Joan Jett rocks & Kristen Stewart (maybe) redeems herself

This piece appeared in a slightly different form on my myspace blog over the summer.

When I was a kid, Joan Jett was the coolest chick on MTV. (And if MTV still showed videos, and Joan Jett’s were in the rotation, she would still be the coolest chick on there.) In fact, pre-Madonna, she was just about the only woman on MTV who wasn’t dancing in a cage or serving as arm (fender?) candy in a ZZ Top video. And she wasn’t a pop star, or an R & B crooner. She was a fucking rock star. She was the only woman on MTV who looked like she could kick ass. Her look in the “I Love Rock and Roll” video influenced me so much that I wore it pretty much all through high school and into college: thick eyeliner, leather jacket, black Converse All-Stars.













And attitude? She wasn’t some rock star girlfriend—she was the rock star. Gritty, a little angry, with awesome tough-girl sex appeal. In “I Love Rock and Roll,” she growls, “I could tell it wouldn’t be long ‘til he was with me, YEAH ME.” Damn right, if he knows what’s good for him! Her directness was a welcome antidote to the innuendo and coyness of most pop. And by the end of the song, she takes him home “so we can be alone.” She moves fast and, more importantly, unapologetically.

That same take-charge sexuality is evident in “Do You Wanna Touch?” I’m not as fond of the video, as 80s clichés abound.













However, when she says, “Begging on my knees/Baby won’t you please/Run your fingers through my hair,” it is clear she is not making a polite request. Instead, it’s a directive: “Get those fingers moving. Now. And don’t stop until I say so.” At the end of the song, when she says, “Touch me there. You know where,” we suspect where. And we wouldn’t dare say no.

Even “I Hate Myself for Loving You,” her most self-deprecating popular tune still doesn’t come off as a typical “s/he done me wrong” tune. Sure, there’s a cheating lover, but there’s that undercurrent of sex, which seems at least as important as the love. “Can’t break free from the things that you do. I wanna walk, but I run back to you.” The lyrics clearly indicate: you missed getting laid last night. Too bad for you. I just wish I didn’t care quite so much.

More recently, I fell in love with “ACDC.” The playful ode to a bisexual lover ticked me, again, with the sex appeal and the attitude: “She can’t make up her mind/Just how to fill her time… She’s got some other lover as well as me.” And that’s just the way “she” is, apparently. Polyamory goes mainstream, reinforced in the lighthearted video with Carmen Electra.













In fact, many of the songs on her recent CD Naked deal with gender and sexual identity. Catchy songs about heavy issues can help people engage more readily with such “radical” ideas. Here's the video for "Androgynous," with some famous help.













Although I don’t think Joan Jett is officially out, rumors about her sexuality have been rampant for years. Kudos to her for not hiding her identity while also not feeling compelled to comment on it to the public. But her sexuality, which at the very least is lesbian-identified, makes my admiration (and life-long half-assed emulation) of her make even more sense. It’s been a theme throughout my life. I gravitate toward women who are not typically beautiful or feminine. Many of them happen to be lesbians or bisexual women.



So what did I learn from Joan Jett? Well, it’s 20 years too late for me to form my answer to the Runaways. I can’t sing or play guitar, so my odds of attaining rock stardom are slim. So… I merely steal from her. Still like black leather, Converses, and too much eyeliner. The sexy short blonde hairdo she had a few years ago helped inspire me to cut off my hair. (See the hair in this live version of "I Love Rock and Roll.")













I suspect my long-standing goal to have a cute enough ass to warrant buying a pair of leather pants might have something to do with her. Sadly, I have had to come to terms with the fact that I have never looked, and will never look, as good in leather pants and a bikini top as she looks now, in her early 50s. But it's all good. Really, really good!

