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Arts
Thursday, September 20, 2018 — 5
I have always considered myself
a well-versed feminist. I have read
Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine
Mystique”
and
Kate
Millett’s
“Sexual Politics.” I point out toxic
masculinity when I see fit, empower
women as my go-to hobby and,
the cherry on top, I am a Women’s
Studies major.
But no feminist text or practice
could prepare my modern-day
feminist brain for Simone De
Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex”: A
psychoanalytic-existential
hybrid
that evaluates every angle of the
female experience and humanity’s
placement of women in relation to
men.
Beauvoir’s feminist prose doesn’t
just “go off,” it goes in — into the
depths of the reader’s hard drive to
rewire our preconceived notions
of marriage, sex, menstruation
and so forth. “The Second Sex”
is
the
feminist
encyclopedia
that
encompasses
psychology,
philosophy, biology, literature, law,
traditions and ethics.
On a surface level Beauvoir’s
standout
progressive
proposals,
like her praise of open sexual
relationships as the key to free
love, may seem extreme to readers;
however, Beauvoir may be playing
with deeper psychological and
social truths that many are not
ready to admit because it’s not
always easy. It’s not always easy
to understand that marriage may
be an oppressive institution that
diminishes love or that women are
confined to inferiority and men
superiority.
On the other
Today I see physical signs of
progress for women as they march
through the streets equipped with
signs demanding their liberation,
computers
across
campus
are
adorned with “GRL PWR” stickers.
And yet, women today are largely
underrepresented, underpaid and
without equal rights or authority to
that of men. Beauvoir’s reasoning
for this is as follows: “women have
never formed an autonomous and
closed society; they are integrated
into the group governed by males,
where they occupy a subordinate
position.” Through man’s work
and achievement he can progress
further into the world while a
“woman’s own successes are in
contradiction with her femininity.”
Women can bind together to create
a
“counter-universe”
but
they
still cannot avoid the masculine
universe by which they are forced to
frame it. Beauvoir describes this as
the paradox of the female situation:
“Women belong both to the male
world and to a sphere in which this
world is challenged; enclosed in this
sphere involved in the male world,
they cannot peacefully establish
themselves anywhere.” And these
spheres grow tighter and tighter
within marginalized groups of
women based on sexual orientation,
race or otherwise.
Beauvoir describes the feminist
urgency to eradicate the patriarchy
as “halfway between revolt and
slavery.” We see the light at the end
of the tunnel to women’s liberation
but we lack the means to get there
because we are the Other. Men
today may include women and call
us their “peer” but only as long as we
remain “inessential,” as Beauvoir
writes. For centuries women have
been marginalized, silenced and
othered by the masculine code
society abides by.
And yet, as a woman of today, I
am still othered. I am othered as
soon as I step out into the world
and am hit with the starving eyes
of men or even worse derogatory
“catcalls” that single me out in
the street, making me aware
that I am different. I become
an object of desire. I am othered
when I am told to cross my legs
or cover my shoulders, while the
boy sitting next to me in lecture
spreads his legs wide apart without
assessment of his body from the
outside world. I am othered when
people anticipate my future as a
mother or wife based on my gender
instead of future employer or goal-
setter. And as much as I feel I am
othered as a woman today, my
oppression doesn’t compare or
even reflect that of women with
different
socioeconomic
and/or
racial status who are significantly
more marginalized by society than
myself.
On marriage and motherhood
Beauvoir casts off marriage
as a mechanism that ruins love
through the boredom of habituality,
essentially
diminishing
the
female’s individualized and free
self. Beauvoir argues that because
married women feel a deep sense of
unfulfillment from her secondary
place in public and private spheres
she
desperately
turns
toward
motherhood to fill the abyss that
is herself. The mother becomes
devoted, enslaved by her vocation to
the child only to be devastated when
the child denies her throughout
maturation. In Beauvoir’s words,
“Maternity is a strange compromise
of narcissism, altruism, dream,
sincerity, bad faith, devotion and
cynicism.”
These
ideals
of
Beauvoir’s
are most critiqued as absurd
and outdated, but I find them
to be brilliantly audacious and
interrogative.
