The moment we stop believing them: ageism in opera and pop music

My mother-in-law was the one who pointed out this Madonna video to me. Appearing on the Jimmy Fallon show a few weeks ago, Madonna sang one of her new tracks called, "Bitch, I'm Madonna" with her usual gusto.

With long blonde hair, gold chains, a leather jacket, fishnet stockings, and no pants (of course), Madonna pranced and danced around stage, humping multiple men (including an audience member) in the process. 

Her appearance on Jimmy Fallon occurred shortly after her performance at the Grammys that some critics found "distasteful" because they believed she was "too old" to sing and dance in such a highly sexualized manner (see her Rolling Stone interview responding to that). 

And her Jimmy Fallon debut also occurred right before that now-legendary and, to some, shocking kiss she smacked on Drake. (It does seem to be a pattern with her: Brit-Brit, Xtina, and so on)

I thought for sure there'd be more memes out there about this incident. Internet, you have surprisingly failed me.

I have big issues with Madonna's takes on race in America. I will never be okay with her or anyone's use of the "n" word. And I'm not comfortable with her comparing sexism to racism, mostly because what she's really doing is pitting them against each other ("No one would dare to say a degrading remark about being black or dare to say a degrading remark on Instagram about someone being gay... But my age – anybody and everybody would say something degrading to me. And I always think to myself, why is that accepted? What's the difference between that and racism, or any discrimination?" My answer: A WHOLE EFFING LOT.)

But I agree with her statement in Rolling Stone that "[Ageism] is still the one area where you can totally discriminate against somebody and talk shit. Because of their age. Only females, though. Not males. So in that respect we still live in a very sexist society."

Just this past week, comedian Amy Schumer debuted a hilarious sketch featuring Tina Fey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Patricia Arquette playing with the fact that each woman in her career at some point faces a moment when the media tells her she's no longer "eff-able." 

The idea here is that women like Madonna, Tina Fey, Sally Field, and others all reach a moment when they have outlasted their usefulness as beautiful objects to be gazed upon by society. They have overstayed their welcome, have outworn their membership cards in the Young and Beautiful Club, and have stayed too long at the party even though the DJ has begun to play the "you don't have to go home but you can't stay here" music to get them to leave.

Before I move on, I do want to point out how most of these conversations center around white women losing their beauty and allure (in the eyes of an American popular imagination). Women of color are few and far between in these conversations, even though many like Viola Davis have been saying for ages that they were never really considered beautiful and "eff-able" to begin with. Sometimes it feels like they've been shouting into the wind, speaking into a terribly sexist and racist vacuum which sucks up their words to make sure they never truly reach a multitude of ears. You have to deliberately tune in to hear them, to find their frequency, because lord knows the other noises are much louder and are constantly drowning them out.

Anyway. Where was I? Ageism exists. There's a reason why we talk so breathlessly about Meryl Streep, why Viola Davis gives so much of us LIFE, why Shonda Rhimes is a goddess, why Miss Tina's wedding will go down as the stuff of legend. Why even Madonna, who I find so problematic in so many other ways, speaks to us. They're the exception to the rule, right? They're defiantly showing us other ways to live as women, as adult women, as mature women. Whether or not they're always truly doing it, they appear to be wresting themselves free from the strictures of patriarchy and sexism.

Miss Tina serving face.

But make no mistake: American pop culture regularly decides when a woman is no longer an acceptable romantic interest. The age of the woman shapes people's perceptions of her vitality and beauty (which is always there; people just choose to dismiss it).

I've been wondering lately how the world of opera both resists and submits to this view of women. Opera provides such a fascinating conundrum for its consumers here. So many of the plots involve young women living for the men around them, sacrificing themselves for a doomed and ill-fated love or falling for despicable creatures because they're too ignorant to know any better (I'm looking at you, Don Giovanni). 

Plenty of people have already written about this - Susan McClary (Bizet's Carmen), Catherine Clement (Opera: The Undoing of Women), and Naomi Andre (Voicing Gender: Castrati, Travesti, and the Second Woman in Early Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera), to name a few.

