What's funny?
What's fun?
Is funny fun?
Is feminism fun?
3 min - Sep 13, 2007 -
"...What are the Guerrilla Girls on tour doing before a show? To give you an idea look at Guerrillas at Women 's Arts International Festval 07 in Cumbria..."
Wikipedia: humor: "Humour can occur when an alternative or surprising shift in perception or answer is given, that still shows relevance and can explain a situation."
Wikipedia: fun: "Recreation or fun is the expenditure of time in a manner designed for therapeutic refreshment of one's body or mind. While leisure is more likely a form of entertainment or rest, recreation is active for the participant but in a refreshing and diverting manner.... Play is essential for the development of skills, the most basic of which are motor skills in young creatures."
Wikipedia: play: "Play is a rite and a quality of mind in engaging with one's worldview. Play may consist of amusing, pretend or imaginary interpersonal and intrapersonal interactions or interplay. The rites of play are evident throughout nature and are perceived in people and animals, particularly in the cognitive development and socialization of children. Play often entertains props, animals, or toys in the context of learning and recreation."
Wikipedia: satire: "Satire is strictly a literary genre, but it is also found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods, ideally with an intent to bring about improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be funny, the purpose of satire is not primarily humor in itself so much as an attack on something of which the author strongly disapproves, using the weapon of wit."
From the Guerrila Girls' website: DC poster: basement poster: interview and project with the Washington Post 2007
From Freeland, pp. 132-3: "By challenging the exclusion of women from lists of great artists or musicians, feminists are questioning the canon in these fields.... The feminist asks how canons have become constructed, when, and for what purposes. Canons are described as 'ideologies' or belief systems that falsely pretend to objectivity when they actually reflect power and dominance relations.... This second approach advocates a careful re-examination of the standards and values that contributed to formulation of the canon. What does the omission (or the exceptional inclusion) of women tell us about problems with the values in a field?"
From Freeland, p. 142: "A more recent strategy that some feminist artists employ...is deconstruction. They 'deconstruct' the cultural constructs of feminity by proposing that feminity is not real, but is the artificial product of images, cultural expectations, and ingrained behaviors, such as ways of dressing, walking, or using makeup."Freeland, p. 143: "Cindy Sherman's Untitled Film Still #14, 1978, multiplies images of the artist as if to convey that her essense can't be pinned down."
Freeland, p. 144: "...in this work she is a construct of the camera, elusive, a mystery. But the images do not convey a negative message. Rather they celebrate the female artist's ability to turn the tables on the men who have typically been empowered to show women and make them behave in socially approved ways."
Freeland, pp. 125-6: "The Guerrilla Girls' ads are published in magazines, pasted up as street signage or slapped onto bathroom walls in museums and theratres. Some ads lampoon prestigious galleries and curators. They satirized a 1997 still-life exhibit at MoMA which featured only four women among 71 artists.... The 'Girls' recently published their own art history, The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art (1998). It argues, with humour and satire, that more women should be included in standard art histories and in museums."
Humor and its surprising shifts 0f perception and assumption, satire and its corrective burlesques, play and its cognitive uses of props in alternative worldviews, irony and its grim realizations, all amid refreshments of body and mind, and of fun re-creating us.... All of these are part of the funny deconstructions of structure, domination, unmarked categories and institutional power performed and analyzed by the Guerrilla Girls, not to mention the corseting containment of women in images in popular culture and cultural versions of femininity.
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MUSIC: "Take Back the Night," from Harp: "Holly Near, Arlo Guthrie, Ronnie Gilbert, Pete Seeger. Historical 1984 live recording now expanded to 2 CDs, 26 songs and wonderful storytelling. After this recording came out as a record, the out-takes were tucked away. When Holly got ready to reissue this in CD, she remembered all the songs that didnt fit the first time out. This treasure is a beautiful slice of history, but it is also powerful and contemporary. Pete and Ronnie are at their spectacular best. Holly and Arlo, singing with their mentors, bring great humor and tenderness."
"We Won't Give it Back" and "Sisters in the Struggle," from Lesbians on Ecstacy's album We Know: "We Know You Know touches on similar themes to the band’s debut but delves deeper into some of the clichés and tropes of iconic lesbian music. This time around they blend much more melodic elements and hooks that might remind the listener of campfire sing-a-longs at some mythical womyn’s event in the 70’s, with several tracks featuring a chorus backing. However at the same time they have also managed to maintain the heavy beat aspect of their debut. The result is a danceable album that is at moments uplifting and at other moments very dark, but all with the sense of humor and fun that makes Lesbians On Ecstasy unique."
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Music video for Montreal-based band, Lesbians on Ecstasy. Sisters in the Struggle is the anthem for their new album, We Know You Know.
K8 Hardy was pleased to make this video for the LOE. She shot, produced, directed, styled, and edited the video, with great assistance from Mariev Robitaille. It's all shot on 1/2" tape for that added authenticity.
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