of the video, or her young male co-stars.  Instead, like so many other times in our culture, her female body is marked as inappropriately sexual by the gaze of outsiders.

But Melissa does warn us that pedophiles & sexual predators are all over the internet, & apparently the child porn industry is at a booming $3 million worth these days.  What she doesn't tell us is that the "industry" she speaks of is a modern day witch hunt. To Catch a Predator isn't far from reality, it turns out.  The sad truth is that child "pornographers [are] almost exclusively cops" (Levine 37).  Attorney Lawrence Stanley found as much in the 1980s, & Judith Levine interviewed police officers who proudly told her as much in the early 2000s.  LAPD's R. P. Tyler said that:

"now law enforcement agencies [are] the sole reproducers & distributors of child pornography.  Virtually all advertising, distribution, & sales tot people considered potential lawbreakers were done by the federal government...in sting operations...These solicitations were usually numerous & did not cease until the recipient took the bait" (Levine 37).  

 Is this what Melissa did when she was in law enforcement?  Is that why she claims to have seen a lot of child porn?  Whether or not this is the case, it seems like a lot of fear-mongering for what essentially amounts to a federal sting-operation against people who look at digital images in which "the subject is niether naked, nor doing anything sexual, nor, under the 1996 Child Pornography Prevention Act, is even an actual child" (Levine 37).  Most of the people busted have no previous criminal record (39), & most probably wouldn't - the Federal government has found that the connection between looking at images & committing actual child abuse is "contingent & indirect" (38).

I think Melissa & Ms. magazine may have a tad bit of misdirected fear & anger in the case of the Baby Gaga video.  It's a little creepy, yeah, but it's not pornographic.  If Keira is being sexualized in this video, it lies in the view of the beholder, a lens born of our cultural fears about the sexuality of both women & children.

In the end, I think it really comes down to what we define as (child) pornography, & what we'll let "throw us into a tizzy."  Shirley Temple was the princess of panty-shots in her movies, not to mention the 1982 rendition of Annie, but is that pornography?  Only if you masturbate to it.

WORKS CITED:
"No Comment: Baby Gaga."  Ms. Magazine Blog. Web.
Kincaid, James R. Erotic Innocence: The Culture of Child Molesting.  

Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1998.  

Levine, Judith. Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex. New York: Thunder's M

outh Press, 2003.

Melissa.  "Self-actualized Three Year Old is an Exploited Prop." Web.

BAKED APPLES & IMMORTALITY

tonight for dinner, i made absolutely amazing baked apples stuffed  with rice & sausage--with butter, cinnamon, & nutmeg, of course.  the recipe came from FATTY COOKBOOK, which everyone should check out because it is made of win & delicious.  & at just 210-250calories per apple (when made with lite sausage), it really isn't all that fatty.

in other news, there is apparently an immortal species of jellyfish.  essentially, it can regenerate into its polyp form (it's first life stage) at any time, & then cycle back into adulthood, ever avoiding that troublesome prankster, death.  scientists are studying it, of course, to figure out exactly how it works, & in the meantime, these immortal little buggers are taking over the ocean.

i think this version of immortality would suck.  well, truthfully, i don't really jive with the idea of immortality anyway, but this kind would be especially awful.  i'm done with high school, thank you, & don't really wish to live those ever-so-awkward & embarrassing years of my life over again.  not to mention, i think my mother would protest any decision i made to spontaneously return to the womb as a fetus.

i generally don't think immortality is such a cool idea, though, & don't really understand some folks' obsession with it as an imaginative ideal.  hasn't anyone read anne rice?  immortality would get boring after a couple hundred years, no matter how many hobbies you cultivate.  not to mention the inconvenience of watching every friend/lover/partner die on you. oh, & having to replace your wardrobe like constantly (relatively speaking).  i can barely stand to get rid of clothes i have now that don't fit or are unfit to wear in public.

part of the fun of this whole life thing is that it's a limited time offer.  smoke 'em if you got 'em, ya know?  if it just went on & on forever, even good things would become tedious.  besides, as peter pan reminds us, to die is the next grand adventure. i can certainly wait about 50 years or so before i get there, but i definitely wouldn't want to miss out.

BRAVO'S WORK OF ART

(the full show can be watched on hulu).

despite a brief love affair with "so you think you can dance" & a random obsession with the miami cast of "the real world", i am not typically a fan of reality shows.  in fact, one of the main reasons i abstain from having cable television in my home is reality tv (okay, & an obsessive-compulsive issue with cnn).  but i am a total artfag, so when i happened to catch internet-wind that bravo's newest reality program is all about art, i absolutely had to watch it.

