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The Ariel Pink/Madonna thing, and how men speak about women.
This has probably been mentioned somewhere on here, though I did a search and couldn't find anything. Basically Ariel Pink, typically dickishly (I really hate that guy), says he was asked to write a song for Madonna, then needlessly slates her and her music, says she's got worse since her first record etc. Grimes and some other similar Pitchfork-type people call out Ariel Pink for misogyny.
http://pitchfork.com/news/57072-grimes-did-not-like-ariel-pinks-comments-about-madonna/
I can't remember what exactly, but I'm sure I read that Ariel Pink has made some misogynist comments before, so within that context his comments about Madonna can certainly be seen as typifying his views towards women. But without that context, are his comments inherently misogynist? Not meant to be a rhetorical question.
What I'm getting at is- should men be careful to speak about women in a different way than they would other men? Women are criticised much more than men about pretty much everything imaginable, therefore is it even possible for a man to make a non-gendered criticism of a woman?
For example (and coincidentally), I really dislike Grimes- I think her music is shallow, I don't like her Tumblr hyper-postmodern aesthetic, and I don't like her wafer-thin hip pseudo-ethicalness (typified by her claiming that it was okay for vegans to eat Ben and Jerry ice cream because "the cows are treated well"). To me, these have always seemed perfectly reasonable criticisms, however I've begun to realise how they could easily be read as gendered. For example, in relation to my first point, women are constantly criticised as being shallow and concerned with looks and aesthetics over substance. Secondly, Tumblr is a mainly female space, therefore criticising a woman for being 'tumblr-y' could be seen as attacking women who want to associate themselves with one of the few places that isn't dominated by men. And in relation to my point doubting the sincerity of her ethics, there are any number of problematic issues with that; it could be argued that I'm trying to deny her political agency, or that I'm reiterating the stereotype that women are fickle etc.
So when I can so easily pull apart criticisms that I am so sure are entirely non-gendered, where exactly does that leave me? How can I ever really know whether those criticisms are (subconsciously) gendered or not? Or is that beside the point- is criticism of an individual an inherently 'male' thing, that never actually needs to be expressed, even privately? Or is that impossible to achieve?
Sorry, probably TL;DR, and I've basically just used the Ariel Pink thing as a way of talking about something I've been thinking about for a long time. Also apologies if this sort of stuff was covered in that huge Courtney Love thread. I've just always been very much "I'm not a misogynist, and I believe in equality, therefore I can talk about men and women as if I can see no difference between them", but I'm really starting to reassess that opinion, or at least find huge problems with it.
p.s. I really hope no-one reads this as me whining that the feminists are trying to control how I talk about women or something. That's not what I'm talking about at all- I'm just wondering if men need to speak about women in a different way that they would other men, in order to compensate for a culture in which hating women is pretty much the default; or whether this would be anti-equality and therefore counter productive.
Sometimes I shovel snow off the driveway
With the best of intentions, but knowing full well it'll snow again tomorrow, or that it'll probably melt anyway.
And Ariel Pink is a fucking weirdo.
Is misogyny killing justifiable criticism of women?
No, that is not an actual problem which men face. Men continuing to dispute the role of gender as a contributory factor in motivating criticism unless it is explicitly indicated as such is a problem though.
errrr yeah
i don't think that's what i was saying at all?
It was a general post on the issue rather than one directed solely at your OP
ohh sorry!
Hmm, well, what he said was probably what a lot of people are thinking
Madonna is a tired brand, she doesn't have much credibility musically anymore- I guess there is a point about whether a male performer who has a similar career path to her would get the same treatment. Like, I don't know, Neil Diamond was pretty popular, fell out of favour and then became relatively trendy again. I don't think he has ever faced a similar kind of wrath.
However...I'm fairly sure, although I might be wrong, that Diamond was the author of his songs. I know some people get really annoyed at this view, but personally I find an artists credibility diminished quite a lot if they were not heavily involved with the writing/creation of the songs. This goes from Elvis to Beyonce.
Perhaps that could explain the tone of the comments- Madonna has always been the face of the hits, not the creator. And Madonna has basically relied on her physicality, more than other performers. But then again you argue that's a result of a sexist society where you can only get ahead through sheer sex appeal.
also it's interesting that you specifically pick Grimes out because I would
say that she is one performer who sounds exactly like the result of her own distinctive individuality
Well Grimes was just an example
she's not my most-disliked-artist-of-all-time or something, she's just someone I don't rate (to me, that 'distinctive individuality' is for the most part cliched and predictable); the real question is whether or not it's possible to articulate my criticisms of her in a non-gendered way, or at least a way that can't be read as misogynist, and if not, should I be making those criticisms at all? And also- if a statement can be read as misogynist, is this merely one interpretation, or does that statement actually contain some tangible, inarguable misogyny?
