pop-zeitschrift.de
Juni 2013
Evelien Geerts
Singing sirens. Contemporary pop and rock goddesses and their potentially
feminist acts of »chanter hystérique«
Introduction: The ambiguous relationship between women’s popular music and feminism
There appears to be a discrepancy between female artists in the music industry and
popular culture, and the women and men who write about these artists and reflect upon
the latter’s creations. Popular female artists often do not like to be associated with »the Fword« (McClary 2000: 1284); being labeled as a feminist is seen as stigmatic because of the
many negative associations attached to feminism.
Yet, there are female pop artists out there that are reacting against the double standards
women have to deal with, and that hence could be seen as feminists. Just recall Pink’s
»Stupid Girls« video, in which she reclaimed female sexuality by criticizing America’s
antifeminist celebrity culture (Pink 2006).1
Although »Stupid Girls« was not that well-received in some feminist circles because of its
mocking undertone – women that label other women as stupid borders on exploitation,
obviously – it in the end gave us a positive message of female empowerment. And the
same could be said about the hits »PU$$Y« and »212«, respectively written by AustralianAmerican rapper Iggy Azalea and Harlem rap sensation Azealia Banks, in which both
artists touch upon female pleasure and sexuality in an empowered manner (Azalea 2011;
Banks 2012).
So, at least a part of today’s popular music created by women could be situated in the
feminist political domain of fighting for gender equality, equal sexual rights and the
freedom of female expression, if it were not for these artists themselves, who are usually
wary of being branded as feminists. The aforementioned artists, for instance, have never
called themselves feminists, and other American artists, such as hip hop sensation Nicki
Minaj and pop icon Lady Gaga, aren’t exactly feminist-friendly either: whereas Minaj on
occasions refers to girl power – a cuter version of feminism – Gaga once explicitly stated
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that she is »not a feminist,« »hail[s] men,« and »celebrate[s] American male culture« (Lady
Gaga and Lydverket 2009).
This ambiguous, fuzzy relationship between women’s music2 and feminist thought and
practice surely is shocking: are we as feminist cultural theorists, pop culture aficionado’s
and music journalists then basically reading our own interpretations into these cultural
artifacts? And, if so, does the category of feminist-inspired women’s music even exist?
I will engage with these questions by close-reading some of the lyrics and performances
by female artists in today’s mainstream and alternative music scene via a reader-based
approach (also see e.g. Burns/Lafrance 2002). I have chosen five different oeuvres of
popular female artists, namely the works of Lady Gaga (Stefani Germanotta), Nicki Minaj
(Onika Tanya Maraj), the Canadian queen of electro clash, Peaches (Merrill Nisker), indie
icon Amanda Palmer, and British alternative rock artist PJ Harvey (Polly Jean Harvey).
These artists’ oeuvres and the ways they represent themselves differ greatly, but I am
drawn to them because all of these artists embody something special: all five of them
namely play with contemporary norms of femininity, beauty, and sexuality – acts that
could potentially be subversive and feminist. Yet – and this is where my personal
attachments to feminism as a political project enter the picture – not all of these oeuvres
should obviously be labeled as politically feminist. Although I do not want to make the
mistake of putting these oeuvres against one another in a binary manner, and wish to
refrain from reinstating feminism as a hierarchical project, I am nonetheless forced to take
a stance on the feminist potential in each of these oeuvres.
I will do so by referring to some of these artists as singing sirens, after having analyzed
their oeuvres through the strategic essentialist lens of Belgian-born feminist philosopher
Luce Irigaray. This article thus combines a reader-based cultural analysis approach with a
feminist philosophical strategy, so as to unravel the hidden feminist gems in the oeuvres
of popular female artists that have not explicitly labeled themselves as feminists.
But for now, I would like to focus on two striking issues in contemporary women’s music
that should be problematized when seen through a feminist lens, namely the
hypersexualized and hyperfeminized representation of female artists, and the remarkable
references to hysteria.
Hyperfeminization and hypersexualization in women’s popular music: From Barbie dolls
to Gaga feminism
The hypersexualization of women in music and pop culture is not all novel, but what is
new is that a lot of female artists nowadays overtly take on these images of sexual
excessiveness. Are they by doing so reproducing patriarchy’s ideas about women as
Barbie dolls and seductresses, or are these artists deconstructing these stereotypes in a
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playful and hopefully also feminist manner? Nicki Minaj and Lady Gaga are two
exemplary American artists that play with these images in an over-the-top manner, and
hence appear to be making potentially feminist statements about female independency,
beauty norms and female sexuality.
Nicki Minaj quickly transitioned from being an East Coast underground rapper to a hip
hop star during the release of her debut album »Pink Friday« (2010). This transition had
an obvious influence on Minaj’s appearance: from then onwards, Minaj presented herself
as a Harajuku Barbie doll by wearing pastel colored wigs and skimpy, Japanese outfits. By
dolling herself up in such a hyperfeminized manner, one could assume – as many
feminists have done – that Minaj obeys to the male gaze (see e.g. Whitney 2012).
