Does indie culture, asks one reader of CiF’s ‘indie professor’ Wendy Fonarow, really offer its female participants sanctuary from sexual objectification and imposed gender roles? Or does it, in fact, offer nothing more than objectification of a less overt nature and an alternative but equally rigid set of expectations?
The indie professor responds cautiously. Outwardly, the indie scene might be less macho than others, but wankers get everywhere, and remain wankers even if they listen to fey guitar music. And just because one of them has swapped his pink Ben Sherman for a bootleg Dirty Projectors tour shirt, his raging cock issues won’t magically resolve themselves.
Another reader – SexyLikeLemmy, apparently – isn’t at all happy with this assessment. Not that he particularly disagrees with it. No, it’s more that he’s sick of journalists sullying the purity of his musical experience with their ‘political ideology’, such as that of expecting not to get sexually assaulted.
Thanks to Nicholas.
This is infuriating! Why am I surprised that a music writer would write an article completely void of anything to do with actual music. Why? Why do music writers always do this? What compels you to apply your own vision of how you think the world should be on every one else?
What is it with you fucking people? Why must you try to enforce some ignorant orthodoxy of your own on every scene that comes down the road? Why? Why can’t you just see music for music? Why must you always try to attach some political ideology to everything? It’s asinine and it makes YOU the only one running around trying to be the equality hall monitor.
Is that what it is? Where all music writers hall monitors when you were kids? Miss the power over the other kids?
Let me let you in on how it REALLY works out here in indie-heaven. Whenever a group of guys gets together to build a band they always have to take into consideration that they’ll get slagged off in the press if they don’t find some way to live up to indie expectations. Get it? Whose the real cultural enforcer? YOU PEOPLE!
Think about it, you got 2 guys trying to put together a band, they know damn well they BEST get at least one girl, if they can’t find one, they better get a gay friend in there some how. Who cares if they know how to play? That’s not important. What’s important is getting treated fairly. You don’t stand a chance in the press if you don’t play there little game. Fine, find some girl and stick her on the bass, just turn the fucking amp down live so she won’t screw everything up!
You writers know fuck all about music, what you do know about it thrusting your orthodoxy on everyone else.
SexyLikeLemmy
So there you go. The truth, if you can handle it, is that Kim Deal was only there so the Pixies could call themselves an equal opportunities employer, and Vivian Girls are probably some sort of bloody PC local government initiative.
But take heart, girls in bands. Because as useless as you are, you are at least marginally preferable to benders.