{"id":16116,"date":"2013-07-08T13:51:26","date_gmt":"2013-07-08T17:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/?p=16116"},"modified":"2013-07-08T13:51:26","modified_gmt":"2013-07-08T17:51:26","slug":"wibbly-wobbly-women-for-a-timey-wimey-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/2013\/07\/08\/wibbly-wobbly-women-for-a-timey-wimey-universe\/","title":{"rendered":"Wibbly-Wobbly Women for a Timey-Wimey Universe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Laurie Penny\u2019s great new piece about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newstatesman.com\/lifestyle\/2013\/06\/i-was-manic-pixie-dream-girl-now-i%E2%80%99m-busy-casting-spells-myself\">Manic Pixie Dream Girls<\/a> (MPDGs) has me thinking about the role of women\/femininity in the compositional structure of music, film, and other media.\u00a0 Penny uses a narrative metaphor to explain the subordinate role of MPDGs in contemporary patriarchy: patriarchy expects and encourages women to ghostwrite or be, as Penny puts it, \u201csupporting actresses\u201d in men\u2019s stories. \u00a0When women (such as Penny) craft their own autobiographies with themselves as the protagonist, this upsets both patriarchal conventions, and our aesthetic sensibilities, which have been trained to expect and enjoy these conventions.<\/p>\n<p>But, especially in light of the finale\u00a0of this past season\u2019s <i>Doctor Who<\/i> (so, uh, need I say it: <i>spoilers<\/i>) I think the MPDG supports men\u2019s\/masculinity\u2019s centrality&#8211;in other words, patriarchy&#8211;in specific ways, ways that are uniquely appropriate to the compositional logic of contemporary media.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5NjKvEW9HrQ?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Feminist theorists of music, film, literature, and visual culture have identified several specific ways that conventional media formulas\u2014like classic Hollywood narratives, sonatas, European operas, and so on\u2014subordinate female characters \u00a0and feminized compositional elements. Their subordination isn\u2019t accidental or incidental; the logical coherence of the artwork depends on it. <a href=\"http:\/\/terpconnect.umd.edu\/~mquillig\/20050131mulvey.pdf%5F\">Cinematic narrative<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Feminine-Endings-Music-Gender...\/0816641897%5F\">sonata form<\/a>, and tonality (the system used to compose the score for works like <i>Carmen<\/i> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/0816635269\"><i>Madama Butterfly<\/i><\/a>) are all methods for constructing coherent works of art\u2014works that logically and systematic develop through conflict\/dissonance and resolve into coherent, consonant wholes. Often women\/femininity is used to generate the conflict that makes a story interesting (e.g.: \u201cBoy meets girl; boy loses girl&#8230;\u201d); she is the \u201cproblem\u201d the story has to solve. The solution usually takes the form of either marriage\u2014this is the answer to <i>The Sound of Music<\/i>\u2019s question, \u201cHow Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?\u201d\u2014or death\u2014both <i>Carmen<\/i> and <i>Madama Butterfly<\/i> end this way. In these styles of storytelling, women\/femininity are the \u201cirrational\u201d elements that must be resolved to preserve the centrality and rationality of men\/masculinity.<\/p>\n<p>But the MPDG, though certainly a problem, doesn\u2019t get resolved in either of these ways&#8230;because, I think, <i>MPDG is part of a different media ecology<\/i>. MPDGs, especially as depicted by the <a href=\"http:\/\/goo.gl\/DC83f\">Doctor\u2019s companion(s) Clara [Oswin],<\/a>\u00a0don\u2019t get married and don\u2019t die because the \u201cillogical\u201d logic of contemporary media forms do not require the assimilation or elimination of femininity. We\u2019ve abandoned the linear teleology of narrative form and tonal harmony for the \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=vY_Ry8J_jdw\" target=\"_blank\">wibbly-wobbly\/timey-wimey<\/a>\u201d logic of what Steven Shaviro calls \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.film-philosophy.com\/index.php\/f-p\/article\/download\/220\/173\">post-cinematic<\/a>\u201d media, or the shock-and-awe pastiche of contemporary EDM (Electronic Dance Music). \u201cWibbly-wobbly\/timey-wimey\u201d media are generally organized as modular composites\u2014there is no grand narrative or goal, just interchangeable parts. These parts are juxtaposed to produce maximum sensory\/affective impact, usually in the form of \u201cdissonance\u201d (overdriven volume, speed, intensity, etc.). Wibbly-wobbly\/timey-wimey upheaval and irrationality is the whole point of the story.