jamie, sin ningún tipo de vergüenza

Some critiques of Evelyn McDonnell’s article

lookuplookup:

I have a lot of weird feelings about articles like this. I mean, yeah, women are consistently underrepresented (if not downright written out) of rock history, but also? I feel kind of weird about how people point to the same women over and over when they talk about who is being left out & then they make these wishy washy arguments that I just don’t buy AT ALL. Like, yeah, Joan Jett is pretty cool, but two of the three songs that this article cites as being big-time reasons for her inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (“I Love Rock ‘n Roll” and “Crimson and Clover”) are covers & not that covers aren’t awesome (I fucking love covers), but I think there are better/more compelling arguments for legacies of musicianship than, “They topped charts with some awesome covers!” Why isn’t being one of the first female musicians to found her own record label (Blackheart Records) cited as being one of Joan’s major achievements? To me, that says a whole lot more about her role in rock music.

Anyway, like I said, I agree that women are underrepresented and often written out of rock history, but I think that pretty much the entire discourse on women in rock in the mainstream media (including opinion pieces on why we need to include more women in the “rock canon”) needs to change before we’re going to see shifts in things like who’s inducted into the rock hall and who shows up on Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 greatest rock guitarists, etc.

Not a huge Joan Jett fan myself, but I wonder if she’s used here as an example because she seems like a sort of obvious choice? You can make arguments against a lot of lesser known female artists because they’re ‘not famous enough’, or didn’t sell as many records, weren’t influential enough, or weren’t ‘rock’ enough. Joan Jett’s longevity, influence, and style are hard to argue with. That is, unless you seem to be ‘threatened’ by women who really rock, as the article’s author argues the male-dominated board is.

The author points out that only female artists who fit themselves within an ‘acceptable’ pop-type femininity seem to get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and she does mention that Jett continues to mentor and encourage female artists. Along with Jett’s musical and sartorial style, Jett’s business savvy aren’t ‘conventionally feminine’. In that sense as well, she’s a good artist with which to make this point.

Also, I think that the author points out that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is run by Jan Wenner in order to draw attention to how mainstream media plays a huge roll in maintaining the uselessly low level of discourse on women in rock. I mean seriously, forcing female journalists to ask lady artists about their perfume? Unbelievable. Except, unfortunately…not really.

I agree that mainstream media is the problem…and so are mainsteam media journalists. McDonnell is totally a product of that environment, and I don’t think that she quite ‘gets it’. When I read this article, I thought her name looked familiar, and I was typing this/thinking about these critiques when I remembered where I’d seen it: in the byline for a review of Girls to the Front that did not impress me. In it McDonnell calls the Riot Grrrl media ban ‘ill-conceived’, and a ‘bad deed’ (?!) As my bff Cary put it, “Well, of course she’s gonna say that, she’s part of the media that was banned, right?” That adds another interesting layer to this article…or well, it does for me, anyway, because I’m a nerd. Womp.

Also, McDonnell’s review: Book Review: ‘Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution’ by Sara Marcus