King of the beta male misogynists: Why Rivers Cuomo would be the worst boyfriend ever

For a long time now, I've been struggling to find a phrase which accurately and succinctly describes men like Rivers Cuomo, frontman of Weezer. You know the type: skinny, 'shortsighted', owner of a million band t-shirts, aura of brokenheartedness. The 'sensitive' hipster type, who chalks every rejection up to the failure of women to understand his beautiful soul. See? Less than succinct.

 Then I read this article on The Quietus. Joe Kennedy describes the phenomenon as 'Beta male misogyny', saying:

The new man, apparently, will gradually come to assert his authority over the Neanderthals of days gone by, wielding his intellect and therapeutic literacy as, once upon a time, white-shirted archetypes splashed on the Brut and flexed their biceps.

I see the beta male as a sub-genre of The Nice Guy. Although beta males have a larger music collection, more facial hair, and higher (pseudo) intellect, both carry around with them a basically sexist assumption about women: that the vast majority of us are shallow creatures, who only fancy tough, cool, handsome men. These men are searching for one of the few women who are special enough to see through their woolly, myopic exterior, and bestow unto them a sexual relationship.

I've long seen Rivers Cuomo as the archetype of this variety of man. His Weezer lyrics are a tangle of self-loathing, obsessional love, and crude sexual references. My hope is that these lyrics are mostly tongue-in-cheek, or at least less autobiographical than they first appear. But whether they are a true representation of Cuomo's inner neuroses, or a sending up of male hipster culture, they're worth having a look at.

The thing that makes beta males so insidious, is the fact that they appear to worship women. They're obsessed with the idea that we're better and gentler than them, and they're not good enough for us. The women in Weezer lyrics are cello players (El Scorcho') and eighteen year old Japanese girls ('Across The Sea') who send him letter written on delicate stationery. Idealised women, who couldn't possibly live up to anybody's idea of them. On 'Butterfly' (the lyrics of which are basically a beta male manual) , Cumo sings:

I guess you're as real as me

Maybe I can live with that

Maybe I need fantasy

He's reminding himself that he's singing about a real human women, with flaws and emotions of her own. Not only that, he's not sure whether or not he can deal with this reality. In his world, only the men are real.

What makes that lyric creepier, is what precedes it:

I smell you on my hand for days

I can't wash away your scent

If I'm a dog then you're a bitch

It seems that it was sex that reminded him that his ladyfriend was real. This reveals the central problem for the beta male: men are real, and want visceral things like steak,and sex, but women are otherworldly and have no need for such things. A woman who wants to fuck doesn't fit within this binary. She becomes real and falls from her pedestal, disappointing the beta male with her earthiness. He impresses a woman with his knowledge of Pavement B-Sides and love of contemporary poetry, but it all backfires when he gets her into bed. For him, getting laid and falling in love are incompatible, as Cuomo neatly sums up in 'Tired of Sex':

I know I'm a sinner but I can't say no

Thursday night I'm makin' Denise

Friday night I'm makin' Sharise

Saturday night I'm makin' Louise

Oh, why can't I be makin' love come true

But say the impossible happens, and he finds a girl who he's sleeping with but not disgusted by? Great! Happily ever after, right? Wrong. The beta male is infamously possessive. He knows he's found the only girl cool enough to understand and appreciate him, and he doesn't want anybody else to get a look in. 'No One Else', Cuomo's describes his girlfriend in grotesque terms. She's got a 'big mouth' and 'eyes in the back of her head'. At least he's upfront about what he does want in a woman:

I want a girl who will laugh for no one else.

When I'm away she puts her makeup on the shelf.

When I'm away she never leaves the house.

I want a girl who laughs for no one else.

(For the record, I think this is one of Cuomo's most tongue-in-cheek lyrics, but it feels as though there's an element of truth in there, too.)

Most women would object to being told not to laugh or leave the house and so, understandably, the beta male often finds himself alone. Bitterness and resentment build up, and lead to lyrics like this: (from 'The World Has Turned And Left Me Here')

I talked for hours to your wallet photograph

And you just listened

You laughed enchanted by my intellect

Or maybe you didn't

You remain, turned away

Turning further every day

Beta males think of themselves as perpetual victims. Victims of callous, shallow women who trade him in for a model with bigger biceps and smaller record collection. The beta male thinks of himself as an intellect, a 'modern man' and a shoulder to for women to cry on. A generally good dude. But he doesn't feel women understand him. They leave him because he's obsessive, and controlling. but he thinks it's because they want somebody else, somebody more obviously attractive and cool. Each time he is rejected, this victim status is reinforced and his view of women becomes more reductive, as he ceases to see us as individuals, but as something to be conquered.

So next time you're in Dalston and you meet a man who wants to talk to you about Sharon Olds and Silver Jews, but seems to have a few too many harsh words to say about his ex-girlfriend who wore makeup and laughed at her friends' jokes, maybe unravel his sweater a little bit, just to check what's underneath.