You can't just waive your right to criticise something
especially something as subjective as a record, just because someone might not be happy with it. I applaud Grimes' contribution to the recent debate re: female musicians' place in the industry but she just comes across as a massively irked fan here, or worse, falsely invoking the misogyny issue in an attempt to stay relevant - AP could have said exactly the same thing about a male musician here, and there's no reason to think he wouldn't.
I haven't followed Madonna that closely and am too young to have grown up with her
but it seems that she was at least at the forefront of pop music a while ago and then she recently tried to jump on board the "club/electronic" scene to appear young/relevant. she also seems that she is going for stunts, didn't she imply some political groups where nazi's ( found it: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/madonna-defends-use-of-nazi-imagery-20120726).
I don't think that view makes me a misogynist/sexist. Ariel Pink is a douchebag who I did unfortunately see live one and this is exactly what I expect of him though.
The criticism of Madonna for jumping on bandwagons rings hollow in my ears.
She was well embedded in club culture from day 1. And has a long track record for being a trendsetter ahead of the pop game, or bang on trend more consistently than virtually anyone in the industry.
Funny how
This blows up a couple of weeks before ariel pinks new lp comes out.
Grimes' stock contines to wain as her lp keeps being delayed.
Just an observation
a pop artist interviewed in the press upfront of his new album you say???
we're through the looking glass here, folks
i genuinely didn't know that the artist known as ariel pink
wasn't female until this thread.
There's definitely always a danger of criticism being gendered but I don't think it's inevitable.
It's just important to think before you speak and consider whether you'd say the same thing about a male artist and whether you're judging them on the same criteria.
Madonna is a difficult one because she's courted controversy throughout her career in a way and therefore has polarised opinions but there's no doubt that some of the criticism directed to her is misogynistic and not respresentative of a purely artistic view.
Was just trying to think of a male artist who comes in for a lot of hate that has nothing to do with gender or sexuality and Paul McCartney comes to mind.
Bono
Sting
I guess the main difference is that these men are (almost exclusively) criticised for their
music or their personalities.
I don't think you'd have to look too hard to find unpleasant physical or sexual comments about their female counterparts.
He comes across horribly in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjX6hjYSodo
Round and Round is a great song but... terrible seeming dude.
he's got shockingly bad hair
Madonna is brilliant.
Ariel Pink is pretty crap. And an insignificance in comparison. Doesn't even deserve to given the oxygen of publicity by being mentioned in the same paragraph.
tl;dr and I don't really know who Ariel Pink is
but I think Madonna should be excused from all discussions of everything. She's like Bono or Jeffrey Archer - someone who's gone beyond conventional notions of gender, class and race and is just a colossal bumhat.
Bumhatfood for thought.
criticising her physically is never okay, obviously. criticising her music isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as you apply the same standards to anyone of any gender.
like, don't hold her to higher standards (like in DiS-type rockcrit misogny), but don't patronise her, either. as in, to make her exempt from criticism.
and don't criticise her for gender-specific reasons.
...
it's okay to think her music is shallow, dilettante trend-hopper rubbish. that isn't, like, a specifically female musical trait.
also, the main problem here was that Ariel Pink was rubbishing her from the position of a man drafted in to write songs for a woman. men write for women all the time, so not inherently bad (women also write for men), but was talking about it like "oh, they needed a man to rescue this woman from her diminishing returns", said it in a really patronising way.
think I was thinking my way through this one. probably best to wait and see what DD and gb say.
Agree with most of this but he doesn't appear to me to say anything like 'they needed a man'.
He might think that but what he said doesn't betray that. I don't see any reason to think that he feels a woman couldn't provide the songs required.
He sounds like an attention seeking dick but from this piece not necessarily a misogynist. Ageist maybe though.
"She can’t just have her Avicii, her producers or whatever, come up with a new techno jam for her to gyrate to and pretend that she’s 20 years old."
Is she pretending to be 20 years old or is he just projecting how he feels a person needs to behave at 50?
Of course he may have different rules in his head about what's acceptable for a man and a woman to do at 50 (and that could be problematic) but we can't tell from the text that this is the case.
I feel this is implied in his tone
and in his whole Beta Male schtick. a kind of intellectual superiority which enters into misogyny is these kind of circumstances.
it is also ageist, yeah, horribly so.
*in these
The quote you gave seems pretty misogynist in my opinion
It goes back to double standards: I can't ever remember anyone complaining about, say, James Brown gyrating around the stage into his 70s; yet it's seen as unacceptable for Madonna to do so.
