Why Can’t Life Be More Like a Musical?
As a child, I lived in musicals. We had a three-foot-high stack of pirated VHS by the video player: Gigi, The Sound of Music, On the Town, Annie, Easter Parade, Hello, Dolly!, Oliver!, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis, An American in Paris (boring: too much jazz ballet), Grease. I am pretty sure that my eternal ebullience and optimism stem directly from being raised on these, practically from the moment I hatched out of my egg. In all musicals, a generally working-class heroine rises up to joy and success in almost exactly ninety minutes. That was what I thought life would be like when I was an adult. And you know what? It should be.
“Why can’t life be like a musical?” is a mug slogan I have a lot of time for. To be honest, more often than not I’m pretending my life is a musical anyway. When I wake in the morning, I’m Tracy Turnblad singing “Good Morning Baltimore” to the rats in the street. When I’m in a self-pitying mood about work, I like to channel Christ in Jesus Christ Superstar—when, in “Gethsemane,” he’s on his knees doing a power air-grab with his hands and screaming, “WHY? Should I DIE???” at God. And whenever I’m losing an argument, I’m Barbra Streisand in Hello, Dolly!, in a massive gold-feather headdress, shouting, “Horace—DON’T TRY TO STOP ME!” as the put-upon Walter Matthau just walks away, shrugging.
And I’m scarcely alone in this—for nearly all women love musicals. It’s one of the things about us—like having tits and being a bit oppressed. Rare is the tipsy woman who won’t give you her “Edelweiss” at one a.m. Rare is the woman who has not, at some point, hung on till tomorrow, come what may.
Last week, I realized just why it is that women—particularly of my age and older—love musicals. And it’s very simple: it’s because classic musicals were the first feminist movies—way before we had The Hunger Games and Thelma & Louise. If you were raised on whatever movies BBC2 showed on rainy Saturday afternoons, musicals would be the only films you ever saw where you got to watch women actually doing stuff—instead of just “being.”
Watching female characters just be is one of the most depressing things for a young girl to absorb: all those women—usually played by Olivia de Havilland—who make their first entrance at the top of a flight of stairs, pausing to stare bashfully around the room as we clock the reaction of the leading man, which might best be described as “Respectful hubba hubba. She make clean, quiet wife.”
She then spends the rest of the movie being inspiring by speaking in an annoyingly “gentle” voice and having lovely hair. She never argues. She never has her own plans. She’s just there as a prize, for boys to win. At some point the silly bitch will probably faint and have to be carried somewhere to recover—which is usually the moment the leading man kisses her. What a rubbish pulling technique—being unconscious. For any unkissed girls out there—I heartily disrecommend it. Stay conscious all the time during the romantic process—that’s basic but necessary advice. That’s “Being a Human Being 101.”
Compare all this, then, to the women in musicals. The first time their leading men see them, they’re in a bar with a gun (Calamity Jane), sailing out of the sky with an umbrella (Mary Poppins), mind-fucking a load of spoiled, feral kids (The Sound of Music), driving a cab and ogling sailors (On the Town), dancing with a load of black teens in segregated Baltimore (Hairspray), or sassing a drunken customer in a bar (Easter Parade). They argue. Their plans are usually the entire plot of the movie. And they never faint—because they’re insanely charismatic, super-fit tap-dancing athletes, bouncing off the ceilings, and flying across floors, and dancing through the night, with blood in their shoes, until the sun comes up over Hollywood, and it’s time for them to rescue Gene Kelly’s ill-fated talkie.
The thing is, in musicals, women do stuff. They show off their talent—you know, the way men do in man-movies, when they’re fighting each other or solving crimes. Indeed, their talent usually dwarfs that of their male costars. Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire were the two biggest male musical talents ever seen—and while they undoubtedly dance like the definition of joy, everyone’s a bit “Oh dear” when they start singing.
