Madonna And Britney: A Lesbian Rants.

While vaccuuming the house this morning, I thought about why things like the Madonna/Britney kiss basically piss me off instead of either turning me on or inspiring me with thoughts of how far lesbian visibility has come.

The main thing is that 95% of the time, whenever I see a representation of lesbian sexuality in mainstream film or TV, it just fails to convince me. The exception that proves the rule, lately, is the German film *Aimee and Jaguar,* which Liza and I watched last weekend. It's a good movie and it's a great love story but it is terribly depressing, because, you know, a story about a Nazi housewife who falls in love with a Jewish resistance fighter in Berlin during the final stages of WWII is gonna be depressing. It was based on a true story, and there are some interviews with the real-life Lily Wust (the Nazi housewife) on the DVD. There is one major sex scene in the film--Lily and Felice's first time--and I had been hearing all kinds of legends about it before I ever saw the movie. In fact, that scene is remarkable, because despite the fact that it was done by a male director with two fairly femmy-looking actresses who as far as I can tell are straight, it really totally works. I think the reasons boil down to this:

1) Although both the actresses are, as I said, pretty femmy looking, they have convincing bodies. By which I mean not that they are not more attractive than 'normal' people (they are) but that they do not obviously appear to have been worked on by a team of surgeons. Neither actress's breasts, for instance, have that strange globular fixity that you get from implants, and they both have stomachs, and their faces and bodies are irregular in small ways.

2) The scene is very intense emotionally because Lily, who has never in her life dreamed of anything like this before falling for Felice, is sort of panicking and yielding at the same time. As extreme as her response is, it is very reminiscent of what it feels like to be doing all this for the first time, and the actress really brings that through with her whole body. So the scene is really about what this means for her, not what it means for the third party watching from the other side of the screen.

3) The kind of amazing thing abotu this when you think about it is that although it is a major sex scene, it basically cuts off at the first kiss. Lily and Felice are both naked for the lead-up to it, and there is a lot of them holding onto each other--while Lily panics, and Felice tries to get her to relax--and then Lily finally does relax, and there's the kiss, and that's the end of it. But I'll tell ya something, there's kissin', and there's kissin'. You thought that Madonna/Britney thing was hot? Go rent Aimee and Jaguar.

Anyway. So here's the interesting thing abotu this, to me: what makes the difference between a representation of lesbian sexuality that works for me and one that doesn't has nothing to do with the identity position of the director and the performers, apparently. It has to do with conceptions about femininty and eroticism that appear to be peculiar to the American mainstream. We bought *People* the other week for some reason and there was a huge article in it about celebrities and plastic surgery. It reads like a horror novel--to us, anyway. And to us, most of these celebrities look better *before* they ahve the surgery. Queen Latifah, for instance, has has breast reduction surgery since *Chicago.* Why, Queen Latifah? Why? They were beautiful! Yes, I know, back problems...still. According to *People,* Drew Barrymore has also had breast reduction surgery, along with a lot of other celebrities. Meanwhile, everyone else is getting breast implants, or breast lifts, or breast whatevers. The general impression you get is that you could work your way through the entire L.A. area before you came across a pair of breasts that are still the way God made them. Meanwhile, it appears to be entirely common for people to have their faces significantly rearranged, and facelifts! Christ! They take off your ears and reattach them? AIGH! Fucking A, people, just *get old!*

Anyway, so the result is that there is practically nothing, in your average Hollywood movie or network TV show, that looks like an actual woman. Britney, for instance, has *always* looked to me like an animated Barbie doll. Madonna is at least an adult with some muscles, but she has certainly had some work done, and her entire aesthetic, mutable though it has always been, has always been based on creating a fascinating illusion through the creative use of makeup and costume. So basically you're watching a Barbie doll make out with a drag queen. Where's the pleasure in that?

I think the reason Ellen DeGeneres coming out was a big deal wasn't that she was a lesbian, it was that she was a lesbian who actually sort of looked like a lesbian. This appears to be the one thing that mainstream America can't handle: women who do not care that they look older than 25, don't wear interestingly carved-up handkerchiefs as outfits in order to show off all their expensive cosmetic surgery, and are really not interested to know whether there are straight men out there who find them hot. And as long as the lips those two women are locking are collagen-enhanced and their bodies are machined to factory-recommended tolerances, there really is nothing lesbian about it, no matter what they may actually be doing.

I am woman, hear me grump.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

brit`s career is going nowhere and madonna ,well is madonna..show me the money.

