Shir Ashkenazi – A Blog about Gender and Popular Culture

Gopinath’s analysis of the south-eastern diaspora in Britain through the bhangra music got me thinking about another intermix of musical genres, that also corresponds with ideas about identity. The Idan Raicel Project which operates mostly in Israel (although not only) started at the beginning of the new millennium and brought new sounds and voices to the Israeli music industry. Raichel’s songs usually combine Hebrew lyrics with Hindi or Amharic vocals in the background, as well as accompaniment of instruments ranging from the European piano to Indian and African various instruments.

Unlike in the British-Indian case, here the new genre is not meant to give a sense of identity to a diaspora in a strange land, but to acknowledge the diversities that construct the ‘Israeli’ identity, which is the identity formed from the ingathering of Jewish exiles since the Aliyahs (the immigrations back to Palestine) in the last hundred and thirty years. The Israeli identity, unfortunately, is based mostly on the European cultured Jew, since the Jews from Europe were the first to form a Jewish standing in Palestine before and after the Holocaust. Jewish from Africa and the Middle East (Iraq, Iran, Yemen etc.) were the next to influence the new developing Israeli identity (although a lot of criticism is heard over the European Jews who disallowed this integration to happen). In later decades Israel received another immigration wave of Jews from Ethiopia. These immigrants were the least integrated so far, due to the already formed Israeli culture and more evidently – the different skin-color so far unknown to the citizens of the country.

In his Project, Idan Raichel attempts to form what the state and society of Israel could not – an integrated Israeli-Jewish identity. Although here as well a combination of languages and genres occurs, the goal is not to form a strong identity which is different to the one that already exists in the different countries in which the artists live (which is what the bhangra genre tries to achieve) – the goal is to better integrate the different Jewish cultures that untill recently existed in a highly spread diasporic mode.

As an example I should like to examine one (wonderful) song of the Project. In this song (freely translated as ‘You are Fair,’ Idan sings a song which lyrics are based on the Old Testament’s Song of Songs, chapter 3. This main singing is accompanied by the background singing of Zana Adachnani, an Israeli whose origins are Ethiopian, which is in Amharic. The lyrics centre on a young woman seeking her lover in the city at night unable to find him. The chorus strays from the feminine point of view and focuses on the male, singing to his lover of her beauty. The traditional interpretation of the Song of Songs sees the woman as Israel and the man as God (Christian reading sees it as the relationship between Christ and the Church), thus celebrating their love. Although Raichel songs do not address a religious audience, still the trope of the female as Israel remains culturally significant. The male-female relationship might be perceived as a man singing to his lover, as an Israeli singing to his nation or as God singing to his people. The singing also involves the Amharic language, therfore implying the integration of the Israeli male who sings in Hebrew with the Israeli male who sings in Amharic. This song achieves a new sort of cultural integration, that is based on the most basic Jewish signifier – the bible – and involves two different cultural sounds, thus asking to make them one.

Reading Munoz’s writing made me feel ambivalent. On the one hand, Zamora’s exploitation of the public sphere as a platform to promote his ideas about identity is quite marvellous. On the other, I kept thinking about Adorno and Horkheimer’s “culture industry,” and the way Zamora practically submitted to capitalist values and his identity absorbed in them. Zamora, in standing against the dominant culture, ended up nourishing it. Once culture embraces counterpublic ideas – they are no longer counter public.

This idea was supplemented by the fact that I personally loathe reality shows. I find it hard to accept it as a worthy platform for promoting important issues, exactly for the same reason I discussed earlier. Namely, that this type of genre works as a black hole, sucking everything that comes in touch with it and degrading it to its own level. This is a most simple and obvious way in which the culture industry works.

But then I come again to my first point – although I am not familiar with this specific show and Zamora’s figure, srill it sounds he achieved something amazing. Maybe what I’ve said earlier is wrong – Zamora did not try to resist capitalistic values and culture, he wanted them to encompass his identity as well. This is not an attempt to undermine the power structures externally, but an attempt to adjust the power structures internally – not building them anew but merely expanding their scope a bit so they will include him as well. In order to achieve this objective, a popular genre can be a perfect platform.

In his discussion about “The Three Phases of Ellen”, Thomas Peele discusses the third phase: beyond gay. He defines this stage as one in which the homosexuals defines him/herself as gay – and yet reflects upon it as something that “doesn’t matter” (p.19). In other words, it touches on homosexuals attempt to depoliticize themselves (p.20) – stop being “gay” and simply being “them.” This is a countermeasure to the fact that being publicly gay might challenge the dominant culture’s ideologies – undermine the “heterosexual contract” (p.20). As Peele explain this phase: “The overriding goal of the gay right movement is to make gay people seem normal, or just like straight people” (p. 21).

I would like to try and apply these ideas to my friends who are a gay couple, which I think comply very much with this distinction of “postgay” (although I’ll remark that I find this term, while correct in some respects, quite demeaning and condescending in others), and yet can shed the discussion in a somewhat different light.

In my acquaintance with the two (whom I’d refer to as Guy and Pal), I find that while they are very much open minded, the subject of homosexuality is nonetheless a most sensitive one. Especially with Guy, it feels that a conversation is ever on thin ice, since I find myself very conscious of remarks I should avoid of, knowing that making them might be frowned upon. It is not that I don’t respect his feelings. I really do. I have subjects I am very sensitive about, and I am known as a quite snappish person, so criticism on my part would be somewhat hypocratical. However, being as open minded as he is, I always find it quite a contradiction to his usual willingness to talk (and laugh) about everything.

