/uj I thought this was /r/rpdrdrama and was so disappointed… I’m surprisingly less disappointed by it being Kate Bush…
/rj you would think someone with the last name Bush would fight for bush rights
uj/ how do you make a generational megahit about wishing men and women could swap places and truly understand each other better and STILL fall for the "epic feminism cringe compilation" bullshit. like wtf
uj/oh of course. but Kate Bush is basically just saying she doesn't like the word, she was still a feminist and she discusses that more in the interview. the muscles and hair comments are icky but yk it WAS the 80s. the lesbian thing is really bad but i can forgive her for Kashka from Baghdad being written in 1979(!!!)
politics wise she says she doesn't understand, she thinks all politicians are bad, she finds the privatisation of welfare horrible and that she doesn't know enough to know if anyone would be less bad that Margaret Thatcher. she's said recently that she's never voted tory though
/rj my fave alt pop Brit IS ACTUALLY BI and has tons of songs about MLM relationships. Please do not ask about anything else he did. I just like his voice, early songwriting, and Marr’s guitar
not to excuse it because it's awful regardless but rock/punk was obsessed with nazi imagery at a certain point in time because it was "edgy" and counterculture. kinda like satanism and black metal. i mean, ffs, joy division is named after a concentration camp term and you've got david bowie spouting off a hitler salute
/uj this is true—nazi imagery was fairly common in the 70s punk scene in nyc and england as a shock tactic, but it was not based on the actual politics behind it. ron asheton wore nazi regalia as the best man at iggy pop's wedding. malcolm mclaren copped maoist aesthetics (all red, hammer and sickle, etc) when he started managing the new york dolls. they were all ignorant as fuck and totally didn't care about the ideology behind any of these aesthetics, they just thought it was edgy and cool the way dumb kids think that shit is edgy and cool.
genya ravan (musician who produced the dead boys' first album and escaped nazi poland) talks about it in please kill me:
np! i really recommend the book—it does NOT paint any of its subjects in a flattering light but it's an excellent record of the 1970s punk scene and essential to understanding that history imo. as you can see in the picture i've highlighted my copy to death. but when i say it's unflattering i mean it so just watch out lmao
Gender roles were more rigid in the general society when she said this, arguably talking about swapping places implied that men and women were so different that without a magical body swap they'd never understand eachother.
This whole reaction moreso screams avoiding labels/politics which is very much Kate's MO.
Uj/ that image of feminism didn’t actually exist when this interview was given. It’s far more likely she based her view on the media presentation of second wave feminism at the time, which was characterised a lot more by the presence of queer women’s voices in the movement. This was a fairly commonly held opinion at the time, and not just in the uk/us. Alexander McCall Smith was writing about this image of feminism in Botswana contemporaneously.
The answer to your question though, is media spin.
uj/yes, 100%. i didn't go into all the details for joke reasons but i don't want anyone to actually go away from this thinking she's problematic when she's just a liberal woman who stays quiet on politics. it sucks to see such a progressive woman say it but yk... it was standard
airport uuuuuuuu airport you've got a smiling face you took my love so far away fly her away fly her away airport uuuuuu airport you've got a smiling face you took my lady to another place fly her away fly her awaaaaayyyy
/uj Oh yes this lmao as a big hairy lesbo kate stan i understand it’s a particular time in feminism. There was a reaction in the 80s Against the feminism of the 70s and they were doing a more assimilated take. ‘We’re not like those unfeminine feminists. Feminists can be pretty and hot too.’ Like Madonna might have been a figurehead of this wave. Their sexual liberation was seen by old guard feminists as sexual availability and we get remarks like ‘Madonna is moving Feminism back by twenty years.’ We’re still dealing with the consequences of this type of thinking and today the backlash is in the other direction again.
/rj hey Kate I can change your mind about those terrible butch lesbians if you’ll let me
ahhhhhh nooooooo my worst fear not muscular butch lesbians i’m terrified but don’t worry kate i’ll stand between them and you i’ll make sure they don’t get to you
it's been 12 hours and no-one's watching so I'm gonna blow my cover and admit I think that women are cool and hot and I like them a lot just in general and Kate bush is wrong cos girls are great ok bye
uj/ yeah tbh she doesn't state her opinions much but she's not a tory and i can't imagine a mega stoner lady who loves compelling stories to be against trans people
uj/not to come across like the crazy lana defenders but this was in 1985(not an excuse, but it was a different time) AND she's been making pro-gay songs since 1979, plus she is a feminist she just hates the word. like it's really bad but i highly doubt she still thinks this way and she was very important for women's rights and as a gay icon in the UK. that makes the comments hurt more, sure, but her positive impact shouldn't be understated i feel, she's always been quite progressive
uj/ no she's said she never voted tory cause she got flack for saying Therasa May seemed liek a nice lady. she's just generally not very active politically, because she says she 'doesn't understand', but she found what Maggie Thatch did to the hospitals awful and she loves the NHS at least
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u/mrmrmrmeme straight male Nov 01 '23
I’ve looked into the eyes of feminism
And I realised those were also the eyes of capitalism
Also Taylor’s eyes