Winehouse's lesson in dissonant pleasures

I had an argument with Katy Brand recently. Which is a bit surreal to write, given that she's been one of my heroes for some time now, combining as she does progressive thinking (as evidenced on her twitter feed and in her columns) and a genial comic talent (as demonstrated in gems such as this, this and this) - or perhaps more accurate to say - a producer of views that speak to me, and comedy which I find genuinely funny.

Then she wrote this, and I felt bitterly disappointed. Because surely someone like Brand should know better, than to consider this kind of deportment innocuous or even worthy of praise. I won't go into the reasons why - when they've already been put far so poetically here by Holly McNish, for the No More Page 3 campaign. 

So disappointed did I feel in fact, that even as someone who as a rule never comments on anything no matter how violently I disagree with it, I tweeted Holly's little slam poem at Brand by way of counter-argument, and then found myself caught up in a twitter dialogue (a very stressful affair as it turns out - succinctness is not my forte, especially the instantaneous variety).

I tried to understand where she was coming from - this idea that nudity can sometimes be liberating and rebellious, rather than objectifying and stale.

A friend recently reminded me that, when you develop a filter, a way of looking at the world - that is coloured by ideological and political considerations or convictions - be it feminism, post-colonialism, anti-racism, anti-transphobia or whatever else - it becomes very difficult to switch it off. Whether its real life, politics, television, films, fiction, comedy, lyrics or music videos. It permeates your perception and reception of everything. And can often result in a certain cognitive dissonance.   

I was struck by this clip of Amy Winehouse, in which she mentions a song called "He hit me and it felt like a kiss." She points out that while many would be outraged by this kind of sentiment, and see it as sanitizing domestic violence, she knows exactly what those words mean.

Speaking for myself, I can't really say the same. This, I suppose, is partly because I've never been physically assaulted in a way that I felt somehow ambivalently about, and partly because of a conviction, or filter, I've acquired which considers domestic violence, and indeed all violence, to be abhorrent and deserving of unmitigated condemnation.  

But, with a bit of imagination and honesty, I can fathom of a circumstance in which the lyric would ring true. Even if I haven't lived it myself, I'm aware of the fundamentally irrational nature of human emotions, of the often self-destructive tendencies we adopt both alone and in relationships, and of the somewhat unstable line between pain that is completely unwelcome, and another kind.

This is where the dissonance creeps in. Is it reconcilable, then, to believe that nudity is part of an endemic and corrosive phenomenon of objectification that fuels suicides and eating disorders among teenage girls, and at the same time to enjoy a Beyonce concert - perhaps for the artistic value, perhaps because there is something aesthetically appealing about such displays and sexualized performances, for both women and men, whether you want to describe it as confidence, sexiness, or anything else.

Or is it inconsistent, then, to listen to violent misogynistic rap - as I did when I was at too tender an age to be as painfully aware as I am now of the prevalence of violence, rape and abuse, or the pernicious, all-encompassing nature of male-dominated power relations and structures. As I still do, in fact. 

To return to the original subject of discord - Ms. Cyrus's performance at the VMAs - I have to say that even if it were possible for me to flick the chip off my shoulder, even if Holly’s words were not ringing in my ears as I watched it - I don't think I would appreciate the performance much more.

Even though we do see it everywhere and seem to have become more or less desensitised to it entirely, somehow it does still seem possible to use sex and nudity in a visually interesting rather then entirely gratuitous way, although there is seldom much real originality in this direction in the mainstream, or variation in the formula (and the key thing here is that the mainstream pop culture is what many of the youngest and most impressionable members of society encounter first, and even when we consciously decided to refine our tastes and blot it out - we remain helplessly accessible for it in many daily situations.)

Although she doesn't strike me as having the emotional depth and nuance of Winehouse, Katy Brand's icon Beyonce has not shied away from productions that seemed a bit bizarre and unusual, it has to be said. But there was also something tantalizing and aesthetically intriguing in it, if not exactly ground-breaking. 

While Cyrus, who decided to engage in a bit of underdressed cultural misappropriation next to a fully-clothed (and rather odious) male, fell completely flat, as far as I'm concerned. Much as I admire Brand, I still don't really buy her argument. If anything, Miley failed to do her justice.

