Gaga is, of course, the perfect bridging subject between “ranting about gays” and “ranting about feminism.” And so we move on, to the vexed subject of wondering where all the clothes went on MTV.
“I wish,” my friend Jenny tweeted last week, “there was an MTV Normal. For people who love pop—but don’t want to watch a load of girls dressed as hoes.”
I knew exactly what she meant. Twenty-first–century pop music presents one of the biggest vexes for the modern feminist—and by “feminist” I mean “all women,” really; unless you have recently and decisively campaigned to have your voting rights removed.
When I was a teenager, all my pop heroes were Britpop and grunge—unisex jeans and sneakers for all. I was raised with the expectation that, if I wanted to, I could sell twenty million albums with my upper arms covered at all times.
My daughters, on the other hand, are being raised in the Era of the Pop Ho. This is a time when the lower slopes of Britney Spears’s leotard-clad pubis mons are more recognizable than—although oddly redolent of—David Cameron’s face, and pop videos for female artists have become so predictable, I can run you through what will happen in 90 percent of them, right here:
1. “Just checkin’ my legs are still there.” Self-groping which begins with a lascivious sweep across the collarbone, develops into decisive breast-rubbing, and then ends with some pretty full-on caressing of your own buttocks, belly and thighs. The ubiquity of this dance move is baffling: however much healthy, positive self-love a woman has, she’s still not going to be this mesmerized and excited by having an arse by the age of twenty-three. She knows it’s there. She doesn’t have to keep checking. By and large, women generally can keep their hands off themselves for the three minutes it takes to make a pop video. I know up to nine women, and none of them have ever had to excuse themselves from the table, saying, “Sorry—just going to feel myself up in the coat closet. Back in a moment.”
2. Having sex with an invisible ghost. Sooner or later, every modern popstress is going to have to vibrate in a squatting position, in order to pleasure the Ghost of Christmas Horny. That’s what we ladies do in 2011. We hump spooks.
3. “Making your booty touch the ground.” Women of pop—if you want to get to Number One, you will, at some point, have to make your “booty” (bottom) touch the ground. It is as regulation a move in twenty-first–century pop as having incredibly dry-looking hair was in the 1980s. Of course, making your booty touch the ground isn’t that difficult—almost any woman can do it, given a full minute or so to get down and up again, and allowed to repeatedly say “Ouf!” and “Argk!” while clutching at the mantlepiece. In the scheme of things, it’s no biggie. But what may sadden the viewer, after a couple of hours, is noting how “booty grounding” is solely the province of women. You never see the boys doing it—despite them having legs that are anatomically identical to women’s, and rocking the considerable advantage of not being in six-inch heels. I have never seen Bob Dylan make his booty touch the floor. It is not something that was asked of Oasis.
4. “Having some manner of liquid/viscous substance land on your face, then licking it off lasciviously.” In no other field of human experience does someone busily engaged in their work—in this case, miming to their latest single—have something land on their face, and react with anything other than a cry of “WHAT? WHAT IS GOING ON? I am gonna start effin’ and jeffin’ if we cannot keep the rain-machine/mud/custard off my face, Andrew. Just—stop hurling stuff at me! I’m trying to look thoughtful! I sold fifteen million singles last year!”
Do not get me wrong. It’s not as if I dislike women acting all fruity in videos—I was raised on Madonna. Beyoncé and Gaga are my girls. Put the Divinyls’ I Touch Myself on, and I will terrify you on the dance floor. Literally terrify you. You will want to leave.
It’s just the . . . ubiquity of female pop stars dressing up as hoes that’s disturbing. It’s as weird and unnerving as if all male pop stars had decided, ten years ago, to dress up as farmers. All the time. In every single video. Imagine! Sitting down to watch your 5,000th video incorporating a hay-baler, and a man in a straw-covered gilet giving medicine to a coughing ewe. You’d think all men had gone insane. But that’s what it’s like with the women, and the ho-ing.
Anyway, I’ve finally found the best moral through route for watching MTV with my daughters, without making them feel that if they want to sell twenty million albums, they must dress like hoes. And it is pity. Every time we see Rihanna on her hands and knees with her coccyx hanging out of her knickers, my girls will shake their heads, sadly, and say, “It is a great song—but we feel sorry for Rihanna. If she was really one of the biggest pop stars in the world, she’d be allowed to wear a nice cardigan once in a while. Poor Rihanna. Poor, cardigan-less Rihanna.”