"I´ve been careless with a Delicate Man"

While waiting for some new material from our fabulous miss Fiona Apple, let´s see some of her older classics. "Criminal" from her 1996 album "Tidal" is considered by many to be her greatest, and did receive a Grammy-award. (While accepting the award, she gave her famous "don´t model yourself after what we say" -speech)
The music video, directed by Mark Romanek, was controversial, and raised concerns over exploiting Apple. Although she was 19-years-old at the time, she looked years younger, to the point where the music video was judged borderline child pornography. The whole early image of Fiona Apple teased the public with "a malnourished, depressed Lolita" -denotations, with or without her blessing.

The video starts with Apple taking a picture of "us", making us the voyeur of her actions. She knows she is being watched, and thus takes the control of the gaze from us. The space is dim and dark, and the lighting gives an impression of a flashlight being forcefully focused into something morally ambiguous escaping harsh judgment. We should not be watching this, yet we want to. The stuffed animals and beer bottles move into the images and so does a scantily dressed Apple. The scene being played out looks disturbing, yet Apple never gives away the control.  Half-clothed, laid out bodies next to Fiona appear just before she sings "I´ve been a bad, bad girl". The other people remain faceless, plain body parts which are used by the main subject. The idea of an orgy is played with, presented to us as a night gone awry, and the seemingly under-age girl is looking for redemption for her actions. The sin being here is her desires, and hiding in the closet cannot erase sexuality. Apple moves to kitchen tables and begins to undress. By now it is clear that we are not watching a woman, but a "child-woman" still maturing. In her thin and fragile frame she appears uncomfortable, vulnerable and awkward.

The images of a sports car seem at first out of place, until we see Apple trapped and half-naked in the backseat of the car. Someone is taking pictures and video of her, making her an object. She is shown enjoying herself being filmed, yet her body movements suggest there is something more sinister going on. The forbidden sexuality is hidden in closets, bedrooms, showers, bath tubs, pools and cars- yet made visible to the voyeur inside of us, watching her. While she sings " I´ve got to make a play, to make my lover stay, so what would an angel say, the devil wants to know" she admits her guilt and deception for the first time. The final images of the floating dish detergent are an all-too obvious metaphor to be discussed and the video ends with Apple lying on top of sleeping men while turning her gaze away from us, ashamed. Although the lyrics of the song "Criminal" suggest Fiona is on control of the sexual situations laid out for the audience, the visual imagery of the video imply otherwise.

"I´ve been careless with a Delicate Man"

"The Black Swan" and the Paradox of duality

"The Black Swan" by Darren Aronofsky is an intense melodramatic  psychological thriller, describing the arduous world of ballet, where nothing is ever good enough- perfection is an agreed, yet coveted illusion.

The movie centers around a soft-spoken ballerina Nina(played by Natalie Portman) working in a fictitious New York ballet company, where she has pursued her dream of a lead role for years. Despite being 28, she looks and lives the part of a child, living with her  over-bearing mother in a cell-like cramped apartment. She sleeps in a little girl´s pink “princess room” full of stuffed animals and a music box by her bed, playing Tchaikovsky´s “Swan Lake”. 

Ballet is a world of unthinkable self-discipline: years of rigorous exercises and sacrifices amidst constant criticism and fears of physical injuries ending it all in a second. Training takes precedence over everything else and normal life outside of the art form is neglected. The hard work is constantly emphasized for the film´s audience: the crackled sounds of the feet, heavy breathing, sweat and tears are showed and heard in excessive detail.  Nina´s life is  and has been about ballet- there is little room for her own wishes, as she is aiming for what her mother failed to accomplish after getting pregnant with her- being a star ballerina.

The ballet company´s authoritarian art director Thomas (played by the magnificent Vincent Cassel) announces the season´s new project: “Swan Lake” with a new raw edge, “visceral and real”. Thomas treats the dancers as amusing chess pieces; he carelessly tosses aside the older prima ballerina Beth (Winona Ryder) for some new blood to bring in audience. It is obvious that he has slept with Beth, and the ease he exercises in touching and harassing the young dancers suggests that his position of power has corrupted him of guilt.

When Lily (Mila Kunis), a new dancer from San Francisco, arrives to the company, Nina becomes fascinated by her. Lily is everything Nina is not:  bold, loud, experienced in life and unapologetic. Nina fears her, covets her strength and fantasizes about her. At times the sexual fantasies suggest she might be homosexual. Impresario Thomas suggests she should dance more like Lily; not with just technique but with a feeling. Nina can master the “White Swan” but not the “Black Swan” of the story. Otherwise the star role would be automatically hers. This presents a dilemma: how to remain in her comfortable virginal role of a child imposed by her mother, yet please the demands of the art (Thomas)?

