Repost of C.I.:
DUMB BITCHES or SISTERHOOD IS NO EXCUSE FOR PRAISING A BAD BOOK
"That book is hideous." I apparently kept saying that over and over when I first got to the hospital. Another bad reaction to diabetes medicine resulted in several days at the hospital starting Sunday evening when I again had repeated seizures.
I don't remember a great deal of anything until Wednesday morning but,
apparently, I could not stop griping about a book and "dumb
bitches." The book came out in 1992, Gillian G. Gaar's SHE'S A REBEL
which should have been called SHE'S A LIAR.
Somehow, this bad book garnered blurbs from people like Susan Faludi and Naomi Wolf -- or, as I prefer to think of them in this instance, dumb
bitches.
Why do you praise a book publicly?
Because it's a good book. That's the only real answer.
But if you're a dumb bitch, you praise it without reading it and/or with no knowledge of the subject and praise it because it's
a 'book' the 'movement' is supposed to praise.
Lies and racism deserve no praise.
And it was a racist book in 1992 and remains one to this day.
Granted, the book frequently forgets to battle the precept of male as
the norm -- a huge problem considering the scope and theme of the book
-- but it never grasps that White as the norm is just as bad and just as
limiting.
There are so many problems. I especially love how p.r. is confused with fact.
Some industry wags calling Tracy Chapman the new Joan Armatrading had nothing to do with talent or genre. It had to do with skin color and it was racist and
demeaning to both women.
Tracy did not succeed and break through because America had gotten used
to Black women. She succeeded and broke through because she
was so genuine, so talented and so warm.
Warmth. A term never used to describe Joan's voice.
People say Joan's a great songwriter. Maybe she is. But it takes more than writing to be a singer-songwriter.
"Love And Understanding"? Sheena Easton did a great cover of it. Joan's version? Lacked heat, lacked warmth.
By contrast, Tracy's voice flowed -- and flows -- like warm honey.
It's insulting that, due to skin color, Gillian G. Gaar wants to 'twin'
the two women who are nothing alike other than having dark skin.
It's insulting and it's racist. And that racism permeates the book.
As Barbra Streisand once sang, "These are facts/I've got no axe/ to grind."
Racism, my opinion, is stupidity. Stupid is all over the book. Apparently, when Naomi and Susan endorsed this bad book they
were basically saying, "Feminism doesn't need no stinking fact check!" Certainly, no one bothered to fact check SHE'S A REBEL
which suffered from at least one factual error on every page.
Among the errors?
Sonny and Cher were not married in 1964 -- they married in 1969. But if
she couldn't lie about the date of their marriage, Gillian couldn't
insist
they were "safe" -- an insult she also hurls at the Mamas and the Papas.
Cher did not "meet Salvatore
Bono when both were working for Phil
Spector.'' Cher was already living with Sonny and he was working for
Phil. As Sonny's girlfriend, she showed up at Gold Star when recordings
were taking
place. At one of them, Darlene Love
was late. It was a recording session for The Ronettes and Phil Spector
needed "noise" so Cher was asked to sing in
Darlene's place (the song was "Be My Baby"). Gillian's claim that
Sonny and Cher "did not address controversial issues like Vietnam"
ignores Sonny's "Laugh
At Me" which was a controversial issue -- he was mocked and made fun of
for his long hair and the way he dressed -- something many other
boys and young men were going through at that time. It was blatant
homophobia and hatred of women being expressed towards any male that
transgressed the societal dress code of the day. Don't minimize that
topic or trivialize it. Gillian also ignores the timing of "You Better
Sit Down Kids," Cher's hit that
Sonny wrote where Cher's a dad explaining the divorce to the kids --
doing so at a time when divorce was a no-no -- couldn't have a lead
character on TV who was divorced -- male or female. Gillian's unaware
of that reality. Big surprise, right? She ignores Cher's entire career
in the sixties,
in fact, where she covered Bob Dylan more
than any other artist except Joan Baez. "Masters of War"? Cher
recorded that Dylan song and many more. She also recorded Sonny's
"Classified 1A" --
her first single for KAPP RECORDS -- and in that song, she's an American
service member dying from war wounds in Vietnam. I'm sorry, Bitch
Gillian,
when was Cher or Sonny so "safe" that they didn't "address controversial
issues like Vietnam"? I guess when you're too stupid to know what
you're
writing about, you're not aware of "Classified 1A." Cher covered
Stephen Stills' "For What It's Worth," and in how many songs was Cher
singing
from the perspective of an unwed mother? "Mommy When My Dollies Have
Babies"? "Magic In The Air"? Did I miss one? Is pregnancy the reason
she's
asking "Where Do You Go"? She covered Buffy Sainte-Marie, Jackie DeShannon, Donovan, Tim Hardin (resulting in a classic "Reason To Believe")
and Miriam Makeba -- among others.