If a female artist conforms to such an unreachable ideal of femininity, how could we then
still label her oeuvre as feminist? But Minaj in fact remains partially untouched by this
critique, since she, as woman from mixed Indian and Afro-Trinidadian descent, challenges
hyperfemininity – an ideal that until recently was only considered to be the norm for
white, privileged women – and this can be seen when taking a look at the cover of »Pink
Friday«.
The album cover shows Minaj as a plastic Barbie with pink hair, yet her arms appear to
have been cut off, whilst her legs have been disproportionally elongated. Barbie’s
hyperperfect, all-white body is literally being deconstructed here, and this backs up the
assumption that Minaj’s image should be read as the opposite of gender-conforming.
But what about Minaj’s lyrical self-representation on »Pink Friday«? Are her lyrics equally
destabilizing? »Dear Old Nicki« sets the overall tone of the album: this incredibly selfreflexive song features Minaj, who is talking to her former, more underground self, whilst
wondering if she has changed throughout her career (»Yo, did I chase the glitz and
glamour, money, fame and power?«) (Minaj 2010). This self-reflexive attitude is also
present on »I’m The Best«, in which Minaj claims to have found independency through
rapping. Minaj here establishes herself as a self-made woman and a source of inspiration
for young girls and women. Yet, the feminist potential of Minaj is, alas, at the same time
undermined by misogynist diss tracks such as »Roman’s Revenge« and »Did It On ‘Em«.
So, although Minaj at least subverts some of society’s racial and gender norms by
challenging a very stereotypical image of white femininity, she also falls into the trap of
abusing her power as a woman that has successfully broken through hip hop’s glass
ceiling by downplaying the value of other women in the game.
It thus seems nearly impossible to read Minaj’s oeuvre in an unambiguous feminist
manner, and we end up in the same tricky situation when examining that other pop icon
of the moment, Lady Gaga. Although Gaga has been embraced by the gay community for
her LGTBQI-activism, and even though queer philosopher J. Jack Halberstam coined the
concept of Gaga feminism in her honor (Halberstam 2012), one could still question
whether her oeuvre is feminist in a political sense.
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It is true that Gaga »toys with [the] conventional rules of attractiveness« (Williams 2010).
Gaga indeed has tackled almost every female stereotype out there. She for instance
attacked the binary imagery of the female subject as a nun/whore by dressing up as a
dominatrix-like nun in »Alejandro« (Lady Gaga 2009). And she successfully destabilized
the whorish connotations that are attached to the Maria Magdalene character she plays in
the video for »Judas« by transforming her into a tough biker chick (Lady Gaga 2011).
Gaga takes the disruption of stereotypical femininity so far that she challenges the
Western cultural norms of female sexuality and sexiness as a whole. Or as she once stated:
»I just don’t have the same ideas about sexuality that I want to portray. I have a very
specific aesthetic – androgyny.« (Lady Gaga in Williams 2010).
The problem with Gaga, however, is that she does not always look that androgynous, or
constantly wears a meat costume to address the exploitation of women-as-objects. It is
actually pretty ironic that she tries to break away from the cultural ideal of femininity, but
then at the same time allows her entourage to dress her up as a passive, sexualized object
in videos such as »Poker Face« and »LoveGame« (Lady Gaga 2008).
The ambiguity concerning Gaga’s feminism has been picked up by many feminist
theorists: philosopher Nancy Bauer, for instance, has applauded Gaga for making us
understand that »being a woman is a matter of artifice, of artful self-presentation«, yet
Bauer also claimed that even Gaga cannot shake off the »acts of self-objectification« in a
world where women have interiorized oppressive beauty norms (Bauer 2010). Even
Camille Paglia – the self-proclaimed maverick of feminism – had her say about Gaga:
according to Paglia, Gaga is »so calculated and artificial, so clinical and strangely
antiseptic, [and] so stripped of genuine eroticism« that she symbolizes the end of sex
itself, rather than being a feminist emblem of female sexuality (Paglia 2010).
Paglia might be going too far here, yet, what is obvious is that Gaga’s feminism turns out
to be even more ambiguous or even non-feminist than initially expected: Gaga’s own
affiliation with feminist politics is rather vague, and one could obviously also question the
potential feminist value of a practice that proclaims that women can become empowered
by deliberately presenting themselves as sexual objects. This all tells us that the
combination of popular women’s music and feminism is not that evident at all, and aside
from the hypersexualization of these female artists, there is another stereotype that has
gotten a lot of attention in women’s music lately, and that is the phenomenon of female
hysteria.3
Female hysterics in popular women’s music: Female artists going gaga
Hysteria appears to be hotter than ever in popular music. A lot of pop artists are currently
experimenting with the imagery of the hysterical, out-of-control woman in their video
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clips, and this is surprising, considering the fact that in clinical psychology, hysteria has
long been replaced with the more gender-neutral pathology of conversion disorder.
Hysteria hence is an outdated phenomenon that was said to be a widespread disease
during the Victorian patriarchal era – an era in which it was discursively constructed as an
exclusively female pathology.4 Hysteria has always been feminized as a disease, and it
consequently served patriarchy as a tool of female pathologization and oppression.