I
recognize
my
mother’s irrational outbursts of
anger, affection and bitterness as
results of my deviation from her
overbearing grips. I cannot berate
motherhood or marriage for other
women, but we should scrutinize
the idea that motherhood, and the
roles we attach with it, are natural
for women.
On the housewife
It may seem outdated when
Beauvoir addresses the oppression
of the housewife as so many women
today are receiving educations
equal or greater to that of men and
dispensing themselves throughout
the workforce. Yet, there remains
a significant gap between men and
women partaking in household
affairs. Polls reveal that working
men overwhelmingly desire full
time jobs while women with the
highest earning potential preferred
part time work by a 51 to 19 percent
margin. In 1985 it was surveyed that
only 10 percent of women said that
husbands should turn down good
employment in another city so the
wife could continue working. In
2014 a study on Harvard Business
School graduates found that 40
percent of Gen X and boomer
women said their spouse’s careers
took precedence over theirs, and 70
percent of the men studied agreed.
These studies reveal that women
still hold the importance of their
husband’s career above their own,
and work at significantly lower rates
to ensure time is retained for home
centered duties. Despite how many
hours a woman dedicates to her job,
when she comes home, the majority
of housekeeping and childcare
are largely placed on the woman’s
shoulders. This is a routine we may
witness countless times in our life:
Our mothers come home from work
straight into the kitchen to clean
and cook, while our fathers hang
to the side letting gendered roles
excuse their incompetence. This is
not meant to say whether being a
mother or housewife is good or bad,
but rather to challenge and critique
the way gendered roles influence
women’s inferior place in society.
The
economic
and
social
inequality that favors privileged
people isolate women on an island of
inferiority that becomes an obstacle
of her essence. A woman must
first overcome the fact that she is a
woman before she can move about in
the world as a free agent. According
to Beauvoir, “she needs to expand a
greater moral effort than the male to
choose the path of independence.”
In bed, in kitchens, in workplaces:
the woman still remains the Other,
the secondary. Where and when can
she be first and the only?
Modern day feminist on being ‘The Second Sex’ today
TESSA ROSE
For the Daily
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
BOOKS NOTEBOOK
It has been some time since
the name Norm Macdonald was
relevant in the world of comedy.
The veteran comic left “Saturday
Night Live” in 1999 and since
then has shown up on various
talk shows and specials hosted by
more contemporary comics. In
2014, Macdonald unsuccessfully
campaigned to be Craig Ferguson’s
successor on “The Late Late Show.”
Macdonald was once a prominent
face in comedy, thought of as one
of the great SNL cast members and
perhaps the best “Weekend Update”
host of all time. Now, he’s trying to
reclaim that fame, with the sad
attempt at relevance that is Netflix’s
“Norm Macdonald Has a Show.”
“Norm Macdonald Has a Show”
seeks to offer a laid-back alternative
to the politicized, scripted talk
shows that dominate airwaves.
Each show starts with guests,
including
David
Spade,
Drew
Barrymore and David Letterman,
who are guided on set by staff and
seated next to Macdonald. There is
no monologue, no opening music, no
sense of preparedness; guests come
to offer career anecdotes and shoot
the breeze with a seasoned comic.
This lack of preparation might be
intentional, perhaps meant to add an
endearing element to the otherwise
dry show. Instead, it makes for an
incredibly uncomfortable half an
hour, leaving the viewers, guests and
even Macdonald confused at what
it is they are watching and taking
part in. There are multiple lulls
throughout the show, where neither
Macdonald nor his guest quite
know what to say. At one point in
the premiere episode, David Spade
asks Macdonald if he wants him to
come back next week. It’s meant as
a joke, but Spade’s recognition of the
feeling of incompleteness isn’t far
off. The deconstructed nature of the
show falls flat, and feels more like
an unfinished production that was
rushed to air.
It doesn’t help that just a week
before the show was released
on Netflix, Macdonald gave a
controversial interview in which he
discussed the downfall of two of his
friends, Louis C.K. and Roseanne
Barr. Macdonald was quoted
saying that the victims of Barr and
C.K.’s actions and words “didn’t
have to go through” the shame
and backlash the performers did.