You know, Cher's not in The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.
No one's had her career -- male or female.
She's not in the Hall as a solo or as a duo (with Sonny). She's not in
the Hall and it's not fair. But when supposed 'serious' books like
this are written and they deny the accomplishments Cher has had, they go
a long, long way towards explaining why Cher still isn't in
the hall. She's been eligible for years now. She had her first hits in
1965 -- as a duo with "I Got You Babe" and as a solo artist
with "All I Really Want To Do." As a solo artist in the sixties, she
recorded ten Dylan songs.
Despite supposedly writing a book about women in rock and roll (SHE'S A REBEL: THE HISTORY OF WOMEN IN ROCK & ROLL),
and deciding to include Cher in the book, Gillian has no idea about Cher's career, doesn't know the basics and
doesn't know the facts.
It's true of everything Gillian writes about. Another example?
Diana Ross did not have 3 hits from her 1980 album diana -- she had two. The two hits are "Upside Down" and "I'm Coming Out."
Had MOTOWN worked the album -- they never really did -- she could have
had more than two. "Have Fun Again" and "Now That You're Gone"
are but two examples of songs that should have been singles.
Those two songs in the two video above could have been hits -- but they weren't released as singles. The only hits in the US were "Upside Down" and "I'm Coming Out."
Again, there were only two hits from that album. Gillian is an idiot so maybe she thought "It's My Turn" was from that album?
No. That was recorded for the film of the same name and never appeared
on one of Diana's studio albums for MOTOWN. It's also -- obvious to
the ear -- not a Nile Rogers and Bernard Edwards song (they wrote all
the songs for the album diana).
Song writing is an area that Gillian is particularly ignorant in. In the midst of a (brief) section on the legendary Laura Nyro, she types:
While none of these albums achieved great chart success (though Melissa Manchester's version of "Midnight Blue" from SMILE gave Manchester
her first top ten hit) . . .
How stupid do you have to be to type that?
You clearly didn't listen to what you're pretending to be an expert on.
Yes, on SMILE, Laura Nyro has a song about midnight and blue. It is
not
the same song that Melissa took into the top ten. Melissa's song was
written by Melissa and Carole Bayer and appeared first on Melissa's
January
1975 album MELISSA. Laura's album? SMILE? Released in February so
it's hard to see how Melissa could have recorded the song first. If
that's
not obvious to you, let's note the year as well -- SMILE was released in
February of 1976 -- a year and one month after MELISSA was released.
SMILE was Laura's return to recording after a four year absence. No,
she wasn't giving songs away during her semi-retirement. Equally true,
Laura's song is "Midnite Blue," not "Midnight Blue." Let's include both
songs here so there's no further confusion.
This is Laura Nyro's "Midnite Blue" from 1976's SMILE.
This is Melissa Manchester and Carole Bayer's "Midnight Blue" from 1975's MELISSA.
Sorry, Gillian, they are two different songs. Next time trying doing the actual work required to write a book.
In the sentence quoted, note that Gillian focuses on chart success --
throughout the book, she repeatedly focuses on chart success.
That requires us to note that Laura's SMILE made it
to number 60 on BILLBOARD's album chart. That's a success for any
artist. It's especially a success for Laura -- her fourth highest
charting
studio album. But sometimes charts matter and sometimes they don't.
They don't appear to matter as she rushes over, for example, African-
American artists. The Pointer Sisters.
