An unlikable woman

July 10, 2014March 9, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

Oh yes that is an easy target. Qualifies as unpleasing, opinionated (shut her up), dresses in an intolerable manner, speaks in an appalling way, loud noisy bossy arrogant. I would call confidence an asset. For me it has turned out to be impossible to please anyone so I do not even try. Yes I’m polite and kindness is my weakness, but I have no tolerance for bullshit. None. And what defines bullshit? Quite a lot.

In this picture how likable are you? Just asking because I am the one violently judged, always been, because I am the dangerous one. Oh the punishment. She is doing other than what is her own good? Her good defined by others.

The high price of being a good girl

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/mother-tongue/10943285/The-high-price-of-being-a-good-girl.html

FunTasma

July 8, 2014March 9, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

A question time again.
Why there still is such naivety about expressing sexuality which stereotypes reveal and why am I bothered by this? Naivety that brings out immature brutality. Why those who put sex in front rely on naive lust and fantasy and call it liberation? Woman crawling on a beach like a horny animal means she is free? What is she portraying is a famed woman on her way to her husband saying she has been drinking and thinking. Some kind of everyday imagery which I can like or dislike. Anything other than the ordinary is not there.

To create monetary value of this magnitude we have to define perfection, frame it, follow idea of simplicity stereotyping characters. Perfecting money-making machinery. What do we want and how do we want it is what we need to know to get it. Define sexy, sexy defining everything as wealth and possession. That is what we need to be, in charge and owning. We have to define the body, measures to get it for ourselves. Stardom is all about the journey and how it is made, a trick of posing, trick of luring and possessing Beating and eating one’s opponents and to become imitated and imitate. Is there place for truth in this competition and what is good? How about virtue? Not to worry, virtues are well represented on the tough field of music industry. The thing is how to define them, how to monetize everything and that is the biggest virtue of all, other is secondary unless it serves becoming rich. There is truth. It is truth of theirs who make the contents.

After having watched several of her videos the experience was numbing.

July 8, 2014March 9, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

If she was a boy.

To analyze music videos of this day, what kind of purpose they serve is clear and at the same time culture of music videos hold an irritating simplicity of necessity. I have been studying Beyoncé’s musical artistry and thinking how should I study them, her pieces of art. What to make out of this block other than what has been said before. Videos which do not represent originality nor does her style travel far from mainstream, but they are recognizable and style of hers is particular. That little bit pops out, but only a little bit popping out. She has her dance moves which label her and make her mark. She has her dancers as do many pop singers. They follow her in the back. Something old and something of her own, but not alone. Most she is familiar via her body which is well in front, in the middle. In focus are her curves. They seem to be the main subject and at core of femininity. Her body is praised and it is seen as emancipation and empowerment of womanhood to walk the way she walks. Self-consciously walking straight ahead. Movement is her weapon. A modern woman moves and is active. Her self-assurance is the one feature which makes her noticed and admired among women. She works in a field where women do not have curves other than plastic breasts and in fashion where lank body is a norm.

Yes she has things to say and she says them in music industry’s factory ways. Most powerful videos of hers are those where her sexual expression is not the main issue. Empowerment is a curious conscious choice. To empower oneself from being inferior one needs to build self-esteem and imagine a path for oneself on which one can stand and walk on with certain pride. Take that path without hesitation, it is yours, one’s own way. Which choice everyone must make on their own, which is empowerment via growth, knowledge of self via growing up.

Are music videos about growing up and growing with. Very little is emphasized on mental and emotional growth, which is ironical since the most music made deals with feelings and people’s emotional life.

How the Bey issue is addressed and how feminism is discussed. Do you think her power is in her thighs, is it in her voice, her beauty, her gender, her African-American heritage and in her dance.

“Both through song and visuals, we see Beyoncé toasting up all sorts of caviar dreams and champagne wishes, including the following:”
http://madamenoire.com/333140/beyonce-feminism/
http://www.irishexaminer.com/analysis/what-beyonces-new-release-tells-us-about-sexual-objectification-254323.html

Marketing plus PR equal success. Story solutions, coverage and narrative of divas and making the world a better place for themselves. Times of moral crisis: Explicit contents, sexuality for sale and how it adds up with feminism. What does feminism represent for a pop star and for the music industry?

