SZA:: DREW BARRYMORE:: HYSTERICAL GIRLS

From Rap Genius: 
"In pop culture, Drew Barrymore has become synonymous with ideas of insecurity and pursuit for identity. In the late 1980s and 1990s she often played angsty teens in movies like Never Been Kissed and Poison Ivy."

POISON IVY
Drew Barrymore was 15 when she filmed Poison Ivy.  The male lead in the movie played by Tom Skerritt was 58. Poison Ivy is the story of a bad teen (played by Drew) who befriends an awkward teen (played by Sara Gilbert) with a dying mom. Ivy then later seduces the father and kills the mother. She is then murdered by her friend.

Tom would be our Dick here.

Drew is, of course, a child and like every teen believes she is not a child-- both in real life and in the story. In the story, she is the evil seductress, not the victim of the father of her friend who exploits her need for attention. She is the hysterical Augustine allowed out of the hospital to play, unmitigated lust which destroys the American Family, and she can only be stopped by killing her.

I was 15 when Poison Ivy was released. I wanted to be Ivy. Ivy was beautiful and cool and collected and wild and alive, and she got everyone around her to do what she wanted. And she used her body to get it. And she said things like: I'd rather live one day with the top down than a lifetime in a box.

I wrote that in my journal. I wanted to live a life with the top down. It didn't matter that she used everyone she met. It didn't matter that real love and respect were unattainable to her. It didn't matter that she was poison and that she died at the end. All that mattered is that everyone wanted her, even the dog wanted her.

These are how narratives of girlhood are absorbed, not by logic and reason but by images-- by slick cells of seduction and beauty and desire.  Whose fault is it that everyone who meets Ivy sexualizes her? Where is her family? Where are her caretakers?  Are we to fault her for wanting to survive in the only way that she knows how to survive?

It's easy to forget that she is a child in the sex scenes. But she is a child. 

SZA on her album Ctrl has a song titled "Drew Barrymore" presumably a nod to the woman who gave us these characters that we devoured in the 90s from the misunderstood Ivy to the perky, loveable blond of later love comedies.

[Verse 1]
Why is it so hard to accept the party is over?
You came with your new friends
And her mom jeans and her new Vans
And she's perfect and I hate it, oh so glad you made it
I'm so glad you could come by
Somebody get the tacos, somebody spark the blunt
Let's start the Narcos off at episode one
Bring the gin, got the juice
Bring the sin, got that too
Won't you just shut up, know you're my favorite
Am I...


But SZA turns the narrative-- the beauty of SZA's lyrics is that she can lay out a whole scene in a few lines. Here we are at the party, the scene is set and the subtext of the scene lies in the back and forth play that occurs in our speaker's mind. She is at once at the party, and the party is over. She is aware of the new woman but can't speak her emotions. She has to accept her role; she plays the role of the girl who is cool. Too cool to make a scene, cool enough to accept the way things are.. and still in her head, we hear her ask: "Am I...." Am I your favorite? What's the conversation beneath the conversation, what is happening between the lines....Is it all in her head? What kind of fantasy are we in?

[Chorus]
Warm enough for ya outside baby, yeah
(Tell me that it's warm enough here for ya)
Is it warm enough for ya inside me, me, me, me
Warm enough for ya outside baby, yeah
(Tell me that it's warm enough here for ya)
Warm enough outside, inside me, me, me, me


The chorus seems to confirm that the sexual relationship between her and the man was the focus of their relationship. He either replaced her with a new woman or she is the side piece, but in any case the question of is it warm enough remains the tie. How can you be warm inside my body and then so cold to me as a person is the subtext.  How can a woman's body be a site of comfort and relief for a man and then once it is used, no longer needed. The story of Poison Ivy rests upon this; the father is watching his wife die, so of course he is weak and needs the comfort and attention of the young Ivy. But it's not her as a self. It's not a 15 year old that he needs to talk to or to share some experience with; it' s just her body. Her body becomes the dumping ground for a middle aged man's life expectations that haven't been met. Her body becomes the source of his rage, his desire to be rid of the dying wife, his desire to be rid of his troublesome teen, his desire to feel powerful again. The entire story isn't about Ivy at all; but about a man's desire to colonize a young teen body to enact his needs. And at the end, he wins. He surfaces as the victim, not the perpetrator in a confusing sleight of hand that solely lays the gatekeeper of sexuality on the woman, or in this case the girl's body. Her autonomy is both taken from her when she is sexually abused by this adult,  and then thrust back on her when it is time to lay blame.

