Accidental Pasolini

 “artists must create, critics defend, and democratic people support . . . works so extreme that they become unacceptable even to the broadest minds of the new State.” -Pasolini

Hello class.

I didn’t intend for Pasolini’s  Salo or 120 Days of Sodom to be part of our curriculum this semester or even part of our PS1 field trip experience last week. But since we wandered into an installation of the film by chance and it has unsurprisingly left an indelible mark on our mutual consciousness, I feel that I would be remiss if I did not address the fact of this film and give you all some context so that you might have a sense of what this film is doing on display at the Museum of Modern Art.

The 1976 film was intended to critique Italian fascism by exaggerating its excesses to the point of grotesque absurdity. It was also an attempt to make a film that was as anti-commercial and undigestible as possible, rendering it almost unviewable. The filmmaker was murdered in the wake of the film’s release.

Here is a link to the essays that accompanied the film’s Criterion Collection DVD release, which I think give a relatively accessible introduction:
http://www.criterion.com/films/532-salo-or-the-120-days-of-sodom

My apologies to any of you who feel blinded by your exposure to a fragment of this film. While this film has its place in the canon of 20th century cinema, it is difficult viewing even for seasoned cinema studies scholars.

1982 NBC newscast: The “Gay Cancer”

Now dig this!

In preparation for our trip to MoMA PS1 this Thursday check out this nytimes article on artist Melvin Edwards, whose work is featured in the exhibition Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960-1980.

Also, here is artist Betye Saar (also featured at PS1) on The Liberation of Aunt Jemima.

Courtney Shenck’s post

When reading both “Sisters Spin Talk on Hip Hop” and “Hip Hop Oddity”, the themes of feminism were very prevalent. In “Sisters Spin Talk on Hip Hop”, each woman addressed what seemed like a complaint to their friends about the new direction rap was taking. They took the feminist approach and did not appreciate the general crowds, song lyrics, and performance groups rap music evolved into. The artists were no longer like Queen Latifah, who rapped about being an independent woman and gave voices to the women who listened to her. They morphed into a group of men with a singular woman with a minimal amount of clothes. The lyrics went from being inspirational and motivational for women into a degrading theme of sex. While sex was a theme in more traditional rap, women became more submissive in lyrics later written. The dancing became more provocative, the clothing covered less and less, and the lyrics more insulting to women. The crowds engage in it, memorize it, copy the style that is frowned upon by functioning society, and their behavior mirrors this music they think is appropriate just because it plays on their local radio stations. Rap was definitely taking a turn for the worst.
“Hip Hop Oddity” is the perfect title for an article dedicated to the style of and Nicki Minaj herself. While her rapping contains the common theme of sex, she won over the feminist world in other ways. She raps about both men and women sexually and bicuriousity being so rare in the modern rap world, it particularly attracted the minorities. She is compared to Queen Latifah in their similarities in bicuriousity and their strength as women. She is respected for her background of hardships, which strengthened her and made her quite the advocate for independent women. Her style, in a way, helps these feminists identify with the old style to which they loved and related.
-Courtney Schenck

Mystic “Girfriend Sistagirl”

Girlfriend Sistagirl (Album Version (Explicit))

Um…I know I don’t know you or nothin but can you just bump my shit?

[Verse 1]
You was just a young girl when you got turned out
Sneakin out the window of ya mother’s house, no doubt
Just to mash off in a drop-top Impalla
Under shinin stars wit the nigga who clockin dollar’s
You was thinkin you was really gon run game
Wait two weeks to give it up and feel no pain
Babygirl, you picked the wrong balla
He was raised by mack’s and pimps, model let him follow
Niggas break bitches in the streets of the “O”
You was thinkin you was different cause he told you so
Just knowin you in love, would’nt listen to a thing
It’s followed by the danger’s that this thug life brings
He gave you clothes and rings, moved you out the crib
Put his dough up in yo closet, taught you how to live
But when 5-0 raided, he wasn’t no where around
Now you doin hard time, rockin a felony crown

[Chorus]
Girlfriend sistagirl, you a precious queen
In a twisted world
Lookin for love, in all the wrong places
Givin up things that can’t be replaced
Girlfriend sistagirl, you are the mother of the world
He’ll break you down, he’ll make you cry
You were born to sing, and you were made to fly

[Verse 2]
Manifested on this earth as a heavenly angel
Found the blocks you own, make life dark and tangled
Small sacrifices, repented in church
Halfway down the block, rollin up ya skirt
Hide some of these factor’s off by glass and baggy’s
As the one you always wanted, roll by and floss caddy’s
You never gave a damn bout rules and regulations
Hard livin mixed wit swoll eyes, and??????
So a way out, that’s all you ever wanted
So while the whole hood judged, you fucked and flaunted
It hurt you every time, made you scream
And silence of ghetto blocks, fled yo dreams
Still, I know you prayed every night
Whisperin to god for a new life
But the light was too bright, in a far off distance
Fingerpainted with ya tears and destroyed false listens