More importantly for me, growing up it was great to see one woman on MTV who looked like she was having fun on her own terms. She wasn’t someone’s girlfriend. She wasn’t just eye candy. She wasn’t an overblown pop diva. She was a bona fide rock star. A woman who was in control of (and reveled in) her own sexuality. She didn’t look or sound like the other female singers who cluttered the airwaves back in the day, but she was gorgeous and sexy, regardless. She didn’t have to put on a bullet bra and garter belt to garner attention. Her on-stage persona didn’t play to the virgin/whore dichotomy. Hell, she sang, "And I don't give a damn about my bad reputation."












And, as a girl (and now a woman) who has often failed to look, act, and feel typically feminine, it was nice to have such a rock n’role model.

Here's hoping that Kristen Stewart's portrayal of Jett in the upcoming Runaways biopic does Joan justice. Rumor has it that Joan is pleased. Judging by this trailer, Stewart looks the part. Hopefully Stewart's presence in the film will attract those girls who worship at the alter of Cullen, and a new generation can be introduced to an anti-Bella in Joan Jett.

Twilight Zone

Although it’s a bit dated now, I began this anti-Twilight piece a few months ago after slogging through the book. I’d become interested in the franchise because smart women seemed to lose their minds over these stories, and I read the novel to understand the appeal. Well, the experience was even more disheartening than I’d anticipated. This rant resulted.

Admittedly, I was pre-biased against Twilight based upon some feminist critiques I’d read. After finally plodding through that ponderous tome, I found myself angry. Very, very angry. My displeasure was two-fold: the writing and the implied message.

First, the writing SUCKS.

Until about ¾ of the way through the book, the plot consists of “my boyfriend’s a vampire." The “bad” vampire tracker/antagonist has no motivation except that he hunts. To paraphrase, that’s just what he does. He likes killing. Uh, okay. He’s a vampire. Doesn’t he get more motivation than “I like killin’”?

Then there were the random, weird settings, like the dance studio. Major portions of latter part of the book take place in a dance studio we’ve never heard of or seen before, a place that doesn’t seem to have any particular relevance to the characters. Oh, and to, I guess, emphasize the Cullen family’s all-Americanness, they play baseball. The peculiar settings and seemingly random activities sound like the stories I wrote in middle school. I wrote what I knew. Apparently, Meyer knows dance studios and family baseball games.

And then there’s the character development. Or lack thereof. The dialogue has as much flavor as oatmeal. Without tags, I had difficulty telling who was speaking. Didja notice how Bella’s friends were played in the film by actors with very distinct physical appearances? How else would the audience have distinguished among them?

The characters suffer from an overall lack of description. Except for the color of his eyes, I don’t really know what Edward looks like. I know Bella finds him angelic, godlike, and otherwise freakin’ hot. So am I supposed to fill in the blanks w/whomever I think is hot?

As everyone now knows, the one detail Meyer did provide, is that the vampires fucking sparkle. Did someone attack the vamps with a Bedazzler? So, these creatures of the night, these undead… they sparkle? Well, my ideal hottie vampire would not sparkle, I can tell you that… (Spike doesn’t sparkle. And he’d kick the ass of any vamp who did.)

But far, far worse than the writing—and that’s a challenge, given how poorly this book is written—are the implicit messages in the book. Although I don’t believe that writers are necessarily responsible for creating heroes and heroines who are “good role models,” with YA writing, I do believe they should take that perspective into account. And here’s where I have my biggest issues with the book.

First, there’s Bella. She’s wimpy. She’s smart, or at least ahead of her classmates, but it’s never clear whether she’s a bookworm or an artist or if she might belong to some other non-popular clique. She’s a clutz, and that’s about all we know of her “talents.” She has no interests beyond feeding Charlie and making sure her mom is not worried about her. Sure, it might be a failing of the writing to have undeveloped characters, but it’s also a bad message for young female readers. Your boyfriend: the only hobby you’ll ever need!

Bella lacks what other geeky characters have—Ron, Hermoine, and Harry, for example—who are endearing when they manage to find within themselves the strength and wisdom to do more than they imagined themselves capable.