And after this long introduction, the point that I want to make is quite a short one. I find that Guy’s case can teach us more about this phenomenon of “postgayness” (a controversial term, as I said). In my interpretation of his behaviour, it seems that he is actively enforces the heterosexual contract. Meaning, that the atmosphere he creates is a heteronormative one, and he creates it by not allowing anyone to address the fact that it is in fact not so. This might be a different way of depoliticizing the issue of homosexuality, which is much more active than simply seeing the whole discussion as one that “doesn’t matter.”

I don’t intend to elaborate on the subject more, but I think it raises highly important questions. First, what is the right of “heteronormative” people to impose this issue upon the “non- heteronormative” who wishes not to engage in it? Second, is it possible to make a change when homosexuals themselves enforce the heterosexual contract (and again, should we – if they object?)? Last, why does it bother me so?

**I use a free and non-censured language in which I express myself. This doesn’t mean I fail to see other aspects of the situation, but only that I choose to discuss one of them. Also, it doesn’t mean I fail to recognise that there are many more approaches to the subject, and a lot more “post-gay” people who do not match my specific example. My discussion deals in a narrow way with a most specific issue that lies in an enormous spectrum of situations.

“The Public Feelings project intersects with studies of race and ethnicity that consider how to think of the psychic and social life together, the use of melancholy as a historical and racialized category, and the production of hope in the face of long histories of oppression.” (p.7)

It is a known fact that Israel’s establishment was in many ways an answer to the Holocaust. I’m not sure that the Holocaust answers Cvetkovich definition of an event that can induce a cultural depression, not because I’m holding it as not so very dramatic, but on the contrary – due to its magnitude and imperceptibility. However, there is no doubt it induced a cultural trauma (and needless to say its effects were far more comprehensive than to alter the Jewish perception of humankind nature alone). It is also undoubted that the Jews had been the most systematically persecuted group, and due to the large immigration to the land of Palestine after the war – it developed into a unified society who shares a similar trauma. This trauma has been developed into a post-traumatic narrative, which has become part of the mentality of being an Israeli, no matter how long after the Holocaust you’ve been born. I’ll add, though with no intention of elaboration, that other traumatic events have also been of great significance in the Israeli mentality-shaping, such as the pogroms in Europe in the 19^th ct., the independence war (1947-1948) etc.

One of the effects depression might have is anxiety (p. 18), and I think that might be one of the key ideas for understanding the Israeli post-traumatic mentality. This anxiety manifests itself in the willingness to join the army (which is mandatory) and help protecting the country, in the still (though not as much as it used to be) dominant perception that living in Israel is a national responsibility and in the solidarity Israelis feel in times of security threats.

An idea that occurred to me during the reading is that maybe in the case of Israel, the anxiety is part of a necessary post-traumatic mechanism, and not part of any continuing depression due to political failures (p.7). Despite the many issues Israel has to deal with, meaning first and foremost the long lasting fight with the Palestinians, Israel as a nation is not depressed. Its establishment was a turning point (a political success, to use Cvetkovich terminology), which didn’t erase the trauma, but symbolized the first time in quite a long while in which Jewish people, as a unified group, regains activeness.

**I read it now and I am quite shocked with the sentimentality pouring of what I’ve written. I guess it derives from the solidarity I described above which I feel due to the situation in Israel in the last few weeks. The more interesting point is that the fact that I chose to write a passage of this kind expresses the exact point I was trying to make – that to be an Israeli means to suffer from a cultural post-trauma, a post-trauma which makes me a spokeswoman for Israel in the time of need.

(scene starts in 21:23 – 24:15)

In the scene from Ally Mcbeal, Ling is on the witness stand, explaining why a mud wrestling club she owns is no bad influence on the society – on the contrary, it’s allowing women to use their power (sex) over men and exploit them by doing so. Men are controlled by their “dumb-stick”, and instead of seeing mud-wrestling as degrading for women, Ling claims that it in fact reveals men’s weakness, allowing her to earn money on its back.

McRobbie discusses about the new approach towards objectification of women: “there is no exploitation… there is nothing remotely naive about this striptease… [the woman] seems to be doing it out of choice…” (Post-Feminism and Popular Culture, 259). I’m thinking of this sentence on two different levels regarding the Ally Mcbeal scene.

First, is Ling right? Who is the dominant gender in the operation of the mud club? According to Ling, the women take advantage of the lack of self-control men suffer from. Moreover, women use sex all the time in order to get their wishes (a point that appears more than a few times in the series) – it is not degrading for them, it’s degrading for the men, not realising who carries the “weapon” in the interaction between the species.

I don’t have an answer to this question. No doubt women do use sex as a weapon. But then, USE is such an active verb, and the obvious point to make here is that the role of sexuality in the society is something that hinders women. McRobbie would probably say that this is the exact fearsome move of the post-feminist movement – presenting sexuality as a conscious choice, made by strong and evolved women (to give Ally Mcbeal the credit it deservers, at one point Ling does admit the club might be degrading for women, but then – our society degrades all (men and women), and hanging on to these sexist club as the source of all evil misses the point – the clubs are no different to other, more “acceptable” aspects of our society).

The second level is the platform that conveys these massages – a late 90′ T.V series. This, again, suits McRobbie ideas about the way the new media spreads the post-feminist ideas. However, unlike her analysis of “Bridget Jone’s Diary” (p.261), here we see a form of popular culture which is self-aware, wishing to engage in the post-feminist discussion. Thus, we receive a show that intentionally confronts the principles of “old feminism” and not by sophisticatedly alluding to them (like Claudia Schiffer and the bra (p.259)). This makes me wander whether this is not post, but rather a legitimate part of the still existing feminist discussion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKGt62puVoI