What does SZA do to turn the narrative?


[Verse 2]
I get so lonely, I forget what I'm worth
We get so lonely, we pretend that this works
I'm so ashamed of myself think I need therapy-y-y-y
I'm sorry I'm not more attractive
I'm sorry I'm not more ladylike
I'm sorry I don't shave my legs at night
I'm sorry I'm not your baby mama
I'm sorry you got karma comin' to you
Collect your soul, get it right


There's a vulnerability and a strength to these lines that have a Drew Barrymore aspect to them. Drew was the child star of ET who we all watched descend into drug addiction only to emerge emancipated by 15 and in control of her own career and life, where she continued to thrive.

So, was she a child still at 15? At what age does a girl become a woman and under what duress. One of my favorite lines is: I get so lonely, I forget what I'm worth

And this is where the Dicks come in. All the Dicks.

That a woman forgets her worth in loneliness and tries to fill it. That is a type of hysteria. We are trained to follow its path.

SZA turns the tables from the simple narrative of girl loves boy, boy uses girl, girl gets hurt and writes sad love song. She sees right into it. She sees the nature of why we do self destructive things in love and lust. She not only sees it in the speaker, but she says "We get so lonely, we pretend that this works."  And once she sees it, she can't unsee it. She jokes (or not jokes) I think I need therapy followed by a string of reasons that are apologies (sorry, not sorry) as to why she isn't the perfect girl.

Each line of apology topples the narrative of what she should be to attract the man: attractive, ladylike, shaven, the mother of his children... she isn't these things. And then she steps even further back and places accountability squarely on him: I'm sorry you got Karma comin' to you/ Collect your soul, get it right.

Collect your soul, get it right.

This is a love song. This is the epitome of a love song where the speaker can see into herself, can see into the actions on the surface and beneath the surface, where she can take accountability of her actions and where she cuts her losses. She asks her lover to pull his energy back, not for her sake, but for his.  She moves from asking "Am I...." to taking back her power and telling him: "Collect your soul, get it right."   This is beyond the mere infatuation but dwelling now in the realm of how we mix energy with other people and how those choices infect every part of our being. In this case, SZA writes a spell in verse II. It's a love potion in reverse. It demands that "he" release her and take back what is his.

Words are magic. Images are magic. We are seduced/ we are amused/ we are bewitched.

Sing the last verse of Drew Barrymore in a warm bath of epsom salts surrounded by candles and hold the lover who has not held you right in your mind, and I assure you, those bonds will loosen.

There a million ways to be a girl and most of them

ALL AT ONCE

BodyTrap: Claude Cahun's shade and Banks' Liquorice

"When the mask is taken off it becomes an inert object, like a doll or a puppet, confusing the boundaries between the living and the dead." 

-Gen Doy, Claude Cahun: a sensual politics of photography

Most of Claude Cahun's self portraits are believed to be photographed by her lover Suzanne Malherbe (Marcel Moore). Since Cahun never sought publication for these works, it can be argued that they were composed and created for Malherbe's gaze as much as for Cahun's own personal creative outlets. In fact, in many of the photographs what is most probably Malherbe's shadow can be just seen eclipsing the figure of Cahun as it does in Self-Portratit with Flowers. Gen Doy in the collection of essays titled Claude Cahun: a sensual politics of photography points out that the shadow of the photographer can simply be a quirk of position and lighting, and yet, on another level it reinforces the presence of the one capturing the view, the one behind the lens who remains invisible. In a sense, the shadow of Malherbe in Cahun's work reinforces the intimacy they shared as Cahun performs for the camera and Malherbe actively participates in capturing this performance. The dual photographs of Cahun and Malherbe before mirrors  (Self Portrait with Mirror and Marcel Moore and Mirror) surely indicates that they were aware and playing with the idea of doubling and the gaze. Cahun as well was familiar with Lacan and his "mirror stage" in which he theorized that the mirror phase "is narcissistic and its function is to stave off the fragmentation of one's self image and subjectivity while separating the child from the surrounding world and the mother" (Doy 59). This sense of coherent identity Lacan tells us is a trap for the ego, the ego preserves itself as the other, the ideal image contained in the mirror wherein lies the narcissism, the desire for the self which influences the object of the eye's desire based on this mirrored trap. Doy does a superb job of examining what the current flow of psychoanalytical theory including Freud's definition of the 'uncanny' means for Cahun's photographs as well as for her political stance as a lesbian artist working with her lover to create these images. 

