wordcrush

"It was a pearling record, full of brio, swagger and the addictive little elements that kicked off with its first line - 'I'll tell you what I want/ what I really, really want' - and peaked with the mysterious claim that what its authors were after was a 'zig-a-zig-ah'." That's right. I'm posting on the Spice Girls, or more accurately "Girl Power as Anarchism," a Guardian article that discusses the long-term layers that those peppy pop princesses plied upon post-feminism (five times fast: GO!)

I actually like the way that this article puts a twist on the all-too easy criticism of the Gals. The article responds to the usual argument, which runs something like "post-feminism revealed as a busted flush: five supposedly empowered starlets whose diminutive nicknames and push-up bras suggested patriarchal business as usual." Instead, columnist John Harris claims that "If the non-guitar end of the pop market now seems to be dominated by vacuous drones, the Spices - not least when they fired their manager Simon Fuller in 1997, an act of quite splendid self-sabotage - looked like something close to anarchists."

Okay, that last bit might be pushing it a bit, though I suppose they did throw off the oppressive shackles of success rather quickly in ditching Fuller. Regardless of how far you want to take the argument, I think that the fact that an utterly mainstream group could bring feminist (and anarchist?) debate to the world's attention has some value. It's a hell of a lot better than us irony-toting academics are doing most of the time. Even the likes of the übernasty Ann Coulter are succeeding in communicating their views. Is it time we took a lesson from the supposed masses, rather than continuously pooh poohing their stupidity? Even if these people bring the wrong message to the fore, at least they're opening the floor.

# posted by Lintropy @ 3:05 PM