The conundrum, though, is that in order to produce these operas portraying either young, naive women seeking love in a cruel world or highly sexualized temptresses seducing strapping young men, opera companies today have to rely on voices who can actually take on these roles. Professional voices, experienced voices, mature voices. A quick glance at the roster for the Met's Live in HD series, which reaches movie theaters all over the US and in Europe, confirmed many of my suspicions. Anna Netrebko (43), Joyce DiDonato (46), Renee Fleming (56) all played young love interests this season. And the truly "young" and up-and-coming singers who offered something "fresh" and new to viewers were in their 30s (Anita Rachvelishvili, Isabel Leonard). Because of the nature of singing and the demands opera places on singers, it's very difficult for a young singer in her 20s to land a gig. In fact, it's actually quite dangerous for a young singer to try to take on opera before her voice has matured (which, from what I understand, really happens in her 30s). Young singers can ruin their voices if they're not careful if they try to do too much before they're ready.

Thinking about the matter geometrically, the height of a woman's singing career (30s-50s) does not align or intersect with the key years American society has deemed a woman to be at her most beautiful (20s). Unlike women in Hollywood, women in opera can sing about love, desire, and lust in their 40s and 50s. Indeed, they're expected to. 

What this means, then, is that operagoers' ears and eyes have become accustomed to - or perhaps even expect or demand - figures like Debbie Voigt (55) to perform for them. The world of opera tends to value, in other words, the Meryl Streeps over the Miley Cyruses. 

Or does it? There were grumbles back in 2011 when Debbie Voigt took on the musical, Annie Get Your Gun at Glimmerglass and Puccini's opera, Girl of the Golden West at The Met. And as we pointed out in a previous blog post, the opera world has fat-shamed women for years. They, too, have been held to socially constructed standards of beauty that glorify thinness and whiteness. Again: opera, like all other institutions, participates in the maintenance of sexism.

Debbie Voigt, singing in Annie Get Your Gun at Glimmerglass in 2011 (New York Times)

But I still find it really fascinating and secretly appealing that in order for operas to be performed, opera houses have to rely on mature bodies. Biology shapes the performance and production of opera, and in ways that cannot easily be overcome. Although this truism might not hold up quite so much anymore, the principle went that a woman retired from opera when she could no longer sing, not when she was no longer considered beautiful. 

So perhaps opera is a paradox floating through American and European cultures, making it more difficult for audiences determine when they should stop believing that a mature woman can be a romantic love interest. High culture, in this case, encourages us to revisit that moment when we begin to think of older women's musical engagement as "age appropriate/inappropriate." Opera calls us to pay attention to the moment when we stop listening to mature voices around us, when we stop wanting to hear what they have to tell us, and when we stop believing the veracity of their performance based on their age.

Drip Dropping the Music of 'Empire'

If you have not been watching FOX's 'Empire,' you may not know that one of the most integral elements of the show it its music. After all, it is the story of a hip hop label called Empire Records, one that was founded by the protagonist of the show Lucious Lyon, who you can see as a kind of fictional Jay-Z. Right now, his sons are battling over who will take it over; two of his three sons are also talented musically, while the third one feels left out of the family because he is not (unless it involves something called 'music therapy' where J-Hud sings to you or joining in for a trio of 'Lean on Me' in an elevator. If you aren't watching this show yet, I must ask WHY NOT???). As a result, we get a lot of songs on 'Empire.' Sometimes, these are songs being recorded in Ghetto Ass Studios, which is a real place in the Empire universe--in fact, to prove that the title is not just a nickname, they have recorded at Ghetto Ass Studios more than once. Sometimes, these songs are performed in the club, Leviticus, with family and friends and people who just signed record contracts with Empire and Rhianna-stand-ins named Tiana and random bystanders joining in:

In fact, 'You're So Beautiful' shows up a number of times on the show: Jamal (middle kid) alters the lyrics to publicly come out of the closet at the annual Lyon White Party (okay, maybe picture a blend of Jay-Z with Sean 'Puffy' Combs); we see Lucious singing the song to Cookie right before she goes to prison; and we even see Cookie consoling herself with the song while she is in prison, sans weave, sans animal prints, and sans heels (could this even be the same Cookie?):

