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Friday Random Ten – the Natural Born Killers edition

Jill

So obviously this week’s Friday video is this, if by some chance you have not seen it (warning on the video — there is nudity and violence and lots of, to put it gently, problematic content):

…that is a lot of Tarantino and a lot of product placement, and Gaga going on with her latest girl-power thing, and I’m kind of surprised that Beyonce went along with all that weirdness. But yeah, damn. That is a video. Unsure how I feel about it, and Gaga is always controversial, so have at it.

Now, the Random 10. Leave yours in the comments.

1. Lykke Li – Everybody But Me
2. Grizzly Bear – Lullabye
3. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Shame and Fortune
4. Portishead – Over
5. Cass McCombs – Jonesy Boy
6. Ecstatic Sunshine – Little Dipper Big Dipper
7. Band of Horses – St. Augustine
8. Rufus Wainwright – Across the Universe
9. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – Army Bound
10. MGMT – Electric Feel

48 thoughts on Friday Random Ten – the Natural Born Killers edition

  2. Damn–that video!

    1. Rilo Kiley – More Adventurous
    2. Ani DiFranco – Every State Line
    3. Imogen Heap – Loose Ends
    4. Snow Patrol – Wow
    5. James – Lost a Friend
    6. Tom Waits – Frank’s Theme
    7. Elliot Smith – King’s Crossing
    8. Doves – Where We’re Calling From
    9. The Walkmen – On the Water
    10. Sparklehorse – Eyepennies (R.I.P., Mark Linkous)

  3. 1.Portishead – Mysterons
    2.Ani DiFranco – Not a pretty Girl
    3. Pretty Girls Make Graves – Sad Girls
    4. Thievery Corporation – Shadows of Ourselves
    5. Neil Young – Fuckin’ Up
    6. Iron and Wine – Flightless Bird, American Mouth
    7. Dave Matthews Band- Pig
    8. The Mars Volta – Televators
    9. Metric – Torture Me
    10. Belle and Sebastian – Beautiful

  4. @gudbuytjane Yeah, it’s a big ball of fucked up. I mean, imagine being seen as trans, that’d be literally the worst thing in the world ever *sniff*

  5. 1. PJ Harvey – C’mon Billy
    2. Me’Shell Ndegeocello – The Sloganeer/Paradise
    3. Nancy Sinatra – Bang Bang
    4. Joni Mitchell – Carey
    5. Michelle Branch – All You Wanted
    6. Norah Jones – Little Room
    7. Flogging Molly – Laura
    8. Elvis Costello – Watching the Detectives
    9. Elvis Costello – I want you
    10. Macy Gray – Oblivion

  6. I was SO OFFENDED.

    SO DOWNRIGHT OFFENDED.

    AT THE GRATUITOUS DEPICTION …

    OF …

    LITTERING.

    I mean, HOW COULD THEY?? Children might see this and think it’s okay. The other day I saw a guy toss an onigiri wrapper on the ground. I bet he had just watched this video.

  7. Yeah, the dick joke was…really bad.

    Here’s my perspective on the Gaga Issue: I think her music’s damn catchy. I think in general she tries to do things that are interesting/thought-provoking. But I think she often fails, and sometimes fails in ways that are hideously offensive, which, uh, yeah. Big problem! I still like her, but some of the things she does (see also: her appropriation of disability in “Paparazzi” and elsewhere) leave me cringing. (And note that the fact that cringing is as bad as it gets is indeed a function of my privilege. I realize it’s a lot different for many people).

    Thinking of writing a blog post at some point.

    I don’t have a random ten, but this week has been basically All Joanna Newsom, All The Time for me.

  9. Would you please consider putting a warning on this? I wasn’t expecting to see prison guards forcibly stripping a woman naked and throwing her on the floor.

    Thanks.

  10. RE: transmisogny

    I think people talking about her genitals IS a bad thing regardless of what her genitals are. There are women with vaginas and there are women with penises and women with both but who wants the world to go speculating about them having equipment that they do not have and do not want? No one, its cruel whether your trans, cis, queer or intersexed its still cruel.

    1. Awwwww, Bonn! You’re so cute with your mocking of the concerns of oppressed folks! Why, I could just pinch your cheeks! Or maybe put you on mod! Damn, it’s the internet, and I don’t like touching people without their consent anyway, so it’s going to have to be the latter. SADFACE.

      re: the video, yeah, I was also squicked out by the joke regarding her genitals, and the stripping naked thing was actually kind of upsetting to me. Maybe because I just wrote a post over at my other blog about the huge problem of prison rape and how corrections officers are so frequently the perpetrators? I mean, I’m just generally not into sexual violence, but that made it especially raw for me. Bah.