"The power of looking seems to be with the photographer, yet there is a sensual play of revelation and concealment on and across Cahun's face and body"  (Doy 38).

I was thinking about this in regards to hip hop images of female rappers. It seems that the war raged between female MCs occurs in two places, in the ability to spit (orally and lyrically) and on the surface of their bodies. I want to look at Azealia Banks and her new video "Liquorice" and how the female rapper's body is a lethal terrain, presented as both seductive and dangerous, ultra-sexualized and hardened into a mask, a coat of armor upon which the "knives thrown" in the rap world can be deflected. In opposition to the normal mail of chains, this armor exposes the body, it offers up the body as a taunt and a promise as one able to thwart off attacks. And the audience for this performance, while certainly enjoyed by male eyes, is primarily aimed at the one who is being attacked/ or attacked back in retribution for earlier attacks, and it is always female. The performance then of the female rapper's lyrics and body are designed on one level to engage audience and listeners, but the pretext of the performance is to "one-up" or to "out bitch" the bitch who talked smack about either the rapper or her talent. Then what is the subtext of this masked performance designed for the other female, which contrary to Cahun's work is not made in the spirit of collaboration but in the spirit of aggression. What does it mean when women's bodies become the trajectory and the field for engaging in this pseudo warfare over their "turf" in the music industry. 

Azealia Banks grew popular with her "212" video, shot in black and white where she wears cut off jeans and a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt. 

Fast forward to the sleek direction and staged costumes of her latest video: "Liqourice."

Banks critiqued rapper Nicki  Minaj for costuming, and yet in this latest incarnation, she emerges as a bat wielding American bomb shell, a horned beast, and a cowboy who eventually has a stand off with, of course, herself (barely veiled reference to being the only one in her league-- a statement often reflected in Minaj's lyrics.)  

Granted, one can argue that the objectification of the self is simply more fodder for the male gaze, but in the hip hop/ rap world, these "disses" and "barbs" feed the media frenzy. Banks' use of American flags from her bikini clad outfit to her nails, her icicle pop and the flag that emerges from her gun all speak to "dissing" Australian rap artist Iggy Azalea who she is most often compared to. Her popsicle scene is reminiscent of Iggy Azalea's PU$$Y video, and if we watch the stand off scene closely, you'll notice that even though we know these are two versions of Banks; the scene is filmed so that one Banks is only represented by her lower back where all we can see is blond hair. Is this a subtle positioning to imply that the one losing the stand off is indeed blond-haired Iggy Azalea, and is it important that instead of being "shot," the gun emits an American flag. The competitive war zone of female rappers means that the images and their subtle intentions are on some level quite consciously devised to attack the other woman, or at least to launch a perceived attack on the other woman. If this stance is a mask, a game, then the question would be have the women engaged in this fierce play fallen into the trap of becoming their masks. As Cahun would say: 

"In front of the mirror one day, you put on your mask a little too enthusiastically and it bites your skin. After the festival you lift up a little corner of it to look, you discover to your horror that the flesh and its concealment have become inseparable" (Doy 43).

And beyond that, the inevitable question is who profits in this power struggle waged on young women's bodies and their creative talent. Who ultimately wins by keeping these females at each other's throats? Does it make for more creative lyrics, does it mean we are more engaged with a rap artist because they are constantly exerting the energy to tell us they are number 1. Or does it perpetuate the image of catty women, does it enact the male fantasy of female on female aggression in a sexualized arena. Does the woman's construction of an image for a female gaze ultimately hold more power if it is done in a state of aggression or given over in a state of collaboration? 

(Iggy Azalea Diss) by Azealia Banks 

Compare Bank's cover shot where a giant golden Mickey Mouse head covers her crotch to 

Francesca Woodman's Horizontale, Providence, Rhode Island, 1976

where Doy says: "a knitted glove covers up the dark 'woolen' shape that it simultaneously masks and draws attention to" (145). 

Instead of a glove, we have the infamous eared rodent, simultaneously announcing the commodification of the women's vagina as well as quite literally "toying" with the masking of it. Where the body would appear is now a trademark, an official billion dollar enterprise that is carefully constructed to present veneers of fun and enjoyment rather than realities.