// Category Archive for: Back Off Man I’m A Feminist

Fetish Art And Feminism

By Kai Shuart

Recently, I finished reading Craig Yoe’s Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster. Yes, it’s true. Even though I’m as much of a feminist as you’re likely to meet, I also love fetish and pinup art. I say this not to claim definitively that pinup or fetish art is feminist; I’m too well aware of the incongruity of these two things to make such a bold claim. Rather, I state my identity as pinup fan and feminist to remind everyone that feminism is not a monolith—it comes in many different varieties. I also state these seemingly contradictory positions to remind everyone that our desires know no political affiliation. We all have fantasies that we can’t explain for the life of us.
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It’s a Love/Hate Thing: Why Dollhouse‘s Echo Matters

By Catherine Coker

We hate Echo.

Well, many of us do. Because she’s played by Eliza Dushku (who we didn’t have a problem with as Faith, or as Buffy in Faith’s body, come to think of it), or because she is so very much a FOX network construct (iddy-biddy dress and shiny red motorcycle), or because she’s really the misogynist wet dream Joss Whedon never dared to have otherwise (Yeah, I’ve got nothing on that one; anti-Whedonists are a class all their own). When Dollhouse was canceled, the anger wasn’t at television executives it was at Echo.

Why?
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The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie: Sleep It Off and Doll In The Box by Cristina

By Chelsea Spear

Picture it: the Lower East Side, early 1980s. ZE Records had become the hot indie label, renowned for their tweaking of the nascent disco and no wave genres. The label incubated up-and-coming talent like James Chance and Kid Creole and the Coconuts, and helped spur the Waitresses on to trivia-question status with both of their hits.

While all of these artists have remained in the spotlight, one of the most interesting and peculiar talents got lost in the shuffle: Cristina. This one-named wunderkind of Brechtian disco pastiches, Lieber and Stoller covers and later, an album worthy of comparison with Marianne Faithfull’s Broken English, all but disappeared after her second album, Sleep It Off, barely got released in the States. A few years ago, the reformed ZE reissued Cristina’s discography. How does it stand up, after thirty years?
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Sometimes It Snows In April: In Praise of Wendy & Lisa

By Paul Casey

Photo from Wendy & Lisa’s MySpace page

When Prince fired Wendy & Lisa in 1986, the most significant writing partnership in that precious little Minnesotan’s career left with them. Not only are Wendy & Lisa credited as co-writers on many classic Prince and the Revolution songs—including “Sometimes It Snows In April,” “Computer Blue,” and “Mountains”—their influence on popular music of the past 30 years is considerable, extending to associated artists, like The Time and Apollonia 6. As well as producing five albums since leaving The Revolution, the duo has written scores for the television show Heroes and currently, Showtime’s Nurse Jackie.

In addition, Wendy & Lisa’s soft, mature approach to their sexuality, especially following The Revolution, mark them as two of the more inspiring musical figures to resonate with the LGBT community.

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Suzi Quatro: Like A Lightning Flash

By Cait Brennan

It’s hard to imagine how unwelcome women were in the rock music world of the 1960s. While the titans of what we now call “classic rock” were singing about “social justice” and standing up to The Man, the man they were talking about was definitely not the one in the mirror. Most rock stars used and abused women in ways even their fathers and grandfathers would have found offensive, and the notion that women could rock—or should even be allowed to try—was as foreign to the classic rock era as the idea of an openly gay rock star. (Sorry, Jobriath.)
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Sing It, Sister? An Eve Ensler Comparison

By Maureen

I first read The Vagina Monologues when I was in late adolescence and thought it was brilliant. Eve Ensler’s collection of stories and vignettes made me proud to have a vagina and to know that other women had similar experiences with menstruation, first-time tampon use, annoyance at “feminine itch” commercials, and so much more. I saw a performance of the Monologues at my college during which not only did my recently discovered distant cousin perform a monologue, but one of the professors at my university also simulated a rollicking orgasm.

As a young person just discovering ideas of sexuality and feminism, I was in such awe of Ms. Ensler ad her ability to ask the uncomfortable questions, publish the painful stories, and organize a foundation to help women who don’t have opportunities to be as bold as those of us who don’t live in fear of being stoned to death for mentioning sex or showing skin.
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A Little Bowie, A Little Bardot: The Runaways

By Less Lee Moore

The Runaways, Floria Sigismondi’s 2010 film about the seminal all-girl rock band, is not a documentary. That role, to some extent, has already been filled: Former Runaway Vicki Tischler-Blue made Edgeplay: A Film About The Runaways in 2004, even though Joan Jett declined to participate and refused to allow any original music from the band to be used.

Despite the fact that Joan Jett was an executive producer on The Runaways, do not watch it expecting a history lesson. Because the movie, although based on member Cherie Currie’s bio Neon Angel, is partly fact and partly fiction, but all fantasy: sex, drugs, more drugs, rock & roll, heartbreak, and dreaming.
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The Notorious Bettie Page

By Less Lee Moore

Called “the greatest pinup model that ever lived” by pinup photographer Art Amsie, Bettie Page was nothing if not an enigma. The now-iconic images of her alternate between sweet, sassy cheesecake shots and those fetish photos and films that were brought before the Kefauver Hearings of the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in the mid-1950s. It is this contrast and conflict that director Mary Harron examines in her 2005 film, The Notorious Bettie Page.

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I’m The Real Victim Here: I Spit On Your Grave Remade and Revisited

By Michelle Patterson

Victimhood has had an ironic stranglehold on cinema since the medium’s very inception. The “woman’s picture,” along with the romantic comedy and action-adventure genres, tap into the potential for an audience to live both vicariously through the film and also fully explore their empathetic side. The horror film has also allowed this to continue for over a century now.
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Apocalypse Later: A Military Woman’s Story

By Anonymous

Recently there was a great article in Time about the unique challenges faced by female military veterans. Without going into extreme depth or summarizing/paraphrasing the article completely, the gist of the article discussed the widespread prevalence of sexual assault within the military by male members upon female members. While I don’t remember the statistics and percentages off the top of my head, the stories and figures were rather troubling to me.
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