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.