Taylor Swift - RED - October 22

http://msmagazine.com/blog/files/2011/10/ryan-gosling.jpg

Yeah the Salon article is the worst kind of cultural criticism -- throw a bunch of things together in a blender and pretend you've made some kind of connection between them. I especially like the suggestion that "Fifteen" resonated with families who were trying to rein in their spending. Waht.

The sfj tweets are funny, tho.

Heh, Guarino once (5+ years ago) wrote a favorable review of my old band, for a suburban newspaper. Weird to see him caught up in this.

I'm sure he had no role at all in this

I don't know what you mean by that.

Mark is a good guy, and it's kind of easy for SFJ to just shoot him down like a dick from his perch; can't think of the last time one of his New Yorker essays did anything for me but exist. I think the Guarino essay is fine, if maybe too messy in the way it delineates Swift's balance of "safe" and "personal." Same with its theory that her calculation has dovetailed with the economy (which maybe it has, but it's a total coincidence). But I think incensed reactions to it are somewhat misplaced, and I think the sexist stuff is a non-starter. Young female singers processed through the pop machine are a thing, no? While male singers processed through the same are much less so? Just can't get too excited about this controversy.

Anyway: Taylor Swift is touring stadiums this summer!

I don't think it's sexist, I just think it's a good illustration of how not to take pop culture "seriously." (For one thing, to take it seriously, it helps to actually enjoy it. Not at all clear he does.)

That's totally fair. He's begging his own question.

"Are we taking TS too seriously? Yes, because here are a bunch of pop stars no one takes seriously, including me, because they are not worth taking seriously."

Mark is a good guy

lol didn't take long for that to happen http://gazingmales.tumblr.com/post/35515975912/an-assignment-for-mark-guarino-who-will-probably-be

also "gracefully lift her porcelain legs" ffs

fucking absolutely dying that someone actually said "Mark is a good guy" just like maura predicted.

i love that dude did enough research to go back and zing willa ford but like 5ive totes gets a pass because they have peens

yeah i mean that piece is blatantly sexist, c'mon

Young female singers processed through the pop machine are a thing, no? While male singers processed through the same are much less so?

i can't even believe i'm going to argue this BUT: "much less so"... what?

ughhh at that piece and the people who retweeted it

'porcelain legs'? gotta read this now

I totally get why people would - especially you people - would get all up in this piece, but compared to something like the Salon horror movie essay? This thing is like Didion.

fucking absolutely dying that someone actually said "Mark is a good guy" just like maura predicted.

I mean, fuck you. I know Mark. He is a good guy. So fucking what?

because it's a worthless defense against the claim that something (or someone!) is sexist

Who called it a defense? I just know him and think he is a good guy. So fucking what? Just saying he's not some fly by night bombthrower asshole, wrongheaded though he may or may not be.

Like, I get how he perfectly sets himself up for a takedown in the piece, but I really don't read it as as reactionary as some of you are making it out to be, especially when it comes to perceived sexism. Many (most?) of the hitmakers today are male. And per Maura's fish-in-barrel retort, the male equivalents of whatever Guarino wants to dismiss are products of a totally different system. One of the many TS qualities I've seen amplified is her difference from many of those all-female aforementioned in terms of personality, lack of overt sexuality, down-to-earthness or whatever, accurate or not. And it's always all-female. I've never seen her positioned as an alternative or respite from the likes of Marilyn Manson or whomever his current equivalent is, let alone someone like Justin Bieber. That's a rhetorical problem, as far as the piece goes, because there are always exceptions. But that's why I chalk it up to sloppiness or laziness on the part of the writer or editor, not sexism.

it is important to remember, i guess, that a lot of nastily pervasive sexism does come from people you'd recognise as "good guys" and not from "bombthrower assholes", and it's the fact that these "good guys" are the ones maintaining their sexist line with a blithe lack of self-recognition that makes it so nastily pervasive.

