Gruen Transfer II

Last night Wil Anderson told us that the point of the program The Gruen Transfer is to provide a scalpel to the advertising industry to discover what is underneath. Apparently it is through his comic genuis that we will be given some cutting-edge social commentary. To me, the half-hour feels more like a free consultation by the advertising big-wigs who can tell us ‘what works and what doesn’t, and why’. Now, if the program was aiming to do this, to merely reiterate a range of stereotypes in adjudicating whether or not advertisements work, I would not take issue. But, we are promised more. We are promised some degree of critique and challenge, or at least this is how I read Andrew Denton’s comment (the program is bankrolled by Denton’s company):

“The Gruen Transfer is not so black and white…It’s not about whether advertising is good or evil. What we’re interested in is simple: how advertising works and what it says about us. I’ve always thought that advertising is an amazing and complex world. It deserves more attention than it usually gets from television, which is the ‘World’s Wackiest Commercials’ approach.” (Please see here for reference)

Agreed. But this show does not offer such an approach. It does not ask us to “unlearn” (I refer here to Denton’s quirky little ad – aired just before The Gruen Transfer – where he tells us he wants us to unlearn everything we think we know). As a tutor in cultural studies, i spend plenty of time teaching students about the semotics of advertising; I teach them about the social politics of representation, often discussing the gendered and racialised aspects of media in general, and advertising in particular. In the courses I teach on, we ask students to unlearn, to defamiliarise themselves with the representations and experiences they may take as natural, normal or common. Unlearning is often experienced as uncomfortable, as an affront, or critique of privilege (whether it be race privilege, gender privilge, class privilege etc), but it can also be incredibly invigorating, allowing students to see the world differently.

The Gruen Transfer does not promote such an ethos of unlearning. Perhaps it does not really aim to. Perhaps the format (a comedy program) is not compatible with such an agenda. Last night was no exception. A ten minute discussion of 4 WD drive ads merely reinforced gender determinism (men like big cars and rugged representations/women like softer versions to accommodate their growing family in the suburbs), and even included a charming little joke by Wil Anderson that one of the women in a particular 4WD ad looked like a butch lesbian mother (was that company targeting the butch lesbian market? Anderson asked). Anderson’s only critique came when he declared that the ads were crap (his problem seemed to be that they were unrealistic in their representation of masculinity). 4WD ads do posit an unrealistic version of masculinity, but they also draw on a representation of man as conquerer, dominant and powerful, able to tame the environment. This representation has cultural capital and influence.

The only interesting part of the show was the screening of an ad featuring the actress Emma Thompson. The ad is aimed at generating awareness about global sex trafficking and is extraordinarily graphic and confronting. Wil asked his expert panel if they thought the ad was successful, they each answered, either in teh affirmative or negative, but little more was offered.

I think my problem with this show is that it doesn’t recognise advertising as a powerful industry complicit in various forms of symbolic and material violence. It takes ads out of context or only wants to read them in partial context. It effects a sort of individualising, where each ad is taken separately. it doesn’t really seek to tell us what the ads tell us about gender, sexuality, race or politics at all in our times, or how advertising is political and does influence, consolidate and benefit from the reproduction of norms. Advertising doesn’t want us to ‘unlearn’ as this would undermine it too greatly. Having a concept for a show which involves a panel of employed advertisers probably isn’t going to give us this.

Music and Meaning: Dylan & DiFranco I

Ani Difranco is well known for her fiesty, feminist lyrics. I want to look at some of her music and her ‘love songs’, comparing them to a few of my favourite Bob Dylan love songs. Both Dylan and Difranco have at various times been regarded by their followers as political poets, singing songs against the grain, or establishment. Dylan never wanted this title, or so he claims, preferring to say that his poetry/lyrics transcend context and political situation, that they are more universal than particular. In the doco ‘No Direction Home’ we see how Dylan resisted and criticised any attempts to pin him down to a movement, whether it be the civil rights movement (which Joan Baez was involved in), or the folk music crowd. Difranco, on the other hand, proudly flaunted her political agenda, never claiming to speak for anything in a universalising manner, always recognising context, privilege and power relations in any given moment. This kind of reflects the way that the male position is often neutralised and universalised, or normalised, leaving dissident views to be regarded as partial and biased. The neutralisation of the male perspective veils over its investments and politics. In this way, I am less interested in whether or not Dylan’s music contains so-called ‘universal themes’, and more interested in the way his lyrics are informed by context and interpreted differently according to context. It also worries me that when people talk about Difranco as political and feminist this often is a criticism, a devaluing of her art and message. While Dylan can just have a ‘love song’ be a ‘love song’, Difranco must fight to be heard as anything other than an angry woman.