Like you said, we don't know, but it sounds like he's got form.
very interesting point with regards to him being a man
writing songs for a woman. I didn't really think about it like that, but he's definitely claiming to be rescuing Madonna from her inevitable decline, which changes to context of the criticism.
Perhaps
Although I don't think that is explicit and falls under the 'above reproach' category IMO. The comments are overall in my opinion not gendered. There is the possible exception of the statements on gyrating and youth. Again though, they are not necessarily by definition gendered.
Interesting topic, it struck a chord with me. It really can be difficult to unravel the layers of overt, casual and ingrained sexism both within incidents like this and our perception of them.
calumnlynn
Interesting post - quite long but did read
Been having similar considerations myself. The gf has been reading everyday feminism and it's got me thinking about those same kinds of issues. Have both definitely been guilty of using inherently gendered language without giving it much thought.
this is a good article
http://thequietus.com/articles/10133-ariel-pink-beta-male-misogyny
I liked this quote "Remember all those guys who really loved Le Tigre or Electrelane or Bis or CSS, but ultimately might as well have been in the triples-for-singles meat market up the road when it came to putting their money where their emancipatory mouths were? "
haha
it turns out that this article is actually required reading for one of my lectures next week!
I kind of see Madonna as an anomaly in someways
as I can't really think of many artists with a career that length who are still working on material that's aiming to capture trends at the forefront of popular music.
I think it's definitely ageist to suggest any artist shouldn't be doing that but I'd struggle to say, in this case at least, that it was a criticism specifically reserved for women. Also Ariel Pink definitely isn't exactly someone I'd associate with being an expert on this particular topic.
he seems quite well qualified in being an idiot, though
Ariel Pink's an idiot
and a proven idiot with all the misogynistic comments he's made recently. He makes out that he just "says things" because he knows it'll rile people up. Which doesn't make him clever or funny, it just makes him an asshole.
Good post.
I put an article on a similar topic in the share feminist articles thread yesterday. (Can someone make it sticky like I suggested? It makes it easy to find and refer to, and also winds up all the right people)
"For example, in relation to my first point, women are constantly criticised as being shallow and concerned with looks and aesthetics over substance. Secondly, Tumblr is a mainly female space, therefore criticising a woman for being 'tumblr-y' could be seen as attacking women who want to associate themselves with one of the few places that isn't dominated by men."
I really like Grimes, precisely because of the way she puts together bits of familiar things in a new way. I’m not arguing that you’ve got to like her though, because obviously it’s totally a matter of personal taste whether you like certain music or not. I saw the video one of her singles when it came out and really liked it and decided to get her album, but it was interesting how my initial reaction was “please, please let this artist actually be a solo artist who does the music too, rather than just a vocalist who is the public face of a duo with a faceless male producer”. Not to disparage the talent and work of people who are only vocalists, but it’s just such a tired old thing. It’s interesting as well though that the public perception of people like Grimes & Björk always focuses on them as a singer and their visuals, even though they are also the producers and composers of their own work.
“"It feel like still today, after all these years, people cannot imagine that woman can write, arrange or produce electronic music.” Björk in this grauniad article
http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2008/aug/27/whybjorkisrighttostickup
I was watching one of those archive TOTPs shows the other day. I think it was from 1979. In the whole show the only women shown were the vocalist on a disco track (surrounded by men playing instruments, and she had to do double duty as the only non-white person in the show too) and Pan’s People wearing flouncy nighties and doing a really creepy dance with giant teddybears. Not one single woman on an instrument. Things have improved since then, yes, but not dramatically, and how many gigs has everyone here gone to which are a totally/near totally male lineup and no-one bats an eyelid?
Also, in terms of traditionally feminine activities being seen as demeaning or frivolous, I was talking about that here the other day. If a woman takes up a traditionally masculine activity such as say car mechanics or football, it could go one of two ways. People might either frame her as being unattractively butch, or really cool. It won’t be framed as being demeaning or humiliating though. A man who is really into hair styling or knitting though will often be framed as somehow demeaning himself. It ties in as well to how appallingly trans women are treated. I’ve had people in the past question whether I’m really a feminist because I like to bake and sew. There is absolutely nothing stupid about baking or sewing. In fact they’re useful skills. Come the nuclear apocalypse, I’ll be in demand.