Tchaikovsky’s “The Swan Lake” originates from Russian folk tales and depicts the story of a princess (Odette) turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer. By day, she is a swan and nighttime she morphs back into a beautiful woman. Only true love can rescue her from turning permanently into swan form. Young prince Siegfried catches a glimpse of the princess and immediately falls in love. Later the sorcerer tricks him, however, by presenting his own evil daughter Odile  to the prince, and as Odile resembles strikingly Odette, the prince falls for her. Later he realizes his mistake, but it is too late, he is forced to marry the evil Odile. Heartbroken Odette jumps into the lake.

Nina is determined and dedicated to her craft, and therefore begins to pursue “the darker side” her director is asking her to show in dancing. She plays and experiments with drugs, alcohol and flirting while on a night out with Lily. While Thomas tries to force himself on her, she bits him. Surprised, Thomas gives her the main role of the “Swan Lake”. Everything is not well, though. The pressure to change and emerge from her safe cocoon of a “childwoman” result in evil twins and doppelgängers in the mirrors, subways, paintings and shadows.  As Nina strives for perfection in her dancing, her mental stability (if there ever was any) begins to falter.

While striving for perfection and disciplining her body, Nina is constantly aware and scared of the limits. Wounds, rashes and blood scare her, the example of Beth, former prima ballerina replaced for being old becomes a source of horror in her visions. After a lifetime dedicated for the pursuit of perfection in ballet, nothing is left for Beth, and she attempts suicide. The sight of Beth on a hospital bed immobile and badly injured is horrific- an open wound, an abjection which must be denied.

The incestuous relationship Nina shares with her mother does not leave room for adulthood or emerging sexuality. Her virginal and fragile self begins to pave way for the “Black Swan”, an aggressive and sensual woman which threatens the status quo. Signs of self-harm are visible and audible from the start. Nina vomits, cuts and scratches herself.  Aronofsky does not make the metamorphosis seem easy, as it never is. Some of the cuts on her body seem to emerge on their own and disappear. It is a metonymy of the cut that goes deeper, within her mind. It cannot be erased or concealed, at least not for long.

As the opening night approaches, the pressure to master her role as the “Swan queen” intensifies. The fears of replacement grow, evil mirror twin torments Nina and Thomas turns into something else than a plain art director. He becomes the Father, who calls her “her little princess”; the same words her mother has used of her. The quest for perfection and control of dual roles, both as “White swan” and “ Black Swan” weigh on her sanity. As Nina finally succeeds to drive the Mother out of her space(room) and reclaim her independence, she has a vision of her legs breaking under her. The traumatic experience carries on to the stage, as she hallucinates stabbing her evil twin/Lily. The removal of the Other is impossible without hurting the First. At the end of the show, she realizes having hurt herself, and the bleeding wound becomes visible to everyone.

"The Black Swan" and the Paradox of duality

Chloe Sevigny, sexting and lumberjacks

For those of you that do not recognize this girl, her name is Chloe Sevigny (born 1974). The original uber-cool chick from the nineties, who was once crowned as "the IT-girl" by writer Jay McInerney in a 1994 New Yorker article. Chloe was known as the original fashion wunderkind long before Tavi Gevinson, and her impeccable taste got her a job at the now-legendary "Sassy"-magazine while she was just 17. Chloe broadened her artistic instincts to the world of acting, and began with a raw portrayal of a teen HIV-victim in the classic movie "Kids" (1995). In 1999 her work was recognized with both an Academy Award -and Golden Globe nominations as the best supporting actress from the movie "Boys don´t cry". She did not win, Hillary Swank did, and a series of small independent movies followed which, despite their merits, did not raise her star-level. Which seems to be just fine with her. Her role as the strange receptionist in the Jim Jarmusch-directed movie "Broken flowers"(2005) is captivating. Highly recommended.

Ms Sevigny also has the honor to be one of the few mainstream actresses to actually have had real sex in front of the camera for a scene in a movie. The infamous encounter took place in the movie "Brown Bunny" (2003), where she performed oral sex to actor Vincent Gallo. The movie´s reviews were critically divided and the un-simulated sex was judged immoral. Chloe never understood the big hoopla; Gallo was her ex-boyfriend and the movie´s original artistic message was overlooked.

