Grrrl Power: Emilie Autumn

On Friday 29th January, I had the pleasure of seeing Ms Emilie Autumn and her wonderful Bloody Crumpets performing live in Wolverhampton. And, needless to say, it was absolutely amazing! The unique composite of circus burlesque theatricals, comic sketches and ground-shaking music is a truly awesome experience, and was totally worth waiting outside in the freezing cold for several hours for!

But Emilie is not just an amazing performer, artist and musician. She is a great role model.

For those of you that don't know, the 'story' of Emilie Autumn is based around 'The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls' - a Victorian psychiatric hospital in which the manic depressive Emilie and her crazy Crumpets reside. Although these girls are clearly completely insane (in the best possible way), it is also made clear that the institution is crazier, and crueller than any of the murderous, morally delinquent inmates. The girls are trapped by a society that is unable to countenance 'outsiders' - people who are different - so enforces their imprisonment.

But at the same time, these women are not victims. The madness that Emilie and the Crumpets suffer - The Blessed Contessa's a cannibal, Aprella likes to shoot her lovers, the Naughty Veronica is sexually revaneous and morally deliquent, and Captain Maggot is just completely delusional - are simply signs of their strength of character. These women revel in their individuality, however 'wrong' society may deem it, and rebel against the system. Although trapped inside the Asylum, they flounce all the rules and have a rave whilst doing it.

And although these characters are clearly all theatrical caricatures of insanity, there is a great message behind it. That you should be yourself and indulge yourself in your individuality no matter what - and that is true strength of character. And in a society that teaches women that to rebel you should openly drink and and reassert your (predominantly submissive) sexuality - I'm thinking of people like 'Ke$ha' and the godawful 'Tik Tok' ('Cuz it sells to be a slut...)- this is a powerful message. (For one, I am confused why people think the behaviour that Ke$ha and her contemporaries promote is rebellion when our culture actually expects and encourages it from young women).

I will leave you with one final thought. When performing the incredible 'Dead is the New Alive', Emilie asked (or rather, screamed) "Are you ready to fight like girls?!" By this, she did not mean some pathetic catfight or bitchslapping-fest: she meant proper, full-on violence. Obviously, she was not provoking a fight in the audience, but what she said had a point. Girls can be just as strong and powerful and guys if they want to - and don't let themselves be brought down by the system. 'Craziness' and individuality is to be embraced, not something to be ashamed of, and locked away. Emilie's rallying call to 'FIGHT!' is not a cry for violence, but  a plea for resistance against a society that would like us all to be kept quitely under control.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any footage from our gig, but this is from a gig earlier in 'The Key' tour - and this includes the fabulous Maggot, who was sadly missing from our show. Enjoy!

Fare Thee Well, Sarah!

Today, I read that Sarah Haskins, the wonderous writer and face of 'Target Women' is leaving Infomania.

Being one of my ultimate idols, and one of the most hilarious voices on the internet, this is some very sad news. 'Target Women' has been at the forefront of feminist comedy for some time now, with Haskins at its helm, and I can't help thinking that it won't be quite the same without her (although I am so glad that it's continuing!).

Fortunately, for Haskins-Fans, Sarah isn't disappearing from the worlds of comedy and feminism altogether! Sarah is currently working on two big comedy screenplays, 'Book Smart' and 'Lunch Lady', and has recently produced a short film, 'DILF' that should be online soon. Can't wait!

In the meantime, we'll just have to keep up with Sarah's exploits via her Twitter page...

It's War - Guerrilla Style

...war on my two greatest enemies, misogyny and apathy, that is!

This year is the 25th anniversary of the feminist group the Guerrilla Girls. Being a fan of popular culture, feminism, and general subversiveness, I can’t help but love the mask-donning Girls. So I thought I’d share the feminist love by spreading the word about these wonderful people and what they do.

