And this is where I'll stay

Today’s question: Is irony just a way of getting away with being stupid? And do ironic representations in popular culture do good or bad? Black Eyed Peas’ music video for Meet Me Halfway is today’s object of analysis. Watch it:



With a title like Meet Me Halfway, one would think that they should put an equally large effort in getting to each other. But no.

To start with, throughout the video, the Man is depicted as several indivduals. The Man is as versatile as he is active. He conquers nature in what feels like countless ways; he rides an elephant (domestication of animals!), he reads maps (literacy!), he goes to space and he uses various tracking devices (modern science and gold-digging!). Clearly, he’s a Man with a plan and he has the know-how and the determination to get where he wants.

Meanwhile, the Woman, one body, one individual, placed in Nature, doesn’t seem to make any effort whatsoever of getting her halfway to the Man. Her job is to lie passive on a tree trunk, surrounded by flowers and magical mist, gently carressing her body while keeping her legs together (she’s holding out!). And when she claims that “I can’t go any further than this” she has successfully managed to crawl on the ground a distance of… nowhere. She is not only placed in nature, she IS nature, wating to be conquered. All he needs is a location, and to get there first. All she needs is to wait.

In conclusion, and since no one else seems to hang around this blog, I guess I should answer my own questions. But I won't. I don't know if I should laugh with them, at them or cry because of the unoriginal/ironic depictions of Man/Woman. No. Instead I shall watch it again and now focus on why the elephant is wearing black and how that is possibly related to chocolate. Hej.

Successfully aborted in the 16oo's.

Me and Ape have been in class together many times, but never voluntarily so. Drawn together in high school, we were struggling just to survive to lunch break or the end of the day. There were moments of extreme joy, no doubt. But the feeling you get when you choose to study something out of pure interest and inclination and you find yourself doing just that, and now together with a friend, is frickin' awesome.

It doesn’t matter that the current lecturer is best described as a person who seems to be making a bad impersonation of someone with an absolute lack of charisma and authority but really, and sadly, is only that. We had two goals as we entered the classroom. The first was to convince the class that reading Woolf’s Orlando was a good idea. The person without charisma proved helpful in this quest and we soon won great success. Our next goal was to get Wednesdays for the Woolf-group. We got Tuesdays. Why? Because the Aggressive-Sixties’-Feminism seminar group wanted Tuesdays and we didn’t feel like picking a fight with this lot and thus risk reviving certain tedious and old-fashioned preconceptions. We’re unbiased and we’ll stay unbiased. Tuesdays.

Actually, we sort of had a third goal going on as well. We thought it would be appropriate, almost expected, to dress up like “feminist classics”, as it WAS the name of the class. Turns out it wasn’t. Expected. But we still felt strangely appropriate in our light versions of butch/femme outfits.

............................

Lecturer: So, any more suggestions…? Yes?
Cuba boy: I want to read something a little more modern. Maybe social constructivist…
Ape: Judith Butler.
*Mousse looks at Ape with terror*
(...)
Lecturer: Judith Butler is a good idea.
Mousse (silently): No, it isn’t! *hits Ape*

Slutty Bitches

I don't have much to say these days. Other than I'm really looking forward to the spring and taking that Feminist Literature course. I feel like rumbling with feminism.