I don't French Kiss my wife in public. Sex is a personal matter.
Flaming lesbians, like flaming straight folk, should get a fucking room.

I agree with you when it comes to long make out sessions. I can't stand anyone that gets all hot and nasty in public. But kissing doesn't bother me.

particularly the aimee character, and their relationship. a good film overall though. i know what you mean though...if you look at the women in some of my favorite films, like "bound," "when night is falling," "desert hearts," and "wild side," they are all heterosexualized fantasies of what lesbians look like. i found the "corky" character unconvincing as a butch lesbian, though the violet character totally convincing as was one kick-ass femme :D

as to the madonna flap...she's an attention whore. but i've always appreciated her gonads :D

I think it was about two years ago. Very good movie. I really enjoyed it, despite the depressing context the movie is set in.

Regarding The Kiss...I didn't see it, but as a gay man I find it somewhat offensive. Not because it's two women kissing, but it's because it's two straight women kissing. It's pandering to the worst of all the stereotypes and I think opresses lesbians and gays since we apparently aren't allowed to kiss each other (or show other sorts of affection), but straight people can play at it.

It's a free country (sorta), so if they want to do that sort of thing, I suppose it's their right but I certainly don't appreciate it.

I'm with you on this one Plaid Adder!

bankrupt and sterile. Give me real expressions of desire emanating from women--and not salesmanship. (Time for me to get off the soap-box now :))

It was Brittany and Madonna kissing. I think people are analyzing this too much. I didn't think of sex or lesbians when I saw it. I'm sure somebody looked at it sexually but I see more than that watching Queer as Folk.

It was two people kissing.


They aren't the first women to kiss on the VMAs so I don't understand why this time is a big deal.

They aren't the first women to kiss on the VMAs so I don't understand why this time is a big deal.

...since the overturning of the sodomy laws, everything gay has been turned into a big issue.

Homosexual behavior, even if it was just superficially so. Perception's all that matters - people are calling this a 'lesbian' kiss.

But is *anything* those kind of people do ever natural.

They do it all for publicity, and they succeed quite well as this and the other RL conversations i've had testify.

Let me explain why. To me, the rise of onscreen lesbianism has nothing to do with lesbianism itself, but with heterosexual male fantasies of having sex with two (or more) women at once. It seems that Hollywood has discovered that two women kissing can give hetero men boners, and has decided that throwing in a lesbian kiss is a good way to get (and keep where apropriate) male audiences.

I find this kind of manipulation to be highly insulting - yes, as a hetero male I do find it sexy, but that does not mean I am going to sit through an hour and a half of shit just to see two women kiss!

In fact this extends to all portrayals of women in advertising and movies etc. A pair of scantily clad breasts is not what helps me to decide what is the best product to buy, and the mere suggestion that it is, PISSES ME OFF!

I am willing to bet that I am not the only one.

I haven't seen the whole show (just pictures posted around the net, like the rense.com homepage) but it seems to me that this is what Madonna, Britney and Christina were doing, basically saying "Ok, my music may suck, but I KISS GIRLS!!!"

So the fuck what? Your music still sucks, and I won't be wasting a single cent buying it! Even moreso now that it appears that you not only think I am tone deaf, but stupid too!

I couldn't agree more!

I appreciate what you said here.

In most cases, "lesbian" kisses are announced in an effort to build an audience - probably for the reasons you said. Think of instances like "Friends" and "Ally McBeal."

In this instance, it was totally unannounced and caught most people off guard. There was no build up to it so one cannot say it was a stunt to increase viewers.

But I do take exception at your "Ok, my music may suck, but I KISS GIRLS!!!" take on the stunt.

At the US festival in California duting the early 80s when Bono climbed the stage supports, was he saying "Ok, our music may suck, but I can climb to the top of the stage?"

Are all stage stunts and pyrotechnics and anything beyond the actual music merely a way to draw attention from the artists musical shortcomings?

She has repeatedly used whatever it takes to increase her sales - whether it be lesbianism (remember that "fling" she had with Sandra Bernhard?) or religion (the black Jesus springs to mind), she is constantly "reinventing" herself to stay fresh.

However, I don't see it as this being done for Madonna, but for Britney and Christina. Both of them had the problem of breaking out of the "innocent child" image that they were orginally foisted with, and have recently "sexed up" their performances. A lesbian kiss with Madonna is just the culmination of this transformation.

As for these being attempts to detract from musical shortcomings, I didn't actually say that. I said I think their music sucks, but that doesn't mean it sucks to everyone. However whether it sucks or not is irrelevant, marketing is used for good music too, and that's what this was - marketing.