So, precisely because of the patriarchal connotations attached to hysteria, it is fascinating
to see that both Minaj and Gaga have taken up such a stereotype in their videos: Minaj’s
Barbie alter ego, for example, had a cameo in Ludacris’ »My Chick Bad« video, in which
she raps the lyrics »the mental asylum [is] looking for me«, whilst lying on a shrink’s
couch, dressed in a fashionable straitjacket (Ludacris 2010). This appearance of the
hysteric is rather unsettling, because hysteria is used as a gimmick here, without any
potentially empowering connotations.
Lady Gaga’s »Marry The Night« video, on the other hand, deals with hysteria in a less
shallow manner (Lady Gaga 2011). The video addresses Gaga’s breakdown after her first
record label dropped her, and how she overcame everything by transforming herself into
the pop icon we know today. The video’s first two sequences are the most fascinating:
during the opening scene, Gaga is shown ranting about reality and fiction, whilst being
transported on a hospital bed. She ends up in an asylum ward, and after asking the nurse
to put on some music, she recalls her past life experiences, whilst the other female
patients break out in hysterical laughter. During the next flashback sequence, we are then
all of the sudden confronted with Gaga mentally breaking down in her apparent after
being rejected by her record label. We see a naked Gaga completely crashing and making
wild gestures, whilst covering herself in Cheerios without almost uttering a word.
Although Gaga seems to be cathartically reliving her life as a ballerina, one could also
argue that she is taking on the image of the female hysteric by portraying herself as an
emotionally unstable and muted woman. Both the former and the latter appropriations of
hysteria in the end border on exploitation, however: Minaj and Gaga oversexualize the
hysterical woman, instead of critically addressing the clichés that have helped spread this
stereotypical image.
And that is why I intend to take a different route with this article: instead of analyzing the
works of female pop artists that toy with the stereotypes of hypersexualized and hysterical
women, but do not take it further than that, I will now try to illustrate how hysteria and
other female stereotypes have been dealt with more subversively by Peaches, Amanda
Palmer, and PJ Harvey, whom I will call singing sirens.
Why sirens? Female sirens are mythical creatures that have already been described in
ancient Greek sagas as seductive, singing creatures. They appear to be connected to the
hysteric in a way, since, seen from an Irigarayian perspective, both the female hysteric (see
e.g. Irigaray 1977/1985b) and the siren prefigure a female, bodily-expressed language.
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What appears to be going on in the oeuvres of the above singers, is that they seem to
react against the patriarchal construction of hysteria as a female disease (and the
hypersexualization of women that goes along with it) through singing. As singing sirens,
they take on the image of the female hysteric, but then, unlike Minaj and Gaga, also
(partially) transform its essence.
In what follows, I examine how these three artists engage in what I call singing
hysterically, or »chanter hystérique«, evaluate whether they are moving beyond solely
copying the stereotypical image of the hysteric, and see if we can label them as political
feminists. Before doing so, however, I will explain why these artists can be seen as singing
sirens by taking a look at Irigaray’s feminist philosophy.
Luce Irigaray’s feminine and feminist philosophy: Strategically miming and deconstructing
the stereotypical image of the hysteric
Luce Irigaray works within the Western traditions of philosophy and psychoanalysis, yet,
she is also known for being extremely critical of these discourses: her oeuvre revolves
around revealing the phallogocentric logic5 behind the latter systems of thought. Together
with philosophers Hélène Cixous and Julia Kristeva, Irigaray is part of the French
women’s writing or »écriture féminine« movement, which means that she wishes to
(re)create a female Imaginary, or a feminized version of the Lacanian Imaginary, so that
women could become speaking subjects of their own – something that had previously
been impossible for women in Lacanian psychoanalytical theory.
Next to that, Irigaray has also given special attention to the deconstruction of the
masculine-biased image of the female hysteric: Irigaray not only sees the hysteric as a
protofeminist in »This sex which is not one« (1977/1985b), but also uses hysteria as a
methodological tool in »Speculum of the other woman« (1974/1985a). Irigaray’s thoughtprovoking »philosophie féminine« has not always been applauded, however: many
feminist theorists criticized Irigaray for falling back into essentialism, or the idea that
women have specific, unalterable characteristics that are biological instead of socially
constructed (see e.g. Plaza 1980).
Irigaray in her works indeed constantly refers to the female sex, which makes sense, since
the Anglo-American concept of gender now used to denote one’s socially constructed
gender identity, was not a known concept in France at that time. And Irigaray also uses
symbols that look suspiciously biologically determining. When speaking about the »two
lips« and woman’s sexual plurality that breaks out of »the dominant phallic economy«
(Irigaray 1977/1985b: 24), Irigaray seemingly links women to their anatomical
constitution. But this construction of female sexuality as something plural is actually part
of her strategic essentialist tactic – which differs from traditional essentialist views
because it is meant as a political strategy.
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This strategic essentialist position has to be understood along the following lines:
according to Irigaray, women are excluded from the discourses of philosophy and
psychoanalysis, because only men can become speaking subjects there, by identifying
themselves with the Lacanian masculine Imaginary that is constructed around the symbol
of the Phallus. Irigaray could hence either stay silent, or talk like a male philosopher. But
both options are not exactly productive, if one is looking for a way to criticize
phallocentric discourses. There is another, rather tricky way to speak – and speak up – as
a woman, though: according to Irigaray, »woman does not have access to language, except
through recourse to ›masculine‹ systems of representation« (ibid.: 85).
