The Anthems of Rape Culture
Dec. 20th, 2015 04:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sasha_featherTrigger warning: rape, rape culture, sexism, racism
In “80 Books No Woman Should Read,” [http://lithub.com/80-books-no-woman-should-read/] Rebecca Solnit says, “I just think some books are instructions on why women are dirt or hardly exist at all except as accessories or are inherently evil and empty. Or they’re instructions in the version of masculinity that means being unkind and unaware, that set of values that expands out into violence at home, in war, and by economic means.”
Those who listen to popular music at all, know this is true of music also. In her sensitive essay, “Hear him Whip the Women,” [http://curamag.com/issues/2015/12/4/hear-him-whip-the-women], Stacy Parker Le Melle ponders the Rolling Stones’ song “Brown Sugar”:
“Brown Sugar” is one of the few rock odes we have to black women’s sex appeal, and the only anthem we have that celebrates, if for a verse, the total legal control that slave owners had over enslaved women, allowing white men the freest rein to fuck, adore, coerce, deplete, and destroy, without little, or any, judicial consequence.
And this song is played thoughtlessly, and sung along to by millions, on the radio.
Le Melle says, “Maybe a song is like a bog. For years you’ll walk buy it, notice nothing peculiar. Then it offers up a whole body when you least expect.”
These bogs are all around us. There are the obvious, stinking mires, like Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines”, which inspired this photo essay, where the author paired lyrics alongside real words from rapists. [http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/12/30/from-the-mouths-of-rapists-the-lyrics-of-robin-thickes-blurred-lines/]. And then there’s another Stones “classic”: “Under My Thumb”. While researching this essay I tried and failed to listen to a song called “He hit me, and it felt like a kiss,” and a song by the Beatles which seems to be about the man’s perspective in the same relationship, “Run for your life.” I do not recommend these songs for any person.
Lately I comfort myself with this line from a Hozier song:
Never feel too good in crowds,
With folks around, when they're playing
The anthems of rape culture loud,
Crude and proud creatures baying
I hear creepy instances of “little girl” and “girl” which reek of statutory rape, or pedophilia, or sometimes simply condescension. I realize people used to talk this way, calling women girls--many still do, but then there’s this “classic” from Springsteen:
“Hey, little girl, is your daddy home?
Did he go and leave you all alone?
I got a bad desire
Oh-oh-oh, I'm on fire.”
Those are just lyrics, maybe you are saying to yourself. They are art, they are about emotion. But lyrics stick in your head, they earworm you. You find yourself at the grocery store singing them quietly to yourself. You hear a word and are reminded instantly of a full chorus. They stick worse than burrs, especially if you hate the song.
Moving beyond the lyrics are the people who create the music that is constantly available at our fingertips, in our cars, in our phones, on our Spotify playlists. And some of those people were and are real life child predators.
Jimmy Page of Led Zepplin kidnapped, raped, and imprisoned a 14 year old girl. [http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/led-zeppelin-there-was-a-whole-lotta-love-on-tour-763446.html]
R. Kelly is a known serial rapist of young girls. [http://www.vulture.com/2013/12/r-kelly-has-allegedly-raped-dozens-of-girls.html]
R. Kelly produced Aaliyah’s song “Age Ain’t Nothin’ But a Number.” She was 14 at the time.
As a queer woman I already feel that a lot of music is not aimed at me: a lot of it is about heterosexuality, and a certain kind of “in love” that I have seldom, if ever, felt. I can love music anyway, I can love music even when it doesn’t love me. But I can’t love music that thinks women and girls are trash.
It is hard to be a person who loves the world and grieves for it. Music makes living easier, but popular music is so corrupt.
Kesha is embroiled in a lawsuit trying to get away from her producer Dr. Luke, who raped and abused her. [https://bitchmedia.org/article/why-no-one-talking-about-keshas-rape-case]
Jackie Fox of the band the Runaways, while a teenager, was raped by her manager, Kim Fowley. [http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/the-lost-girls/]
Cee Lo Green, who also sings in the duo Gnarls Barkley, pleaded “no contest” in a drug trial and claimed “It isn’t rape if the victim is unconscious”. [http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/sep/02/cee-lo-green-it-isnt-if-the-victim-is-unconscious]
It goes on and on. The creatures are baying.