Bench Heart, leather jacket cut

Image | July 7, 2014December 5, 2017 | Henna Timanttimetsä

Bench Heart, nahkatakkileikkaus/ leather jacket cutout, 2016

Price of everything, value of nothing.

July 7, 2014March 9, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

A popular person called star is an object, product, vendible living machine, cash apparatus, one after another constantly changing trend to keep up with, speed and sparkling idea, embodiment of some perfection, exceptional person blooming sexuality and eroticism. A tale of her that needs to be told. That is one kind of shuttle into vast space of a market, where all the stars may shine for us and share their blessings like refreshments we cannot live without. Legends and astronomical positions of stars predict the future of fashion, future of what moves us. What the mass of people like to see and hear, will like and remember. Stars lead the way as talents, visionaries, makers, wisdom and truth tellers, storytellers, wise men and women, who taste the sweetest fruits of mankind and get our constant attention. Fame and fortune, full house and flush of spotlight, hurry for a new trend, business and action in the middle of it all. In the middle of it all are Swarovski crystals on stockings, strings and toned moving bodies as moments of pleasure for the audience, creating the moment of now, nowness, a kind of freedom experience where everything is possible, which reflects this day, fantasy and values of ours, rush of ours to get instant gratification and joy. Fun of having a tiny grip of life’s nonsense and puffing heaviness away. Circus of big money performers pays off bringing moods and something to dream about.

Heart of a superstar.

Feminine seduction via curves and flying hair. Is she looking for a perfect match, ecstasy between her and the audience, expressing herself through erotic (exotic) dancing, tiny wardrobe and emotional lyrics. Is her desire to be penetrated? Is she being raped by looks. Is she penetrated or the one who works a penis as she appears to be in charge? She has multiple roles to choose from and she does work both ways, as being pleased and a pleaser. She is a receiver and provider of pleasure. A bitch whore speaking her mind, saint mother, a wife and career woman, which roles all professional pop stars must master on stage and in real life. It is mastery of womanhood. Mastering and toying with ideas and ideals. You cannot do music with your clothes on.. All that she can be is what she is, what you can see. It is expected of her to have layers to peel, veils and canvases to fly with her hair with the help of a wind machine. Multifaceted public image to talk about make an interesting personality, who is she? Someone, who is not emptied at one stroke, with one look, pages of magazines. There is desire to fill up the world and air waves.

Primal level of penetration and fetish. Who is the most outrageous, in a way groundbreaking, but not innovative, revealing the most, sexiest and fuckable babe. Nothing too difficult. Who is the most wanted piece of ass is easy to understand.

July 6, 2014January 30, 2019 | Henna Timanttimetsä

How critical big money entertainment allows its stars to be depends on how successful they are? How critical big money artists actually dare to be – not very or not at all. To be critical towards the business world and society does not prevent from being successful, or does it? Feminism surely is the strong hate word, banned ideology. Controversy and heavy critique can make tsunami-like response in sales. Who would want to change a world that moves with such easy recipes. Place for criticism is easily found. It is there by feminists, anti-capitalists, socialists and anarchists and is targeted against the full-blown pornographic imagery of entertainment, which also represents all of the business world, all of economy. One can see erotic self-expression as freedom or exploitation, admiration for notorious crime-filled underworld, prostitution, drugs, guns and fast cars and hot babes in furs in tiny swimsuits sucking their fingers.