Remember when Britney was a "virgin"? Well, now she's a racy "lesbian" - go figure.

and also its not like Aguilera is struggling to sell records right now. She is as successful as anyone in her niche is. I think anyone who is taking this as anything deeper than just a move to make people talk about the kiss needs to chill. No one is going to buy Britney Spears because she kissed madonna on the lips. She'll have to do more than that to get people actually interested again.

And he said it so well

I did not see The Kiss (I hate all award shows), but when I heard about it, the first thing I thought was: jeez loo-eez, more 2-women-for-the-price-of-one sex shit for the slobbering hetero guy to jerk off to. I find this blatant and disgusting, along with all the other uses of women's bodies to sell every godamn thing under the sun. As a hetero woman just trying to stay one step above invisible, the whole thing makes me weep and then go into a rage.

Add to the fact that it was apparently well rehearsed, which means it was about ratings and "shock and awe".

It seems to say we don't really care about lesbians per se, but we will gladly use you as a marketing ploy. As a hetero male I find it insulting, and I'm sure if I were a lesbian, I would find it moreso.

There have been several times in my life that found certain women very attractive. But they have never been other heterosexual women. I don't even think it is a particular "look" but more an essence that attracts me. And yes it is definately sexual, but not based on body parts.(though when I was younger I was too freaked by the feelings to admit that to myself)

I have never been sexually attracted to a gay man even though I have dearly loved a few of them. I can look at an the perfect speciman of male beauty and feel nothing at all. I don't lust after their body parts either. Sex isn't really about that for me.

So Madonna and Brit kissing, Ho hum.

this is the first I have heard of any of this hoopla...

I was expecting to see close-up,long, drawn-out and deep tongue kisses....this was just "Hollywood" - all show, publicity, provocation.....
And quick little kisses that had little to do with Lesbianism IMO.

From an ex-pat view (from a generally liberated country) this kissing is so "American", contrived, exhibitionist.....

But I do agree with the original poster's gripe about all the image whoring in America.

DemEx

:shrug: i don't see what all the hoopla is about either

shows you it must be a slow news day...that is a stunt.

thanks for the link though...now I don't feel so out of sync...

the thing that has always drived me nuts about the whole - guys are into lesbian thing is - THEY ARE NOT LESBIANS. What guys are attracted to are two straight women - what it probably is their projection of their own same sex attractions, which I believe anyone can have without necessarily being gay or even bisexual.

I'm sure guys would have no interest in seeing Ellen Degeneres and Camille Paglia having sex.

Even Bill Maher referred to the Madonna/Spiers kiss as a lesbian kiss.
That's like calling Gigli a lesbian film.

And what I meant by no disrespect to femmes was to not imply that femmes aren't really lesbians. I don't think what guys refer to when they talk about being into watching lesbians having sex means watching two femmes either.

I really would. However, I am rather perverse in many people eyes. :P

that IS f***ing perverse. :puke:

and Mitchum is intrigued with the idea if he can tell them what to do :P.

I still can't think of ANYTHING more perverse than Bush 41 and his wife getting it on. *SHUDDER*

having sex with anybody. She claims to be a lesbian, but I've read enough of her to guess that she doesn't really like women, and considers them to be inferior to men. :puke:

Nevermind.

and thrashing Paglia within an inch of her life...

who are available to men, so even two femme lesbians together are still excluding men. appearance really doesn't mean much...some femmes i know are far more solidly lesbian than some butches. some friends an i used to joke about all the butch women we knew who were turning up pregnant...and by the natural method :D

They never do. Well, they had one on Queer as Folk, but even she didn't look all that butch. And they're all skinny, etc. etc.

No lesbians have undergone plastic surgery?

I don't know about that, but it bothers me too. But it bothers me because the act--not the bodies--was contrived and artificial.

FWIW, I'm a middle aged heterosexual male, so I'll defer to you on lesbian issues. But most of your complaint is the same thing my heterosexual middle aged women friends would say about younger, surgically enhanced women, regardless of sexual preference.

I just think they did it to provoke thats all

... that "the kiss" is exploited as a modern representation of lesbianism, when all it really was was a headline-grabbing, banal attempt at publicity.

Shameful. Excellent rant, Plaid Adder.

Just a thought...

I've thought of Britney Spears as a child because that's how she's presented herself. But I have updated my image of her.

I like the picture, it worked for me. Mmmmm! And I totally agree with anybody who says it's inappropriate. Yes it is.