The Guerrilla Girls are a group of anonymous ‘radical’ feminists who got together in New York in 1985, unhappy with the state of the art world. They wear gorilla masks in public (because they’re badass, OK?) and take the names of dead female artists as pseudonyms. Through the medium of posters, books, billboards, appearances and general jungle drag craziness, the Girls expose discrimination and corruption in the worlds of art and popular culture. Their work combines texts, facts and snappy graphics that present strong feminist viewpoints in a humorous manner, making it fun and accessible, but no less hard-hitting.

Their first work was putting up posters on the streets of New York criticizing the gender and racial imbalance of artists represented in galleries and museums. They’ve completed many such campaigns over the years, including the one above, whilst also expanding their activism to examine Hollywood and the film industry, gender stereotyping, corruption in the art word and general popular culture. One of my favourite books of theirs, Bitches, Bimbos and Ballbreakers: the Guerrilla Girls’ illustrated guide to female stereotypes, tackles the proliferation of derogatory and restrictive female stereotypes. The final paragraph of the introduction provides one of the best soundbite definitions of just one of the Guerilla Girls’ aims:

‘By empowering women to create their own stereotypes and to reject the ones our culture tries to squeeze us into, the Guerrilla Girls want to do our share toward saving the world from sexists and misogynists everywhere, and have fun along the way.’

But what I think is one of the Guerrilla Girls’ most important objectives is to rehabilitate ‘the f word’ (feminism!) so that people who support the main tenets of the cause – equal opportunity, an end to gender based discrimination, general human rights for women, etc – but are currently afraid or dismissive of the label, will accept the term, and even be proud to call the themselves feminists.

This, I feel (from much experience), is one of the main problems feminism faces today: fear of ‘the f word’ and people’s general apathy. Many times I’ve heard people say ‘I’m not a feminist, but...’ from people who support feminist principles but either don’t make the connection between their egalitarian ideas and feminism, or are just too afraid of the many ‘unattractive’ (and false) stereotypes surrounding feminists. And most of the time, these people voice concern over these issues, but fail to do anything to about them. Apathy, apathy, apathy.

So my message for today: DO something – something for what you believe in. It doesn’t have to be a big thing: maybe just spreading the word, sharing your beliefs, like I’ve done with this post. Or you could sign a petition or join a group promoting your cause (I’d recommend joining the End Sexism on Facebook group that my friend J and I set up!). Or just find out a bit more about it - read a book, browse the internet – cheesy as it sounds, education really is empowerment. You can even do something just by being yourself: by expressing your individuality and refusing to conform to stereotypes. Remember: you're not a bimbo, a bitch, or a ballbreaker unless you let yourself think you are.

So what are you waiting for? Go forth and kick some oppressive patriarchal ass!

News

So the holidays are almost over now, and it's only a few days until I have to get back on that treadmill and start the hard slog of coursework and pre-exam revision (although it feels as if I never really stopped!).
Unfortunately, that most probably means that my posts will slow over the next few weeks, although I will try and keep this as updated as possible. I've got a lot of reading to do, so hopefully some interesting musings will come out of that - along with some useful coursework info, one hopes! I have already planned some posts, but whether they'll actually ever materialise is another matter. I'm hoping the words will find me...

But now on to some good news. Remember that poem 'You're' I posted on here a couple of weeks ago? Well, I submitted it to that workshop, and it has now been featured by the hosts as one of their favourites from the workshop! (I'm angel-in-pieces, in case you didn't know). It really is a great honour for me to be selected out of over forty amazing entries (really - do check out some of the others. Elmara's 'Instructions to the First Maestro in Space' is a personal favourite), not to mention highly surprising. So I wanted to say a massive thank you for your encouragement and comments and everything.

Unfortunately for you, that probably means there will be more creative stuff to come...

Happy New Year

Just a quick post to say:

*Happy New Year, everyone!*

I hope 2010 brings much joy, love, and change for the better!


A few resolutions

• Get a better work/play balance
• Focus more on my writing, and learn to persevere with things
• Learn to relax (haha, c'est impossiblé!)
• Be happy (and that's an imperative!) - have even more lulz than in 2009!