  11. I have to say that I find this to be a rather crummy offering from a woman that I did, until very recently, keep in my own personal “women I love” category. Kind of shameful that an artist who considers herself to be such a strong feminist and GLBT ally thinks that this the sort of imagery that would be enjoyed by members of either group.

  12. Okay, so the song, from what I gathered before seeing this video, is about a woman at a club whose boyfriend won’t stop calling her, which is really annoying, ’cause she’s out dancing with her girls.

    This video appears to be about a female prison with uniforms designed to look like Madonna’s stage outfits from 1987, a jailbreak, and inexplicable poisoning of an entire diner.

    I don’t get it.

  13. This video further my theory that Lady Gaga is doing her level best to be pop music’s Marilyn Manson. Interesting music, smarter than most people give her credit for, initially transgressive, but too desperate for the kind of attention one gets from being shocking to continue saying something with the shock. Hopefully, unlike Manson, she’ll work out what she’s doing wrong before she ends up in black face and an SS uniform wearing Mickey Mouse ears in front of a 30 foot tall inflatable bust of herself.

  14. Yeah the part with the guards forcibly stripping her made me a little sick. Also totally agree with gudbuytjane’s post, but I wasn’t expecting anything different from her.

    Glad to see Ted Leo in your list Jill! The new record is so good.

    1. Ted Leo/Pharmacists – Mourning In America
    2. Tegan and Sara – Hop a Plane
    3. Screaming Females – Dinosaurs
    4. The Jealous Sound – Anxious Arms
    5. Gossip – Listen Up!
    6. Dead To Me – Writing Letters
    7. The Bronx – History’s Stranglers
    8. Lemuria – Wardrobe
    9. Ted Leo – Atvian Eyes
    10. Hot Water Music – One Step To Slip

  15. The reason that joke was included is pretty obvious – after all the “Gaga has a penis” rumours, she decided to have fun with it.

    Now whether or not it succeeds is another matter entirely.

  16. an artist who considers herself to be such a strong feminist and GLBT ally thinks that this the sort of imagery that would be enjoyed by members of either group.

    I loved that video, and I’m a member of both “groups.”

    I’m trying to think about the dick joke, but since I’m not trans myself I confess I didn’t pick up on any transmisogyny, it just seemed to me like she was acknowledging the rumor existed and playing with it. And the “too bad” made me grin. I suppose it seems different if she’s got a history of acting freaked out by the rumor.

  19. Yes Unami, being a cis person means you are totes an expert on transmisogyny.
    [cis]GLB =/= trans
    Being queer does not mean you know anything about being trans or about experiencing transphobia (unless, of course, you happen to be both trans & queer–which, you know, some of us are).

    And yeah, given how often trans women are sexually assaulted and abused by prison guards this video is in horrible taste.

  20. Yes Unami, being a cis person means you are totes an expert on transmisogyny.
    Uh, yeah, you misread my comment if you thought I was implying anything of the sort.
    Being queer does not mean you know anything about being trans or about experiencing transphobia
    quite.

  21. A day late, but–

    1. Diego Stocco – Music From a Tree;
    2. Tori Amos – Song for Eric;
    3. Talieb Kweli, Hi Tek, De La Soul – Soul Rebels;
    4. Patti Smith – Land;
    5. Flying Lotus – Camel;
    6. Firewater – Anything at All;
    7. Ween – Roses are Free;
    8. Jane’s Addiction – Slow Divers;
    9. kutiman, et al. – Mother of All Funk Chords; and
    10. Tom Waits – All Stripped Down.

  22. Then what, ~exactly~, did “I loved that video, and I’m a member of both “groups.”
    I’m trying to think about the dick joke, but since I’m not trans myself I confess I didn’t pick up on any transmisogyny, it just seemed to me like she was acknowledging the rumor existed and playing with it” mean?

  23. Um, and you folks that don’t know what it is like to prove you *don’t* have a dick… yeah, cis women are policed by that shit too. A woman has a right to fight off gendered stereotypes whether she is trans or cis. Since *she* was accused of having a dick, I imagine it is her right to mock those whose prurient interest revolves around her personal bits. Perhaps anger should be aimed at those fools who thought, in the first place, that a dick would make a difference in her performance and art.