She really loses interest in the group when Bonnie leaves -- even
thought that's when the group
becomes a dominating force on the pop charts. How much does she lose
interest? Three paragraphs is what the group gets -- and two of them
cover the period with Bonnie which is six years and three top forty pop
hits (none go top ten). The final (and third) paragraph opens stating
Bonnie leaves the group and spends the remainder poorly covering 1978
forward -- a period when the group had 13 top forty pop hits and eight
of those were top ten pop hits. She is so interested in the three
singles with Bonnie -- three songs that never broke the pop top
ten -- but ignores "He's So Shy" which went to number 3 on the pop
charts. "American Music" and "Should I Do It" are also ignored despite
being
top twenty pop hits. Those three songs and "Slow Hand" make up the four
big hits the group had from 1979 to 1982. Probably hard to
recognize that success and still claim that 1983 was the year they
'broke out' with the album BREAK OUT ["Automatic," "Neutron Dance,"
"Jump (For My Love)" and "I Need You"]. It also allows her to ignore
the
history of "I'm So Excited" which made it to number 30 on the pop top
forty back in 1982 but when, in 1984, it was added to BREAK OUT, it made
it to number nine on the pop chart.
She's so often so wrong on the charts. Of the Bangles, she types:
In late 1985, DIFFERENT LIGHT was released, and by February 1986, the
group had
their first success in the singles chart with "Manic Monday" (written by
Prince under the pseudonym "Christopher") which reached number 2;
the album also reached number 2, accompanied by two further Top 40
singles, including the number 1 hit "Walk Like An Egyptian."
Anyone see the problem?
DIFFERENT LIGHT did not have three top forty hits, it had four. "Manic
Monday," "Walk Like An Egyptian," "Walking Down Your Street" and
"If She Knew What She Wants."
Four, not three.
And she's more interested in creating drama around DIFFERENT LIGHT than
noting the work the group did without that producer -- which includes
the number two pop charting hit "Hazy Shade Of Winter" (from the LESS
THAN ZERO soundtrack). "The group took their time in releasing a follow
up album," she insists ignoring the fact that DIFFERENT LIGHT was still
resulting in singles in 1987 -- both the number eleven hit "Walking Down
Your Street" and "Following" which got them some AOR play but did not
chart on the top forty side. 1987 ended with the already noted "Hazy
Shade Of Winter" and 1988 is the release of the album EVERYTHING. Two
years after DIFFERENT LIGHT, EVERYTHING is released and Gillian wants to
tell you that "The group took their time in releasing a follow up
album"? Is she unaware of their touring? Is she unaware that in the
Laura
Nyro section, she'd credited Laura with breaking the labels of their
belief that product had to be released yearly?
Poor Gillian, an idiot who can't even count on 'friends' like Susan and Naomi to point out the many problems of her book.
That includes emphasis.
Carly Simon
is a legend. She's a singer-songwriter with many hits. She's also a
singer-songwriter who has won the Grammy. Oh, and a Golden
Globe. Oh, right, and the Academy Award. Few songwriters have ever
been able to claim all three. Carly's talents are so immense that
she's one of the few.
How many pages does Carly get?
She gets half a sentence on page 184. She's also mentioned in a single
sentence on page xi of the introduction.
That's it. She wrote the rock classics "You're So Vain" and
"Anticipation" -- among others. She had two number one albums. She had
multiple gold and platinum albums -- including NO SECRETS, ANTICIPATION,
HOTCAKES, BOYS IN THE TREES, COMING AROUND AGAIN, MY ROMANCE,
THE BEST OF CARLY SIMON VOL. 1, GREATEST HITS LIVE, MOONLIGHT SERENADE,
REFLECTIONS: CARLY SIMON'S GREATEST HITS and HAVE YOU SEEN ME LATELY?