The Raincoats play the National Portrait Gallery

This is also posted at the F Word blog.

For just over three months, the National Portrait Gallery has been celebrating Gay Icons. This impressive exhibition features photographic portraits of people deemed iconic by some of the most famous and influential gay figures alive today. Alongside the main exhibition, the gallery has hosted a number of events designed to explore the meaning of the words ‘icon’ and ‘iconic’. On 25 of September, The Raincoats played as part of ‘Icon-i-coustic’, a series of concerts, held at the gallery, by iconic musicians and bands including Patrick Wolf and Beverley Knight.

Ana da Silva and Gina Birch formed The Raincoats in 1977, in the midst of the boy-dominated punk scene. By 1978, they were joined by Vicky Aspinall on violin and the legendary Palmolive, of The Slits, on drums. Their eponymous debut album, released in 1979, has rightly achieved iconic status. The Raincoats is the sound of women finding their own way of expressing themselves through music. Its off-kilter rhythms and feminist subject matter combined with Ana and Gina’s incredible vocals are like nothing else that came out of the macho punk scene. Their strictly DIY, lo-fi approach has been admired by other iconic musicians including Kim Gordon and Kurt Cobain, who wrote the liner notes for the 1994 re-release of their debut.

It’s easy to see why The Raincoats were chosen to perform at this event, then. But this was much more than a gig. All of the musicians in the ‘Icon-i-coustic’ series were invited to present their own icons before performing themselves.

Shirley O’Loughlin, the band’s manager, went first. There was a fantastically sinister reading of some choice passages from Valerie Solanas’ S.C.U.M. Manifesto and an equally creepy performance of ‘Blue Moon’ as well as a poem about, well, shoes.

Next up was Ana who had decided to present her icons to us in the form of illustrations; there was one for every member of the audience to take home. Peeking over other people’s shoulders I saw drawings of Pure digital radios and Telecasters. I got Raincoats lyrics, “My feelings were killed by laws, The walls that surrounded my city”, with a picture of two love hearts and barbed-wire.

Gina showed us a film in which she talked candidly about her icons, from the hippy movement to Tracy Emin, Enid Blyton to Vivienne Westwood.

There were few surprises here, except maybe Enid Blyton, but their icons reflect absolutely who they are as a band; dedicated to music, art and punk aesthetics, as well as being openly and unapologetically feminist.

And then it was time for them to play. They rattled their way through a 10-song set, which included favourites like ‘No Side to Fall Into’ and ‘No Looking’.

One of the most charming things about The Raincoats is that Ana and Gina have never been technically brilliant guitarists or bassists. They’ve found their own way of playing, one which is far more interesting than the three-chord punks or air guitar inspiring rock gods.

More than 30 years after the release of their first album, The Raincoats are as vital as ever. Their vocals, which range from lush harmonies (‘No Side to Fall Into’), to yelps and barking (‘Babydog’), represent women empowered by their creative freedom.

Watching women collaborate in this honest way is an intoxicating experience. After their final song (their excellent, queer cover of The Kinks’ ‘Lola’) I left more desperate than ever to be in a band with other grrrls. The fact that they continue to inspire in this way makes them more than worthy of the accolade of ‘Icons’.

Riot, grrrls.

A couple of months ago I blogged about what it means to be a female musician today. Recently I've been thinking about what it's like to be a female music fan/geek as well and I've decided it's just as weird and shit. This was summed up for me the other day when I was in Sister Ray, a record shop in Soho, and I was the only woman there. And this isn't a one-off. I've always found independent and second hand record shops to be full of boys. The same goes for gigs, at a fairly recent Sonic Youth gig I attended girls were outnumbered by boys by at least three to one.

Are girl music geeks invisible on the music scene? Are there thousands, even millions, of us listening to bootlegs and b-sides in our bedrooms feeling intimidated by the macho atmosphere of many gigs and record shops? Absolutely. I know I was worried recently when I thought I was going to a Sonic Youth gig (yes, another one) alone. Last time was pretty rough, everybody was taller than me, male and going nuts. There's no way I'm going to hide away at the back when I could be thrashing about at the front but it's always good to know that you have a friend there to haul you up from the floor if needs be. There's also the problem for girls at gigs that some horrible boys will use their proximity to you, and the fact that you are stuck, to get 'handsy'. This can range from people rubbing up against you and groping because they think you won't notice in the throng (I did notice, and I know you noticed my elbow in your ribs and the bruise it must have left), to more serious sexual assaults and even rape and gang rape (during Limp Bizkit and KoRn at Woodstock). Most women who attend gigs will have dealt with some sort of behaviour on this spectrum.

I've written before about women feeling like they can't take up space and I think this is apparent at gigs which can become dangerous. It's safer to move and thrash along with everybody else than to stand still in the midst of everything and get trampled. Perhaps we're too scared to be rude to the asshole rubbing up us because we're taught to be polite and that if he gets angry we won't be able to defend ourselves. I remember being so pleased that I wasn't wearing a skirt as I crowd-surfed my way out of Pixies at Reading Festival, you hear of so many girls being violated in that situation.

