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This is long and rambling, I'm afraid.
Wanted to start by asking arthur: have you actually listened to any Le Tigre? Just wondering...
Because before we get dragged off too far down the "is it BAD to make music just for girls, or gay people? is it as BAD as music just for men? why are they no tunes that speak just to ME?" route, maybe we should pull back a little bit and consider whether Le Tigre really are excluding anyone.
This aspect of the debate has so far been based entirely on one line in one Le Tigre song - "for the ladies, and the fags yeah, we're the band with the rollerskate jams" - and I'd actually make the case that this really doesn't exclude anyone. For starters, because it isn't followed by the line "and not the straight guys - they're all scum!" (there's a verse dissing guys with digi cameras who "push to the front and then just stand there", but c'mon - those guys are undeniable wankers, and are also just one thing in a list of live gig hassles in the song). You know, Le Tigre aren't actually saying that they don't want men buying their records or coming to their gigs. In fact I've not encountered any anti-male sentiments in their music or interviews (in fact I could find examples of the contrary if you like). They're pro-women, for sure, and they're anti-misogynistic assholes and their culture, but what's wrong with that?
But more generally, this idea that the only music that can speak to you personally is music that specifically refers to your circumstances, your personal details and the manner in which they relate to how you define your own identify - I find it baffling, personally.
And Flux, I find it even more baffling specifically that you can't see that it's a bit odd that you have no problem getting past this process (whereby musicians specify - within their music or otherwise - that the music is being made primarily for and in order to represent a group of which you are not nominally part) - you can get past this where the whole of hip-hop is concerned, but Le Tigre are a stumbling block... And I think it's disingenuous and inaccurate to get round this by saying that 'nigga' has a wider range of meanings than just black or non-caucasian male - sure, it's starting to occasionally in hip-hop (and I don't have the knowledge to talk about outside of that context), eg Pharoah Monche's "kinda like this cat for a white nigga" - but you can't tell me that white fans of hip-hop actually identify as 'niggas'.
What you're essentially saying, is that you can make the leap to identify yourself in the category 'nigga' because when the Wu-Tang say that, either they don't mean just black men, they mean all their fans, or you can look past the specifics and see yourself as part of a wider group being addressed* - but you can't do the same with Le Tigre, because your're definitely not a lady or a fag. Which would seem to contradict your "I don't see gender as a genuine difference" comment...
*I think this is fair enough, btw. There's a tradition of making these sort of call to arms in pop music, especially music that celebrates a subculture (what we might call 'alternative' pop music, possibly). You have to be aware that there is more than one level on which a given example of this operates, though. When ODB calls on "all my niggas and my niggarettes" at the start of 'Triumph', he's pretty obviously not addressing white Wu fans such as myself primarily, but that doesn't mean that I don't feel that I am being called upon, and I'll happily defend that as valid. So why can't the same be true of Kathleen et al? Well, it is for me, but why isn't it for you? This could just be an aesthetic/personal thing, I guess, but it doesn't sound like it is - there's some level of disapproval in some the posts above.
[ 06-02-2002: Message edited by: Flyboy ] |
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