Her hits, along with the two already mentioned include, from the pop and
the adult contemporary charts, "Jesse," "The Stuff That Dreams Are Made
Of," "Give Me All Night," "Let The River Run," "It Keeps You Runnin',"
"Vengeance," "Love Of My Life," "Haven't Got Time For The Pain," "That's
The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be," "Spy," "All I Want Is You,"
"Devoted To You," "Mockingbird," "Half A Chance," "Tired ofA t Being
Blonde,"
"WATERFALL," "Holding Me Tonight," "The Right Thing To Do," "Best of
Friends" (duet with Livingston Taylor), "Let It Snow" (seasonal
recording),
"Better Not Tell Her," "Legend In Your Own Time," "Nobody Does It
Better," "Attitude Dancing," "Coming Around Again," "You Know What To
Do,"
"You Belong To Me" and, with Janet Jackson and Missy Elliott, "Son of a
Gun (I Betcha Think This Song Is About You)." All of those songs made
the top fifty on the pop charts or the adult contemporary charts or
both.
And she doesn't even rank a paragraph in the book.
But Suzanne Vega gets five continuous pages as well as mentions on six other pages in the book.
Suzanne Vega. Eleven pages. Pretentious -- that's the only term that
ever applied to Suzanne. "Left of Center." A good song but, yes,
pretentious.
"Tom's Diner" and "Luka" -- her only hits -- also pretentious. She
really can't sing -- that flat monotone that works so well in her two
hits
were the best she could ever do. She made no real impact. She left
nothing behind. (Except a really good joke from Paul Rudnick.) At
least "Luka"
was her own hit. "Tom's Diner" appeared on the same album but only when
another group came along to remix it did it become a hit (helped out by
the film classic UNTAMED HEART -- and, yes, that is a film classic).
For any who want to argue that the heavy emphasis on Suzanne Vega is a
reflection of the year the book was published (1992), excuse me, Natalie Merchant
was already established by then -- as a name and as an artist with
10,000 Maniacs. Natalie gets two pages in the book. Natalie had
already made an impact
on music -- and her impact only grew in the years that followed. But
she only gets two pages. Still, that's two more than Stevie Nicks gets.
Yes, a whole book about women in rock and it ignores Stevie who was a member of Fleetwood Mac (to this day, the only number one the group has ever had on the singles chart is Stevie's "Dreams"), a member of a group that, by the time the book was published, had multi-platinum albums: FLEETWOOD MAC, RUMOURS, TUSK, FLEETWOOD MAC LIVE, MIRAGE and TANGO IN THE NIGHT. Seven million-plus selling albums in the US and yet neither Srevie nor her bandmate Christine McVie get mentioned. Stevie's solo career kicks off with the singles "Gold" and "Whenever I Call You Friend." Then, before the books published, comes her hit albums BELLA DONNA, WILD HEART, ROCK A LITTLE, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR and TIMESPACE: THE BEST OF STEVIE NICKS. That's five albums that all sold over a million copies before Gillian's bad book was published. Seven with million sellers with her group, five million sellers solo and Stevie Nicks isn't mentioned once in the book. Stevie was derided and trashed and slammed for years. And, yes, that was mainly by male critics. But it wasn't only by male critics and here's Gillian with her book about women who rock and she could have made a difference by treating Stevie seriously but she instead chose to ignore her.
Don't look so smug Ann Powers. Five
years after the publication of SHE'S A REBEL, 1997's ROLLING STONE's
BOOK OF WOMEN IN ROCK would come out -- featuring an essay by Ann Power
that does note Stevie Nicks -- to tell the world that Stevie and Ann
Wilson of Heart "each
eventually became the parody of herself that most men thought they were
from the beginning." That judgment wasn't feminist and the only thing
that anyone I know of reading it though was that Ann was making fun of
both women's weight gain. She certainly wasn't talking about their
artistic talent or their many musical accomplishment. But that's what
we got Ann Powers praising frou-frou Laurie Anderson for "looking like a
guy and thinking like a feminist" -- really, Ann, when was she thinking
like a feminist -- in private time? The crap that women in music have
had to put up with includes the crap that Gillian Gaar -- a devotee of
Laurie Anderson's -- and Ann Powers shoveled up repeatedly. And that
explains why Ann Powers has never written a piece arguing Cher belongs
in The Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame.
Helen Reddy shows up in Gillian's bad book . . . for far too many pages.
Helen died not that long ago. Some were upset that I didn't note her
passing.
Others were upset that I noted Stan's review of the supposed movie about
Helen ("PAM AND SPAM: THE HELEN REDDY LIES"). Truth, Helen was never all of that. She was a feminist
when it suited her. She co-wrote "I Am Woman" with a man. I've never been that impressed with that song to begin with.