Thanks for this screen capture go to Price Peterson, over at Yahoo, who has arguably the best 'Empire' recaps in all the land

'You're So Beautiful' is this feel-good hit, one that everyone in the Empire universe knows, and one that has clearly been around for at least seventeen years since that is when Cookie originally went to jail. It works as a feel-good song because it has that catchy chorus, with all credit due to Timbaland, who is writing the music for the show. This song is very much in the vein of Timbaland's number-one hit, 'The Way I Are,' which operates on similar catchy-chorus principles--except that 'You're So Beautiful' has better grammatical conceits.

But what is 'Empire''s 'best' song? I need to put that in scare quotes because it depends on how you want to evaluate that. Certainly, I would put 'You're So Beautiful' in the running because of its general all-around catchiness and its versatility for various key points throughout the show (e.g., coming out at a party, singing in the club with friends and family, pre-trial ballad, prison consolation song). But I'm going to make a controversial choice for best song of 'Empire' and say that, for me, it is unquestionably youngest son Hakeem's 'Drip Drop':

First things first: this is a terrible song on many levels. Please don't misunderstand me when I say it is 'Empire''s best. It is inane to a point where I might have to look through Kim Kardashian lyrics to find something worse. Just one screen capture from a video with the lyrics should help to demonstrate my point:

This cracks me up every time I look at it.

But I feel very confident that if 'Drip Drop' were recorded with the right combination of artists, it would be a giant hit. For is it any worse than Rhianna's 'Birthday Cake'? I would argue no (those of you who follow the blog would likely not be surprised by this, given my animosity toward 'Birthday Cake'). What I think 'Drip Drop' does is parody the exact kind of hit that we would expect from a Drake and Co., right down to the mandatory Rhianna-eseque appearance by Tiana. I would love for Lil' Wayne to drop by Empire Records and add a verse because I think it would fit perfectly, plus I have faith that he would find a way of parodying the parody and invoke toilets or something <-- NSWF link. Don't listen if you are easily offended. Not censored.

Let's move on to the the ridiculous video featuring ridiculous hip hop girls in ridiculous outfits, dancing around in a ridiculous manner. When Hakeem first presents the idea during an Empire board meeting (this company has the best freaking board meetings), he suggests using a green screen to allow him to be on a jet ski with several girls hanging off of it while singing the song--if you want a recap, the best can be found at Grantland. And what, I ask, could be more of a parody than a jet ski? It screams ostentation, unnecessary, and ridiculous. Perhaps that's why it was the favorite toy of Eastbound and Down's anti-hero Kenny Powers? <-- NSWF link. Don't watch if you are easily offended. You may need more context if you don't know the show. But it most certainly involves a jet ski. If you think of Hakeem as as hip hop's Kenny Powers, but with Jay-Z/Sean 'Puffy' Combs as his father, frankly his whole character starts to make much more sense.

Now there have been other songs on 'Empire,' arguably better songs. The most popular of these was likely Jamal's 'Keep Your Money,' which he recorded in response to Lucious cutting off his money (which all ties back to the fact that Jamal is gay, and Lucious is very much not okay with that). 'Keep Your Money' also benefited from Cookie's intervention, as the link demonstrates, as she walks in to Ghetto Ass Studios and offers her opinion about how the song should be mixed. 'Empire' is drawing on two common tropes here: the Empire is strongest when family members work together and the artists are at their best when they are speaking 'from the heart.' The first reduces the show to a cliché; as last week's episode demonstrated, this is a deeply broken family, one that can also be torn apart by these same characters when they are at their worst (things got all bordering on a V.C. Andrews novel). Cookie is trying to be the glue that holds them together, but she is also constantly hurt by the actions of those around her. Maybe she can fix a studio recording, but she hasn't been able to fix all of their problems yet.

