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ASSOCIATION FOR CONSUMER RESEARCH Labovitz School of Business & Economics, University of Minnesota Duluth, 11 E. Superior Street, Suite 210, Duluth, MN 55802 Kissing to Be Clever: Gender Politics of Pop, the Russian Way Matthias Bode, Department of Marketing and Consumption, University of Hannover Natasha Tolstikova, Department of Communication and Journalism, University of Maine ABSTRACTTwo teenage girls kissing each other are Russia’s most successful and most controversial pop export ever. We position this pop phenomenon “Tatu” as center of a case study of the intersection of female sexuality and global consumer culture. We identify the issue of gendered authenticity as the basic subtext of Tatu’s public perception. In our main hypothesis, the actual use of gendered authenticity in relation to Tatu is criticized for misapprehending the feminized traditions of pop music. Furthermore, we criticize the ethnocentrism in the Tatu controversy with an analysis of their specific Russianness in the global cultural flow. [to cite]: Matthias Bode and Natasha Tolstikova (2006) ,"Kissing to Be Clever: Gender Politics of Pop, the Russian Way", in GCB - Gender and Consumer Behavior Volume 8, eds. Lorna Stevens and Janet Borgerson, Edinburgh, Scottland : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 17. [url]: http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/12506/gender/v08/GCB-08 [copyright notice]: This work is copyrighted by The Association for Consumer Research. For permission to copy or use this work in whole or in part, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center at http://www.copyright.com/. Kissing to Be Clever: Gender Politics of Pop, the Russian Way Matthias Bode, Department of Marketing and Consumption, University of Hannover Natasha Tolstikova, Department of Communication and Journalism, University of Maine ABSTRACT interactions of the Tatu singers. Finally, a brief kiss in front of the audience was Two teenage girls kissing each other are allowed. Not since the days of the infamous Russia’s most successful and most Hays Production Code in the US movie controversial pop export ever. We position industry was a broadcasted kiss as regulated this pop phenomenon “Tatu” as center of a as the Tatu kiss. Although in 2003 they case study of the intersection of female were commercially one of the most sexuality and global consumer culture. We successful artists worldwide, the media identify the issue of gendered authenticity reaction was a united chorus of outcries, as the basic subtext of Tatu’s public unequivocally focusing on The Kiss: sick, perception. In our main hypothesis, the obscene, blasphemous, hideous kinky actual use of gendered authenticity in pedophilic porn pop. relation to Tatu is criticized for misapprehending the feminized traditions of The intriguing ruckus Tatu raised is a pop music. Furthermore, we criticize the complex mixture of arguments, without a ethnocentrism in the Tatu controversy with standard, value-based clear-cut front. They an analysis of their specific Russianness in are criticized for feeding male fantasies, for the global cultural flow. using sexuality as a marketing tool, for being too authentic, or not authentic IT STARTED WITH A KISS enough, for stressing the marketing angle more than the music itself or opportunistic A specter was haunting (not only) Europe sapphism in the “Lezsploitation” sense. The — the specter of two female Russian British newspaper Daily Mail even went teenagers, held responsible for the fall of into rapture in criticizing Tatu for degrading the Western Empire by smooching in the marketing and music at the same time market place. Aged 17 and 18, the two (Lampert 2003). snotty girls of the Russian pop duo “Tatu” were marketed with the unique selling In our analysis of the gender politics proposition of a “girl-girl” kiss. It was the embodied in the image of Tatu and its echo focal point of their break-through in the media, we want to exemplify that single/music video “All the things she said” what triggers the emotionally laden and the essential part of every live responses is the connection of female performance. Before appearing live in the sexuality, intimacy and bodily gestures to Jay Leno Show, they had to promise to consumer culture. Here we refer to what refrain from kissing each other. When they Danae Clark (1991) termed as “Commodity represented Russia the same year in the lesbianism” to understand the logic of the European song contest, most of the pre- dynamic formations of female subjectivities contest publicity focused on the detailed under capitalism. So far, the focus has been stage regulations for the physical more on media representations in advertisements, television and movies or on 117 a consumer segment defined as “lesbians” through single “All the things she said”. In (Corterse 1999; Peñaloza 1996; Reichert this video the two girls are kissing 2001). Here we wish to contribute to this passionately while being stared at in research with an emphasis on