Girl Love 101: a Rant

Girl Love 101: a Rant

Today I want to talk about girl-love and the lack thereof on the internet. Now before you give me horrified looks and expect porno talk, let me explain. “Girl-love” is a philosophy developed in the Riot Grrrl scene in the 90s. The gist of it is that because it's so damn hard for women to get into fields like music and television, we shouldn't add to that difficulty by cutting down and criticizing women that have made it.

I don't mean to sound like a Pollyanna, but I am genuinely happy for anybody that reaches the level of success where they get paid for doing what they love, even if I don't particularly dig what they do. Take Taylor Swift, for instance. Her music doesn't exactly do anything for me, but I can't deny that it does for thousands of teenage girls across the country. Some of those girls might have never thought of picking up a guitar before seeing her do it, and I think that's worth something.

It's the impact of silly, throwaway entertainment, like “manufactured pop” or “fluff flicks” that can have a huge impact and inspire a new generation of entertainers and thinkers. A good example of this is Nichelle Nichols, Uhura on the original Star Trek. She didn't think her role on the show was terribly important, revolution, or empowering to women or minorities until Dr. Martin Luther King sat her down and basically said that her role on Star Trek changed the face of TV. Seeing someone that looks like you in pop culture for the first time in your life is a powerful thing: just ask Mae Jemison, the first African American woman in space, or Whoopie Goldberg, both of whom were inspired to do what they do by seeing Uhura on the Starship Enterprise.

I've been thinking about this concept a lot recently. It's hard enough being an independent filmmaker in a small “city,” but even harder when you're one of a few visible women in a small scene. I run into things that make me wish there was another lady filmmaker in Huntington so we could talk, rant, and make fun of things that my dude filmmaker friends, as much as I love them, wouldn't quite get because their life experiences are different. Even in the mainstream scene there aren't too many widely recognized women, so it just pisses me off when people rag on them. So many people hate on Diablo Cody for basically being Diablo Cody, not so much for any of the work she's produced (in fact, I've read a lot of people who didn't even see Jennifer's Body before deciding they hated it.) And when those people are women, who have been through the exact same discrediting of their works and lives from a mostly male critics circle... To be honest, sometimes it gets me down to the point where I don't want to make art anymore.

But it might be easy to misconstrue what I've just written. I'm not advocating blanket-loving every single thing a women creates; that's just as condescending as hating something just because a woman produced it. Taste is relative, and that's okay. To quote Thomas Jefferson, “the world don't turn to the beat of just one drum/ what might be right for you might not be right for some.” I'm also not saying to avoid calling people out on their bullshit just because they're women. I can think of a lot of women who needed called out because what they put out caused more harm than help (Sarah Palin and Anne Coulter immediately spring to mind). And no, I'm not some high-holy Mother Teresa of Girl Love; I get snarky too sometimes.

All I'm saying are a few simple things. (1) even if we don't dig their music/ art/ job, we should at least send out a little positivity to the ladies in male-dominated field for simply cracking that ceiling. (2) we shouldn't be so quick to snub our noses at certain entertainers, as we don't know who they might be inspiring. (3) Think of the impact your hate has, not just on the subject but on the readers as well.

Finally, I leave you with this thought: nobody ever built a statue of a critic. It's a lot easier to tear somebody down than to go out and do it yourself. Being in a public space and sharing what you've created with strangers is pretty damn hard, especially when you have to keep in mind that some of them are going to hate you before you open your mouth. So before you fire up that blog and hate on the latest lady-created movie/ album/ art, why don't you take those criticisms to heart and make something that you think is better?