The female musical stars, on the other hand—man, they do everything. Judy Garland, Julie Andrews, Liza Minnelli, Doris Day, Ann Miller—those dames could sing and dance and act, and they all have the oddly modern, adroit comic timing of a Jennifer Aniston or Tina Fey. Indeed, they were so talented they didn’t just make musicals, like Gene and Fred—they could do “straight” drama, too, and make bestselling records, and do sell-out concert tours. Inspiring as the saying is, women in musicals were never just doing everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in heels. It was “backwards, in heels, with three other careers, and being fifty years ahead of their time.”
Why do women love musicals? Because a list of “The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time” will be 90 percent male leads, while “The 100 Greatest Musicals of All Time” will be 90 percent female. Musicals are one of our unique cultural aberrations—the sole, mad, Technicolor, joyous oasis where women make the weather and call the shots. If life were more like a musical, half of feminism’s work would be done.
What Really Gives Me Confidence
In the twenty-first century, we generally seem to believe that in order for a woman to feel confident she needs a shopping list. Well, balls to that.
There are days in everyone’s lives where they need a little more confidence than normal. An important meeting here. An event which requires public speaking there. Or maybe your laser-guidance system has just bust, halfway down the ventilation shaft of the Death Star—and now you’re down to using “the Force only” to finally bring peace to the galaxy. What a mare.
Either way, humanity has long acknowledged that, in these circumstances, there are certain things that can give a body confidence. Items, and refrains, that can raise the spirits—carry you through a difficult moment, comforted by their mere presence.
Unfortunately, if you’re a modern woman, these things tend to be incredibly expensive/difficult. Were you to believe what you see in movies, and magazines, you would believe that a woman’s first line of psychic defense comes in her outfit and accessories. No one can say no to a woman holding an “It Bag”! Success is guaranteed in this bright silk “day-to-evening” dress, £399! On top of this, a woman will become undefeatable if she walks into a difficult situation thinking, “I am hot. I have a mind for business and a bod for sin. Put the blame on Mame. Let’s go!”
And if these things do work for you—then hurrah! I am cheered by your methods! After all, even £600 for a Versace quilted tote is still cheaper than a year of cognitive behavioral therapy—plus you can put your packed lunch in it, too. There is no way to store snacks in a “well-balanced personality.” I know. I’ve tried.
However, we do need to acknowledge that, for many women, the way to confidence and, indeed, joy is not through in some way becoming invulnerable through fashion. Here, for instance, are the things that get me through anxious days:
Lowe Alpine’s “Ceramic” Gore-Tex jacket, in green. Bought: 1996. Shoulder pads may come and shoulder pads may go—but, personally, I can think of no instance of “power dressing” that could ever be more potent than when I stand in my hallway—cab waiting—and put on my four-seasons, all-terrain Gore-Tex anorak, with two layers of zippers and drawstring hood. There’s just a certain, insouciant air a woman projects if she rocks up at a major media meeting in Soho in a coat that she’s climbed a mountain in, while eating a ham sandwich. A slightly shabby super-cagoule says, “Yes, yes—you may look more glamorous and sleek than me, Andrea, in your boy-style tuxedo-coat—but come the apocalypse, Andrea, I will be standing in a fully breathable fabric, dry right down to my vest. And you, Andrea—you will be damp. And then, after a very long time, and complications with pneumonia, probably dead. Sign these contracts and good day to you, sir. Andrea.”
The knowledge that it all worked out all right for Anne from Anne of Green Gables, in the en
d. Obviously, I don’t mean just Anne from Anne of Green Gables—by gesturing to her, I mean to include a whole pantheon of women and girls: Little Orphan Annie, Maria from The Sound of Music, Jane Eyre, Lizzie Bennet, Doris from Fame, Judy Garland in Easter Parade, Jo from Little Women, and the be-booted lady Weetabix in the “We’re the Weetabix—okay?” advert, from 1986. All pointedly described as “not beautiful,” all of humble origins and a bit gobby—but all of whom triumphed by being hardworking, cheerful, nonconformist, and able to crack a joke. On my wobbliest days, I think, “If Anne of Green Gables could succeed in a prefeminist era as a ginger orphan, then by God I can.”