  24. 1. Bright Lights- Matchbox 20
    2. Loves Me Not-Tatu
    3. Sachons Dire Non- Sniper
    4. Cruel Angel’s Thesis from Neon Genesis Evangelion
    5. Ma Benz- Supreme NTM
    6. Carol of the Bells- Krypteria
    7. Droppin’ Plates- Disturbed
    8. Craving (I only want what I can’t have) Tatu
    9. Gone-Sevendust
    10. In the Hall of the Mountain King- Apocalyptica.
    The French rap is my sister’s fault. Everything else is my own weird taste in music.

  25. It meant… exactly… what I said? I didn’t pick up on any transmisogyny. Since some trans folks have pointed it out, I’m willing to accept it’s there, and I thought my comment about it maybe seeming different in a context of her other remarks, plus the fact that i said I’m having to think about it now, would have made that reasonably clear.
    And I was responding to a comment that said that GLBT/feminists wouldn’t enjoy the video. I think a lot of people in both groups will. Maybe they shouldn’t, or the dick joke should give them pause. But they will.

  26. Hmmm…sounds like Republica, looks like Sasha Baron-Cohen. And a new take on the Thelma and Louise ending.

  27. Well the part that is bad is that the guards are depicted as the pathetic “tranny” stereotype of trans women and they are the ones depicted striping her naked. It is the fact that lady gaga is showing that she is not like “those” people by showing that she doesn’t have a penis at the same time that she compares herself against a stereotype of a trans woman.

  28. in my humble observation: Lady Gaga is taking a crack at the exploitation of women: prison movies, girl fights, different body types, in the kitchen making a sandwich, chick flicks, and the gratuitous & pandering advertising often aimed at women. (cause its just not a sandwich without Miracle Whip!) What I find interesting is her solution …as it was in Bad Romance… is to KILL the oppressive male. in this new video she kills the oppressive male and a lot of bystanders. so watch out, the bodies are racking up.

  29. Hang on, are the guards really supposed to be trans? Because to me they just look like older, muscular women. They may be, I don’t know, but I spend a fair amount of time looking at muscular women so they look pretty nice to me.

    Do people think that’s how they’re meant to be interpreted by the audience?

  30. Gaga *created* the penis rumor. She wore a prosthesis under some tight clothes to give the appearance of a flaccid member during some early shows. There are blurry pictures, probably planted by her publicist in the gossip blogs. A great deal of the early controversy surrounding her was manufactured to keep people talking about her.

    I don’t think she’s the least bit “freaked out” by people thinking she’s trans. If anything she revels in fucking with people who are freaked out by the notion of a thin, blonde, generally attractive girl being trans. The joke wasn’t “politically correct”, perhaps, but I don’t find it offensive. It’s certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, and the whole video certainly doesn’t make a whole lot of sense narratively, but I think it’s a provocative and interesting clip – which still puts her well above the rest of the pop pack.

    Is she exploiting imagery that is uncomfortable to mainstream America (non-lipstick lesbians, transgenderism) for fame? Damn right she is. But it’s not malicious, and it’s a hell of a lot more visibility than these groups have had in the mainstream since… “Boys Don’t Cry”?

  31. Could we maybe put a bit of a hold on the cis privilege around here?

    Or, to put it bluntly: Cis people, I don’t freaking care if you think there’s transmisogyny here or not. It’s not your call.

  32. you all do know that butch /= trans, right? Butch women exist, yo! News at 11. Why is it okay for either cis men to “accuse” someone of having a penis, or for trans women to decide which women are really cis and which are really trans. And when did cis/trans become the new masculine/feminine? Oh, wait… Can we maybe get a little more respect for the continuum that is women’s experience without devolving into endless dichotomies of rightness/wrongness or dialogues of which body’s narratives are worthy and which aren’t?

    Sure, you can say that Lady Gaga telling the world to “fuck off” about her “dick” is transmisogyny, but then again, maybe misogyny doesn’t mean what you think it does. There are thousands of years of history of blaming women for their bodies, or using women’s bodies as the playground of morality. Accusing a woman of having a penis is not about transgenderism/transsexuality. It’s about policing women’s social roles by reminding her that she is less than and lacking. It is very, very rarely stated *without* the implied threat of male on female violence. Any woman, regardless of her cis or trans status, has a right to actively confront the underlying threat of male supremacy.

    1. I only have a quick moment to drop in, and so lord knows what other kind of offensiveness I’ve missed ….

      But Q Grrl cut it out. Now. Telling oppressed people that what they view as oppressive isn’t actually oppressive is something that we consider out of bounds and not cool around here. In fact your entire latest comment is entirely out of bounds, not to mention just plain absurd. And it’s making me really angry. Seriously, it’s not at all welcome.

