As usual, I’m in the middle of three other posts of which maybe one will be published on this here blog. But I wanted to take a moment to write a few words on Beyoncé Knowles’ ass, believe it or not. I noticed that with her latest, she has promotional shots with it hanging out there under her ridiculous stars and stripes getup. Of course, it is against the law to speak harshly of Knowles in a majority of the contiguous US as it is both Sexist and Racist, and You Probably Don’t Get What She’s Doing anyway. I think I may be exempt in this jurisdiction, so let me go on. And as we all should know by now, her ass is bigger than its position on her backside; it wouldn’t be in our faces without the work of a lot of people – financiers, skilled professionals, and manual laborers alike – all part of humiliation and demoralization campaigns collectively known as the “entertainment industry”.
It is often said to be internalized misogyny to speak negatively about what other women wear, but it is the most internalized misogynist when such speech happens to be directed at women whose net worth is between seven and around twelve figures. Last month, I made some comments on a vexingly popular influencer’s outfit and was accused of internalized misogyny for noting that she was likely wearing it to receive a certain kind of attention on a certain trip she was verifiably husband-free on despite their newlywed status. In fed-ridden internet spaces (what isn’t any more, unfortunately), such sentiments are tantamount to saying any woman being flashy or daring is deserving of sexual assault, and all other behavior is to be factored out of such observations as well. She, whoever she may be, has the mystical, sacred ability to appear from nowhere for no one and “express herself”.
I do not think anyone “has it coming” with regard to sexual assault and I would argue that most people making similar observations aren’t so depraved to pass such judgment either, but people including women dress to score all the time. Why am I supposed to shield my eyes from this and turn off my brain? As I noted at the time of this occurrence on Twitter, it is misogynist inversion [of potentially valid critique]. To summarize, this is indicative of misogyny –
And this is not –
The bourgeois and ruling class women who perform and present themselves in these hypersexualized ways aren’t doing so to score with one or two individuals but with a larger audience on the backs of working and immiserated women as the ultimate representations of Woman. With regard to cosmetics influencers in particular who make it big on level that appears to be up for grabs for anyone, the misogyny runs even deeper taking shape in disguised but familiar forms of competition for male and male supremacist-corporatized ideas of feminized perfection. The influencer agencies coach their clients to use all the correct Gatesian-alphabet agency “inclusive” terms so that everyone feels “seen” and accepted, I have no doubt.
But some of the more shock-jock types have no shame and put forward a wholly narcissistic persona. In their background stories, they often claim humbler beginnings (perhaps AOC is the template here) at the mercy of retail management and the wages determined for them, only to now go on to boldly show off their luxury goods to women who struggle to fill their refrigerators and pantries, pay for rent, and find room for co-pays, and the latter is if they are lucky. It is an obscene state of affairs when it comes to these online schemes we’ve been forced to witness in greater detail since covid.
The absence of shame in these “stars”, at least this embarrassingly naked version of it, is a big one I think all normal people who’ve had to work for anything and everything in their lives grapple with. For most people with any standards, taste, or pride in what they do, the thought of producing a shlock project they have to have their asses hanging out to advertise is flatly insulting. Though I think in this current era, it’s marketed as a requirement to have the ability to produce anything close to artistic, whatever that means under current restrictions and hegemonic standards. And not just for us unknowns. Jennifer Lopez’s ridiculous sex addict-matrix-everything all at once opera production has apparently included a documentary in which she makes a laughing stock of herself and that other observers can indulge in as well. What does it matter? Her ass is still worth half a billion. Who is laughing at who exactly?
Another glaring example presently is Taylor Swift’s latest. I don’t think that she’s produced anything of value before, but this is extraordinarily offensive, risible shit, and one doesn’t even need to have a listen. It’s a veritable shit show she and her team are proud to force on us. As others have pointed out, for her to tout herself as a “tortured poet” in an album that communicates nothing of importance about the conditions we are struggling under, that Palestinians are really being tortured and killed for, is a racist, white supremacist, Nazi propaganda project. There is no shame to be found and partly due to that fact, there is no other way to read it. She could just go off into obscurity and make perfume and quit torturing us, she already has everything.
It’s a long running complaint of mine and I’ve mentioned recently too that shame should make a comeback – a type of shame that makes one reflect on oneself and how bad behavior affects others and not one that is meant to inculcate permanent deference to those deemed “fit to rule”. It’s really more of a personal preference and not technically anything truly political that belongs in a wider program, I don’t think. But regardless of how tired I am of seeing ruling class ass hanging out everywhere, I know that they aren’t and they enjoy doing it to themselves. The sort of humiliation they advertise is partially a trap for us to delude ourselves about their weakness, but in doing that, they mask deeper fears of loss and irrelevance. They let it all hang out because they don’t think we can string them up, hang them ourselves. That has to change.
kariflack 