Personally, I think it'd have added substantially to the Grammys (or whatever other travesty of an awards show that it was) of a couple of years ago to have Eminem and Elton John lock lips during their collaboration. Not that it'd turn me on, but if that f***wit Eminem's even remotely the homophobe that he poses as I'd just love to see him put on the spot like that. What's the best that it'd provoke entirely different reactions, too?

Seems like everybody nowadays wants to be a lesbian or, at least, to play the part at their own convenience.....

(signed) Forrest Gump, male lesbian

...if you can afford the technology to do something about it. I saw some pix of Madonna before the work on her face, and it was time. It was way past time. I don't know if she got a full face lift, I doubt it. But she obviously got some combination of a mini lift and/or resurfacing and/or Botox. And she looks one thousand percent better.

Telling people that plastic surgery makes people look fake is not going to convince. No one likes surgery unless they have a (rare) disease like Michael Jackson. No one gets these procedures done for kicks. People get them done because they DO see an improvement, sometimes a huge improvement.

People who choose to use technology to change their appearance are just as "real" as people who don't. They are not plastic dolls molded in a factory. They are real people, who feel real pain, and who have strong motives for putting themselves through what they do.

Anyway, there is nothing natural about getting old. Menopause and old age are an artifact of modern society. Prior to 1900, the average woman's life expectancy was in her 40s.

I don't like Madonna or Britney or their "music." I think Madonna pretending to be a lesbian to get attention is pretty 1985. But if people want her to go away, stop buying her CDs, stop watching TV programs where she is going to appear, don't go to her movies.

In the past people did live to ripe old ages, and I'm not even talking the series of biblical types who begat each other and all lived to 1000 or so. What has increased average expected longevity - emphasis on average - is reduction in infant mortality. Fewer babies and kids die now than used to be the case, at least in most countries, so the mean age at death is no longer as skewed downward.

When my mother was very ill, in her 90's, I took care of her and saw her body. It was beautiful. Her breasts were beautiful. Not perfectly plastic. Just normal, old, beautiful. The gift for me is that I no longer fear aging.

at the moment. Well, that's what celebrities have always done, so it's not such a huge crime, but I don't believe things like this do much for gay rights in the long run. I mean, think how long "lesbian babe" porn in all its forms has been around. Great rant.

insulting. I am sick of fake lesbians.
I am sick of exploitation. They got what
they wanted. Publicity.

Actually, to be truthful, I am waiting
for men to return the favor. ;)

As you can see, I am truly fucked up over
this issue.

can I say. I thought it was "gratuitous" and "in your face" a gross out. But, you have to realize that as a hetero....I find what gays do as "off putting" as what you guys think about what we do!

Isn't that what this is all about? Much as I love all of you here.....there are differences...I can love you and you can love me for our differences.....but when we get into "sex" preferences.....it gets a little ........well different....

?????? BTW: Jeeze.....gotta qualify.....I believe in total civil rights for Gays for "survivor benefits, powers of attorney and right to never be persecuted in the job market.

But.......Locked lips kiss amonst females or males! EUWWWWWWW! Gross out to me........and if it's done for shock effect to "sheeple audience" who don't know or don't care....it makes it worse!!!!!!!

Media Exploitation, and Star Exploitation....... that's what I think........

As a hetero myself, gay sex (either sex) doesn't offend me at all. It mostly doesn't interest me, or is at best neutral.

I found "the kiss" fascinating, because I wondered what was behind it, was it just a publicity ploy, wonder what the response will be, isn't it interesting that "gayness" has really taken a leap in consciousness everywhere (whether "the kiss" was a good or honest representation of that or not is somewhat beside the point of THIS point), etc.

It was for me a little like when I was a dance performance. My mother used to LOVE the dancers. Me, I am always fascinted by the choreography.

Eloriel

Timberlake's face. Poor babe. <G> He really
looked fried. I suppose you can say this
doesn't turn all men on. ;)

I can guess, but I really don't know anything about this ; I HATE awards shows and I won't watch any of them. So, WHAT HAPPENED? In context?
Please provide a link if possible?

They did Like a Virgin. Brittany and Christina were dressed as brides and Madonna was the groom. At the end of the performance Madonna kissed them. It actually wasn't shocking.

like all media events, I was expecting something else..............

I am a het female and I enjoyed it!

I especially love to see the envelope being pushed - our society is way too puritanical around issues of sexuality ;-)

tonight's rebroadcast with me. We are both heteros and we thought it was clever. The whole act played out well to the lyrics of Madonna's song "Hollywood". The kiss was a none issue for us.