criticized Kanye West’s ‘famous’ music video calling it sickening and
saying that the video is inspired by aspects of culture that makes women
feel unsafe in their bodies. Lena wrote;
Like many pop culture addicted Americans, I wait with bated breath
for what Kanye West will do next. Aside from his Twitter mayhem, he has
created some really “next level shit” as the kids would say. I could
also happily watch Kim Kardashian West chip the paint off a window ledge
for hours and be fascinated. I admire that whole family, love the way
they depict women as better in numbers and masters of their own destiny.
I’d spend all summer at Kamp Kardashian. But it’s possible to hold two
competing thoughts in your mind and the Famous video is one of the more
disturbing “artistic” efforts in recent memory.
Let’s break it
down: at the same time Brock Turner is getting off with a light tap for
raping an unconscious woman and photographing her breasts for a group
chat… As assaults are Periscoped across the web and girls commit
suicide after being exposed in ways they never imagined… While Bill
Cosby’s crimes are still being uncovered and understood as traumas for
the women he assaulted but also massive bruises to our national
consciousness… Now I have to see the prone, unconscious, waxy bodies
of famous women, twisted like they’ve been drugged and chucked aside at a
rager? It gives me such a sickening sense of dis-ease.
raised in the art world by a dad who painted aggro scenes of sexuality
and war and a mom who, ironically enough, has photographed some butt
naked life-sized dolls of her own. I live for the nude rabble rousing of
Carolee Schneemann and Hannah Wilke, for Kathy Acker’s arty porn, for
Paul McCarthy’s gnomes with butt plugs and Vito Acconci masturbating
under the gallery floor and Carrie Mae Weems shedding a blinding light
on the pleasures and terrors of black womanhood. If it’s been banned,
I’ll probably love it. Because I know that art’s job is to make us think
in ways that aren’t always tidy or comfortable. But this feels
different.
alongside Donald Trump is some kind of statement, that I’m probably
being trolled on a super high level. I know that there’s a hipper or
cooler reaction to have than the one I’m currently having. But guess
what? I don’t have a hip cool reaction, because seeing a woman I love
like Taylor Swift (fuck that one hurt to look at, I couldn’t look), a
woman I admire like Rihanna or Anna, reduced to a pair of waxy breasts
made by some special effects guy in the Valley, it makes me feel sad and
unsafe and worried for the teenage girls who watch this and may not
understand that grainy roving camera as the stuff of snuff films. I
hesitated a lot about saying anything cuz I figured the thinkpieces
would come pouring in. But I didn’t see this angle being explored as
much as I had hoped. It’s weird to feel like you’re watching alone. I
bet I’m not.
Here’s the thing, Kanye: you’re cool. Make a
statement on fame and privacy and the Illuminati or whatever is on your
mind! But I can’t watch it, don’t want to watch it, if it feels informed
and inspired by the aspects of our culture that make women feel unsafe
even in their own beds, in their own bodies.
Y’all, I’m so sick of showing up to the party angry. But at least I brought cake.