tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-262486400322098749.post1386652796323294332..comments2023-01-05T05:04:21.027+00:00Comments on Ramping & Roaring: "Bless God and bless the gays!"Roaringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13242201448202716563noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-262486400322098749.post-76664754608996129472010-04-14T21:22:08.909+01:002010-04-14T21:22:08.909+01:00Ok if she's so up for space that isn't dom...Ok if she's so up for space that isn't dominated by consumerism then why all the product placement? And is that comment? Is that parody? Well, sorry but really no. In a sense she's a natural offspring of the late Malcolm McLaren, only not quite so provocative. Her images don't really challenge stereotypes, but transform people including herself into images like diamond dust shoes. There are perhaps interesting questions about who these objects, these images, are for - are they a last meal for all the poisoned men, men who are choking on the newly quasi-empowered images of their creation? Or are they broken and damaged images that are attempting to pull themselves together for their own sakes? But if so then the femininity they have strung together seems to be only the fragments of the identities that men have given them. And this hits the real problem here that actually, whichever of the above we might presume, we're dealing here with the play of superficial images; images which are ineluctably tied to money - that glorious trinity of desire (sex), money and advertising. And as Roaring points out the language of self-exploitation here IS hard-hitting - at what cost do people turn themselves into objects? Make themselves quantifiable? <br /><br />It reminds me of Guy DeBord's *Society of the Spectacle*: "The spectacle is the self-portrait of power in the age of power's totalitarian rule over the conditions of existence", or again, "The spectacle is the bad dream of modern society in chains, expressing nothing more than its wish for sleep."<br /><br />But do any of us want to live in a society without diet coke and virgin phones? How important is emancipation when you have front row tickets to a great show? How can you be cool and sexy, or like people who are cool and sexy, without reinforcing consumerism and misogyny? <br /><br />So Roaring's right - we need something braver, but we might be waiting a long time. I'll still go and see her though. <br /><br />Lady Gaga, so hot right now. Lady Gaga.Rampinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17647636685982913359noreply@blogger.com