Remember two years ago when Madonna played the Super Bowl Halftime Show, and everyone was pretty meh about it, except then M.I.A. went all rogue and flipped off the camera like this?
Remember that? That was bananas. At the time, I was wholly unimpressed by her little sideshow. In my post that was generally about something else, I had this little aside to say:
I want artists that will deliver an awesome, accessible, non-offensive (AHEM: M.I.A.) performance.Well, to put it bluntly, I have changed my mind entirely on the subject. I want that on the record because this incident pertains to a number of very important issues both within the music and entertainment spheres, and more generally in society. On Monday, M.I.A. put out this video statement about the lawsuit that has been brought against her, and why she thinks it's misguided and irrational:
I think that she is 100% in the right here. The NFL has used the rhetoric of "wholesomeness" and "family values" and the like to attempt to bring shame upon M.I.A., a rhetoric which, in the moment, I was happily caught-up in. There's something about watching professional American football that immediately turns me into a curmudgeony conservative who is very concerned about "wholesomeness" and "family values" and "not being offensive." It's probably the jovial and refined spirit of friendship and camaraderie which envelops football stadiums across America. Regardless, I can say that I was not thinking fully about the context of M.I.A.'s one-fingered salute to the bigwigs of networked American entertainment.
The biggest problem with the whole "we are wholesome hear us roar" argument, as she quickly points out, is that it stands in stark contrast with the NFL's presentation of underage (girl) cheerleaders in (girly) cheerleading uniforms performing (submissive and girly) sexually provocative dance moves. Now already we need to pause, because I am not one to deny women or girls or anyone their sexuality or agency, and the issue is not "girls with sexuality are not wholesome." The issue is more nuanced than that. The issue is real. The issue does not like to be spoken to. Do not address the issue. Do not look the issue in the eyes. The issue will find you.
No, the sexual objectification of young black cheerleaders is an issue with some history, and that history is the key to understanding what M.I.A. is saying in this video. What is the point of having cheerleaders at a football game? Where did that tradition come from?
It comes from a culture where women stand by to "support" men while the men do [whatever thing they find themselves to be good at]. It comes from a culture that values women based on appearance, utilizing an entirely arbitrary rubric for determining that value. And it comes from a culture in which women have often been, quite literally, trophies (the classic tale of the football player who "gets" the cheerleader comes readily to mind in this instance, but there are any number of other examples). All of these things put together make for some pretty impossibly strong structural forces that create cheerleaders as we know them today.
I should make another note here: cheerleaders, contrary to what their position on your TV screen might have you believe, are great athletes. I don't write this post to say that cheerleaders are weak in body or in will, just the opposite actually. Cheerleading takes a lot of energy, hard work, time, and everything else that a sport like football takes. Given this, it does seem a little silly that they should be made out to be so one-dimensionally subordinate.
The other thing that makes this issue an issue is that these girls were black, which means that in addition to all the weird gender politics going on around their cheerleading performance, there was also a racial component that can't be overlooked. The long history of black people serving as entertainment for white people is another weighty factor playing into those structural forces.
So, back to M.I.A. When she observes that there's an apparent contradiction in the NFL's outrage over her middle finger, and its promotion of the display of young black girls in cheerleading uniforms thrusting their hips into the air, she doesn't aim to simply say "but what these girls did was much more offensive than what I did!" She isn't trying to escape the blame by directing our shaming fingers elsewhere. She's pointing out the really offensive thing about the NFL's Super Bowl Halftime show: that the NFL, and American television audiences, are completely content to forget all the social history behind what we see and hear, not just in those fifteen minutes, but during every day of our lives as we consume media and goods and services. The offensive thing is that nobody finds it offensive when such transparently exploitative forces are allowed to play themselves out against a bunch of teenagers on international television. Was M.I.A.'s middle finger a rude shock to the majority of the viewing public? Yes. Was that the most distressing thing we saw during that electrified circus of an event? Not even close.
M.I.A. chose not to comply with the sexual exploitation of the girls, and instead to "display female empowerment through being punk rock." And finally, we return to the music part of this music blog. I write all of this because it is important, but also to say that we need more artists who are willing to champion empowerment, especially when they are given a stage as visible as the Super Bowl. We need artists like M.I.A. who are willing to sacrifice an opportunity at widespread, mainstream adoration for the sake of battling a culture of oppression. At the same time, we need more artists who already have widespread, mainstream adoration to be willing to take what is, in fact, a terribly small risk, and show support for and understanding of the social issues that continue to plague the entertainment industry. In the moment, I considered M.I.A.'s stunt to be a rash, irresponsible, and thoughtless grasp at attention, but now that I think about it in a more unencumbered way, I realize that there could not be a more textbook-perfect example of "sticking it to the man." To M.I.A., and to whoever happens to be killing time in my little niche of the entertainment world, I apologize for failing to see what was really going on, and what continues to go on. I'll do better next time.