As for the second conceit, that artists need to draw on their inner lives, this is certainly a thread that has permeated 'Empire.' In the show's opening scene, we saw Lucious in a recording studio, urging a young star to draw on her most painful memories to bring out the emotion in a song. Must we be so romantic, I ask? Must Jamal feel the pain of living in some non-gentrified neighborhood in Brooklyn with tacky kitchen cupboards to find his voice in 'Keep Your Money'? Is this not simply reinforcing the notion that artist biography and output must be intertwined? Why can't we just 'drip drop' with Hakeem? The show seems to posit that 'Keep Your Money' was a breakout song for Jamal, one that cemented his reputation beyond the small clubs where he had previously been playing. Implicitly, its hit status grew because of its authenticity and its ties to Jamal's life. But I doubt that would happen in reality.

It's worth noting that in the week that FOX released 'Drip Drop' and 'Keep Your Money,' the latter was downloaded more than the former; however, I wonder if the fact that 'Empire' purposefully presented the former as verging on parody influenced this reaction. For my money, 'Drip Drop' still wins, simply because it so succinctly sums up a specific sound and ambiance that I expect to hear on the radio. Is it good as an artistic product? Not even I would claim that. Would it be popular? I suspect yes. Throw Lil' Wayne on that track and you'd have a hit song in no time.

On being black and rediscovering that you're also European

(A trailer for the short film, Ackee and Saltfish, directed by Cecile Emeke)

So here's the deal. When I first meet someone new in the United States, I avoid telling them anything about my life for as long as I can. I answer the dreaded "where are you from?" question by saying, "my family lives in Atlanta, Georgia." Notice: I didn't actually answer the question. I simply stated a fact. My parents do currently reside in Atlanta, Georgia. Are they from there? No. Heck, no. But I throw the line out there hoping it'll distract them long enough for me to change the topic.

I learned this trick when I moved here at age 15. It was simply too much for people to process my identity as a black girl who'd spent her entire life in Vienna, Austria, I think. They'd want to deny it or downplay it, or they'd think I was a freak of some kind. Worse, they'd want to talk out their feelings about this strange fact that they'd learned. My being black and European is still a contradiction to many Americans. So in order to avoid being someone else's therapist for 15 minutes as they processed their feelings about me ("Why?" "How?") I learned to tell a different story to fit into people's boxes.

I still get into trouble, though. People tell me that I talk white. I was once asked by a well-meaning hairdresser if I was adopted. After hearing me ask for help at a hotel in Nashville, Tennessee, the receptionist asked me suspiciously where I was from (I told her I was from New York, and that seemed to help).  Moreover, what I know about African American culture has been intentionally learned over the past 15 years. I have pockets of knowledge here or there but I also have HUGE gaps. I've learned to love Erykah Badu but that's after intentionally listening to her albums on repeat until I figured out what the hell was going on. I still haven't read any Toni Morrison. I don't know classic African American tv shows. But I've learned to "blend" in well enough, I suppose. To fit the label people want me to have.

What also doesn't help matters is that when I'm in Germany or Austria, I also get the question, "where are you from?" And that in order for people to make sense of my identity in Europe, I have to tell them I'm from America. It's easier, less exhausting, to say that I'm American than to tell Germans that I consider German-speaking Europe also my Heimat (homeland). My blackness can't make me European here, either. It has to be located someplace else. So I say (in German) that I'm African American like Barack Obama, and that helps people to put me in a box.

Here, too, I get into trouble, though. Why is my German so good? A lady at a Viennese bakery asked me that question a few years ago. If I was an American student, why did I speak the language so well? I had to confess that I'd lived in Vienna for a little bit in the past. But only for a few years. I downplayed how long I'd lived in Vienna before.

I've lived on both continents now (Europe and the United States) for 15 years each. And for the past 15 years of my life, I've been trying to find ways to erase my European identity. Which is all kinds of crazy because my research is on the history of the black diaspora to Europe. But in order to avoid feeling schizophrenic all the time, I've focused on expressing and performing mostly one identity (American/African American).

