tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1695251485921322505.post6208503898810596963..comments2023-10-23T10:18:11.959-04:00Comments on it's her factory: Rihanna's Unapologetic "Shadow" Feminism, pt. 1robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09897759212487269563noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1695251485921322505.post-42132626757488155572014-03-27T23:24:27.198-04:002014-03-27T23:24:27.198-04:00We haven't been given a hard to digest work of...We haven't been given a hard to digest work of art: we've been given a poorly conceived shock album that collapses under its own needless contradictions. Also, your transparently selective use of RiRi instead of Rihanna is disgusting. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1695251485921322505.post-68281269335986545722013-10-14T14:58:53.025-04:002013-10-14T14:58:53.025-04:00to the above ^^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categ...to the above ^^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Songs_written_by_RihannaAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1695251485921322505.post-53046554979011215862013-03-10T11:28:53.447-04:002013-03-10T11:28:53.447-04:00This really is the most ridiculous thing I've ...This really is the most ridiculous thing I've ever read. You honestly think Rihanna has any input at all into the lyric-writing of her songs?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1695251485921322505.post-35797661815505838802012-12-16T05:30:22.683-05:002012-12-16T05:30:22.683-05:00"And, as Angela Davis repeatedly demonstrates..."And, as Angela Davis repeatedly demonstrates in her book on the blues, black female singers often use lyrics that superficially portray their victimization to critique the very racist misogyny that would victimize them. Why aren’t people at least granting the possibility that Rihanna is participating in this tradition? "<br /><br />Because she is so obviously participating in another tradition, the obsessive-pursuit-of-money-and-power-and-ego-gratification tradition, which we know by now has no time for art or feminism or justice or suffering. <br /><br />"She’s well aware of the complex shit that she’s talking about, and she’s dealing in the way she chooses."<br /><br />On stage, Rihanna has been getting crowds to chant the names of the tour funders: HTC, River Island <br />and Budweiser. <br /><br />She's got way more in common with Ken Langone than Angela Davis.<br /><br />I like your blog! <br />DCBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18018983931967957364noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1695251485921322505.post-2386095588494743782012-12-12T04:58:06.722-05:002012-12-12T04:58:06.722-05:00Your post impressively represents the impotence of...Your post impressively represents the impotence of current "critical" academic positions. Rihanna's new album does not resist white heteropatriarchy. White heteropatriarchy, it turns out, comprises the music industry that cultivated the Rihanna brand around her assault and has extracted its profits from perpetuating the same narrative of abuse in all of her albums and public appearances. Your fuss about the distinction between Rihanna and Robyn Fenty in the beginning of your piece has evaporated by the end of it. Rihanna, a carefully manufactured product of white heteropatriarchy, derives her commercial success from the same 'shadow feminism' you extol. We have no way of knowing about the complicated relationship between Robyn and her history of domestic abuse. We do know, however, that the outrage industry fueled by rumors, hints, and provocations concerning this relationship by the Rihanna brand have been enormously lucrative for the commercial apparatus surrounding her. Even within the nebulous realm of cultural signification where your argument operates, no 'resistance' is taking place; hegemony can neatly fold Rihanna into the tradition of captive, 'stupid', 'self-destructive' women found outside bourgeois propriety and property. Her 'surreal anti-sociality' is functional for capital because it occurs within terms set by dominant models of female submission and conforms to patterns of aestheticized violence against women of color. Her brand provides not a challenge to hegemony but rather a lubricant for it.<br /> If the act of lubrication is now resistance, the concept no longer has any meaning; and if passivity is the only tool of the oppressed, then we no longer have any hope. As a rule in history, passivity is only operative as a complement to an active element. Since activity has evaporated from your account, the tool of passivity is tantamount to none at all. Within your favored logic of gothic inaction there is no mechanism for moving into the afrofuture, so the only future possible is one where we resist through silences and closures at the interstices of power; that is, a future that is the endless return of the present. Your articulation of afrofuturism offers up our resistance, our tools, and our future as a concession to hegemony. It is not RiRi but you who should be the one that is apologetic. <br />Laurahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10238119349617942895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1695251485921322505.post-65379539605102917622012-12-06T16:43:11.058-05:002012-12-06T16:43:11.058-05:00My craving for part 2 is unbearable!My craving for part 2 is unbearable!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com