Hoping, Failing - Response

Taking Performing Women and getting to talk with all of you about some really tough stuff week after week has been an incredible experience for me, and so before I go much further, thank you. This class and our conversations have helped me to understand so much more about myself and my place in the world than I ever could have learned from reading these texts and reviewing these materials on my own, so again, thank you.

Because of all of the above, I’ve discovered that something I’m really curious about is male heterosexuality and its treatment in discourse. Really deep down, I think that we feminists are failing ourselves and our world by pathologizing male heterosexuality without also problematizing it and designing and implementing solutions for its shortcomings, which are legion; in condemning uncritically male heterosexuality, I think we perpetuate the imagining of it as the big, bad, foundational truth of civil society that can’t change and therefore doesn’t require consideration outside of censure. I worry that this pushes the responsibility for managing male heterosexuality’s negative consequences onto those who are most impacted by them. As queer folk and heterosexual women labor their lives away figuring out how to assert their necessarily-transgressive sexualities in ways that will either mollify or spite the beast, we applaud their diligence in picking up the societal slack that the men aren’t carrying instead of strategically lighting a fire under those men’s asses.

Leah Schrager’s work is not fraught because she wants it to be sexy, but because mainstream culture already expects her to render her feminine sexiness for the benefit of heterosexual masculinity, and in making work this way, she can seem to be capitulating to her oppressors. What complicates things even further is that if she doesn’t offer her sexiness willingly, it will be wrested from her via objectification or rape, or else mainstream culture will satisfy its appetite at the expense of some other woman. This is largely the conceit of mainstream porn: to satisfy the appetite of mainstream culture, which is primarily male, primarily heterosexual, through the sexual subjection of certain women.

The problem with sexiness is not women choosing to be sexy, but male heterosexuality being constituted in such a way that demands on a hegemonic scale, on command, on pain of punishment, female sexuality; another problem with leaving male heterosexuality chastised but unanalyzed and unreformed is that doing so renders everyone else’s sexualities just as inert, since their expressions will always be held back to the extent that they’re tethered to something unchanging.

I think that if 4th-wave feminism can take up the project of reforming heterosexual maleness -- in a word, queering it by acknowledging it as multifaceted and changeable (and therefore, not any more standard/ized than any other sexuality), then acknowledging, celebrating, and teaching the several versions of it that are built on fluid, reciprocal pleasuring/servicing (sexual and otherwise) with partners, all the while keeping an awareness of (but never again an alarmism about) the historically asymmetrical power structures of heterosexual relationships -- then it can start to lift social labor and the risk for bodily harm off the backs of heterosexual women and queer folk, and free up their sexual expressions as well. In the process, we would also liberate men and boys from toxic masculinity, and in the eyes of liberal discourse, publicly absolve those who are already actively (meaningfully, unhypocritically) allied against it from complicity/self-hatred, something that I think would be appreciated.

-sali.

Hoping, Failing -Response

Nicoletta

I have mentioned Genet once before in my response, but what makes him such a profound playwright is his ability to manipulate the title one gives him. They called him a thief, he became a thief and then made them call him a Saint. Genet played with the meaning of words and societies ideals. He played with the definitions he was given. Leah Schrager does just that. Instead of going against the imagery of our time and trying to demolish pornography, she embraces it. How can it be degrading if it doesn’t make her feel any disgrace doing it? Instead she is embracing this ‘title’ of female sexuality and takes it further by trying to change the image of the way we view things.

The question we then face is: how can you escape the image one makes of you? This issue arises when we can’t disassociate the image to what we have been taught to represent. Narcissister’s bare breast project attempts to manipulate the image so that we can unlearn what we have learnt. The only reason an image of a woman walking down a street topless remains sexual is because of the fact that we are accustomed to the fact that being topless is sexual.

Technology plays a significant role in this movement since sexual images and porn are viewed online, therefore in order to change one’s perception of an image on screen the issue must be tackled on the same medium.

Theater and performance in general is a malleable platform that enable its audience to see things from several points of view, and therefore a medium like performance art remains not only as a form of expression but to allow it’s audiences to view topics and ideas from another angle. By doing so, it helps move forward one’s ability to change the way we view things.

Hoping, Failing response

I found a lot of the ideology of fourth-wave feminism reductive and frustrating. I perceive sexuality to be one dimension of a person’s identity, and the idea of dedicating an entire ‘wave’ to it - yikes. Humanity is not ready to move past the challenges of third wave feminism enough to merit this, in my opinion. 

However, I certainly think this art deserves its spot in the pantheon. Discussing one’s right to one’s own body, as in the bare breast portion of the film, merits time and effort. But I think there’s more to discuss there than simply any woman’s right to exist comfortably. What about the artists motivations as a woman of color? What about using a majority of women of a more societally accepted body type? There are privileges and lack thereof that I felt were ignored in favor of a more prototypical White Feminist approach to sexuality - only discussing womanhood in the comfortable (read: white, thin, middle-class, cis, straight, etc. etc.) range. Pussy Riot can afford to be aggressive with her body, because she is white. The territory WOC occupy is not the same. The sexuality WOC have is not the same. It seems a bit tone-deaf to power past that discrepancy.

- Alex

Hoping, Failing Response - Sofia de la Garza

I loved the Narcissiser’s bare breast project. I don’t even think it needs to be a question of ‘effective,’ because like someone already mentioned, what even defines effective? I think it’s radical and awesome for women to take up space in any which way they please, and I think it’s about time the world starts getting accustomed to it. Even if seeing a woman walking down the street topless doesn’t instantly reverse generations of conditioning for those passing by, at least the next topless woman they see will be ever so slightly less shocking, until eventually, it just is. Until that woman is simply existing in time topless, just like the fully clothed woman next to her. 

As you can probably tell from the above sentiment, I am all for overt, in-your-face performances of female sexuality/body performance, from the relatively innocuous to the borderline/actual pornographic--so long as there is complete agency involved. The contention that Leah Schrager’s work is “too inspired” by pornography inherently asserts that pornography is bad. Pornography, as it exists in the mainstream, is undoubtably made by men for men and almost no one else. Pornography is not, in my mind, sex by any real standard--it lacks almost all of the basic things most (consensual) sexual encounters usually include, first and foremost, just general genuine attraction//interest between partners?! So if pornography is not an accurate performance of real-world sex, why do we so often conflate the two? Perhaps, like a few of the artists in the F-Word kept mentioning, we still live in a puritanical society, and any opportunity to keep sex a dirty, dirty thing is capitalized on. There is an awesome episode in a docu-series on either HBO or Netflix (can’t recall it now) that follows a variety of artists and directors creating feminist, ‘female-gaze’ pornography. These directors are able to unite pornography and empowerment, giving women an actual voice in porn. The performers consider themselves feminists crafting a space for a different kind of sex to be displayed in the pornography world--sex that women might actually enjoy...My main point is, a woman should be allowed to be as provocative with her body as she pleases. Sex is sex and a woman is allowed to engage that in any way that feels comfortable for her.

The critique of feminist performance art having “already been done” is unsurprising. As one of the artists in the F-Word touched on, the idea of women using their bodies as mechanisms of performance in ways that completely reclaim antiquated notions of female sexuality must be really terrifying to society. What better way to try to eliminate it then do what society has always done to women? Belittle and dismiss it. But as long as there are people in the world protesting feminist performance art, feminist performance art will persist. 

The role of technology in this whole this is fascinating, and actually the basis of my final research paper. As I engage the topic of selfies and self-curated sexually explicit Instagram accounts in my paper, I continue to wonder if the act of these women, those in the F-Word who base their work around this topic as well as those I discuss in my paper, simply presenting themselves in whatever way they please (provocative or not) is in and of itself something radical. I’m still left wondering if crafting a space for existence is enough in terms of effective activism or if they need to be doing more. 

Hoping, Failing - Response

Willa Cuthrell-Tuttleman 

I definitely appreciate, agree with, and respect Narcissister’s bare breast project. I hesitate on its effectiveness, because while the message is meaningful and admirable and women definitely should be able to take their shirts off and bare their breasts when they please and be comfortable with it, it’s difficult to de-eroticize something that was historically sexualized. As an afterthought (maybe not quite related to the bare breast project), I ponder the display of sexuality as a reaction to something, as opposed to a display of sexuality on one’s own terms and volition, though maybe that’s idealistic when thinking about changing people’s minds on female sexuality. 

As for the Leah Schrader’s criticism, I think that pornography (at least mainstream pornography, what most people think about when they think about pornography) has been a tool for setting unrealistic and harmful expectations for women, sex, and behavior towards women in sex. That said, most of the mainstream porn industry is run by men. I agree that the idea of something being harmful or degrading towards women comes down to the question of agency. Leah Schrager’s art is her art, and thus I disagree with the criticism. I think we should separate the idea of the naked female body from porn (as we currently know it). Female nudity and sexuality should not automatically equate to porn. 

I think the reason that many people see nudity as inherently sexual is definitely a result of the fact that we live in a Puritanical society and shame over nudity and sexuality is so deeply ingrained in our attitudes towards women; ideas that we should be shameful for showing skin or for being sexual is reinforced generationally. 

Something that frustrates me about the critique on performance art because it’s been “done before” is that it perpetuates the idea that feminism is a trend or should be marketed or publicized a certain way. Feminism isn’t a fashion line or a magazine; there should be no “been there, done that” in terms of feminist EXPRESSION, at least.  

I think the reason technology has played such a huge role in 4th wave feminism is because of the safety that the internet provides. On instagram, for example, the way one presents one’s body is within their control, even if they can’t control how others perceive or receive the image. There’s a barrier of protection and an element of curating what you put out there. I also see technology as a way to artfully present sex and sexuality and beautify sexuality (not just beautify as in “make more sexy”, but de-stigmatize it). 

The Trump presidency revamped feminism in so many ways - I think in part because of women’s rights coming into question again and the idea that everything American society has currently worked for in terms of being socially liberal is under threat. 

Hoping, Failing Response

-Nick

In responding to the bare breast project of Narcissister I thought it was a powerful statement on intention as it relates to sexuality because the claim essentially is that from the subjects point of view, to present one’s self as sexualized requires the intent to present the medium of the naked body as such. I think this conception tackles through performance the misconception of sexuality that faults the female presenter of the nude body as an elicitor of negative sexual behaviors rather than considering the female body as something that is not always presented for the sexual gratification of others but also for things afforded to men’s bodies such as “comfort.” I also think on the other hand that the Leah Schrager video reminded me of a question we’ve been considering all semester about the ways in which the pleasurable self is regulated since the performances argued that the presentation and celebration of the females pleasurable self is not anti-feminist, rather the opposite is true in that the repression of female sexuality as a result of “puritanical” values oppresses women. I think what makes works like Leah Schrager’s so powerful is an embrace of the pleasurable self that denies a shameful negative portrayal of sexuality. Even the word pornography for most of the country evokes shame because what is being criticized is not the negative portrayal of female sexuality in porn through an exploitative gaze but the mere presentation of sexual activity which is deemed wrongful due to a regulation of the sexual self. I think that in continuing to strive towards a sex positive future, art like Schrager’s which presents the female subject enjoying sexual pleasure in a celebratory manor by presenting the subject in a position of power rather than vulnerability or shamefulness will contribute to a greater acceptance of the pleasurable self as valid. 

Hoping, Failing

-E

Starting with the bare breast project, I was taken with her assertion that “a woman’s body can be very sexual and very erotic in a certain setting if she chooses to present it that way.” I love this idea of being able to normalize the female body without entirely desexualizing it. It’s this idea that a woman’s body is not an object for sexual consumption but that she is an agent of her own sexuality and chooses when and when not to employ that. It also does a great job of highlighting de jure vs de facto equality, which is a major area of focus for most social movements today. While there might not be laws limiting certain behaviors, there is a general understanding and hierarchical system engrained in our subconscious that informs our behavior. This is legal, but it is considered abnormal because we have been conditioned to view it that way. 

The Go! Push Pops piece made me think about the misplaced rage common among the right in this country, the idea of “don’t disrespect the flag.” I could just imagine people up in arms about these women destroying the flag (a la reactions to Kaepernick), particularly while dressed in military garb, and then the pointed response of “you’re so upset about this piece of cloth but not the 500,000 women in the military that have been assaulted?” I agree with their point that simply shouting facts and statistics would not have been nearly as effective. On the other hand, I want to know how they would define “effective.”

Leah Schrager’s interview portion and the question of whether or not she’s “too inspired by porn” really made me question my definition of pornography. Is any sexually explicit content porn? Is porn inherently bad? Are porn and art mutually exclusive? Does the definition of porn rely on an industry? In that case, can there be such a thing as “feminist porn?” Of course this meant I had to google the actual definition for pornography, and google gave me this: printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings. This definition defines porn based on intention, however they also require that erotic stimulation and aesthetic or emotional feelings are mutually exclusive intentions. This bothers me a lot. I have friends who create what would be considered pornographic content. However, a lot of their content is just them hanging out with friends or partners while nude or in lingerie. Is that porn? This falls under the broader umbrella of artistic intent and the extent to which that is relevant when looking at a work. I think about things like Katy Perry’s “Bon Apetit” music video. It’s clearly meant to be erotic, but it’s also a piece of mainstream media. Is it porn? I could go on and on naming ambiguously pornographic things (GoT, anyone?), but my point is just that it’s an arbitrary categorization that’s meant to demonize or write off anything sexual as invalid. I’m not by any means saying all porn is art or has merit, but it is definitely a fluid category. To be completely honest, I’m not entirely sure what my point is here with all of this. I would like to discuss it further. (I’d also like to jump back to the MoSEX exhibit, which was presented by Vice, a company now dirtied with its own sexual harassment allegations. Gabbie mentioned how the male director’s choice of artists were all potentially erotic to the male gaze. Was the Female Gaze exhibit any different, thanks to Vice Media?

Technology is an extremely important variable for contemporary feminist artists (and other activist artists as well) because it removes limits regarding who sees their work. In a capitalist system that doesn’t put much financial value on this kind of work, monetary barriers to entry into the art world are becoming less of an issue. Visual artists and photographers don’t need to have the funds to rent gallery space. Filmmakers don’t need the barrier of working for theatrical releases. On top of that, issues of audience proximity are dissolving. This kind of work is no longer just for downtown New Yorkers. The woman in Iowa feeling strangled by heteronormative domesticity ALSO has the opportunity to see this work. They’re also no longer subject to the scrutiny of male curators. The Artsy article piqued my interest because it discussed how artists making similar work decades ago were overlooked and are now seen to have been “ahead of their time” when really they were just subject to scrutiny in order to be seen which can now be circumvented.

The idea that “feminist performance art” has been done is ridiculous. I’m pretty sure we’re all on the same page there, but correct me if I’m wrong. That statement implies that there is only one kind of feminism (or at least a limited number of feminist perspectives) that can be performed or presented. Different artists have different perspectives and different goals. What will she make? Probably something ONLY SHE can make and has never been seen before.

When it comes to Trump and effect on feminist art, I would say that his political career and the general rise of the right has pushed this discussion into the mainstream, but a lot of folks (women especially) are coming from a reactionary, fear-fueled place rather than allowing the artists to stand in a place of power. Instead these works are an assertion of power that has been denied. Rather than a concerted effort to move forward, it is an effort to prevent being pushed back. We are fighting against the world that we are afraid to live in instead of focusing on the world we do want to live in. While I really like Pussy Riot’s Straight Outta Vagina and acknowledge that it’s full of great imagery and messages, one cannot deny that it is angry. It is reactionary. I’m curious to know where we would be had we not had this pendulum backswing.

Hoping & Failing Response

Lili

I thought that the huffington post article really stated what I feel when I go on social media. The internet is a very complicated place and one minute I feel creative, supported and inspired, then next I feel abused, objectified and confused.

I think that through highlighting contemporary artists using new media to bring fourth wave feminism into the world of the internet Robert Adanto’s F Word in a way frees these women. The ideal that fourth wave feminist have to believe that the only truly feminist choice is a choice a woman makes freely for herself is really interesting given the discussions we have had in class the whole semester. I think that it is a proper way to address the question of what being a feminist even means.

The artists make art because of their gender and freely express themselves no matter what anyone else thinks.

The Narcissiter’s idea that the mask itself is a mirror is remarkable. I love it. Holding up a mirror to the audience— and to the world— makes a statement that performance is not about the performer at all, but about everyone. In a way, everyone performs all the time.

If 4th wave feminists aim to fight for justice for women and against sexual harassment and violence against women then I believe using technology and media is a very smart way to approach it. Media is a wide-spread outlet that has become a platform for social change.

I disagree with the common critique that one of the artists receives about moving on from performance art because it has already been done.. of course performance art has been done. I think that they way we live our lives can even be considered performance art. Each moment of the day the way we present ourselves makes a statement. Whether we want to or not, who we are and how we carry ourselves, what we say, wear… everything can be considered performative.

Sexually explicit art in a way frees the female body from the societal norms that have been placed on it.

From this curation, I have been thinking a lot about a film that I watched in another class this year. I want to bring up a piece by Naomi Uman. In an attempt to highlight the objectification of women, Naomi Uman’s Removed physically erases the female body from old 16mm porn using nail polish remover and household bleach. Uman shows spectators how film has depended so deeply on voyeuristic active and passive mechanisms. The female image and agency changes greatly by her visual body being obscured. The question arises of whether this woman gains or loses power by being bleached out. Another question is if we are not objectifying women, then where is there place?

I believe that Uman’s short, similar to the goal of 4th wave feminists, proposes that in analyzing pleasure, or beauty— that is being explicit with calling out what is wrong in the world— destroys it, or brings it to light.

Hoping and Failing Response

Gabbie

I think the selection of artists and the questions they raise make an interesting point about what kind of feminist art the director wanted to see. Though not all of it was about “pornographic” art, a majority was. And of course, as noted, the director is male. So I can’t help but wonder if he was so fascinated by these (obviously talent women who deserve a platform) artists because he has trouble conceptualizing women in positions of sexual agency and/or nakedness in a way that isn’t for sexual pleasure. A naked woman lying in lingerie in bed or a naked woman engaged in a sex act does not equate porn. Labelling art pornographic and engaging with the debate about whether or not porn is empowering can miss the point of the piece and certainly takes away some of the agency of the artist’s voice in my opinion. That said, porn isn’t always negative. If the process isn’t exploitative, if everyone is paid equally and treated respectfully, if the porn is created for both male and female pleasure....that’s a lot of ifs. I guess I’m picky about my porn...

The naked breasts piece brought my mother’s voice to mind. It was annoying, it clarified for me why pieces like that exist. 

Loved the pussy riot video, there is so much to unpack there. From the copying of traditionally masculine poses and mannerisms to the young girl accepting literal food for thought from the female priest (which to me spoke of the abuse that goes on in churches) to the bar code necklaces, to the masks, it seemed like there were messages at every turn. While it may have been created in response to Trump’s words, I would imagine it was responding to many of the horrific sexist occurrences that happened in 2016. I think Trump has shifted the conversation though. It’s easy to ignore the sexism on a day to day basis, claiming that men who engage with it are just pigs and children but not the norm. But, when a leader is elected on the premise of said sexism it becomes very real that we can’t roll our eyes and sweep it under the rug anymore. Not that I find that reasoning at all acceptable. 

There are many issues with 4th wave feminism. From the erudite language that makes it inaccessible, to the disorganization of goals, to the lack of diversity and the highly corporate representations, we haven’t made much progress. All I can say is while Trump may have reiterated to us why we need feminism, how we go about expressing that is far from where we need to be.

Hoping/Failing response

Phanesia 

Women who work with sexual imagery are often lumped together, but our aesthetics and messages can be very different.

This is something I want to emphasize, marginalized art is often lumped together rather than dissected.

“there’s this kind of trolling. It’s a way of policing bodies, and I think women owning the agency of sexuality makes people crazy. Other women too, but definitely men.”

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! Everyone gets mad when women especially queer women own their sexuality. Women do not even have agency over their own bodies, this is why whether or not this is “porny” it matters. We cannot simply reject art that attempts to reclaim what’s been stolen.

The real question is why are penises of men seen as art and not porn.

But you put a tit on a canvas and suddenly OH MY GOD THIS IS PORN?!

ALot of the women we see with agency have desirable bodies, I think is also a question that we are missing here. Why is it that white skinny women get to lead the art/porn realm.

I think the bare breast challenge is wonderful, I felt so uncomfortable watching it. Why? We know why. Why does my mom almost have a panic attack when I walk around the house in my underwear, and make me feel like my body is sexual. We know why. We really need to unpack that.

If we are going to combat porn we have to dissect it, so ofcorse art is going to have to do with porn.

Do you think that the reason that so many people see female nudity as inherently sexual a result of a porn-obsessed, but still sex-repressed culture? YES. But if we’re going to be honest where has there been a society that hasn’t repressed female sexuality. That’s the bigger issue at hand.

 In The F-Word, one of the artists brings up a common critique that they receive, telling them to move on from performance art, since it has already been done. What is your opinion on this?

STOP TELLING WOMEN TO STOP CREATING ART. IF THE MESSAGE NEEDS TO BE REPEATED REPEAT IT! WE HAVE A MILLION DUMB LOVE SHOWS, NO ONE EVER SAYS TO STOP.

How has creating sexually explicit art changed for women artists since then?

I think that the allowance of queer women has slightly gotten better but we need more queer/trans and black voices.

How/why does technology play such a big role in this movement?

Because it is the future of how girls will see themselves. Similar to media in general, the future of media is technological.

Donald Trump has been a wakeup call for a lot of non queer non colored women. SO I guess that’s kind of good because he reminds us that this isn’t over and that corporate feminism AIN’T SHIT because we need to focus on race/gender/sexuality and all that holds us back. But his attacks on women we don’t talk about, his existence emphasizing the amount of hate people have is very scary for our existence. Petrifying actually.

As is this is my last post I wanna say something right quick.

The F Word was directed by a man. We really see that men from Barnard to this guy are used as vehicles for women. That needs to change.

Not much has truly changed and that is scary but as artists I think we can change that.

Thank you guys for being so awesome! I loved this class :)

Asian/American Response - Sofia de la Garza

Uyehara’s performance was, for me, successfully rejectionist. I have always believed that the outrageous often masks or distracts from true activist intent, but in this case, I think that the extremity of her performance aided its success. By embodying these extremes, Uyehara eliminated them from the repertoire of caricatures White America could ascribe her: she reanimated them and in doing so, made them seem unrealistic and absurd. This part of her performance was effective, but this alone did not feel like enough. So we now know everything an Asian American, or at least this Asian American isn’t—what about what she is? I wonder if the rejection of these Asian stereotypes is an attempt to distance her identity from her ethnicity—in other words, is she trying to say that Uyehara is Uyehara and that’s independent of her race—or a declaration that identity is complex and since none of these stereotypes allow for nuance, they should no longer be entertained? Cindy Shaw’s painting did a bit more of this for me, although more subtly, making it not more effective, but more complete.

The concept of the model minority myth factor is fascinating to me. Although I have always considered Asian Americans as a vulnerable population in this country—vulnerable in terms of its history of oppression—knowing that Asian Americans have had relative success in relation to other oppressed groups has complicated this idea for me. The Atlantic article helped me settle my inner confusion about this very topic, explaining that “this dynamic can leave Asian Americans without the collective memory or tools to challenge racial discrimination when it occurs”. This idea of the lack of a “collective memory” from which to call upon when discrimination occurs is the most potent argument I have heard to dispel this myth thus far. To this point, no, I don’t believe this idea should be considered a privilege, at least not in the way we normally conceptualize the term. While Asian American’s may be advantaged, at least in our mainstream understanding of them, they are still a marginalized group, vulnerable to discrimination and bias. 

The Avril Lavigne video was shocking and offensive. The fact that the video went through so many different people, people who must have okay’d it, is outrageous to me. Lavigne did a strange thing in her video, she managed to combine two competing asian stereotypes--Asians as robotic entities, and Asians as infantile/submissive. It’s frankly ridiculous that things like this are still allowed to be publicized, and even more ridiculous that NOT ONE PERSON behind it thought, hm...maybe not. 

Hoping, Failing Curation

This week’s required viewing was The F Word by Robert Adanto. I unfortunately have been unable to find the entire documentary online, but have found multiple clips of the videos and articles that give a good sense of what the film is about:

The F Word Official Trailer: https://vimeo.com/133657286

Excerpts from the film:

Narcissister - https://vimeo.com/161305207

Go!PushPops - https://vimeo.com/161304166

Leah Schrager - https://vimeo.com/146774633

The F Word Official Website: http://www.thef-wordflick.com

Article by the Huffington Post which provides information about the artists featured in the film: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fourth-wave-feminist-artists_us_566a1b8ee4b009377b24860a

 What do you think about Narcissister’s bare breast project? Do you think this sort of display is effective?

How about how Leah Schrager’s critics say that her work is “too inspired” by pornography? 

Do you think that the reason that so many people see female nudity as inherently sexual a result of a porn-obsessed, but still sex-repressed culture?

 4th wave feminists, like the ones featured in The F Word, focus on fighting for justice for women and against sexual harassment and violence against women. The movement, which is defined by the use of technology, aims to take back female sexuality and the female body.

While the current focuses and goals of 4th wave feminism have become more mainstream, the problems it is addressing and critiquing are not that new.

 Here is an article about the women who produced sexually explicit art in the 90’s with the same goal of combatting these issues: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-the-pioneering-women-who-championed-sexually-explicit-art

In The F-Word, one of the artists brings up a common critique that they receive, telling them to move on from performance art, since it has already been done. What is your opinion on this?

How has creating sexually explicit art changed for women artists since then?

How/why does technology play such a big role in this movement?

 Throughout this past year, there has been an eruption in the feminist movement, much as a result of the Trump presidency. Many artists have created pieces as a way to protest Donald Trump and everything he stands for.

 Here is a music video that Pussy Riot released as a riposte to Trump (article about the music video included too):  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/25/pussy-riot-donald-trump-straight-outta-vagina?CMP=share_btn_fb

 Here’s an article about how feminist artists are staging their own protest through their art: http://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/art-books-music/a20453/female-artists-natasha-wright-uprise-masculin-feminin/

 Why do you think Trump’s political campaign and presidency has caused such a response?

How do you think the Trump presidency has affected the women’s movement and feminist art? Has it affected the movement in a positive or negative way?

- Nicole

Asian/American - Response

It’s interesting to me that so much of the discourse about being Asian-American still has to focus on issues of reductive stereotyping, namely because discourse about being black in America seems to have gotten more complicated than that, though the issue is still relevant. I can’t find the exact quote, but somewhere early on in Kandice Chuh’s Imaginary Borders, she says that there is a long tradition of activism with respect to the rights of black Americans for which there hasn’t existed a parallel for Asian-Americans until relatively recently. I think this is the reason why the Asian-American movement still has to contend so breathlessly with poor or nonexistent representation and various kinds of essentalizing stereotypes, things that pro-black activists have been developing countermeasures for since the early nineteenth century. The performances of Canwen Xu and Denise Uyehara both seem to bear that out in their content, but also in their form; these are obviously two very smart, very talented women who, even in very liberal circles like (pseudo-)academia and the theater, still have to contend at a very basic level that they exist in complex ways that are distinct from one another and totally different from the various stereotypes that are propagated about them in popular culture. 

This is the same context that informs Celine Shimizu’s project in The Hypersexuality of Asian/American Women. Her call for the reclamation of the hyper-sexualized Asian woman is at once a legitimization of the experiences of Asian-American sex workers/other folks on the sexual and economic margins, a subversion of the trope itself, and a contestation of the model minority myth, which sterilizes/renders vanilla the range of acceptable Asian-American sexualities and personalities. It was also interesting to think about representation with respect to Avril Lavigne’s “Hello Kitty.” Somewhat similar to how Shimizu makes a case for the perverse, I wanted to unpack my initial reading of the video as problematic and bad. 

As Lavigne said in her tweets/Facebook post, the video was shot in Japan, with a Japanese director and Japanese choreographers, on her Japanese label, for her sizable population of Japanese fans. I did a little research to try and corroborate that last point: according to Business Insider, Lavigne’s self-titled album (released in 2013, featuring “Hello Kitty”) peaked at #2 on the Billboard charts in Japan and reached #1 in Taiwan and China. Furthermore, reports from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (via the Recording Industry Association of Japan--here’s the translated/collated/wiki-fied version, sources at the bottom) indicate that Japan has been the world’s second (and sometimes first) largest music market since at least 2004 (earliest available record), which means that Avril Lavigne has probably had fans in Japan since the first half of the second Bush administration (“Sk8r Boi” was released in 2002). So it actually isn’t any surprise at all that she ended up making this weird-bad dubstep remix of a poorly written English language J-pop song, and it isn’t a surprise that the music video she made for it rehearses many of the same tropes that show up in that genre. 

For comparison, here’s a recent showing from what Wikipedia tells me is one of the most popular J-pop groups on the planet, Momoiro Clover Z. Again, there are lots of pastel colors and cursory/superficial representations of Japanese culture, all of them within the aesthetic range of “Hello Kitty”--though the performances and production value are way, way better (bonus points for the rapping black guy). This is all to say that the J-pop genre literally exists to essentialize, objectify, and commodify Japanese culture. 

But to its credit, J-pop made by Japanese people is effectively Japanese people objectifying themselves willfully. Insofar as the performers are consenting parties, they are making their own choice to reduce and commodify their own racialized and gendered bodies.* And the objectification is very clearly meant for other Japanese people, which is to say that there is little to no risk of misrepresenting the culture, since the culture presumably knows what it’s own truth is and could effectively call bullshit if it saw that something about its representation was off. 

What makes the “Hello Kitty” video dangerous is that Avril Lavigne is a white Canadian, not Japanese. As a result, we, viewing it from an American context, can be forgiven for assuming that (1) she made it for us, (2) she made it without the consent of “the Japanese” (whoever they can be said to be, since there are Japanese people in the video, but presumably not the ones who are empowered to decide what is and is not an appropriate representation of Japanese-ness to an American audience), and that (3) she did so in order to make herself look cool and trendy and marketable to us, her audience in North America. So the “Hello Kitty” video appears to us as appropriation, and a rehearsal of reductive stereotypes about Asian-ness/Asian-American-ness in front of an audience that still, impossibly, doesn’t know how to make sense of Asian-American bodies beyond these stereotypes. And it does this all in the interest of capital, which makes it even worse. 

You could argue that because it’s a J-pop-style song and a J-pop-style music video, and because she has a significant fanbase in Japan, we Americans should recognize that Avril Lavigne did not intend the video solely or even mostly for North American consumption. You could also argue that because the whole creative team and label were Japanese, she didn’t take Japanese culture without asking the proper authorities. You could conclude (and I would hesitantly agree) that the “Hello Kitty” music video isn’t open appropriation, but a consequence of an evermore global music industry--albeit a really shitty showing of what that industry is capable of, even when it comes to making extremely vapid music (for comparison, I present exhibit B, the best-selling idol group in Japan, AKB48). You could even go as far as to say that, if anything, it was Avril Lavigne’s whiteness that her team were trying to commodify, packaging her and selling her to the Japanese public as the infantile, exotic Occidental, fumbling her way through the language and locales with childlike cuteness. But in the end, intent doesn’t excuse consequence. Avril Lavigne and her team should have recognized that because she’s white and Canadian, her primary place of relevance was (is? do people still listen to Avril Lavigne?) North America. Had they done this, they may have realized that their music video would also have a life as a piece of North American popular culture, and would therefore contribute to the North American popular mis-imagining of Asian-Americans.

Does this mean that people who produce popular culture for America at one time shouldn’t produce for another culture at another time if it means that the product might impact negatively the situation at home? Doesn’t that severely curtail the ability for popular cultures to interact across borders, eliminating or at least limiting the ways in which American artists can engage with the cultures of nations that have representative populations in the US? Well, maybe. I don’t know. It could be a really good thing to develop a global popular culture market that’s systemically adverse to exoticism, even/especially the kind that objectifies white people. Not least because it might prevent us from having to witness more of these atrocities.

-sali.

*This becomes a really fraught statement when you consider the fact that J-pop idol culture seems predicated on adult male sexualization of teenage girls (here’s a documentary for you if you want to learn more). I don’t feel confident in my ability to critique the statement further because I don’t belong to contemporary Japanese culture, nor have I engaged meaningfully in its study. But incapability or no, I felt that it would be irresponsible to not include this caveat.

Asian American response - alex

Uyehara tackled multiple facets of the Asian experience, most notably the young Asian girl that is fetishized, the Asian d*ke, and the heterosexual Asian man. I found it interesting that she spoke around those experiences by performing situations that encompass them, rather than talking directly to what they are.

Frankly, I found most of these videos hard to watch. I find getting to the core of the violent part of the Asian experience very painful. I’ve been trying to listen to the recording of Miss Saigon for months now, and the boiling down of experience into something so beautiful and yet so horribly wrong hurts me to listen to.

The Avril Lavigne video was exceptionally frustrating for me, in its done-deaf abuse and lack of genuine human expression of any kind. On top of her theft of Asian culture, her work has absolutely no soul in it. It truly is trying on a culture (or frankly many cultures) as a costume, and is so clearly easy to discard the moment the shoot is over. I think back to Mitski’s video for Your Best American Girl. In the final shot, Mitski walks off the set, acknowledging the performative aspects of the video, and also the themes within it that are not performative and that therefore she cannot escape – her own self, that she walks off as being.

The ability to escape is what, to me, defines privilege. Let me explain. In my junior year, my (male) English teacher had our class have a fun discussion of Feminism. That really was it. Just Feminism. We (the vocal, Feminist-branded female students) became the defenders, the saleswomen, the mothers and nurtures of the movement of Feminism, and had to justify it very necessity for existence. The entire discussion was so frustrating for me, as I attempted to talk myself into a meritorious existence in my identity, because I knew the moment we exited that class that the boys I was fighting with would be able to shed our conversation like a coat and discard of it. I would leave that class and walk down the hall hoping none of the taller boys would look down my shirt. They had the choice to leave the conversation behind. I never did.

So back to Avril Lavigne. She has the choice to walk away from the culture she has stolen. She cherry-picked some words and pleasantries and left all the ugly stuff, the payment, forgotten (the slurs, the violence, the pigeonholes). And she can choose never to think about that, to never even know what violence she has done and what violence she doesn’t even know she has done. And she never will, no matter if she chooses to enlighten herself.

Asian American Response

Nicole

I found Denise Uyehara’s performance to be very effective. She was able to communicate common Asian American stereotypes in a different way than they’re usually approached and talked about. Because of this, her performance became very relatable and powerful. We see Uyehara take on many different ‘identities,’ or Asian American stereotypes throughout the performance, through which she exaggerates the stereotypes they’re portraying. By doing so, she makes the stereotypes very clear, and in some cases laughable. The invisible Asian identities are the identities behind the stereotypes – the identities that are masked my stereotypes, regardless of whether the stereotypes true of false.

The Asian model minority myth honestly didn’t really factor into my understanding about the oppression faced by Asian Americans until I watched the Ted Talk and read the Atlantic article. I found the Ted Talk to be very powerful and eye-opening, especially the way in which Xu reintroduced her true self at the end. I don’t think that the model minority myth should be considered a privilege, because even though the model minority myth comes with some “positive” assumptions or stereotypes, it very much carries a lot of weight and pressure for those who face it daily, especially since a lot of the reasoning behind the model minority is false.

I did not enjoy the music video Hello Kitty by Avril Lavigne. There was a clear fetishization happening and stereotypes that were very clearly being pushed. I just don’t think this music video makes any sense or is appropriate tbh.

On another note, I found the painting by Cindy Shih to be very intriguing. I found that it speaks a lot of truth in the Asian American experience. To me, the painting conveys a women forced to (or attempting to?) blend in with the while people around her. I find the hands particularly intriguing and complex, in addition to the red streaks that come from the flower in her fair which very much resemble blood.  

Asian/ American Response

What I think Uyehera’s Performance did a great job of was presenting the body of the Asian performer as depicted by white culture. The performances were dictated by stereotypes and probably took inspiration from white directed depictions of Asian characters and possibly performances by white actors in yellowface. I think in a very satirical way, the exaggeration of these sterotypes when presented by the subject of the sterotype itself, creates a compelling crtique against the way in which Asian characters are represented in the arts and also in the minds of the public. Asian actors are some of the least represented minority groups in American film and stage, and even today performances often engage with negative sterotypes of Asian people as sexualized and infantilized alluded to in the start of the performance with the Hello Kitty doll, or by representing the Asian male as weak, passive, and less attractive than other males. While I think it is one thing to uncover an issue, as this performance did I think it is another goal entirely to subvert the sterotypes that lead to typifying asian peoples into certain expectations. I think a good example of this subversion is in the show Crazy Ex Girlfriend, although I have not kept up with it, the character who is presented as the sexually desirable romantic love interest is played by an asian male without cultural fetishization. He’s considered attractive by several in the show simply because they are attracted to him, and I think continuing to create those subversive performance choices will help to break down negative sterotypes. 

Asian/American -Response

Nicoletta

In the article titled, The Professional Burdens of Being a ‘Model Minority’, it states that “Research suggests that whites see Asian American men as being unfit for management, because they are stereotyped as passive and weak.” Stereotype: an oversimplified idea or image of a person or thing. We are in a constant battle with our identities trying to blend in and yet remain individual. Our hunger to group, order and arrange the world causes this stereotyping. In Canwen Xu’s TED talk she clearly conveys this struggle, “conform to the stereotype that was expected of me, or conform to the whiteness that surrounded me.” Cindy Shih, appears to be making a similar comment in her artwork; we see what looks like a traditional mask that is slightly too small for the face it must cover. Too small for the role that she needs to take on as an Asian American woman. Trying to put on and perform an identity that doesn’t fit. Ultimately what we see in, “Hello Sex Kitty: Mad Asian Bitch on Wheels by Denise Uyehara” is how her body and image is igniting a stereotype separate to her mind, thoughts and beliefs. How one must conform to ‘Performing Asian’ due to one’s external image.  We constantly ask the question how can one switch off and distance themselves –but how can we if our bodies’ exterior is what’s keeping us involuntarily from doing so?

Hello Kitty music video by Avril Lavigne, emphasizes Denise Uyehara’s comment on Asian fetisization. Whilst Alexa Camp of Slant Magazine called the video: "truly eyebrow-raising, taking cultural mis-appropriation to cringe-inducing levels."  Avril Lavigne defends herself by saying that: "I love Japanese culture and I spend half of my time in Japan. I flew to Tokyo to shoot this video...specifically for my Japanese fans, WITH my Japanese label, Japanese choreographers AND a Japanese director IN Japan." Ultimately what is happening here is an American re-enforcing the stereotype that we expect of an Asian American to conform to. It doesn’t matter what her somewhat pure intentions were, if the image of the final product says something else then it must be reformed. We are undeniably influenced by our past, if this content is played out then this is what determines the expectations in the western world as its norm. As a result finding ourselves stuck in a loop to, “conform to the stereotype that was expected of me, or conform to the whiteness that surrounded me.”