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The Madonna/Whore Complex and the Modern Gamer Grrl
Last night in Washington State, at 3:45 in the morning, when the sky was slate blue clouds against velvet black, illuminated by a heavy moon and held up by evergreens, the pressure and heat between the cloud cover and the land were equalized by booming thunder that rolled down the mountains and white-blue lightning crackling through the atmosphere with the type of urgency and natural desire that I so often bring to you.
And after this picture was painted for me, beautifully and intricately across two minutes on my voice mail (one of the reasons I insist on surrounding myself with friends who are writers), there came twenty minutes of storm sounds laid over by adamant, seductive, live harp music, original and uncaptured, lost the moment it was played, found only now in my memory and heart and fused forever with the sound of thunder cradled between the Olympic and the Cascade Mountains.
Are you surprised to hear that no one has ever called me melodramatic or opinionated... to my face, at least? I am. Both. Yet no one has pointed it out. I refer to this as the Tony Kushner phenomenon. When Harper blathers on about the souls of the departed linking hands into a great big wonderful net and healing the holes in the ozone layer, reviewers murmur about spiritual relevance and symbolism. This is because an hour ago, Tony was convincing you that Roy Cohn was a human being and that scent, which brings the molecules of one lover inside another, is inexplicably hot even when you're staring up at two truly amoral characters. In short, I can get away with it, baby. So I do.
Four months ago, someone I just met paraphrased my feelings about organized religion by saying simply, “So, as a brown woman, you feel marginalized and under represented in North American Christianity?”
Uh. No. I feel that building doctrine around faith is like encasing a new rose in sheet metal. I feel that man deciphering divinity is like asking a chimpanzee to decode the socio-spiritual climate of “Peer Gynt.” Wrapping ourselves up in the politics of denomination is as ludicrous as an Australian studio asking my ex to attempt an American accent on prime time tv *wicked grin* which was pretty darn ludicrous.
There is an epidemic of over-simplification in this country. “Give it to me straight,” I hear a lot. The unintentional humor always puts a smirk on my face. “No hand holding. Cut the ****.” Yeah. Because life is really textbook black and white easily categorized. Right? Life is simple like fiction with only so many plots retold over and over again. Life is one great big archetype. Easy to label, shelve, and understand. Oh... *bite me.*
So... fine... I'm gonna (for once LOL) do exactly what everyone else tells me to do. Here's a day in my week, labeled, categorized, and perfectly understandable ;)
I woke with dawn because that's when my day begins (“Morning Person”). I was due on set (day job) in four hours (“Actor”). But in my boxers and tank (“Tomboy”) I drank my black, sweet coffee (“Addict”) and crunched out some movement and resource comparison charts for a “Mardi Gras 3000” expansion set (“Geek”). I started day dreaming after eight pages, my eyes drifting up to the photos of mi amour tacked to my wall (“Taken”). My thoughts turn decidedly less academic (“Slut”) and I whispered an audible prayer thanking Christ for changing my life by bringing you into it (“Jesus Freak”). I checked my father's pocket watch which I keep on his desk, now my desk (“Daddy's Girl”) and realized I had enough time to hit the local gaming store to pick up a new set of d6 to celebrate the arrival of a new gaming O.S. from my operating system designer buddy (“Gamer” or “Nerd” or another great big “Geek”).
That day I spoke with my friend XYZ who grew up poor, was a prostitute for six years, and is now a spin master for independent companies (“Whore”... because that's the only fact most of you will remember). And I exchanged messages with my friend ABC who grew up religious and pious, destined to, above all things, become a great mom some day (“Madonna”) but then (oops!) happened to fall in love with a woman (“Queer”). By the end of the day, I've got labels stuck to everything I see from my Kawi to my skin, to the Key Grip on set and the gorgeous guy in the plaid shirt and scruffy beard and great big little boy eyes who hands me my baby blue dice. (*sigh* Why oh why do all the cute guys adore the DeckMaster system?!)
If I squint my eyes, and tilt my head, I can actually start to believe that life is this darn self-adhesive.
Then I start to think about Katy Perry.