While Dylan is recognised for his protest music, he is also regarded highly for his love songs. His love songs are sometimes sweet, simple and beautiful, and at other times bitter, difficult and angry. Take, for example, “it ain’t me babe”: “You say you’re looking for someone, who will promise never to part, someone to close his eyes for you, someone to close his heart, someone who’d die for you and more, well, it ain’t me babe, no no, it ain’t me you’re looking for, babe”.

Or, “Don’t think Twice, It’s Alright”:

“I’m thinkin’ and wonderin’, walkin’ down the road/I once loved a woman, a child I’m told/I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul/don’t think twice it’s alright/so long honey babe/where I’m bound I can’t tell/Goodbye’s too good a word babe/So i’ll just say fare thee well/I ain’t sayin’ you treated me unkind/you coulda done better but I don’t mind/you just kinda wasted my precious time/but don’t think twice, it’s alright”.

In both of these examples, the male refuses to let the female possess him. He feels as though what she wants is to ‘have him’ completely, to deny him his freedom; she wants his soul not merely his heart, and she demands that he close his eyes and heart (presumably to others). His words express a frustration with this demand he feels “woman” places on him to be unconditional in love, to offer the world to her in love “to die for you and more”. He’ll only let her down, he says in “It ain’t me, babe”. It appears that gender roles and stereotypes inform the represenations here. The male experiences claustrophobia during what he perceives to be a woman strategising to own his heart, soul and freedom. The male must rebel, must break out of the attempts to confine and label.

Fuckpoliteness wrote that she experienced Leonard Cohen’s music as both beautiful and frustrating, saying that sometimes she thinks that in his music ” *woman* is locked in the role of temptress/muse…she’s the mythical, the beautiful, the source of sadness/loss, potentially loopy…she doesn’t have the same agency as him…she’s beauty and grace, temptation and pain, a ‘mystery’…what saps him of his strength, a source of temporary joy, of wonder, but bound to cause loss/grief/a stealing of strength…don’t stay in one place too long…” (for more go here) Dylan’s music presents me with a similar bind. I both love the music (I am a HUGE Dylan fan) and feel that I must suspend my criticism at times in order to understand his message, or read it from a position other than my own. There is a song by Dylan “All I really want to do” (here) in which Dylan speaks of not wanting to define or confine, analyse or categorise his object of attention, rather he wants to be “friends“. Whenever I hear this song, I always think back to Joni Mitchell’s song “All I Want” in which she sings that “All I really want our love to do is bring out the best in me and you”.

During a live recording at a gig, DiFranco speaks about how some of her older fans have criticised her for being “less political” in her music, to which she responds that she “got kinda distracted” and laughs. This raises interesting questions: is the love song political? Is feminism concerned with ‘love’? Should it be? My short answer is yes to all of these questions. While we know of feminism as a movement concerned with equal rights in the public domain – the workforce, the law etc – feminism (which, simply put, recognises the politicisation of gender and gender difference in a male-dominated world) also has a lot to say about love. Love is gendered and whilst we may experience it at a ‘personal’ or ‘private’ level (which is undeniable), it is also regulated by the public sphere (for example, in the past who could fall in love with who was regulated by the law, banning homosexuality). But is the love song political? One of my favourite lines from a love song comes from DiFranco: “There is strength in the difference between us, and comfort where we overlap”. But DiFranco is unafraid to confront the violence of love in patriarchy, writing of the cycles of domestic violence in “Out of Range” (here) and the objectification of woman and reduction to the body in “Gratitude” (here): “you changed the rules in an hour or two, i don’t know what you and your sisters do, but please don’t, please stop, this is not my obligation, what does my body have to do with my gratitude?”

Gotta run. If you happen to stumble over this blog site and feel like commenting please do! I am just starting to open these ideas up and would love a dialogue on them. More soon,