"work of art: the next great artist" is much like its predecessors, "project runway" or that hair one i never can remember.  that is, it follows a pretty basic formula in which several competitors face challenges, & then judges boot them off until there's only one person left.  in this case, it's a bunch of artists of various kinds--though most of them seem to be predominantly (realist) painters.

i knew it was going to be a competition of sorts before i even sat down to watch the show, so it shouldn't have surprised me.  & it didn't.  but it did sort of sicken me a little.  probably in part because i identify as a performance artist foremost, i am must more invested in a politics of collaboration than one of competition.  on a practical level, however, i do believe that because we are entrenched in a capitalist system, artists need to, & should be able to, make a living from their work... which will probably include at least a little competition for positions in galleries & the like.  in that way, i think it's pretty awesome that bravo is giving a gallery show to the winner, not to mention the exposure of appearing on the show in the first place.  especially since some of these artists  haven't broken into the art world yet.

the first challenge seemed simple enough: make a portrait of one of the other artists randomly picked for you.  i would think this would be a good opportunity for each artist to present their unique style, but after the feedback from the judges, i am more than disappointed in the show.  two of the three artists who chose to do non-representational pieces were simply told that their pieces were not "portraits."  end of discussion. the focus on representational art works, even for a first episode, was disheartening at best.  especially considering that one of the artists on the show, nao, is a performance artist who stepped out of her box to do a 2-d piece.

now i am certainly no expert on art, & i don't claim to be.  but i have read my fair share of art criticism & theory due to being a performance studies major interested in performance art, so i'd like to take a moment to talk about some of the pieces done on the show.

this piece (left), by an artist named abdi, is one piece that got a lot of positive feedback, & i can't say i disagree.  the vertical movement upward in the lines of the neck and the direction of the facial features makes it an interesting piece to look at.  not to mention, it was huge, & in the gallery, the colours made it stand head & shoulders above the rest in terms of attracting attention.  & frankly, in the few short hours they had to work, i think it shows a great deal of ability.



this is the piece that lost (right).  the painter, amanda, was sent home already.  this is also one of the pieces the judges said isn't a "portrait."  yet amanda is a self-identified  abstract artist, & conceptually this piece is interesting.  though the picture here doesn't do it justice, she's working with interesting pattern, as well as a huge amount of detail & texture.  it isn't one of my favourites, but i certainly didn't think amanda deserved to be sent home.



& this is the piece that won (left).  you can't tell in this picture, but it's a screen printing with plastic hanging around the sides and bottom of the frame.  the artist, miles, pulled on tropes from historical death photography to set-up the original photo that was then used to expose screens for printing. the image is striking, & the plastic creates an interesting effect in & of itself.  he was also well-spoken about it's conceptual basis, which i appreciated.  on the other hand, part of me really thinks it just looks like a hipster tshirt.  maybe i'm not being generous enough.  it's good; i'm just not sure it was the best.


this is the second of the non-respresentational pieces that got ripped on by the judges (right).  they said that it's not a portrait, because it's just a minimalist painting.  however, i think it's probably one of the most conceptually interesting pieces that got put together.  to do this, nao mapped out miles' movements in the studio as he worked, literally creating a map of his artistic process.  then she attached it to a frame upside down & put a light behind it so that the lines were fainter than the bleed-through of the dots--which were the spaces he paused in his movements.  perhaps it is just my fondness for deleuze & guattari's concept  of mapping that draws me to this, but regardless, i think her execution was interesting, thoughtful, & unique.  i was a little put off when she told the judges that their experience of her work was not her responsibility, but i can see why she would be a little defensive/angry at their dismissal.

this is the third non-representational piece, done by judith.  this is the only one that did not receive harsh critique. if you can't read it, it says, "proud pussy."  apparently, she got known for a series of kitten/cat photos with "(adjective) pussy" captions.  which is interesting.  or at least, it was when she did it before.  but i don't see how this is any more a portrait than the other pieces, especially as its not even as  conceptually interesting.  not to mention, it looks like a cheap mall airbrush tshirt.  & yes, it was done with stencils.  i am unimpressed.

there were other pieces, of course, some of which i liked and some i didn't.  largely, i think the show is somewhat distasteful in its politic & orientation towards modernist aesthetics.  but i'm pretty unabashedly po-mo, i realize.  in the end, i'll probably keep watching it just to see what gets created.  at the very least, i might see some cool art.


all images taken from the bravo website for the show.

BOAL'S DEFINITION OF THE HUMAN

`i have been working on my thesis today.  it looks like this.

yes, i took time away from writing to draw that.  i am bad at academia.

right now, i'm flipping back through The Rainbow of Desire: the Boal Method of Theatre & Therapy by Augusto Boal in order to demonstrate one of the methods of performance praxis that have been used in treatment settings, particularly for addicts and adult children of alcoholics.  blahblahblah, etc.  generally, i think boal's method is useful, & at the very least it's interesting.  but i keep stumbling over a pretty major facet of his writing: the definition of the human body, which is particularly important because he claims that a human being is his or her body (boal 29).