      And Dana, please do clarify, because right now it seems that you are putting “trans women” and “attractive, muscular women” in two mutually exclusive groups. And seeing as how regularly trans women are mocked on the basis of appearance, saying that you can’t imagine why some might read a woman as trans because you read her as attractive is all kinds of wrong!

  33. Note: I do not know if I fall under the blanket statement as I deliberately said nothing about transmisogyny, and wasn’t going to comment on here at all, but actually I am completely on board with the fact I don’t get to tell people what is and is not discriminatory against them.

    I am genuinely surprised people see the guards as being trans, and am curious to know if that is the general consensus – because I still see them as attractive (and of course the general public may not think that but I do and I’m not alone), muscular women who are portrayed as being extremely hard. I want to know if it’s a no-brainer to most people or not.

  34. Accusing a woman of having a penis is not about transgenderism/transsexuality. It’s about policing women’s social roles by reminding her that she is less than and lacking.

    This reads to me like “Saying I was crippled by something isn’t about disabled people, it’s about people treating me like I’m a weakling who can’t take care of myself.”

    Forest, trees, privilege enabling you to ignore the way certain identities and all their peripheral characteristics are viewed as necessarily Less Than, etc.

  35. @Q Girl:

    Sure, you can say that Lady Gaga telling the world to “fuck off” about her “dick” is transmisogyny, but then again, maybe misogyny doesn’t mean what you think it does.

    Or maybe you’re just a transphobic bigot. Q Girl, you argue in circles and invoke straw men, and your bias against trans women has been made clear on this thread and others. This kind of privileged dismissal is typical of that bias.

    Accusing a woman of having a penis is not about transgenderism/transsexuality.

    You crack me up.

  36. Accusing a woman of having a penis is not about transgenderism/transsexuality.

    She wasn’t just accused of having a penis. She was also accused of being a trans woman. Transphobia doesn’t differentiate; it doesn’t conceded validity, dignity, diversity, or privacy. It’s two ways to phrase the same blanket contempt: metonymy vs. synecdoche.

    This does seem a little bit like saying that accusations of lesbianism are purely homophobic. They’re not, but they’re still homophobic.

    Trans bodies and histories are cultural shorthand for outrageous, wrong, and disgusting. Saying Lady Gaga is trans is the same as saying that she’s gross and inappropriate. It’s also the same as saying that trans people are gross and inappropriate. That’s so gay.

    So trans people have the right to pay attention to the accusation and the way it’s handled. They have a right to complain if the target’s response seems to play into transphobia. Just as gay people have the right to complain about Tom Cruise’s, “Nuh uh! No homo here! Where’s my lawyer?” policy on those pesky closet rumors.

  37. I can’t tell what the fuck is going on in the video, either. At some points it seems to be mocking (the egregious Americana paraphernalia, the “let’s make a sandwich” scene, which is a well-known homemaker stereotype). Really, you could almost read the song as a demand for possessive men to “stop calling,” stop bothering you, stop feeling entitled to you. But that’s perhaps being generous.

    I don’t know if I caught the whole dick thing. So Gaga got thrown in the prison cell, and as the guards were walking away, one said, “I told you she didn’t have a dick.” I didn’t read this as transphobic, though I can see how it’s appropriating trans experience (because she’s not in fact trans). She was presumably being thrown in jail for not conforming to stereotypical gender norms and performance (she’d been acting too much like she “has a dick”), which would mock those who police gender norms. The fact that she has to go to display her pussy outright in the video to get people to shut up shows the ridiculousness of being concerned with others’ gender performances in the first place (you can’t go around and demand to see everybody’s genitals).

    I think it celebrates the non-conformist and mocks the stupid gender-judgments we make, but it’s appropriation, yeah.

  38. Sorry, after reading the thread, I don’t mean to discount the transphobia. I apologize. I guess I read the whole video, and some of her other work, as self-consciously ironic/exaggerated and mocking more than just spectacle. A bit like her costumes: While they are a spectacle, they’re also sort of a conscious affront to the fashion industry, which keeps putting out hilarious condemnations of her clothing, as though it’s expecting her to change based on its recommendations.

    I may give her too much credit.

  39. And Dana, please do clarify, because right now it seems that you are putting “trans women” and “attractive, muscular women” in two mutually exclusive groups. And seeing as how regularly trans women are mocked on the basis of appearance, saying that you can’t imagine why some might read a woman as trans because you read her as attractive is all kinds of wrong!</blockquote.
    *sigh* I wrote that in my 10 minute break at work, and realised 10 minutes later how that would likely be interpreted.

