"Uh Huh Her." Thoughts on the new PJ Harvey?

Ahem, I said upthread, of 'Who The Fuck':

The only good thing about it is the silly backing vocals right at the end.

this is totally true. on this thread, momus characterises women as either feminine or not-feminine, and refuses to accept and acknowledge the shades of gray. and those shades of grey are where actual women's lives and art lie - both pj, and the asian women momus so lovingly fetishizes. women's lives are internally complex and women are diverse people. this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who considers women to be human beings.

i think vic is quite otm until he gets all new age and shit and i kind of want to see more people talking about 'is this desire?' and 'dance hall at louise point', although this thread is isn't called "Thoughts on the PJ Harvey albums before the one before the new one"

weird thing about momus is how much more time he's prepared to spend arguing his point than going and finding out more about it. yes everyone else noticed this in 02, i'm slow okay

Even when Polly was flirting with masculine imagery earlier on it was much more fluxed up than simply beating the boys at their own game. She was almost more like a male drag queen in a woman's body, and I think this gave her a really compelling indeterminacy - one never knew where the layers sotpped and the "real" Polly was hiding.

-- Momus (nic...), June 9th, 2004.

Er, singing falsetto is one of the most masculine things a singer can do, becaus ewomen NEVER do it!

Also, foxhunting isn't very masculine is it? It has the full support of as many women as many and those who actually do it, well, they're a bunch of wimps!

Now, I don't think it matters how you position yourself against gender roles of modern culture, as long as you do it with a healthy dose of playfulness, irony, camp or queerness. I believe that, and that alone, can raise questions about gender identification, roles and the heteronormativity of Western culture. And this is something, BTW, I find Momus doing brilliantly in his art. Or Björk, for that matter. "Perversion of feminism" or "gender capitulation"? Well, in the end, feminism is about freedom of choice more than anything else.

Though, I am annoyed with the following statement: "Women suffer particularly from the shift from traditional culture to modern hypercapitalist, atomised culture, because women were formerly at the heart of traditional cultures, which were highly-integrated and social. In modern western cultures, though, men dominate", I find it being slightly revisionist. Sure, women were the "heart" of traditional cultures - but they were Hermia, the heart of the hearth. The angel in the kitchen, etc. The point being, men dominated Western traditional cultures too. Now, I like being 'free' in a sense that I can vote, walk the streets alone, being seen in public, to think and speak my mind.

POP <--> ROCK
singles <--> albums
emphasis on recording <--> emphasis on performance
emphasis on technology <--> emphasis on musicianship
artificial <--> real ("authentic")
trivial <--> serious
ephemeral <--> lasting
successive <--> progressive

...and Richard Hamilton defines pop art as being "popular, transient, expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky, glamorous, and Big Business".

Since the birth of modernism, mass-produced consumer culture has been seen as utterly female: from Madame Bovary to the female authors who wrote mass-produced, cheap novels as opposed to male artists. I mean, when I say Britney Spears, what do you think of, if not screaming teenage girls?

But I know this wasn't your intention so i'll drop it.

Umm...

Richard Hamilton should spend less time worrying about pop art and more time improving hs FG%.

So is your version of 'male' and of 'female' nothing to do with 'men' and 'women'?

Your 'male' and 'female' are just homphones for other words, those in commn usage?

Not really, no. The gendered body is all about interpretations, isn't it? A body that appears to be male doesn't necessarily have to be of the male sex, and vice versa, right? And a woman can have character traits that are percieved as male ('being masculine'), right? So no, I don't think that 'masculinity' necessarily has any connections to the male body.

Then again, English isn't my first language. Perhaps I should have written "that dicotomy is that of masculinity/femininity".

(I find this topic very interesting!)

But I think there's one ambiguity in the binary list of traits that Timothy Warner breaks down. Pop is artificial, he says, rock is natural. Pop is female, we're saying, rock male. (For instance, I am a pop artist, not a rock artist. My stance is female, althogh I am a male. I'm quite willing to accept that. With the exceptions of 'albums' and 'progressive', I align quite easily with the Pop side of that list.)

And yet, on the artificial / natural binary, women don't swing easily to either side. Women are seen as 'artificial' to the extent that they're more likely to be seen as social creatures rather than rugged survivalists or self-sufficient monads, or to the extent that they're more likely to wear make-up and 'contrive' their appearance, etc. A cultural female, as anyone knows who watches a drag queen or a woman making up to go out, is constructed. This all works fine with the female music star as a pop performer, the shining artificial jewel at the very centre of culture's crown.