1. it is sensitive

2. it is emotive

3. it is rational

4. it has sex

5. it can move (29).

so let's just start at the top.

by "sensitive," boal explains on the next page that he is referring to the possession of the five senses.  this is, of course, making the very large assumption that everyone experiences the five senses.  obviously, that isn't quite the case, as the blind and deaf clearly do not access all five senses.  i will give him that he doesn't necessarily make any all or nothing claims, here, but it's still a tricky one.

"emotive" is a tricky one.  i'd like to give him this, but i am really just not sure about it.  especially as emotions are chemical reactions in the brain, there are conditions which prohibit the display of, or even the experiencing of, emotion.  & if we extend that, to acknowledge that emotions are not just brain chemicals, but also social constructions, i have to wonder what counts as "emotive."  is the sociopath emotive?

bodies are rational?!  in who's universe?  rationality & irrationality exist simultaneously  in all bodies; one simply cannot exist without the other.  i am inclined to say that this is more a double articulation.  bodies both are & are not messy.

ah, sex.  it seems ubiquitous, no?  yet many people choose to abstain from sexual behaviors for a number of reasons.  aside from any jokes about the humanity of priests, they vow not to indulge the sins of the flesh, as it were,  & there are a good number of people who identify as asexual who choose not to participate in sexual behaviors.  not to mention those who are too socially awkward or socially ostracized to find partners.

as for moving, well, that seems fairly obvious.  yet, that discounts people in comas, catatonics, & certain degrees of paralysis.  besides which, what counts as movement?

generally, my largest problem with this definition is that it participates in a number of normalizing discourses, particularly ableism.  i might not be quite so sensitive to this fact if not for my years of experience working for and with folks with disabilities, in addition to family members with disabilities.  i can't help but think here of my cousin chase, pictured to the right.  she was born with cerebral palsy, is almost entirely blind, & has the cognitive level of about 18months.  according to the dictates of boal's definition of a body, & therefore of a human being, my cousin chase is not human.  somehow, that just doesn't sit right with me.

i am wary of any discourse that participates in normalizing regimes of power.  it certainly puts to question who boal intends his methodologies to serve.

at some level, however, i know i just need to get over it to be able to glean what is useful from his theory and methodology.  but i very much believe that it is important for academics to identify the shortcomings of the theory they use, write about, or publish.  perhaps this is especially important in the case of figures like boal, who we have a tendency to elevate in our imaginations.  he is, after all, just a human being.


works cited:
Boal, Augusto. The Rainbow of Desire: the Boal Method of Theatre and Therapy.  Trans. Adrian Jackson.  London: Routledge, 1995.  Print.

MACHINIC SUBJECTIVATION & MEMES (pt1)

felix guattari, circa 1981.
i love this guy so hard.

"Technological machines of information and communication operate at the heart of human subjectivity...Recognition of these machinic dimensions of subjectivation leads us to insist, in our attempt at redefinition, on the heterogeneity of the components leading to the production of subjectivity...It's impossible to judge such a machinic evolution either positively or negatively: everything depends on its articulation within collective assemblages of enunciation. . At best there is the creation, or invention of new Universes of reference... a Post-modern era characterized by the reappropriation & resingularization of the use of media" (Guattari 4-5).

 If guattari theorized in 1992 that machinic tools of information & communication were an important component of subjectivity, then how much more seriously we must take this now, as the internet becomes more integrated into the daily lives of the public--despite the digital divide.  One way to conceptualize this is the virtual performance of self in relationship to things as simple as cell phones or Facebook. The way we use those technologies, how we can use them, & the ways we imagine being able to use them in the future, influence our performances of identity as well as further developments of technologies. If we continue to push the aesthetic limits of the form of subjectivation, we move in the direction of the new Universes of reference Guattari refers to.

I believe the "Postmodern era" (5) Guattari imagines here is the remix culture we see happening now.  It isn't just the mixing of popular musics even, but video, audio, & text, as well as even physical remixes in the form of dance trends (such as "Geddan Get Down" or "Crank that Soulja Boy") & the like made possible by our machinic assemblages.

More specifically,

"there is thus a certain type of fragment of content that 'takes possession of the author' to engender a certain mode of aesthetic enunciation...fragments which I place in the category of 'existential refrains'" (14-15).