My iPhone. Or whatever gadget that, in an emergency, on the way to a meeting that terrifies me, lets me iTune the Jesus and Mary Chain’s screeching, unlubricated “Upside Down,” and cranks it out so loud that it sets fire to all fear and leaves it as ash. I did buy an expensive handbag, recently—neon orange, from Marc Jacobs—in order to “help” me through a big day. And it’s very nice. But in the cab going over Waterloo Bridge, it wasn’t the bag but the band who had me bunching my fists inside my anorak pockets, shouting, “Come on! COME ON! My head’s full of feedback! I’ve got all of rock ’n’ roll inside of me! You going to mess with the Jesus and Mary Chain? ARE YOU?” The bag was £350. The download was 99p.
That’s the thing about pop and literature—they’re both cheaper than fashion, and more effective. And you don’t have to dry-clean them.
If I were going to give any young woman advice on how to feel confident in the twenty-first century, I’d point out, “Two women at the same event wearing the same outfit is a disaster. But two women at the same event singing the same song is a party. And two women at the same event talking about Doris from Fame is a friendship for life. Fill yourself with words, choruses, and heroes, like you’re supposed to fill your wardrobe with shoes, brooches, and belts.”
Women Getting Killed on the Internet
Ah, the Internet—so often a woman’s friend, allowing her to run campaigns such as No More Page 3, the Daughters of Eve anti-FGM campaign that changed legislation and brought about the first prosecution for FGM in Britain, Laura Bates’s hugely successful Everyday Sexism project, the tidal wave of pro-trans* blogs and activism, Writers of Color’s directory of media experts of color, and the uniting of millions of angry, hopeful, active, clever, silly, future-making women across the world.
But then, on the other hand, the Internet—so often a woman’s enemy. The rape threats. The death threats. The constant, casual misogyny. Gamergate.
In Britain in 2013, we had a Bad Summer. A long, hot summer of hating women on the Internet, triggered by one woman’s very simple, seemingly innocuous quest: to make sure there was at least one woman on British banknotes. What happened next was three months of “Humanity, we’re looking quite bad here” bullshit.
So. Recap. Caroline Criado-Perez runs a campaign to make sure that the forthcoming redesign of British banknotes includes at least one British woman. However, around the time the Bank of England announce that they will, indeed, include Jane Austen on the new tenner, Criado-Perez became the target of a group of Twitter users who started sending her messages, threatening to rape her—sometimes numbering up to two hundred an hour.
At the time of writing, this has now been going on for six days—despite a twenty-one-year-old man in Manchester being arrested after sending Criado-Perez a threatening Tweet.
I think it would be good to show here the kind of messages Criado-Perez has been getting, as there are those who have discussed these kind of messages as part of “the rough-and-tumble” of the Internet—suggesting women just need to toughen up a bit, and deal with the unpleasantness of the “real world.”
“Everybody jump on the rape train—@CCriadoPerez is conductor.” “I love it when the hate machine swarms.” “Rape rape rape rape rape rape.” “Everyone report @CCriadoPerez for rape and murder threats and also being a cunt #malemasterrace.” “Wouldn’t mind tying this bitch to my stove. Hey sweetheart—give me a shout when you’re ready to be put in your place.” “Rape threats? Don’t flatter yourself. Call the cops. We’ll rape them too. YOU BITCH! YO PUSSY STANK!”
So that’s fifty of those an hour. For a week now.
In the last twenty-four hours, these rape threats have expanded to include MP Stella Creasy, who has been vocal in both defending Criado-Perez and calling for changes in the way Twitter is run, and Creasy—along with the Independent TV critic Grace Dent and Guardian fashion columnist Hadley Freeman—has received bomb threats. Again, this is all after an arrest has been made for abuse on Twitter. After.
Many commentators have suggested that when women—or, indeed, anyone—get abuse like this on the Internet, the only and best solution is for them to simply “block” the abusers and get on with their lives.
But consider the logistics of this. If a woman is getting fifty of these messages an hour, blocking all the abusers becomes something of a thankless, full-time job.