So, if one dares to take on the stereotypical feminine role that patriarchy ascribes to
women, then one might be able to speak as a woman – a woman that is nonetheless still
stuck in the patriarchal system. And this is exactly what Irigaray does in her philosophy:
she mimes the stereotypical image of woman, and hopes to do more than purely
reproduce this stereotype. Because Irigaray wishes to deconstruct phallogocentric thought
by »jamming the theoretical machinery itself« (ibid.: 78), it is obvious that she is not
naively going to repeat female stereotypes. Irigaray’s mimesis is in fact reproductive – as
in repeating woman’s place in patriarchy – and productive – as in going beyond these
patriarchal meanings. When taking on the role of woman in phallogocentrism, Irigaray
hence tries to disrupt the stereotypical definition of woman:
To play with mimesis is thus, for a woman, to try to recover the place of
exploitation by discourse, without allowing herself to be simply reduced to it.
(ibid.: 76)
Irigaray’s essentialism should thus be seen as strategic, and what is fascinating, is that she
actually reappropriates the stereotypical image of the female hysteric. The hysteric has
always revolted against patriarchal suppression, in Irigaray’s eyes, because she refused to
be muted. Since the hysteric does not have access to a language of her own, she mimes
and playfully disrupts masculine language through her excessive, physical gestures. The
hysterical woman thus »speaks in the mode of a paralyzed gestural faculty« (ibid.: 136).
The hysteric hence is a protofeminist, since she shows us that there is a disruptive
feminine energy or excess that has not yet been infected by phallogocentrism. Seen
through an Irigarayian perspective, the female subject is much more than the roles
patriarchy gave to her: she might have been muted and objectified, yet, the hysteric seems
to know that the reason why »women are such good mimics« has to with the fact that
»they are not simply resorbed in this function« (ibid.: 76). Women »also remain
elsewhere«, and the female hysteric reveals this »elsewhere«; an »elsewhere« that according
to Irigaray, points at a feminine protolanguage and a potential feminine Imaginary (op.
cit.).
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Irigaray then also engages in a hysterical miming of her own in her works, and this is
where the concepts of strategic essentialism and »chanter hystérique« come back into the
picture. Irigaray namely uses the hysteric’s mimicking as a textual methodology in
»Speculum«: she there hysterically rereads philosophical and psychoanalytical authors so
as to reveal, mime, and then ultimately deconstruct their faulty representations of women.
This hysterical rereading is strategic and political of nature: Irigaray obviously runs the
risk of falling back into reproducing the phallic stereotype of the female hysteric, but she
really does more than simply play with the essentialist image of female hysteria. Irigaray
sees the female hysteric as a rebel and revolutionary: the hysteric opens up the longforgotten domain of the female Imaginary that provides us with untainted images of
femininity, such as the two lips, a symbol that Irigaray puts to use in her own philosophy.
The hysteric hence brings Irigaray the material to support her project of speaking (as)
woman, or »parler femme« and writing (as) woman, a feminine language that is strongly
connected to »the gestural code of women’s bodies«, and that is anticipated by the
hysteric’s gestures (ibid.: 134). This project of »parler femme« again is intended to be
political: »by speaking (as) woman, one may attempt to provide a place for the ›other‹ as
feminine« (ibid.: 135).
So, by revaluing the female hysteric, and by challenging this stereotype, Irigaray disrupts
the systems of phallogocentrism and patriarchy that have hystericized and objectified
women for decades. Irigaray wants to make room for a new, or rather previously
repressed, female Imaginary and language, so that women could finally become subjects
of their own. This feminist appropriation of the stereotype of the hysteric thus underlines
the political motives of Irigaray’s philosophy.
I would like to use Irigaray’s strategic essentialist method of mimesis in this article, since I
find it such a powerful strategy. The concept of singing hysterically or »chanter
hystérique« that has come up a couple of times already, is obviously inspired by Irigaray’s
hysterical mimesis and strategic essentialism.6 The potential singing sirens that will follow
now, are involved in miming the female hysteric, and many other stereotypes associated
with hysteria, such as the neurotic housewife and the hypersexualized woman. But
whereas Irigaray attacks phallogocentric thought on a theoretical level, these female artists
will, as I hope to show now, take on these stereotypes in a lyrical and performative
manner. They sing in a hysterical and subversive manner, and it is this cultural
materialization of »chanter hystérique« that could be seen as potentially feminist, or so I
will argue.
»Chanter hystérique«: The strategic reconstruction and subversive deconstruction of
hysteria in the oeuvres of Peaches, Amanda Palmer, and PJ Harvey
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We can now explore how Peaches, Amanda Palmer and PJ Harvey engage in the practice
of singing hysterically. If the latter go beyond Minaj’s and Gaga’s mere copying of
hysteria, then we might be able to call their oeuvres feminist in the political sense. But this
does not mean that these potential singing sirens all have openly labeled themselves as
feminists: Harvey, for instance, once stated that she never felt the need to express that she
was a feminist (Raphael 2009). And Amanda Palmer – formerly known as the lead vocalist
and pianist of the Brechtian punk cabaret band The Dresden Dolls – has even been
accused of exploiting feminism by taking on a feminist identity for its shock value.