Helen shows her ass -- for any paying attention -- in the book. She's
quoted as saying, of the US in 1966, "there weren't any solo females on
the chart
except Petula Clark."
Bitch.
Not dumb bitch, hateful bitch and that's why I never cared for her as a
person -- her modest/miniscule talent were why I never cared for her
as
an artist.
In 1966? In the US, solo hitmakers included Cher, Dionne Warwick, Leslie Gore, Nancy Sinatra,
Dusty Springfield, Carla Thomas, etc. And all but
Leslie Gore had a spot on BILLBOARD's top 100 singles of 1966 -- and
Nancy, Dusty and Carla all charted higher on that list than did Petula
Clark.
Not a Connie Francis fan
myself, but she did chart four singles on BILLBOARD's Top 200 singles
chart in 1966 alone. Mable John's "You're Good Thing (Is About To End)"
was a hit on the R&B charts and crossed over to the top 100 of the
pop chars in 1966. Koko Taylor's cover of "Wang Dang Doodle" was also
an R&B charting hit that crossed over onto the pop charts in 1966.
That year, the great Mary Wells ("My Guy") had an R&B hit with "Dear
Lover" that also crossed over onto the pop charts -- and she had two
other singles chart on the pop 100. Dionne's sister Dee Dee Warwick hit
the R&B and pop charts that year with "I'm Going To Make You Love
Me" (later covered by Diana Ross & the Supremes and The Temptations)
and with "I Want To Be With You." Barbara Lewis charted three singles
on the pop charts in 1966 ("Make Me Belong To You" was her highest
charting of the three). Mitty Collier's "Sharing You" charted on both the R&B and the pop charts in 1966 as did Kim Weston's
"Helpless," Esther Phillips' "When A Woman Loves A Man," Tammi
Terrell's "Come On And See Me," Barbara Mason's "I Need Love" ("Is It
Me" also charted but only on the pop charts), Chris Clark's
"Love's Gone Bad," Aretha Franklin's "Cry Like A Baby" and Lorraine
Ellion's "Stay With Me" (Lorraine's "A Good Love" also charted but only
on the pop chart). Jackie DeShannon had three songs that charted on the
R&B chart and on the pop chart in 1966. Fontella Bass had three
songs that made both charts as well as two more that made the pop chart
only and one more that made the R&B chart only -- six charting hits
in 1966. Equally true, two other
women were selling a lot of albums, two other solo female artists, even
if they weren't making the top forty singles chart -- Barbra Streisand
and
Joan Baez both had multiple
charting solo albums by 1966. And in 1966, Nancy Wilson had four
charting studio albums -- A TOUCH OF TODAY, TENDER LOVING CARE, NANCY
NATURALLY and FROM BROADWAY WITH LOVE -- and one single "Uptight
(Everything's Alright)" which charted on the pop chart and on the adult
contemporary chart. Barbara McNair's I ENJOY BEING A GIRL and HERE I
AM were both hits in 1966 (the latter was a bigger hit in 1967 due to it
being released in November of 1966). Leslie Uggams'
A TIME TO LOVE charted and was a BILLBOARD pop spotlight in their
review section. There are so many women that made the charts as solo
singers in 1966. But we get Helen Reddy being quoted insisting that
"there weren't any solo females on the chart" in 1966 "except Petula
Clark."
This was Helen Reddy, the real Helen Reddy, constantly undercutting
other women and erasing their accomplishments leaving women to, yet
again, re-invent the wheel.
She says things like before "I Am Woman," there were no feminist songs.
Really? That not only ignores many, many album cuts on the albums of
many women (including Cris Williamson),
it also ignores hits like Laura Lee's "Women's Love Rights" and Carly
Simon's "That's The Way I've Always
Heard It Should Be." (It also ignores Nancy's "These Boots Are Made For
Walking" and Leslie's "You Don't Know Me." To be clear, Helen ignores
those two songs. To her credit, Gillian doesn't ignore them; however,
Gillian does downgrade them.)
Helen was not a nice person and she wasn't supportive of other women.