Over the years, I think I've lost touch with this other half of my self. I deliberately abandoned her when I moved to the States, tried to lock her up in a small crate and let her out only when I was in Berlin or Vienna walking around on the streets. Why did I do that?

I have a few theories:
1. Language. I have such a complicated relationship to the German language. It will never be my mother tongue. I sound like I should be a native but I still stumble over words, especially when I'm nervous. And this makes me insecure. So it's hard to claim an identity in a language that I speak instinctively but worry that I'm getting wrong all the time. I grew up speaking English at home and at school and German while out and about. Psychologists and linguists will tell you that language learning is a fascinating non-linear process, and I think I'm proof of that. Also, I'm hearing-impaired, and that tends to make language learning more difficult, too (I didn't get hearing aids until I moved to the States). So my relationship to German is weird: I sound like a teeny-bopper and can speak quickly, but I worry all the time that I've gotten something wrong.

2. Representation. Growing up, I didn't know the term "Afro-German," or that there was a long history of people who looked like me in Europe. I discovered them in graduate school, thanks in part to a generation of Afro-European activists who had started demanding societal recognition as citizens and insiders. They laid the groundwork for public discussions on these topics starting in the 1980s, when I was a toddler eating Käsesemmel in Vienna.

When I finally began to positively embrace my blackness (which took a while; it wasn't until my mid-to-late 20s), I turned to African American women (Marian Anderson, the Williams sisters, and yes, Beyonce) to think about what my blackness meant.

But I've been learning lately that I don't have to do that anymore. Or rather that I can also find representations of Afro-European women that really do celebrate them (and me!). I don't have to ignore my European self anymore.

I've been thinking about that lately because of the film director, Cecile Emeke, who's been filming Black Britons strolling about the streets of London for a short series:

She wants to capture real people living their lives in Europe sharing their experiences. Some of these girls look like they could be my cousins (literally: my maternal side is Jamaican/British)!

In an article she wrote for Afropunk, Emeke explains, "Not only did I want to document these conversations, but also I was also tired of being invisible & powerless as a black, working class female living in Europe. When you are black in Britain, or in Sweden, or in any other “obscure” place in the African Diaspora (and by obscure I mean deliberately erased,) it feels like you don’t exist and therefore society encourages you latch on to whatever representation feels like the closest match. Not having your own cohesive identity is damaging. I wanted to be a part of ending that by increasing the visibility and volume of voices that are usually ignored and silenced in their respective societies. I also wanted to help “internationalise” these problems that many of us seem to have in common despite living on opposite sides of the word. "

I just love that quote. I don't have to latch on to whatever representation feels like the closest match. I can look for people who look like me who've experienced life like me - life as a black person, as a European, as an outsider/insider, who live that double consciousness that Paul Gilroy talked about every day.

Thanks to the marvelous age of the internet, it's also become easier to follow blogs and magazines and sites dedicated to celebrating being black and European. There's a brand new magazine in Austria called Black Austria, for example (I wish this had been around when I was a kid!):

There are also campaigns from organizations like Black Austria, too: 

Organizations and websites like ISD (Initiativ Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland), Afropean, M-Media, DeutschPlus, and so on are also celebrating black bodies in European spaces.

It's funny because I've known all of this for a long time. Again: I've dedicated the last 8 years of my life to researching Afro-Europeans! But for the longest time I resisted thinking that I was one of them, too. It was easier that way.

Now that I'm in my 30s, though, I really am learning to give less of a shit what people think. It's so freeing! And thanks to so many other black European activists encouraging and empowering others to celebrate their lives (in spite of the rejection they constantly face from society), I feel like it's time for me to just throw caution to the wind and start claiming this part of myself more fully and publicly, too. I can tell people, in other words, that I have Jamaican/British/Canadian/American/Austrian/German ties and connections. No, that is not too many. That is just enough. 

I don't have to hide. I don't have to explain myself to anyone. I can just... be.

