Mary's Non-Zombie Movie Review Korner

I apologize for being a negligent blogger lately. Here is a post about documentaries I've watched recently, which you should also watch!

Pie in the Sky: The Brigid Berlin Story, 2000
This documentary is about Brigid Berlin, AKA Brigid Polk, who tends to fall under the umbrella term of "Warhol superstar" though they were in fact peers and he stole ideas from her. Unlike many documentaries about women with connections to famous men, Pie in the Sky is truly about its subject, not her relationship with Andy Warhol. She has had a fascinating life, from her rebellion from the wealthy WASP society she was born into, to her self portraits, Polaroids, and other artwork, to her relationship to food and her body and her family. She is definitely one of the last holdouts of the old, truly artsy weirdo New York. Though she came from a monied background like Edie Sedgewick, Brigid was the anti-Edie in so many ways, and she will never be played by Sienna Miller or be canonized by fashion magazines because she was no muse- which I mean in the best way possible.

Brigid is still an artist: look at these fucking needlepoint pillows! I have come to the conclusion that I hate 99% of art, but these pillows are something I would want to own myself. Also, her apartment is mind-blowing.

Paris is Burning, 1990

Many liberal-artsy types have seen this film, but for those who haven't, you should really see it. It's another New York story (living in New York has made me nerdily obsessed with all aspects of NYC history), depicting balls, which encompass a wide range of drag performances, as well as the origin of voguing, participated in by mostly poor, gay and minority youth. Like Pie in the Sky, I think this movie subverts the idea of what art and artists are, as well as what drag is, and plenty of other stuff: the people in this movie are nothing if not artists, constantly creating and making something out of nothing.

I've read plenty of criticism of Paris is Burning (by bell hooks, among others) which asserts that the touch is too lighthearted and trivializes these people's lives. I disagree; the first time I saw this movie, it seemed more depressing than anything else; it was upon second watching that I was so impressed with what the people in the film were accomplishing. Also, this movie features kids hanging out on the legendary Christopher Street piers, which for a long time were a hangout for gay kids who often had no other place to go. I don't really know what they are like now, except that Simone and I saw a documentary about them being "cleaned up" that played the Madonna song "This Used to be My Playground" and we laughed in a theater filled with self-righteous types.

(This is a dude, man.)

Decline of Western Civilization, Part 2, 1988
When this movie started, I was like, "Oh no, another movie glorifying rapey dudes", since glorifying rapey dudes is a big part of many movies. Hair metal, after all, (though rife with the contradiction of men essentially dressed as women, who also hate women) shares a lot with modern gangster rap, in that money, hos, and flashy lifestyles reign supreme. But as it progressed, director Penelope Spheeris (Wayne's World, man) probed more deeply and the results are amazing.

While male vulnerability is constantly avoided in most films, Spheeris spends much of her time getting these macho braggarts to admit they are alcoholics with no discernible skills who make music even they know is second-rate and whose whole life is predicated on being a huge star. When Paul Stanley of Kiss (depicted above surrounded by soft core-looking ladies) is asked whether he could fall in love with a groupie she pans over the faces of the groupies themselves to see their reactions. Many of the men admit that they not only dress like stereotypical prostitutes (see assless chaps photo above), they also basically prostitute themselves to women for food and a place to stay, despite being huge misogynists. The interview with some guy from W.A.S.P., who starts out bragging, eventually confesses he hates himself as he chugs vodka in his parents pool as his mother looks on.

Also, it's obviously worth watching for stylistic reasons. By the end, you don't even notice the hair. Speaking of which, maybe my hair should look more like this. What the hell happened to doing your hair? You literally cannot tell what gender people are half the time. Also there is one guy whose hair is half blond and half brown and the most amazing hair I've ever seen but I don't have a photo.

Heavy Metal Parking Lot, 1986

I don't know, this might be, like, one of my favorite all-time movies, I've mentioned it here before, but it's truly amazing. Just watch it. It also fits in with my assertion about guys being foxier in the 70's. Even though this is from 1986, it has a 70's vibe. I'm too tired to write any more, except that the girl who says "Hell yeah," repeatedly and has the personality of Wooderson in Dazed and Confused is my hero.