    What I was trying to ask was whether people think those women are supposed to be trans – whether they are or not is irrelevant, they are attractive, muscular women to me, but obviously to some people muscular + debateably-deep voice = transgender and I really have no idea whether that is obvious enough to some people that it would be generally agreed upon to be a deliberate part of the video.

    I know it is not unreasonable at all, but I am finding it frustrating that it seems to be presumed anyone who hasn’t already identified as trans sees trans people as other and has to watch themselves not to show that. Not only do I not feel that way, but I am currently struggling with my gender identity more than I ever have, and it’s a real head-fuck to be seen as comfortably cis when my alienation from my own body is very much on my mind and keeping me on edge at the moment.

  40. yeah, i am feeling pretty much unimpressed with Lady Gaga for the most part. Maybe some aspects of her act are positive, i am sure at least some are. And maybe she really is a sincere feminist/progressive/LGBTQ ally (if not actually some of the things included in LGBTQ). But what i have seen and heard just leaves me feeling the way i felt about Madonna back in the day, just kind of like i don’t understand why there is so much talk and focus by feminists/progressives/LGBTQ folks and etc on someone who (to me, anyway) just seems to be a fairly mainstream entertainer who likes to push the envelope in provacative ways, but who may not really care much one way or another about any real important issues. Who may in fact just be using the language and imagery of said issues to look like such a cool and edgy person, without really taking any of it too very seriously.

    Which, i suppose, would be perfectly ok, if everyone just sort of understood that it was really all an act and did not make her out to be some sort of icon of feminism, or progressivism in general, or LGBTQ interests, or whatever.

    Because i can think of many others, the Indigo Girls and Ani DiFranco to name two, who i know really ARE sincerely committed to the causes i mention. And who clearly reflect this in their music and their lives in general, but who unfortunately do not get nearly the attention that the likes of Gaga and Madonna do.

  41. @Dana:

    What I was trying to ask was whether people think those women are supposed to be trans

    They guards are (as you say) “muscular + debateably-deep voice.” In the context of the intersex/trans rumours, in a scene where the guards then refer to Lady Gaga as not having a dick, and say “too bad” that she didn’t clearly insinuates the characters as trans. It doesn’t matter if the actors playing them are cissexual, the narrative and context says trans. That cissexual people are trying make this confusing or unclear is a privileged derail.

    I know it is not unreasonable at all, but I am finding it frustrating that it seems to be presumed anyone who hasn’t already identified as trans sees trans people as other and has to watch themselves not to show that.

    If it isn’t unreasonable, why do you bring it up again? That is exactly how privilege derails discussion.

  42. Random Ten:
    1. Mirah – Apples In the Trees
    2. Bratmobile – Do You Like Me Like That?
    3. Sleater Kinney – Male Model
    4. Gogol Bordello – Never Young
    5. Tegan and Sara – Goodbye
    6. Rilo Kiley – Wires and Waves
    7. Iron and Wine – On Your Wings
    8. Page France – Dogs
    9. Pony Up! – What’s Free Is Yours
    10. Joanna Newsom – ‘En Gallop’

    I think anything I could say about the video would just be an echo of other comments. Suffice it to say, I was neither impressed nor amused.

  43. “In the context of the intersex/trans rumours, in a scene where the guards then refer to Lady Gaga as not having a dick, and say “too bad” that she didn’t clearly insinuates the characters as trans. It doesn’t matter if the actors playing them are cissexual, the narrative and context says trans.”

    And I call bullshit.

    In the context of the video (the context that women and their bodies come in many forms) it could also mean:

    1) these women are butch
    2) these women are butch lesbians
    3) these women are corn-fed and happy
    4) these women body-build
    5) these women like dick

  44. Q Grrl, the possibility of alternate readings does not make the transmisogynist reading invalid. Stop telling us we are wrong to say something harms us just because you happen to like it.

  45. “In the context of the intersex/trans rumours, in a scene where the guards then refer to Lady Gaga as not having a dick, and say “too bad” that she didn’t clearly insinuates the characters as trans. It doesn’t matter if the actors playing them are cissexual, the narrative and context says trans.”

    I really don’t think there is one single intended way to read or interpret this video (or really most art and entertainment). So no, the characters are not “clearly” trans at all…as we can see from the threads on the video, there exists no consensus. I’ve talked to people with wildly different reactions and understandings of it. Discussion and speculation are great. But I don’t think anyone can or should try to impose a True Meaning on something like this.

  46. Not to minimize the concerns about transphobia, but the most genuinely shocking thing to me is that I saw DooM and G.I.S.M. referenced in a music video that will presumably show on MTV.

    Either somebody is an unlikely fan, or their props people have access to a thrift store with genuine ‘street’ credentials. 😉

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