GIRL POWER’S PLACE IN FEMINISM AND POP CULTURE
Pop culture is one of, if not most important cultural components in today’s society. Not only does it bring all types of people together, it creates an ideal society. According to Dustin Kidd’s (author of “Harry Potter and the Functions of Popular Culture,”) comparison and interpretation of pop culture and crime using Emile Durkheim’s “The Rule of Sociological Method.” Durkheim interprets what crime does to a society. He strictly has a chapter on what crime creates and provokes in society. This can specifically relate to pop culture. Crime and pop culture both create in societies social norms, established social boundaries, provides rituals, innovates, and provides a grey area for social change. Within society, there are multiple forms of popular culture. Many instances of pop culture invoke certain feelings within a certain group of people, because the groups of people share a sentimental value that they bond over. One example of this is girl power anthems in which women find strength, some experience feminist power, achievement, and confidence that they may not find through other types of culture. Mo, a Norwegian artist is the embodiment of power. Her song “XXX” questions and stretches normal social stereotypical boundaries within her song. She is willing to cross those boundaries to make people want to change social norms within society that supports girl power and also forces all cultural citizens to start understanding and dissecting gender equality.
Coming from a less patriarchal society, Norwegian artist, MO brings elements into her song “XXX ft. Diplo” that are found taboo, and usually criticized. The song opens up at a fairly stereotypical suburban white house. Mo herself is in a bedroom scattered with posters and crazy colored clothing, clearly a contradiction to the neat house. She wears bright shorts and a long rope-braid ponytail. She opens lying on the bed and gazing around at her posters and clutter. She jumps up and swings her hair around. She is becoming animal like, rebelling against her typical formalities that the viewer can see when the camera looks at the house. She then is seen riding a bike into the desert on a highway. She is going to a place that is always blue, always happy, always beautiful, and calming. Once there, the camera shows her with multiple males and females dancing by large palm trees. One of the males is smoking a joint. Marijuana in society today is a taboo subject that is loved and hated. Many people agree that it should be legalized, but many people argue the opposite. Many people see weed-smokers as low-life idiots who do nothing but smoke or even do harder drugs. In this video, MO is representing that they are smoking just to be happy. They are not shown power tripping or being idiots. They are on a pretty beach with friends having a good time. Only to understand this, the viewer must understand social change, and want to change. They cannot have cynical views. Even in the lyrics of MO’s song, she sings, “Life is cynical.” She is stating how judgmental society is because everyone is scared to break social norms because they are afraid to create an imperfect society. Kidd writes “Durkheim’s study if suicide and Robert Merton’s study of crime reveal that anomic communities experience higher suicide and crime rates,suggesting that adherence to social norms increases one’s sense of social importance and responsibility.” (Kidd, 75). Although suicide is drastic, it can be understood that breaking social norms makes people panic. Everyone wants a sense of society and importance. They are scared to rebel. MO is not.
In the video, MO epitomizes strength and power, by owning herself, and her sexuality. She is seen throughout the video wearing skimpy clothing and has the camera at provocative angles. MO wants the viewer to understand that she is in control. A message that could be interpreted of this is not to reprimand women and blame women for wearing the clothes they do. Instead, society should teach citizens not to sexualize these outfits of choice. Blogger and feminist Natasha, author of “Why I like my Feminism Gray,” interprets girl power anthems as objectifying women, and would say that MO is just trying to be viewed as a sexual object. Natasha rants, “About an hour into the conference, the conversation turned to the “male gaze.” For those of you who are unfamiliar with feminist lingo, male gaze is a term that was first used by feminist scholars to describe how the film industry typically adopts the point of view of heterosexual men by using camera angles and filming techniques that objectify women.” MO challenges that statement in her video because she is not trying to be an object for the male viewer. She owns herself. She represents how she is happy because of her strength. She always is in a strong stance, legs wide and hands in fists. Natasha just thinks, “Much of the female representation and imagery that we see in the media is shaped to please the male gaze.” To think this is to shut out the grey area that Natasha tries to say that she believes in. Her title of her post contradicts what she writes. It is black and white at this point in time to take the provocative clothing and think that it is purposely for the male fantasies. This is wrong, one must look into the grey areas to push the breaking of the social boundaries that MO does. To create the gender equality that feminists are looking for, they must look into the grey area.
Another feminist blogger 19Percent’s interpretations backs up Natasha, and creates another negative point of girl power anthems creating falsified sense of achievements. She says that by girl power anthems are extremely over the top, and create false hope. MO counters this as well. Her video is not over the top. She is not degrading. In her video, she is happy, and there is nothing saying that women or men cannot be happy. MO plays herself in the video, from crazy dance moves, to taboo scenes. She is not afraid to break the social norms. This is a lesson well taught through one interpreting the video. The lesson is not that women are more powerful than men, or that “Girls run the world,” but her lesson is to just be you and be happy. The social norms that people follow and all the taboo topics will eventually break because of the change from everyone being so cynical, to everyone learning to accept themselves and to be happy.
MO states multiple times in her song that life is cynical, and the scenes where she looks into the mirror at her plain little house in the plain little bathroom, she is not happy, because she is not herself. As soon as she goes to her blue-sky place, she becomes a ball of fire. Life has cynic parts because one cannot change another person without the willingness of that person to change. Some people think that they are changing to fit in with the crowd, but they are not happy. This ties into the idea that pop culture changes social boundaries because people need to risk themselves to feel accepted. Kidd writes, “Why does solidarity matter? Based on the Work of Durkheim, it is clear that solidarity is the basis of social cohesion; the sense of trust that solidarity engenders is a necessary precondition before members of society will take the risky step of investing their resources, time, and selves into their society.” MO is seen with many different types of people in one of her scenes. Their ages range from teens to elderly. They wear different styled clothing. They are not cookie cutter. MO is also seen alone in scenes. She stands tall in the hands-on-hips-super-girl-pose on top of a rock that is the highest point in the dessert.
One can find own happiness within them. XXX breaks the social boundaries within girl power and poses multiple questions and answers to the success of feminism and girl power. It teaches people to be their own person, to not rely so heavily on social norms created by others for happiness. Boundaries are always made to keep people in line, to keep societies from changing, or creating more social norms. XXX breaks multiple social norms and creates opportunities for people to look within themselves to find wisdom, strength and happiness.