Power of female entertainers is much boosted with explicit contents, leather, pvc-outfits, clear references to prostitution and other dangerous living. Not much is left for imagination. In a way music videos work as short movies they should be viewed as such, the art of video is art of advertising. All of the movie is an ad. Direct tutorials of how to live, narratives for youth of today. We are what we consume. Maybe power of this kind which reaches tens and hundreds of millions of people can be questioned rightfully as it should. Are we worried who is under influence and how do those affected take the impact, message and cultural load given? It seems so very light. Or should it be called cultural task of figuring out moral codes and what to do. Luring pictures of way of life with riches and enjoyments make an odd parallel universe and it leaves the millions of individuals wondering how to get there and should we. Main subject of argument being the objectification of women, misogyny and discrimination of women. Conversations can and must be taken over, over and over again what is done to women and femininity if anything. What is control in this picture? What can and must be expressed? What remains unsaid, what is too touchy a topic?

Janet Mock on Beyonce’s Feminism

Impenetrable secret, what a lie

July 4, 2014February 23, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

Please remain seated, please remain silent. Please button up a black dress, respectable quiet nod. Requested in my emotional every moment, so little is revealed. I cannot. His face of answers and accusations. Warnings between every hair of his dark beard. Destroy the evidence and the past.
Broke a barrier I thought had dissolved itself. Lightly given generally optimistic bulletin, his echo repeated the same. His absolute cannot be disturbed. The effort of rising a demanding bank has worn me out
and I am not half way the pile of corpses. The ones who really do not speak are those who are alive.
Shutting down, shutting up, shutting off, shutting in, shutting closing.
Indecent openness must not be heard,
a threat to reveal us all, the root of ours. So it does not exist as we do not say it?
Disbelief towards such fate. Unapproved, unsolved, unwanted, cannot be done. I refuse.

Go Beyond it. (no judgmental tone, do not judge, who is the judge) Part of those who entertain us.

July 4, 2014February 23, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

Powerful over whom and for whom? How does power manifest itself by women, via women, via visibility and what is the stage women can be powerful on? What is female power and do women have it in the end? Do women make decisions and decide for their work? Who is the weak in this image of making it? Who is stepped over in this business driven world as it is struggle for survival? Women have battled with those who have power over them, who have justified their power with god’s word. That woman is not capable of taking care of herself, making decisions not even over her own life. The repetitious mantra of having control and power over one’s body, life, work and art is rightful, but it is still a mantra if women do not take the stand. World is changing fast, women gain their rights by putting up a fight. There is no other way. The opposition is bigoted patriarchy and religious tradition, God’s word.

How are we affected? How are we made numb?

Part of entertainer’s job is to entertain. The more it gets noticed the more political it is. The more people listen the more there is reason to put out a message to be heard. To share is political act, to act for all the oppressed couldn’t be more needed. The more people do not pay attention the more they have to be shaken and woken up.

How does entertainment shake the world other than making sexual advancements, opening a blouse, taking it off and showing genitalia. Nothing out of the ordinary. We have seen it. The most ordinary landscape on the scene. Do they who create this visual spectacle for us speak for free sex, for prostitution and sex trade, sexual expression and what it is to be a woman? Is that freedom to be able to show skin, sexual freedom to be taken over and had? Beyoncé showing her buttocks in her show becomes a hit in YouTube. It does not make the society more approving towards sexual expression. Our obsession over sex could still not be more obvious. A matter talked over in talk shows and by journalists. It is a funny topic. Scenery is exactly from a red light district as her dancers wear the same behind showing accessories, posterior-revealing lingerie. It is the latest superstar fashion on stage. Or is it? Position as standing back against the audience, bending one’s back and looking the crowd, gazing behind one’s shoulders and singing holding the microphone. This saying by me sounds I disapprove. I disapprove the cliché, I dislike the ongoing similarity and unwillingness of pushing any envelope. That envelope has been opened and seen. Lack of any kind of self-criticism nor effort to do differently. Is that power, to be a wanted body? Is that showing the world how to be wanted. To portray women on platter singing about relationships, having sex, breaking up and being a strong independent woman.

”Ms Winhoffer says Beyonce’s body yesterday represents a marked change from her more muscular shape of last year. ‘We can see a major change in her body from previous years. She represents female empowerment and embodies it on stage, her body is lean and elongated but most importantly, feminine.‘She was able to keep her V shape while maintaining her rear, keeping it plump and lifted.’She says this new silhouette is the holy grail for a female client.”