What Comes After Hipsters?

If we wore these unironically, they could double as reading glasses.

Well I guess we have to start answering that question with another question, which is; what determines culture? In this technologically dependent world of the new millennium culture is dependent on the following in order of importance; television, Internet, music, film, and finally fashion.  

It didn’t always used to be that way, the order was completely diversified and whatever was the new fad would take over for a while, but television has a level of constancy which I hate to (love to) allude back to Warhol when he said; everything will go, books will go, films will go, television will stay. He also said (lest we forget) [that] ‘in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes’. And if we look at what television has allotted us, it is exactly that. The big revolution in television is the reality juggernaut, which allows nobodies to be somebodies for 15 minutes, just for as long as they’re interesting. 

Adele is a perfect example of reversal of hipster culture and return to nostalgia for how things used to be and how things used to sound in particular.

This is key to the hipster sect because young people we call as ‘millenials’ following generation Y (my generation) have an attention span of a worker ant. Therefore, things only exist for them for no longer than 15 minutes. Bands become popular and unpopular in short spans of time, as do fashion fads, shows, etc. Just like Hipster-skewering show ‘Portlandia’ (2011 – present) parodied; ‘something something is OVER!’ 

(Still from 'Portlandia') It's all OVER!

 So if this is all to be true, then the hipsters are running out of time on their 15-minute meter, and who’s to take over? I remember a film from the 30’s, a beautiful piece of art called The Petrified Forest (1938) starring Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, and Leslie Howard where Leslie plays what he refers to as ‘one of a dying breed – the intellectuals’.  I do hope that this is the time for their resurrection. 

Leslie Howard plays the prophetic intellectual who stumbles across a crime set-up in The Petrified Forest (1938), desperate to leave some of his dying legacy behind, which never comes to fruition. His outfit is now worn ironically.

If you look at trends in the media, which as I earlier mentioned dictate popular culture of the moment, it seems that my predictions might be true. People have grown to be more meditative and concerned. Films like Argo (2013) and shows like 'Downton Abbey' (2010 – Present) dominate in accolades and awards, reflecting that our culture is ready for more serious reflection and thought processes. Also instituting a dreamy nostalgia indicating that we’re not exactly amused by our own times anymore. 

The enormously successful 'Downton Abbey' has become a pop-culture institution unto itself, quite unexpectedly strangely enough.

No one wants to be a culture that people look back at with cynical laughter and resentment like we do to the hippies of the ‘60’s, so let’s look forward and strive to not be dictated by pop culture but to define it.

Good god that was serious, now I have to bath in sin, excuse me.

Fifty Shades of Fourth Wave Feminism

I haven't blogged in a while and I thought I'd return to my analytical deductive reasoning routes, but don't worry not too much so it won't be boring I swear. Ironically I feel comfortable in that arena considering how much I hated it with a passion. What is fourth wave feminism? There isn't such a thing, not on paper and in textbooks anyway, but it's definitely rearing it's head in our culture. To examine it, let's firstly quickly and efficiently define the first three waves. 

First Wave Feminism - dates back to before the turn of the century in what we call as the 'suffrage movement' when women campaigned among other things, primarily for the right to vote, and the right for equal pay, the right to wear pants, basically think of Lady Sybil from Downton Abbey (2011 - ) If you honestly didn't pay attention at all in high school.

A poster from 1911 from the Suffrage movement.

Second Wave Feminism - names like Gloria Steinhem and Simone de Beauvoir come to mind. It grew out of the counter culture movement of the 1960's particularly in the United States, when though there was dramatic apheaval against the status quo, government, and the powers that be, the opposition itself still functioned under 'men first' principles, so the women's movement grew out of that, demanding equal treatment in these cases, leading to the most profound advanced in women's rights which was the legalization of birth control, a campaign that had actually been fought for since the 1900's by anarchist Emma Goldman. But by Roe v. Wade, it had finally become a reality. 

Joan Baez and her sisters on an anti-draft poster from 1968.

Third Wave Feminism - primarily took place around the 1980's and died out just as quickly. It was by fart the most cantankerous, shocking, and militant movement out of the three which celebrated not only women being equal to men but women being superior and men being biologically unnecessary. This was of course the most radical view of the movement championed by Warhol hanger-on and general psychotic Valerie Solanas and her book the SCUM Manifesto (SCUM standing for Society for Cutting Up Men) which stated that men were a biological mistake that should be eradicated...so you get the idea. It was also centered around the idea of sexual politics and what became known as 'gender violence', explored in a lot of art during that time in particular 'The Vagina Monologues'; basically projecting that not only is a woman just as good as a man, but biologically and scientifically speaking, she was absolutely integral to the functionality of society. 

Valerie Solanas on the cover of her infamous book, first distributed underground then republished and now available at selected bookstores. BTW she was the one who shot Warhol.

