RI♡T grrrl's N♀T DEAD

GOOD GRRRL BANDS - BLEACHED

I love me some punk & roll. I like it even better when it’s played by (mostly) ladies, and I can’t think of a band doing a cooler, poutier job of catchy, sunkissed melody-led guitar music right now than LA’s Bleached. They write music to soundtrack driving down Sunset in your vintage convertible eating fruit flavoured ice pops and dribbling the juice down your chin whilst singing along to The Ramones on the cassette player. Ergo, they rule.

I have been super lucky to catch them live twice (both shows were EXTREME FUN), and I was even luckier to talk to Jessie from the band about Suzi Quatro, why female music fans rule and a ton of other cool stuff thrown in for good measure.

What’s The Deal… with ‘The Mrs Carter Show’?

Like the rest of humanity, I love Beyoncé, so when I heard a few weeks back that she was touring and coming to my city I was obviously hysterical (I will never be ready for that magnificent jelly). This is a woman who embodies female success and achievement in the most mainstream way possible - her reach is wider than that of any other performer on the planet; she has true mass appeal which is built largely on the fact that what she does is so empowering. Whilst she isn’t always singing about runnin tha world (girls), the power and presence she exudes kind of makes the people who listen to her and watch her feel like they can be just as much of a bad ass bitch if they work as hard at what they want and love as she clearly has. Though I’ve heard her alluded to as an ambivalent figure (for seemingly according with white, patriarchal notions of beauty and femininity whilst singing about smashing them - maybe it’s a sad truth that for her feminism to function on such a high level, reaching so many people, she is forced to compromise. Or, maybe that’s just how she likes to look and behave), the real test is in how listening to Beyoncé makes fourteen year old girls who are bombarded from every direction with body policing and The Only Way is Essex and @ShitGirlsSay feel. I think that it makes them feel strong and powerful amidst a mainstream which often works against them feeling those things; if that isn’t radical and beautiful and totally just THE POINT OF FEMINISM, I don’t know what is. 

You can imagine my dismay, then, as I excitedly surveyed the tour poster - Queen Bey in full curvaceous regalia, sassy phallic sceptre and all - completely ready for my mind to be blown by the divalicious name she was giving to her world tour, upon seeing the words “THE MRS CARTER SHOW” emblazoned in her signature font, just underneath her name. That’s “Mrs Carter”, as in “Mrs Shawn Carter” as in “Mrs Jay Z” as in “Jay Z’s wife” - I can’t help feeling that Beyoncé is selling herself incredibly short here. She is Beyoncé - that’s a word which now has ceased to be a name and has become a brand, an adjective, a cultural reference (tell me you don’t love Michael Scott and I will show you for a liar); a word which, for so many people, conveys in its three syllables unknowable power and feeling - but she’s chosen here to present herself on the world stage as simply her husband’s wife. 

What I’m not saying here is that being a wife (and indeed a mother) isn’t a desperately important role in a woman’s life, and I’m not saying either that a woman who is married to a man and decides to take his name and represent herself in that way is doing anything wrong or un-feminist (it’s definitely not for me to say what constitutes feminism in anyone’s life but my own - as much as everyone’s hair or religion is different, so is everyone’s experience of feminism), but when Beyoncé in her own right is so much more in every way than a wife or a mother (as is every woman), it’s disappointing that this is how she wants to portray herself to people who love and admire her not for her private life (which until very recently she has appeared to want to keep private - she rarely speaks to the press and has so far kept her child, for the most part, away from the flashbulbs), but for her public self as a woman who is independent (throw ur hands up @ me), strong and proud of herself and who is, above all, lest we forget, astronomically talented. 

At this point I want to compare with “The Mrs Carter Show” the title of Beyoncé’s last world tour. It was called “The ‘I Am’ Tour”, and if that doesn’t tell you everything that I’m trying to say in a nutshell, I haven’t made my point well enough. ‘I Am’ is what we have come to expect from Beyoncé - it’s direct, and it’s determined, and - excuse me for a sec while I get a bit literature student on your butts - it’s utterly present. Beyoncé as we know her IS; the “I” part of ‘I Am’ lets you know that she is BEYONCÉ, an individual woman with individual talents and qualities, and the “Am” part tells us that she’s here right now, and she’s making the most of it. Put together, ‘I Am’ is a clear, profound battle cry from this person who is a member of two marginalised social groups: “I am here, and I’m not going anywhere”. When we compare this previous tour title with the current one, it just seems all the more disheartening. Whilst she was defined as an individual person (“I” - note also that this is a non-gendered pronoun; it simply allows the speaker to refer to him or herself), she is now defined totally in terms of a) her gender (this is not necessarily a negative) and b) someone else’s name, when, as I’ve already discussed, her own name already means so very much.