His attempt to apologize on “The
Howard Stern Show” just made
matters worse, as he claimed that
to lack sympathy for sexual assault
victims, one would have to “have
Down’s Syndrome.”
These horrific comments cast a
shadow over an already lackluster
show, but they embody the essence
of Macdonald’s routine. “Norm
Macdonald Has a Show” has the
aura of a group of lonely dads
sitting in a basement, drinking
a couple beers and wondering
where the good ol’ days went. It’s
not funny enough to make up for
the visible lack of preparation nor
is it innovative enough to make
up for the apparent lack of care.
Macdonald and Netflix may be
trying to conjure comedic nostalgia
with the former SNL cast member’s
return to center stage, but there is
a reason the world of comedy has
moved on from Norm Macdonald.
One can only wish he would stop
making attempts to claw his way
back in.
‘Norm Macdonald Has a
Show’ but someone should
take it away
SAMANTHA DELLA FERA
Daily Arts Writer
TV REVIEW
For half a decade, Lana Del
Rey has been working on a
fully realized fantasy for her
listeners. The extravagance and
excess ambition of Born to Die
fed directly into the selfishness
and moodiness of Ultraviolence,
which led to the simultaneously
sedated and anxious Honeymoon.
2017’s Lust for Life felt like a clear
departure from the iterative sad-
girl personas Del Rey donned
every year or two. A smile and
a few deliberate, happy (by her
standards) songs were all it
took. What Lust for Life really
meant, though, was that Del Rey
had fulfilled some sort of deep
creative niche for herself. There
was no longer a need to languish
in that dangerous living-fast-and-
dying-pretty feeling that defined
some of her classics: “Ride,”
“West Coast,” “Florida Kilos”
and “Honeymoon,” for example.
Instead, Del Rey cultivated an
inner strength and purpose. Songs
like “High by the Beach” exemplify
the cool self-assuredness that
has developed, while “Love” and
new track “Mariners Apartment
Complex”
demonstrate
her
willingness to share her strength.
Del Rey recently announced her
fifth major-label record Norman
Fucking Rockwell, due out in 2019,
and monolithic new single “Venice
Bitch” pushes Del Rey’s evolution
even further forward.
“Venice Bitch” opens with
verses
that
have
become
increasingly abbreviated as Del
Rey’s lyrical language has evolved:
“Fear fun, fear love, / Fresh out of
fucks, forever.” It’s a couplet that is
almost comic in its alliteration and
semi-serious usage of “fresh out of
fucks.” The words wouldn’t make
sense coming from the mouth of
anyone else. The rest of the first
few minutes feel like a traditional
Lana love song, as she begs “Oh
God, miss you on my lips” and
“One dream, one life, one lover,”
but the song patiently opens
into a 9’36’’ expanse of pining
and cooing for love. An anxious,
warbling synth steals the melody
from the fingerpicked guitar in
the beginning, followed by guitar
and drum feedback, until Del
Rey asserts herself over the track
once more, repeating “Crimson
and clover, honey” and “Over and
over, honey.” The short lines are
not only a reference to the 1968
song “Crimson and Clover” by
Tommy James and the Shondells,
but also another demonstration
of Del Rey’s ability to weave the
perfect cultural reference into
her work. Over the years, Del
Rey has created an impressive
musical
vocabulary,
at
once
vintage and totally her own, that
has commanded the attention of
millions for a few years. “Venice
Bitch” is an absolute flex of a single
that proves that Del Rey knows
exactly what she’s doing — and
that she isn’t doing it for anybody
but herself.
‘Venice Bitch’ is a sweet
Southern Calif. expanse
JACK BRANDON
Daily Film Editor
MUSIC REVIEW
“Norm
Macdonald Has
a Show”
Series Premiere
Netflix
“Venice Bitch”
Lana Del Rey
Polydor
POLYDOR
NETFLIX
Del Rey knows
exactly what
she’s doing —
and that she
isn’t doing it for
anybody but
herself