The Lyon in Winter

When I first started watching Fox's breakout hit Empire, I will admit that I was mostly watching from the standpoint that this show was probably going to be bad, but in a good way (and I would argue that my delayed-live-tweeting of the pilot was an indication of my basic mindset. But I stand behind everything I said regarding Cookie's various hairstyles. I could probably write an entire blog post solely about Cookie's mid-90s Philly Blond Wig from tonight's episode). I did find the show intriguing enough to keep at it, and while I have not had the chance to watch it 'live,' I have been doing my best to stay current. I had heard rumors flying around that the most recent episode was particularly noteworthy and let me just echo that sentiment with a resounding 'YAAAAAAAAAAAAAS.' Because Empire kicked it up a notch this week to almost Kimberly-blew-up-the-apartment-Melrose-level crazy--stated with all due respect--and has proven itself to be a worthy heir of its primetime soap ancestors.

Let me start by taking a moment to acknowledge the direction of John Singleton for this episode (yes, that John Singleton who made Boyz N the Hood) and who, I think, really got what primetime soaps are supposed to be all about. This is over-the-top crazy ridiculous nonsense, in the most compelling and amazing way. Not to mention that there is no taking your foot off the gas in this episode, which is precisely what this genre requires. The dramatic moments are stacked one on top of the other, so that if you had to briefly summarize what happened, you would just basically give up (in this way, primetime soaps are similar to many French and Italian 19th-C operas, where event after event occurs, leading to the denouement. So the opposite of Wagner). And while previous episodes had moments bordering on such sublime improbability, this week succeeded to an unprecedented degree. Don't get me wrong. Past episodes foreshadowed that this show had what it takes to make it. My all-time favorite line was from last week, when Cookie casually dropped the fact that the Nation of Islam killed Lucious' father (Whaaaaaaaaaaaat? And no, there has been absolutely no follow-up. None. Nada. I cannot wait).

Other things that Empire has given us: Countless animal prints. A replica Elizabeth Taylor engagement ring. Board meetings with basketballs (yes, 'meetings' was plural there on purpose). What is possibly a rendering of Napoleon (someone on a horse?) on Hakeem's wall. Cookie preparing to go to war by taking out a gun, a wad of cash, and then pausing to don a fierce hat. Naomi Campbell as Hakeem's quite-a-lot older 'side piece.' A piano in virtually every room. Judd Nelson as exploitative villain. A club named Leviticus. Let me repeat that one, because it bears repeating: a club named Leviticus.

Where Empire differs from its forebearers, though, is in its ability to tie together various strands of cultural products, much in the same way that hip hop does. While there is no 'mixing' per se, the uncanny way that Empire draws on a variety of influences by presenting them both simultaneously and in juxtaposition is extraordinary. We see the glamor and violence of hip hop: artists perform on stage, then get in gunfights backstage. We see the underclass of Philly and the conspicuous consumption of New York's 1% (in this week's episode, Cookie's younger sister stated, 'Your kids aren't real, they're rich,' referring to the fact that she was far more concerned about saving her family from drug lords than Cookie could ever need to be. In the same episode, one of Cookie's kids walked around a hip hop video set downing champagne at will). Lucious' father was killed by the Nation, while his finacé was a debutant. Even the music is starting to feature a rift between the radio-ready, Drake-ish offerings of Hakeem ('Drip Drop') and the RnB arabesques of Jamal, inspired by the fact that he lives in the one neighborhood in Brooklyn wholly unaffected by gentrification. Oh, and did I forget to mention the Rihanna-esque character Tiana, this week revealed to be a lesbian? Within the first five minutes of this week's episode? So basically as a subplot?

[Ed. note: I need to point out that 'Kid Fo-Fo,' from previous episodes, is pretty much my favorite fake rapper name ever]

This show has been touted as a combination of Shakespeare's King Lear and the classic 1968 film The Lion in Winter (...and the family name is Lyon, get it?). At first, I thought that these comparisons were facile--all of these share the common theme of three kids, all fighting over an empire. But the more we learn about these characters, the more complicated these relationships become. The Lion in Winter also highlighted the flaws and contradictions in all of its characters--it's almost like a moviefied primetime soap in this respect:

I'm not sure how FOX managed to find a mid-season show that could evoke all of these varied and different responses in only five episodes, all in this modern setting of a hip hop label. There has been some talk that this version of hip hop feels slightly outdated, but I don't think that this is necessarily a criticism; certainly the show makes use of modern media and feels present to me. Like any empire, I'm sure that this one will eventually be toppled by something bigger and better, but until then, look upon this work, ye mighty, and do not despair. The primetime soap is back and it may be better than ever.