Her interviews, from the start, took part in a landscape populated by
men and Helen. She did nothing to build bridges, she did nothing to
share. When she was (briefly) the host of THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL, she was
notorious for being rude to female guests. She only ended up there --
on TV -- because she was already starting to miss concerts. Was it her
ego, her drug problem (that no one wanted to talk about and that the
movie turned into a problem that her husband had -- only her husband)?
Who knows? But she was a mean spirited woman who didn't like other
women and wasn't about to note an accomplishment of another woman.
Helen gets eight pages in the book.
Carole King
gets tons of pages. And that's probably fair in a book about women in
music but it's not accurate to present her as a feminist.
When was Carole ever a feminist?
When she co-wrote the music to "He Hit Me And It Felt Like A Kiss"?
Because she did co-write that song. Has she ever apologized for
glamorizing
domestic abuse back in the sixties? No, she hasn't. But she has wanted
sympathy for being abused in her third marriage in the late 70s. As Roger Friedman (SHOWBIZ 411) observed in his review of her bad autobiography, "I was very sorry to read that the coke-addicted homeless husband abused
her, and for so long. He also stalked her and terrorized her band. That
was a shock. But it only ended because the guy OD’d. Even King can’t say
why she allowed it to continue." You can also refer to Ava and my "Carole King's Conditioned Role and Desire" at THIRD.
And
TAPESTRY? An album of its time -- unless you consider that it was
released during
the second wave of feminism. And it has nothing to say about that, does
it? "Where You Lead I Will Follow" may now be known to many as the
theme to GILMORE GIRLS but on the TAPESTRY album, it's not about a
mother and a daughter. It's about a woman chasing after a man (hence
the title).
Where you lead? She says to the man, she will follow "anywhere that you tell me to."
Let's not pretend that's feminism.
Or that feminism is to be found in Carole's infamous failure to credit
Laura Nyro for the album's success.
Lou Adler gave her Laura's album MORE THAN A NEW DISCOVERY and told
her to listen to it which, as Charles Larkey (her second husband) has
noted, Carole did repeatedly. That imagery so many were impressed with
on
TAPESTRY, imagery that never showed up on any other Carole albums? That
was from her pretending to be Laura. Remember, that was Carole's
career,
she pretended to be a Drifter or a Shirelle or this or that to write a
song. After WRITER failed, Lou (who produced Carole and owned the label
she
was signed to) knew the next album had to be a hit. That's why he gave
her MORE THAN A NEW DISCOVERY and told her to listen to it repeatedly.
That's
what they were going to go for with the next album (what became
TAPESTRY). Carole's never made a point to note how Laura's work
inspired TAPESTRY.
Chrissie Hynde.
A lot of people don't like Chrissie. I do. I think she's an artist.
She's also a strong woman. But, no, she's not a feminist.
That's not the end of the world for me. I just choose to disagree with
her take on certain issues (including rape). But it's interesting that
Gilliam can handle some of Chrissie's non-feminist positions but glosses
over and outright ignores the same problematic features of other female
artists. Some are rescued and you have to wonder why?
Just like you have to wonder why Susan Faludi and Naomi Wolf praised the
book? You don't have to wonder why Lindsy Van Gelder praised the book
--
it has a long series of pages on her girlfriend. But why did Susan and
Naomi praise the book?
As with few topics about the media, we're not going anywhere -- no one is -- that Nora Ephron hasn't been before.
To give you another example, a book comes in for review. I am on a list
now. The Woman List, and the books come in all the time. Novels by
women. Nonfiction books about women and the women's movement. The
apparently endless number of movement-oriented and movement-inspired
anthologies on feminism; the even more endless number of anthologies on
the role of the family or the future of the family or the decline of
the family. I take up a book, a book I think might make a column. It
is WOMEN AND MADNESS by Phyllis Chesler.
I agree with the book
politically. What Chesler is saying is that the psychological
profession has always applied a double standard when dealing with women;
that
psychological definitions of madness have been dictated by what men
believe women's role ought to be; and this is wrong. Right on, Phyllis.