Have a look at these knitting instructions. Can you understand and follow them to make a well-crafted item of clothing? No, you can’t. http://www.wool.ie/heatherwools.asp
In terms of Tumblr & Pinterest, they’re often dismissed as being full of frivolous female crap, which is interesting. There’s nothing in the actual design or setup of each site that makes it that way. Pinterest is an excellent tool for visual research. I used to save pictures in folders on my computer, and then info like the original source etc would get lost. Now I pin them in a pinterest folder (http://www.pinterest.com/emmafalconer/), and it preserves the source, I can add notes, and access them from anywhere, and also geotag pictures onto a map if appropriate. The recommendation system on Pinterest is also great, it shows you other collections that have used the same picture, which is really helpful for visual research. If you go on their front page without being logged in, yes it is full of wedding photos and self-help book quotes superimposed on pictures of sunsets because those are popular, but as soon as you’ve logged in, it only shows you pictures related to whatever else you’ve been pinning. Yet pinterest has pretty much been identified in people’s minds as being full of “vapid women’s crap”.
Same with Tumblr, except it’s “stupid teenage girl crap”. I mean, tumblr itself is a totally neutral microblogging site. They provide the platform, you fill it with your own content. It is popular with young women and LGBQT people though. I get so much more insight into other people’s lives and perceptions of the world from my tumblr feed than probably anywhere else though. I get links to interesting and thought provoking articles, wonderful artwork by artists I’ve never heard of, fashion photos of people who would never be allowed onto the pages of a fashion magazine, and descriptions of people’s lives whose voices are never heard in the mainstream media. I’m certainly not getting that from the social board section of Drowned in Sound.
There’s also the issue of women’s appearance. We are constantly told that our appearance and attractiveness to men are the number one thing. Any other achievement is secondary, no matter how talented and successful you are, you can be reduced any minute to “would you do her?”. Your appearance and desirability is the most important thing, but it will never ever be good enough. The second you show that you put any effort or time into your appearance though, you’re shallow and brainless and vain. You’d better look perfect, but just by accident and by waking up beautiful. I’ve got a whole massive rant about this topic, but I’ll save it for another time, and when I’ve got a few useful articles to hand to link to as well.
Well do you reckon
female artists that perpetuate and profit off the basically sexist looks obsessed music industry are emancipated in doing so? I think as lot of what Madonna for example stands for is pretty harmfull, but who am I to judge really? Let alone say it. It's nice to be nice but really the world's pretty shit.
Suppose like a prayer is a good song though.
Well, that's a massive tangled issue. I can't really give you a clear black or white answer, and I'm not sure anyone could if they actually put much thought into it.
Aye
I like threads wightout definitive answers.
can we at least agree grimes boyfriend, the elite gymnastics guy
who became a feminist overnight is really really cringey
give me some ammo and i'll consider it
hooked up with her
changed his (music) name to DEAD GIRLFRIENDS, people got upset, changed it again to DEFAULT GENDERS and released an EP of songs about how hard it is to be a woman
Who are these people?
I feel so old
Aw, do you find it hard when people learn?
hey maybe you should write another 10,000 words about it
Not taken your pills again crispy?
Why, I might just do that! Glad to have keen and appreciative readers such as yourself.
how is this in any way an effective dig?
long posts are the best posts
unless they're long because the person has no filter
better than 100 of your highly-filtered, concisely idiotic posts
yeah it's not though is it
I'd say that YIATTY is one of the most readable posters on here
Really enjoy her writing style.
not sure why everyone piled on Crispin here
why is it worse
Because it's Crispin?
I just can't resist riling him up tbf tbh
I'm a terrible person I know.
giving yourself far too much credit champ
Maybe you're a perpetual anger machine
He is an idiot
not because he's a feminist ally, but because he uses those views basically to make himself seem ethically superior to other people (he might not be doing it intentionally, but he articulates himself, ironically, in such an utterly MALE way that it's impossible not to take it that way to some degree). This Pitchfork review sums it up perfectly: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19676-default-genders-magical-pessimism-2014/
this is basically what i was getting at it
but it turned into a HURRR CRISPIN TAKE YOUR PILLS
I didn't say hurrr
i just dont think i'll ever understand
why people spend so much time talking about music/artists they don't like. you don't like them, it's not for you. but some people do like them and it means a lot to them. great. (obviously it's sometimes funny to laugh at how bad some music is and to make fun of people who like it, if they're losers. but grimes fans aren't losers.)
i do kinda think people making really facile criticisms of stuff for being 'too tumblr' or w/e is definitely coded as feminine and as such i would be a bit alert to someone saying that. i don't think there's a way of bracketing gender or of removing any gendered subtext to anything you're saying. it's obviously far too complex and unstable a thing to ever remove gender as a consideration.
far more important to remain reflexive and open to the potential for your criticism to take insidious sexist norms for granted. and always remain open to radical/feminist/any kind of counter-hegemonic ideas. like tumblr, for example, is obviously a really important space for a lot of people who are in various ways 'outsiders'. grimes is obviously a very significant artist, particularly as an one who deals explicitly with feminist issues. if you can at least appreciate that (rather than dismissing it) without fixating on how you don't like [female musician], then cool.
like no offence
but i think part of the problem is music critic/fan type people (who are mostly men) tend to think their opinions matter a lot more than they actually do. you not liking grimes is of very little significance.