 I'm thinking here of particularities of the spread of internet culture--generally  what we call internet memes.  I use both Wikipedia's definition of an internet meme and Susan Blackmore's discussion of memes & temes to arrive at a definition of internet memes: a viral concept spread from person to person via the internet, usually in the form of pictures, video, audio, a catchphrase or joke, or any combination thereof.  What separates an internet meme from a teme--those memes that Susan Blackmore says spread through technology, & demonstrate self-replication of a sort--is that the spread of internet memes seems to remain mostly organic, peer-to-peer.  Although one might argue that with the algorithms of a Google search in play, internet memes do in fact act more like temes.  Probably internet memes are double articulated in this way, & hence the trouble I have defining them.  Regardless, the repition of particulars in this form means they act as refrain, creating Universes of reference as well as subjectivation through the creation of culture & cultural artifact simultaneously.

"Like Bakhtin, I would say that the refrain is not based on elements of form, material or ordinary signification, but on the detachment of an existential 'motif' which installs itself like an 'attractor' within a sensible & significational chaos.  The different components conserve their heterogeneity, but are nevertheless captured by a refrain which couples them to the existential Territory of my self" (17).  

 Thus, it is not the form, per se, but the series of themes that run through the specific assemblages that matter here.  That these themes arise amidst the sheer volume of artifacts being produced is what becomes refrain that then becomes part of the larger "hyper-complex refrain" (16), which I might refer to as internet culture.  It is this hyper-complex refrain that play an important part in the production of a polyphonic subjectivity.  A really practical example of this is the person who roleplays as several characters online, as well as perhaps performing the identity they may claim as public. Each of these RP scenarios may have different sets of informal rules & social codes, access to specialized language or slang, etc, that influence the performances the roleplayer gives for each character, including public or RL persona.  As an interation of cultural scripts, each performance can be seen as a refrain, & the unique combination of performances as simply part of the hyper-complex refrain.  The interactions of the performances of these particular scripts would create a unique polyphonic subjectivity, as the roles being played become literally part of synaptic firings of the brain.

As for the internet meme, the refrain that went viral,

 "it's efficiency lies in its capacity to promote active, processual ruptures within semiotically structured, significational, & denotative networks, where it will put emergent subjectivity to work" (19).

 The meme is viral in the sense that is very form calls for & necessitates participation.  Even choosing not to pass along, repeat, remix, or reproduce a meme is still in interaction with it.  The meme exists because of the network, more specifically the network of people infected & affected in its proliferation.  The kind of remix inherent in memes certainly appeals to John Dewey's notion of the radical democratization of art, when the art-making practice has left "the elite world of museums & private galleries behind & become part of the everyday life of the masses" (Martin 56).  This is not the passive mass media that Guattari seemed unfond of, but a rhizomatic, collaborative, & interactive aesthetic assemblage being maintained in digital space, in fact dependent on the digital/machinic assemblage.

The very speed with which memes are disseminated, rise & subsequently fall from favor, paired with the constant need for participation, also meets another standard of Dewey's democratization: "it shows us how fragmented & plural public spheres are in contemporary democracies" (Martin 64).  The sheer volume alone would make it near impossible for any one person to participate with every meme, yet also provides an almost infinite number of ways to interact with meme-making practices & internet culture.

Surely this must be changing our subjectivities & our embodiments as we perform self through polyphonic digital landscapes.  Granted this does not necessarily mean all of it is "good."  The aesthetic is not always ethical, which would be why Guattari pushes for an ethico-aesthetic paradigm, to be constantly moving towards new Universes of reference at the expense of normalizing (& sometimes damaging) discourses.


Works Cited: 
Guattari, Felix.  Chaosmosis: an ethico-aesthetic paradigm.  Trans. Paul Bains and Julian Pefanis.  Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 1995.  Print. 

Martin, Jay.  "Somaesthetics and Democracy: Dewey and Contemporary Body Art."  Journal of Aesthetic Education 36.4 (2002): 55-69.  Print.

WHOA; FIRST ENTRY(!)

i have moved into the land of blogger.  crazy!?!?!
but i haven't touched my xanga in like 8923764598267billion years. & blogger is so much cooler, yeah?

i really need a vest & a chunky black belt like the ones below...

to go with this dress:

i know, bad picture, right?  at least it's boob-tacular.  although, to be fair, i don't think i can avoid that much.

(dress is 80s vintage from a shop called acorn apparel in louisville, KY.  they just opened up like 7 or 8 weeks ago, & they are awesome.  totally worth the trip to louisville, even without the fabulous drag shows.)

but accessories cost money?! SUCK.  i'm considering fashioning a vest out of old tshirts; maybe the belt too.  i need more projects to do with my old tees anyway, since i've decided to boycott pants & replace my daily wear with dresses.  & i should probably not make dresses out of all my black tees since i already have half a closet full of black dresses.  oops.

i also need to shorten this dress.  i am not typically a fan of things that fall below the knees.  considering turning the sleeves into plain ol' regular short sleeves, too, or at least taking out the elastic?  i'm not sure if the elastic is really my bag.

this first entry is totally deep!
i promise it'll get better.  up next is felix guattari.  french philosophy, what what!