I wasn’t intending on writing something that so smoothly followed on from the last article, it just happened like that (honest!). I’ve been going through (another) Bikini Kill phase at the moment, and so I thought I’d write about one of their songs. ‘Alien She’ is one of the first songs I ever heard by the band, and has remained one of my favourites.
For those of you that don’t know, Bikini Kill is a band strongly associated with the Riot Grrrl movement – a 90s feminist punk subculture often attributed with inspiring the third wave feminist movement. They believed in girl power (not the corporate-created Spice Girls type!), female independence and an end to sexist discrimination, particularly within the punk subculture. Despite fracas between those within the movement and others outside – particularly the media who repeatedly misrepresented the movement and the views of those in it – Bikini Kill believed in the ‘every grrrl a riot grrrl’ credo.
However, many within the movement disagreed with this view (some viewed bimbos and lame girlfriends as ‘so fuckin’ indoctrinated into male culture + ideology’ – quote from ‘Riot Grrrl’ London zine) and there was often conflicting evidence, so it is a view Bikini Kill began to question. These ‘bimbos’ were seen as slaves to fashion and a male-dominated corporate society, aspiring to become the image of ‘the perfect female’ that the media projected to the western world – pretty, slim fashion clones, reliant on male protection and affection. This image of superficial perfection trapped girls in a weak, subordinate stereotype: an empty image. As discussed in the last article, this poisoned girls both individually (destroying them physically and wreaking them emotionally) and towards each other, creating jealousy and destroying the girl unity that the riot grrrl movement aimed for. Thus Bikini Kill wanted to challenge this girl-stereotype, and did so through the song ‘Alien She’.
The link between ‘her’ (the image of ‘the perfect female’) and ‘I’ (the persona of the song) is clearly set out right from the start with the phrase ‘she is me, I am her’, which is repeated to echo the theme of duality. This creates the idea of unity of girl-kind before the idea of conflict is introduced, which then remains the prevailing image. ‘She’ is described as a ‘Siamese twin connected at the cunt’ – i.e. they are inextricably linked by their gender (symbolised clearly by their joint possession of female genitalia). Their bond is then shown to be as close as their internal organs – ‘heart-brain-heart-brain-heart-brain-lung-gut’. The quick flow of words makes it seem as if they merge into one another, as does the use of repetition.
So, after the strength of their bond has been so clearly emphasised, right down to a sub-dermal level, it comes as a shock when, in the next line, the narrator (or whatever you call them in a song) announces ‘I want to kill her’. Why would someone want to kill someone they feel is them - unless of course, they were suicidal, but then why would they be worried ‘it might kill me’?
This juxtaposition is continued in the next section when the three chanted ‘insults’ (‘“Feminist”, “dyke”, “whore”’) are followed by the phrase ‘I’m so pretty’, sang in mocking tones. The two contrasting ideas that these two sections evoke (the concept of ‘prettiness’ relates closely to ideas of innocence, superficiality and cuteness – not things considered synonymous to the selection of ‘insults’) are, indeed, ‘alien’ to one another.
‘She’ and ‘me’ are further separated in the following sections, where a conflict of interests is revealed: ‘she wants me to go to the mall’ and ‘put the pretty, the pretty, pretty, pretty red lipstick on’. These are what many would consider typical ‘girl’ activities – things teenage girls would enjoy doing. The lyric shows how ‘she’ – the media image of the perfect female – encourages girls to do these things, and to enjoy them.
However, the narrator realises that something more sinister is going on. The repetition of the word ‘pretty’ plays on the idea of restriction to a monosyllabic stereotype, girls being confined to the superficial state of ‘pretty’ rather than becoming their own individuals. The repeated phrase ‘she wants me to be like her’ again reinforces the theme of duality, and shows how this media image is bent on transforming girls into this ‘pretty pretty’ stereotype – clones of one another, all decked out in the same fashions, with the same hair and make up which the consumerist society targets them with.
The narrator wants to kill this stereotype, and escape to be her own person – but she is torn, afraid that in doing so she might kill herself. The ‘perfect female’ image has grown so close to the hearts of many girls, whether they like it or not, that it is something they can’t dismiss. Many girls choose to follow such ‘feminine’ pastimes as shopping and putting on makeup, and those who act or dress in ways opposing to the stereotype do so actively knowing they are, declaring themselves ‘tom boys’ or ‘not girly’. This stereotypical image of the empty ‘pretty pretty’ girl is the personification of ‘girly’, and is thus inescapable to many girls. Even if it is an image that you feel is ‘alien’ to yourself, it is still a part of you, as shown in the lyric ‘who was me, and who is she?’, where the narrator becomes confused over the identity of both herself and this stereotype – they are so contrasting, but so merged.
The final phrase, ‘I guess I’ll never know’, is an admission to the fact that the line between the female self and the image of femininity will remain indistinguishable. Social doctrines of what a girl should like and how she should act, however narrow and restrictive and unjust they may be, have been hammered into the western culture, and are not easily dismissed. Even riot grrrls and feminists accept that they are not immune to ‘feminine-desires’ to look pretty, wear lipstick, go shopping – whatever – and this does not make them any less of a feminist. And, in truth, there is nothing wrong with doing or enjoying any of these things – only the concepts of female subordination and reduction to a stereotype that are behind their creation. Throughout the riot grrrl movement, there is a desire to break the mould, be individual, be who they want to be beyond the label of ‘girl’ (hence the corruption of the word ‘girl’ in the form ‘grrrl’). But there is also a hidden fear that Bikini Kill voice in this song: what if in breaking the mould, they destroy themselves - what gives them their individual identity as women? Because Bikini Kill wanted to be considered as ‘females’ (as opposed to simply humans in an asexual light), with their individual traits and sexuality, etc; just on equal terms to men. It is hard to find a way to achieve this equality without destroying the one of the main symbols of a patriarchal society – the image of the ‘perfect’ subordinate female – which at the same time seems to uphold girl unity, and a sense of girl power (the Spice Girls type!). ‘Alien She’ presents society with a complex question that remains unanswered: ‘I guess we’ll never know’...