And if it wasn't crap enough to fear being assaulted at a gig or embarrassed at a record shop, we also have to look out for girl-hate based on our love of music. If you wear a band t-shirt you face girls talking behind your back, 'She's just wearing it coz she thinks it's cool. Eurgh, I hate girls like that, it's so desperate.' People who wear band t-shirts of bands they don't like are lame, but why assume that somebody isn't a genuine fan just because they're female? I'm sure her boyfriend wouldn't be accused of being a shallow hipster if he was wearing it. I almost feel that some girls view themselves as the only real female music fan in the world, the rest of us are faking to get a boyfriend. I'm not saying you should be friends with every girl you see wearing a t-shirt of your favourite band, but I wish people would acknowledge how sexist and macho the alternative music scene can be and not buy into that bullshit. I'm reminded of a couple of my favourite points from the riot grrrl manifesto:

BECAUSE we are interested in creating non-heirarchical ways of being AND making music, friends, and scenes based on communication + understanding, instead of competition + good/bad categorizations.

BECAUSE we are unwilling to let our real and valid anger be diffused and/or turned against us via the internalization of sexism as witnessed in girl/girl jealousism and self defeating girltype behaviors.

I want girls to be happy when they see another girl in a t-shirt, it means more female faces at gigs. We should be getting stuck in at the front with our girl friends, teaching those boys who take advantage of the fact they're lucky enough to be near us in all our awesomeness exactly what happens if you touch us without our permission. One last point from the riot grrrl manifesto:

BECAUSE we know that life is much more than physical survival and are patently aware that the punk rock "you can do anything" idea is crucial to the coming angry grrrl rock revolution which seeks to save the psychic and cultural lives of girls and women everywhere, according to their own terms, not ours.

Rebel girl?

Sometimes I feel like a Contrary Mary. A lot of my favourite musicians are women, people like PJ Harvey, Patti Smith and Kristen Hersh, as well as bands like Le Tigre and Bratmobile. I even put on a clubnight, Girl Germs, with a brilliant friend, celebrating awesome music made by awesome women. You would think then that I would be pleased about the much-hyped influx of young women making records and selling loads of them.

And I guess I would be if I felt that this was at all sustainable rather than just another fad. I think these two quotes (given to the Guardian) sum up the problem:

"The best thing about it is that it's glamorous," he says. "It's more interesting than a bunch of boring blokes, singing drab bin-men music." (Paul Rees, editor of Q magazine)

"I've spoken to a couple of A&R men recently who have said 'Please don't send us to see any more girl singers. We're just so bored of them'." (Steve Lamaq)

Obviously, the answer is not to get out of the boring indie slump with better, and more interesting music made by men and women alike, it is by creating an 'indie totty' genre. Women have become a genre. This is why we are seeing such disparate artists as La Roux (more on her later), Florence and the Machine and VV Brown lumped together in lazy articles all over the press. If this is true, we'll see this 'phenomenon' go the same way as the ill-fated 'nu-rave' genre once the 'girl' quota is filled and they've all released albums. It's obvious that women are still a glamorous novelty in a world that's still, for the most part, dominated by men.

And, disappointingly, the women who have made it (for however long) don't seem to be too concerned with taking this system to task. Take La Roux for example. Now, this is old news but I really want to address her now infamous quote about violence against women from an interview with The Quietus:

What's your stance on the way that female musicians either choose to or are forced to use a sexuality that's essentially just designed to appeal to men?

"It's really patronising to women. I know that there's far more ways to be sexy than to dress in a miniskirt and a tank top. If you're a real woman you can turn someone on in a plastic bag just by looking at them. That's what a real woman is, when you've got the sex eyes. I think you attract a certain kind of man by dressing like that. Women wonder why they get beaten up, or having relationships with arsehole men. Because you attracted one, you twat.

Oh Elly, it could have been so good. You could have said all of the right things, but you chose to say this. I can't applaud La Roux for her rejection of a 'traditional' feminine aesthetic anymore because she so clearly sees this, and herself, as superior to it. Instead of holding men responsible for their abusive actions, she blames women who make a choice to wear 'miniskirts' and 'tanktops' in order to feel sexy. Instead of a positive message about female individuality and diversity of sexuality, she scorns women who make different fashion choices to her and indulges in some old fashioned 'slut' blaming.

In fact, because of the crappy way the music industry works, La Roux has these 'twats' to thank for her position today. If they didn't exist and dress this way, there would be nothing for La Roux to be positioned against. Women in music can't just exist and do their music thing, they have to be pigeon-holed and divided up.

What I'm trying to say is that the music industry sucks. It allows a few women in for their sex appeal, and fewer in because they are 'different'. They then have to spend their entire career proving either how sexy or how different they are in order to sell records and keep the label happy. It's not fair that La Roux has to be a spokesperson for her gender, in a way that her male peers aren't expected to be, but she certainly needs to re-think blaming women in this callous and uninformed way.