But there's, paradoxically, a strong and persistent linking of woman to nature in our ideology, and that gives women access to the Nature imagery of rock music; hence the 'Earth Mother' rock woman archetype -- Janis Joplin, Patti Smith, PJ Harvey. Here woman is presented as primal, primitive, passionate, changeable as weather, uncontriving and untrammelled. The trouble is, the dual role of woman (both artificial and primal, both 'pop' and 'rock') creates an unintentionally comic amalgam: the 'Fake Primal' woman, both ephemeral and eternal, fake and real, glitzy and dowdy. One of the funniest things to watch is when a transvestite does an impersonation of this kind of 'primal' pop-rock female. You'll see a drag queen at Wigstock doing a Kate Bush impression that turns into Joni then Bjork, all of them gesticulating in overly-theatrical attempts to 'get back to nature'.

The thing that doesn't fit for me, though, is this characterisation of PJH as an "Earth Mother". Janis, I can see, perhaps, but Polly and Patti are art rockers, and as you yourself point out, the younger of these two has attempted to deconstruct even that via humour and self-mockery. That said, you are possibly onto something with your comic amalgam (Fake Primal), however -- even though I'd lay odds on there being a male equivalent too (70s Bowie? Beck? haha...Plant? Cobain?)

I was thinking about this today and you're right. Something doesn't have to be exclusively a male trait to be masculine.Beards are masculine but I'm sure some women have them.

Personally, I don't think I would describe butch lesbians as feminine (unless they were not wearing the clothes that go with that image).
I would certainly not describe them as masculine though!
I think a lot of people might.

I do agree that [...]the dual role of woman (both artificial and primal, both 'pop' and 'rock') creates an unintentionally comic amalgam: the 'Fake Primal' woman, both ephemeral and eternal, fake and real, glitzy and dowdy, though I am uncertain of the conclusion. I feel that at times, that "unintentionally comic amalgam" is slightly carnevalesque and hyperbole, and that makes me prone to think it's queer and dissonant in a butlerian sense. The drag queen on Wigstock mentioned above, isn't that a man that is imitating a woman, who in turn is imitating 'The Woman'?

Ah, right. I should point out that some of the things written above are analytic and not descriptive, to avoid misunderstandings. And of course there are shades of grey, no woman or man embodies ideas perfectly. But first of all, I believe that generalisations are necessary for theory and analysis, and even if the ideas are totally and perfectly represented in factual bodies, they are present in discourse.

('semantics' means 'meanings' so they are very important!)

Agreed. But I'm sure you understood the meaning of my post, even though I'm not fully capable of expressing myself in english.

Yes, I think I understand that we all (including the redoubtable Momus, haha) have to talk in dichotomies when being analytical -- it's like a necessary evil, and yet simultaneously one way in which, rightly or wrongly but definitely understandably, the wonders of academia become tainted in many peoples' eyes.

And I'm certainly less "arguing" than I am exploring (while desperately trying to relate this discussion back to Polly Harvey over and over again).

I agree with some (much?) of what you, and Momus, are saying here. But this: "man is always in control of his nature" is incomprehensible to me. Perhaps it's because I'm a male sexual abuse survivor (the predator was a woman, just to complete the ass-backwardness) among other things, but I have not felt in control of my nature for large stretches of my life so far. But then again, this is when the personal and anecdotal eclipse the universal and analytical, a state I often find myself identifying with... hence... probably... my love of PJ Harvey's music, with its visceral yet exquisitely art-posturing stance (best of both worlds, perhaps?). You see, without sounding wilfully naive, I haven't always viewed her music through the lens of gender. Sometimes, sure, since it's an obvious theme. But I've also viewed it through the lens of victim, of predator, of reveller, of combatant, of goofball, of survivor, etc. In some ways -- from my odd and very individual perspective, admittedly -- interpreting Polly Harvey's persona and musical output via gender is as arbitrary as interpreting it via (say) left-handedness, or via her ability to wipe the floor with people at Scrabble. Does this make sense?