Peaches, on the other hand, might be the most forthright feminist of the group: as a queer
artist, she frequently talks about the political importance of feminism. And although
Peaches’ lyrics are extremely explicit, she writes them that way to criticize the double
standard in rap when it comes to female representation. She uses her songs to reverse the
objectification of women, as can be heard on her second album »Fatherfucker« (2003).
The latter title was deliberately chosen, and tells us how Peaches gives her oeuvre a
political feminist meaning, as can be seen in the next quote:
The term ›motherfucker‹ is so over […]. It’s used every day by everybody.
You would probably even call your mother a ›motherfucker‹ – and it would
mean absolutely nothing. But ›fatherfucker‹ is an incredible word. It’s time to
put them on equal terms. (Peaches in Paoletta 2003: 33)
Even though Peaches’ stance on sexual equality politics might be more outspoken than
Harvey’s and Palmer’s, I argue that each of the aforementioned oeuvres has some hidden
feminist features. Next to that, these oeuvres can be separated along the lines of an
Irigarayian methodology – without however creating a feminist hierarchy in which one of
the oeuvres would be seen as more significant than the other.
As shown before, Irigaray’s hysterical miming of phallogocentric discourses works on two
levels: Irigaray appropriates the image of the hysteric in a strategically essentialist way, and
then approaches these discourses in a subversive manner. In a later phase, Irigaray moves
beyond phallogocentrism, after having subverted its stereotypes from within. Both of
these phases are equally important: without the first deconstructive phase, there would
obviously be no room for Irigaray’s (re)construction of a »parler femme«.
In what follows, I will read the oeuvres of Peaches, Palmer and Harvey along these lines,
arguing that especially the latter oeuvre suits an Irigarayian rereading.
Singing sirens and (post)feminism. Peaches’ gender-bending machismo and Palmer’s
(post)feminist provocations.
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Peaches’ lyrics are sexually explicit, to say the least: songs such as »AA XXX« and »Diddle
My Skittle« do not require further textual analysis to realize that (Peaches 2000). Because
of these constant sexual innuendos, Peaches has been criticized a lot. When asked about
the negative feminist reactions to her music, she stated the following:
I would hate to be just loved. It’s great to have both opinions. I like that
people have something to discuss rather than just, ›Oh, I like that song.‹
(Peaches in Meter 2003)
Peaches is a provocateur, and her radical queer politics is noticeable every song she has
ever written: »Two Guys (For Every Girl)« from »Impeach My Bush« (2006), for example,
shows us how Peaches queers the masculinized concept of a threesome, and bends it into
a more feminist-like arrangement. Peaches’ politics obviously focuses on a playful form of
sexual liberation, yet, she has a more serious feminist side, too. In the video for »Set It
Off«, a song from her kinky electro album »The Teaches Of Peaches« (2000), Peaches is
the spectator of a couple of gender-bending sexual activities in a club’s bathroom. All
dolled up in tiny pink panties, she is dancing and having a good time. But at the end of
the video, Peaches undresses herself, whilst her body hair starts to grow in an
uncontrollable manner – implying that Peaches here provocatively mocks the
stereotypical representation of women in music videos, and female beauty standards in
general.
Amanda Palmer also knows the tricks of provoking all too well: »Oasis«, an
autobiographical song featured on «Who Killed Amanda Palmer« (2008), for instance, is a
provocative track about date rape and abortion, cheerfully sung by Palmer, who
downplays the gravitas of her tragic situation, because she received a letter from her
favorite band. »Oasis« portrays Palmer as an independent woman who sees abortion as an
acquired right.
The latter of course could make us wonder whether Palmer is more of a postfeminist – in
the sense that one thinks that feminism is now politically and culturally outdated – than a
feminist. In an interview I had with her in 2008, Palmer criticized some of the
postfeminist tendencies in the media and the music industry in particular, stating that our
political landscape had »evolved from an equality feminism into an antifeminism that
focuses on a false sense of empowerment« (Palmer in Geerts 2008).
But in a later interview, Palmer contrastingly critiqued contemporary feminism for its
ineffectiveness by arguing that we should focus on »individual empowerment« (Palmer in
Geerts 2010) instead of holding onto theoretical feminist doctrines. Palmer thus seems to
be moving towards a more individualist, DIY-feminism, without neglecting the more
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traditional feminist topics, however. Songs about female autonomy such as »Oasis« and
»Ampersand« are for instance feminist in a traditional, equality politics’ perspective
(Palmer 2008). And like Peaches, Palmer constructs a radical sexual politics of her own:
she touches upon issues such as intersexuality in »Half-Jack« (The Dresden Dolls 2003),
and in one of her more recent songs, »Map Of Tasmania«, Palmer even tackles the
horrors of female shaving (»I say grow that shit like a jungle, give ‘m something strong to
hold onto. Let it fly in the open wind, if it gets too bushy, you can trim«) (Palmer 2011).
Both Peaches and Palmer nonetheless seem to be postfeminists, in the sense that they
suggest that the days of feminism as a grand political project are long gone, and that it is
now time for a more playful, DIY-feminism. Could they then still be categorized as
singing sirens? Peaches’ oeuvre, for starters, could be reread in an Irigarayian way.