I never claimed that me not liking Grimes was of any significance in itself
This thread isn't about 'my opinion on Grimes'- if you read my post fully I don't really understand how you could think I was implying that. My totally irrelevant (in the grand scheme of 'music criticism' etc) dislike of Grimes was just an example to show how easy it is to pick apart even my own opinions, ones that I am very sure have no misogynist undertones, and how that can lead to me questioning the motivations behind criticisms that I think of as totally ungendered.
I could have used any female artist whose work I don't like as an example- the point of this thread was to discuss the way criticism is gendered and how we can try to de-gender criticism to some extent. The Grimes example was quite clearly just a counter example to the blatantly misogynist Ariel Pink Madonna bullshit, in order to better outline the questions I was asking in the OP.
I don't think that post was directed specifically at your OP
Like my earlier post in this thread, the discussion incorporates recurring themes from related threads and can be misconstrued as a specific criticism of the OP.
Your intent was clear, but I think that the idea that criticism can be 'totally ungendered' is unrealistic. Focus more on why you would think it was necessary to criticize someone rather than on how to 'de-gender' such criticism.
Yeah, that's kinda what I'm addressing in the OP
when I question whether or not criticism needs to be expressed. Like when would it be 'okay' to criticise someone? Perhaps in a private conversation, rather than a public space or an interview. Or I suppose when specifically questioned. And in discussion, is it better to voice an opinion in a way which may sound arbitrary (eg. just saying "I don't like X as an artist"), or to qualify that opinion with in depth criticism which may risk sounding gratuitous? Hmm.
And yes I agree- it was naive of me to suggest any sort of de-gendering of anything really; it's not a very realistic aim.
yeah i read the op
and i wasn't saying that you had made a thread about your opinion on grimes. i was just continuing to use your music taste in relation to grimes as an example, as you had done. sorry for any confusion
i'm saying that it's ok to not like grimes (or any artist). just don't go on and on about it like a lot of music critics (mostly men) tend to do when they don't like something (not saying that you specifically have ever done this). there's absolutely no point trying to convince people that your taste in music is the best one or that other people just need to try harder to cultivate their taste or see how grimes is actually crap or w/e.
your criticism of music can never be 'ungendered', just as the way i listen to grimes and decide i like her and her music cant be either. both of our sets of dispositions about music etc. have been conditioned throughout our entire lives.
good post!
I find criticism where the writer/reviewer fundamentally 'doesn't like' something before they start a bit pointless. I much prefer to read criticism where the reviewer is neutral or a fan or conflicted. Like when the Twilight films came out, a lot of the national press reviews were like 'this is stupid nonsense for little girls, obviously I don't like it', whereas better reviews discussed how well it had been adapted from the book, varying feminist criticisms and ideas which applied to the book and film etc.
In the same way, as the OP says he doesn't like Grimes's music or some personal things about her, I wouldn't be that interested in reading his review of her new single if he was just going to say it was rubbish. But if he said, 'well, actually, I have a few problems with some things she's said in interviews, but her new single is fantastic for these reasons' that's something I'd like to read.
Sorry, that's a bit of a tangent! I think what I mean is: (mostly) male writers, I don't really care why you hate what you hate. I'd much rather you talked about something you loved instead.
#NotAll(mostly)MaleWriters
People often take more pleasure and expend more time talking/writing about the negatives
than positives. I'm not sure why that is.
My tutor at art college constantly used to make us write profiles or give presentations about why we liked something. People found it really difficult at first sometimes!
I bet they did.
Is it a British thing, not wanting to be seen to be enthusiastic?
As well, there's the thing of people getting conditioned to have to act like they are so above enjoying anything as a sort of weird status thing (see many people on this site). It was a post-grad course, so plenty of people had been through fine art BAs where they were not encouraged to be straight-forwardly enthusiastic about things. Once people got into the swing of the atmosphere in the post-grad illustration dept though, they loved it.
Depends.
"is criticism of an individual an inherently 'male' thing?"
No,no it isn't.
Anyone seen the front page of today's Sun?
no
...
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B37AGYsCIAAtqT4.png:small
...
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychobabble