(no subject)

[pantryslut]

Post-Femme Con thought for the day:

"However, the success of early female punk performers' attempts to desexualize the clothes they wore in such a parodic fashion is debatable. Whereas punk women intended to present these garments in such a way as to discredit their effect as fetishistic, sexually titillating items, the overriding cultural view of women as sex objects may have worked at cross-purposes with their intent. Thus, Laing argues that "an attempt to parody 'sexiness' may simply miss its mark and be read by the omnivorous male gaze as the 'real thing'." Their attempt at resistance, when contained within the subculture's private code, could be, and was, often read by the mainstream press and by observers more in terms of its accomodation, rather than resistance, to feminine sexual stereotypes. While striving to counter stereotypes of women in rock, punk women were repeatedly described as sluts, perverts, whores, and junkies by those outside the subculture."

-- Lauraine Leblanc, Pretty in Punk

Comments

[fightingwords.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I would say a "performer" isn't quite getting at it. Though Courtney Love crossed my mind as a straight punk performer who perhaps has resisted the gaze--at least at points. (And I'm thinking less of her incidental "performances" before the press.) But of course she definitely seemed to cave at some point and begin assimilating into the celebrity world--toning down her antics and her appearance and becoming a more "respectable" woman. So perhaps she fails as well.

But yeah, I'm thinking less of those with celebrity who consciously, attempt to resist the gaze as part of their art and commerce. I'm thinking more "real-world" examples. I think the theory just doesn't reflect the reality.

[postmaudlin.livejournal.com]

yeah, but see, there's a difference i think between being uncommodifyable as an object of phallologocentric desire e.g. the gaze and just being fuck-you about it -- especially given her history as a sex worker, her finger to the camera, so to speak, doesn't change the staring at her. so courtney is still entrapped in the gaze.

and i think it's hard to pull performers out of this since any discussion of the gaze has to do with watching, and what we're watching is often a performance -- if nothing else, than of gender.

as far as the real world goes? i guess i'd say, do you mean by "the gaze" appropriable as an object of male desire? or do you mean something else?

femininity that is resistant: what about drag queens? divine?