No arguments here, Mariah :) Thanks for responding...

2009-06-17T10:32:04.457-04:00

No arguments here, Mariah :) Thanks for responding. I enjoy your phrase “technological vanity.” I say “hyper-sexed” because something about the lush lipstick mouth claiming to be “a man...eating machine” suggests that her consumption would somehow be pleasurable for the consumed. It’s very “vagina dentata” which, for me, cheapens the protest. That said, not every artful critique can/should be a militant slam poem. Jones is subversive for sure. But I wonder WHY she uses the first person in this song? Is it easier to take this way? Would we roll our eyes if she insisted, “He’s a man...eating machine. He can’t get enough prey. Pray for him”? I do appreciate that Jones doesn’t play the victim here. Nevertheless, I’m still not convinced that she is an appropriate stand-in for New Imperialism.

my two cents: yes, it does make sense for her to e...

2009-06-13T14:23:21.562-04:00

my two cents: yes, it does make sense for her to embody what she condemns, for the perhaps overly simplistic reason that the song is in first person. I agree that the distortion, while pretty, is excessive and that less could be more. however, rather than hyper-sexing, I thought it de-sexed her, in that it made her both androgynous and asexual to me - more like the "machine" that she condemns/temporarily embodies. therefore, yes, the message DID resonate with me through the video, and was not lost through the technological vanity. I saw and heard together.

I'm open to being argued with, though.

Comments on Vertical Hyphen: Grace Jones as Corporate Cannibal?

No arguments here, Mariah :) Thanks for responding...

my two cents: yes, it does make sense for her to e...