Peaches’ strategy seems similar to Irigaray’s mimesis: in »Stick It To The Pimp« (Peaches
2006), Peaches hysterically mimes and parodies the stereotypical representation of women
in hip hop as bitches and hoes.
By reappropriating the term bitch and associating it with female desire, and by
transforming herself into a female pimp who enslaves male pimps, Peaches successfully
deconstructs hip hop’s masculine symbolic. In contrast to feminist thinker Audre Lorde,
Peaches suggests that the master’s tools can in fact dismantle the master’s house, and she
not only challenges the patriarchal domains of hip hop and rap in her oeuvre, but also
plays with the machismo and the phallic fetishization of the guitar in rock (also see James
2009). Her reappropriation and reconstruction of machismo into machisma, can already
be seen in »Rock ‘n Roll« from »Fatherfucker«, where Peaches endlessly repeats the same
guitar riff, whilst hysterically screaming the words rock ‘n roll.
And the same kind of strategic mimesis takes place in Palmer’s oeuvre. Palmer’s cover of
Rodgers’ and Hammerstein’s »What’s The Use of Wond’rin’?« serves as a perfect example
(Palmer 2008): Palmer heavily focuses on the issue of domestic violence in the
accompanying video, which opens with the image of two neurotic and eagerly cooking
housewives.
We are then confronted by a scene that shows the husband of Palmer’s character
screaming and yelling, and a later scene in which Palmer’s character appears to have been
beaten up. Palmer at first sight seems to be repeating the passive victimization of the
female lead character in the original song. But she actually goes one step further, and this
becomes apparent in the last scene, where her character and the other housewife happily
sit around the table, after having skinned the abusive husband alive.
Palmer is nonetheless countering patriarchal violence with violence here, and the same
can be said about Peaches’ mimesis: Peaches tries to revalue women by freeing them from
the concept of motherfucker, yet replaces the latter with an equally reductive concept.
This tells us that Peaches and Palmer are mainly operating within Irigaray’s more
deconstructive mimetic phase. A comparison between Irigaray’s and queer philosopher
11
Judith Butler’s ideas about mimesis could help us understand this better, since both
artists, like Butler, are not going far enough when it comes to mimesis. The difference
between Irigaray’s and Butler’s strategy of mimesis has been articulated as follows:
Mimesis, for Irigaray […] is also a conscious and playful strategy for
revealing the place of the feminine within language. Butler also suggests that
mimesis is a strategy. However, for Butler there is no subject, feminine or
otherwise, that is revealed through mimesis. Instead, gender is a performative
cultural fiction, constructed through a Foucauldian law. (Campbell 2005: 345)
Although one should keep in mind that Butler’s mimetic strategy was partially inspired by
Irigaray’s philosophy, it is nonetheless clear that she never moves towards a feminist
identity politics via hysterical mimesis.7 This does not necessarily mean that Peaches and
Amanda Palmer cannot be seen as singing sirens: they do take up a mimetic strategy
similar to Irigaray, as to deconstruct stereotypes associated with women by repeating
them strategically. Their lyrics and performances are of an immense feminist potential,
since they, unlike Minaj’s and Gaga’s, go beyond merely playing with deconstruction, and
thus successfully avoid the stereotypical cliché-confirming imagery the latter ended up in.
But rereading these oeuvres through Irigaray’s second mimetic phase, nonetheless seems
to be impossible: like Butler, Peaches and Palmer are unable to construct a feminist
politics outside phallogocentrism.
Conclusion. PJ Harvey and a female Imaginary. 50 Ft Queenie feminism as political
feminism’s newest paradigm?
But what about Harvey’s oeuvre? Does she take it a step further than Peaches and
Palmer? Harvey’s representation of femininity, for starters, is quite remarkable. In
contrast to music theorist Mark Mazullo, who argues that Harvey subverts gender norms
by creating an »androgynous persona« (Mazullo 2001: 432), I would like to claim that
Harvey appears to obsessed with creating an überfeminine image instead, as can be seen
throughout her artistic career.8 Take the album cover of »Dry« (1992), for instance: we see
Harvey’s face, covered in smeared-out lipstick. That image, combined with the back-cover
photo of a red-colored lipstick, suggests that Harvey addresses questions of femininity
and beauty standards in her works.
This can be further supported by »Dress«, a song that talks about the hardships of being a
woman and having to conform to rigorous beauty norms (Harvey 1992). But Harvey does
more than just criticize these beauty ideals, as can be seen in the video clip that
accompanied »50 Ft Queenie« (Harvey 1993a): there, she makes fun of symbols of
12
femininity by wearing over-sized sunglasses, high-heeled golden shoes, and clutching onto
a gigantic golden bag – an accessory that is only fully shown on the cover of the single.
There is an immense sense of playfulness attached to Harvey’s image here, and her
onstage performances from those days reflected that too, since Harvey tended to perform
in flashy dresses and feathery boas. Harvey once commented on this issue in an interview,
saying that »these costumes aren’t sexy […]. They are ridiculous. They’re funny« (Frost
1993: 52). Harvey thus engages with these symbols of excessive femininity in an ironic
manner, and this became especially clear with the release of »To Bring You My Love«
(1995). Harvey at that time took on a vampiristic femme fatale look that bordered on pure
drag, by wearing tons of make-up, blood-red lipstick, gothic gowns and pink cat suits.
