Comments on: Masculine Feminine: Have One On Her

By: Rookie » Rescue Remedy: An Interview With First Aid Kit

Rookie » Rescue Remedy: An Interview With First Aid Kit — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 20:04:13 +0000

[...] an article I read about Joanna Newsom and it was saying that a lot of the criticism about her basically comes [...]

By: dwaink

dwaink — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 13:15:42 +0000

Wow! Nice breath of fresh air about the work of stunning artist Joanna Newsom. Hard for males to get around to addressing women artists as (gasp) co-equals isn’t it? No wonder she is loathe to do interviews anymore, take heart Joanna we are catching up with your work, slowly .

dwain (not my website, but a fine one)

By: Jessie

Jessie — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 02:50:56 +0000

Great read, thank you.

By: Kevina

Kevina — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 00:48:12 +0000

A quick note:

The treatment and characterization of Joanna Newsom reminds me strongly of the women used in mid 1800s spiritualist stage acts. Those girls/young women would go up on stages and speak to audiences in an age where women were discouraged and criticized for public speaking, religious leadership, or political involvement. These oddly prominent roles, however, were deemed appropriate for women.

To start, they were merely mediums, who spoke with the supposed voices of the dead, while they were controlled and interpreted by male companions. They were often characterized in media as childlike, fragile, and not entirely “present”, or sane. Women, rather than men, were chosen for these roles thanks to the popular stereotype of emotionalism and receptiveness.

Does that association make sense? I just think that this sort of theme-childish, fragile, incompetent women being granted/gaining publicity with the aid of their male controllers-has a very engrained history.

By: Tavi-love « the art of |WÖR|

Tavi-love « the art of |WÖR| — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 10:14:57 +0000

[...] “Twilight fans are so lame and dumb and sad!” (see also: Justin Bieber fans), “Joanna Newsom’s music sounds too delicate, by which I mean, feminine!“, and Kathleen Hanna being told that she couldn’t be A Smart Feminist who also said the [...]

By: B. Michael Payne

B. Michael Payne — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:35:11 +0000

Hey thanks for the link. When I wrote the piece, I could find nearly no information about the book. I did have an entire piece by Eggers on Newsom, which I quoted at the top of the piece. I didn’t mean to imprecate Roan Press or the book. The line in this piece mentioning the book has to do with how Bob Dylan idealizes the absent the titular Johanna, and since the title of the book alludes the song, well.

By: Poppy Scott

Poppy Scott — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 17:06:28 +0000

we often need leg warmers during the cold winter months in our place. we prefer cotton or wool;:`

By: Rachel

Rachel — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:45:33 +0000

Fantastic article.

I’m working on creating a blog where fans of Joanna’s music engage with her work on a more critical level. Specifically, we’re interested in the ways that her feminism informs and is expressed through her music.

I’m building a reading list as a resource, and I would like to include a link to this article. I think it is one of the only that I have read (I haven’t had access to Visions of Joanna Newsom yet) that explores this in a really critical, well-supported way.

Rachel
allthebirds.tumblr.com

By: Brad Buchanan

Brad Buchanan — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 18:27:05 +0000

Just for the record, for those who are interested, here’s a very good, smart, feminism-informed review of “Visions of Joanna Newsom” http://bit.ly/9OXEjp

By: gus

gus — Sat, 01 May 2010 07:46:55 +0000

I fucking love this article. Thank you so much for writing it. Nothing irritates me more than the ‘boys club’ that permeates throughout the indie-critic world. Any girl that ‘intrudes’ is automatically thrust into the context of a categorical woman — a typecast. Tired of Joanna Newsom being classified as the ‘weird girl’, it’s so high school. It’s ‘quirky’ that she released a triple album in 2010, not fucking marvelous and ballsy.

My question is, what is your thoughts on her sexualized image? The past two years or so she has stopped taking pictures in the woods and taking a lot more fashion-y shots that reveal some of her cleavage and ass. I mean, if you look through the first few pages of here – http://www.last.fm/music/Joanna+Newsom/+images – it’s easy to soon guess which was uploaded post 2008 and which wasn’t. Obviously this could be her more confident with herself. But I just get so uncomfortable seeing the writing of how beautiful, or even ‘hot’ and ’sexy’, she is or whatever and not because I see her as some child, but rather, it’s just more shit that comes before the music.