Ashley Judd on the Objectification of Women's Bodies

If you read one thing this week, make it Ashley Judd's post for The Daily Beast.

Judd, in the tabloids recently because a round of steroids which cause her face to appear puffy lead to the speculation that she'd gained weight, had work done, or, sin of all sins, was simply getting old, says:

"That women are joining in the ongoing disassembling of my appearance is salient. Patriarchy is not men. Patriarchy is a system in which both women and men participate. It privileges, inter alia, the interests of boys and men over the bodily integrity, autonomy, and dignity of girls and women. It is subtle, insidious, and never more dangerous than when women passionately deny that they themselves are engaging in it. This abnormal obsession with women’s faces and bodies has become so normal that we (I include myself at times—I absolutely fall for it still) have internalized patriarchy almost seamlessly. We are unable at times to identify ourselves as our own denigrating abusers, or as abusing other girls and women."

Just stay away from the comments. Some people never learn.

Culturally irrelevant, or just plain old?

I'll admit, I snickered a bit when I read Edith Zimmerman's NY Times article about feeling "culturally irrelevant" at the ripe ol' age of 28. I'm a full decade older than she -- in actual "life years" that's standing on the precipice of middle age, but my "internet coolness factor" expired years ago. I'm a dinosaur. I've gone past cultural irrelevancy straight to cultural extinction.

Granted, had I read this ten years ago, I'd completely agree. Twenty-seven, twenty-eight is about the age where you can no longer fool yourself into thinking you're still an adolescent. You start realizing that the brunt of popular culture is simply not for your consumption anymore. (Some of it is even, gasp, made by people much younger than you.) This isn't a bad thing. This is what Zimmerman said of her late-discovery (and bemusement) of internet phenomenon Kreayshawn:

[...] way back in May when I watched the video, wherein Kreayshawn brags about smoking weed and not wearing clothes made by fancy brands (for example, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Fendi) — it seemed like nothing new in rap as far as lyrical content went. Her voice was annoying, thin and smug. So I turned it off. Just some random stupid video that no one needs to know about. Case closed! (Brushes hands, moves on.) [...] 

So I went back to the Kreayshawn video I’d dismissed as ugly and stupid, determined to like it, sort of in the way a suburban dad flashes peace signs at his children to be hip. (I’m with it! Hip-hop!) And, quietly, alone in my apartment, I watched the video again, as if I were unwrapping a package I was afraid of. I watched it wanting to like it, I guess. And hey! Do you know what? I decided I did. I decided the video is actually pretty cool! The young people were right! (I’m 28, by the way.)

I  think her criticism of Kreayshawn is actually pretty accurate (and I'd like to add to it Kreayshawn's use of the "n-word" on her Twitter was inexcusable). This is a perfectly reasonable response for someone with a few more years of critical thinking under her belt. Maybe it's because I'm part of a generation that basically hated everything, I don't see a problem here.

The Disappearance of the Underground

Apologies for the ominous-sounding title, but I found this quote from an old AV Club post on, of all things, Def Leppard's Hysteria while I was google-scavenging for something completely unrelated, but I think it illustrates what's going on in music now, especially for those of us who grew up with "underground" and "mainstream" music, and never the two shall meet (link via PopMatters ):

In reality, we live in a culture where the terms “mainstream” and “underground” have become virtually meaningless, as practically every song by every band ever is equally accessible, frequently at no cost, to anyone with an Internet connection and the interest to seek it out ... It’s clear that music rarely unites us under the banner of mass-accepted artists anymore; even in a concert audience, we’re all just a bunch of individuals, with little connecting us to one another beyond a shared interest in the artist onstage—one artist among hundreds on our abundantly stocked iPods.

I think this poses a challenge for bloggers old enough to remember a sense of "tribalism" among music fans, and I still see this today, but only among people of my generation or older. Yes, I'll periodically bring this up, and someone will invariably correct me that, "No, there still is  such a thing as 'underground' rock," but given the myriad avenues an artist has for his music to reach a sizable audience, underground is a pretty meaningless concept. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, but for a generation of us raised on an "us vs them" aesthetic, it's a little bittersweet.