<\/p>\n<p>Men\/masculinity are still the primary, orienting factor in such stories (and in the universe, real or fictive), even if the stories seem otherwise illogical and even if women\u2019s \u201cirrationality\u201d gets a lot of play. MPDGs make their own noise\u2014they do stuff, that\u2019s why they\u2019re \u201cmanic\u201d. In older styles of film\/music composition, this mania was corrosive and had to be eliminated. In wibbly-wobbly\/timey-wimey contemporary media, <i>this mania is generative of and for patriarchy<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>Just think about what happens to Clara in the season finale: to save the Doctor, and thus time, the universe, and everything, Clara jumps into the time vortex. She doesn\u2019t get married off (like River Song, Amy Pond, or even Martha Jones and Rose Tyler), and she doesn\u2019t die. Instead, she goes viral (talk about <i>manic<\/i>), infecting space-time itself. A version of her inhabits each possible past and future moment. Her self-sacrifice is what maintains the time vortex at an optimal level of wibbly-wobbly\/timey-wimey-ness, because it allows her to support the Doctor in every possible and actual moment in space-time.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"DOCTOR WHO &quot;The Name of the Doctor&quot; **SPOILER ALERT** Clara Enters the Timestream - BBC AMERICA\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KDxPGQQyD4g?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Ying Huang: &quot;Con onor muore&quot; (Madame Butterfly)\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/25qOY9cwz88?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Contrast this to Madama Butterfly\u2019s suicide; she supports her Lieutenant Pinkerton by eliminating herself as a factor\u2014i.e., a problem\u2014in his life. The elimination of the problem gives the work\/his life logical coherence. But the Doctor doesn\u2019t need coherence; he requires a wibbly-wobbly\/timey-wimey universe, after all. Clara supports that type of universe by making herself omnipresent (or at least potentially omnipresent). Her feminized mania (her \u201cimpossibility\u201d) is what generates the wibbly-wobbly\/timey-wimeyness that fuels the Doctor\u2019s exploits and supports his lifestyle as wandering hero\/antihero. (We can also consider the differences between <i>Butterfly\u2019<\/i>s 19<sup>th<\/sup>-century colonial conquest and <i>Doctor Who\u2019s<\/i> timey-wimey white savorism, but that\u2019s a topic for another post.)<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, in these \u201cillogical\u201d styles of storytelling, <i>none<\/i> of the characters have to have \u201cpersonality\u201d or \u201cinteriority\u201d&#8211;they just have to have, well, <i>swag<\/i>\u2014spectacular, over-the-top, larger-than-life presence, what Penny calls \u201cvaguely-offbeat\u201d and \u201cfunky&#8230;eccentricities.\u201d For example, Rick Ross doesn\u2019t <a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/JU9TouRnO84\">rap<\/a> about how it <i>feels<\/i> to be a problem; he raps about excess and superfluity (excessive consumption, money, sex, bling, leisure, even words become excessive when they\u2019re rhymed with themselves). He\u2019s not performing a character with personality. Instead, he\u2019s performing excess and superfluity itself; Rozay is not the \u201creal\u201d or \u201ctrue\u201d or even \u201cfake\u201d Ross\u2014he\u2019s Ross ad absurdum. Similarly, Rob Horning\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/thenewinquiry.com\/essays\/google-alert-for-the-soul\/\">work<\/a> on selfhood and subjectivity does a superb job of explaining how neoliberal values and social media tech reconfigure \u201cauthenticity\u201d to be less about interiority and more about public performance of idiosyncratic uniqueness. So, the fact that the MPDG \u201cisn\u2019t understood from the inside\u201d and \u201cis permitted precisely no interiority\u201d isn\u2019t what differentiates her from her male\/masculine counterpart. The difference is that she doesn\u2019t get to benefit from her own wackiness, he does.<\/p>\n<p>To contemporary patriarchy, MPDG\u2019s mania isn\u2019t a problem to be solved, but a resource to be exploited. That\u2019s why she\u2019s so gosh darn <i>attractive<\/i>. And in a post-feminist world, men can feel like nice guys who aren\u2019t sexist because, after all, they aren\u2019t killing women (either literally, or figuratively by usurping women\u2019s legal personhood into a marriage contract) or demanding that they be passive or vanilla or whatever traditional \u201cgood girl\u201d stereotype. We want our girls to be <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ogypBUCb7DA\">seen and heard<\/a>\u00a0. Poly Styrene\u2019s maniacal scream in the beginning of \u201cO Bondage, Up Yours!