-dredgirl

Music and Meaning: the exclusion of women and the romantisation of men

So again, this post has come out of a discussion with fuckpoliteness. It concerns the way that men are allowed a special association with meaningfulness, depth and sincerity in music, poetry and really all art. We all know the cliche of the depressed, lonely male figure who pours his heart into his art, creating brilliant songs, poems, whatever. This man seems to be able to gain access to a realm of the emotional that women are excluded from, unable to attain for whatever reason. I will cite two immediate examples to get my thinking started. The first is a scene in the Bob Dylan-inspired film ‘I’m Not There’ (which is watchable for any Dylan fan). Dylan is sitting at a cafe with his wife and two friends (also a male/female couple). Dylan declares that women cannot be poets. His wife is flabbergasted, as is her female companion. It is remarkable that Dylan can make this comment given his professional and personal relationship with Joan Beaz. It is even more mindboggling given the popularity of the brilliant Joni Mitchell in the 1960s. The second example I want to open up concerns a writing by Nick Cave. Cave, in the forward to his ‘Love Songs’, goes through a list of musicians he believes come close to appreciating how to craft a love song. He mentions Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Van Morrison, The Dirty Three….a few others. All male. No women whatsoever. But it doesn’t end here. Not only are women absent from this list, but there is then a polemic example utilised to discuss the dangerously shallow lyrics of pop music when it deals with issues of love. The example is a Kylie Minogue song. On one level I agree with Cave’s point: in some respects women have been made to package their music in specific ways; to sell their sexiness before their message; or perhaps sexiness is their message (I am thinking of the pop tune with the line ‘don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like me’). But it is a little insulting. Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, Ani Difranco, Sinead O’Conner, Emmylou Harris, Beth Orton, Pat Banatar (‘Love is a Battlefield’)! Anyway, this is the start of a series that will read some of these male and female texts in detail.

Starting Again. The Gruen Transfer

I’m in dialogue with a close friend about this. Her website is http://fuckpoliteness.wordpress.com/, and she has opened a discussion about a new program on the ABC called ‘The Gruen Transfer’. It is hosted by the sometimes mildly-amusing Wil Anderson. It has regular panelist, including a token woman. No non-whites, but a woman.  As ‘fuckpoliteness’ has pointed out, the program is dedicated to offering a cutting-edge analysis of advertising and its social role. Well, this is the advertised premise. Like much advertising however, the actual product fails to live up to its promises. Indeed it really does come off as a rather glossy ad! In a less generous frame of mind, I might be tempted to say the whole thing is a bit of a wank. All on our very own non-commercial station, ABC.

The program infuriates me and makes me feel like a humourless feminist. What’s the harm with a bit of light banter, some discussion of the ’semiotics’ of advertising? What’s the problem with the never-ending display of half-naked young women featured in the ads? It has posed these very legitimate questions and in and of themselves there is absolutely nothing wrong. Unfortunately the program is not really interested in answering them in any intelligent manner. Many of us would agree that women are beautiful. But this isn’t about the celebration of women in all our diversity as beautiful. Let’s not pretend. It’s much more about the cliche male fantasy. What man hasn’t fantasised about a woman eating a flake chocolate bar as if it is a penis?

The problem is that advertising is politically powerful. It contributes to an economy of representation. Anyone who says that advertising is merely concerned with ’selling stuff’ (which is how one unoriginal and uninsightful panelist pretty much put it) has failed to grasp the most basic development of consumerism post world war II. I am talking here about the shift from simply selling shit, to selling an image. Naomi Klein talks about it in ‘No Logo’. Identity became a central to the packaging of a product, utility became secondary. Who the fuck really needs Nikes?  Due to the nature of the patriarchial capitalist society of the 1960s, the bulk of advertising was targeted at women (as they were the ones who would go shopping). Funnily enough, the imagery was for the most part sexist and has continued this fine tradition. One of my favourite examples of this was a recent 2 minute soup or noodle ad, which featured a man and a woman who had evidently just finished having sex. The man rolled away from the woman, who waited as the microwave pinged seconds later, and smiled knowingly to the audience. Her face read: ‘Well, he lasted less then two minutes, but my noodles are ready and, really, sex is much more about his satisfaction then my pleasure, so isn’t it just endearing in the end?’

I was alarmed when, during the last program (episode 3), one panelist commented that white men are the subject of much ridicule in chocolate and beer ads. The panelists’ seemed a little affronted. But this phenomeon was quickly explained when another panelist noted that ‘with the chances of court cases’ resulting from stereotyped representations of various minority groups, it has become necessary to pick on little whitey. The inference was that the white man can deal with the not-so-flattering representations of them. Apparently they have a sense of humour. Women such as myself apparently don’t when we get angered by yet another image of a woman as body without brain; sex on legs, pretty face which promises to never disagree, to do exactly what you, master, say.

It feels almost banal to point this out. Yes, advertising is sexist, so what? You pesky women have managed to fight your way into the workforce, even urging men to accept the possibility of ‘paternity leave’, have we not achieved equality? The short answer is no. The long answer will be thought through, developed, possibly contradicted and rethought in this blog, via a dialogue with other feminist bloggers (and any others who may want to enter into respectful discussion).

-dredgirl