You’ve got your mother in a whirl/Cause she’s not sure if you’re a boy or a girl -Rebel Rebel, David Bowie
And for my last trick…
I’ve written about pop and dancing and falling in love and even a few political posts. So where to go from here? Bowie, of course.
David Bowie made me a feminist, you see. Well, not entirely. Lots of other things did, too. And certainly Bowie had little to do with that ever-present subject of argument, “when I decided to call myself a feminist.”
No, Bowie was just there when I needed him, whispering in my ear about the secret powers of glitter makeup and transgressive clothing. He wasn’t political and by not being so he was more political than anything else I was listening to. While Jello Biafra and the Clash made explicit arguments, Bowie was just there, convincing millions of straight boys to buy his records while he gleefully paraded in high heels and dresses and skintight leotards.
Never drag, really. Just the accoutrements that we associated with femininity but that he wielded as tools for transformation, again and again and again. Makeup to draw symbols on your face, exaggerate one feature beyond any reality.
In an unpublished piece on my hard drive looking for a home, I wrote:
I loved the polymorphous sexuality of David Bowie, those songs of beauties male and female, strong and alien and more than a little scary, and I learned how much power there was in confusing people’s ideas of what you should be.
Bowie was monstrous in his day, not least because he simply cast off one identity and pulled on the next—he wore dresses, makeup, then alien skintight rockstar wear, then found soul and suits and a pompadour, then ghostly pallor—he was married to an American, then gay, then alone, then married to a Somali woman.
Bowie was skidding and sliding from one cultural reference to the next, assembling an identity from the bits of what had just started to be pop culture. He taught me to assemble my own, to shed skins when I needed to and move on to the next. He taught me that we’re all beautiful.
He taught me that we’re all monsters.
I see as much Bowie in Lady Gaga as I do Madonna; Gaga and her obsession with the term “monsters.” The use of fame to redefine oneself is a freedom still largely kept for the privileged, but making a choice to align yourself with the monsters is still a step. But I digress, this isn’t about Gaga.
Except that it is, I suppose, in the way that it’s about taking whichever bits of whichever pop idol we’re presented with and learning what you can, using what you can. Bowie’s no saint and he’s still a rich straight white guy. But as I wrote last week,
David Bowie put “Heroes” in quotes on the title of his album and his song for a reason. He was a pop star on his third or fourth or fifth persona (depending on when you start counting) by the time he made that record and he knew better than anyone that your public face is one you create and put on. (Oh, there will be more on Bowie.) For me, part of being a hippie lefty feminist type is not looking to people to be heroes.
Not heroes, then. But always looking for stories. Because telling stories is how we connect with others, how we learn, how we make change. And sometimes you find the story you were looking for in a pop song and other times you remember your stories when you listen to those songs. Sometimes the stories are sad and sometimes they’re scary and sometimes, sometimes they’re beautiful beyond all recognition. Sometimes they’re all of the above.
Like this one:
[Photo montage of David Bowie and Marc Bolan set to Bowie’s Lady Stardust; Bowie in typical skinny-glam gear and Bolan with his black curls around his face and lots of eyeliner, obviously]
People stared at the makeup on his face
Laughed at his long black hair, his animal grace
The boy in the bright blue jeans
Jumped up on the stage
And lady stardust sang his songs
Of darkness and disgrace
And he was alright, the band was all together
Yes he was alright, the song went on forever
Yes he was awful nice
Really quite out of sight
And he sang all night long
Femme fatales emerged from shadows
To watch this creature fair
Boys stood upon their chairs
To make their point of view
I smiled sadly for a love I could not obey
Lady stardust sang his songs
Of darkness and dismay
And he was alright, the band was all together
Yes he was alright, the song went on forever
And he was awful nice
Really quite out of sight
And he sang all night long
Oh how I sighed when they asked if I knew his name
Ooh they was alright, the band was all together
Yes he was alright, and the song went on forever
He was awful nice
Really quite paradise
He sang all night long
It’s about loneliness and love and loss and playing with gender and that fear that comes from attraction. And so I played with them too and grew less afraid, even though the boy who introduced me to Bowie was a poor substitute and supremely uncomfortable with his own desires. Moved on from there and each successive piece made me stronger.
And so I turn to Bowie whenever my life is changing, because he knew all about changes and knows them still. I turn to Bowie when I need to remember that the categories people want to stick you in never fit right and it’s OK to break them down and break out and break away. I turn to Bowie when I need to remember that it’s all just a performance and it’s OK to have a you that is still there when you step off the stage, and I still turn to Bowie when I think about love.
And what does any of that have to do with feminism? Sometimes it feels like just another category that people want to define rules for. Sometimes I need to remember which side I’m on. There are rarely only two.