Oh, and last things last -- the idea that women are perceived as being ruled by their bodies and men by their minds, can be massively contradicted by the meme of big head/little head -- ie/ that men are ultimately driven more by sexual desire than by rationality -- something I've heard echoed and repeated (to the amusement of all, of course) by men and women throughout my life. I mean, the popular image of testosterone and its effects is of a hormone that is rapacious and dangerous, even, whereas estrogen/progesterone are seen in a calmer, more nurturing light. I guess what I'm saying is, you can always turn these dichotomies on their heads whichever stance or posture you decide to take, and in the end, we're all struggling to assert our egos and hopes and need for simple human connection on an unforgiving landscape... using various combinations of compassion, humour, arrogance, creativity, hostility and warmth, to name just a few, gender be damned. (Not that I want to damn gender, really, exactly, haha.)

So, um... I just ran out of steam.

Polly embraces values which I find cheesy: rock and roll,

Rock and Roll is a value? You heard it here on ILM, folks.

In some ways -- from my odd and very individual perspective, admittedly -- interpreting Polly Harvey's persona and musical output via gender is as arbitrary as interpreting it via (say) left-handedness, or via her ability to wipe the floor with people at Scrabble.

Of course you're right here, the pluralism and flexibility of identities is a key part of modern subjecthood. David Simpson's book 'Situatedness' is a good guide to it: we're at pains, now, to spell out where we're coming from, to show that our discourse is situated. We all speak a language called 'Azza' -- we speak 'as this, as that...' David did it above when he began speaking 'as a male sexual abuse survivor'. I don't mean to belittle the pain that that may have caused him, but it does lead us into a particularly modern problem. If I can choose which identity to assume, depending on the situation, what appeal am I making to authenticity? What model of the self am I proposing? If it's a plural self, is it a real self, a genuine self? Might I be caught, ten minutes later, speaking 'as' something quite different? David mentions that he might find Polly Harvey singing 'azza' lefthanded person or a good Scrabble player just as important as her singing 'azza' woman. But are all identities equally important? When he proposes himself 'azza' sexual abuse survivor, wouldn't he feel rather annoyed that people kept relating to him as a whizz at Scrabble?

Just so we get it straight, I'm not a Harvey fanatic, so my purpose is not to give a knee-jerk defense of anything she does. But I marvel at how people can intellectualize music to the point that it isn't even music anymore but a "value".

'Rock and Roll and Christianity are two transcendent ideologies which have been subtly altered on their arrival in Japan.

The transcendental values of Rock and Roll as a belief system can be summed up in the phrase 'sex and drugs and rock and roll'. Life, in this ideology, is about getting high, fucking groupies, and playing guitar music 'from the heart'. It's about rebellious individualism, intoxication, romantic adolescent nihilism, masculinity, irresponsibility, promiscuity, and so on.

Rock and Rollers sometimes use the Confederate flag as a symbol of their transcendental values. Sometimes they even use swastikas. They wear black leather. They include demonic imagery in their lyrics, suggesting a simple inversion of the transcendental values of the Western Christian tradition. Rock and Rollers may seem to reject the dominant values of the west, but in fact they are their ultimate expression, the same way pirates are the ultimate expression of the principles of international maritime free trade.

Rock is not superflat. Like the Christian religion, it privileges certain places, certain times over others (the church or the concert hall is more 'real' than the house or the tour bus, hymn singing or guitar playing is more 'intense' than talking). A rock musician's life exchanges ten hours of monotony in the back of a tour bus for an hour of glorious transcendence onstage. The Christian's whole life is a burdensome prologue to the joy of his death and eternal life. This downgrading of 'normality' in favour of a few fleeting moments of orgiastic release or heavenly bliss obviously lends itself to drug use and explains why religion is 'the opium of the people'. (It's a metaphysic -- with the emphasis on physic -- which applies equally to rave music if we're to believe Simon Reynolds in 'Altered States'.) The cultists of the early Christian church would recognise the lifestyle of the average Rocker, because it's really a form of life-rejecting asceticism.

The transcendentals in the package we call Rock and Roll are mostly values very much at odds with Japanese tradition. Why sing about the devil when Christianity has never taught you sexual repression in the first place? Why vaunt the merits of drugs in a country where they're hardly available? Why pose as a renegade rebel in a land made pleasant by the warm, diffuse habits of consensus?

What's wrong with transcendental values? Simply the fact that by constantly referencing an absent or invisible reality, they belittle what's present and visible.'