Mary's Musings: Jezebel, More Lady Gaga

I never used to read Jezebel, but now I read it all the time. It is a good go-to for gossip and news with a feminist bent. But then, I also get angry a lot by what I read there, because it seems to have an intense reactionary/normal bent as well. A disturbingly large amount of the comments are from grown women who write stuff like:

"No! NO!
I will not share my dolls with you.
They are mine. All mine. You go get your own."
*stamps foot and pouts*

bluebears promoted this comment

That is, of they're not busy writing really long, anecdotal, boring personal statements about their life that tangentially relate to the featured article, which is often not so much an article as a photo of someone from Gossip Girl on the street wearing a slouch hat with a pun title. Also, apparently people who comment there refer to themselves as "Jezzies." Anyway, here are some examples:

That is, of they're not busy writing really long, anecdotal, boring personal statements about

Adorable Children Do Adorable Thing
Specifically, they're recreating classic album covers, like that of Abbey Road. The kids, who are between the ages of 10-12, are cute as pie — but give me some toddlers doing this, and then my ovaries will really coo.

Even if you think babies and kids are cute, do we really need individual posts to point out how some child models are being used? Apparently for a Disney advertisement? Ovaries cooing? How essentialist! Sometimes Jezebel is one step away from just posting Anne Geddes photos, and what's horrifying is that all the commenters seem to totally approve!

Secondly, they hated on the new Lady Gaga video for its "mixed messages" and "bad acting" and being about "style over substance." What?! This video, btw, is totally amazing. Clearly it's got some tacky product placement, as well as some not that interesting crotch shots which I do think Lady Gaga needs to lose, but it horrifies me to know that whoever wrote this seems to have zero knowledge of campy B- movies, which are obviously what is being echoed/parodied/honored here. Style over substance and not being about the song, in a music video? How cutting! They don't even know why they don't like it, man! It certainly doesn't have anything to do with Leigh Bowery!

Also, a lot of commenters were angry over the "fake homoeroticism", but it's not like Girls Gone Wild style, she's making out with a legit-looking butch lesbian, which serves a totally different purpose. Also, Beyonce looks so beautiful with baby bangs. Also, Gaga wears cigarette sunglasses that have smoking cigarettes on them, and her hair is rolled up in Diet Coke cans. Also, she wears a telephone on her head made of hair. Also, the women's prison scenes are awesome. You must be made of stone not to appreciate this shit! Especially when you are appreciating seven year olds reenacting the cover of Abbey Road. The Beatles suck!!!

MTV: What Happened?!

Apparently MTV has dropped the "music television" part of its logo, in an effort to rebrand itself yet again. Despite the success of Jersey Shore, they really seem to be staggering along blindly when it comes to connecting with the youth market, as previously written about in my Alexa Chung post. MTV and VH1 are mere shells of their former selves, desperately trying to stuff one more Tila Tequila Humps A Dog for Money reality TV show into their tired line-up.

It's sad because MTV, you used to be cool. Sort of! Showing music videos is cool (though the fact that they didn't want to show those of non-white artists in the 80's when they started, is, of course, not.) Beavis and Butthead, Daria, a focus on Prince when he was popular, and even the original Jackass made MTV worth watching. You may recall that even Daniel Johnston was discovered by MTV.

And the same for VH1! I spent much of high school watching their "Top 100 [whatever] Albums/Band/Etc" shows that relied too heavily on Dee Snider's opinion, but were still pretty interesting. And there was the truly brilliant Behind the Music, where I learned the Go-Gos used to be really punk rock and made a "sex tape" which featured them in long dresses, mumbling incoherently in a coke-addled haze and forcing their male roadies to do it with each other or something. I saw Patti Smith for the first time on one of those channels, performing "Horses" in the 70's, which of course blew my mind. And who can forget their first video ever, "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles? That song is 80's pop gold.

Obviously, MTV has always been corporate. It's always been suspicious when a huge company decides to market themselves to the youth in a hip and cool fashion, but for a time, it made sense. They managed to straddle the line between the two worlds, and while I'm sure they always put out plenty of crap, there was plenty of good stuff too. They had a perspective.