Our Top 10 Posts of 2014

Here at SGS headquarters we're wrapping up our 2014 year with a look back at our top 10 most popular posts. What's been the most surprising and fascinating to witness is how popular some of our posts truly became. Who knew that we'd get thousands and thousands of hits for posts about national anthems, drag queens singing, twerking to classical music, and ETA Hoffmann?

We're not entirely sure what these posts have in common with each other, but maybe that's a good thing. If anything, they show how eclectic our interests and tastes are. Here's to more musical explorations in 2015!

10. Black Masculinity and the Violin

9. Does the opera world have a problem fat-shaming women? Is the pope Catholic?

8. Schlock is the New Romanticism

7. The Aesthetics of Hate

6. A Girl Group Twerks to Classical Music in the Hopes of "Bringing it Back"

5. Ethnic Drag, Racial Mimicry, and Rethinking One's Musical Vernacular: The Case of Iggy Azalea

4. The Death of Klinghoffer in Simulcast

3. National Anthems: Should Players Be Forced to Sing Them?

2. Singing Drag With Conchita Wurst

1. Oh, Macklemore: anti-Semitic [sic] edition

What to do in the wake of Ferguson and Staten Island

I am sure that I am not the only one who has found it hard to know what to say in response to the recent events in Ferguson and Staten Island. It is not enough that two black men lost their lives at the hands of policemen; adding insult to the situation, the justice system does not seem to be capable of fulfilling its role as a blind arbitrator in the face of such crimes. Of course, we have seen this kind of thing before: the Trayvon Martin case is undoubtedly fresh in many minds (even if that crime was not committed by a vetted police officer, although George Zimmerman was a de facto one) and there is little reason to think that the situation will change any time soon. Like most people, I have been struck dumb not knowing what to say and paralyzed not knowing what to do.

The Eric Garner case in particular brought to mind Spike Lee's 1989 Do the Right Thing (in fact, Lee himself has made this connection--caution, disturbing footage). At the climax of this film, the character Radio Raheem is choked to death by NYPD as the police are attempting to quell a potential riot. This moment in the film was broadly based on cases where New York authorities had killed black people, although Lee was not referencing any one specific event. Perhaps that makes the parallels between what happens to Radio Raheem and Garner's death even more meaningful.

I realized today that in an ideal world, I would like for this film to no longer be viewed as an exploration of contemporary society (it is twenty-five years old), but instead as a historical document. This statement is meant with no disrespect to Spike Lee; the most persistent theme in the film is the ambiguity that lies at the heart of everyday life, and how complex it can be to determine what the right thing is, much less do it. But I would like us to look at Radio Raheem's death with a sense of disbelief because it should feel antiquated--much as I now look at the antisemitism of the Nazis as peculiar and entirely disconnected from my understanding of the world.

How do we achieve this goal? I don't have the solution, but I do have a suggestion. Follow what Spike Lee says and do the right thing. My response is not meant glibly, nor is it meant as a passive panacea--the imperative to 'do' is vital here. Just as in the film, I can't tell you what the right thing is, but I would like to encourage you to decide what that right thing can be. Draw on your skills and interests, find a way to direct them toward effecting change. Perhaps you can teach others why these issues remain important. Perhaps you can protest. Perhaps you can help change our understanding of how such crimes get reported (or not) and how the justice system operates (or not) in such cases. Perhaps you can be an advocate by making more people aware of why these situations matter. Perhaps you can fight the power. Perhaps you can help from the comfort of your own home by tracking data (this example is far removed from this specific issue, but shows the power that one person can have). Perhaps, as I am doing, you can write down your thoughts and reactions to these events.

