Links & Bits for 5/20/11

Tyler, the Creator, Creates 43-Year-Old "Joke" (Tiger Beatdown)

And this means a few things. For example: That the “it’s all about the music” pose is a fucking lie. That all of the boys who are snickering at this, and/or applauding it (and oh, yes, there were plenty) are not enjoying the “music.” They’re enjoying the misogyny. They’re enjoying the suggestion that uppity women should have a dick shoved in them to shut them up.

First Take: Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" (Ann Powers for NPR)

I don't always agree with Gaga's approach to sloganeering. I'm turned off by the biological determinism contained in the very phrase "Born This Way" and puzzled at Gaga's refusal to engage with African-American culture, either musically or within her calls for liberation. After the Twitter fight the soul singer India.Arie had with Gaga's fans last year, it's hard to hear the lyrically inane "I Am My Hair" as anything but a swipe at that singer — and, by extension (pun intended), a sign of insensitivity about black women's long-fought struggles against racist beauty standards. At 25, Gaga is still very much a work in progress. But then, so was Bob Dylan when he went to Washington at 23.

What Makes a Body Obscene? (Sociological Images)

Unless that man’s gender is ambiguous; unless he does just enough femininity to make his body suspect. Indeed, the treatment of the Dossier cover reveals that the social and legislative ban on public breasts rests on a jiggly foundation. It’s not simply that breasts are considered pornographic. It’s that we’re afraid of women and femininity and female bodies and, if a man looks feminine enough, he becomes, by default, obscene.

Yael Naim Has a Story to Tell (PopMatters)

“Songs are a way to express what I have felt,” she reflects. “A way to understand what happened to me or to other people. I usually have an instrument in my hand. It’s usually unconscious. When I feel something coming, I hit record. It’s spontaneous. After a few hours, it will be a song."