If I were the CEO of MTV, I wouldn't lose all this stuff. They can still have Jersey Shore and True Life (admittedly, a pretty great show) but I think the success of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" video showed that people are still into music videos as a format. And even though the overall music scene isn't what it once was, it's still worth tapping into the market and trying to find stars and all that exploitative shit that MTV was once all about. How about a music and culture show that isn't so forced and weird like It's On seemed to be? What about hipsters? How about some more direct exploitation of them? I've lived in cities with interesting local music scenes, but MTV is just too interested in Bret Michaels humping a dog to get into that. And once you show Bret Micheals weave one too many times, you start to lose your cache, you know? And become a grotesque version of what you once were? Who runs these channels? What are they doing?!

Lady Gaga: Y/N?

I'm always convinced award shows are going to be entertaining/worth critiquing, but it always turns out they never are either, because they are always typical and boring as hell. I turned off the Grammys during the supposedly 3-D (Whatever! The 3-D glasses I took from Avatar didn't work! I knew I should have returned them!) nonsensical Michael Jackson tribute. It's like, does anyone ever really want to see Jamie Foxx do anything? Why?

Anyway, I did see some of Lady Gaga's Elton John duet, which was totally boring just like Elton John himself, except for the always transcendent Tiny Dancer. I also saw Taylor Swift bringing down poor Stevie Nicks, whom she was not fit to share a stage with, and, if I never see Taylor Swift again, I would be pretty happy. When I watch things like this, I always think, "Why are these people, of all people, famous? What do The Black Eyed Peas have that other people don't? Why is Usher still here? Lady Antebellum? What? Do you guys even know what that name means?" The whole thing is such a mindless slog, and it's hard to tell who is excited about anything.

So, that's why at least a Beyonce, or a Lady Gaga makes sense. These people are showmen. They wear more exciting clothes, have more charisma than most, sing and perform (mostly) better, catchier songs (again, The Black Eyed Peas- what is going on with their "music?" Who buys their albums? I did like Fergie's 80's whore dress, though), and at least are an event unto themselves. It's interesting to me that Lady Gaga is famous because she would not have been in the pop princess-dominated early 2000s, but now the tide has turned and we are ready for every person to wear glitter shoulder pads once again. I'm glad that Lady Gaga has turned her mainstream success into a platform for performance art, and that she has chosen to get weirder instead of more normal as time goes on. I would much rather little girls like her and know of her existence than the existence of Taylor Swift. I am also glad she declined to be in the new re-recording of "We Are the World."

Of course, Lady Gaga is not really weird, and the weirdest thing is that she is always being treated as weird, particularly in this day and age. I saw this magazine page that listed Leigh Bowery as one of her influences, and it's like, you know who's weird? Leigh Bowery. And even before him, David Bowie was weird. Cher was weird. Prince was weird. Even Madonna was weird, kind of. And they didn't have stylists. What's weird is that everyone's like, "Oh, this futuristic glam thing is so weird! So new!" but doesn't everyone remember when futuristic glam was THE dominant aesthetic in music for a long time, and that once upon a time, having an extreme, poetic, artistic, bold, raunchy aesthetic was a huge part of music?

Look at these (totally mainstream) weirdos! Remember them? They grabbed their crotches and simulated masturbation and wore feathered headpieces to the Oscars with the best of them, and today we can't even handle Adam Lambert in a suit leading someone on a leash like nothing like it before has ever happened in the history of musical entertainment. One step forward, two steps back, dudes!

PS: Speaking of people who are still "hot" even though they were also "hot" when I was in middle school (ie, Usher, an eighth grade dance staple), Green Day really needs to give it a rest. Like, really.

Joan Jett Appreciation Post

Friends, even after all these years, whenever I see a magazine subtitle that says "Ashlee Simpson-Wentz reveals how she stays lean after Baby #2!!!" I still cringe a little bit. Simone, Gaby- imagine if, when watching The Ashlee Show in 2004, that could have flashed before us as a vision of the future? So dystopian!!!

Also, not to blame the world's problems on Sarah McLaughlin, but don't you think if the majority of female musicians in history had been Joan Jett, many of our problems would have been solved by now?

Seal of Approval: Adam Lambert

Like everyone else, I now love Lady Gaga after the masterpiece of "Bad Romance"...but what really blew my mind was American Idol Adam Lambert's insanely gay performance last night on the American Music Awards!!! This was absolutely the first time I have ever seen such "classic" homosexual imagery within the context of an openly gay performance on a major awards show! He dragged some guys in bondage gear around on a metal leash! He kissed a guy! Simulated oral sex which sadly was edited out of the West Coast Feed! Whoa!

