re: this article
i was lamenting to my roommate the other day about the lack of counterculture grrl icons in contemporary media. back in the 90s, i could bust myself up like courtney love, shoplift like winona ryder, go home to daria on mtv, and plan my lilith fair outing to the angry, angry sounds of fiona apple. these were women who were tough, angry, and messy, but who were still accepted as a legitimate and desirable expression of counterculture.
what do we have now? avril lavigne getting married. rihanna getting beaten up by chris brown. gwen stefani hawking handbags. hillary clinton getting served by barack obama in the 2008 primaries (AHEM). women seem to have been reabsorbed into commercial culture, and 'rebel' is just the title of a spread in a fashion magazine. but then there's lady gaga. lady gaga defies all rational thought - this is a woman who prances around with a silicone penis jutting out of the middle of a psychedelic space-alien jumpsuit. her name makes me think of gag reflexes. and she's massively, commercially popular. the rise of lady gaga as an expression of alternative sexuality, i think, is representative of a shift in the movement for sexual equality - instead of focusing purely on women and their misbehavior, the sexual dialogue of the 00's is about queers, transsexuals, and yet-to-be-named forms of gender construction.