\u201d isn\u2019t disruptive or out of context in contemporary pop\u2014just think of all the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/music\/2013\/jul\/03\/lou-reed-kanye-west-yeezus\" target=\"_blank\">screaming<\/a> on \u201cYeezus,\u201d for example. MPDGs, as Penny notes, get to have <i>a<\/i> story, just not a very significant one; their stories have to <i>feed back into and amplify <\/i>a \u201creally\u201d important story.<\/p>\n<p>So it\u2019s not enough just to write one\u2019s own story\u2014that\u2019s what, as Horning convincingly argues, neoliberal labor markets demand of everyone (or, at least with everyone with enough whiteness and other human capital to begin with). \u201cThe data self,\u201d he argues, \u201cno longer seeks meaning through action\u201d such as writing; \u201cit seeks to be processed into meanings. It\u2019s available for audit and pliable to the incentive structures built into social-media platforms.\u201d Active\/passive and subject\/object binaries&#8211;which conventionally separate active, male subjects from passive, female objects\u2014aren\u2019t applicable to the story that \u201cdata\u201d composes. There\u2019s no meaningful distinction between \u201cwriter\u201d and \u201cwritten\u201d; <i>the very activity of writing is a supporting activity<\/i>\u00a0. Facebook, hell, even Academia.edu (who won\u2019t stop prodding me to upload my papers) want me to write, write, write. Because that\u2019s how they make money. My writing supports their \u2018story\u2019. Privilege isn\u2019t writing one\u2019s story (authorship, active agency); it\u2019s being taken up by the algorithms and molded into the blingiest \u201cGoogle Alert\u201d (to use Horning\u2019s term) out there. Is there any greater sign of success these days than being made into a <a href=\"http:\/\/textsfromhillaryclinton.tumblr.com\/\">meme<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/webtrends.about.com\/od\/twitter\/tp\/Funny-Twitter-Parody-Accounts.htm\">Twitter parody<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>So in addition to worrying about who\u2019s writing who\u2019s stories, and who\u2019s being made the supporting cast, we need also to worry about <i>how our writing and data-generating gets fed back into the system, and for whose benefit<\/i>. Patriarchy manifests not just in storytelling, but in \u201cthe momentum of sharing\u201d (Horning) of these stories. So, to address this issue of momentum, we need to care about things like the citation rate of female authors (e.g., in <a href=\"http:\/\/kieranhealy.org\/blog\/archives\/2013\/06\/18\/a-co-citation-network-for-philosophy\/\">philosophy journals<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/2013\/06\/20\/novelist_calls_out_london_review_of_books_for_excluding_women\/\">literary reviews<\/a>)&#8211;how women\u2019s work is or is not fed back into the algorithm. Because that feedback matters: YouTube, Spotify, Amazon, Google&#8211;what I type in the search box (my \u2018writing\u2019) feeds back into and shapes the search and recommendation algorithms. We need to be teaching or adapting the algorithm to take work by women and other traditionally \u201cunderrepresented\u201d groups seriously, or developing alternative algorithms that work better for us, that allow us to support one another instead of \u201cThe Man.\u201d Feminists need to intervene both at the level of momentum and at the level of benefit or profit\u2026because, in the feedback loop that organizes the the irrational, wibbly-wobbly\/timey-wimey \u201cstory\u201d of contemporary life, these are inextricably related. How do we write stories that, when amplified, boost everyone\u2019s signal, not just those of the most privileged members of society?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Laurie Penny\u2019s great new piece about Manic Pixie Dream Girls (MPDGs) has me thinking about the role of women\/femininity in the compositional structure of music, film, and other media.\u00a0 Penny uses a narrative metaphor to explain the subordinate role of MPDGs in contemporary patriarchy: patriarchy expects and encourages women to ghostwrite or be, as Penny [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1929,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9967,10006],"tags":[18606,14034,22880,2721,245,22881,22879,94],"class_list":["post-16116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-guest-author","tag-algorithms","tag-data-self","tag-doctor-who","tag-femininity","tag-feminism","tag-laurie-penny","tag-manic-pixie-dream-girl","tag-television"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1929"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16116"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16127,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16116\/revisions\/16127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}