This femme fatale look clashes with Harvey’s more Victorian-looking persona during the
»White Chalk«-era, which tells us that her excessive feminine style is more than just a
gimmick: one could in fact reread Harvey’s excessive feminine imagery through an
Irigarayian perspective. Harvey, with her boas and gothic, almost clownish-looking makeup, and later with her Victorian imagery, playfully mimes several patriarchal stereotypes,
deconstructs them, and attaches a feminist message to them as well.
The latter can be seen if we take a look at the lyrics of »50 Ft Queenie« where she sings
about being »one big queen. […] Second to no one« (Harvey 1993a); a queen that rules
the world, and that dominates all the Casanovas. Harvey’s 50 Ft Queenie feminism seems
to be opening up a space for a playful articulation of an autonomous female sexuality
here, which sounds very Irigarayian. This element already suggests that Harvey’s oeuvre
moves beyond the mere playful deconstruction of stereotypes, beyond the deconstructive
mimetic phase: there is a feminist political potential to be found in her »chanter
hystérique«.
If we briefly look at Luce Irigaray’s feminine and feminist philosophy, one will probably
find it easier to understand what that feminist potential looks like exactly. Irigaray’s
philosophy goes beyond phallogocentrism by deconstructing female clichés – a
deconstruction that opens up a space for a different female Imaginary and a »parler
femme. Next to focusing on these issues, Irigaray accentuates the need for an articulation
of female subjectivity, an adequate representation of female specificity and sexuality, and a
feminist identity politics.
It is unnecessary to completely summarize Irigaray’s feminist politics here, but what is
important to know, is that there can be no female subjectivity, identity, and feminist
politics if we cannot find access to a non-phallic, female Imaginary (see e.g. Irigaray
1974/1985a: 30). Irigaray’s reconceptualized female Imaginary usually focuses on
restoring female genealogies – relationships between mothers, daughters and sisters that
have been suppressed in patriarchal culture – by articulating concrete images of the bond
between the latter (Irigaray 1977/1985b). This aspect is central to Harvey’s oeuvre as well:
13
in »To Talk To You« (Harvey 2007), for instance, Harvey talks to her late grandmother,
saying how much she misses and needs her.
But the most important facet of Irigaray’s female Imaginary is her anti-Freudian argument
that female sexuality is something that exists on its own: the problem, according to
Irigaray, is that women have always been seen and represented as mirrors, as bodies-formen. »Commodities, women, are a mirror of the value for men« (Irigaray 1977/1985b:
177), which means that the female sexual body has always been seen as commoditized by
men. Yet, women’s sexuality and her experiences of it are much more multi-faceted than
what men (like Freud and Lacan) have made of it, in Irigaray’s eyes: a woman’s sexuality
breaks out of the phallic standard; her sexuality is always »at least double«. She has »sex
organs more or less everywhere«, and » […] the geography of her pleasure is far more
diversified« than male sexuality that is usually phallic-focused (ibid.: 26). And this exactly
what Irigaray tries to show us with her feminine symbol of the two lips.
What Irigaray states here is that women are sexual creatures, too, instead of the passive,
penetrable objects of Freudian psychoanalysis: they have desires and can feel lust. It is this
idea of a self-asserting feeling of lust that is omnipresent in Harvey’s oeuvre as well. Songs
such as »I Can Hardly Wait« (Harvey 1993b) and »Catherine« (Harvey 1998) articulate
female desire in its purest and most diverse forms.
»This Is Love«, on the other hand, is a pure lust song, in which the protagonist chases her
lover round the table (Harvey 2000). And together with »Rid Of Me« (Harvey 1993a),
these songs express the voice of a woman that knows what she wants, sexually speaking; a
woman that by the way seems to be completely in control, without being objectified or
objectifying someone else.
The last song I want to focus on in this conclusion is one of Harvey’s earliest songs,
»Happy & Bleeding«, taken from »Dry«. »Happy & Bleeding» can literally be seen as the
archetype of what is meant by Irigaray’s constructive phase of mimesis, and can hence be
considered as an »écriture féminine« song pur sang.
In this song, Harvey namely explores the topic of menstruation – an aspect of the female
sexual body long regarded as taboo. Irigaray refers to menstrual blood in all her works,
too: in its patriarchal connotation, menstrual blood signifies that a girl is ready to be
exchanged and used as a commodity (see e.g. Irigaray 1977/1985b). But in Irigaray’s
female Imaginary, woman’s »red blood« (ibid.: 186) is a symbol of her sexual autonomy,
and of her relationship with her mother. And it is exactly that idea of autonomy that we
can read into Harvey’s lyrics, when she states that she’s »happy and bleeding« (Harvey
1992).
All of the previously encountered images of the (grand)mother and (grand)daughter
relationship, female sexuality, lust and desire, and the revaluation of the female body with
all of its bodily features, are part of the female Imaginary that Irigaray is trying to
(re)construct in her philosophical oeuvre. Because of the fact that these positive symbols
14
of femininity are present in PJ Harvey’s lyrics and videos, and because these symbols are
exactly the ones Irigaray uses to construct her feminine and feminist identity politics, I
would like to claim that PJ Harvey’s oeuvre indeed can be read as politically feminist. Or
rephrased in Irigarayian terms: PJ Harvey does not only speak or sing hysterically, but also
»speaks as a woman«.