like w/ any other kind of casual prejudice! i mean, i'm a nice enough person and i've done and said things that were offensive/awful/wrong, and I have the choice to either say "because i recognise myself as a nice person it is impossible that what i said was offensive" or "because i want to continue recognising myself as a nice person i should recognise when i am being offensive and learn to quit it"

I totally recognize that. I just didn't read the piece as particularly nastily pervasive sexism, which one can easily find elsewhere, especially in comments sections and truly reactionary rockist diatribes. Mark is totally capable (and culpable!) of being sexist, and rockist, and all those things, but I didn't see comparing Taylor Swift to other female pop performers, or citing her male songwriters, as someone beyond the pale. Maybe predictable, sure, but that's a broader picture of sexism being painted.

comparing Taylor Swift to other female pop performers, or citing her male songwriters

the problem is that it isn't this, it's female pop performers who are "trash" and male songwriters who are "a-listers"

(I know him a bit too--definitely a good guy.)

nope guys, sorry, its not possible. he wrote a really boneheaded, sexist article so there is no possible way for him to be anything other than a terrible human being.

xpost I think the dialectic is troubling, but it's also I think a product of poor choice of words. I think he's defining the performers as disposable - even though some of them were A-listers, too!

(Haven't read his article yet.) xpost

And per Maura's fish-in-barrel retort

Really sucks that Maura is shooting at misogynist fish in a privilege barrel

Who called it a defense? I just know him and think he is a good guy. So fucking what? Just saying he's not some fly by night bombthrower asshole, wrongheaded though he may or may not be.

this is irrelevant to the discussion. no one is flaming him personally yet the reason maura preemptively said that is because when someone writes something offense people often immediately rush to clarify that no he's a great person. but it doesn't matter.

Sorry I guess I'm conflating a lot of the externals here, because SFJ did rip on him personally, and Maura's reponse does patronizingly tip toe around that territory.

But that is well within their rights.

i think Maura's post was fine except for that weird, accusatory strawmanning about "Since U Been Gone".

man why are all these chicks so patronizing to men, right?

I've read the article now, won't defend it, except to give the context that it comes from what feels to me like a 90s-alt perspective of authenticity and selling out, and the analysis remind me of the dicey-ness around Liz Phair et al at that time.

(around criticism of Liz Phair et al at that time, I should say)

c'mon josh, you're not really dealing with what is on the printed page here

I think it's definitely fair to say that Mark's writing is frequently imbued with a 90s-alt perspective of authenticity and selling out,

Personally, I think tons of music writing (almost all?) is innately sexist. I was thinking of Kate Bush the other day - and not in a sexist way! - and I was considering the countless male acts who listen to her and must be influenced by her. And yet the only acts that get compared to Kate Bush are female acts, though surely there are male acts who could be compared to Kate Bush, too. Dunno. Just something I was thinking about.

I dunno, maybe my outrage bar is just set pretty low. I can read that piece and think, man, I would never write that, and here are many reasons why. But I also come across far, far worse stuff than it on a regular basis, which isn't a defense so much as perspective, I suppose.

josh in chicago just thinking out loud here

Which again is admittedly me reacting a lot more to the vitriol around the piece and not as much to the piece itself, which I'm pretty sure I've repeatedly said is problematic at best.

True, really. I was killing time while my Trader Joe's frozen falafel heated up. Verdict: not good!

xpost

I am in line at an airport but I just want to say two things. One, I know a lot of "nice" people (men and women!) who
have misogynist tendencies. Two, reeling off a list of related artists from
Spotify, which that list pretty much is, so all over the map is it in terms of micro-era and importance and so on, is the opposite of research.

Should have hit the rock encyclopedia!

(LOL research)

I mean Jesus "nice guy" these days is like Reddit code for "burgeoning MRA" too. Just ugh

Yeah, fuck nice guys.

>:(

well I mean if you're going to spout off you should at least know what you're taking about? but I guess cheap shots at trashy sluts get the word count job done.