Which brings me to Fourth Wave Feminism, even though it hasn't exactly been put on paper, there is movement creaking into pop-culture that could be defined as a new type of feminism. Though we believe all rights for women to be essentially won to us (ironically now they are being slowly and slowly taken away by the powers that want to be) but in terms of attitude we are averting the creative outlets significantly and turning them into powerful socio-political statements. In the media, this is becoming more and more transparent, particularly in television. Whereas there were shows that were about women that were written by men, now we have shows skewing the male gaze by writing about still successful women by women, and not just on Lifetime. Park and Recreation (2009 - ) is a perfect example. And let's just skip right on to what everyone expects me to talk about Fifty Shades of Grey, spawned from the wildly popular Twlight series, also written by a woman. With the addition of these two literary phenomenons to the scope of literature, we can consider both to be game changer, as poorly written as both were. Particularly with the latter, we can explore why we deem to call it 'feminist' at all considering the female character is the submissive in the relationship she's in and is forced into degrading and punishing situations every single day. If this book was released during the 80's at the height of the third wave it would be burned in effigy and considered deviant slander. These days, it's empowering. 

Women reading Fifty Shades of Grey in public, in a Walmart in fact.

Thousands of women are going on television saying that it saved their marriage, taught them how to be more assertive, and regain their libidos which had been lost in a sea of boring missionary sex and sub par orgasms. We can see Fifty Shades of Grey as being an empowerment manifesto for women not only to openly enjoy sex but to take control of what they want in the bed room, if it be handcuffs and chains so be it. It is the female equivalent of a man watching an old DVD out of his porn collection in the middle of the night in his basement, only it is empowering women to do it out on the open, devil-may-care. Thereby, it funnels the sexual power from the male to the female when it is read, though the story plays out in the opposite manner. As silly as it may be, Fifty Shades of Grey is a sexual game changer, and I don't mean just in the BDSM dichotomy, but in that of where the gender power and sexual prowess reaches a congruency, and for now, it seems as though women are on top...no pun intended. The book dictates that not only should women enjoy their orgasms but take pride in them. They should not be afraid to express their most unbridled desires and force their husbands into submission to them rather than the other way around. It's a shift in power that begins with popular culture and mimics itself in the art and media idioms. What's most important and vital to it's relevance is that it's controversial. While the third-wave feminists discouraged pleasure in sex in that it gave men the power in giving them pleasure, fourth wave dictates that pleasure should be embraced and harnessed (again no pun intended) by the woman. Once the movement loses it's cache, things will even out again as they always do, in fact there will probably be some kind of conservative backlash, as there usually is, that's why feminism always comes in waves.

Some clips below, basically for some comic relief.

Portlandia and Hippy Sexuality

With the genius hipster-skewering snark-bomb that is Portlandia, (Season 2 premiered on IFC January 6th), I'd love to give this show some major props. Conceived by former Sleater-Kinney front-woman Carrie Brownstein and SNL heavyweight Fred Armisen with a consistent slew of high profile celebrity guests from Kyle MahLachlan to Steve Buscemi, the show is garnering some serious praise for critics and a solid cult-turning-mainstream following. The sexual texts in this sketch comedy series is pretty right on, and unwaveringly hilarious. Yes the show tends to prey on gender stereotypes and yes maybe that's the whole point. It is a satire after all, so all's fair. 

One of their most endearing sketches that is a perfect example of all of the above is the Feminist Bookstore bit. Armisen in drag and Carrie Brownstein play a couple of 'enlightened' third-wave feminists, who are incredibly rude and condescending to anyone who is 'beneath' them, i.e. all men that might come in, or a girl sporting cut-off shorts. They hate any remotely phallic symbols including pointing fingers and pretty much spend all of their time talking about non-sense and drinking trendy teas. Let's just face it, we've all met women like that. I have to deal with them all the time when I buy candles at Bodhi Tree on Melrose. Every time I'm there it's like I've stepped into a Portlandia sketch.

And it's true, Feminism has been taking some hits lately, and I'm not talking about the general degradation of women kind and attempt to eliminate most of our human rights via the Republican candidates' platform, but of the sarcastic caliber as well.
Brownstein and Armisen also often play with gender stereotypes by switching theirs up. Both are rather androgynous when playing themselves, and take big creative liberties with each playing members of the opposite sex quite often, Armisen probably more than Brownstein channeling his inner Lillith Fair goddess.

Role reversal.
Brownstein as her recurring character of a tatted up mustachioed chauvinist who's obsession with sex drives his prudish girlfriend (Armisen) away.

Everyone seems to be in on the joke, even if their themselves feminist icons like Amy Mann and Sarah Mclaughlin. Every new-wave of redundant hippie culture that came about in the 90's that people actually took seriously for a few years is lampooned in this series, quite brilliantly and without any aggressiveness. It  takes us to as Brownstein puts it that 'parallel universe' where 'hot girls wear glasses', grow their hair long, threw away their last underwire, and recite Sylvia Plath verbatim. And the men are like...enlightened, soft, and passive; hip but introverted. Unless of course if Brownstein is playing the man. They would never call a woman's breasts tits, take her from behind and ride her like a plastic carnival pony, or ask her to wear heels. Heels don't exist in Portland. Basically the men are more feminine than usual and the women are more masculine than usual so they even out into this asexual freewheelin' faux-intellectual that is hilarious in how annoying they he/she is. 

This show also exemplifies the notion that in comedy women are always going to be nastier than men and Brownstein's sexual comedy is just above Armisen's in this series. She doesn't shy from being as forward and 'out there' as possible to drive the joke home, and it never fails to follow through.
The series is very clever, impeccably written and conceived, and always pitch perfect in its satire. It's fantastic, watch it.