Whatever you do, I would urge you to do the right thing for you. It's the only way that I know to make a difference.

We're Not Here For Nicki Minaj's Nazi-Inspired New Music Video

Nicki Minaj's latest music video is an example of why people should consult with their local historian before making important decisions. Called "Only," the song sounds sinister, powerful, and dangerous even though the lyrics don't match in tone (she makes a punch line out of the phrase "duct tape" and is proud of it. I can't even). But that's not the problem:

Do you remember in my previous post about Gesamkuntswerk and music videos how I argued that the visual can become intimately intertwined with the aural? Yeah. Nicki and Co. succeeded in creating the same effect here. Unfortunately, they create this sinister aura by employing Nazi aesthetics.

Already there's some push back from viewers and enthusiasts who claim that the video captures more of a Soviet-era style aesthetic, or that it's simply a stand-in for any 20th century totalitarian dictatorship. I'm not sure I can agree with that.  To me at least, this video is straight-up Leni Riefenstahl, Triumph of the Will-level crazy.

First, a brief primer on Nazi aesthetics: they do, as other scholars have already written about, have a "terrible beauty" about them. The mass parades, rallies, banners, flags, and architecture were all designed to promote an ideology of cult-like power. As a spectator or a participant during the Third Reich, one was encouraged to see themselves as part of a uniformed mass of humanity ready to carry out the vision of national socialism.

As plenty of historians such as George Mosse, Saul Friedländer, and Jonathan Petropolous have already argued, many Nazi party members (including Hitler) had a strong and cultivated aesthetic sensibility. More importantly, they believed that art and aesthetics should serve their politics. Art, Goebbels believed, could be used to manipulate the masses. If you're familiar with this blog, you might have read my post on the aesthetics of hatred already. If so, perhaps some of the same themes from that post echo here: art can be employed for terrible purposes, and effectively so because it is beautiful.

Which is why it's, um, uncomfortable that Nicki Minaj uses Nazi aesthetics in her latest video. Let's check out a couple of stills so you can see how this works:

The above image is from the opening scene of the video. Yes, the video's in black, white, and red (which doesn't help) but I think it's the party banners on the side that sealed the deal for me. Banners were ubiquitous throughout the Third Reich and appeared at all kinds of functions and events. Here's a performance by the Berlin Philharmonic that features a swastika in the background, for example:

Second, the design of the main building where Nicki sits on her throne looks awfully similar to Nazi architecture:

And here's an example of Nazi architecture (minus the flags):

Lastly, of course, are the rows of soldiers wearing red arm bands.

Granted, plenty of paramilitary troops and 20th century dictatorships slapped arm bands on men. But since the postwar era, we have come to associate this particular sartorial choice with the Nazi party.

There might be two defenses a reader could use to "rescue" Nicki Minaj from this mess, one not at all believable, the other more believable but still not satisfactory:
1. Pitchfork argues that her music video is employing classic military iconography. She's building her army, metaphorically speaking, and preparing to launch her pop-musical attack on us all.
2. She wanted to portray evil, so who better to turn to for creating feelings of fear and terror than the Nazis?

At least the second way of interpreting the video would mean that the creators of the video acknowledge its reliance in part on Nazi aesthetics. It *has* to be. No offense, but the average American listener isn't going to be familiar enough with Soviet-era dictatorships to immediately recognize those kinds of militaristic references that some viewers think this video is making. I'm still left thinking, to which other dictatorships could this video possibly be alluding?

Yeesh, this video makes me uncomfortable. And it makes me uncomfortable that people still take art and aesthetics for granted. That we assume they don't have power. That's certainly not what the Nazis thought. They used these images and icons for terrible purposes, and as a result, these aesthetic remnants have left lasting psychological scars on millions of people.

Nicki Minaj has always been interested in displaying a masculine power (she's written songs declaring herself the "King," she calls her girlfriends in this song her "sons," etc.). Perhaps that's what this video speaks to with its militaristic setting. But there are better ways to portray power and might than by using these visual cues. It's a shame (if unsurprising) that Nicki couldn't do that here.