By the time a woman has finished defending herself from her abusers, and actually gets around to doing what she came on Twitter to do—to talk, to communicate—she’s already exhausted. And, also, a little more angry, paranoid, defensive, and, frankly, rattled than the nonabused people her Tweets appear next to. There’s nothing quite like being repeatedly told you’re violatable and worthless to send you to bed anxious and unhappy.
On top of this, there’s something that would offend most people’s notion of how we want a society to function in the idea that if groups of people—in this case, women—are being regularly attacked and their voices shut down in public, that—when they ask for help—we shrug, and say, “Sorry. Every woman must deal with this on her own.”
I don’t think most people would want someone they loved to be told to deal with this on their own. And I’m pretty sure most people would agree that this would be a better world if women did not get besieged with threats of rape and death after running a genteel campaign to have a picture of Jane Austen on a banknote, or reviewing a restaurant or dress.
So: some solutions were suggested. Maybe Twitter could have a “Report Abuse” button? Maybe Twitter could run algorithms to spot the traits of multi-account-opening trolls? Perhaps, for twenty-four hours, supporters of Criado-Perez could quit Twitter, to show solidarity—and focus Twitter’s minds on coming up with some solutions of their own?
No one really had a definitive answer, but there was a “Report Abuse Button” petition—currently signed by 104,000 people—and a general debate on how Criado-Perez, and anyone else like her, shouldn’t have to deal with this kind of thing on their own.
But within twenty-four hours of this quiet debate starting up, a whole slew of columns and blogs appeared, firmly rejecting the idea of there ever being any curbs on “freedom of speech” on the Internet.
“This isn’t a technology issue—this is a societal issue,” a Telegraph blogger said—adding, in a later blog, that people who wished for better regulation on Twitter were behaving “like Mary Whitehouse” and that this was a simple matter of censorship. “This is a curtailment of freedom of speech” was a very popular refrain.
Handily, this neatly abutted with what has, over the years, proven to be a fairly infallible rule: that anyone who says “Hey, guys—what about freedom of speech!” hasn’t the faintest idea what “freedom of speech” actually means.
There is no such thing as “freedom of speech” in this country. Since 1998, we’ve had Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights on “freedom of expression,” but that still outlaws—among many things—obscenity, sedition, glorifying terrorism, incitement of racial hatred, sending articles which are indecent or grossly offensive with an intent to cause anxiety or distress, and threatening, abusive, or insulting words likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress.
As you can see, if you are suggesting that you are allowed to threaten someone on Twitter with rape or death under “freedom of speech,” then you do not�
�as predicted—have any idea what “freedom of speech” means. Because it’s prosecutable.
Anyway, let’s move on—for if we got upset with bloggers and columnists who chucked around portentous-sounding phrases they’d heard on Legally Blonde without really knowing what they meant, we’d be here all day. The key thing here is the odd underlying attitude that has permeated so much of this debate about women being harassed—to the point of paranoia and exhaustion—on social media. There is an air about this that is bizarrely . . . exhausted, and cynical.
Currently, an air of jaded world-weariness drives the debate about what we want the Internet to be—an affectedly sardonic edge, which the practitioners seem to wear as if it were a black biker jacket, or an edgy nasal piercing.
Wielding what amounts to a massive cynicism boner, these people are adamant when they say, “NOTHING CAN CHANGE. THE INTERNET JUST IS WHAT IT IS!”
People who, in 2013, say, with utter certainty, “Nothing can change!” are one of the more discombobulating developments of recent years. I’ll be frank—it does my head in to see someone who lives in a democracy, wears artificial fibers, drives a car, has a wife who can vote and children whom it is illegal to send to work up a chimney, saying, on the Internet—invented in 1971!!!!—“NOTHING CAN CHANGE!”
Dude, everyone in the Western world lives an existence wholly defined by constant change—change that was brought about by people going, “I tire of people dying young. That sucks. I will invent antibiotics,” or “I have thought of a marvelous thing—global communication, via a glorified typewriter!”
It is a particular quirk of egotism/a lack of any sense of history or perspective to say, confidently and crushingly, “Things cannot change.” What someone who says “Things cannot change” means, more often than not, is “I do not want things to change.”
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