Joanna Newsom --- "Ys"

[nomadologist]

Not presumptuous, based on things I've read that you've written. And the other Americans here don't think what I'm saying about Newsom's social significance is completely baseless, even if they don't agree, because they understand the social demographic Joanna Newsom belongs to as Americans who live in the same society with her. *definitions* of "feminism" will vary, but within the groups purporting to be "feminist", among people who actually identify as "feminists", you're going to get a lot of disagreement about and discussion of what exactly that means. I'm arguing from the inside, here.

A strawman is formal flaw in logic where you build an argument based on a misappropriation or misinterpretation of an opponent's argument. ILM (from what I've seen of it) is probably not the best place to go to learn about terms like "strawman"...

 

[Guybrush]

Not presumptuous, based on things I've read that you've written. And the other Americans here don't think what I'm saying about Newsom's social significance is completely baseless, even if they don't agree, because they understand the social demographic Joanna Newsom belongs to as Americans who live in the same society with her. *definitions* of "feminism" will vary, but within the groups purporting to be "feminist", among people who actually identify as "feminists", you're going to get a lot of disagreement about and discussion of what exactly that means. I'm arguing from the inside, here.

A strawman is formal flaw in logic where you build an argument based on a misappropriation or misinterpretation of an opponent's argument. ILM (from what I've seen of it) is probably not the best place to go to learn about terms like "strawman"...

Oh, please. Ok, how about Merriam-Webster’s definition:

Main Entry: straw man
Function: noun
Date: 1886
1 : a weak or imaginary opposition (as an argument or adversary) set up only to be easily confuted
2 : a person set up to serve as a cover for a usually questionable transaction

 

[nomadologist]

How about wikipedia's:

A straw man argument is a logical fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw-man argument" is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent. A straw-man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it is in fact misleading, because the opponent's actual argument has not been refuted.

Anyway, who was even using a straw man here? People were just expressing different opinions. Stop abusing the term straw man people!

 

[zhao]

oh dear...

 

[nomadologist]

I know, Zhao. Make it stop. Post something I can write a real response to

 

[turtles]

So I was thinking about your argument Nomad, and (just to play devil's advocat here) I do think there's a decent arguement for newsom actually being a feminist. As you say yourself Nomad, you *can* see her as being a feminist. I think, the way to do this is to look at her taking some very typically "feminine" issues (relationships, being broken up with, etc.) from a very feminine persepective, and then ratchets up the intelligence and risk taking factor and says "see these things aren't trivial "girly" issues, they are important and worthy of deep thought and consideration"

Don't know your ESG reference, but couldn't newsom be said to be trying to make a strong claim for validity of traditionally "feminine" issues and positions as being worthy of serious art? (this is maybe a stretch, but what the hey...)

 

[timellison]

Looking over the post I was initially responding to again, it seems to me the "strawman" red flag (semantic debate about the term aside) came via this:

<i>latched onto by indie fans who hope that the whitebread flavor indie rock has been exuding has been spiced up by the presence of a female who takes huge artistic risks (at least, by indie standards, which I think are tame compared to my own)</i>

 

[nomadologist]

So I was thinking about your argument Nomad, and (just to play devil's advocat here) I do think there's a decent arguement for newsom actually being a feminist. As you say yourself Nomad, you *can* see her as being a feminist. I think, the way to do this is to look at her taking some very typically "feminine" issues (relationships, being broken up with, etc.) from a very feminine persepective, and then ratchets up the intelligence and risk taking factor and says "see these things aren't trivial "girly" issues, they are important and worthy of deep thought and consideration"

Don't know your ESG reference, but couldn't newsom be said to be trying to make a strong claim for validity of traditionally "feminine" issues and positions as being worthy of serious art? (this is maybe a stretch, but what the hey...)

All good points, Turtles. I do see why she can be read as a feminist text, but there's something unsettling to me about how bound to the traditional sort of helpless/vulnerable feminine role her aesthetic is. There may be something in the whole equation that makes her transcend this in her fans eyes (in fact, I'm sure there is), but I don't see it (or hear it.) I think she makes cutesy, precious music when she has the real potential as an artist to make really epic music. The interior space, the subject, starts to bore me, and I think women are too often accused of being "limited" in this way by misogynists that I'd think a feminist would avoid playing so easily into this stereotype.

 

[nomadologist]

Looking over the post I was initially responding to again, it seems to me the "strawman" red flag (semantic debate about the term aside) came via this:

<i>latched onto by indie fans who hope that the whitebread flavor indie rock has been exuding has been spiced up by the presence of a female who takes huge artistic risks (at least, by indie standards, which I think are tame compared to my own)</i>

Well, I was trying to describe what I felt might be motivating the overwhelming response to her music by certain music fans--didn't mean to create a set of arguments on their part. I've read a lot of reviews that make this claim about her, that she's saving indie rock from immanent demise.

 

[timellison]

I think if there's anything "helpless" about the album, it is a sort of cosmic helplessness - helplessness to fate, which is not a gender issue.

 

[nomadologist]

If that's how you read it, I understand. I just get this sense that her fans (the male indie rocker fans) like her because they think she's beautiful and she plays to (what I've observed to be) the upper middle class, educated man's fantasy of a woman who is still in thrall to traditional femininity.

Beyond that, her take on things is just not to my liking, aesthetically. Some people don't like peanut butter. Some people don't like music about relationships issues written in fairly tale language in poetic stanzas. Doesn't mean anyone's wrong or right.

 

[ripley]

I think if there's anything "helpless" about the album, it is a sort of cosmic helplessness - helplessness to fate, which is not a gender issue.

it's not just the issue, it's who presents it.

I would suggest that presenting as helpless is generally quite gendered.

 

[nomadologist]

right, ripley. are men ever as "helpless to fate" as women are, traditionally?

 

[timellison]

Well, how would a woman present the idea of cosmic helpless/helplessness to fate, then, without being criticized in terms of gender politics?

 

[nomadologist]

Easily. I think Kate Bush did it in "Running Up that Hill (Deal with God)" on Hounds of Love.

 

[timellison]

right, ripley. are men ever as "helpless to fate" as women are, traditionally?

I don't think the album deals with helplessness to fate in a particularly gendered way - more as a generally human phenomenon.

 

[nomadologist]

Isn't the whole narrative about her feeling lost outside of her former relationship? I know that can be a universally human experience, but when you pair that with her ditzy public persona and her self-presentation in pictures and the media as this sort of wide-eyed little elvin thing who thinks the world is just too much and wishes she lived in a fairy tale...

 

[timellison]

Isn't the whole narrative about her feeling lost outside of her former relationship?

I have not heard this. I think it is quite a complex text.

Interestingly, "Monkey and Bear" does seem kind of gendered, and perhaps in a kind of stereotypical way, but one that I would characterize as more sort of myth/fable. In any case, the seemingly male-gendered bear is the one who gets the short end of the stick, doesn't he?

 

[tht]

Interestingly, "Monkey and Bear" does seem kind of gendered, and perhaps in a kind of stereotypical way, but one that I would characterize as more sort of myth/fable

that is the worst song ever

 

[nomadologist]

hmm just read the lyrics and i thought the bear was the female, joanna? hard to tell