Why, then, the turnaround? Beyoncé’s life has changed considerably since she last toured because she has become a mother; maybe she considers this new position to be - as many women do - the most important in her life, and the one for which she wishes to be remembered. Or perhaps Mrs Carter is as much of a character as Sasha Fierce, after whom Beyoncé named her 2008 album - this could all just be Madonna-esque chameleonism (yep I just invented a word what are you going to do about it) set about to make thousands of bloggers like me muse over her decisions whilst eating properly loads of custard creams. She might have chosen it in order to prove that one can be a wife and mother and a career-owning powerhouse all at the same time: there are enough people who say you can’t for this to have been a valid, pro-feminist choice. I could make a list of positive reasons for Beyoncé’s naming this tour the way she has as long as Azealia Banks’ weave, but I think I’ll always inevitably go back to feeling a bit sad about it. As one of those people for whom the word “Beyoncé” symbolises a lot about womanliness and female success and human talent, I can’t help but feel that ‘Mrs Carter’ puts her in a box, normalising her and making her into less of a force of nature and more like the rest of us mortals, when part of her magic is that she’s, well, magic. Whatever her choice was based on, I’m certain that it hasn’t been made by accident; though I can’t say I wholeheartedly agree with it, if it helps in Beyoncé’s eventual rise to the position of either Queen of the World or President of the United States of America (whichever comes first) I’ll try to understand it.  

- words by Lauren♡

*Grace Dent wrote a cracking article along some of the same lines as this one about Beyoncé’s name and about bride’s names in general, not sure I 100% agree with everything said but it’s brilliant and way more coherent than this so go read it!

GOOD GRRRL BANDS - GOOD THROB

I’m going to make this short because I have to go out in a few minutes, but I just wanted to take a few moments of your day to show some big love to one of the coolest bands I’ve heard in a long long time!

Good Throb is a London 4 piece playing angry as all hell, lady-centric punk (I was lucky enough to get a copy of their new self titled 7” this weekend; it is, predictably, great and comes with a sick fold-out poster collage with a picture of David Cameron on); it’s loud, it’s ballsy (as only really really angry women can be), and it really, REALLY fucking hates working in retail (the “WOUUUUULD YOU LIIIIIKE A BAAAAG” refrain of the catchily titled “Bag”, a song which includes lyrics like “are you interested in joining our mailing list?” and “something for someone special?”, has been in my head all week - I’m not complaining). This is the kind of punk that grabbed me when I was 14 - fast, bratty, opinionated - and that still has me in a vice-like but affectionate grip now whenever I hear bands like this one playing it. 

Probably my favourite Good Throb song is “Feminazi”; I can totally relate to the lyrics, which talk about being branded as a card carrying member of the No Fun Club for getting annoyed/being vocal about sexism that’s ‘meant in jest’ or ‘wasn’t SERIOUS’ (“he said keep the peace/give her a gag”). It’s still shitty, I’m still offended, and Good Throb will literally piss on your chips (AND LAAAAHV IT).

Basically what I’m trying to say in a very round-about way is that this band rules, and listening to them/reading about them has made me feel like it’s totally okay to be mad and like I shouldn’t apologise for any behaviour that is deemed inappropriate for me ‘cause I’m a girl, because who even deems what’s appropriate? Revolution grrrl style right fuckin now. 

you can listen to the self titled 7 inch here/visit the band’s soundcloud - I would recommend you do both

Lauren xoxoxo

PS - I couldn’t find credit for this photo so please let me know if it is yours/you know who took it so I can provide it!

in an attempt to properly re-commit myself to this blog, I thought it was probably about time it had its own logo. As I am shit at Photoshop (anyone who has seen the Mrs Mia Wallace zine will attest to that fact), Luke made this lovely thing. Hopefully coming to A BADGE NEAR YOU in the not so distant future. 

hey everyone!

after a really long absence (I’m so sorry, my degree is taking over my life), I am returning in this, a BLAZE OF GLORY. I hope this update finds you all well.

I hope that you’ll be pleased to know that even though I haven’t been BLOGGIN’ very much recently, I’ve still been writing and recently I took part in the WHO NEEDS FEMINISM campaign at my university which got a lot of national press coverage (you can find the rest of the photos here - it was a really cool few days and way more people than the organisers expected got involved which was gr8!). I chose this statement in particular because I think it’s a really insidious way in which misogyny is embedded into society’s collective psyche: you might ‘throw like a girl’ and we’ll all have a great laugh about it, but ‘that’s so gay!’ or ‘you’re such a Jew’ often meet with much more negative reactions.

Elsewhere, I also wrote a column for my university’s student paper about the almighty Rookie magazine (which you can read here if you’re so inclined). It’s not my best work ever (I save all that for you guys, obviously), but I hope that it showcases my appreciation for what Rookie is doing and introduced a few new people to what genuinely is quickly becoming one of the most positive resources feminism has ever had. 

Finally, I’d like to thank you all for your support with the BITCH HEART zine - it’s now totally sold out but I’ll hopefully be uploading it online very soon so that people who didn’t get a chance to read it can have a look if they like. HOWEVER, this said, I may need your help to do so: if you have a copy of BITCH HEART (or indeed of Mrs Mia Wallace!) and would like me to send you a tasty treat in the post, if you could scan the pages and email them to me @ loneill@live.co.uk I’d be forever in your debt. 

FINALLY FINALLY, I’m currently trying to gauge interest in a second Mrs Mia Wallace zine: would anybody want to contribute/read? Thinking of broadening the theme out to TV ladies as well as those in films - let me know!

Sorry for being such a slob with my posts, I swear I’ll do better next time.
peace/love/grrrl power, Lauren xoxo♡