April 2012
59 posts
I Should Stop Hate-Watching This Show.
I should stop hate-watching this show.
Why Shakira Is So Underrated
Things that have been said about Shakira:
The female Ricky Martin. -everybody, about her crossover
Laundry Service, is the ultimate in crossover nightmares. Its wan ska-pop, faux-country ballads, and generic rock barely betray a Spanish accent or any musical heritage. -David Browne, Entertainment Weekly
You are actually authentically talented. You are a songwriter above all else, rare for a woman in Latin music, or really anywhere. -Matt Cibula, Pop Matters
If there is a market for music for tapas bars with sexually frustrated customers, Shakira has it cornered. -Dave Simpson, The Guardian
Mariah Carey after a quarter-bottle of tequila and a weekend lost in the rainforest. -Mike Diver, BBC
A combination of Latin licentiousness and English self-taught via Bob Dylan lyrics and a thesaurus means you’re never quite sure the Colombian singer knows what she’s saying. -Johnny Davis, The Guardian
I won’t bother with addressing the above quotes specifically because ugh. But what I do need to address, and what I’ve already talked about to some extent this week, are the main reasons why Shakira is one of the most underrated artists of our time: the othering of Shakira, as well as how sexuality negates a woman’s credibility, and the dismissal of pop music as a legitimate art form.
All of the quotes above place Shakira outside of the mainstream because of where she is from. Even though her crossover album was released in 2001, she is still almost always referred to not as pop star Shakira, but Latin pop star Shakira. She herself has said, “I hope at some point I am just considered an artist and not an alien.” Even though she makes music influenced by styles from all over the world, even though her albums have gone platinum outside of Latin America, even though non-Spanish-speaking audiences have embraced Spanish-language songs like “La Tortura,” there is still a reluctance to include her in the mainstream. And the problem is not just with wanting to define Shakira as a Latin pop artist, but with having to separate Latin pop (and K-pop/J-pop/any pop that’s not from the U.S. or the UK) from pop. The music industry is very insular and, as Jonathan Bogart put it, xenophobic. American and British music (in English, of course) is the default, and everything else, no matter the scope, no matter the impact, is other music. But there are exciting things happening in music all over the world. I can mostly speak to what’s happening in Latin America, but there is so much going on that it’s a shame that no on is paying attention. If you like what Shakira did with disco strings on “She Wolf,” you should hear what Javiera Mena is doing. And if you like the merengue on Sale El Sol, check out Rita Indiana.
Shakira is also often dismissed because of her image and how she chooses to express her sexuality. Because of what she wears and how she dances she’s not seen as a serious artist. Unfortunately, this is the case for all women in music. There is a standard of beauty that women must meet in order to be visible, but there is also a limit to how sexy a woman can be and still be taken seriously. Nicki Minaj put it well when she said, “When you’re a girl, you have to everything. You have to be dope at what you do, but you have to be super sweet. You have to be sexy and you have to be…nice. I can’t be all those things at once.” Shakira is as close as you can get to being everything, but because people focus on her sexy dance moves (instead of the weird, jerky ones), and because her expressions of sexuality are seen as signaling that she is manipulated instead of in control, she cannot be a serious artist.
She has also receives more critical praise for her music when it’s not-so-pop. It’s on her angrier/angstier rock songs that Shakira gets points for being a “real artist.” When Fijación Oral Vol. 1 was released, it was said to win back some of the credibility she had pre-crossover. Because rock music is more credible than pop. Because pop artists aren’t real musicians. It’s this widely accepted view that prevents brilliant songs like “She Wolf” from getting the respect they deserve. It also prevents artists like Shakira (though are there really any?), who is an insanely talented songwriter, producer, dancer, and all-around performer, from getting the recognition they deserve.
Shakira week has been pretty brilliant.
Just Gonna Watch Movies All Day
Just gonna watch movies all day
Adventures of Comic Book Girl: [major tw for internalized misogyny, slut-shaming, body-shaming, ableism, rape culture and rape. basically awful things... →
adventuresofcomicbookgirl.tumblr.com
ok im really super mad about hp and i have to finish a calc bc problem set and shower and get dressed in the next 20 minutes i cant do all of those things so lemme just get this out there
- jkr is not a feminist writer
- jkr is not a feminist writer
- jkr is…
To say Dumbledore doesn’t count as queer because the books don’t outright say he’s gay and then to say he maintains textual straightness, despite the fact that he is never shown or implied to have engaged in a heterosexual romantic relationship is wrong. Do we assume that characters who have never expressed interest in any sex (because of lack of attention in the book or it just never coming up around them) are asexual? No, of course not. We assume they’re straight until told otherwise. But that isn’t the writer’s fault, that’s on the reader and on society at large for reinforcing that idea. There are problems with how Dumbledore’s queerness is introduced and how that makes his character read in retrospect, but this is a horrible point to make. Arguing that he is textually straight despite having never expressed any heterosexual desires (or sexual and/or romantic desires of any kind at all) in-text is heterosexist. That’s on you as a reader, not JKR.
