Carol Ann Duffy and pop-culture post-feminism – can you tell that I’ve been steeped in homework the past two days? With all this enforced bed rest at least I’m getting my reading done. Today and yesterday I’ve been studying Brit poet Carol Ann Duffy, who frightened me because of her scarily similar tactics in poetry to my own – do you ever have that experience, where you think you’re doing something really different, then you read someone else who is doing it already, maybe (probably) even better than you? She writes these direct dramatic monologues in the voices of women from fairy tales and mythology in the book “The World’s Wife.” Her poems remind me a little of Plath with their sing-songy rhymes coupled with feminist persepctive, but more contemporary – a lot of slang and pop culture references. Anyway, I like her, but am afraid of reading any more of her.
Then I read two books that examine the place of the pop culture post-feminsist heroine (aka Wonder Woman, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sydney Bristow et al, Witchblade et al.) Some really interesting arguments in a book that is a collection of essays called “Action Chicks: New Images of Tough Women in Popular Culture.” These essays use a variety of academic theories to talk about the stuff that I’m pretty much obsessed with, like – is it empowering to watch powerful, sexy women do violence, or destructive? What’s the downside of Lara Croft? Are these women really doing anything that different from heroines of the past? Do these women trangress cultural norms or reinforce stereotypes? I think I’ve come down on the side of yes – these characters do have a positive impact. But, then what would you expect from me? It’s also intesting how little pop culture has permeated the seemingly outdated content membrane of “literary” poetry (aka Paris Review, Poetry, most books by big poetry publishers – especially weird when you think that, for my generation, anyway (X-er and proud of it) pop culture may be the only common cultural experience? I mean, how many poems about gardening can you read before you’re like, yeah, now how about some poetry about something relevant? Not that poems about gardening are neccessarily bad, but I mean, there are movies and music and the internet and science fiction and video games and you may hate the television and the Xbox but they are currently the dominant icons of today’s kids, who are tomorrow’s poetry readers, right? I was reading on someone’s blog – Jim Behrle’s maybe – that “Grand Theft Auto is tomorrow’s Proust.” Which I thought was fairly apt.
Agree? Disagree? Think I’m evil? Leave a comment – I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts on this.