Toward the end of the book, Bella hatches a half-baked plot to sacrifice herself to the bad vampire and then ends up rescued by Edward. She doesn’t even remember the confrontation or being saved. And throughout the book, she basically exists to be saved by Edward’s superhuman awesomeness.

Further, there’s no indication of why Edward likes her, except that she smells good. Believe me, I understand the importance of someone’s smell. But usually, there’s also more to attraction than that.

The criticism I’ve seen of Twilight tended to focus mostly on the creepiness of Edward’s approach to Bella: how stalker-y he behaves toward her. And yes, his watching her while she sleeps and eavesdropping on her conversations does smack of stalker behavior. I find more distressing the possessiveness he exhibits toward the end of the novel when Jacob tries to warn her about him.

Most unsettling, however, is the basic premise upon which their relationship is founded: that his attraction to her involves wanting to drink her blood and probably kill her in the process. And she acquiesces to possibly dying at her boyfriend’s hand because she loves him. This idea of “I love you so much I might kill you” sounds eerily like what abusers tell their partners to keep them in line. It’s right up there with “look what you made me do” and “this hurts me more than it hurts you.”

The stalking, the possessiveness, and the violence-as-love are incredibly damaging. I might feel differently if Edward weren’t considered the hero, the love interest. But Edward is in control. Always. Of his own bloodlust. Of the sexual course of their relationship. Of Bella’s initiation into vampirehood.

I’ve heard many otherwise intelligent women gush, “he’s my Edward!” If that’s true, RUN! RUN FAR! RUN NOW! If he’s an “Edward,” then his attraction to you is predicated on wanting to kill you, and you are displaying the strength and intelligence of a dishtowel.

Think I’m attributing unfounded motives to Edward? Go read the first chapter of Midnight Sun, Meyer’s rewrite of Twilight from Stalker-Boy Edward’s perspective. It reveals Edward Cullen as the abusive, soulless, murderous prick he really is: http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/midnightsun.html.

Geez Spot

Lately, the media has given the g-spot the Bigfoot treatment, with crackpots coming out of the woodwork to discuss the likelihood of its existence. If you’ve looked at the British “study” that sparked this latest round of media attention, you’d notice that the “research” involved no physiological study at all. The research was merely a survey--and not a particularly well-crafted one at that. The questions, the lead researcher admits, might be problematic.

In that case, shouldn’t the researchers--and members of the media--frame the conclusions as, well, inconclusive?

As if women’s sexuality weren't schizophrenic enough in our culture, we have another pseudo-scientific study to muddy those waters. Regardless of how one interprets the results, the study seems designed to make women feel bad about their sexuality. Women who do have g-spots are now told that, like the Tooth Fairy, this source of pleasure may not actually exist. Women who don’t experience pleasure from their g-spots now have no reason, in theory, to explore themselves in that way or to encourage their partners to do so. Guys who have fumbled for but never found it are off the hook now.

One discouraging response I’ve seen in the media to this study was on The View, when Barbara Walters said that women should be relieved by this research because now the g-spot is “one less thing to worry about”:

Wouldn't it be more of a relief to be fulfilled sexually, whether that involved g-spot stimulation, or being bound in leather restraints, or dressing in a chipmunk outfit? Wouldn't it be more of a relief to speak honestly and intelligently about sex, rather than tittering like embarrassed schoolboys when the subject comes up (pun intended)? Wouldn't it be more of a relief to have a media that focused on facts, rather than faux science? Or perhaps those are simply the things that would be a relief to me. Except for the chipmunk suit thing... no offense to the furries.

In our culture that simultaneously demands the sexualization of women while tacitly condemning most healthy and informed expressions of their sexuality, it’s not surprising that women feel pressure to conform to a certain (unachievable) sexual ideal. However, I’m not sure that having a g-spot—or finding it, or enjoying it, or even believing in it—is an integral part of that ideal.

Misleading "research" and the misguided media attention it engenders should not be part of the ongoing conversation/shouting match about sexuality.