Every freaking time I hear that song (yes, I do wear cherry chapstick so I must be biased) I cannot stop myself from staring at the radio. I thought it was just me but Goggle says no way. Google says quite a few grrls – not just gay grrls, either, *all* grrls – find Perry's song so alarmingly homophobic it's a shock to hear it played on the radio. “It's just a good song!” I hear you squeal. Yes, a song perfect for a culture of teens who think it's acceptable mean-girl behavior to say things like, “This is Ginny, my BFFN.” That's Best Friend For Now, btw. A whole darn generation of girls who think toying with another chick is oh so titillating and acceptable... as long at (at the end of the video), we open our eyes to our manly man boyfriend. It's the ultimate boytoy fantasy song: Girl on girl but then she brings it home to me. Oh, *sweet* message. Us girls are so magical? And guys are so what? Anti-climatic? Here's a magical message: There's a four-letter word that starts with a T and means “tease” but a tad bit stronger. If you wanna taste cherry chapstick, smear it on your boyfriend next time and keep the misogynist emotional sadism in your own safe-and-sound, State-sanctified bedroom. Your boyfriend doesn't mind it, but every other grrl in the world *should.* Or... the next time a girl catches your attention, could one of your BFFN take the drink out of your hand and slap you? That would so work for me.
Of course, I know that Perry (I *hope* at least) isn't writing autobiographical gems here. Though the media reports that her stellar (ugh) “Ur So Gay” is autobiographical. I would hope that Perry doesn't *personally* condone thoughtless sexual exploration where the other person is treated like an object and both parties are likely sauced. I would hope... but that doesn't matter. Because pop culture is the chapter-and-verse Bible of the current generation.
When Stephanie Meyer claims that it was much harder for her to give away Bella's immortal soul than it was for Bella to give it away... when Meyer insists that her “Twilight” books were always intended for mature grown ups like her and her sister... not for the thousands of fourteen and sixteen year old girls who picked up “Breaking Dawn” and learned that it's okay to have bruises after sex because “I only remember wanting him to hold me tighter, and being pleased when he did...” Oh, *barf*
But that's okay. That's *okay.* Because American movies and books have already proved that grrls get hurt the first time, right? Gosh, it's *supposed* to hurt. And after living a hundred freaking years or whatever, Edward (with his “...brilliant mind” and his “...incomparable face” and “...glorious body”) certainly hasn't learned a thing about tenderness, delicate sex play or even how not a shred a pillow when engaging in sex with an *eighteen* year old. Did Meyer actually think that after more than a thousand pages of sexual tension that the only thing that would satisfy her teen readers (and her grossly cookie cutter characters) would be violent sex?
“It's a *vampire* book!” you squeal. Yes... true. “It's just fiction. Escapism!” You want to escape to a place where your 100+ year old lover leaves you with bruises and a baby that breaks your ribs when it kicks and has you vomiting blood? Wouldn't it have been eternally more sexy had Edward dropped to his freaking knees and taken Bella in his mouth? I hear that Meyer's vampires don't have fangs, so there shouldn't have been a problem. Or maybe Meyer knew that violent sex would be more acceptable than oral sex, or any female-centric sex act to most American readers.
Because, gosh, Perry has proven with her chart-topping hit, that treating women like objects is oh so smexy cool.
It should come as no surprise that the men in my life tend to be gamer guys with slightly socially awkward demeanors and hecka respect for grrls. But perhaps surprisingly, like Camille Paglia, I like my men, *men.* I don't want them to look like grrls or act like grrls. I want them to be strong, opinionated, protective, resourceful, decisive, and, well, manly. However, no where in my definition of “manly” is a sentence about how okay it is for him to brutalize me in bed (or ignore me in bed, for that matter) because, well, heck, he has *needs.*
Funny thing is, I'm not actually a spurned ex-grrlfriend. That would be the easy label. Like “Ball-Buster” or “Feminist.” I don't actually walk around growling or shaking my fist at The Man and instructing “my sisters” to “fight the patriarchy.” Because, in general, most men I've met, are pretty awesome. The problem is with the women.
It's the Perrys and the Meyers of the world, that continue to perpetrate the filthy myth that it is okay to trample women. We're not worth as much as someone's boyfriend. Our immortal souls aren't as important as our desire to be screwed or have a blood-guzzling baby. Our bodies are just meat. Our hearts and minds are easily ignored. We'll do anything for a thrill – kiss another grrl or succumb to a “glorious body.”
“So...” you paraphrase my point for me. “You feel that ever since Lilith was tossed from the garden of Eden that Woman Power has been suspect and suppressed?”
Uh. No. I think that women will never “take back the night,” as long as we continue to set each other up as trash. Respect, after all, begins at home. And I don't mean with our parents. I mean *tapping my heart* home.
Melodramatic? Of course. After all, I'm wearing cherry chapstick.
Thank you, Christ, for giving me a brain that may not be as brilliant as Edward's but at least one that knows how to teach my future daughters how not to rot their minds.
EJ