[Chorus]

[Verse 3]
Aye you ma?You from a regular home
Live at least ten blocks from a drug zone
Got green grass, and shady tree’s
No need to ask why, smile and say please
Got ya daddy’s car, and ya mother’s indictions
Rather give up ass to thugs and argue in the kitchen
Break out, in a mad bash for freedom
Hang yo world up and try to keep breathin
You see them on the outside, quote in the interior
So when the guns blast you can see clearer
In the mirror, it’s dream past shatter
You makin love to the streets like ya life don’t matter
Still you cry, challenge suicide
Let ya hair fly on the 6-95
Ready to crash, for the love of the game
Believe it on the next life, it’s all the same

Reading for Tuesday 10/30

Hello class,

For Tuesday 10/30 please read “Empowering Self, Making Choices, Creating Spaces: Black Female Identity via Rap Music Performance” by Cheryl L. Keyes

download the PDF here: blackfemaleidentityrap.pdf

Please write a short post in response to the reading in addition to posting the expanded blog article you have been working on this week.

Looking forward!

-Professor Steinmetz

“No One Leaves Delilah”: A (W)rap on Race October 31 7:30pm Dr. Vaginal Davis in conversation with Jose Munoz

My dear friend, the legendary performance artist Vaginal Davis will be staging a conversation with NYU Performance Studies professor Jose Munoz (author of Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics among other important texts, and also my esteemed advisor). I will be there with bells on and I heartily encourage you all to join me!

“No One Leaves Delilah”: A (W)rap on Race a conversation with Dr. Vaginal Davis

October 31, Wednesday
7:30 to 9 pm

Department of Performance Studies
721 Broadway, 6th Floor, Room 612

Vaginal Davis, performance artist, in conversation with
José Muñoz, Performance Studies, New York University

For more information about this event, please contact the NYU Department of Performance Studies.

This event is free and open to the public.  Venue is wheelchair accessible.

Co-sponsored by the NYU Department of Performance Studies and the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality

Cherrie Moraga speaking tonight at NYU Performance Studies 7:30 pm

 

 

 

This talk should be amazing! If any of you are free, and especially if you need an event to blog about as a make-up for missing one of our field trips, please take the R train to 8th St/NYU for what should be an awesome encounter with one of the original founders of radical women of color feminism.

What’s at Stake for Women? Tuesday October 23, 6pm

Class: you are all strongly encouraged to attend this event next Tuesday, I will be there and I hope to see as many of you as can possibly make it. For those students who missed one of our field trips, you are invited to blog about this event as a make-up assignment.

What’s at Stake for Women?
Tuesday, October 23, 6PM
As women, we are watching our own rights erode daily at the hands of our politicians. Now is your chance to talk exclusively about women’s lives, and the impact lawmakers have on yours. From openly attacking birth control, rejecting equal pay, and voting down laws that help rape victims and stop violence against women, we want to know what women stand to lose, and how can we get back on track. Join this discussion with NOW-NYC and leading advocates for women.

RSVP: contact@nownyc.org | 212-627-9895
Location: Hosted by Pace University, Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts, Multi-Purpose Room, 3 Spruce Street (between William & Gold Sts), NYC
Directions: 2,3 to Park Place; N,R to City Hall; 4,5,6 to Brooklyn Bridge – City Hall

Panelists
Shelby Knox, feminist activist and Director of Organizing, Women’s Rights, for Change.org, is nationally known as the subject of The Education of Shelby Knox, a Sundance award-winning film that chronicled her high school activism for comprehensive sex education & gay rights in her southern Baptist hometown. She has appeared on Today, The Daily Show, Hardball, and sat down with both Dr. Phil and Al Franken to discuss sex education and youth activism.

Susan Lerner, good government expert and Executive Director of Common Cause New York, speaks and writes extensively on redistricting and campaign finance reform. Currently, she is a founding member of a new Coalition, NY Women Vote, to educate and mobilize women to participate in the democratic process.

Tamika Mallory, civil rights advocate and National Executive Director of National Action Network (NAN), is one of the youngest champions of the civil rights movement and is making headlines around the country for her work on women’s issues, anti-violence, and voter registration.

Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, women’s rights champion, represents New York’s 14th Congressional District. First elected to Congress in 1992, she is recognized as a national leader with extensive accomplishments in financial services, national security, the economy, and women’s issues. Maloney helped pass legislation that targets the ‘demand’ side of sex trafficking, provides annual mammograms for women on Medicare, and increases funding for law enforcement to process DNA rape kits – the Debbie Smith Act – which has been called ‘the most important anti-rape legislation in history.’

Yvonne Rainer “No Manifesto” 1965

No to spectacle.
No to virtuosity.
No to transformations and magic and make-believe.
No to the glamour and transcendency of the star image.
No to the heroic.
No to the anti-heroic.
No to trash imagery.
No to involvement
of performer or spectator.
No to style.
No to camp.
No to seduction of spectator by the wiles of the performer.
No to eccentricity.
No to moving or being moved.