the less disapproval by a group of older people and visible (and audible) area of popular music. peers behind a fence. The video won a After setting the scene with giving a People’s Choice Award in Russia after background of Tatu, we will first MTV-Russia finally broadcast them. Their contextualize Tatu as a pop phenomenon in first album “200 km in the Wrong Lane” which the gendered implications of the sold about a million copies in Russia and standard music discourse of authenticity is went platinum in such diverse countries as highlighted. Second, we will frame Tatu in Finland, Canada, and Japan. According to the context of Russian music and sexuality many sources, Tatu became the most to criticize the persistent ethnocentric popular band in Russia and reached Western view of Tatu. international fame in 2002 when they published new versions of their Russian FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE: songs with English lyrics and new t.A.T.u. productions by the famous English producer Trevor Horn. They became the The Russian pop duo Tatu was formed in first East European band to top the UK pop 1999. The producer Ivan Shapovalov, a charts with their hit “All the Things She former child psychiatrist who also had Said”. New York Times wrote that Tatu is worked in the advertising industry, created “Russia’s biggest musical export since the duo as a controversial band with a non- Shostakovich” (Tavernise 2003, A4). traditional sexual orientation (Beumers 2005, 233). In the much talked about STOLEN KISSES: THE creation myth, Ivan Shapovalov first GENDERED PERSPECTIVE ON developed the idea of an ‘underage sex POP AUTHENTICITY project’. He is quoted as getting the idea for the band after browsing porn sites (Walker When Tatu entered Western markets, the 2003). Later, Elena Kiper, the former lover basic verdict was this is marketing, not of Shapovalov, co-author and original music. Appropriately enough, the online deputy manager of Tatu, referred the main magazine SLATE discussed Tatu in the concept to her own dreams of kissing a advertising criticism section and not in the woman and mentioned the Swedish movie music/popular culture section (Walker about female teenager relationships 2003). The male dominated music press, “Fucking Åmål” as an inspirational source. with sparsely hidden lewdness, taunted Lena Katina and Yulia Volkova, the duo’s Tatu with “overdoing the lesbian thing” and stars and at the time teenagers, performed in forgetting that it is the music that should school uniforms (white blouses and short matter (Rolling Stone 2003). But also in the skirts), exhibiting overtly lesbian antics, gay/lesbian community, the reduction of such as passionately kissing and groping Tatu to a “marketing gimmick” was each other on stage. The name of the band criticized. Accordingly, it is difficult to comes from Russian Ta [liubit] tu (this girl believe in a potentially progressive imagery loves that girl). Even though the songs were of Tatu because it is a product of the already popular in Russia, MTV-Russia “marketing machine” (Flick 2003). Even banned the accompanying music videos: worse, the product is blamed for missing “Prostye Dvizheniya / Simple Motions”, authenticity. Male music critics as well as depicting Katina masturbating, and “Ya gay/lesbian activists share a similar line of Soshla S Uma / I’ve lost my mind”, which reasoning, though they differ in their evolved into their international break implicit premises and assumptions. These 118 can be distinguished as phallocentric and coherent, autonomous individual, telling the gynocentric authenticity. audience from the depths of his/her heart what is only possible to articulate in the Phallocentric authenticity universal language of music. Naturally, the artist is only making music for the sake of In music criticism as well as popular music posterity and not for his/her own bank studies, traditional aesthetic values of account. A basic fallacy is the mistaken popular music are “realness, honesty, notion of music as a universal language integrity, sincerity, and credibility”. In the instead of a cultural construction (Bode academic music discourse, these terms are 2005). A basic annoyance is the usually subsumed under the general criteria construction of authenticity based on a of authenticity (Moore, 2002, 209). As an masculine and often misogynist ideological construction, the potential perspective. authenticity markers can change based on the musician (e.g. as a member of the music The authentic rock musician walks on the community), the music (e.g. as a direct, wild side and rebels against the “constraints unmediated, pure, raw sonic gestalt) or the of society”, which were embodied in the modes of production (e.g. as autonomous antipodes of authenticity as conformity and and independent). Grossberg (1992, 206) domesticity, both aspects codified as argues that this demand for authenticity is a administrated by Wife/Mother. The basic requirement, stemming from the untamed, virile existence of the authentic development of rock music in the 50s.