This does not mean that I want to label Harvey’s 50 Ft Queenie feminism as today’s key
feminist political paradigm – I am fully conscious of the fact that the kind of feminist
model presented here merely exists out of separate acts of meaning disruption. There is
obviously still an immense gap between the critical feminist moments in Harvey’s oeuvre
and feminist activism and gender politics in real life, but by analyzing Harvey’s oeuvre
through an Irigarayian perspective, one can see how at least some of today’s popular
female artists are creating pop cultural artifacts that are tentatively challenging the deeplyrooted patriarchal stereotypes about women.
And it are these feminist artifacts that could eventually inspire other artists, musicians,
and feminist thinkers and activists, to establish a feminist politics that addresses the
specificity of female subjectivity and sexuality in a non-stereotypical manner. Harvey,
together with the other two aforementioned singing sirens, might not be the new heralds
of an all-encompassing political feminism of the 21st century, but a critical rereading of
their oeuvres, or the cultural artifacts they have produced during their careers, at least
stimulates us to continuously reflect upon how we in our postfeminist society and culture
deal with certain stereotypes about women, beauty standards and normative gender roles.
The least we can do, is let ourselves be seduced by these hysterically singing sirens, and
see where that takes us.
Endnotes
When talking about songs or music videos, I will only refer to the artist’s album that
these songs are featured on in the bibliography.
1
The concept of women’s music could be seen as problematic, because of its essentialist
connotations, but I will use it anyway to refer to specific kinds of pop cultural artifacts
created by female artists.
2
When talking about hysteria in this article, I do not only wish to refer to the Freudian
psychoanalytical construction of this phenomenon as a disease that solely affected women
(see e.g. Freud 1895/1955, 1896/1953 and 1905/1953 for Freud’s and Joseph Breuer’s
stereotypical ideas about women as passive subjects, easily falling prey to hysteria, but I
also want to focus on Luce Irigaray’s reconceptualization of hysteria as something that
potentially disrupts these traditional, psychoanalytical views on hysteria. I will come back
3
15
to Irigaray’s ideas shortly in the main text, but the idea that hysteria also has a potential
feminist undertone, or could be reconceptualized as a feminist tool of resistance against
patriarchy, has also been claimed by other feminist thinkers. See for instance Diane
Herndl, who stated that »[h]ysteria is seen as kind of a ›body language‹ meant to express a
feminist rejection of an oppressive ›cultural identity‹ […].« (Herndl 1988: 54). Or see
French philosopher Hélène Cixous’ »The Newly Born Woman« (1975/1996), co-written
with Catherine Clément, in which Cixous described the hysteric as a protofeminist,
because she refuses to conform to certain patriarchal societal norms.
The idea that hysteria should be seen as a socially constructed pathology is in fact a
Foucauldian idea as well. In »The History of Sexuality. Volume 1. An Introduction«
(1976/1990), Foucault emphasizes that particularly female bodies have been hystericized,
but he never really engages with the reasons why this process was so gendered. Elaine
Showalter, on the other hand, does touch upon the reasons why women became the
primary victims of this disease in »Hysteria, Feminism, and Gender« (Showalter 1993).
4
Phallogocentric thought – a concept that Irigaray borrowed from Jacques Derrida –
started with Plato’s metaphysics, since Plato committed the first metaphysical matricide
by ignoring the female origins of mankind, or the womb, in his epistemology.
Phallogocentrism stands for a patriarchal system of thought, based on masculine identity,
subjectivity and symmetry. It has »reduce[d] all others to the economy of the Same«, and
ignores the existence of sexual difference between male and female subjects (Irigaray,
1977/1985b: 74). By looking at how »the unconscious« works in phallogocentrism, and by
unraveling the »silences« or the muted female voices, Irigaray tries to the destabilize
phallogocentrism, in order to come to a feminine philosophy that focuses on an ethics of
sexual difference (ibid.: 75).
5
6 Irigaray
does not use the concept of »chanter hystérique«, but she sometimes refers to
singing as a prefiguration of »parler femme«, as can be seen in »Elemental Passions«
(1982/1992).
Irigaray’s influence on Judith Butler is evident throughout Butler’s »Gender Trouble«
(1990/2006): Butler there makes use of a lot of Irigarayian concepts and ideas, such as
sexual difference, mimesis, and Irigaray’s critique of phallogocentrism. But she also
criticizes Irigaray for her apparent biological essentialism (see ibid.: 41). And Butler also
does not agree with Irigaray’s feminist politics that wants to move beyond
phallogocentrism, since she considers such a politics to be naïve.
7
The same claim has more or less been made by Mélisse Lafrance in Burns/Lafrance
2002: 169-170. In this chapter, Lafrance is very critical of how Harvey deals with
femininity in her oeuvre, whereas I will try to read this imagery in a more positive manner.
8
16
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Evelien Geerts, Graduate Gender Programme, Utrecht University
19