But here is the book: it is badly written and self-indulgent, and the
research seems to me to be full of holes. If I say this, though, I will
hurt
the book politically, provide a way for people who want to dismiss
Chesler's conclusions to ignore them entirely. On the other hand, if I
fail
to say that there are problems with the book, I'm applying a double
standard of my own, treating works that are important to the movement
differently from others: babying them, tending to gloss over their
faults, gentling the author as if she and her book were somehow
incapable
of withstanding a single carping clause. Her heart is in the right
place: why knock her when there are so many truly evil books around?
This
is what is known in the women's movement as sisterhood, and it is good
politics, I suppose, but it doesn't make for good criticism. Or
honesty.
Or the truth.
Nora wrote that in 1973's "Of Truth And Consequences" (it was first collected in her book CRAZY SALAD).
Is that why Naomi and Susan praised Gillian's very bad book?
Maybe so.
But the book was a joke in June of 1992 and it's only a bigger one all these years later.
Six months after the bad book was published, Melissa Etheridge
would come out and the popular music scene would begin changing. Not a
Melissa fan
(I see her as the stereotypical dead beat dad, a pig who talks women
into giving up their careers and having children only to then turn on
them and start all over destroying another woman's life) but her
coming out had a huge impact. Ellen DeGeneres continues to get credit
for her coming out (and should) but Melissa was there before and
deserves
some credit. After Melissa, a book as crappy as SHE'S A REBEL couldn't
exist -- a book that divides women into lesbians (underground music
performers) and straights (musical stars). Janis Ian is briefly mentioned in a sentence. It was known that she slept with women since 1976 but
Janis herself didn't come out until 1993. Laura Nyro? Straight, straight, straight in Gillian's bad book. Nona Hendryx?
Straight, straight,
straight! This despite noting Vicki Wickham at length in the book.
Vicki and Nona have been a couple since? 1970. And, yes, Gillian knew
that when she wrote the book but instead she put forth a 'friendship'
and an interest in the career (Vicki managed Nona after Labelle broke
up,
not Patti, and the book insists it was because Nona's path was uncertain
while Patti's would be Vegas -- no, Vicki stayed with Nona because
the two were lovers of many years by that point). And then there's
Janis Joplin.
"In September 1970," per Gillian, Janis was recording PEARL and "also
occupied with arranging the details of her upcoming wedding." Huh?
She means loser Seth Morgan -- a notorious user of women and a man that
Janis dabbled with including marriage talk but no one who knew her --
including Myra Friedman -- thought she'd marry him. Her interest in him
only dropped further in September when her attorney told her that if
she
ever did marry Seth, per California law, he'd be entitled to half her
money but she wouldn't be entitled to any of his trust fund. She'd been
involved seriously with another man for most of the year and had hooked
up with Kris Kristofferson at least once in the summer of 1970 but
she's making wedding plans with Seth? No, she wasn't. She did have a
pre-nup that her lawyer drew up. It wasn't part of a step to a wedding.
Myra always maintained it was going to be a test for Seth. Janis
suspected -- for good reason -- that he was only pretending to be
interested
in her for what she would buy him -- they'd have a huge fight that final
September when he indicated what she should be buying him. There were
no wedding plans. No details to arrange. Seth popped into her life only
months before she died -- and popped in as her drug dealer (showed up
to deliver cocaine).
What a dumb bitch Gillian G. Gaar is. And she thought she could lie to
people. The only arrangement with regards to Seth that Janis made
in the final weeks of her life, were for him to join her and Peggy
Caserta for sex. Peggy was a longtime romantic partner
-- Janis' longterm partner. And Susan Faludi knew that before the
book came out because she was discussing that reality shortly after in
an
interview with Courtney Love. Peggy's 1973 book GOING DOWN WITH JANIS
is infamous for its opening sentence: "I was stark naked, stoned out of
my mind on heroin, and the girl lying between my legs giving me head was
Janis Joplin."
SHE'S A REBEL rewrites history, ignores facts and makes a point to
ensure that racism endures. Let's note another example of her racism.
In covering folk music, she notes Joan Baez and that Joan plays a
guitar. She notes a lot of women in that genre that played guitar.