In “80 Books No Woman Should Read,” [http://lithub.com/80-books-no-woman-should-read/] Rebecca Solnit says, “I just think some books are instructions on why women are dirt or hardly exist at all except as accessories or are inherently evil and empty. Or they’re instructions in the version of masculinity that means being unkind and unaware, that set of values that expands out into violence at home, in war, and by economic means.”
Those who listen to popular music at all, know this is true of music also. In her sensitive essay, “Hear him Whip the Women,” [http://curamag.com/issues/2015/12/4/hear-him-whip-the-women], Stacy Parker Le Melle ponders the Rolling Stones’ song “Brown Sugar”:
“Brown Sugar” is one of the few rock odes we have to black women’s sex appeal, and the only anthem we have that celebrates, if for a verse, the total legal control that slave owners had over enslaved women, allowing white men the freest rein to fuck, adore, coerce, deplete, and destroy, without little, or any, judicial consequence.
And this song is played thoughtlessly, and sung along to by millions, on the radio.
Le Melle says, “Maybe a song is like a bog. For years you’ll walk buy it, notice nothing peculiar. Then it offers up a whole body when you least expect.”
These bogs are all around us. There are the obvious, stinking mires, like Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines”, which inspired this photo essay, where the author paired lyrics alongside real words from rapists. [http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/12/30/from-the-mouths-of-rapists-the-lyrics-of-robin-thickes-blurred-lines/]. And then there’s another Stones “classic”: “Under My Thumb”. While researching this essay I tried and failed to listen to a song called “He hit me, and it felt like a kiss,” and a song by the Beatles which seems to be about the man’s perspective in the same relationship, “Run for your life.” I do not recommend these songs for any person.
Lately I comfort myself with this line from a Hozier song:
Never feel too good in crowds,
With folks around, when they're playing
The anthems of rape culture loud,
Crude and proud creatures baying
I hear creepy instances of “little girl” and “girl” which reek of statutory rape, or pedophilia, or sometimes simply condescension. I realize people used to talk this way, calling women girls--many still do, but then there’s this “classic” from Springsteen:
“Hey, little girl, is your daddy home?
Did he go and leave you all alone?
I got a bad desire
Oh-oh-oh, I'm on fire.”
Those are just lyrics, maybe you are saying to yourself. They are art, they are about emotion. But lyrics stick in your head, they earworm you. You find yourself at the grocery store singing them quietly to yourself. You hear a word and are reminded instantly of a full chorus. They stick worse than burrs, especially if you hate the song.
Moving beyond the lyrics are the people who create the music that is constantly available at our fingertips, in our cars, in our phones, on our Spotify playlists. And some of those people were and are real life child predators.
Jimmy Page of Led Zepplin kidnapped, raped, and imprisoned a 14 year old girl. [http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/led-zeppelin-there-was-a-whole-lotta-love-on-tour-763446.html]
R. Kelly is a known serial rapist of young girls. [http://www.vulture.com/2013/12/r-kelly-has-allegedly-raped-dozens-of-girls.html]
R. Kelly produced Aaliyah’s song “Age Ain’t Nothin’ But a Number.” She was 14 at the time.
As a queer woman I already feel that a lot of music is not aimed at me: a lot of it is about heterosexuality, and a certain kind of “in love” that I have seldom, if ever, felt. I can love music anyway, I can love music even when it doesn’t love me. But I can’t love music that thinks women and girls are trash.
It is hard to be a person who loves the world and grieves for it. Music makes living easier, but popular music is so corrupt.
Kesha is embroiled in a lawsuit trying to get away from her producer Dr. Luke, who raped and abused her. [https://bitchmedia.org/article/why-no-one-talking-about-keshas-rape-case]
Jackie Fox of the band the Runaways, while a teenager, was raped by her manager, Kim Fowley. [http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/the-lost-girls/]
Cee Lo Green, who also sings in the duo Gnarls Barkley, pleaded “no contest” in a drug trial and claimed “It isn’t rape if the victim is unconscious”. [http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/sep/02/cee-lo-green-it-isnt-if-the-victim-is-unconscious]
It goes on and on. The creatures are baying.
no subject
Date: 2015-12-21 03:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-12-22 01:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-12-21 10:51 pm (UTC)As for "Brown Sugar," I have nothing useful to say ...
no subject
Date: 2015-12-22 01:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-12-26 03:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-01 06:29 pm (UTC)