As for Winehouse, who would have turned 30 tomorrow, at least Brand and I are both in agreement that there was much to be praised and celebrated there, not least the way her music spoke to our deepest and darkest natures, with an irresistible fluency that made it easy to throw off the weight of the normative, political and historical, in favour of the simply human. 

Steps and Stones

Ali Ismail Korkmaz is not unique. He was among 5 people who lost their lives during the Gezi Park protests. The fate of some others has yet to be determined, for example Berk Elvan – the 14-year-old who was hit in the head by a tear-gas canister while out buying bread on June 15, and has been in a coma ever since.

But the way Korkmaz was killed was uniquely horrifying. As the footage below this article shows – he was deliberately trapped by a number of individuals while running away from police and subsequently beaten. He was able to get up and go home in the aftermath of the attack, but when he woke up the next morning, he couldn’t speak. He later died of a brain haemorrhage, after a lengthy period in a coma.

As the same article discusses, about a week ago there was a coordinated and no doubt calculated outpouring of twitter-grief from key figures in Turkey’s ruling party, on the subject of Korkmaz’s death. This was rather astonishing, not least because Korkmaz died on July 10, and had entered a coma over a month earlier.

EU Minister Egemen Bağış, responsible for some of the most alarmingly loony statements during the protests, went in with the following: “I condemn the wild creatures who attacked 19-year-old Ali İsmail Korkmaz. It is impossible to understand or explain such cruel images.”

Is it really, though? Is it impossible to understand people behaving in this way when, as was later claimed by one of those arrested for the attack, the police allegedly asked unsympathetic bystanders to trap protesters so that they could beat them?

And even if this request was not explicitly made – is it so hard to fathom this taking place when the rhetoric against the protesters was so virulent – denouncing them as looters, trouble-makers & coup-plotters. And in a climate where violence was being incited and even condoned – as when a man attacking protesters with a machete was said to have been acting “within the framework of the law” by a senior government member.

Well, no. It's entirely logical.

But Bağış & the others' professions of shock and horror are not only offensive for their inconsistency and disingenuousness. The total & utter insincerity is made even starker by what has been happening since then – in terms of the witch hunts being carried out in schools & universities, where students have been told to denounce each other & their teachers, the crackdowns on all areas where protests are likely to take place such as football stadiums & universities, to pre-empt any further resistance & stifle any stirrings of organised dissent.

One night, around the same time as these statements were made, I walked through Gezi Park on my way home. I stopped at a patch of grass where some paving stones had been laid – five, to be precise – each one bearing the name of one of the victims who lost their lives during the protests (one of whom was a police officer).  

These symbolic headstones have been the object of a tug-of-war between the protesters and authorities, who appear to find them highly objectionable and a threat to the peace & order of the place – as they have removed & disposed of them each time they have appeared, and reappeared.

It's a battle of the symbols similar to that which is currently going on over the painting and repainting of steps – first in rainbow colours – then back to grey – and then back again to multi-colours. It strikes me as such a waste of time and energy, to attempt to police the symbolic in this way. So pointless to focus on something so innocuous as colours or memorials to the dead. So unedifying and unflattering in that it makes Turkey seem like far more of a security-mad police state than it actually is. And above all so futile – because the battle of symbols is one that can never be won. There will always be someone who shows up in the middle of the night to place the stones, or to paint the steps, even if they have to resort to using kerbstones because the larger paving stones are nowhere to be found, as was the case for two of the stones when I came across them that night. At least – I hope it cannot be won, and that someone will.  

I stood there for a while, and while I was standing some boys came over with some flowers they'd cut from the beds nearby – meticulously planted by municipality workers during the period when the park was shut down – and began to arrange them in various formations around the stones.

One of them asked me if I was Turkish. I said no and told him where I was from. When I directed the question at him he also said no, and told me he was Kurdish.

Then a man came over, perhaps the father of one, and we spoke briefly, him asking me the usual questions I so often get asked as a foreigner in this county. Among which - "Do you like living in Turkey," to which I answered, "yes, very much." An answer given mainly out of honesty, and partially out of diplomacy to please to asker. I needn't have bothered this time though, as he responded by saying, "I don't."

When I passed through Gezi Park again two nights ago, the stones were nowhere to be seen.