Apparently it "shocked" many- prompting a commentor to say "I can see why America is embracing Taylor Swift. She is sweet and pure. I didn’t understand it before, but Adam helped to put all of that into perspective." Another referred to it as "degenerate" and "sick." Many people said they wouldn't want their kids watching, as if this was the first "inappropriate" performance on an awards show-but think how great this could be for older teenagers who really are confused about their sexuality and see something like this validated, even in a theatrical way?

Yeah, the song was pretty bad, and the singing was more Broadway-esque than anything else, but it was more about the spectacle. It seems that though we have seen as much from scantily clad-eighteen-year-old girls appropriating this type of sexuality in order to appeal to men, it's okay, but when it comes to a gay man camping it up in the same way, it freaks everyone out. I think we are so used to gay performers consciously trying to avoid addressing sexuality, or to only embrace the most mainstream of mainstream to not alienate anyone, it is nice to see such an obviously brash/trashy/bawdy tribute to it. (Additionally, everyone has sat through countless performances wherein clearly gay backup dancers dance suggestively around the lady-star, so it was nice to see backup dancers be what they usually are, which is hella gay!)

Anyway, I have to agree most with Entertainment Weekly critic Ken Tucker who said, as a TV viewer, he totally disagreed. "I thought Lambert's performance was a gas, a delight, a blast of brash vulgarity in the midst of merely ordinary vulgarity," he wrote Monday morning. "Lambert was an event unto himself. The song he was singing was beside the point — and the point was, 'Here I am, Adam Lambert, freed from the shackles of 'American Idol,' I'll push this dancer's face into my crotch if I feel like it, isn't it funny to lead human beings around on leashes, and can you believe how high I got my hair to stand up under these lights?' "

Anyway, perhaps someday we won't have to talk about performances like this one as if they represent all of gayness, as they obviously don't, because we will have lots of representations of gayness in all it's forms in the media and blah blah blah, but for now, at least he did it loud and proud.

Space Funk: A Love Story

For a long time, I have wanted to write a post about the fashion called "space funk" (well, I call it space funk) but I haven't been able to find that many great photos, and I've always thought I should do more extensive research on it than just what comes to mind. I have so many questions about, such as...

Where does the space funk look come from? What are its origins? How does it relate to the much whiter, less funkier fashion/music genre of glam rock? Could I get a grant of some kind in order to study it? Why are fashion's histories and particularities never seen from a valid anthropological standpoint?

Space funk seems to have a lot in common with Bowie's bold, spacy, strong look of glam rock- but did space funk really draw from glam rock or did it grow independently? Now glam rock, my number one lover during my later years of high school, often had a similar, funky, spacy, glittery feel, but it often looked sort of homemade- like you just threw on your mother's ratty fur and some gold pants. See the lovely Marc Bolan in the below photo below.


David Bowie's impeccable glam rock meets space funk look.

Brian Eno works the strong shoulder while doing what he does best: twist nobs.

David Bowie seems to be the link between the two-because space funk is not about throwing things on. True Space funk is usually carefully constructed, apparently by some sort of master 70's craftsmen, like in this amazing LaBelle video.

Also, in their early years, bands like (pre-Parliment) Funkadelic and Sly and the Family Stone had sort of hippyish, pirate-y, Hendrix-y version of a space funk look. Obviously this had nothing to do with Brian Eno.



Edit: Doesn't looking at these photos make you think about how you will never begin to look anywhere near as cool, and neither will anyone else for the rest of time?

All I guess i can really say about space funk is that we no longer have these sense of dazzling showmanship we once did, and that is a tragedy.

Okay, now I'm just going to post some photos. Perhaps I will enumerate more on this subject later!

PS: I want Midnight Special DVDs for Christmas.

The king of Space Funk, the underrated Rick James.

Okay, maybe he's the king of Space Funk: Bootsy Collins

80's space funk, courtesy of The Commodores.


Betty Davis combined space funk with a classic ho look.

Anyway, I can barely find any good photos! Isn't there an archive somewhere?