They're
all White. She notes a lot of women in country music that played
guitar. They're also all White. But one of the most prominent women in
folk
is mentioned in only one sentence in the entire book and her guitar
playing isn't even noted.
That's Odetta. A lot of us who know music would rightly say you can't
cover the 20th century history of women in music without covering
Odetta. But Gillian
ignores Odetta. Odetta influenced Carly Simon, Janis Joplin, Mavis Staples, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Maria Muldaur,
Tracy Chapman, Harry Belafonte,
and many more. It's amazing how Gillian makes a point to document every
non-Black
performer that was part of MLK's March on Washington in August 1963, but
can't be bothered noting Odetta's appearance there, or that MLK hailed
her as "the queen of folk music."
It's amazing that Odetta appears on one page, in one sentence but that
lovely and vibrant young woman Pete Seeger appears on five pages.
No, Pete's not a woman -- not in death, not in life. And the book was
supposed to be about women. But Pete gets more play in the book
than Odetta does. Pete's White. As one African-American woman after
another is slighted, it's hard to ignore that Gillian G. Garr has some
racial issues she needs to address.
Diana Ross has 8 top forty hits with RCA before 1992 that Gillian can't
be bothered to note -- either by listing them or even just writing
"she'd
go on to have eight top forty hits on the pop charts at RCA." Or to
note that, after leaving MOTOWN and up to the publication of the 1992
book, Diana would have 13 top forty hits on the R&B charts. That
Diana would hit the top 100 pop charts -- after the Supremes -- 41 times
by the time the book was published and 48 times on the R&B charts.
That's not counting her sixties work. Add in her lead vocals as a
Supreme
and she's hit the top 100 pop chart 71 times and the top 100 R&B
chart 76 times. Gillian can't note any of that -- not when Diana's
entire solo
career is covered in a single paragraph. Remember, Suzanne Vega got
eleven pages in the book, including five continuous pages addressing
her 'career' (1985 to 1990, in the book, three albums, no number one hit
on the album chart or on the singles chart) but Diana Ross' entire
solo career from 1970 to the book's 1992 publication is reduced to a
single paragraph. In that time period, she lands 27 albums on
BILLBOARD's
top 100 albums. One paragraph. Suzanne Vega? Three albums in the top
100 and five pages. Only one of her three albums made it into the top
forty album charts. Only one. Diana Ross? 17 of her albums made
Billboard's top forty on the overall list prior to the 1992 publication
of
SHE'S A REBEL. (Overall meaning we're not comparing R&B since
Suzanne is so obviously non-rhythmic.)
By the way, Diana is recording a new album. Today, she Tweeted:
SHE'S
A REBEL: THE HISTORY OF WOMEN IN ROCK is a funny kind of history that
spends so many pages on the very forgettable Suzanne Vega and so little
on actual legends who made a
mark like Odetta, Diana Ross, Carly Simon, Dionne Warwick and Aretha
Franklin. But, hey, Gillian also manages to give you five pages on
noted homophobe Michelle Shocked. Now, yes, Michelle's dramatic flame
out came many years after the book was published; however, the
very minor 'artist' never deserved five pages to begin with.
I guess we should all be thrilled that 'womanist' Gillian G. Gaar, who
only gave Whitney Houston two pages in her book about women in music,
never again bored us with a book about women in music. No, she went
back to covering men in book form -- White men, of course, this is the
only thing
Gillian ever cared about.
The blurbers, they cared about women. I would hope Lindsy Van Gelder
would be embarrassed, as a writer, as a lesbian, as a music lover, for
praising
this hideous book. I doubt she'd be honest though and publicly express
regret. Susan Faludi? She never expresses regret or owns her mistakes.
I
think Susan's a great writer but she has made many mistakes and she
really never owns them. Naomi Wolf is the only one I think who might
ever
look back and say, "I really shouldn't have praised that bad book --
that book that was so insulting to women, so insulting to women of color
and
so insulting to women who desired other women -- that book that molested
the facts when it wasn't outright lying." I could see Naomi making a
statement like that because she's one of the few people who've always
been willing to say, "Goodness, was I wrong when . . ."
That ability should be key to fourth wave feminism. That and, of
course, refusing to praise a bad book to begin with just because a woman
wrote it.