Recently Playboy interviewed Sevigny as one of the fascinating women of 2010. Despite her work as an ultra-conservative polygamous mormon-wife in HBO´s "Big Love", she claims to still get freaky sex-notes from her neighbors. Not that the girl admits any freakyness in her personal live. Surprisingly, she loves strong masculine men who have facial hair and "survival skills". No artsy types for Chloe, lumberjacks can line up. If you´re lucky, she promises to bite. 

But in the meantime, there is always texting.

 "I’m dating, but I’m starting to feel a little discouraged, actually. I’ve been texting for a year with a couple of guys, without ever going on a date with them. The other day I got a text from a boy, but it wasn’t hot. I mean, if you’re going to text me every day, you haven’t seen me for months and you’re trying to seduce me, you’d better spice up that text and make it more exciting than “How was your day? I hope you’re having a beautiful one.” Sadly, I haven’t been doing a lot of kissing lately. "

We have all been there, or what? Texting and flirting with semi-strangers can be quite addictive. But a word of warning though; the guys with the best "seductive" lines usually know their drill. Seduction is an art form, and practice makes you the master - of the game. 

Mademoiselle Sevigny has also garnered recent exposure with hilarious parodies done of her projected image. These videos are quite toxicating, for whatever reason. I don´t believe they are directly mocking Chloe as a person, but the whole scenester-world where her name is still linked to. This is satire of brands, famous names, narcissistic self-awareness and meaningless trends.

Chloe Sevigny, sexting and lumberjacks

Annual Bad Sex Award

Yes, eighteenth annual The Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award has just been announced. Jonathan Franzen narrowly escaped the pseudo-prestigious prize, as did Alaistair Campbell (former UK primer minister Tony Blair´s spokesman). The winner will join the ranks of former lucky writers, such as Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, John Updike and Jonathan Littell. Not such a bad company, now is it? Better to hang with the best group of awkward sex-writers than the worse of the worst Harlequin-dreamers.( Not that there is anything wrong with a few Harlequin-novel quickies after an exhausting week in the boiler room, kill room, cave, cubicle -however you might call it during those long afternoon hours. )

The annual prize was set up in 1993 " to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it". Hmm, redundant, discourage. Did I mention that this a British phenomenon? Of course it is. "Pornographic or expressly erotic works are excluded from the contest. " Well, of course they are. These are British, after all. If you want raunchy, you can go all overboard, but no hints, no teases, no taste of the forbidden. Please. Remember your manners!

And who was the winner? A fellow named Rowan Somerville on his work "The Shape of Her". Somerville was cheeky enough to accept prize with a statement: " There is nothing more English than Bad Sex, so on behalf of the entire nation I would like to thank you." See? He gets it.  He totally gets it.

Interestingly, "The Economist" gave the book a shiningly good review, when it was published: "A musical novel, finely plotted".
Let´s enjoy some of the highlights on Somerville´s winning poetic mind:

"A woman´s nipple is upturned like the nose of the loveliest nocturnal animal, sniffing in the night"
"Max´s lovemaking is like a lepidopterist mounting a touch-skinned insect with a too blunt pin"

Annual Bad Sex Award

Uganda and the outing of gays

An Ugandan newspaper "Rolling Stone" published a list of the country´s "top 100" gays and lesbians today, along with their identifying information and pictures. Next to the list was printed the words "hang them".
In Uganda, homosexuality is punishable by law up to a life in prison. Religion and old colonial laws together with Victorian moral codes are claimed to be playing a part in the attitudes against gays in much of the sub-Saharan Africa. The people named in the article are now living in fear, some having to quit jobs and live underground. The paper itself, having been in operation for mere 6 weeks, defends its actions.

Judgment against homosexuality is not, by any means, a solely African phenomenon. It lingers everywhere in our modern world. Heterosexuality is deemed as "the norm" in our expectations, laws, norms and cultural products. The majority rules, as they say. It always puzzles me how deeply rooted the ideas of "us" versus the dangerous and less valued "them" is. "Them" is a tabu, and needs to be weeded out of our way, not shaking the agreed upon view of  the world. Some scientists claim this need for dichotomy in organizing our reality is wired in our brains, some claim it is learned behavior.  But I wonder how long it takes from us all to accept these people and face the fear of them without talks of hanging. It is 2010. 50 years? 100?

Uganda and the outing of gays