Azealia Banks Collaborating With M.I.A. for 'Bad Girls' Remix
Azealia Banks will be featured on an upcoming remix for alternative hip hop artist M.I.A.’s latest single ‘Bad Girls’, confirmed by an insider from Interscope Records.
I just need a moment. *tears up*
It’s so frustrating, I keep going back to big feminist blogs cause they write about all the stuff I care about. Popular music! Games! Comics! Style! Nails! Make-up! Books! Cartoons! Sexy underwear! Pornography! Alexandra Kollontai! Nicki Minaj! Feminism! Union activism! Etc. etc. etc.
But they’re always “deconstructing” all of the above (except feminism), i.e. robbing the grave of the deadest, whitest guy ever, saying “pardon, Jacques, j’aurais juste besoin d’emprunter ça”, nabbing one of his tibias and using this to set about and pummel to shit everything that thousands of people hold dear, are invested in, and participate in, and pummel it to dust from a lofty position where they’re not invested, it’s not their shit, but they can make prescriptions regarding it, cause they can tell, at a glance, if it’s troubling, or worrying, or discombobulating, or brow-furrowing, or problematic, or raises important questions, or is angering, or anguishing, or otherwise causes them to make peeved yorkshire terrier noises.
How they can bash something to bits with a tibia while maintaining the “lambasting feminist” face I just don’t know. Must take serious training of the facial muscles. But seriously, they just take shit they’re clueless about and “protect women” from it and say “we women feel this way!”. No we don’t!
I just read this thing about K-Pop and J-Pop and it’s brandishing around the words “ganguro” and “goth lolita” and “manga” like an Evangelist brandishes the words “New Age” when faced with books by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi or Thich Nhat Hanh : cluelessly. I mean in that case I’m clueless and I’ve actually read the damn things. In fact it talks about being Japanese or Korean the way Evangelists talk about being gay. Oh, Goddess help them! They’re Japanese! Maybe if we pray hard enough they’ll be ex-Japanese. Just fuck off! Argh! Or at least find out what you’re talking about before mouthing off! You know cause people are fans of this stuff and listen to it all the time and love it and live with it. Or have a passing interest in it. Or just like it. You listened once and have an opinion, and it’s an opinion on the entire state of Japanese *and* Korean womanhood.
this whole post, god, THIS WHOLE POST. one of those “i wanted to bold something but then i realized i wanted to bold EVERYTHING” posts.
Oh lord.
I googled Huey Mack thinking it was a joke. What the whole fuck?
Every Night I Say A Prayer
Little Boots
After sitting on this all day, I’ve decided I like it.
It’s all about that piano bassline combo.
JAKE FOGELNEST: Okay, now I will say something. →
jakefogelnest.com
I have known Lesely Arfin for eleventy-billion years. There’s no one better on earth than Lesley Arfin. Lesley is my friend.
Lesley writes on the HBO show Girls so naturally, some people wrote some stuff on the Internet about her. The stuff they wrote made me pretty mad. The kind of mad that…
“Lesley Arfin is my friend, and I don’t think she’s racist or tone-deaf or try-hard or anything and a the best way for me to defend her from those charges is by linking to a post called ‘The Lynching of Lesley Arfin’ by Gavin McInnes.”
it’s not actually a grave injustice (let alone a “lynching,” christ) when a bunch of people say your friend writes like a huge asshole. maybe she just writes like a huge asshole.
“I’m delighted that person is Gavin McInnes.” Wait, you mean this Gavin McInnes? Delightful!
“I don’t think I’ve ever entered a bar without saying, ‘Hey homos’ to my friends or at the very least, ‘Oh, what are you guys doing here? I didn’t know this was a gay bar.’” —the delightful Gavin McInnes
Are Lesely Arfin and Lesley Arfin the same person? It seems to me that someone who has known someone for eleventy-billion years would probably know how to spell her name.
Because the best way to defend the incredibly stupid racial statements made in response to criticisms of her shows racial makeup by Lesley Arfin is to describe the act of criticizing her statements as “lynching” her. Said article later goes on to call this a form of racial McCarthyism and acts as if two writers have single-handedly destroyed this woman’s career. Bonus points for “jokingly” appropriating a Native American identity (which group? He doesn’t bother to distinguish!) in order to feign outrage in what I’m sure he thought was a hilarious smack down of the legitimate anger expressed by women of color over erasure.
White people, come get ya folks!
"As Determined By Science"
Is one of those phrases that can be patently false, but the average person won’t or can’t do the legwork required to look into the veracity of such statements, so they’ll simply assume that smarter folks than them have done some legitimate work and others have reviewed it’s accuracy and thus the thing in question is true/safe because something called science says so.