The world turned upside down

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yesterday on the sex discussion the Lex said some interesting stuff about how acts like Lil Kim were "important and subversive" for reversing real-world expectations of predatory/dominant men and weak females.

This specific example got a bit of comment but what interested me was the old buzzword "subversive" - do you think that pop can still (if it ever did!) act as a subersive space in which social norms can be reversed or otherwise played with? And if not pop, how about more subcultural musical areas?

Comments

Re: Fag dancing: subversive or recuperated?

[koganbot]

In real time in the '60s the Stones did not register as camp at all (even if they do a bit in retrospect, though I don't really think they do, even if it's now become apparent even to some stupid people that Jagger's styles were self-consciously (and unselfconsciously) at odds with one another). Iirc Tina Turner noted (think it was in the Gimme Shelter doc) that Jagger was pulling dance moves from black women backup singers. But you had to be black or Lennon to notice. Of course, Jagger was flirting with glitter at around the time of "Dancing With Mr. D."

But the huge convulsion was when the Beatles hit with (what was then) long hair, which did register as "feminine" at the time no matter how much macho a performer tried to associate with it. So regardless of Lennon's own opinions on sex and gender, the Beatles muddied up the boy-girl, straight-gay divisions. And even being hugely embraced by "the mainstream" didn't stop this disturbance (in fact, the disturbance continues, culturally). Maybe the disturbance itself is mainstream, but that doesn't make it undisturbed. A mainstream need not necessarily be a placid stream.

(when's the quote from? 1970?)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

"I think Mick's a joke with all that fag dancing; I always did. I enjoy it; I'll probably go and see his films and all like everybody else, but really, I think it's a joke" <-- but this very remark is an instance of it registering as camp to lennon, even if he was a highly informer outrider with an in on gay culture and an awareness of the girl-pop straight-gay thing the beatles were doing


("an in on" --> next word shd be "unencumbered" obv)

Re: (when's the quote from? 1970?)

[koganbot]

Rolling Stone, 1971, probably Wenner doing the interview.

Re: (when's the quote from? 1970?)

[koganbot]

Think of Jagger in relation to If....: for all its gay subtext and text, it didn't come across as camp; at least not to me; Mick Travis/Malcolm McDowell didn't.

I think Lennon is being really defensive calling Mick's dancing a joke. (Of course, "camp" and "joke" aren't necessarily linked.)