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Little Valkyrie ([info]waltraute) wrote in [info]otf_wank,
@ 2010-09-18 12:28:00


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This feminist blog which depends on your donations is not here to educate you!
Thanks to the anon at wank_report for the bulk of the writeup, with its singular virtues.

S.E. SMITH accuses Lady Gaga of appropriation:

It's been pointed out that she appropriates a lot of things from musical traditions created by people of colour and nonwhite people. That her work contains transmisogyny. That she appropriates the experiences of people with disabilities. These are all things that I don't think of as feminist acts—note that I am not saying that Lady Gaga is not feminist (because I don't think it's up to me to decide that), but rather that I am saying that her actions do not always mesh with the identity she has chosen to claim. The same could be said of many other people who identify as feminist, including myself, however. Let those in glass houses...

(bonus points for the excellent use of praeteritio here.)

A commenter asks for references and explanation. According to Snarky's Machine, late of the now-closed Shapely Prose, asking for sources is derailing and oppressive:

I can't be arsed to unpack and respond to your comment except to say you're trafficking in copious amounts of derailing for dummies. Your inability to "see" how Gaga misappropriates says everything about YOUR own privilege and inability to google "Grace Jones" and nothing else. If concepts are unfamiliar to you instead assuming the concepts themselves are wrong, you might want to hit up Professor Google. Because the argument, "you're wrong because I don't know what you're talking about." just does not cut it.

Comments defending that commenter get deleted (although some are reposted in the anon threads below). Mods claim to be "reviewing the situation" (i.e., pretending to do something about it). "Open thread" disappears after 20 minutes after irate commenters leave comments there. The current status is "please email the mods directly if you want to talk about comment policy", which couldn't possibly have a chilling effect--not at all.

Snarky's Machine has another reply to that initial commenter on Twitter:

Ha. I love how some weird ass creepy e-troll named whitney is stalking my feed and tattling cause I'm so mean. Who are these people.

People take refuge to complain in several threads in the sfd_anon community. (Which are now locked; possibly accessible if you're a member of the community.) Worth noting are the ones about how Bitch magazine aggressively solicits donations to support their journalism, which puts a special irony gloss on the "we're not here to educate you" rebuttal.


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[info]scifantasy
2010-09-18 08:03 pm UTC (link)
That definitely does change the tenor of the debate. Probably an important point to have been in the writeup--there is a big difference between statements unsupported and statements with links.

But at the same time, all links are not created equal, and shaky foundations make for shaky arguments. Reading through the spark here, I see this sequence:

Article: "Some of what Lady Gaga does clashes with her self-identification as a feminist. For example, she appropriates from people of color and nonwhite people. See this link." (This is part of a wider theme of examining--not judging, just analyzing and closely inspecting--the question of Lady Gaga's feminism as represented through her music, and perhaps also the degree to which culture at large gets into crazy debates about Lady Gaga in particular.)

Commenter Whitney: "I don't think that article supports its thesis--that Lady Gaga appropriated--very well. Its evidence for that point seems to consist of Grace Jones and M.I.A. both claiming that she copied them, with links to where they said it. But that seems to be it."

Commenter Snarky's Machine: "If you don't see it that's because you have your head shoved up your ass. You're saying you don't understand and therefore you're right."

Which...strikes me as what a friend of mine calls a purple hair problem.

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